Cousin Pons, Honoré de Balzac [popular books of all time TXT] 📗

masterpieces may travel to see
them. And I have always thought that the truly deathless work of a
great master ought to be national property; put where every one of
every nation may see it, even as the light, God's masterpiece,
shines for all His children.

"And as I have spent my life in collecting together and choosing a
few pictures, some of the greatest masters' most glorious work,
and as these pictures are as the master left them--genuine
examples, neither repainted nor retouched,--it has been a painful
thought to me that the paintings which have been the joy of my
life, may be sold by public auction, and go, some to England, some
to Russia, till they are all scattered abroad again as if they had
never been gathered together. From this wretched fate I have
determined to save both them and the frames in which they are set,
all of them the work of skilled craftsmen.

"On these grounds, therefore, I give and bequeath the pictures
which compose my collection to the King, for the gallery in the
Louvre, subject to the charge (if the legacy is accepted) of a
life-annuity of two thousand four hundred francs to my friend
Wilhelm Schmucke.

"If the King, as usufructuary of the Louvre collection, should
refuse the legacy with the charge upon it, the said pictures shall
form a part of the estate which I leave to my friend, Schmucke, on
condition that he shall deliver the _Monkey's Head_, by Goya, to
my cousin, President Camusot; a _Flower-piece_, the tulips, by
Abraham Mignon, to M. Trognon, notary (whom I appoint as my
executor): and allow Mme. Cibot, who has acted as my housekeeper
for ten years, the sum of two hundred francs per annum.

"Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the _Descent from the
Cross_, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn
a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M.
Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a
Christian and a Catholic."--So ran the will.

"This is ruin!" mused Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes. Ha! I begin to believe all that the Presidente told me about this old artist and his cunning."

"Well?" La Cibot came back to say.

"Your gentleman is a monster. He is leaving everything to the Crown. Now, you cannot plead against the Crown.... The will cannot be disputed.... We are robbed, ruined, spoiled, and murdered!"

"What has he left to me?"

"Two hundred francs a year."

"A pretty come-down!... Why, he is a finished scoundrel."

"Go and see," said Fraisier, "and I will put your scoundrel's will back again in the envelope."

While Mme. Cibot's back was turned, Fraisier nimbly slipped a sheet of blank paper into the envelope; the will he put in his pocket. He next proceeded to seal the envelope again so cleverly that he showed the seal to Mme. Cibot when she returned, and asked her if she could see the slightest trace of the operation. La Cibot took up the envelope, felt it over, assured herself that it was not empty, and heaved a deep sigh. She had entertained hopes that Fraisier himself would have burned the unlucky document while she was out of the room.

"Well, my dear M. Fraisier, what is to be done?"

"Oh! that is your affair! I am not one of the next-of-kin, myself; but if I had the slightest claim to any of _that_" (indicating the collection), "I know very well what I should do."

"That is just what I want to know," La Cibot answered, with sufficient simplicity.

"There is a fire in the grate----" he said. Then he rose to go.

"After all, no one will know about it, but you and me----" began La Cibot.

"It can never be proved that a will existed," asserted the man of law.

"And you?"

"I?... If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand francs."

"Oh yes, no doubt," returned she. "People promise you heaps of money, and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they swindle you like--" "Like Elie Magus," she was going to say, but she stopped herself just in time.

"I am going," said Fraisier; "it is not to your interest that I should be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs."

La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her hand. She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went towards the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each arm, and saw--Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other, leaning against the partition wall on either side of the door.

La Cibot cried out, and fell face downwards in a fit; real or feigned, no one ever knew the truth. This sight produced such an impression on Pons that a deadly faintness came upon him, and Schmucke left the woman on the floor to help Pons back to bed. The friends trembled in every limb; they had set themselves a hard task, it was done, but it had been too much for their strength. When Pons lay in bed again, and Schmucke had regained strength to some extent, he heard a sound of sobbing. La Cibot, on her knees, bursting into tears, held out supplicating hands to them in very expressive pantomime.

"It was pure curiosity!" she sobbed, when she saw that Pons and Schmucke were paying attention to her proceedings. "Pure curiosity; a woman's fault, you know. But I did not know how else to get a sight of your will, and I brought it back again--"

"Go!" said Schmucke, standing erect, his tall figure gaining in height by the full height of his indignation. "You are a monster! You dried to kill mein goot Bons! He is right. You are worse than a monster, you are a lost soul!"

