Cousin Pons

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘That man is as soft as butter!’ said the justice of the peace, pointing to Schmucke, who was taking a last look from the courtyard at the windows of the flat.

  ‘Yes, the whole affair is nicely wrapped up!’ replied Fraisier. ‘You can marry your grand-daughter to Poulain without misgivings: he will be chief medical officer in the Hospital for the Blind.’

  ‘We’ll see about it!… Good-bye, Monsieur Fraisier,’ said the justice of the peace with a friendly air.

  ‘He knows his way about,’ said the clerk. ‘He’ll get on, that shyster.’

  Eleven o’clock struck. The old German mechanically trudged along the road he used to take with Pons. He was thinking of Pons; he could see him all the time; he believed he was walking along at his side. He arrived in front of the theatre, from which his friend Topinard was just emerging; the latter had been cleaning the standard lamps and musing over his employer’s tyranny.

  ‘Ah! tchust ze sink!’ cried Schmucke, and he stopped the poor-odd-job-man. ‘Topinard, you haf somevere to lif, haf you not?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Schmucke.’

  ‘You haf a house unt family?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Schmucke.’

  ‘Vill you take me in ass a lotcher? Oh, I vill pay you veil, I haf nine hundret francs a year… Unt I haf not lonk to lif… All I neet is to smoke my pipe… Unt ass you are ze only person who mournet for Pons, I lof you.’

  ‘Monsieur Schmucke, I should be very pleased; but to begin with, I’ve just had a good wigging from Monsieur Gaudissart.’

  ‘Vikkink?’

  ‘That’s to say he gave me a rare dressing-down.’

  ‘Tressink-town?’

  ‘He gave me a scolding for taking an interest in you… so we should have to be very careful if you came to live with us. But I doubt whether you’d stay long; you don’t know what sort of home a poor wretch like me has to live in.’

  ‘I like pesser ze simple home of a goot-heartet man who mournet for Pons zan I shoult ze Kink’s palace viz men who haf ze facess of tigerss. I haf tchust come from Pons’s flat vere zere are tigerss who vill defour eferysink!’

  ‘Come along, Monsieur,’ said the stagehand, ‘and you’ll see what it’s like; but all the same… Anyway, there’s an attic… Let’s go and ask my wife.’

  Schmucke followed Topinard like a sheep, and was led into one of those frightful slums which might be called the plague-spots of Paris. It is known as the Cité Bordin and consists of a narrow passage lined with the sort of houses that speculators build. It runs into that part of the rue de Bondy which is overshadowed by the immense block in which the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre is situated, and this too is one of the eye-sores of Paris. This passage is on a lower level than the rue de Bondy and dips down steeply towards the rue des Mathurins-du-Temple. The Cité Bordin merges into an inner street running across it and forming a ‘T’. Such is the layout of these two alleys which are enclosed between some thirty houses rising to six or seven storeys. The inner courts and all the buildings around them contain warehouses, workshops and factories of all kinds. It is like a miniature Faubourg Saint-Antoine where cabinet-makers, workers in brass, theatre costumiers, glassblowers and painters of porcelain ply their trades. There in fact the whole variety of fancy goods known as l’article Paris is produced. Dirty but productive like industry itself, always thronged with people coming and going, with barrows and handcarts, this passage is a revolting sight, and its teeming population matches the locality and the objects within it: here dwells the factory population, intelligent in the use of its hands, but with no intelligence to spare for other things. Topinard lived in this flourishing industrial area because the rents were low. He had a flat in the second tenement on the left as one enters. It was a sixth-floor flat and looked on to the belt of gardens which have survived because they belong to the three or four large mansions situated in the rue de Bondy.

  Topinard’s abode comprised a kitchen and two bedrooms. The children slept in the first of these, which contained two small deal beds and a swing-cot, and the Topinards had the second as their marital chamber. The family took its meals in the kitchen. Overhead was a false attic, six feet high, with a zinc roof and a hinged skylight for a window. Access to it was provided by a flight of deal steps, of the sort known in builders’ parlance as a ‘miller’s ladder’. This garret, designated as a servant’s bedroom, enabled Topinard’s lodging to count as a self-contained flat at a rental of four hundred francs a year. At the entrance, masking the kitchen, was an arched lobby, lighted by a bull’s-eye window looking through into the kitchen – a space enclosed between three doors, those of the kitchen, the first bedroom and the landing. These three rooms had brick floors, hideous wallpaper which had cost six sous a roll; and, for additional adornment, the fireplaces were topped with ogee-moulding and covered with a coat of cheap, drab paint. They accommodated a family of five, three of them children. And any visitor could discern the deep scratches on the walls, made by the children as high up as their arms could reach.

