As he went downstairs Cerizet was surprised to see, through one of the small round windows, an old man, evidently du Portail, walking in the garden with a very important member of the government, Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon. He stopped in the courtyard when he reached it, as if to examine the old house, built in the reign of Louis XIV., the yellow walls of which, though of freestone, were bent like the elderly beggar they contained. Then he looked at the workshops, and counted the workmen. The house was otherwise as silent as a cloister. Being observed himself, Cerizet departed, thinking over in his mind the various difficulties that might arise in extracting the sum hidden beneath the dying man.
"Carry off all that gold at night?" he said to himself; "why, those porters will be on the watch, and twenty persons might see us! It is hard work to carry even twenty-five thousand francs of gold on one's person."Societies have two goals of perfection; the first is a state of civilization in which morality equally infused and pervasive does not admit even the idea of crime; the Jesuits reached that point, formerly presented by the primitive Church. The second is the state of another civilization in which the supervision of citizens over one another makes crime impossible. The end which modern society has placed before itself is the latter; namely, that in which a crime presents such difficulties that a man must abandon all reasoning in order to commit it. In fact, iniquities which the law cannot reach are not left actually unpunished, for social judgment is even more severe than that of courts. If a man like Minoret, the post-master at Nemours [see "Ursule Mirouet"] suppresses a will and no one witnesses the act, the crime is traced home to him by the watchfulness of virtue as surely as a robbery is followed up by the detective police. No wrong-doing passes actually unperceived; and wherever a lesion in rectitude takes place the scar remains. Things can be no more made to disappear than men; so carefully, in Paris especially, are articles and objects ticketed and numbered, houses watched, streets observed, places spied upon. To live at ease, crime must have a sanction like that of the Bourse; like that conceded by Cerizet's clients; who never complained of his usury, and, indeed, would have been troubled in mind if their flayer were not in his den of a Tuesday.
"Well, my dear monsieur," said Madame Perrache, the porter's wife, as he passed her lodge, "how do you find him, that friend of God, that poor man?""I am not the doctor," replied Cerizet, who now decidedly declined that role. "I am Madame Cardinal's business man. I have just advised her to have a cot-bed put up, so as to nurse her uncle night and day;though, perhaps, she will have to get a regular nurse.""I can help her," said Madame Perrache. "I nurse women in childbed.""Well, we'll see about it," said Cerizet; "I'll arrange all that. Who is the tenant on your first floor?""Monsieur du Portail. He has lodged here these thirty years. He is a man with a good income, monsieur; highly respectable, and elderly. You know people who invest in the Funds live on their incomes. He used to be in business. But it is more than eleven years now since he has been trying to restore the reason of a daughter of one of his friends, Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade. She has the best advice, I can tell you; the very first doctors in Paris; only this morning they had a consultation. But so far nothing has cured her; and they have to watch her pretty close; for sometimes she gets up and walks at night--""Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade!" exclaimed Cerizet; "are you sure of the name?""I've heard Madame Katte, her nurse, who also does the cooking, call her so a thousand times, monsieur; though, generally, neither Monsieur Bruneau, the valet, nor Madame Katte say much. It's like talking to the wall to try and get any information out of them. We have been porters here these twenty years and we've never found out anything about Monsieur du Portail yet. More than that, monsieur, he owns the little house alongside; you see the double door from here. Well, he can go out that way and receive his company too, and we know nothing about it. Our owner doesn't know anything more than we do; when people ring at that door, Monsieur Bruneau goes and opens it.""Then you didn't see the gentleman who is talking with him in the garden go by this way?""Bless me! no, that I didn't!"
"Ah!" thought Cerizet as he got into the cabriolet, "she must be the daughter of that uncle of Theodose. I wonder if du Portail can be the secret benefactor who sent money from time to time to that rascal?
Suppose I send an anonymous letter to the old fellow, warning him of the danger the barrister runs from those notes for twenty-five thousand francs?"An hour later the cot-bed had arrived for Madame Cardinal, to whom the inquisitive portress offered her services to bring her something to eat.
"Do you want to see the rector?" Madame Cardinal inquired of her uncle.
She had noticed that the arrival of the bed seemed to draw him from his somnolence.
"I want wine!" replied the pauper.
"How do you feel now, Pere Toupillier?" asked Madame Perrache, in a coaxing voice.
"I tell you I want wine," repeated the old man, with an energetic insistence scarcely to be expected of his feebleness.
"We must first find out if it is good for you, uncle," said Madame Cardinal, soothingly. "Wait till the doctor comes.""Doctor! I won't have a doctor!" cried Toupillier; "and you, what are you doing here? I don't want anybody.""My good uncle, I came to know if you'd like something tasty. I've got some nice fresh soles--hey! a bit of fried sole, with a squeeze of lemon on it?""Your fish, indeed!" cried Toupillier; "all rotten! That last you brought me, more than six weeks ago, it is there in the cupboard; you can take it away with you.""Heavens! how ungrateful sick men are!" whispered the widow Cardinal to Perrache.