La Cibot saw the look of abhorrence in the frank German's face; she rose, proud as Tartuffe, gave Schmucke a glance which made him quake, and went out, carrying off under her dress an exquisite little picture of Metzu's pointed out by Elie Magus. "A diamond," he had called it. Fraisier downstairs in the porter's lodge was waiting to hear that La Cibot had burned the envelope and the sheet of blank paper inside it. Great was his astonishment when he beheld his fair client's agitation and dismay.

"What has happened?"

"_This_ has happened, my dear M. Fraisier. Under pretence of giving me good advice and telling me what to do, you have lost me my annuity and the gentlemen's confidence...."

One of the word-tornadoes in which she excelled was in full progress, but Fraisier cut her short.

"This is idle talk. The facts, the facts! and be quick about it."

"Well; it came about in this way,"--and she told him of the scene which she had just come through.

"You have lost nothing through me," was Fraisier's comment. "The gentlemen had their doubts, or they would not have set this trap for you. They were lying in wait and spying upon you.... You have not told me everything," he added, with a tiger's glance at the woman before him.

"_I_ hide anything from you!" cried she--"after all that we have done together!" she added with a shudder.

"My dear madame, _I_ have done nothing blameworthy," returned Fraisier. Evidently he meant to deny his nocturnal visit to Pons' rooms.

Every hair on La Cibot's head seemed to scorch her, while a sense of icy cold swept over her from head to foot.

"_What?_"... she faltered in bewilderment.

"Here is a criminal charge on the face of it.... You may be accused of suppressing the will," Fraisier made answer drily.

La Cibot started.

"Don't be alarmed; I am your legal adviser. I only wished to show you how easy it is, in one way or another, to do as I once explained to you. Let us see, now; what have you done that this simple German should be hiding in the room?"

"Nothing at all, unless it was that scene the other day when I stood M. Pons out that his eyes dazzled. And ever since, the two gentlemen have been as different as can be. So you have brought all my troubles upon me; I might have lost my influence with M. Pons, but I was sure of the German; just now he was talking of marrying me or of taking me with him--it is all one."

The excuse was so plausible that Fraisier was fain to be satisfied with it. "You need fear nothing," he resumed. "I gave you my word that you shall have your money, and I shall keep my word. The whole matter, so far, was up in the air, but now it is as good as bank-notes.... You shall have at least twelve hundred francs per annum.... But, my good lady, you must act intelligently under my orders."

"Yes, my dear M. Fraisier," said La Cibot with cringing servility. She was completely subdued.

"Very good. Good-bye," and Fraisier went, taking the dangerous document with him. He reached home in great spirits. The will was a terrible weapon.

"Now," thought he, "I have a hold on Mme. la Presidente de Marville; she must keep her word with me. If she did not, she would lose the property."

At daybreak, when Remonencq had taken down his shutters and left his sister in charge of the shop, he came, after his wont of late, to inquire for his good friend Cibot. The portress was contemplating the Metzu, privately wondering how a little bit of painted wood could be worth such a lot of money.

"Aha!" said he, looking over her shoulder, "that is the one picture which M. Elie Magus regretted; with that little bit of a thing, he says, his happiness would be complete."

"What would he give for it?" asked La Cibot.

"Why, if you will promise to marry me within a year of widowhood, I will undertake to get twenty thousand francs for it from Elie Magus; and unless you marry me you will never get a thousand francs for the picture."

"Why not?"

"Because you would be obliged to give a receipt for the money, and then you might have a lawsuit with the heirs-at-law. If you were my wife, I myself should sell the thing to M. Magus, and in the way of business it is enough to make an entry in the day-book, and I should note that M. Schmucke sold it to me. There, leave the panel with me. ... If your husband were to die you might have a lot of bother over it, but no one would think it odd that I should have a picture in the shop.... You know me quite well. Besides, I will give you a receipt if you like."

The covetous portress felt that she had been caught; she agreed to a proposal which was to bind her for the rest of her life to the marine-store dealer.

"You are right," said she, as she locked the picture away in a chest; "bring me the bit of