When Octave went down on the morrow at eight o’clock, he was greatly surprised to find the entire house acquainted with the attack of the night before, and the desperate condition of the landlord. The house, however, was not concerned about the patient: it was solely interested in what he would leave behind him.
The Pichons were seated before some basins of chocolate in their little dining-room. Jules called Octave in.
“I say, what a fuss there will be if he dies like that! We shall see something funny. Do you know if he has made a will?”
The young man, without answering, asked them where they had heard the news. Marie had learnt it at the baker’s; moreover, it crept from story to story, and even to the end of the street by means of the servants. Then, after slapping Lilitte, who was soaking her fingers in her chocolate, the young woman observed in her turn:
“Ah! all that money! If he only thought of leaving us as many sous as there are five franc pieces. But there is no fear of that!”
And, as Octave took his departure, she added:
“I have finished your books, Monsieur Mouret. Will you please take them when convenient?”
He was hastening down-stairs, feeling anxious, as he recollected having promised Madame Duveyrier to send Berthe to her before anything was known of the matter, when, on the third floor, he came in contact with Campardon, who was going out.
“Well!” said the latter, “so your employer is coming in for something. I have heard that the old fellow has close upon six hundred thousand francs, besides this property. You see, he spent nothing at the Duveyriers’, and he had a good deal left of what he brought from Versailles, without counting the twenty and odd thousand francs received in rent from the house. Eh? it is a fine cake to share, when there are only three to partake of it!”
Whilst talking thus, he continued to go down behind Octave. But, on the second floor, they met Madame Juzeur, who was returning from seeing what her little maid, Louise, could be doing of a morning, taking over an hour to fetch four sous’ worth of milk. She entered naturally into the conversation, being very well informed.
“It is not known how he has settled his affairs,” murmured she in her gentle way. “There will perhaps be some bother.”
“Ah, well!” said the architect, gayly, “I should like to be in their shoes. It would not take long. One makes three equal shares, each takes his own, and there you are!”
Madame Juzeur leant over the balusters, then raised her head, and made sure that no one else was on the stairs. At length, lowering her voice, she observed:
“And if they did not find what they expected? There are rumors about.”
The architect opened his eyes wide with amazement. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Pooh! mere gossip! Old Vabre was a miser who hid his savings in worsted stockings. And he went off, as he had an appointment at Saint-Roch with the Abbé Mauduit.
“My wife complains of you,” said he to Octave, looking back, after going down three stairs. “Call in and have a chat with her now and then.”
Madame Juzeur detained the young man a moment.
“And I, how you neglect me! I thought you loved me a little. When you come, I will let you taste a liquor from the West Indies, oh! something delicious!”
Octave at length entered the warehouse. The first person he beheld, seated at the cashier’s desk, was Madame Josserand under arms, polished up and laced, and her hair already done. Close beside her, Berthe, who had no doubt come down in haste, in the charming deshabille of a dressing-gown, appeared to be very excited. But they stopped talking on catching sight of him, and the mother looked at him with a terrible eye.
“So, sir,” said she, “it is thus that you love the firm? You enter into the plots of my daughter’s enemies.”
He wished to defend himself, and state the facts of the case. But she prevented him from speaking, she accused him of having spent the night with the Duveyriers, looking for the will, to insert all sorts of things in it. And, as he laughed, asking what interest he could have had in doing such a thing, she resumed:
“Your own interest, your own interest. In short! sir, you should have hastened to inform us, as God was good enough to make you a witness of the occurrence. When one thinks that, had it not been for me, my daughter might still have been in ignorance of it! Yes, she would have been despoiled, had I not run down-stairs the moment I heard the news. Eh! your interest, your interest, sir, who knows? Though Madame Duveyrier is very faded, yet some people, not over particular, may still find her good enough, perhaps.”
“Oh! mamma!” said Berthe, “Clotilde, who is so virtuous!” But Madame Josserand shrugged her shoulders pityingly.
“Pooh! you know very well people will do anything for money!” Octave was obliged to relate to them all the circumstances of the attack. They exchanged glances: as the mother said, there had evidently been maneuvers. Clotilde was really too kind to wish to spare her relations’ emotions! However, they let the young man start on his work, though still having their doubts as to his conduct in the matter. Their lively explanation continued:
“And who will pay the fifty thousand francs agreed upon in the contract?” said Madame Josserand. “We are not likely to see a single one of them when he is dead and buried.”
