The Brotherhood of Consolation - Honoré de Balzac (best free ebook reader for android txt) 📗

morning, I assure you it was pretty cold in the palace where your grandfather passed the night. We don't select the 'Star' inn from choice."

"Has my grandfather been here this morning?" said Auguste, seizing the opportunity to get away. "I thank you, monsieur, and I will call again, if you will permit me, to ask for news of my mother."

As soon as he was in the street the young baron took a cab to go as rapidly as he could to the sheriff's office, where he paid his grandfather's debt. The sheriff gave him the papers and a receipted bill of costs, and told one of his clerks to accompany the young man home and relieve the legal guardian of her functions.

"As Messieurs Barbet and Metivier live in your quarter," he said, "I will tell my young man to carry the money there and obtain the bill of sale of the books and return it to you."

Auguste who did not understand either the terms or the formalities of the law, did exactly as he was told. He received seven hundred francs change from the four thousand francs he had stolen, and went away with the clerk. He got back into the cab in a condition of semi-stupor; for, the result being now obtained, remorse began; he saw himself dishonored, cursed by his grandfather, whose inflexible nature was well-known to him, and he felt that his mother would surely die if she knew him guilty. All nature changed for him. He was hot; he did not see the snow; the houses looked like spectres flitting past him.

By the time he reached home the young baron had decided on his course which was certainly that of an honest man. He went to his mother's room, took the gold snuff-box set with diamonds given to his grandfather by the Emperor, and wrapped it in a parcel with the seven hundred francs and the following letter, which required several rough copies before it was satisfactory. Then he directed the whole to Doctor Halpersohn:--

Monsieur,--The fruits of twenty years of my grandfather's toil
were about to be seized by usurers, who even threatened to put him
in prison. Three thousand three hundred francs were enough to save
him. Seeing all that money on your table, I could not resist the
happiness of freeing my grandfather from his danger. I borrowed,
without your consent, four thousand francs of you; but as three
thousand three hundred were all that was necessary, I send the
other seven hundred in money, together with a gold snuff-box set
with diamonds, given to my grandfather by the Emperor, the value
of which will probably cover the whole sum.

In case you do not believe in the honor of him who will forever
regard you as a benefactor, I pray you to keep silence about an
act which would be quite unjustifiable under other circumstances;
for by so doing you will save my grandfather's life, just as you
are saving my mother's life; and I shall be forever

Your devoted servant, Auguste de Mergi.

About half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, Auguste, who went himself as far as the Champs Elysees, sent the package from there by a street messenger to Doctor Halpersohn's house; then he walked slowly homeward by the pont de Jena, the Invalides, and the boulevards, relying on Halpersohn's generosity.

The Polish doctor had meanwhile discovered the theft, and he instantly changed his opinion of his clients. He now thought the old man had come to rob him, and being unable to succeed, had sent the boy. He doubted the rank they had claimed, and went straight to the police-office where he lodged a complaint, requesting that the lad might be arrested at once.

The prudence with which the law proceeds seldom allows it to move as rapidly as complainants desire; but about three o'clock of that day a commissary of police, accompanied by agents who kept watch outside the house, was questioning Madame Vauthier as to her lodgers, and the widow was increasing, without being aware of it, the suspicions of the policeman.

When Nepomucene saw the police agents stationed outside the house, he thought they had come to arrest the old man, and as he was fond of Monsieur Auguste, he rushed to meet Monsieur Bernard, whom he now saw on his way home in the avenue de l'Observatoire.

"Hide yourself, monsieur!" he cried, "the police have come to arrest you. The sheriff was here yesterday and seized everything. Madame Vauthier didn't give you the stamped papers, and she says you'll be in Clichy to-night or to-morrow. There, don't you see those policemen?"

Baron Bourlac immediately resolved to go straight to Barbet. The former publisher lived in the rue Saint-Catherine d'Enfer, and it took him a quarter of an hour to reach the house.

"Ah! I suppose you have come to get that bill of sale," said Barbet, replying to the salutation of his victim. "Here it is."

And, to Baron Bourlac's great astonishment, he held out the document, which the baron took, saying,--

"I do not understand."

"Didn't you pay me?" said the usurer.

"Are you paid?"

"Yes, your grandson took the money to the sheriff this morning."

"Then it is true you made a seizure at my house yesterday?"

