Poor Relations

"This is the kind of customer that you always bring us," said Mme. Vitelot, beginning a quarrel with the agent.

Topinard led Schmucke away, and they returned home on foot to the Rue de Normandie, for the mourning-coaches had been sent back.

"Do not leaf me," Schmucke said, when Topinard had seen him safe into Mme. Sauvage's hands, and wanted to go.

"It is four o'clock, dear M. Schmucke. I must go home to dinner. My wife is a box-opener – she will not know what has become of me. The theatre opens at a quarter to six, you know."

"Yes, I know.. but remember dat I am alone in die earth, dat I haf no friend. You dat haf shed a tear for Bons enliden me; I am in teep tarkness, und Bons said dat I vas in der midst of shcoundrels."

"I have seen that plainly already; I have just prevented them from sending you to Clichy."

"Gligy!" repeated Schmucke; "I do not understand."

"Poor man! Well, never mind, I will come to you. Good-bye."

"Goot-bye; komm again soon," said Schmucke, dropping half-dead with weariness.

"Good-bye, mosieu," said Mme. Sauvage, and there was something in her tone that struck Topinard.

"Oh, come, what is the matter now?" he asked, banteringly. "You are attitudinizing like a traitor in a melodrama."

"Traitor yourself! Why have you come meddling here? Do you want to have a hand in the master's affairs, and swindle him, eh?"

"Swindle him!.. Your very humble servant!" Topinard answered with superb disdain. "I am only a poor super at a theatre, but I am something of an artist, and you may as well know that I never asked anything of anybody yet! Who asked anything of you? Who owes you anything? eh, old lady!"

"You are employed at a theatre, and your name is – ?"

"Topinard, at your service."

"Kind regards to all at home," said La Sauvage, "and my compliments to your missus, if you are married, mister… That was all I wanted to know."

"Why, what is the matter, dear?" asked Mme. Cantinet, coming out.

"This, child – stop here and look after the dinner while I run round to speak to monsieur."

"He is down below, talking with poor Mme. Cibot, that is crying her eyes out," said Mme. Cantinet.

La Sauvage dashed down in such headlong haste that the stairs trembled beneath her tread.

"Monsieur!" she called, and drew him aside a few paces to point out Topinard.

Topinard was just going away, proud at heart to have made some return already to the man who had done him so many kindnesses. He had saved Pons' friend from a trap, by a stratagem from that world behind the scenes in which every one has more or less ready wit. And within himself he vowed to protect a musician in his orchestra from future snares set for his simple sincerity.

"Do you see that little wretch?" said La Sauvage. "He is a kind of honest man that has a mind to poke his nose into M. Schmucke's affairs."

"Who is he?" asked Fraisier.

"Oh! he is a nobody."

"In business there is no such thing as a nobody."

"Oh, he is employed at the theatre," said she; "his name is Topinard."

"Good, Mme. Sauvage! Go on like this, and you shall have your tobacconist's shop."

And Fraisier resumed his conversation with Mme. Cibot.

"So I say, my dear client, that you have not played openly and above-board with me, and that one is not bound in any way to a partner who cheats."

"And how have I cheated you?" asked La Cibot, hands on hips. "Do you think that you will frighten me with your sour looks and your frosty airs? You look about for bad reasons for breaking your promises, and you call yourself an honest man! Do you know what you are? You are a blackguard! Yes! yes! scratch your arm; but just pocket that – "

"No words, and keep your temper, dearie. Listen to me. You have been feathering your nest… I found this catalogue this morning while we were getting ready for the funeral; it is all in M. Pons' handwriting, and made out in duplicate. And as it chanced, my eyes fell on this – "

And opening the catalogue, he read:

"No. 7. Magnificent portrait painted on marble, by Sebastian del Piombo, in 1546. Sold by a family who had it removed from Terni Cathedral. The picture, which represents a Knight-Templar kneeling in prayer, used to hang above a tomb of the Rossi family with a companion portrait of a Bishop, afterwards purchased by an Englishman. The portrait might be attributed to Raphael, but for the date. This example is, to my mind, superior to the portrait of Baccio Bandinelli in the Musee; the latter is a little hard, while the Templar, being painted upon 'lavagna,' or slate, has preserved its freshness of coloring."

