"I don"t know, but you seem to have something the matter with you."
"I?"
"Yes."
"You are a fool. I am hungry."
"Hungry! it is possible, but I should say that you wish to appear lively, but at the bottom there is something that bites and pinches you--conscience, as they say; and to trouble you it must bite hard, for you are no prude."
"I tell you, you are crazy, Micou," said Nicholas, shuddering in spite of himself.
"One would say that you tremble."
"My arm pains me."
"Then don"t forget my recipe: it will cure you."
"Thank you, Father Micou. Good-bye," said Nicholas, taking his departure.
The receiver, after having concealed the copper, busied himself in collecting the different articles for Nicholas, when a new personage entered the shop. He was a man of about fifty, with a knowing face, heavy gray whiskers, and gold spectacles; he was dressed with some care; the large sleeves of his brown paletot, with velvet cuffs, displayed his straw-colored gloves; his boots undoubtedly the evening previous had been brilliantly polished.
Such was M. Badinot, the uncle of Madame de Saint Ildefonso, whose social position was the pride and security of Micou the Fence.
Badinot, formerly a lawyer, but struck off the rolls, and now a chevalier d"industrie, and agent of equivocal affairs, served as a spy for the Baron de Graun (Rudolph"s friend), and gave the diplomatist a great deal of information concerning several characters of this narration.
"Madame Charles has just given you a letter?" said Badinot to the receiver.
"Yes, sir; my nephew will soon return; in a moment he will be off again."
"No, give me the letter; I have changed my mind; I will go myself to the Viscount de Saint Remy," said Badinot, emphasizing purposely the aristocratic address.
"Here is the letter, sir; have you no other commission?"
"No, friend Micou," said Badinot, with a patronizing air; "but I have reproaches to make to you."
"To me, sir?"
"Very grave reproaches."
"How, sir?"
"Certainly Madame de Saint Ildefonso pays very dear for your first floor. My niece is one of those lodgers to whom one should pay the greatest respect; she came with confidence to this house, disliking the noise of the large streets; she hoped she would be here as in the country."
"And she is; just like a village. You ought to find it so, sir, who live in the country--it is just like a real village here."
"A village? Very fine--always the most infernal noise."
"Yet it is impossible to find a more quiet house. Over madame, there is the leader of the orchestra of the Cafe des Aveugles and a traveling clerk; over them another clerk; over him again, there is--"
"It is not of these persons I complain; they are very quiet; my niece finds no inconvenience from them; but in the fourth story there is a lame man, whom Madame de Saint Ildefonso met yesterday drunk on the staircase; he uttered horrible, savage cries; she almost fainted, she was so much alarmed. If you think with such occupants your house resembles a village--"
"I swear to you, sir, that I only wait an opportunity to put this lame man out of doors; he has paid me his term in advance, otherwise he would have been already shown how to get out."
"You should not have taken him for a lodger."
"But I hope madame has no other cause of complaint? There is a postman, who is the very cream of honest people! and over him, alongside of the lame man, a woman and her daughter, who keep as close as mice."
"I repeat, Madame de Saint Iledefonso only complains of the lame man; he is the nightmare of the whole house, that knave! and I warn you, if you keep him, he will cause all the respectable people to leave."
"I will send him off, be a.s.sured--I do not hold to him."
"And you will do well, for they will not remain."
"Which would not answer my purpose. So, sir, you may regard the lame man as off, for he only has four days to remain here."
"That is too many; however, it is your business. At the very first insult my niece leaves the house."
"Be a.s.sured."
"All this is for your interest; profit by it, for I only speak once,"
said Badinot, in a patronizing manner, as he left the shop.
Is it not needless for us to say that this woman and girl who lived so solitary, were victims of the cupidity of the notary? We will conduct the reader into the miserable room they occupied.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE VICTIMS OF AN ABUSE OF TRUST.
