Cousin Pons Part 37

"I should think he will!" returned Mme. Sauvage. "He has been crying for twenty-four hours on end, and he would not take anything. There is nothing like grief for giving one a sinking in the stomach."

"My dear client," urged the representative of the firm of Sonet, "do take some broth. You have so much to do; some one must go to the Hotel de Ville to buy the ground in the cemetery on which you mean to erect a monument to perpetuate the memory of the friend of the arts, and bear record to your grat.i.tude."

"Why, there is no sense in this!" added Mme. Cantinet, coming in with broth and bread.

"If you are as weak as this, you ought to think of finding some one to act for you," added Remonencq, "for you have a good deal on your hands, my dear sir. There is the funeral to order. You would not have your friend buried like a pauper!"

"Come, come, my dear sir," put in La Sauvage, seizing a moment when Schmucke laid his head back in the great chair to pour a spoonful of soup into his mouth. She fed him as if he had been a child, and almost in spite of himself.

"Now, if you were wise, sir, since you are inclined to give yourself up quietly to grief, you would find some one to act for you--"

"As you are thinking of raising a magnificent monument to the memory of your friend, sir, you have only to leave it all to me; I will undertake--"

"What is all this? What is all this?" asked La Sauvage. "Has M. Schmucke ordered something? Who may you be?"

"I represent the firm of Sonet, my dear madame, the biggest monumental stone-masons in Paris," said the person in black, handing a business-card to the stalwart Sauvage.

"Very well, that will do. Some one will go with you when the time comes; but you must not take advantage of the gentleman's condition now. You can quite see that he is not himself----"

The agent led her out upon the landing.

"If you will undertake to get the order for us," he said confidentially, "I am empowered to offer you forty francs."

Mme. Sauvage grew placable. "Very well, let me have your address," said she.

Schmucke meantime being left to himself, and feeling the stronger for the soup and bread that he had been forced to swallow, returned at once to Pons' rooms, and to his prayers. He had lost himself in the fathomless depths of sorrow, when a voice sounding in his ears drew him back from the abyss of grief, and a young man in a suit of black returned for the eleventh time to the charge, pulling the poor, tortured victim's coatsleeve until he listened.

"Sir!" said he.

"Vat ees it now?"

"Sir! we owe a supreme discovery to Dr. Gannal; we do not dispute his fame; he has worked miracles of Egypt afresh; but there have been improvements made upon his system. We have obtained surprising results.

So, if you would like to see your friend again, as he was when he was alive--"

"See him again!" cried Schmucke. "Shall he speak to me?"

"Not exactly. Speech is the only thing wanting," continued the embalmer's agent. "But he will remain as he is after embalming for all eternity. The operation is over in a few seconds. Just an incision in the carotid artery and an injection.--But it is high time; if you wait one single quarter of an hour, sir, you will not have the sweet satisfaction of preserving the body...."

"Go to der teufel!... Bons is ein spirit--und dat spirit is in hefn."

"That man has no grat.i.tude in his composition," remarked the youthful agent of one of the famous Gannal's rivals; "he will not embalm his friend."

The words were spoken under the archway, and addressed to La Cibot, who had just submitted her beloved to the process.

"What would you have, sir!" she said. "He is the heir, the universal legatee. As soon as they get what they want, the dead are nothing to them."

An hour later, Schmucke saw Mme. Sauvage come into the room, followed by another man in a suit of black, a workman, to all appearance.

"Cantinet has been so obliging as to send this gentleman, sir," she said; "he is coffin-maker to the parish."

The coffin-maker made his bow with a sympathetic and compa.s.sionate air, but none the less he had a business-like look, and seemed to know that he was indispensable. He turned an expert's eye upon the dead.

"How does the gentleman wish 'it' to be made? Deal, plain oak, or oak lead-lined? Oak with a lead lining is the best style. The body is a stock size,"--he felt for the feet, and proceeded to take the measure--"one metre seventy!" he added. "You will be thinking of ordering the funeral service at the church, sir, no doubt?"

Schmucke looked at him as a dangerous madman might look before striking a blow. La Sauvage put in a word.

"You ought to find somebody to look after all these things," she said.

"Yes----" the victim murmured at length.

"Shall I fetch M. Tabareau?--for you will have a good deal on your hands before long. M. Tabareau is the most honest man in the quarter, you see."

"Yes. Mennesir Dapareau! Somepody vas speaking of him chust now--" said Schmucke, completely beaten.

"Very well. You can be quiet, sir, and give yourself up to grief, when you have seen your deputy."

It was nearly two o'clock when M. Tabareau's head-clerk, a young man who aimed at a bailiff's career, modestly presented himself. Youth has wonderful privileges; no one is alarmed by youth. This young man Villemot by name, sat down by Schmucke's side and waited his opportunity to speak. His diffidence touched Schmucke very much.

"I am M. Tabareau's head-clerk, sir," he said; "he sent me here to take charge of your interests, and to superintend the funeral arrangements.

Is this your wish?"

"You cannot safe my life, I haf not long to lif; but you vill leaf me in beace!"

"Oh! you shall not be disturbed," said Villemot.

"Ver' goot. Vat must I do for dat?"

"Sign this paper appointing M. Tabareau to act for you in all matters relating to the settlement of the affairs of the deceased."

"Goot! gif it to me," said Schmucke, anxious only to sign it at once.

"No, I must read it over to you first."

"Read it ofer."

Schmucke paid not the slightest attention to the reading of the power of attorney, but he set his name to it. The young clerk took Schmucke's orders for the funeral, the interment, and the burial service; undertaking that he should not be troubled again in any way, nor asked for money.

"I vould gif all dat I haf to be left in beace," said the unhappy man.

And once more he knelt beside the dead body of his friend.

Fraisier had triumphed. Villemot and La Sauvage completed the circle which he had traced about Pons' heir.

There is no sorrow that sleep cannot overcome. Towards the end of the day La Sauvage, coming in, found Schmucke stretched asleep at the bed-foot. She carried him off, put him to bed, tucked him in maternally, and till the morning Schmucke slept.

When he awoke, or rather when the truce was over and he again became conscious of his sorrows, Pons' coffin lay under the gateway in such a state as a third-cla.s.s funeral may claim, and Schmucke, seeking vainly for his friend, wandered from room to room, across vast s.p.a.ces, as it seemed to him, empty of everything save hideous memories. La Sauvage took him in hand, much as a nurse manages a child; she made him take his breakfast before starting for the church; and while the poor sufferer forced himself to eat, she discovered, with lamentations worthy of Jeremiah, that he had not a black coat in his possession. La Cibot took entire charge of his wardrobe; since Pons fell ill, his apparel, like his dinner, had been reduced to the lowest terms--to a couple of coats and two pairs of trousers.

"And you are going just as you are to M. Pons' funeral? It is an unheard-of thing; the whole quarter will cry shame upon us!"

"Und how vill you dat I go?"