“Oh! the fifty thousand francs!” murmured Berthe, in an embarrassed way. “You know he only agreed, as we did, to pay ten thousand francs every six months. The time is not up yet; the best thing is to wait.”
“Wait! wait till he comes back and brings them to you, I suppose! You great blockhead, do you want to be robbed? No, no! you must demand them at once out of the estate. As for us, we are still alive, thank goodness! It is not known whether we shall pay or not; but with him it is another thing; as he is dead, he must pay.”
And she made her daughter swear not to yield, for she had never given any one the right to take her for a fool.
“Go up too!” she ended by exclaiming, in a cry from her heart: “Auguste is too weak; they are sure to be taking him in again!” Then Berthe went off up-stairs. Octave, who was arranging the display in the window, had listened to what they said. When he found himself alone with Madame Josserand, and saw her moving in the direction of the door, he asked her, in the hope of a holiday, whether it would not be proper to close the warehouse.
“Whatever for?” inquired she. “Wait till he is dead. It is not worth while losing a day’s sale.”
Then, as he folded a remnant of poppy-colored silk, she added, to soften the harshness of her words:
“Only, you may as well, I think, not put any red in the window.”
Up on the first floor, Berthe found Auguste with his father. The room had in no way changed since the day before; it was still dampish and silent, save for the same long and painful death-rattle. The old man on the bed continued perfectly rigid, in a complete annihilation of all feeling and movement.
“Ah! my dear, what a frightful visitation!” said Clotilde, going up to and embracing Berthe.
“Why not have informed us of it?” asked the latter, with her mother’s affected pout. “We were there to help you to bear it.” Auguste, with a glance, begged her to keep silent. The moment for quarreling had not arrived. They could wait. Doctor Juillerat, who had already been once, was to call again; but he still gave no hope; the patient would not live through the day. Auguste was informing his wife of this, when Théophile and Valérie entered in their turn. Clotilde at once advanced to meet them, and repeated, as she embraced Valérie:
“What a frightful visitation, my dear!”
But Théophile was in a state of great excitement. “So, now,” said he, without even lowering his voice, “when one’s father is dying one only hears of it through the charcoal dealer. Did you, then, require time to rifle his pockets?”
Duveyrier rose up indignantly. But Clotilde motioned him aside, whilst she answered her brother very gently:
“Unhappy man! is our father’s death agony not even sacred to you? Look at him; behold your work! yes, it is you who have brought him to this, by refusing to pay your overdue rent.”
Valérie burst out laughing.
“Come,” said she, “you are not speaking seriously.”
“What! not speaking seriously!” resumed Clotilde, filled with indignation. “You know how much he liked to collect his rents. Had you really wished to kill him, you could not have acted in a better way.”
And they came to high words; they reciprocally accused one another of wishing to lay hands on the estate, when Auguste, still sullen and calm, requested them to recollect where they were.
“Keep quiet! You have plenty of time. It is not decent at such a moment.”
Then the others, admitting the justice of this observation, settled themselves around the bed. A deep silence ensued; again nothing but the death rattle was heard in the moist atmosphere of the room. Berthe and Auguste were at the dying man’s feet; Valérie and Théophile, being the last comers, had been obliged to seat themselves at the table, some distance off; whilst Clotilde was at the head of the bed, with her husband behind her; and she had pushed her son Gustave, whom the old man adored, close up against the edge of the mattresses. They now all looked at one another, without exchanging a word. But the bright eyes, the tightly-compressed lips, told of the hidden thoughts, the surmises full of anxiety and irritation, which were passing in the pale-faced heads of those next-of-kin, with their red and swollen eyelids. The sight of the collegian, so close to the bed, especially exasperated the two young couples; for it was self-evident that the Duveyriers were counting on Gustave’s presence to influence the grandfather’s affections if he recovered consciousness.