Let the reader imagine a closet situated on the fourth story of the house. A pale, gloomy light hardly penetrated this narrow apartment, through a little window of cracked, dirty gla.s.s, with a single shutter; a yellowish, dilapidated paper covered the walls; from the broken ceiling hung long spider-webs. The floor, broken in several places, showed the beams and laths of the room below. A deal table, a chair, an old trunk without a lock, and a flock bed with coa.r.s.e sheets and an old woolen covering--such was the furniture. On the chair was seated the Baroness de Fermont. In the bed reposed Claire de Fermont (such were the names of the two victims of Jacques Ferrand).
Possessing but one narrow bed, the mother and daughter slept by turns, dividing thus the hours of the night. The mother had too much anguish, too many inquietudes, to get much repose; but the daughter found some moments of rest and forgetfulness.
She was now asleep. Nothing could be more touching, more sorrowful, than the sight of this misery, imposed by the cupidity of the notary on two women, until then accustomed to the sweet enjoyments of a life of ease, and surrounded in their native town with that consideration which an honorable and honored family always inspire.
The Baroness de Fermont was about thirty-six years of age; her countenance at once expresses mildness and excellence; her features, formerly of remarkable beauty, are now sadly changed; her black hair, divided on her forehead and confined behind her head, already shows some tresses of silver. Clothed in a dress of mourning, tattered in several places, the Baroness de Fermont, with her hand supporting her head, leaned against the wretched bed of her child, and regarded her with inexpressible anguish.
Claire was only sixteen; her complexion had lost its dazzling purity; her beautiful dark eyelashes reached to her hollow cheeks. Once humid and rosy, but now dry and pale, her lips, half-opened, displayed the enamel of her teeth; the rude contact of the bedclothes had given a red appearance in several places to the delicate neck, arms, and shoulders of the young girl. From time to time a slight shudder pa.s.sed over her, as if she had some painful dream. For a long period the Baroness de Fermont had not wept; she looked on her daughter with a dry and inflamed eye, consumed by a slow fever, which was undermining her. Each day she found herself weaker; but fearing to alarm Claire, and not willing, we may say, to alarm herself, she struggled with all her strength against the first symptoms of her sickness. Through motives of similar generosity, the daughter endeavored to conceal her sufferings. These two unhappy creatures, afflicted with the same griefs, were yet to be afflicted with the same disease.
In misfortunes there are often moments when the future prospect is so frightful, that the most energetic minds dare not look it in the face, but shut their eyes, and endeavor to deceive themselves by mad illusions. Such was the position of the Fermonts. To express the tortures of this woman, during the long hours when she was thus contemplating her sleeping child, thinking of the past, the present, and the future, would be to describe what, in the holy and sacred griefs of a mother, there is the most poignant, the most desperate, the most insane; enchanting recollections, sinister fears, terrible foresights, bitter regrets, extreme dejectedness, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of powerless rage against the author of so much misery, vain supplications, violent prayers, and, finally, frightful doubts of the all-powerful justice of Him who remains inexorable to this cry, dragged from the bottom of the maternal heart--to this sacred cry, of which the echo ought to reach Heaven, "Pity for my child!"
"How cold she is now!" said the poor mother, touching lightly the icy hand and arm of her daughter. "She is very cold; one hour ago she was burning; it is fever; happily, she does not know she has it. How cold she is! this covering is so thin! I would put my old shawl on the bed; but if I take it from the door, where I have hung it, some of those drunken men will come and look through the cracks, as they did yesterday. What a horrible house! If I had known what kind of place it was before I paid in advance, we should not have stayed here; but I did not know--when one has no papers--could I think that I should ever have need of a pa.s.sport? When I left Angers in my own carriage, could I have thought--but this infamous--because the notary has pleased to rob me, I am reduced to the most frightful extremity, and against him I can do nothing. Oh, the notary, he does not know the frightful consequences of his robbery!
"Alas! yes, I never dare tell my child my fears--not to grieve her; but I suffer; I have fever; I can hardly sustain myself; I feel within me the germs of a malady--dangerous, perhaps--my bosom is on fire; my heart throbs. Oh, if I should fall sick--if I should die! No, no! I will not--I cannot die--leave Claire--alone, abandoned in Paris--can it be possible? No! I am not sick, after all--what do I feel? A little heat, a heaviness about the head, caused, no doubt, from my uneasiness--from cold--oh, it is nothing serious!