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He is a collector, a millionaire, one of the most impassioned souls upon earth; he and his like are capable of treading the miry ways that lead to the police-court if so they may gain possession of a cup, a picture, or some such rare unpublished piece as Elie Magus once picked up one memorable day in Germany. This was the expert to whom Remonencq with much mystery conducted La Cibot.
The rest of the rooms on the ground floor were given up to Magus' daughter, the child of his old age, a Jewess as beautiful as a Jewess can be when the Semitic type reappears in its purity and nobility in a daughter of Israel.
"Oh! as to pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector, one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of picture-lovers," the Count replied modestly. "And when I say nobody, I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe. When the old Croesus dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy the gallery.
According to the Greek historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him after a brief struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course of events must have been very different.
Pons' idea had occurred to Magus twenty years later; but as a dealer-amateur the door of Pons' museum had been closed to him, as for Dusommerard. Pons and Magus had at heart the same jealousy. Neither of them cared about the kind of celebrity dear to the ordinary collector. And now for Elie Magus came his chance to see the poor musician's treasures!
A Don Juan among fair works of art, a worshiper of the Ideal, Elie Magus had discovered joys that transcend the pleasure of a miser gloating over his gold he lived in a seraglio of great paintings. His masterpieces were housed as became the children of princes; the whole first floor of the great old mansion was given up to them.
No great sales, therefore, took place but Elie Magus was there; every mart knew him; he traveled all over Europe. The ice-cold, money-worshiping soul in him kindled at the sight of a perfect work of art, precisely as a libertine, weary of fair women, is roused from apathy by the sight of a beautiful girl, and sets out afresh upon the quest of flawless loveliness.
If God sent Korah and his company headlong to hell for speaking against Moses and Aaron, do you that mock at the Spirit of Christ think to escape unpunished? Did you never read what God did to Ananias and Sapphira for telling but one lie against it? Also to Simon Magus for but undervaluing of it?
I found her shocked and horrified at the doubts which this potent Magus had summoned from the pit doubts which she knew not how to combat, and from the torment of which she could not escape. "He has made me very miserable with his deceitful questions. I never thought of them before; and, merciful Heaven! I cannot answer them! What am I to do? My serenity is gone; I shall never be happy again."
"Why, if you will promise to marry me within a year of widowhood, I will undertake to get twenty thousand francs for it from Elie Magus; and unless you marry me you will never get a thousand francs for the picture." "Why not?" "Because you would be obliged to give a receipt for the money, and then you might have a lawsuit with the heirs-at-law.
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