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You shall draw your six thousand francs, and you shall have the same salary with Garangeot that you used to have with Pons." "No," Schmucke answered. "I shall not lif.... I haf no heart for anydings; I feel that I am attacked " "Poor lamb!" Gaudissart muttered to himself as the German took his leave.
It was necessary to prove that he was as young, as fresh, and as fertile as ever, and with this object in view, in June, 1846, he began the two books which were to form the series entitled "L'Histoire des Parents Pauvres." It was first called "Le Vieux Musicien," next "Le Bonhomme Pons," and then "Le Parasite," a title on which Balzac said he had decided definitely.
The old artist understood beyond a doubt that he had been the victim of some cowardly hoax. Pons went slowly down the stairs; he could not keep back the tears. He understood that he had been turned out of the house, but why and wherefore he did not know. "I am growing too old," he told himself. "The world has a horror of old age and poverty two ugly things.
Every one, no doubt, wishes to know what became of the heroine of a story only too veracious in its details; a chronicle which, taken with its twin sister the preceding volume, La Cousine Bette, proves that Character is a great social force. You, O amateurs, connoisseurs, and dealers, will guess at once that Pons' collection is now in question.
If La Cibot was to realize her profits at once, a momentary quarrel must be worked up in some way. She began by telling Pons about her visit to the theatre, not omitting her passage at arms with Mlle. Heloise the dancer. "But why did you go?" the invalid asked for the third time. La Cibot once launched on a stream of words, he was powerless to stop her.
When Pons knew that La Cibot had robbed him, he bade farewell, like a Christian, to the pomps and vanities of Art, to his collection, to all his old friendships with the makers of so many fair things. Our forefathers counted the day of death as a Christian festival, and in something of the same spirit Pons' thoughts turned to the coming end.
She looked round the room as a thief looks in search of possible hiding-places for money; then she went straight to Pons' chest, opened the first drawer, saw the bag in which Schmucke had put the rest of the money after the sale of the pictures, and held it up before him. He nodded mechanically. "Here is money, child," said La Sauvage, turning to Mme. Cantinet.
"He heard!" the footman said. "Well, and if he did, so much the worser, or rather so much the better," retorted Madeleine. "He is an arrant skinflint." Poor Pons had lost none of the talk in the kitchen; he heard it all, even to the last word. He made his way home along the boulevards, in the same state, physical and mental, as an old woman after a desperate struggle with burglars.
"Gif you vere not here, I should die of anxiety " said Schmucke, squeezing his kind housekeeper's hand in both his own to express his confidence in her. La Cibot wiped her eyes as she went back to the invalid's room. "What is the matter, Mme. Cibot?" asked Pons. "It is M. Schmucke that has upset me; he is crying as if you were dead," said she.
"I am in treaty with this gentleman," said the representative of the firm of Sonet to another agent who came up. "Pons deceased!..." called the clerk at this moment. "Where are the witnesses?" "This way, sir," said the stone-mason's agent, this time addressing Remonencq. Schmucke stayed where he had been placed on the bench, an inert mass.