HOW THE POOR AND HELPLESS ARE PREYED UPON
Through the door of a third chamber, which the old man had left open, Godefroid beheld two cots of painted wood, like those of the cheapest boarding-schools, each with a straw bed and a thin mattress, on which there was but one blanket.A small iron stove like those that porters cook by, near which lay a few squares of peat, would alone have shown the poverty of the household without the help of other details.
Advancing a step or two, Godefroid saw utensils such as the poorest persons use,--earthenware jugs, and pans in which potatoes floated in dirty water.Two tables of blackened wood, covered with books and papers, stood before the windows that looked out upon the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, and indicated the nocturnal occupations of father and son.On each of the tables was a flat iron candlestick, such as are used by the very poor, and in them Godefroid noticed tallow-candles of the kind that are sold at eight to the pound.
On a third table glittered two forks and spoons and another little spoon of silver-gilt, together with plates, bowls, and cups of Sevres china, and a silver-gilt knife and fork in an open case, all evidently for the service of the sick woman.
The stove was lighted; the water in the copper was steaming slightly.
A painted wooden closet or wardrobe contained, no doubt, the linen and clothing of Monsieur Bernard's daughter.On the old man's bed Godefroid noticed that the habiliments he had worn the night before lay spread as a covering.The floor, evidently seldom swept, looked like that of a boy's class-room.A six-pound loaf of bread, from which some slices had been cut, was on a shelf above the table.Here was poverty in its last stages, poverty resolutely accepted with stern endurance, making shift with the lowest and poorest means.A strong and sickening odor came from this room, which was rarely cleaned.
The antechamber, in which Godefroid stood, was at any rate decent, and he suspected that it served to conceal the horrors of the room in which the grandfather and the grandson lived.This antechamber, hung with a checked paper of Scotch pattern, held four walnut chairs, a small table, a colored engraving of the Emperor after Horace Vernet, also portraits of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Prince Poniatowski, no doubt the friend of Monsieur Bernard's father-in-law.The window was draped with white calico curtains edged with red bands and fringe.
Godefroid watched for Nepomucene, and when the latter made his next trip with wood signed to him to stack it very gently in Monsieur Bernard's antechamber; then (a perception which proved some progress in our initiate) he closed the door of the inner lair that Madame Vauthier's slave might not see the old man's squalor.
The antechamber was just then encumbered with three plant-stands filled with plants; two were oblong, one round, all three were of a species of ebony and of great elegance; even Nepomucene took notice of them and said as he deposited the wood:--"Hey! ain't they pretty? They must have cost a good bit!""Jean! don't make so much noise!" called Monsieur Bernard from his daughter's room.
"Did you hear that?" whispered Nepomucene to Godefroid."He's cracked, for sure, that old fellow.""You don't know what you may be at his age.""Yes, I do know," responded Nepomucene, "I shall be in the sugar-bowl."
"The sugar-bowl?"
"Yes, they'll have made my bones into charcoal by that time; I often see the carts of the refineries coming to Montsouris for charcoal;they tell me they make sugar of it." And he departed after another load of wood, satisfied with this philosophical reflection.
Godefroid discreetly withdrew to his own rooms, closing Monsieur Bernard's door behind him.Madame Vauthier, who during this time had been preparing her new lodger's breakfast, now came up to serve it, attended by Felicite.Godefroid, lost in reflection, stared into his fire.He was absorbed in meditation on this great misery which contained so many different miseries, and yet within which he could see the ineffable joys of the many triumphs of paternal and filial love; they were gems shining in the blackness of the pit.
"What romances, even those that are most famous, can equal such realities?" he thought."What a life it will be to relieve the burden of such existences, to seek out causes and effects and remedy them, calming sorrows, helping good; to incarnate one's own being in misery;to familiarize one's self with homes like that; to act out constantly in life those dramas which move us so in fiction! I never imagined that good could be more interesting, more piquant than vice.""Is monsieur satisfied with his breakfast?" asked Madame Vauthier, who now, with Felicite's assistance, brought the table close to Godefroid.
Godefroid then saw a cup of excellent /cafe au lait/ with a smoking omelet, fresh butter, and little red radishes.
"Where the devil did you get those radishes?" he asked.
"They were given me by Monsieur Cartier," answered Madame Vauthier;"and I make a present of them to monsieur.""And what are you going to ask me for such a breakfast daily?""Well now, monsieur, be fair,--I couldn't do it for less than thirty sous.""Very good, thirty sous then;" said Godefroid; "but how is it that they ask me only forty-five francs a month for dinner, close by here at Machillot's? That is the same price you ask me for breakfast.""But what a difference, monsieur, between preparing a dinner for fifteen or twenty persons and going out to get you just what you want for breakfast! See here! there's a roll, eggs, butter, the cost of lighting a fire, sugar, milk, coffee!--just think! they ask you sixteen sous for a cup of coffee alone on the place de l'Odeon, and then you have to give a sou or two to the waiter.Here you have no trouble; you can breakfast in slippers.""Very well, very well," said Godefroid.