"Haven't you been home for two days?" asked Barbet. "But an old magistrate ought to know what a notification of arrest means."

Hearing that remark, the baron bowed coldly to Barbet and returned home, thinking that the policemen whom Nepomucene had pointed out must have come for the two impecunious authors on the upper floor. He walked slowly, lost in vague apprehensions; for, in spite of the explanation he gave himself, Nepomucene's words came back, and seemed to him more and more obscure and inexplicable. Was it possible that Godefroid had betrayed him?


XIX. VENGEANCE

The old man walked mechanically along the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, and entered the house by the little door, which he noticed was open. There he came suddenly upon Nepomucene.

"Oh, monsieur, come quick! they are taking Monsieur Auguste to prison! They arrested him on the boulevard; it was he they were looking for; they have examined him."

The old man bounded like a tiger, rushed through the house with the speed of an arrow, and reached the door on the boulevard in time to see his grandson getting into a hackney-coach with three men.

"Auguste," he said, "what does all this mean?"

The poor boy burst into tears and fainted away.

"Monsieur, I am the Baron Bourlac, formerly attorney-general," he said to the commissary of police, whose scarf now attracted his eye. "I entreat you to explain all this."

"Monsieur, if you are Baron Bourlac, two words will be enough. I have just examined this young man, and he admits--"

"What?"

"The robbery of four thousand francs from Doctor Halpersohn!"

"Is that true, Auguste?"

"Grandpapa, I sent him as security your diamond snuff-box. I did it to save you from going to prison."

"Unhappy boy! what have you done? The diamonds are false!" cried the baron; "I sold the real ones three years ago!"

The commissary of police and his agents looked at each other. That look, full of many things, was intercepted by Baron Bourlac, and seemed to blast him.

"Monsieur," he said to the commissary, "you need not feel uneasy; I shall go myself to the prefect; but you are witness to the fact that I kept my grandson ignorant of the loss of the diamonds. Do your duty; but I implore you, in the name of humanity, put that lad in a cell by himself; I will go to the prison. To which one are you taking him?"

"Are you really Baron Bourlac?" asked the commissary.

"Oh, monsieur!"

"The fact is that the municipal judge and I doubted if it were possible that you and your grandson could be guilty. We thought, and the doctor, too, that some scoundrels had taken your name."

He took the baron aside, and added:--

"Did you go to see Doctor Halpersohn this morning?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Your grandson went there half an hour after you."

"Did he? I knew nothing of that. I have just returned home, and have not seen my grandson for two days."

"The writs he has shown me and the examination explain everything," said the commissary of police. "I see the cause of the crime. Monsieur, I ought by rights to arrest you as accomplice to your grandson; for your answers confirm the allegations in Doctor Halpersohn's complaint. But these papers, which I here return to you," holding out to the old man a bundle of papers, "do prove you to be Baron Bourlac. Nevertheless, you must hold yourself ready to appear before Monsieur Marest, the judge of the Municipal Court who has cognizance of the case. As for your grandson, I will speak to the _procureur du roi_, and we will take all the care of him that is due to the grandson of a former judge,--the victim, no doubt, of youthful error. But the complaint has been made, the delinquent admits his guilt, I have drawn up the proces-verbal, and served the warrant of arrest; I cannot go back on that. As for the incarceration, I will put him in the Conciergerie."

"Thank you, monsieur," said the unhappy Bourlac.

With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the hollows round the trees of the boulevard.

The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up, together with Madame Vauthier. The old man was carried to his room, and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue d'Enfer, and send Doctor Berton as soon as possible.

"What is the matter with my grandfather?" asked poor Auguste.

"He is out of his head. You see what it is to steal," said the Vauthier.

Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two agents caught him.

"Come, young man, be calm," said the commissary of police; "you have done wrong, but it may not be irreparable--"

"Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn't had anything to ear for twenty-four hours?"

"Oh! the poor things!" exclaimed the commissary under his breath.

He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear of one of his agents, who got out and ran to Madame Vauthier, and then returned.

When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him only under that name) had a high fever of great intensity. After hearing from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis (related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain the next morning, at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, of the present state of affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street messenger to Monsieur Joseph.

Godefroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse the night before, the notes confided to him by Auguste, and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first volume of Baron Bourlac's work.

The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her neophyte that he should, if his resolution still held good, be put to work at once. Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial