Part 159 (1/2)
Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him.
”Don't mind them,” said Jondrette, ”they are people who belong in the house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it.”
He rose, went to the wall at the foot of which stood the panel which we have already mentioned, and turned it round, still leaving it supported against the wall. It really was something which resembled a picture, and which the candle illuminated, somewhat. Marius could make nothing out of it, as Jondrette stood between the picture and him; he only saw a coa.r.s.e daub, and a sort of princ.i.p.al personage colored with the harsh crudity of foreign canva.s.ses and screen paintings.
”What is that?” asked M. Leblanc.
Jondrette exclaimed:--
”A painting by a master, a picture of great value, my benefactor! I am as much attached to it as I am to my two daughters; it recalls souvenirs to me! But I have told you, and I will not take it back, that I am so wretched that I will part with it.”
Either by chance, or because he had begun to feel a dawning uneasiness, M. Leblanc's glance returned to the bottom of the room as he examined the picture.
There were now four men, three seated on the bed, one standing near the door-post, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared with black. One of those on the bed was leaning against the wall, with closed eyes, and it might have been supposed that he was asleep. He was old; his white hair contrasting with his blackened face produced a horrible effect. The other two seemed to be young; one wore a beard, the other wore his hair long. None of them had on shoes; those who did not wear socks were barefooted.
Jondrette noticed that M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on these men.
”They are friends. They are neighbors,” said he. ”Their faces are black because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don't trouble yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is worth?”
”Well,” said M. Leblanc, looking Jondrette full in the eye, and with the manner of a man who is on his guard, ”it is some signboard for a tavern, and is worth about three francs.”
Jondrette replied sweetly:--
”Have you your pocket-book with you? I should be satisfied with a thousand crowns.”
M. Leblanc sprang up, placed his back against the wall, and cast a rapid glance around the room. He had Jondrette on his left, on the side next the window, and the Jondrette woman and the four men on his right, on the side next the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even seem to be looking on.
Jondrette had again begun to speak in a plaintive tone, with so vague an eye, and so lamentable an intonation, that M. Leblanc might have supposed that what he had before him was a man who had simply gone mad with misery.
”If you do not buy my picture, my dear benefactor,” said Jondrette, ”I shall be left without resources; there will be nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wanted to have my two girls taught the middle-cla.s.s paper-box trade, the making of boxes for New Year's gifts! Well! A table with a board at the end to keep the gla.s.ses from falling off is required, then a special stove is needed, a pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of the paste, according as it is to be used for wood, paper, or stuff, a paring-knife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to nail the steels, pincers, how the devil do I know what all? And all that in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a day! And each box pa.s.ses through the workwoman's hands thirteen times!
And you can't wet the paper! And you mustn't spot anything! And you must keep the paste hot. The devil, I tell you! Four sous a day! How do you suppose a man is to live?”
As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's eye was fixed on the door. Marius' eager attention was transferred from one to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself: ”Is this man an idiot?” Jondrette repeated two or three distinct times, with all manner of varying inflections of the whining and supplicating order: ”There is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for that purpose.”
All at once his dull eyes lighted up with a hideous flash; the little man drew himself up and became terrible, took a step toward M. Leblanc and cried in a voice of thunder: ”That has nothing to do with the question! Do you know me?”
CHAPTER XX--THE TRAP
The door of the garret had just opened abruptly, and allowed a view of three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black paper. The first was thin, and had a long, iron-tipped cudgel; the second, who was a sort of colossus, carried, by the middle of the handle, with the blade downward, a butcher's pole-axe for slaughtering cattle. The third, a man with thick-set shoulders, not so slender as the first, held in his hand an enormous key stolen from the door of some prison.
It appeared that the arrival of these men was what Jondrette had been waiting for. A rapid dialogue ensued between him and the man with the cudgel, the thin one.
”Is everything ready?” said Jondrette.
”Yes,” replied the thin man.
”Where is Montparna.s.se?”
”The young princ.i.p.al actor stopped to chat with your girl.”