Cousin Pons

  ‘I’ve got her nicely worked up,’ Rémonencq told his sister as he saw Madame Cibot resume her seat on a frayed rush-bottomed chair. ‘And that’s why I’m going to talk it over with the only man who knows his way about, our Jew, our good Jew, who only charged us fifteen per cent for the money we borrowed.’

  Rémonencq had read La Cibot’s mind. With women of her mettle, to will is to act. They stop at nothing to reach their ends. In a flash they pass from the strictest probity to the direst villainy. Probity – and incidentally, all our sentiments – should be divided into two sorts: negative and positive. The negative kind is that of people like the Cibots, who stay honest so long as no opportunity of enrichment comes their way. The positive kind is that of people who can wade knee-deep in temptation without succumbing to it – the sort of probity bank messengers need.

  Through the sluices of self-interest which Rémonencq’s diabolic remark had opened, a flood of evil intentions rushed into the concierge’s mind and heart. She went up, in fact she flew up from her lodge to the flat of her two gentlemen, and, with a mask of tenderness on her face, opened the door of the room in which Pons and Schmucke were busy lamenting. When he saw their housekeeper come in, Schmucke made a sign to her not to say a word in the sick man’s presence about the doctor’s real opinion: for, like the true friend he was, the sensitive German had read a warning message in the doctor’s eyes. She responded with another nod, expressive of deep concern.

  ‘Well, my poor dear gentleman, how are you feeling?’ asked La Cibot.

  She planted herself at the foot of the bed, with her hands on her hips and her gaze resting gently on the sick man: but what golden glints flashed forth from her eyes! An observant onlooker would have found her glance as terrifying as the glance of a tiger.

  ‘Oh, very poorly,’ Pons answered, ‘I’ve no appetite at all. Oh, the vanity of social life!’ he exclaimed as he pressed Schmucke’s hand, which was holding his. His friend was sitting beside his bed, and doubtless the sick man had been talking to him about the cause of his illness. ‘I should have done much better, my dear Schmucke, to have taken your advice – to have dined at home every day since we set up house together: to have given up society which is now rolling over me like a cart-wheel over an egg – and for what reason?’

  ‘Come, come, my good gentleman, it’s no use complaining,’ said La Cibot. ‘The doctor told me how things are.’

  Schmucke plucked at the concierge’s dress.

  ‘After all, you can get over it, but only if you’re well looked after… Don’t worry, you’ve got a good friend by your side, and – I’m not bragging – a woman who’ll care for you as if you were her first-born child. I got Cibot on his legs again when he was so bad you could tell Dr Poulain had given him up and was well-nigh pulling the sheet over his face, as you might say, and making out the death certificate!… Well, thank the Lord you’re not that bad, though you’re bad enough… You trust to me… I’ll pull you through with these two hands… Keep still now, don’t toss about like that.’

  She drew the blanket over the sick man’s hands.

  ‘Now, now, my lamb,’ she said, ‘Monsieur Schmucke and me, we’ll spend all our nights nursing you, so we will. You’ll be treated better than a prince. And anyway, you’ve enough money to afford anything you need to make you better. I’ve just been working it out with Cibot – he’d be helpless without me, poor dear man!… Well, I’ve made him see things my way, and as we both care so much about you, he’s willing for me to stay here at night. And for a man like him that means a big sacrifice, I can tell you, because he’s as loving now as he was when we were first married. I just don’t know what comes over him! It must be the lodge, you know, always being side by side, I mean… Keep the bedclothes on,’ she cried, rushing to the head of the bed and pulling the blankets up again over Pons’s chest. ‘If you won’t be good, if you don’t do every mortal thing the doctor tells you – and mark my words, he’s like the good Lord himself treading this earth – I’ll wash my hands of you. You’ve got to do as you’re told!’

  ‘Inteet, yess, Matame Cipot! He vill certainly to vat you say,’ answered Schmucke. ‘He vants to lif for ze sake of hiss goot frient Schmucke.’

  ‘And you mustn’t get into tantrums,’ added Madame Cibot. ‘You’re likely enough to do that with the complaint you’ve got, without getting impatient and making things worse. The Lord sends us our troubles, my dear good gentleman; and pays us out for our sins… and I bet you’ve got some nice little ones to blame yourself for!’

  The sick man shook his head in denial.

  ‘Oh, get along with you! You must have had a girl or two when you were young. You’ve had your little fling. I wouldn’t mind betting there’s some little love-child somewhere about, with nothing to live on. You’re a bad lot, you men… You have your fun, and then, whoosh! – off you go. Never a thought for anything, not even while the baby’s still being suckled!… Us poor women!…’

  ‘But no one has ever loved me except my mother and Schmucke,’ said poor Pons sadly.

  ‘Nonsense! You’re no saint! You were young once and you must have been a good-looking lad at twenty. I wouldn’t have said no myself to a kind man like you.’

  ‘I have always been as ugly as a toad,’ said Pons despairingly.

  ‘Oh, you’re just being modest – I’ll say that for you, you are modest.’

  ‘No, no, my dear Madame Cibot. I tell you again, I have always been ugly, and have never been loved.’

  ‘A man like you?’ said the concierge. ‘Are you trying to fool me into believing, here and now, that at your age you’re still an innocent? Come off it; you, a musician, a man of the theatre! Even if a woman told me a tale like that, I wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Matame Cipot, you’re makink him cross,’ cried Schmucke, noticing that Pons was writhing like a worm under his bedclothes.

  ‘You be quiet too! You’re just a couple of old rakes. You aren’t prize beauties, but as the saying goes: “Ugly as sin, there’s still a way in!” Cibot managed to get one of the prettiest oyster-girls in Paris to fall for him, and he’s not a patch on you. You’re a nice pair, you are! Come on now, you’ve had your bit of fun, and the Lord’s taking it out of you for leaving your children in the lurch, like Abraham…’

  Overwhelmed as he was by this spate of words, the sick man still had strength enough to make another gesture of protest.

  ‘But never mind, you’ll still live to be as old as Methusalem.’

  ‘Can’t you leave me in peace?’ Pons cried out. ‘I have never known what it is to be loved… I’ve never had any children. I’m alone in the world.’

  ‘Is that Gospel truth?’ said the concierge. ‘You’re such a kind man, and women, it’s a fact, always fall for kindness; that’s what draws them. I’d have sworn that when you were young and hearty…’

  ‘Take her away,’ whispered Pons to Schmucke. ‘She’s driving me mad.’

  ‘Anyway, Monsieur Schmucke, he’s sure to have some children… You’re all the same, you old bachelors.’

  ‘I?’ cried Schmucke, springing to his feet. ‘Nefer haf I…’

  ‘Go on now, I suppose you’ll be telling me you’ve no heirs either! And that the pair of you just popped up like mushrooms.’

  ‘Zet iss enough! Leaf ze room!’ replied Schmucke. And the good German heroically seized Madame Cibot round the middle and dragged her into the drawing-room, paying no heed to her cries.

  13. A treatise on the occult sciences

  ‘HERE, you’re not going to get rough with a woman at your age!’ bawled out La Cibot, struggling in Schmucke’s grip.

  ‘Schtop shoutink!’

  ‘And you the best of the two!’ La Cibot replied. ‘Oh, what a fool I was to talk about love to a pair of old men who’ve never had anything to do with women! It’s heated your blood, you monster!’ she cried as she saw the angry gleam in Schmucke’s eyes; ‘Help! Help! Police! I’m being assaulted!’

  ‘You are
a stupit voman!’ the German replied. ‘Tell me now vat tit ze toctor say?’

  ‘A nice way to treat me,’ said the weeping woman, now released. ‘And me ready to go through fire and water for both of you. Well, it’s right what they say: you never know with men till you’ve tried. It’s gospel truth! My poor Cibot wouldn’t maul me about like that… and me as good as a mother to you! I’ve no children myself, and only yesterday I was saying to Cibot: “My dear, the Lord knew what He was about when He sent us no children. I’ve got two children upstairs”… That’s what I said, may God strike me dead if I didn’t!’

