The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 91

"Where is it?"

"To the left."

Philippe Goulenoire put the letter into a slit in an iron chest below a loophole window.

"The devil!" thought he. "It is evident that the King comes here, for as many precautions are observed as he takes at Le Plessis."

He waited in the street about a quarter of an hour longer. At the end of that time he heard the old man say to his sister:

"Shut the traps inside the door."

Then a clatter of chains and iron echoed through the porch. Philippe heard bolts drawn and locks creak; finally a small, low door, sheathed with iron, opened so as to afford the smallest c.h.i.n.k through which a man might squeeze. At the risk of tearing his clothes, Philippe crept rather than walked into the Malemaison. A toothless old woman with a face like a fiddle, and eyebrows like the handles of a caldron, who could not have put a nut between the tip of her nose and her chin, colorless, sallow, with hollow temples and an appearance of being constructed of nothing but bone and sinew, silently led the stranger into a low sitting-room, while Cornelius prudently kept in the rear.

"Be seated there," said she to Philippe, pointing to a three-legged stool that stood in the corner of a huge chimney-place of carved stone, though there was no fire on the hearth.

On the opposite side of this fireplace was a walnut-wood table with twisted legs, on which there were an egg in a plate and ten or twelve hard strips of dry bread cut with parsimonious exact.i.tude. Two stools, on one of which the old woman seated herself, showed that the good folks were in the act of supping.

Cornelius went to close two iron shutters, protecting the peepholes, no doubt, through which they had so long been gazing into the street; then he came back to his place. Philippe, as he called himself, now saw the brother and sister take it in turns, with perfect gravity, to dip a strip of bread into the egg, with the same precision as soldiers use in dipping their spoon into the tin pot; but they scarcely colored them, in order that the egg might last out the full allowance of strips of bread. This was performed in perfect silence.

While he ate, Cornelius studied the sham apprentice with as much care and shrewdness as if he had been made of gold bezants. Philippe, feeling an icy cloak fall on his shoulders, was tempted to look about him; but, with the prudence born of a love-adventure, he took care not to cast even a furtive glance at the walls, for he was well aware that if Cornelius saw him in the act he would not keep an inquisitive man in the house. So he restricted himself to fixing a modest eye now on the egg, now on the old maid, and anon he contemplated his future master.

Louis' treasurer resembled that monarch; he had even caught some of his tricks, as not unfrequently happens when people live together in intimacy.

The Fleming's thick eyebrows almost hid his eyes; but when he raised them a little his glance was bright, penetrating, and full of energy,--the look of men who are used to be silent, and to whom concentration of mind is a familiar habit. His thin lips, finely puckered with upright lines, gave him a keenly subtle expression. The lower part of his face, indeed, vaguely suggested a fox's muzzle; still, a lofty and prominent brow, deeply furrowed, seemed to reveal some great and fine qualities,--a n.o.ble soul whose flights had been checked by experience, while the bitter lessons of life had quenched it and thrust it down into the deepest secret places of this strange being. He was certainly no ordinary miser, and his pa.s.sion no doubt covered intense joys and secret conceptions.

"At what rate are Venetian sequins doings?" he suddenly asked his intending apprentice.

"At three-quarters, at Bruges; at one, at Ghent."

"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"

"Three sous _Parisis_."

"Nothing new in Ghent?"

"Lieven d'Herde's brother is ruined."

"Indeed!"

After allowing this exclamation to escape him, the old man covered his knees with the skirt of his dalmatic, a sort of robe of black velvet in front, with wide sleeves and no collar. The magnificent material was shiny with wear. This relic of the handsome dress he had been wont to wear as president of the tribunal of _Parchons_--a position which had brought upon him the Duke of Burgundy's enmity--was no more than a rag.

Philippe was not cold; he was bathed in sweat, trembling lest he should be required to answer any further questions. So far the brief information he had extracted the day before from a Jew, whose life he had once saved, had proved sufficient, thanks to his good memory, and to the Jew's thorough knowledge of the money-lender's manners and habits. But the young gentleman who, in the first flush of enterprise, had been full of confidence, now began to perceive the many difficulties of the business. The terrible Fleming's solemn gravity and perfect coolness were telling on him. And besides, he felt himself under lock and key, and could picture all the Provost's cords at Maitre Cornelius' command.

"Have you supped?" said the miser, in a tone which plainly meant "Do not sup."

In spite of her brother's tone the old woman was startled; she looked at their young inmate as if to gauge the capacity of the stomach she would be expected to fill, and then said with a false smile:

"You have not got your name for nothing, for your hair and moustache are blacker than the devil's tail."

"I have supped," replied he.

"Very well," said the miser; "then come to see me again to-morrow. I have long been accustomed to dispense with the services of an apprentice.

Besides, the night brings good counsel."

"Nay, by Saint-Bavon! monsieur, I am from Flanders. I know n.o.body here, the chains are up. I shall be cast into prison. However," he added, frightened at the eagerness with which he had spoken, "of course, if it suits your convenience, I will go."

The oath had a strange effect on the old Fleming.

"Well, well. By Saint-Bavon! you shall sleep here."

"But----" his sister began in dismay.

"Silence," said Cornelius. "Oosterlinck, in his letter, answers for this youth. Have we not a hundred thousand livres in hand belonging to Oosterlinck?" he whispered in her ear; "and is not that good security?"

"And supposing he were to steal the Bavarian jewels? He looks far more like a thief than a Fleming."

"Hark!" exclaimed the old man, listening.

The two misers listened. Vaguely, an instant after the hush, a noise of men's steps was heard, far away on the further side of the city moat.

"It is the round of the watch at Le Plessis," said the sister.

"Come, give me the key of the apprentice's room," Cornelius went on.

The old maid was about to take up the lamp.

"What, are you going to leave us together without a light?" cried Cornelius, with evident meaning. "Cannot you move about in the dark at your age? Is it so difficult to find that key?"

The old woman understood the meaning behind these words, and went away.

As he looked after this extraordinary creature, just as she reached the door, Philippe Goulenoire could cast a furtive glance round the room un.o.bserved by his master. It was wainscoted with oak half-way up, and the walls were hung with yellow leather, patterned with black; but what most struck him was a firelock musket with its long spring dagger attached. This new and terrible weapon lay close by Cornelius.

"How do you propose to earn your living?" asked the usurer.

"I have but little money," replied Goulenoire, "but I know some good trade recipes. If you will give me no more than a sou on every mark I earn for you, I shall be content."

"A sou! a sou!" cried the miser; "but that is a great deal."

Hereupon the old hag came in again.

"Come," said Cornelius to Philippe.

They went out into the entrance, and mounted a newel stair that ran up a turret close by the side of the living-room. On the first floor the young man paused.

"Nay, nay," said Cornelius. "The devil! why, these are the premises where the King takes his pleasure."

The architect had constructed the lodging for the apprentice under the conical roof of the staircase tower. It was a small circular room, with stone walls, cold and devoid of ornament. This tower stood in the middle of the front to the courtyard, which, as usual in provincial towns, was narrow and dark. Beyond and through the iron gratings of an arcade, there was a meagre garden, or rather a mulberry orchard, tended no doubt by Cornelius himself.

All this the youth could see through the loopholes in the turret, by the light of the moon, which happily shone brightly. A truckle-bed, a stool, a stone pitcher, and a rickety chest formed the furniture of this cage. The light was admitted through tiny square slits at regular intervals below the outer cornice of the structure, forming its ornamentation, no doubt, in character with this pleasing style of architecture.