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Updated: May 10, 2025
As soon as they get what they want, the dead are nothing to them." An hour later, Schmucke saw Mme. Sauvage come into the room, followed by another man in a suit of black, a workman, to all appearance. "Cantinet has been so obliging as to send this gentleman, sir," she said; "he is coffin-maker to the parish."
La Sauvage made out a preliminary statement accounting for three hundred and sixty francs, and then proceeded to prepare a dinner for four persons. And what a dinner! At nine o'clock the priest, sent by the curate to watch by the dead, came in with Cantinet, who brought four tall wax candles and some tapers.
"Do as you vill " he answered mechanically. The innocent creature for the first time in his life had seen a man die, and that man was Pons, his only friend, the one human being who understood him and loved him. "I will go and ask Mme. Cibot where the sheets are kept," said La Sauvage. "A truckle-bed will be wanted for the person to sleep upon," Mme. Cantinet came to tell Schmucke.
Cantinet. La Sauvage dashed down in such headlong haste that the stairs trembled beneath her tread. "Monsieur!" she called, and drew him aside a few paces to point out Topinard. Topinard was just going away, proud at heart to have made some return already to the man who had done him so many kindnesses.
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.
Schmucke nodded and broke out into weeping. Mme. Cantinet left the unhappy man in peace; but an hour later she came back to say: "Have you any money, sir, to pay for the things?" The look that Schmucke gave Mme. Cantinet would have disarmed the fiercest hate; it was the white, blank, peaked face of death that he turned upon her, as an explanation that met everything.
Some irresistible force drew him to Pons' chamber, but the sight of it was more than the poor man could bear; he shrank away and sat down in the dining-room, where Mme. Sauvage was busy making breakfast ready. Schmucke drew his chair to the table, but he could eat nothing. A sudden, somewhat sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the house, and Mme. Cantinet and Mme.
" And M. Duplanty suggests that you should have Mme. Cantinet " "Oh! Mme. Cantinet who lets the chairs!" exclaimed Pons. "Yes, she is an excellent creature." "She has no liking for Mme. Cibot," continued the doctor, "and she would take good care of M. Schmucke " "Send her to me, M. Duplanty . . . send her and her husband too. I shall be easy. Nothing will be stolen here."
Cantinet, and send her to you." "Do not trouble yourself," said the doctor; "I am going home, and she lives in the next house." The dying seem to struggle with Death as with an invisible assassin; in the agony at the last, as the final thrust is made, the act of dying seems to be a conflict, a hand-to-hand fight for life. Pons had reached the supreme moment.
"Very well," said the Abbe, "I am thinking of sending your Mme. Cantinet, a good and honest creature " The practical details of the care of the dead bewildered Schmucke, till he was fain to die with his friend. "He is a child," said the doctor, turning to the Abbe Duplanty. "Ein child," Schmucke repeated mechanically. "There, then," said the curate; "I will speak to Mme.
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