"When I come to look for No. 7," continued Fraisier, "I find a portrait of a lady, signed 'Chardin,' without a number on it! I went through the pictures with the catalogue while the master of ceremonies was making up the number of pall-bearers, and found that eight of those indicated as works of capital importance by M. Pons had disappeared, and eight paintings of no special merit, and without numbers, were there instead… And finally, one was missing altogether, a little panel-painting by Metzu, described in the catalogue as a masterpiece."

"And was I in charge of the pictures?" demanded La Cibot.

"No; but you were in a position of trust. You were M. Pons' housekeeper, you looked after his affairs, and he has been robbed – "

"Robbed! Let me tell you this, sir: M. Schmucke sold the pictures, by M. Pons' orders, to meet expenses."

"And to whom?"

"To Messrs. Elie Magus and Remonencq."

"For how much?"

"I am sure I do not remember."

"Look here, my dear madame; you have been feathering your nest, and very snugly. I shall keep an eye upon you; I have you safe. Help me, I will say nothing! In any case, you know that since you deemed it expedient to plunder M. le President Camusot, you ought not to expect anything from him."

"I was sure that this would all end in smoke, for me," said La Cibot, mollified by the words "I will say nothing."

Remonencq chimed in at this point.

"Here are you finding fault with Mme. Cibot; that is not right!" he said. "The pictures were sold by private treaty between M. Pons, M. Magus, and me. We waited for three days before we came to terms with the deceased; he slept on his pictures. We took receipts in proper form; and if we gave Madame Cibot a few forty-franc pieces, it is the custom of the trade – we always do so in private houses when we conclude a bargain. Ah! my dear sir, if you think to cheat a defenceless woman, you will not make a good bargain! Do you understand, master lawyer? – M. Magus rules the market, and if you do not come down off the high horse, if you do not keep your word to Mme. Cibot, I shall wait till the collection is sold, and you shall see what you will lose if you have M. Magus and me against you; we can get the dealers in a ring. Instead of realizing seven or eight hundred thousand francs, you will not so much as make two hundred thousand."

"Good, good, we shall see. We are not going to sell; or if we do, it will be in London."

"We know London," said Remonencq. "M. Magus is as powerful there as at Paris."

"Good-day, madame; I shall sift these matters to the bottom," said Fraisier – "unless you continue to do as I tell you" he added.

"You little pickpocket! – "

"Take care! I shall be a justice of the peace before long." And with threats understood to the full upon either side, they separated.

"Thank you, Remonencq!" said La Cibot; "it is very pleasant to a poor widow to find a champion."

Towards ten o'clock that evening, Gaudissart sent for Topinard. The manager was standing with his back to the fire, in a Napoleonic attitude – a trick which he had learned since be began to command his army of actors, dancers, figurants, musicians, and stage carpenters. He grasped his left-hand brace with his right hand, always thrust into his waistcoat; he head was flung far back, his eyes gazed out into space.

"Ah! I say, Topinard, have you independent means?"

"No, sir."

"Are you on the lookout to better yourself somewhere else?"

"No, sir – " said Topinard, with a ghastly countenance.

"Why, hang it all, your wife takes the first row of boxes out of respect to my predecessor, who came to grief; I gave you the job of cleaning the lamps in the wings in the daytime, and you put out the scores. And that is not all, either. You get twenty sous for acting monsters and managing devils when a hell is required. There is not a super that does not covet your post, and there are those that are jealous of you, my friend; you have enemies in the theatre."

"Enemies!" repeated Topinard.

"And you have three children; the oldest takes children's parts at fifty centimes – "

"Sir! – "

"You want to meddle in other people's business, and put your finger into a will case. – Why, you wretched man, you would be crushed like an egg-shell! My patron is His Excellency, Monseigneur le Comte Popinot, a clever man and a man of high character, whom the King in his wisdom has summoned back to the privy council. This statesman, this great politician, has married his eldest son to a daughter of M. le President de Marville, one of the foremost men among the high courts of justice; one of the leading lights of the law-courts. Do you know the law-courts? Very good. Well, he is cousin and heir to M. Pons, to our old conductor whose funeral you attended this morning. I do not blame you for going to pay the last respects to him, poor man… But if you meddle in M. Schmucke's affairs, you will lose your place. I wish very well to M. Schmucke, but he is in a delicate position with regard to the heirs – and as the German is almost nothing to me, and the President and Count Popinot are a great deal, I recommend you to leave the worthy German to get out of his difficulties by himself. There is a special Providence that watches over Germans, and the part of deputy guardian-angel would not suit you at all. Do you see? Stay as you are – you cannot do better."