Moreover, this maneuver was a proof that in all probability no will existed; and the Vabres glanced covertly at the old iron safe which the retired notary had brought with him from Versailles and had had fixed in the wall of his bed-chamber. He had a mania for shutting up all sorts of things inside it. No doubt the Duveyriers had hastened to ransack this safe during the night. Théophile had the idea of laying a trap for them to compel them to speak.
“I say,” he at length went and whispered in the counselor’s ear, “suppose we send for the notary. Papa may wish to alter his will.”
Duveyrier did not at first hear. As he felt excessively bored in that room, he had allowed his thoughts all through the night to revert to Clarisse. The wisest thing would decidedly be to make it up with his wife; but then the other was so funny, when she threw her chemise over her head, with the gesture of a street-arab; and with his vague glance fixed on the dying man, he still had visions of her, and would have given everything to have had her with him again. Théophile was obliged to repeat his question.
“I have questioned Monsieur Renandin,” at length answered the counselor in a bewildered way. “There is no will.”
“But here?”
“No more here than at the notary’s.”
Théophile looked at Auguste; was it not sufficiently evident? the Duveyriers had searched everything. Clotilde saw the glance, and was greatly irritated with her husband. What was the matter with him? was grief sending him to sleep? And she added:
“Papa has no doubt done what he thought right. We shall learn it only too soon, heaven knows!”
Meanwhile, the hours passed away. At eleven o’clock they had a diversion, Doctor Juillerat again calling. The patient’s condition was becoming worse and worse, it was now even doubtful whether he would be able to recognize his children before dying. And the sobbing started afresh when Clémence announced the Abbe Mand-uit. Clotilde, who rose to meet him, was the first to receive his consolations. He appeared to be deeply affected by the family visitation; he had an encouraging word for each. Then, with much tact, he talked of the rites of religion, insinuating that they should not let that soul pass away without the succor of the Church.
“I had thought of it,” murmured Clotilde.
But Théophile raised objections. The father was not at all religious; he had at one time very advanced ideas, for he was a reader of Voltaire’s works; in short, the best thing was to do nothing, as they were unable to consult him. In the heat of the discussion, he even added:
“It is as though you brought the sacrament to that piece of furniture.”
The three women compelled him to leave off. They were all trembling with emotion, and said that the priest was right, whilst they excused themselves for not having sent for him before, through the confusion in which the catastrophe had plunged them. Monsieur Vabre would certainly have consented had he been able to speak, for he had a horror of acting different to other people. Moreover, the ladies would take the responsibility on their own shoulders.
“It should be done, if only on account of the neighbors,” repeated Clotilde.
“No doubt,” said the Abbé Mauduit, who hastened to give his approval. “A man of your father’s position should set a good example.”
Auguste had no opinion either way. But Duveyrier, aroused from his recollections of Clarisse, whose way of putting on her stockings with one leg in the air he was just then thinking of, energetically demanded the sacraments. They were absolutely necessary; not a member of the family should die without them. Doctor Juillerat, who had discreetly moved on one side, hiding his freethinker’s disdain, then went up to the priest, and said familiarly to him, in a whisper, the same as to a colleague often encountered under similar circumstances:
“Be quick; you have no time to lose.”
The priest hastened to take his departure. He announced that he would bring the sacrament and the extreme unction, so as to be prepared for every emergency. And Théophile, in his obstinacy, murmured:
“Ah, well! so dying people are now made to receive the communion in spite of themselves!”
But they all at once experienced a great emotion. On regaining her place, Clotilde had found the dying man with his eyes wide open. She could not repress a faint cry; the others hastened to the bedside; and the old fellow’s glance slowly wandered round the circle, without the least movement of his head. Doctor Juillerat, with an air of surprise, came and bent over his patient, to follow this last crisis.
“Father, it is us; do you know us?” asked Clotilde.
Monsieur Vabre looked at her fixedly; then his lips moved, but not a sound came from them. They were all pushing one another, wishing to secure his last word. Valérie, who found herself right at the rear, and obliged therefore to stand on tip-toe, said, harshly:
“You are stifling him. Do move away from him. If he desired anything, no one would be able to know.”
The others had to draw on one side. And Monsieur Vabre’s eyes were indeed looking round the room.
“He wants something, that is certain,” murmured Berthe.
“Here’s Gustave,” said Clotilde. “You see him, do you not? He has come expressly from school to embrace you. Kiss your grandfather, my child.”
As the youngster drew back, frightened, she kept him there with her arm, whilst she waited a smile on the dying man’s distorted features. But Auguste, who had been watching his eyes, declared that he was looking at the table; no doubt he wished to write. This caused quite a shock. All tried to be first. They brought the table to the bedside, and fetched some paper, an inkstand, and a pen. Then they raised him, propping him up with three pillows. The doctor gave his consent to all this with a simple blink of the eyes.
“Give him the pen,” said Clotilde, quivering, and without leaving go of Gustave, whom she continued to hold toward him.
Then came a solemn moment. The relations, pressed round the bed, awaited anxiously. Monsieur Vabre, who did not appear to recognize any one, had let the penholder drop from his fingers. For a moment his eyes wandered over the table, on which was the oak box full of tickets. Then, slipping from off his pillows, and falling forward like a piece of rag, he stretched out his arm in a final effort, and, plunging his hand among the tickets, he dabbled about in the happy manner of a baby playing with something dirty. He brightened up, and wished to speak, but he could only lisp one syllable, ever the same, one of those syllables into which brats in swaddling-clothes put a whole host of sensations.
“Ga—ga—ga—ga——-”
It was to the work of his life, to his great statistical study, that he was bidding good-bye. Suddenly his head rolled over. He was dead.
“I expected as much,” murmured the doctor, who, seeing how scared the relations were, carefully laid him out, and closed his eyes.
Was it possible? Auguste had removed the table; they all remained chilled and dumb. Soon their sobs burst forth. Well! as there was nothing more to hope for, they would manage all the same to share the fortune. And Clotilde, after hastening to send Gustave away, to spare him the frightful spectacle, gave free vent to her tears, her head leaning against Berthe, who was sobbing the same as Valérie. Standing at the window, Théophile and Auguste were roughly rubbing their eyes. But Duveyrier, especially, exhibited a most extraordinary amount of grief, stifling heart-rending sobs in his handkerchief. No, really, he could not live without Clarisse; he would rather die at once, like the other one there; and the loss of his mistress, coming in the midst of all this mourning, caused him immense bitterness.
“Madame,” announced Clémence, “here are the sacraments.”
Abbé Mauduit appeared on the threshold. Behind his shoulder, one caught a glimpse of the face full of curiosity of a boy chorister. On beholding the display of grief, the priest questioned the doctor with a glance, whilst the latter extended his arms, as though to say it was not his fault. So, after mumbling a few prayers, Abbé Mauduit withdrew with an air of embarrassment, taking his paraphernalia along with him.
“It is a bad sign,” said Clémence to the other servants, standing in a group at the door of the ante-room. “The sacraments are not to be brought for nothing. You will see they will be back in the house before another year goes by.”
Monsieur Vabre’s funeral did not take place till the day after the morrow. Duveyrier, all the same, had inserted in the circulars announcing his demise, the words, “provided with the sacraments of the Church.”
As the warehouse did not open on that day, Octave was free. This holiday delighted him, as, for a long time past, he had wished to put his room straight, alter the position of some of the furniture, and arrange his few books in a little bookcase he had bought second-hand. He had risen earlier than usual, and was just finishing what he was about toward eight o’clock on the morning of the funeral, when Marie knocked at the door. She had brought him back a heap of books.
“As you do not come for them,” said she, “I am delighted to take the trouble to return them to you.”
But she blushingly refused to enter, shocked at the idea of being in a young man’s room. Their intimate relations had, moreover, completely ceased, in quite a natural manner, because he had not returned to her. And she remained quite as affectionate with him, always greeting him with a smile whenever they met.
Octave was very merry that morning. He wished to tease her.
“So it is Jules who won’t let you come into my room?” he kept saying. “How do you get on with Jules now? Is he amiable? Yes, you know what I mean. Answer now!”
She laughed, and was not at all scandalized.
“Why, of course! whenever you take him out, you treat him to vermouth, and tell him things which send him home like a madman. Oh I he is too amiable. You know, I don’t ask for so much. Still, I prefer it should take place at home than elsewhere, that’s very certain.”
