He had come to Paris from Bordeaux, and so long ago as 1835 he had retired from business without making any change for the better in his dress, so faithful is the race to old tradition. The persecutions of the Middle Ages compelled them to wear rags, to snuffle and whine and groan over their poverty in self-defence, till the habits induced by the necessities of other times have come to be, as usual, instinctive, a racial defect.
Elie Magus had amassed a vast fortune by buying and selling diamonds, pictures, lace, enamels, delicate carvings, old jewelry, and rarities of all kinds, a kind of commerce which has developed enormously of late, so much so indeed that the number of dealers has increased tenfold during the last twenty years in this city of Paris, whither all the curiosities in the world come to rub against one another. And for pictures there are but three marts in the world — Rome, London, and Paris.
Elie Magus lived in the Chausee des Minimes, a short, broad street leading to the Place Royale. He had bought the house, an old-fashioned mansion, for a song, as the saying is, in 1831. Yet there were sumptuous apartments within it, decorated in the time of Louis XV.; for it had once been the Hotel Maulaincourt, built by the great President of the Cour des Aides, and its remote position had saved it at the time of the Revolution.
You may be quite sure that the old Jew had sound reasons for buying house property, contrary to the Hebrew law and custom. He had ended, as most of us end, with a hobby that bordered on a craze. He was as miserly as his friend, the late lamented Gobseck; but he had been caught by the snare of the eyes, by the beauty of the pictures in which he dealt. As his taste grew more and more fastidious, it became one of the passions which princes alone can indulge when they are wealthy and art-lovers. As the second King of Prussia found nothing that so kindled enthusiasm as the spectacle of a grenadier over six feet high, and gave extravagant sums for a new specimen to add to his living museum of a regiment, so the retired picture-dealer was roused to passion-pitch only by some canvas in perfect preservation, untouched since the master laid down the brush; and what was more, it must be a picture of the painter’s best time. No great sales, therefore, took place but Elie Magus was there; every mart knew him; he traveled all over Europe. The ice-cold, money-worshiping soul in him kindled at the sight of a perfect work of art, precisely as a libertine, weary of fair women, is roused from apathy by the sight of a beautiful girl, and sets out afresh upon the quest of flawless loveliness. A Don Juan among fair works of art, a worshiper of the Ideal, Elie Magus had discovered joys that transcend the pleasure of a miser gloating over his gold — he lived in a seraglio of great paintings.
His masterpieces were housed as became the children of princes; the whole first floor of the great old mansion was given up to them. The rooms had been restored under Elie Magus’ orders, and with what magnificence!
The windows were hung with the richest Venetian brocade; the most splendid carpets from the Savonnerie covered the parquetry flooring. The frames of the pictures, nearly a hundred in number, were magnificent specimens, regilded cunningly by Servais, the one gilder in Paris whom Elie Magus thought sufficiently painstaking; the old Jew himself had taught him to use the English leaf, which is infinitely superior to that produced by French gold-beaters. Servais is among gilders as Thouvenin among bookbinders — an artist among craftsmen, making his work a labor of love. Every window in that gallery was protected by iron-barred shutters. Elie Magus himself lived in a couple of attics on the floor above; the furniture was wretched, the rooms were full of rags, and the whole place smacked of the Ghetto; Elie Magus was finishing his days without any change in his life.
The whole of the ground floor was given up to the picture trade (for the Jew still dealt in works of art). Here he stored his canvases, here also packing-cases were stowed on their arrival from other countries; and still there was room for a vast studio, where Moret, most skilful of restorers of pictures, a craftsman whom the Musee ought to employ, was almost always at work for Magus. The rest of the rooms on the ground floor were given up to Magus’ daughter, the child of his old age, a Jewess as beautiful as a Jewess can be when the Semitic type reappears in its purity and nobility in a daughter of Israel. Noemi was guarded by two servants, fanatical Jewesses, to say nothing of an advanced-guard, a Polish Jew, Abramko by name, once involved in a fabulous manner in political troubles, from which Elie Magus saved him as a business speculation. Abramko, porter of the silent, grim, deserted mansion, divided his office and his lodge with three remarkably ferocious animals — an English bull-dog, a Newfoundland dog, and another of the Pyrenean breed.