  *

  No rich people would believe it possible to manage with so simple an array of kitchen utensils: a cooking-stove, a cauldron, a gridiron, a stew-pan, two or three jugs and a frying-pan. The brown and white earthenware dishes and plates were worth about twelve francs. One table served both as kitchen and dining-table. The furniture consisted of two chairs and two stools. Under the hooded stove was a supply of charcoal and wood. In one corner was the tub in which the family linen was washed, often at night. The children’s bedroom, across which clothes-lines were stretched, was gaudy with theatre-posters and prints cut out of newspapers or illustrated prospectuses. Evidently the elder Topinard boy, whose school-books were piled in a corner, took charge of the house from six o’clock onwards, when his parents were on duty in the theatre. In many working-class families, as soon as a child reaches the age of six or seven, he acts as mother to his brothers and sisters.

  This rapid sketch will indicate that the Topinards were, to use the stock phrase, ‘poor but honest’. Topinard was almost forty; his wife, once a leading chorus-girl and the mistress, it was said, of the bankrupt director whom Gaudissart had succeeded, was probably about thirty. Lolotte had been quite a beauty, but the woes of the previous management had affected her so badly that she had found it necessary to contract a stage marriage with Topinard. She did not doubt that, as soon as the family had a hundred and fifty francs to its credit, Topinard would regularize their union, if only to legitimize the children whom he adored. In free moments during the mornings, Madame Topinard did sewing for the theatre wardrobe. By dint of tremendous effort these courageous theatre hands were able to make about nine hundred francs a year.

  ‘Only one more flight!’ Topinard kept saying, once they had reached the third floor, but Schmucke was so steeped in his grief that he was not even aware whether he was going up or down.

  As Topinard, dressed in the white linen coat which all stagehands wear to work, opened the kitchen door, Madame Topinard’s voice could be heard crying:

  ‘Less noise, children! Here’s papa!’

  And, since the children clearly did what they liked with papa, the eldest continued to head a cavalry charge – a reminiscence of the Olympic Circus – riding on a broomstick, while the second went on blowing her tin trumpet, and the third toddled behind the main body of the army as best he could! Their mother was stitching a theatre costume.

  ‘Quiet now!’ shouted Topinard in a fearsome voice, ‘or you’ll get a good beating!… Always have to tell them that,’ he added under his breath to Schmucke. ‘Look, my love,’ he said to his wife, ‘this is Monsieur Schmucke, the friend of our poor Monsieur Pons. He has nowhere to go and would like to come and stay with us. It’s no use telling him we’re not very smart, we live on the sixth floor, and we’ve only an attic to offer him. He’s bent on it…’

  Schmucke was sitting on a chair which Lolotte had brought forward. The children, abashed by the arrival of a stranger, had huddled together in or
der to carry out that close, mute and short-lived scrutiny characteristic of children – like dogs who trust more to their olfactory sense than to their judgement. Schmucke began to study this attractive group, which included a little girl of five with beautiful fair hair – the one who had been blowing the trumpet.

  ‘She iss tchust like a little Tcherman girl!’ said Schmucke, beckoning her forward.

  ‘Monsieur Schmucke would be very uncomfortable in the attic,’ said the box-attendant. ‘If I didn’t have to be near the children I’d be glad to offer him our room.’

  She opened her bedroom door and showed him in. All the luxury of the flat was contained in this room. The mahogany bed was adorned with blue calico hangings with white fringes. Similar blue calico, draped into curtains, decorated the window. The chest-of-drawers, the writing desk, the chairs, all in mahogany, were clean and tidy. On the mantelpiece stood a clock and candelabra, evidently presented in former days by the bankrupt manager, whose portrait, a frightful daub by Pierre Grassou, hung over the chest-of-drawers. The children, who were forbidden to enter this sanctuary, tried to peer inside to satisfy their curiosity.

  ‘Monsieur would be comfortable in here,’ said Madame Topinard.

  ‘No! No!’ replied Schmucke. ‘Vy, I shall not lif lonk. I vant nossink more zen a corner to tie in.’

  They closed the bedroom door and climbed up to the garret. The moment Schmucke entered, he exclaimed:

  ‘Tchust vat I vantet!… Pefore I lift viz Pons, I hat no pesser lotchink zen zis.’

  ‘Well then, all we need is to buy a camp bed, a couple of mattresses, a bolster, a pillow, a couple of chairs and a table. It’s not going to break our backs, that… It might cost fifty crowns, with the wash-basin, water-jug and a little bedside rug.’

  All was settled. But where were the fifty crowns to come from? Realizing he was only within a stone’s-throw of the theatre, Schmucke naturally thought of going and asking the director for his salary, since he perceived how needy his friends were…

  He went straight to the theatre and found Gaudissart there. The director welcomed him with the somewhat strained courtesy he reserved for his artistes, and was astonished when Schmucke asked him for a month’s salary. Nevertheless, he looked into this claim, and found it was a just one.

  ‘Devil take it, old chap!’ said the director. ‘Germans are always good at reckoning up, even with their eyes full of tears… I thought you might have appreciated my little gift to you of a thousand francs – your salary for one final year – and that would have made us quits!’

  ‘Ve haf nossink receift,’ said the good German. ‘Unt if I haf come to you it iss pecausse I haf been srown out on to ze street vizout a farzink… To whom haf you gifen ze money?’

  ‘To your concierge.’

  ‘Matame Cipot!’ cried the musician. ‘Zat voman hass killt Pons. She hass ropt him. She solt his pictures. She iss a vicket monster!’

  ‘But, my dear man, how does it come about that you are penniless, thrown out, with no roof to your head, when you are Pons’s sole heir? Surely that doesn’t make sense?’

  ‘I haf peen put out off ze flat… I am a Tcherman… I to not unterstant ze lawss.’

  ‘Poor old devil!’ thought Gaudissart, foreseeing the probable outcome of so unequal a contest. ‘Listen, do you know what you ought to do?’

  ‘I haf a lekal atchent.’

  ‘Very well, make an immediate settlement with the Camusots. You’ll get a capital sum and an annuity, and you can live in peace.’

  ‘Zet iss all I vant!’ said Schmucke.

  ‘Very good. Let me arrange that for you,’ said Gaudissart, whom Fraisier had told of his scheme the previous evening.

  *

  Gaudissart hoped to gain favour with the young Vicomtesse Popinot and her mother by helping this shady piece of business to go through. Thus, he thought, he would be at least a Councillor of State one day.

  ‘I leaf it all in your hants…’

  ‘Right! That’s the spirit! Now, first of all,’ said the Napoleon of the boulevard theatres, ‘here are a hundred crowns.’

  He took three hundred francs from his purse and offered them to the musician.

  ‘These are yours : six months’ salary. Later on you can repay me if you leave the theatre. Now let’s work things out. How much do you spend a year? How much do you need to be comfortable? Come now, you don’t live like Sardanapalus!’

  ‘All I neet iss von set of cloze for ze vinter unt von for ze sommer.’

  ‘Three hundred francs!’ said Gaudissart.

  ‘Unt shoes – four pairs.’

  ‘Sixty francs.’

  ‘Stockinks.’

  ‘A dozen pairs – thirty-six francs.’

  ‘Six shirts.’

  ‘Six calico shirts, twenty-four francs. Six linen shirts, forty-eight. That’s seventy-two francs. We’ve got to four hundred and sixty-eight francs. Let’s say five hundred with ties and handkerchiefs. Laundry a hundred francs… six hundred francs in all. And now, what about living costs? Three francs a day?’

  ‘No. It iss too moch.’

  ‘And then you need hats too… That makes fifteen hundred francs plus five hundred for your rent. Would you like me to get you two thousand francs’ income for life – absolutely guaranteed?’

  ‘Unt my topacco?’

  ‘Two thousand four hundred francs! Oh, Papa Schmucke, is it really tobacco you mean?… All right, we’ll throw in the tobacco… And so, two thousand four hundred francs for life.’

  ‘Zet iss not all. I vant some reaty money.’

  ‘Pocket-money too! Well, well! And these Germans are supposed to be so simple! The old bandit!’ thought Gaudissart. Then, out loud, he asked:

  ‘How much do you want? And mind you, that’s the lot.’

