Part 125

“Lisbeth, give up all notions of revenge. Be kind to that family to whom I have left by my will everything I can dispose of. Go, child, though you are the only creature who, at this hour, does not avoid me with horror--go, I beseech you, and leave me.--I have only time to make my peace with God!”

“She is wandering in her wits,” said Lisbeth to herself, as she left the room.

The strongest affection known, that of a woman for a woman, had not such heroic constancy as the Church. Lisbeth, stifled by the miasma, went away. She found the physicians still in consultation. But Bianchon’s opinion carried the day, and the only question now was how to try the remedies.

“At any rate, we shall have a splendid post-mortem,” said one of his opponents, “and there will be two cases to enable us to make comparisons.”

Lisbeth went in again with Bianchon, who went up to the sick woman without seeming aware of the malodorous atmosphere.

“Madame,” said he, “we intend to try a powerful remedy which may save you--”

“And if you save my life,” said she, “shall I be as good-looking as ever?”

“Possibly,” said the judicious physician.

“I know your possibly,” said Valerie. “I shall look like a woman who has fallen into the fire! No, leave me to the Church. I can please no one now but God. I will try to be reconciled to Him, and that will be my last flirtation; yes, I must try to come round God!”

“That is my poor Valerie’s last jest; that is all herself!” said Lisbeth in tears.

Lisbeth thought it her duty to go into Crevel’s room, where she found Victorin and his wife sitting about a yard away from the stricken man’s bed.

“Lisbeth,” said he, “they will not tell me what state my wife is in; you have just seen her--how is she?”

“She is better; she says she is saved,” replied Lisbeth, allowing herself this play on the word to soothe Crevel’s mind.

“That is well,” said the Mayor. “I feared lest I had been the cause of her illness. A man is not a traveler in perfumery for nothing; I had blamed myself.--If I should lose her, what would become of me? On my honor, my children, I worship that woman.”

He sat up in bed and tried to assume his favorite position.

“Oh, Papa!” cried Celestine, “if only you could be well again, I would make friends with my stepmother--I make a vow!”

“Poor little Celestine!” said Crevel, “come and kiss me.”

Victorin held back his wife, who was rushing forward.

“You do not know, perhaps,” said the lawyer gently, “that your disease is contagious, monsieur.”

“To be sure,” replied Crevel. “And the doctors are quite proud of having rediscovered in me some long lost plague of the Middle Ages, which the Faculty has had cried like lost property--it is very funny!”

“Papa,” said Celestine, “be brave, and you will get the better of this disease.”

“Be quite easy, my children; Death thinks twice of it before carrying off a Mayor of Paris,” said he, with monstrous composure. “And if, after all, my district is so unfortunate as to lose a man it has twice honored with its suffrages--you see, what a flow of words I have!--Well, I shall know how to pack up and go. I have been a commercial traveler; I am experienced in such matters. Ah! my children, I am a man of strong mind.”

“Papa, promise me to admit the Church--”

“Never,” replied Crevel. “What is to be said? I drank the milk of Revolution; I have not Baron Holbach’s wit, but I have his strength of mind. I am more Regence than ever, more Musketeer, Abbe Dubois, and Marechal de Richelieu! By the Holy Poker!--My wife, who is wandering in her head, has just sent me a man in a gown--to me! the admirer of Beranger, the friend of Lisette, the son of Voltaire and Rousseau.--The doctor, to feel my pulse, as it were, and see if sickness had subdued me--‘You saw Monsieur l’Abbe?’ said he.--Well, I imitated the great Montesquieu. Yes, I looked at the doctor--see, like this,” and he turned to show three-quarters face, like his portrait, and extended his hand authoritatively--“and I said:

“The slave was here, He showed his order, but he nothing gained.

“His order is a pretty jest, showing that even in death Monsieur le President de Montesquieu preserved his elegant wit, for they had sent him a Jesuit. I admire that passage--I cannot say of his life, but of his death--the passage--another joke!--The passage from life to death--the Passage Montesquieu!”

Victorin gazed sadly at his father-in-law, wondering whether folly and vanity were not forces on a par with true greatness of soul. The causes that act on the springs of the soul seem to be quite independent of the results. Can it be that the fortitude which upholds a great criminal is the same as that which a Champcenetz so proudly walks to the scaffold?

By the end of the week Madame Crevel was buried, after dreadful sufferings; and Crevel followed her within two days. Thus the marriage-contract was annulled. Crevel was heir to Valerie.