Volume VII Part 5 (1/2)
Now, the notary's bosom-friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, who lived about a league from the city, and always pa.s.sed his evenings at the _Estaminet_. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from a full-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputation in his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his love of cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquors by comparing them with those sold at other places.
As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of the wine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he was aware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, and addicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequently happened, that, after a long session at the _Estaminet_, the two friends grew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door in friendly dispute which should conduct the other home.
Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish, phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play the very deuse with the more sensitive organization of the notary, and finally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost his appet.i.te, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions of blue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peeped through his bed-curtains, and the nightmare snorted in his ear. The worse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smoked and tippled,--why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wife alternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She made the house too hot for him,--he retreated to the tavern; she broke his long-stemmed pipes upon the andirons,--he subst.i.tuted a short-stemmed one, which, for safe-keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket.
Thus the unhappy notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with his bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He imagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession all the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an alarming symptom,--every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognostic of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, and then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or reason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, ”Do let me alone; I know better than you what ails me.”
Well, gentlemen, things were in this state, when, one afternoon in December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused him from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, and growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for the notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a handkerchief round his face, and b.u.t.toning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine-dealer's house.
When he arrived, he found everything in the greatest confusion. On entering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he met the housekeeper--for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor--running up and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling aloud for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he thought this a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him.
When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his hand and exclaimed,--
”Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over with me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that--that pa.s.sport of mine. Ah, _grand diable_! how hot it is here! Water,--water,--water!
Will n.o.body give me a drop of cold water?”
As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick man's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.
As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases of the Credo and Paternoster with the s.h.i.+bboleth of the dram-shop and the card-table.
”Take care! take care! There, now--_Credo in_--Pop! ting-a-ling-ling!
give me some of that. Cent-e-dize! Why, you old publican, this wine is poisoned,--I know your tricks!--_Sanctam ecclesiam catholicam_--Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have a tierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven! By St.
Anthony, capot! You are lurched,--ha! ha! I told you so. I knew very well,--there,--there,--don't interrupt me--_Carnis resurrectionem et vitam eternam_!”
With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhile the notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that was pa.s.sing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his courage by a gla.s.s of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert; and the idea of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quiet these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe and began to prepare for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to him and said,--
”Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading.”
”What disorder?” exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise.
”Two died yesterday, and three to-day,” continued the apothecary, without answering the question. ”Very sickly time, sir,--very.”
”But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here so suddenly?”
”What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure.”
”And is it contagious?”
”Certainly!”
”Then I am a dead man!” exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into his waistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair.
”I am a dead man! Now don't deceive me,--don't, will you? What--what are the symptoms?”
”A sharp, burning pain in the right side,” said the apothecary.
”O, what a fool I was to come here!”