  ‘It iss so zet I can pay a sacret tet.’

  ‘A debt!’ thought Gaudissart. ‘The old swindler! He’s worse than a prodigal son! He’ll soon be inventing bills of exchange which have to be met. I must put a stop to this. That fellow Fraisier doesn’t do things on a lavish scale… Well, old chap, what debt? Tell me…’

  ‘Zere iss only von man who hass vept viz me for Pons. He hass a lofely little girl viz vonterful hair. Ven I lookt at her I sought I vass lookink on the tchenius of my Vaterlant. I shoult nefer haf left it… Paris is not kint to Tchermans… Zey make fon of us.’ As he said this he gave the wise little nod of a man who has got to the heart of things in this sad world.

  ‘He’s quite mad!’ thought Gaudissart; but, out of pity for this simpleton, his eyes moistened.

  ‘Ah: I see you unterstant me, Monsieur le Tirecteur. Vell, zis man viz ze little girl iss Topinard who serfs ze orchestra unt lights ze lamps. Pons loft him unt helpt him, unt he alone followet my poor frient’s coffin to the church unt the cemetery… Vell, I vant sree sousant francs for him unt sree sousant francs for ze little, girl.’

  ‘The poor man!’ thought Gaudissart.

  This unrelenting self-seeker was moved at the sight of such nobility, such gratitude for what the world would regard as a trifle; but it was something which, in the estimation of the tender-souled Schmucke, like Bossuet’s glass of water, weighed more than the victories of military conquerors. Gaudissart, despite all his worldliness, despite his ruthless determination to climb and lift himself to the social level of his friend Popinot, had, at bottom, a good nature and a kind heart. And so he cast aside the rash judgements he had passed on Schmucke and decided to help him.

  ‘All that you shall have! But I’ll go even further, my dear Schmucke. Topinard is an honest man.’

  ‘Yes. I haf tchust seen him in his wretchet hofel, unt he iss happy viz his chiltren.’

  ‘I’ll give him the post of theatre cashier, since old Baudrand is leaving.’

  ‘Ah! May Gott gif you hiss plessink!’ cried Schmucke.

  ‘Very well, my good, worthy friend. Come this afternoon, at four, to the office of Monsieur Berthier the notary. Everything will be ready, and you’
ll be free from care for the rest of your life… You’ll get your six thousand francs, and you will carry on, with Garangeot, at the same salary, the work you did with Pons.’

  ‘No, sank you,’ said Schmucke. ‘I shall not lif lonk enough… I haf no heart now for anysink… All my shtrengts hass gone.’

  ‘As innocent as a lamb!’ thought Gaudissart, as he showed Schmucke out and said good-bye to him. ‘But after all, we live on lamb cutlets… And, as that great poet Béranger wrote,

  Alas! poor sheep! You always will be sheared!’

  And he set to humming this tendentious ditty, the better to get over his emotion. Then:

  ‘Bring up my carriage,’ he said to his office messenger, and, going down to the street, he told the driver:

  ‘Rue de Hanovre.’

  He was all ambition once more, and clearly saw himself already as a member of the Council of State.

  *

  At this moment Schmucke was buying flowers. Feeling almost cheerful, he took them back with him, and also some cakes, for the Topinard children.

  ‘I am gifing pressents!’ he said with a smile: the first smile which had appeared on his face for three months – but anyone who had seen it would have trembled for him.

  ‘I gif zese sinks on von contition!’

  ‘You’re very kind, Monsieur Schmucke,’ said the mother.

  ‘Ze little girl vill gif me a kiss unt put ze flowers in her hair, unt make a garlent off zem like a little Tcherman girl!’

  ‘Olga, my girl, do what the gentleman tells you,’ said Lolotte sternly.

  ‘To not scolt my little Tcherman maiten!’ cried Schmucke, for whom this child was a personification of his beloved country.

  Topinard came in.

  ‘We three commissionaires,’ he grumbled, ‘have to keep the whole theatre going!’

  ‘Ah!’ said the German. ‘My frient, here are two hundret francs to pay for eferysink… Put you haf such a goot little voman, you vill marry her, von’t you? I shall gif you sree sousant francs. Your little girl vill also haf sree sousant francs for her dowry unt you vill make an infestment for her. Unt you vill no more pe a seatre hant : you vill pe ze seatre cashier!’