"Very good, monsieur le directeur," said Topinard, much distressed. And in this way Schmucke lost the protector sent to him by fate, the one creature that shed a tear for Pons, the poor super for whose return he looked on the morrow.

Next morning poor Schmucke awoke to a sense of his great and heavy loss. He looked round the empty rooms. Yesterday and the day before yesterday the preparations for the funeral had made a stir and bustle which distracted his eyes; but the silence which follows the day, when the friend, father, son, or loved wife has been laid in the grave – the dull, cold silence of the morrow is terrible, is glacial. Some irresistible force drew him to Pons' chamber, but the sight of it was more than the poor man could bear; he shrank away and sat down in the dining-room, where Mme. Sauvage was busy making breakfast ready.

Schmucke drew his chair to the table, but he could eat nothing. A sudden, somewhat sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the house, and Mme. Cantinet and Mme. Sauvage allowed three black-coated personages to pass. First came Vitel, the justice of the peace, with his highly respectable clerk; third was Fraisier, neither sweeter nor milder for the disappointing discovery of a valid will canceling the formidable instrument so audaciously stolen by him.

"We have come to affix seals on the property," the justice of the peace said gently, addressing Schmucke. But the remark was Greek to Schmucke; he gazed in dismay at his three visitors.

"We have come at the request of M. Fraisier, legal representative of M. Camusot de Marville, heir of the late Pons – " added the clerk.

"The collection is here in this great room, and in the bedroom of the deceased," remarked Fraisier.

"Very well, let us go into the next room. – Pardon us, sir; do not let us interrupt with your breakfast."

The invasion struck an icy chill of terror into poor Schmucke. Fraisier's venomous glances seemed to possess some magnetic influence over his victims, like the power of a spider over a fly.

"M. Schmucke understood how to turn a will, made in the presence of a notary, to his own advantage," he said, "and he surely must have expected some opposition from the family. A family does not allow itself to be plundered by a stranger without some protest; and we shall see, sir, which carries the day – fraud and corruption or the rightful heirs… We have a right as next of kin to affix seals, and seals shall be affixed. I mean to see that the precaution is taken with the utmost strictness."

"Ach, mein Gott! how haf I offended against Hefn?" cried the innocent Schmucke.

"There is a good deal of talk about you in the house," said La Sauvage. "While you were asleep, a little whipper-snapper in a black suit came here, a puppy that said he was M. Hannequin's head-clerk, and must see you at all costs; but as you were asleep and tired out with the funeral yesterday, I told him that M. Villemot, Tabareau's head-clerk, was acting for you, and if it was a matter of business, I said, he might speak to M. Villemot. 'Ah, so much the better!' the youngster said. 'I shall come to an understanding with him. We will deposit the will at the Tribunal, after showing it to the President.' So at that, I told him to ask M. Villemot to come here as soon as he could. – Be easy, my dear sir, there are those that will take care of you. They shall not shear the fleece off your back. You will have some one that has beak and claws. M. Villemot will give them a piece of his mind. I have put myself in a passion once already with that abominable hussy, La Cibot, a porter's wife that sets up to judge her lodgers, forsooth, and insists that you have filched the money from the heirs; you locked M. Pons up, she says, and worked upon him till he was stark, staring mad. She got as good as she gave, though, the wretched woman. 'You are a thief and a bad lot,' I told her; 'you will get into the police-courts for all the things that you have stolen from the gentlemen,' and she shut up."

The clerk came out to speak to Schmucke.

"Would you wish to be present, sir, when the seals are affixed in the next room?"

"Go on, go on," said Schmucke; "I shall pe allowed to die in beace, I bresume?"

"Oh, under any circumstances a man has a right to die," the clerk answered, laughing; "most of our business relates to wills. But, in my experience, the universal legatee very seldom follows the testator to the tomb."

