An hour later, Cartier returned with a number of beautiful flowering plants, which he placed himself in the jardinieres, covering them with fresh moss.Godefroid paid his bill; also that of the circulating library, which was brought soon after.Books and flowers!--these were the daily bread of this poor invalid, this tortured creature, who was satisfied with so little.
As he thought of this family, coiled by misfortunes like that of the Laocoon (sublime image of so many lives), Godefroid, who was now on his way on foot to the rue Marbeuf, was conscious in his heart of more curiosity than benevolence.This sick woman, surrounded by luxury in the midst of such direful poverty, made him forget the horrible details of the strangest of all nervous disorders, which is happily rare, though recorded by a few historians.One of our most gossiping chroniclers, Tallemant des Reaux, cites an instance of it.The mind instinctively pictures a woman as being elegant in the midst of her worst sufferings; and Godefroid let himself dwell on the pleasure of entering that chamber where none but the father, son, and doctor had been admitted for six years.Nevertheless, he ended by blaming himself for his curiosity.He even felt that the sentiment, natural as it was, would cease as he went on exercising his beneficent ministry, from the mere fact of seeing more distressed homes and many sorrows.
Such agents do reach in time a divine serenity which nothing surprises or confounds; just as in love we come to the divine quietude of that emotion, sure of its strength, sure of its lastingness, through our constant experience of its pains and sweetnesses.
Godefroid was told that Halpersohn had returned during the night, but had been obliged to go out at once to visit patients who were awaiting him.The porter told Godefroid to come the next day before nine o'clock in the morning.
Remembering Monsieur Alain's injunction to parsimony in his personal expenses, Godefroid dined for twenty-five sous in the rue de Tournon, and was rewarded for his abnegation by finding himself in the midst of compositors and pressmen.He heard a discussion on costs of manufacturing, and learned that an edition of one thousand copies of an octavo volume of forty sheets did not cost more than thirty sous a copy, in the best style of printing.He resolved to ascertain the price at which publishers of law books sold their volumes, so as to be prepared for a discussion with the men who held Monsieur Bernard in their clutches if he should have to meet them.
Towards seven in the evening he returned to the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, by way of the rue de Vaugiraud and the rue de l'Ouest, and he saw then how deserted the quarter was, for he met no one.It is true that the cold was rigorous, and the snow fell in great flakes, the wheels of the carriages making no noise upon the pavements.
"Ah, here you are, monsieur!" said Madame Vauthier."If I had known you were coming home so early I would have made your fire.""I don't want one," said Godefroid, seeing that the widow followed him."I shall spend the evening in Monsieur Bernard's apartment.""Well, well! you must be his cousin, if you are hand and glove like that! Perhaps monsieur will finish now the little conversation we began.""Ah, yes!--about that four hundred francs.Look here, my good Madame Vauthier, you are trying to see which way the cat jumps, and you'll tumble yourself between two stools.As for me, you have betrayed me, and made me miss the whole affair.""Now, don't think that, my dear monsieur.To-morrow, while you breakfast--""To-morrow I shall not breakfast here.I am going out, like your authors, at cock-crow."Godefroid's antecedents, his life as a man of the world and a journalist, served him in this, that he felt quite sure, unless he took this tone, that Barbet's spy would warn the old publisher of danger, and probably lead to active measures under which Monsieur Bernard would before long be arrested; whereas, if he left the trio of harpies to suppose that their scheme ran no risk of defeat, they would keep quiet.
But Godefroid did not yet know Parisian human nature when embodied in a Vauthier.That woman resolved to have Godefroid's money and Barbet's too.She instantly ran off to her proprietor, while Godefroid changed his clothes in order to present himself properly before the daughter of Monsieur Bernard.