LITMIR.BIZ

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as when he was taken for a simple retired haberdasher. Mme. Lenfant, a lady who had no need of her husband’s aid to show penniless sots the door, scarcely deigned to answer him. When he asked how much he owed, she responded, with a contemptuous gesture, “Nothing.” When he returned to the door, his night-gown in hand, M. Plantat said:

      “Let’s hurry, for I want to get news of our poor mayor.”

      The three hastened their steps, and the old justice of the peace, oppressed with sad presentiments, and trying to combat them, continued:

      “If anything had happened at the mayor’s, I should certainly have been informed of it by this time. Perhaps Laurence has written that she is ill, or a little indisposed. Madame Courtois, who is the best woman in the world, gets excited about nothing; she probably wanted to send her husband for Laurence at once. You’ll see that it’s some false alarm.”

      No; some catastrophe had happened. A number of the village women were standing before the mayor’s gate. Baptiste, in the midst of the group, was ranting and gesticulating. But at M. Plantat’s approach, the women fled like a troop of frightened gulls. The old man’s unexpected appearance annoyed the placid Baptiste not a little, for he was interrupted, by the sudden departure of his audience, in the midst of a superb oratorical flight. As he had a great fear of M. Plantat, however, he dissimulated his chagrin with his habitual smile.

      “Ah, sir,” cried he, when M. Plantat was three steps off, “ah, what an affair! I was going for you—”

      “Does your master wish me?”

      “More than you can think. He ran so fast from Valfeuillu here, that I could scarcely keep up with him. He’s not usually fast, you know; but you ought to have seen him this time, fat as he is!”

      M. Plantat stamped impatiently.

      “Well, we got here at last,” resumed the man, “and monsieur rushed into the drawing-room, where he found madame sobbing like a Magdalene. He was so out of breath he could scarcely speak. His eyes stuck out of his head, and he stuttered like this—’What’s-the-matter? What’s the-matter?’ Madame, who couldn’t speak either, held out mademoiselle’s letter, which she had in her hand.”

      The three auditors were on coals of fire; the rogue perceived it, and spoke more and more slowly.

      “Then monsieur took the letter, went to the window, and at a glance read it through. He cried out hoarsely, thus: ‘Oh!’ then he went to beating the air with his hands, like a swimming dog; then he walked up and down and fell, pouf! like a bag, his face on the floor. That was all.”

      “Is he dead?” cried all three in the same breath.

      “Oh, no; you shall see,” responded Baptiste, with a placid smile.

      M. Lecoq was a patient man, but not so patient as you might think. Irritated by the manner of Baptiste’s recital, he put down his bundle, seized the man’s arm with his right hand, while with the left he whisked a light flexible cane, and said:

      “Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know.”

      That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice. He went on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M. Lecoq’s rattan.

      “Monsieur had an attack of vertigo. All the house was in confusion; everybody except I, lost their heads; it occurred to me to go for a doctor, and I started off for one—for Doctor Gendron, whom I knew to be at the chateau, or the doctor near by, or the apothecary —it mattered not who. By good luck, at the street corner, I came upon Robelot, the bone-setter—’Come, follow me,’ said I. He did so; sent away those who were tending monsieur, and bled him in both arms. Shortly after, he breathed, then he opened his eyes, and then he spoke. Now he is quite restored, and is lying on one of the drawing-room lounges, crying with all his might. He told me he wanted to see Monsieur Plantat, and I—”

      “And—Mademoiselle Laurence?” asked M. Plantat, with a trembling voice. Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.

      “Ah, gentlemen,” said he, “don’t ask me about her—’tis heartrending!”

      The doctor and M. Plantat heard no more, but hurried in; M. Lecoq followed, having confided his night-gown to Baptiste, with, “Carry that to M. Plantat’s—quick!”

      Misfortune, when it enters a house, seems to leave its fatal imprint on the very threshold. Perhaps it is not really so, but it is the feeling which those who are summoned to it experience. As the physician and the justice of the peace traversed the court-yard, this house, usually so gay and hospitable, presented a mournful aspect. Lights were seen coming and going in the upper story. Mlle. Lucile, the mayor’s youngest daughter, had had a nervous attack, and was being tended. A young girl, who served as Laurence’s maid, was seated in the vestibule, on the lower stair, weeping bitterly. Several domestics were there also, frightened, motionless, not knowing what to do in all this fright. The drawing-room door was wide open; the room was dimly lighted by two candles; Mme. Courtois lay rather than sat in a large arm-chair near the fireplace. Her husband was reclining on a lounge near the windows at the rear of the apartment. They had taken off his coat and had torn away his shirt-sleeves and flannel vest, when he was to be bled. There were strips of cotton wrapped about his naked arms. A small man, habited like a well-to-do Parisian artisan, stood near the door, with an embarrassed expression of countenance. It was Robelot, who had remained, lest any new exigency for his services should arise.

      The entrance of his friend startled M. Courtois from the sad stupor into which he had been plunged. He got up and staggered into the arms of the worthy Plantat, saying, in a broken voice:

      “Ah, my friend, I am most miserable—most wretched!”

      The poor mayor was so changed as scarcely to be recognizable. He was no longer the happy man of the world, with smiling face, firm look, the pride of which betrayed plainly his self-importance and prosperity. In a few hours he had grown twenty years older. He was broken, overwhelmed; his thoughts wandered in a sea of bitterness. He could only repeat, vacantly, again and again:

      “Wretched! most wretched!”

      M. Plantat was the right sort of a friend for such a time. He led M. Courtois back to the sofa and sat down beside him, and taking his hand in his own, forced him to calm his grief. He recalled to him that his wife, the companion of his life, remained to him, to mourn the dear departed with him. Had he not another daughter to cherish? But the poor man was in no state to listen to all this.

      “Ah, my friend,” said he shuddering, “you do not know all! If she had died here, in the midst of us, comforted by our tender care, my despair would be great; but nothing compared with that which now tortures me. If you only knew—”

      M. Plantat rose, as if terrified by what he was about to hear.

      “But who can tell,” pursued the wretched man, “where or how she died? Oh, my Laurence, was there no one to hear your last agony and save you? What has become of you, so young and happy?”

      He rose, shaking with anguish and cried:

      “Let us go, Plantat, and look for her at the Morgue.” Then he fell back again, muttering the lugubrious word, “the Morgue.”

      The witnesses of this scene remained, mute, motionless, rigid, holding their breath. The stifled sobs and groans of Mme. Courtois and the little maid alone broke the silence.

      “You know that I am your friend—your best friend,” said M. Plantat, softly; “confide in me—tell me all.”

      “Well,” commenced M. Courtois, “know”—but his tears choked his utterance, and he could not go on. Holding out a crumpled letter, wet with tears, he stammered:

      “Here, read—it is her last letter.”

      M. Plantat approached the table, and, not without difficulty, read:

      “Dearly beloved parents—

      “Forgive, forgive, I beseech

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