Behold the profound observations of human nature upon which Elie Magus based his feeling of security, for secure he felt; he left home without misgivings, slept with both ears shut, and feared no attempt upon his daughter (his chief treasure), his pictures, or his money. In the first place, Abramko’s salary was increased every year by two hundred francs so long as his master should live; and Magus, moreover, was training Abramko as a money-lender in a small way. Abramko never admitted anybody until he had surveyed them through a formidable grated opening. He was a Hercules for strength, he worshiped Elie Magus, as Sancho Panza worshiped Don Quixote. All day long the dogs were shut up without food; at nightfall Abramko let them loose; and by a cunning device the old Jew kept each animal at his post in the courtyard or the garden by hanging a piece of meat just out of reach on the top of a pole. The animals guarded the house, and sheer hunger guarded the dogs. No odor that reached their nostrils could tempt them from the neighborhood of that piece of meat; they would not have left their places at the foot of the poles for the most engaging female of the canine species. If a stranger by any chance intruded, the dogs suspected him of ulterior designs upon their rations, which were only taken down in the morning by Abramko himself when he awoke. The advantages of this fiendish scheme are patent. The animals never barked, Magus’ ingenuity had made savages of them; they were treacherous as Mohicans. And now for the result.
One night burglars, emboldened by the silence, decided too hastily that it would be easy enough to “clean out” the old Jew’s strong box. One of their number told off to advance to the assault scrambled up the garden wall and prepared to descend. This the bull-dog allowed him to do. The animal, knowing perfectly well what was coming, waited for the burglar to reach the ground; but when that gentleman directed a kick at him, the bull-dog flew at the visitor’s shins, and, making but one bite of it, snapped the ankle-bone clean in two. The thief had the courage to tear him away, and returned, walking upon the bare bone of the mutilated stump till he reached the rest of the gang, when he fell fainting, and they carried him off. The Police News, of course, did not fail to report this delightful night incident, but no one believed in it.
Magus at this time was seventy-five years old, and there was no reason why he should not live to a hundred. Rich man though he was, he lived like the Remonencqs. His necessary expenses, including the money he lavished on his daughter, did not exceed three thousand francs. No life could be more regular; the old man rose as soon as it was light, breakfasted on bread rubbed with a clove of garlic, and ate no more food until dinner-time. Dinner, a meal frugal enough for a convent, he took at home. All the forenoons he spent among his treasures, walking up and down the gallery where they hung in their glory. He would dust everything himself, furniture and pictures; he never wearied of admiring. Then he would go downstairs to his daughter, drink deep of a father’s happiness, and start out upon his walks through Paris, to attend sales or visit exhibitions and the like.
If Elie Magus found a great work of art under the right conditions, the discovery put new life into the man; here was a bit of sharp practice, a bargain to make, a battle of Marengo to win. He would pile ruse on ruse to buy the new sultana as cheaply as possible. Magus had a map of Europe on which all great pictures were marked; his co-religionists in every city spied out business for him, and received a commission on the purchase. And then, what rewards for all his pains! The two lost Raphaels so e
arnestly sought after by Raphael lovers are both in his collection. Elie Magus owns the original portrait of Giorgione’s Mistress, the woman for whom the painter died; the so-called originals are merely copies of the famous picture, which is worth five hundred thousand francs, according to its owner’s estimation. This Jew possesses Titian’s masterpiece, an Entombment painted for Charles V., sent by the great man to the great Emperor with a holograph letter, now fastened down upon the lower part of the canvas. And Magus has yet another Titian, the original sketch from which all the portraits of Philip II. were painted. His remaining ninety-seven pictures are all of the same rank and distinction. Wherefore Magus laughs at our national collection, raked by the sunlight which destroys the fairest paintings, pouring in through panes of glass that act as lenses. Picture galleries can only be lighted from above; Magus opens and closes his shutters himself; he is as careful of his pictures as of his daughter, his second idol. And well the old picture-fancier knows the laws of the lives of pictures. To hear him talk, a great picture has a life of its own; it is changeable, it takes its beauty from the color of the light. Magus talks of his paintings as Dutch fanciers used to talk of their tulips; he will come home on purpose to see some one picture in the hour of its glory, when the light is bright and clean.
