Part 64

“Willingly, sir,” said he.

“If only two more persons will come, the four corners will be filled up,” said the master of the ceremonies.

At that very moment the indefatigable representative of the firm of Sonet came up, and, closely following him, the man who remembered Pons and thought of paying him a last tribute of respect. This was a supernumerary at the theatre, the man who put out the scores on the music-stands for the orchestra. Pons had been wont to give him a five-franc piece once a month, knowing that he had a wife and family.

“Oh, Dobinard (Topinard)!” Schmucke cried out at the sight of him, “you love Bons!”

“Why, I have come to ask news of M. Pons every morning, sir.”

“Efery morning! boor Dobinard!” and Schmucke squeezed the man’s hand.

“But they took me for a relation, no doubt, and did not like my visits at all. I told them that I belonged to the theatre and came to inquire after M. Pons; but it was no good. They saw through that dodge, they said. I asked to see the poor dear man, but they never would let me come upstairs.”

“Dat apominable Zipod!” said Schmucke, squeezing Topinard’s horny hand to his heart.

“He was the best of men, that good M. Pons. Every month he use to give me five francs.... He knew that I had three children and a wife. My wife has gone to the church.”

“I shall difide mein pread mit you,” cried Schmucke, in his joy at finding at his side some one who loved Pons.

“If this gentleman will take a corner of the pall, we shall have all four filled up,” said the master of the ceremonies.

There had been no difficulty over persuading the agent for monuments. He took a corner the more readily when he was shown the handsome pair of gloves which, according to custom, was to be his property.

“A quarter to eleven! We absolutely must go down. They are waiting for us at the church.”

The six persons thus assembled went down the staircase.

The cold-blooded lawyer remained a moment to speak to the two women on the landing. “Stop here, and let nobody come in,” he said, “especially if you wish to remain in charge, Mme. Cantinet. Aha! two francs a day, you know!”

By a coincidence in nowise extraordinary in Paris, two hearses were waiting at the door, and two coffins standing under the archway; Cibot’s funeral and the solitary state in which Pons was lying was made even more striking in the street. Schmucke was the only mourner that followed Pons’ coffin; Schmucke, supported by one of the undertaker’s men, for he tottered at every step. From the Rue de Normandie to the Rue d’Orleans and the Church of Saint-Francois the two funerals went between a double row of curious onlookers for everything (as was said before) makes a sensation in the quarter. Every one remarked the splendor of the white funeral car, with a big embroidered P suspended on a hatchment, and the one solitary mourner behind it; while the cheap bier that came after it was followed by an immense crowd. Happily, Schmucke was so bewildered by the throng of idlers and the rows of heads in the windows, that he heard no remarks and only saw the faces through a mist of tears.

“Oh, it is the nutcracker!” said one, “the musician, you know--”

“Who can the pall-bearers be?”

“Pooh! play-actors.”

“I say, just look at poor old Cibot’s funeral. There is one worker the less. What a man! he could never get enough of work!”

“He never went out.”

“He never kept Saint Monday.”

“How fond he was of his wife!”

“Ah! There is an unhappy woman!”

Remonencq walked behind his victim’s coffin. People condoled with him on the loss of his neighbor.

The two funerals reached the church. Cantinet and the doorkeeper saw that no beggars troubled Schmucke. Villemot had given his word that Pons’ heir should be left in peace; he watched over his client, and gave the requisite sums; and Cibot’s humble bier, escorted by sixty or eighty persons, drew all the crowd after it to the cemetery. At the church door Pons’ funeral possession mustered four mourning-coaches, one for the priest and three for the relations; but one only was required, for the representative of the firm of Sonet departed during mass to give notice to his principal that the funeral was on the way, so that the design for the monument might be ready for the survivor at the gates of the cemetery. A single coach sufficed for Fraisier, Villemot, Schmucke, and Topinard; but the remaining two, instead of returning to the undertaker, followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise--a useless procession, not unfrequently seen; there are always too many coaches when the dead are unknown beyond their own circle and there is no crowd at the funeral. Dear, indeed, the dead must have been in their lifetime if relative or friend will go with them so far as the cemetery in this Paris, where every one would fain have twenty-five hours in the day. But with the coachmen it is different; they lose their tips if they do not make the journey; so, empty or full, the mourning coaches go to the church and cemetery and return to the house for gratuities. A death is a sort of drinking-fountain for an unimagined crowd of thirsty mortals. The attendants at the church, the poor, the undertaker’s men, the drivers and sextons, are creatures like sponges that dip into a hearse and come out again saturated.

From the church door, where he was beset with a swarm of beggars (promptly dispersed by the beadle), to Pere-Lachaise, poor Schmucke went as criminals went in old times from the Palais de Justice to the Place de Greve. It was his own funeral that he followed, clinging to Topinard’s hand, to the one living creature besides himself who felt a pang of real regret for Pons’ death.

As for Topinard, greatly touched by the honor of the request to act as pall-bearer, content to drive in a carriage, the possessor of a new pair of gloves,--it began to dawn upon him that this was to be one of the great days of his life. Schmucke was driven passively along the road, as some unlucky calf is driven in a butcher’s cart to the slaughter-house. Fraisier and Villemot sat with their backs to the horses. Now, as those know whose sad fortune it has been to accompany many of their friends to their last resting-place, all hypocrisy breaks down in the coach during the journey (often a very long one) from the church to the eastern cemetery, to that one of the burying-grounds of Paris in which all vanities, all kinds of display, are met, so rich is it in sumptuous monuments. On these occasions those who feel least begin to talk soonest, and in the end the saddest listen, and their thoughts are diverted.