Part 72 (1/2)

At this moment Lisbeth came in.

”My dear little pet Nanny, what an age since we met!” cried Valerie.

”I am so unhappy! Crevel bores me to death; and Wenceslas is gone--we quarreled.”

”I know,” said Lisbeth, ”and that is what brings me here. Victorin met him at about five in the afternoon going into an eating-house at five-and-twenty sous, and he brought him home, hungry, by working on his feelings, to the Rue Louis-le-Grand.--Hortense, seeing Wenceslas lean and ill and badly dressed, held out her hand. This is how you throw me over--”

”Monsieur Henri, madame,” the man-servant announced in a low voice to Valerie.

”Leave me now, Lisbeth; I will explain it all to-morrow.” But, as will be seen, Valerie was ere long not in a state to explain anything to anybody.

Towards the end of May, Baron Hulot's pension was released by Victorin's regular payment to Baron Nucingen. As everybody knows, pensions are paid half-yearly, and only on the presentation of a certificate that the recipient is alive: and as Hulot's residence was unknown, the arrears unpaid on Vauvinet's demand remained to his credit in the Treasury.

Vauvinet now signed his renunciation of any further claims, and it was still indispensable to find the pensioner before the arrears could be drawn.

Thanks to Bianchon's care, the Baroness had recovered her health; and to this Josepha's good heart had contributed by a letter, of which the orthography betrayed the collaboration of the Duc d'Herouville. This was what the singer wrote to the Baroness, after twenty days of anxious search:--

”MADAME LA BARONNE,--Monsieur Hulot was living, two months since, in the Rue des Bernardins, with Elodie Chardin, a lace-mender, for whom he had left Mademoiselle Bijou; but he went away without a word, leaving everything behind him, and no one knows where he went. I am not without hope, however, and I have put a man on this track who believes he has already seen him in the Boulevard Bourdon.

”The poor Jewess means to keep the promise she made to the Christian. Will the angel pray for the devil? That must sometimes happen in heaven.--I remain, with the deepest respect, always your humble servant,

”JOSEPHA MIRAH.”

The lawyer, Maitre Hulot d'Ervy, hearing no more of the dreadful Madame Nourrisson, seeing his father-in-law married, having brought back his brother-in-law to the family fold, suffering from no importunity on the part of his new stepmother, and seeing his mother's health improve daily, gave himself up to his political and judicial duties, swept along by the tide of Paris life, in which the hours count for days.

One night, towards the end of the session, having occasion to write up a report to the Chamber of Deputies, he was obliged to sit at work till late at night. He had gone into his study at nine o'clock, and, while waiting till the man-servant should bring in the candles with green shades, his thoughts turned to his father. He was blaming himself for leaving the inquiry so much to the singer, and had resolved to see Monsieur Chapuzot himself on the morrow, when he saw in the twilight, outside the window, a handsome old head, bald and yellow, with a fringe of white hair.

”Would you please to give orders, sir, that a poor hermit is to be admitted, just come from the Desert, and who is instructed to beg for contributions towards rebuilding a holy house.”

This apparition, which suddenly reminded the lawyer of a prophecy uttered by the terrible Nourrisson, gave him a shock.

”Let in that old man,” said he to the servant.

”He will poison the place, sir,” replied the man. ”He has on a brown gown which he has never changed since he left Syria, and he has no s.h.i.+rt--”

”Show him in,” repeated the master.

The old man came in. Victorin's keen eye examined this so-called pilgrim hermit, and he saw a fine specimen of the Neapolitan friars, whose frocks are akin to the rags of the _lazzaroni_, whose sandals are tatters of leather, as the friars are tatters of humanity. The get-up was so perfect that the lawyer, though still on his guard, was vexed with himself for having believed it to be one of Madame Nourrisson's tricks.

”How much to you want of me?”

”Whatever you feel that you ought to give me.”

Victorin took a five-franc piece from a little pile on his table, and handed it to the stranger.

”That is not much on account of fifty thousand francs,” said the pilgrim of the desert.

This speech removed all Victorin's doubts.

”And has Heaven kept its word?” he said, with a frown.