"I am going," said Schmucke. Blow after blow had given him an intolerable pain at the heart.

"Oh! here comes M. Villemot!" exclaimed La Sauvage.

"Mennesir Fillemod," said poor Schmucke, "rebresent me."

"I hurried here at once," said Villemot. "I have come to tell you that the will is completely in order; it will certainly be confirmed by the court, and you will be put in possession. You will have a fine fortune."

"I? Ein fein vordune?" cried Schmucke, despairingly. That he of all men should be suspected of caring for the money!

"And meantime what is the justice of the peace doing here with his wax candles and his bits of tape?" asked La Sauvage.

"Oh, he is affixing seals… Come, M. Schmucke, you have a right to be present."

"No – go in yourself."

"But where is the use of the seals if M. Schmucke is in his own house and everything belongs to him?" asked La Sauvage, doing justice in feminine fashion, and interpreting the Code according to their fancy, like one and all of her sex.

"M. Schmucke is not in possession, madame; he is in M. Pons' house. Everything will be his, no doubt; but the legatee cannot take possession without an authorization – an order from the Tribunal. And if the next-of-kin set aside by the testator should dispute the order, a lawsuit is the result. And as nobody knows what may happen, everything is sealed up, and the notaries representing either side proceed to draw up an inventory during the delay prescribed by the law… And there you are!"

Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his chair – he could not support it, it had grown so heavy.

Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals – a ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments on the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens to be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned to the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched the mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice's seal at either end of a bit of tape stretched across the opening of a folding-door; or, in the case of a cupboard or ordinary door, from edge to edge above the door-handle.

"Now for this room," said Fraisier, pointing to Schmucke's bedroom, which opened into the dining-room.

"But that is M. Schmucke's own room," remonstrated La Sauvage, springing in front of the door.

"We found the lease among the papers," Fraisier said ruthlessly; "there was no mention of M. Schmucke in it; it is taken out in M. Pons' name only. The whole place, and every room in it, is a part of the estate. And besides" – flinging open the door – "look here, monsieur le juge de la paix, it is full of pictures."

"So it is," answered the justice of the peace, and Fraisier thereupon gained his point.

"Wait a bit, gentlemen," said Villemot. "Do you know that you are turning the universal legatee out of doors, and as yet his right has not been called in question?"

"Yes, it has," said Fraisier; "we are opposing the transfer of the property."

"And upon what grounds?"

"You shall know that by and by, my boy," Fraisier replied, banteringly. "At this moment, if the legatee withdraws everything that he declares to be his, we shall raise no objections, but the room itself will be sealed. And M. Schmucke may lodge where he pleases."

"No," said Villemot; "M. Schmucke is going to stay in his room."

"And how?"

"I shall demand an immediate special inquiry," continued Villemot, "and prove that we pay half the rent. You shall not turn us out. Take away the pictures, decide on the ownership of the various articles, but here my client stops – 'my boy.'"

"I shall go out!" the old musician suddenly said. He had recovered energy during the odious dispute.

"You had better," said Fraisier. "Your course will save expense to you, for your contention would not be made good. The lease is evidence – "

"The lease! the lease!" cried Villemot, "it is a question of good faith – "

"That could only be proved in a criminal case, by calling witnesses. – Do you mean to plunge into experts' fees and verifications, and orders to show cause why judgment should not be given, and law proceedings generally?"

"No, no!" cried Schmucke in dismay. "I shall turn out; I am used to it – "

In practice Schmucke was a philosopher, an unconscious cynic, so greatly had he simplified his life. Two pairs of shoes, a pair of boots, a couple of suits of clothes, a dozen shirts, a dozen bandana handkerchiefs, four waistcoats, a superb pipe given to him by Pons, with an embroidered tobacco-pouch – these were all his belongings. Overwrought by a fever of indignation, he went into his room and piled his clothes upon a chair.

"All dese are mine," he said, with simplicity worthy of Cincinnatus. "Der biano is also mine."

Fraisier turned to La Sauvage. "Madame, get help," he said; "take that piano out and put it on the landing."

"You are too rough into the bargain," said Villemot, addressing Fraisier. "The justice of the peace gives orders here; he is supreme."