And Magus himself was a living picture among the motionless figures on the wall — a little old man, dressed in a shabby overcoat, a silk waistcoat, renewed twice in a score of years, and a very dirty pair of trousers, with a bald head, a face full of deep hollows, a wrinkled, callous skin, a beard that had a trick of twitching its long white bristles, a menacing pointed chin, a toothless mouth, eyes bright as the eyes of his dogs in the yard, and a nose like an obelisk — there he stood in his gallery smiling at the beauty called into being by genius. A Jew surrounded by his millions will always be one of the finest spectacles which humanity can give. Robert Medal, our great actor, cannot rise to this height of poetry, sublime though he is.
Paris of all the cities of the world holds most of such men as Magus, strange beings with a strange religion in their heart of hearts. The London “eccentric” always finds that worship, like life, brings weariness and satiety in the end; the Parisian monomaniac lives cheerfully in concubinage with his crotchet to the last.
Often shall you meet in Paris some Pons, some Elie Magus, dressed badly enough, with his face turned from the rising sun (like the countenance of the perpetual secretary of the Academie), apparently heeding nothing, conscious of nothing, paying no attention to shop-windows nor to fair passers-by, walking at random, so to speak, with nothing in his pockets, and to all appearance an equally empty head. Do you ask to what Parisian tribe this manner of man belongs? He is a collector, a millionaire, one of the most impassioned souls upon earth; he and his like are capable of treading the miry ways that lead to the police-court if so they may gain possession of a cup, a picture, or some such rare unpublished piece as Elie Magus once picked up one memorable day in Germany.
This was the expert to whom Remonencq with much mystery conducted La Cibot. Remonencq always asked advice of Elie Magus when he met him in the streets; and more than once Magus had lent him money through Abramko, knowing Remonencq’s honesty. The Chaussee des Minimes is close to the Rue de Normandie, and the two fellow-conspirators reached the house in ten minutes.
“You will see the richest dealer in curiosities, the greatest connoisseur in Paris,” Remonencq had said. And Mme. Cibot, therefore, was struck dumb with amazement to be confronted with a little old man in a great-coat too shabby for Cibot to mend, standing watching a painter at work upon an old picture in the chilly room on the vast ground floor. The old man’s eyes, full of cold feline malignance, were turned upon her, and La Cibot shivered.
“What do you want, Remonencq?” asked this person.
“It is a question of valuing some pictures; there is nobody but you in Paris who can tell a poor tinker-fellow like me how much he may give when he has not thousands to spend, like you.”
“Where is it?”
“Here is the portress of the house where the gentleman lives; she does for him, and I have arranged with her — ”
“Who is the owner?”
“M. Pons!” put in La Cibot.
“Don’t know the name,” said Magus, with an innocent air, bringing down his foot very gently upon his artist’s toes.
Moret the painter, knowing the value of Pons’ collection, had looked up suddenly at the name. It was a move too hazardous to try with any one but Remonencq and La Cibot, but the Jew had taken the woman’s measure at sight, and his eye was as accurate as a jeweler’s scales. It was impossible that either of the couple should know how often Magus and old Pons had matched their claws. And, in truth, both rabid amateurs were jealous of each other. The old Jew had never hoped for a sight of a seraglio so carefully guarded; it seemed to him that his head was swimming. Pons’ collection was the one private collection in Paris which could vie with his own. Pons’ idea had occurred to Magus twenty years later; but as a dealer-amateur the door of Pons’ museum had been closed to him, as for Dusommerard. Pons and Magus had at heart the same jealousy. Neither of them cared about the kind of celebrity dear to the ordinary collector. And now for Elie Magus came his chance to see the poor musician’s treasures! An amateur of beauty hiding in a boudoir or a stolen glance at a mistress concealed from him by his friend might feel as Elie Magus felt at that moment.
La Cibot was impressed by Remonencq’s respect for this singular person; real power, moreover, even when it cannot be explained, is always felt; the portress was supple and obedient, she dropped the autocratic tone which she was wont to use in her lodge and with the tenants, accepted Magus’ conditions, and agreed to admit him into Pons’ museum that very day.