  ‘Tell me, vat tit ze toctor say?’ Schmucke asked again, stamping with rage for the first time in his life.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you what he said,’ answered Madame Cibot, beckoning Schmucke into the dining-room. ‘He told me that our poor dear darling invalid is likely to die if he’s not well looked after. But I’m still here, even if you have treated me like a brute. You were a brute, you know, and I thought you were so gentle. You do go for the women then, after all! Fancy wanting to tumble one, at your age, you wicked old rascal!’

  ‘Vicket rascal? Vill you not unterstant zat Pons iss ze only person I lof?’

  ‘All right then. Keep your paws off me, see?’ she said to Schmucke, breaking into a smile. ‘You’d better watch out: Cibot would break a man’s neck if he caught him playing about with his wife.’

  ‘Haf a goot care of Pons, my little Matame Cipot,’ pleaded Schmucke, and his hand reached out to hers.

  ‘There you go, at it again!’

  ‘Pleass listen! I vill leaf you all I haf if ve can safe him.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go to the chemist to get him what he needs. And remember, Monsieur Schmucke, him being ill is going to cost quite a bit: how are you going to manage?’

  ‘I vill work hart. I vant Pons to pe caret for like a prince.’

  ‘He shall be, my good Monsieur Schmucke. And look, don’t worry about anything. Cibot and me have two thousand francs saved up. You can have them, and I tell you it won’t be the first time I’ve dipped into my savings for you two.’

  ‘Vat a kint voman!’ exclaimed Schmucke, wiping his eyes. ‘Vat a heart of golt!’

  In melodramatic tones La Cibot replied: ‘Dry those tears. They do me honour, and I ask for no other reward. I am the least self-seeking of God’s creatures… But don’t you go back in there with your eyes wet. Monsieur Pons will think he’s worse than he is.’

  Moved by this delicate thought, Schmucke finally took hold of Madame Cibot’s hand and pressed it.

  ‘Now go easy!’ said the one-time oyster girl; and she threw a tender glance at Schmucke.

  ‘Pons,’ said the kindly German as he went back into the bedroom, ‘she is an antchel, Matame Cipot. She talks much for an antchel, but she iss an antchel.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ the sick man replied, shaking his head. ‘I’ve lost all my faith in people this last month. After all my misfortunes, God and yourself are all I trust in.’

  ‘Get pesser,’ cried Schmucke, ‘unt ve vill lif all sree togezzer like kinks.’

  *

  The concierge rushed back breathless to her lodge. ‘Cibot,’ she called out, ‘my love, our fortune’s made! My two gentlemen have no heirs, no natural children, nothing! Think of that! I’m going straight to Ma’me Fontaine to get her to read the cards and tell me how much we shall have coming to us.’

  ‘Wife,’ replied the little tailor, ‘don’t reckon on stepping into a dead man’s shoes if you don’t want to go bare-foot.’

  ‘Now don’t you pour cold water down my back!’ she said, giving Cibot a friendly tap. ‘Monsieur Poulain says Pons is done for. And we’re going to be well off. I’ll see to that! You get on with your stitching and look after the lodge. You won’t have to go on with it very long. We’ll retire into the country, to Batignolles. A fine house, a fine garden… You’ll enjoy growing things, and I’ll have a maid!’

  ‘Well now, neighbour, how are things going up there?’ asked Rémonencq. ‘Have you found out what the collection’s worth?’

  ‘Oh no, not yet. You can’t rush things like that, my good neighbour. I’ve been finding out more important things.’

  ‘More important! What could be more important than that?’ exclaimed Rémonencq.

  ‘Here, my lad, leave me to steer the boat,’ said the concierge with some firmness.

  ‘But just think! With thirty per cent out of seven hundred thousand francs you’d live snug for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Papa Rémonencq! When the time comes to find out what it will all fetch, the stuff the old man has stacked up, we’ll see about that!’