She became serious again, and added:
“Here, I have brought you back your Balzac, I was not able to finish it. It’s too sad. That gentleman has nothing but disagreeable things to tell one!”
When Octave was dressed, he remembered his promise to go and see Madame Campardon. He had two good hours to while away, the funeral being timed for eleven o’clock, and he thought of utilizing his morning in making a few calls in the house. Rose received him in bed: he apologized, fearing that he disturbed her; but she herself called him in. They saw so little of him, and she was so delighted at having some one to talk to.
“Ah! my dear child,” declared she at once, “it is I who ought to be below, nailed up between four planks!”
Yes, the landlord was very lucky, he had finished with existence. And Octave, surprised at finding her a prey to such melancholy, asked her if she felt worse.
“No, thank you. It is always the same. Only there are times when I have had enough of it. Achille has been obliged to have a bed put up in his work-room, because it annoyed me whenever he moved in the night. And you know that Gasparine has yielded to our entreaties, and has left the drapery establishment. I am very grateful to her, she nurses me so tenderly! Ah! I could no longer live were it not for all these kind affections around me!”
Just then, Gasparine, with her submissive air of a poor relation, fallen to the rank of a servant, brought her a cup of coffee and some bread and butter. She helped her to raise herself, propped her up against some cushions, and served her on a little tray covered with a napkin. And Rose, dressed in a little loose embroidered jacket, ate with a hearty appetite, amidst the linen, edged with lace. She was quite fresh, looking younger than ever, and very pretty, with her white skin, and short, fair, curly hair.
“Oh! the stomach is all right, it is not the stomach that is ailing,” she kept saying, as she soaked her slices of bread and butter.
Two tears dropped into her coffee. Then Gasparine scolded her.
“If you cry, I shall call Achille. Are you not pleased? are you not sitting there like a queen?”
When Madame Campardon had finished, and she again found herself alone with Octave, she was quite consoled. Out of coquetry, she again returned to the subject of death, but with the gentle gayety of a woman idling away the morning between her warm sheets. Well! she would go off all the same, when her turn came; only, they were right, she was not unhappy, she could let herself live; for, in point of fact, they spared her all the main cares of life.
Then, as the young man rose to leave, she added:
“Now, do try and come oftener? Amuse yourself well, don’t let the funeral make you too sad. One dies a trifle every day, the thing is to get used to it.”
It was the little maid Louise who opened the door to Octave at Madame Juzeur’s, on the same landing. She ushered him into the drawing-room, looked at him a moment as she laughed in her bewildered sort of way, and then ended by stating that her mistress was just finishing dressing. Madame Juzeur appeared almost at once, dressed in black, and looking gentler and more refined than ever in her mourning.
“I felt sure you would call this morning,” sighed she with a weary air. “All night long I have been dreaming and seeing you. It is impossible to sleep, you understand, with that corpse in the house!”
And she admitted that she had got up three times in the night to look under the furniture.
“But you should have called me!” said the young man, gallantly. “Two in a bed are never frightened.”
She assumed a charming air of shame.
“Hold your tongue, it’s naughty!”
And she held her open hand over his lips. He was naturally obliged to kiss it. Then she spread the fingers out, laughing the while as though being tickled. But he, excited by this play, sought to push matters farther. He had caught hold of her, and was pressing her against his breast, without her making the least attempt to free herself.
In her determination there was a sort of jesuitical reserve, a fear of the confessional, a certainty of having her minor sins forgiven, whilst the great one would cause her no end of unpleasantness with her spiritual director. Then, there were other unavowed sentiments, her honor and self-esteem blended together, the coquetry of always having the advantage of men by never satisfying them, and a shrewd personal enjoyment in being smothered with kisses, without any after consequences. She liked this better, and she stuck to it; not a man could flatter himself of having succeeded with her, since her husband’s cowardly desertion. And she was a respectable woman!
“No, sir; not one! Ah! I can hold up my head, I can! What a number of wretched women, in my position, would have misconducted themselves!”
She pushed him gently aside, and rose from the sofa.
“Leave me. It worries me so much, does that corpse downstairs. It seems to me that the whole house smells of it.”
