Part 59

“A truckle-bed will be wanted for the person to sleep upon,” Mme. Cantinet came to tell Schmucke.

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.

“Dake it all and leaf me to mein prayers and tears,” he said, and knelt.

Mme. Sauvage went to Fraisier with the news of Pons’ death. Fraisier took a cab and went to the Presidente. To-morrow she must give him the power of attorney to enable him to act for the heirs.

Another hour went by, and Mme. Cantinet came again to Schmucke.

“I have been to Mme. Cibot, sir, who knows all about things here,” she said. “I asked her to tell me where everything is kept. But she almost jawed me to death with her abuse.... Sir, do listen to me....”

Schmucke looked up at the woman, and she went on, innocent of any barbarous intention, for women of her class are accustomed to take the worst of moral suffering passively, as a matter of course.

“We must have linen for the shroud, sir, we must have money to buy a truckle-bed for the person to sleep upon, and some things for the kitchen--plates, and dishes, and glasses, for a priest will be coming to pass the night here, and the person says that there is absolutely nothing in the kitchen.”

“And what is more, sir, I must have coal and firing if I am to get the dinner ready,” echoed La Sauvage, “and not a thing can I find. Not that there is anything so very surprising in that, as La Cibot used to do everything for you--”

Schmucke lay at the feet of the dead; he heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing. Mme. Cantinet pointed to him. “My dear woman, you would not believe me,” she said. “Whatever you say, he does not answer.”

“Very well, child,” said La Sauvage; “now I will show you what to do in a case of this kind.”

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. “I will count it first and take enough to buy everything we want--wine, provisions, wax-candles, all sorts of things, in fact, for there is nothing in the house.... Just look in the drawers for a sheet to bury him in. I certainly was told that the poor gentleman was simple, but I don’t know what he is; he is worse. He is like a new-born child; we shall have to feed him with a funnel.”

The women went about their work, and Schmucke looked on precisely as an idiot might have done. Broken down with sorrow, wholly absorbed, in a half-cataleptic state, he could not take his eyes from the face that seemed to fascinate him, Pons’ face refined by the absolute repose of Death. Schmucke hoped to die; everything was alike indifferent. If the room had been on fire he would not have stirred.

“There are twelve hundred and fifty francs here,” La Sauvage told him.

Schmucke shrugged his shoulders.

But when La Sauvage came near to measure the body by laying the sheet over it, before cutting out the shroud, a horrible struggle ensued between her and the poor German. Schmucke was furious. He behaved like a dog that watches by his dead master’s body, and shows his teeth at all who try to touch it. La Sauvage grew impatient. She grasped him, set him in the armchair, and held him down with herculean strength.

“Go on, child; sew him in his shroud,” she said, turning to Mme. Cantinet.

As soon as this operation was completed, La Sauvage set Schmucke back in his place at the foot of the bed.

“Do you understand?” said she. “The poor dead man lying there must be done up, there is no help for it.”

Schmucke began to cry. The women left him and took possession of the kitchen, whither they brought all the necessaries in a very short time. 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! A fat goose (the cobbler’s pheasant) by way of a substantial roast, an omelette with preserves, a salad, and the inevitable broth--the quantities of the ingredients for this last being so excessive that the soup was more like a strong meat-jelly.

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. In the death-chamber Schmucke was lying with his arms about the body of his friend, holding him in a tight clasp; nothing but the authority of religion availed to separate him from his dead. Then the priest settled himself comfortably in the easy-chair and read his prayers while Schmucke, kneeling beside the couch, besought God to work a miracle and unite him to Pons, so that they might be buried in the same grave; and Mme. Cantinet went on her way to the Temple to buy a pallet and complete bedding for Mme. Sauvage. The twelve hundred and fifty francs were regarded as plunder. At eleven o’clock Mme. Cantinet came in to ask if Schmucke would not eat a morsel, but with a gesture he signified that he wished to be left in peace.

“Your supper is ready, M. Pastelot,” she said, addressing the priest, and they went.

Schmucke, left alone in the room, smiled to himself like a madman free at last to gratify a desire like the longing of pregnancy. He flung himself down beside Pons, and yet again he held his friend in a long, close embrace. At midnight the priest came back and scolded him, and Schmucke returned to his prayers. At daybreak the priest went, and at seven o’clock in the morning the doctor came to see Schmucke, and spoke kindly and tried hard to persuade him to eat, but the German refused.

“If you do not eat now you will feel very hungry when you come back,” the doctor told him, “for you must go to the mayor’s office and take a witness with you, so that the registrar may issue a certificate of death.”

“I must go!” cried Schmucke in frightened tones.