"There are valuables in the room," put in the clerk.

"And besides," added the justice of the peace, "M. Schmucke is going out of his own free will."

"Did any one ever see such a client!" Villemot cried indignantly, turning upon Schmucke. "You are as limp as a rag – "

"Vat dos it matter vere von dies?" Schmucke said as he went out. "Dese men haf tiger faces… I shall send somebody to vetch mein bits of dings."

"Where are you going, sir?"

"Vere it shall blease Gott," returned Pons' universal legatee with supreme indifference.

"Send me word," said Villemot.

Fraisier turned to the head-clerk. "Go after him," he whispered.

Mme. Cantinet was left in charge, with a provision of fifty francs paid out of the money that they found. The justice of the peace looked out; there Schmucke stood in the courtyard looking up at the windows for the last time.

"You have found a man of butter," remarked the justice.

"Yes," said Fraisier, "yes. The thing is as good as done. You need not hesitate to marry your granddaughter to Poulain; he will be head-surgeon at the Quinze-Vingts." (The Asylum founded by St. Louis for three hundred blind people.)

"We shall see. – Good-day, M. Fraisier," said the justice of the peace with a friendly air.

"There is a man with a head on his shoulders," remarked the justice's clerk. "The dog will go a long way."

By this time it was eleven o'clock. The old German went like an automaton down the road along which Pons and he had so often walked together. Wherever he went he saw Pons, he almost thought that Pons was by his side; and so he reached the theatre just as his friend Topinard was coming out of it after a morning spent in cleaning the lamps and meditating on the manager's tyranny.

"Oh, shoost der ding for me!" cried Schmucke, stopping his acquaintance. "Dopinart! you haf a lodging someveres, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"A home off your own?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you villing to take me for ein poarder? Oh! I shall pay ver' vell; I haf nine hundert vrancs of inkomm, und – I haf not ver' long ter lif… I shall gif no drouble vatefer… I can eat onydings – I only vant to shmoke mein bipe. Und – you are der only von dat haf shed a tear for Bons, mit me; und so, I lof you."

"I should be very glad, sir; but, to begin with, M. Gaudissart has given me a proper wigging – "

"Vigging?"

"That is one way of saying that he combed my hair for me."

"Combed your hair?"

"He gave me a scolding for meddling in your affairs… So we must be very careful if you come to me. But I doubt whether you will stay when you have seen the place; you do not know how we poor devils live."

"I should rader der boor home of a goot-hearted mann dot haf mourned Bons, dan der Duileries mit men dot haf ein tiger face… I haf chust left tigers in Bons' house; dey vill eat up everydings – "

"Come with me, sir, and you shall see. But – well, anyhow, there is a garret. Let us see what Mme. Topinard says."

Schmucke followed like a sheep, while Topinard led the way into one of the squalid districts which might be called the cancers of Paris – a spot known as the Cite Bordin. It is a slum out of the Rue de Bondy, a double row of houses run up by the speculative builder, under the shadow of the huge mass of the Porte Saint-Martin theatre. The pavement at the higher end lies below the level of the Rue de Bondy; at the lower it falls away towards the Rue des Mathurins du Temple. Follow its course and you find that it terminates in another slum running at right angles to the first – the Cite Bordin is, in fact, a T-shaped blind alley. Its two streets thus arranged contain some thirty houses, six or seven stories high; and every story, and every room in every story, is a workshop and a warehouse for goods of every sort and description, for this wart upon the face of Paris is a miniature Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Cabinet-work and brasswork, theatrical costumes, blown glass, painted porcelain – all the various fancy goods known as l'article Paris are made here. Dirty and productive like commerce, always full of traffic – foot-passengers, vans, and drays – the Cite Bourdin is an unsavory-looking neighborhood, with a seething population in keeping with the squalid surroundings. It is a not unintelligent artisan population, though the whole power of the intellect is absorbed by the day's manual labor. Topinard, like every other inhabitant of the Cite Bourdin, lived in it for the sake of comparatively low rent, the cause of its existence and prosperity. His sixth floor lodging, in the second house to the left, looked out upon the belt of green garden, still in existence, at the back of three or four large mansions in the Rue de Bondy.