Meanwhile the time for the funeral was approaching. She wished to be at the church beforehand, so as not to see all the funeral trappings. But, while escorting him to the door, she recollected having mentioned her liquor; she therefore made him come in again, and fetched the bottle and a couple of glasses herself. It was a very sweet cream, with a perfume of flowers. When she had drank of it, a greediness, like that of a little girl, gave an air of languid delight to her face. She could have lived on sugar; vanilla and rose-scented sweeties had the same effect on her as an amorous caress.
“It will sustain us,” said she.
And, when he kissed her on the mouth in the ante-room, she closed her eyes. Their sugary lips seemed to be melting like sweetmeats.
It was close upon eleven o’clock. The coffin had not been brought down for exhibition, as the undertaker’s men; after wasting their time at a neighboring wine shop, had not finished putting up the hangings. Octave went to have a look out of curiosity. The porch was already closed in at the back by a large black curtain, but the men had still to fix the hangings over the door. And outside on the pavement a group of maid-servants were gossiping with their noses in the air; whilst Hippolyte, dressed in deep mourning, hastened on the work with a dignified air.
Then Madame Gourd, who had remained in her arm-chair on account of her poor legs, rose painfully on her feet. As she was quite unable to get even as far as the church, Monsieur Gourd had told her to be sure and salute the landlord’s corpse when it passed their room. It was a matter of duty. She went to the door with a mourning cap on her head, and curtesied as the coffin went by.
At Saint-Roch, Doctor Juillerat made a show of not going inside during the ceremony. There was, however, a tremendous crowd, and quite a group of men preferred to remain on the steps. The weather was very mild—a superb June day. And, as they were unable to smoke, their conversation turned upon politics. The principal door was left open, and at moments the sound of the organs issued from the church, which was draped in black and filled with lighted tapers, looking like so many stars.
“You know that Monsieur Thiers will stand for our district next year,” announced Léon Josserand, in his grave way.
“Ah!” said the doctor. “Of course you will not vote for him—you are a Republican?”
The young man, whose opinions cooled down the more Madame Dambreville introduced him into good society, curtly answered:
“Why not? He is the declared adversary of the Empire.”
Then a heated discussion ensued. Léon talked of tactics, whilst Doctor Juillerat stuck to principles. According to the latter, the middle classes had had their day; they were an obstacle in the road of the Revolution; now that they had acquired property, they barred the future with greater obstinacy and blindness than the old nobility.
“You are afraid of everything; you go in for the very worst reaction the moment you fancy yourself threatened!”
At this Campardon flew into a passion.
“I, sir, have been a Jacobin and an atheist like you. But, thank heaven! reason came to me. No, I will not even stoop to your Monsieur Thiers. A blunderhead—a man who amuses himself with chimeras!”
However, all the Liberals present—Monsieur Josserand, Octave, Trublot even, who did not care a straw, declared that they would vote for Monsieur Thiers. The official candidate was a great chocolate manufacturer of the Rue Saint-Honoré, Monsieur Dewinck, whom they chaffed immensely. This Monsieur Dewinck had not even the support of the clergy, who were uneasy at his relations with the Tuileries. Campardon, decidedly gone over to the priests, greeted his name with reserve. Then, suddenly changing the subject, he exclaimed:
“Look here! the bullet which wounded your Garibaldi in the foot ought to have pierced his heart!”
And, so as not to be seen any longer in the company of these gentlemen, he entered the church, where the Abbé Mauduit’s shrill voice was responding to the lamentations of the chanters.
“He sleeps there now,” murmured the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. “Ah! what a clean sweep ought to be made of it all!” The Roman question interested him immensely. Then, as Léon reminded them of the words of the Cabinet Minister to the Senate that the Empire had sprung from the Revolution, only in order to keep it within bounds, they returned to the coming elections. All were agreed upon the necessity of giving the Emperor a lesson; but they were beginning to be troubled with anxiety, they were already divided respecting the candidates, whose names gave rise to visions of the red specter at night time. Close to them Monsieur Gourd, dressed as correctly as a diplomatist, listened with supreme contempt to what they were saying; he was for the powers that be, pure and simple.
The service was drawing to a close; a long, melancholy wail which i