  *

  The concierge went to the chemist’s to get the doctor’s prescriptions made up, but decided to postpone her consultation with Madame Fontaine till the next day. She expected to find the sibyl’s oracular faculties fresher and in better form if she arrived quite early, before anybody else – for people queued up to consult Madame Fontaine.

  After forty years’ rivalry with the celebrated Mademoiselle Lenormand, who had recently died, Madame Fontaine was now the undisputed oracle of the Marais. It is difficult to imagine how important fortune-tellers are to the lower classes of Paris, or what a tremendous influence they exert in helping illiterate persons to make up their minds. For cooks, concierges, kept women, workmen and all those people in Paris who live on their hopes, come to consult those privileged beings who possess the strange, inexplicable power of foretelling the future. Belief in the occult sciences is much more widespread than is imagined by scientists, barristers, notaries, doctors, magistrates and philosophers. The lower classes have ineradicable instincts; and among these instincts, the one that is so stupidly called ‘superstition’ is as much in the blood of the working classes as it is in the minds of their betters. In Paris, more than one statesman has recourse to card-readers. To unbelieving minds, judicial astrology (an extremely quaint combination of terms) is merely the exploitation of an inherent curiosity, one of the strongest urges implanted in us by nature. And so sceptics completely deny the relationship which divination establishes between human destinies and the configuration resulting from the seven or eight principal methods which judicial astrology utilizes. But the occult sciences, like so many phenomena of nature, are spurned by sceptics or materialist philosophers, that is to say by those who cleave solely to solid, visible facts, to the results shown by the retorts and balances of modern physics and chemistry. None the less, these sciences persist; the practice of them goes on, though without making any progress, because for the last two centuries they have no longer been cultivated by the finest minds.

  If we consider only the practical side of divination, to believe that previous events in a man’s life and the secrets known to him alone can be directly represented by the cards he shuffles and cuts, and which are then stacked by the fortune-teller in accordance with some mysterious rites, is to believe the absurd. But this criterion of absurdity once ruled out the harnessing of steam; it still rules out aerial navigation; it ruled out many inventions : gunpowder, printing, the telescope, engraving and also the most recent great discovery of our time, the daguerreotype. If anyone had come and told Napoleon that a man or a building is incessantly and continuously represented by a picture in the atmosphere, that all existing objects project into it a kind of spectre which can be captured and perceived, he would have consigned him to Charenton as a lunatic, just as Cardinal Richelieu consigned Salomon de Caux to Bicêtre when that martyred Norman put within his grasp a tremendous victory over nature: navigation by steam. And yet that is what Daguerre’s discovery proved! Now, if God, for the benefit of certain clairvoyants, has imprinted every man’s destiny in his physiognomy – taking this word as applying to every bodily characteristic – why should not the human hand sum up that physiognomy in itself, since the hand comprises human action in its entirety and is its sole means of manifestation? Hence palmistry. And does not society itse
lf, in this respect, follow God’s example? To foretell the events of a man’s life from the study of his hand is not, for someone endowed with the faculties of a seer, a more extraordinary feat than telling a soldier he is going to fight, a barrister that he is going to plead a cause, a cobbler that he is going to make boots or shoes, a farmer that he is going to manure and plough his land. Let us take a still more striking example: genius is a sort of immaterial sun whose rays give colour to everything passing by. Cannot an idiot be immediately recognized by characteristics which are the opposite of those shown by a man of genius? An ordinary man goes almost unnoticed. Most observant people, students of nature in Parisian society, are able to tell the profession of a passer-by as they see him approach. Today the mysteries of the witches’ sabbath, so graphically depicted by sixteenth-century painters, are no longer mysteries. The Egyptians, male and female, the ancestors of our gypsies, that strange nation which had its origins in India, merely administered hashish to their clients. The phenomena produced by this preparation perfectly well account for the ridings on broomsticks, the exits from chimneys, the tangible visions, so to speak, of old hags transformed into young women, the frantic dances and the entrancing music which made up the fantasies familiar to the so-called devil-worshippers.