So the enemy was to be brought into the citadel, and a stab dealt to Pons’ very heart. For ten years Pons had carried his keys about with him; he had forbidden La Cibot to allow any one, no matter whom, to cross his threshold; and La Cibot had so far shared Schmucke’s opinions of bric-a-brac, that she had obeyed him. The good Schmucke, by speaking of the splendors as “chimcracks,” and deploring his friend’s mania, had taught La Cibot to despise the old rubbish, and so secured Pons’ museum from invasion for many a long year.
When Pons took to his bed, Schmucke filled his place at the theatre and gave lessons for him at his boarding-schools. He did his utmost to do the work of two; but Pons’ sorrows weighing heavily upon his mind, the task took all his strength. He only saw his friend in the morning, and again at dinnertime. His pupils and the people at the theatre, seeing the poor German look so unhappy, used to ask for news of Pons; and so great was his grief, that the indifferent would make the grimaces of sensibility which Parisians are wont to reserve for the greatest calamities. The very springs of life had been attacked, the good German was suffering from Pons’ pain as well as from his own. When he gave a music lesson, he spent half the time in talking of Pons, interrupting himself to wonder whether his friend felt better to-day, and the little school-girls listening heard lengthy explanations of Pons’ symptoms. He would rush over to the Rue de Normandie in the interval between two lessons for the sake of a quarter of an hour with Pons.
When at last he saw that their common stock was almost exhausted, when Mme. Cibot (who had done her best to swell the expenses of the illness) came to him and frightened him; then the old music-master felt that he had courage of which he never thought himself capable — courage that rose above his anguish. For the first time in his life he set himself to earn money; money was needed at home. One of the school-girl pupils, really touched by their troubles, asked Schmucke how he could leave his friend alone. “Montemoiselle,” he answered, with the sublime smile of those who think no evil, “ve haf Montame Zipod, ein dreasure, montemoiselle, ein bearl! Bons is nursed like ein brince.”
So while Schmucke trotted about the streets, La Cibot was mistress of the house and ruled the invalid. How should Pons superintend his self-appointed guardian ang
el, when he had taken no solid food for a fortnight, and lay there so weak and helpless that La Cibot was obliged to lift him up and carry him to the sofa while she made the bed?
La Cibot’s visit to Elie Magus was paid (as might be expected) while Schmucke breakfasted. She came in again just as the German was bidding his friend good-bye; for since she learned that Pons possessed a fortune, she never left the old bachelor; she brooded over him and his treasures like a hen. From the depths of a comfortable easy-chair at the foot of the bed she poured forth for Pons’ delectation the gossip in which women of her class excel. With Machiavelian skill, she had contrived to make Pons think that she was indispensable to him; she coaxed and she wheedled, always uneasy, always on the alert. Mme. Fontaine’s prophecy had frightened La Cibot; she vowed to herself that she would gain her ends by kindness. She would sleep secure on M. Pons’ legacy, but her rascality should keep within the limits of the law. For ten years she had not suspected the value of Pons’ collection; she had a clear record behind her of ten years of devotion, honesty, and disinterestedness; it was a magnificent investment, and now she proposed to realize. In one day, Remonencq’s hint of money had hatched the serpent’s egg, the craving for riches that had lain dormant within her for twenty years. Since she had cherished that craving, it had grown in force with the ferment of all the evil that lurks in the corners of the heart. How she acted upon the counsels whispered by the serpent will presently be seen.
“Well?” she asked of Schmucke, “has this cherub of ours had plenty to drink? Is he better?”
“He is not doing fery vell, tear Montame Zipod, not fery vell,” said poor Schmucke, brushing away the tears from his eyes.
“Pooh! you make too much of it, my dear M. Schmucke; we must take things as we find them; Cibot might be at death’s door, and I should not take it to heart as you do. Come! the cherub has a good constitution. And he has been steady, it seems, you see; you have no idea what an age sober people live. He is very ill, it is true, but with all the care I take of him, I shall bring him round. Be easy, look after your affairs, I will keep him company and see that he drinks his pints of barley water.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 739