Droll Stories

by Honoré de Balzac

  “And the quit rent of the Rue St. Denys?”

  “To Chiquon.”

  “And the fief of Ville Parisis?”

  “To Chiquon.”

  “But,” said the captain, with his big voice, “everything then will be Chiquon’s.”

  “No,” replied the canon, smiling, “because I shall have made my will in proper form, the inheritance will be to the sharpest of you three; I am so near to the future, that I can therein see clearly your destinies.”

  And the wily canon cast upon Chiquon a glance full of malice, like a decoy bird would have thrown upon a little one to draw him into her net. The fire of this flaming eye enlightened the shepherd, who from that moment had his understanding and his ears all unfogged, and his brain open, like that of a maiden the day after her marriage. The procureur and the captain, taking these sayings for gospel prophecies, made their bow and went out from the house, quite perplexed at the absurd designs of the canon.

  “What do you think of Chiquon?” said Pille-grue to Mau-cinge.

  “I think, I think,” said the soldier, growling, “that I think of hiding myself in the Rue d’Hiérusalem, to put his head below his feet; he can pick it up again if he likes.”

  “Oh! oh!” said the procureur, “you have a way of wounding that is easily recognised, and people would say, ‘It’s Cochegrue.’ As for me, I thought to invite him to dinner, after which, we would play at putting ourselves in a sack, in order to see, as they do at Court, who could walk best thus attired. Then, having sewn him up. we could throw him into the Seine, at the same time begging him to swim.”

  “This must be well matured,” replied the soldier.

  “Oh! it’s quite ripe,” said the advocate. “The cousin gone to the devil, the heritage would then be between us two.”

  “I’m quite agreeable,” said the fighter, “but we must stick as close together as the two legs of the same body, for if you are fine as silk, I am strong as steel, and daggers are always as good as traps—you hear that, my good brother.”

  “Yes,” said the advocate, “the cause is heard—now shall it be the thread or the iron?”

  “Eh? ventre de Dieu! is it then a king that we are going to settle? For a simple numskull of a shepherd are so many words necessary? Come! 20,000 francs out of the heritage to the one of us who shall first cut him off: I’ll say to him in good faith, ‘Pick up your head.’”

  “And I, ‘Swim, my friend,’” cried the advocate, laughing like the gap of a pourpoint.

  And then they went to supper, the captain to his wench, and the advocate to the house of a jeweller’s wife, of whom he was the lover.

  Who was astonished? Chiquon! The poor shepherd heard the planning of his death, although his two cousins had walked in the parvis, and talked to each other as every one speaks at church when praying to God. So that Chiquon was much troubled to know if the words had come up or if his ears had gone down.

  “Do you hear, Mister Canon?”

  “Yes,” said he, “I hear the wood crackling in the fire.”

  “Ho! ho!” replied Chiquon, “if I don’t believe in the devil, I believe in St. Michael, my guardian angel; I go there where he calls me.”

  “Go, my child,” said the canon, “and take care not to wet yourself nor to get your head knocked off, for I think I hear more rain, and the beggars in the street are not always the most dangerous beggars.”

  At these words Chiquon was much astonished, and stared at the canon; found his manner gay, his eye sharp, and his feet crooked; but as he had to arrange matters concerning the death which menaced him, he thought to himself that he would always have leisure to admire the canon, or to cut his nails, and he trotted off quickly through the town, as a little woman trots towards her pleasure.

  His two cousins, having no presumption of the divinatory science, of which shepherds have had many passing attacks, had often talked before him of their secret goings on, counting his as nothing.

  Now one evening to amuse the canon, Pille-grue had recounted to him how had fallen in love with him the wife of a jeweller on whose head he had adjusted certain carved, burnished, sculptured, historical horns, fit for the brow of a prince. The good lady was, to hear him, a right merry wench, quick at opportunities, giving an embrace while her husband was mounting the stairs, devouring the commodity as if she were swallowing a strawberry, only thinking of love-making, always trifling and frisky, gay as an honest woman who lacks nothing, contenting her husband, who cherished her as much as he loved his own gullet; subtle as a perfume, so much so, that for five years she managed so well his household affairs, and her own love affairs, that she had the reputation of a prudent woman, the confidence of her husband, the keys of the house, the purse, and all.

  “And when do you play upon this gentle flute?” said the canon.

  “Every evening, and sometimes I stay all the night.”

  “But how?” said the canon, astonished.

  “This is how. There is in a room close to, a chest into which I get. When the good husband returns from his friend the draper’s, where he goes to supper every evening, because often he helps the draper’s wife in her work, my mistress pleads a slight illness, lets him go to bed alone, and comes to doctor her malady in the room where the chest is. On the morrow, when my jeweller is at his forge, I depart, and as the house has one exit on to the bridge, and another into the street, I always come to the door where the husband is not, on the pretext of speaking to him of his suits, which commence joyfully and heartily, and I never let them come to an end. It is an income from cuckoldom, seeing that in the minor expenses and loyal costs of the proceedings, he spends as much as on the horses in his stable. He loves me well, as all good cuckolds should love the man who aids them, to plant, cultivate, water, and dig the natural garden of Venus, and he does nothing without me.”

  Now these practices came back again to the memory the shepherd, who was illuminated by the light issuing from his danger, and counselled by the intelligence of those measures of self-preservation, of which every animal possesses a sufficient dose to go to the end of his ball of life. So Chiquon gained with hasty feet the Rue de la Calandre, where the jeweller should then be supping with his companion, and after having knocked at the door, replied to the question put to him through the little grill, that he was a messenger on state secrets, and was admitted to the draper’s house. Now coming straight to the fact, he made the happy jeweller get up from the table, led him into a corner, and said to him, “If one of your neighbours had planted a horn on your forehead, and he were delivered to you, bound hand and foot, would you throw him into the river?”

  “Rather,” said the jeweller, “but if you are mocking me I’ll give you a good drubbing.”

  “There, there!” replied Chiquon, “I am one of your friends, and come to warn you that as many times as you have conversed with the draper’s wife here, as often has your good wife been served the same way by the advocate Pille-grue, and if you will come back to your forge, you’ll find a good fire there. On your arrival, he who looks after your you-know-what, to keep it in good order, gets into the big clothes chest. Now make a pretence that I have bought the said chest of you, and I will be upon the bridge with a cart, waiting your orders.”

  The said jeweller took his cloak and his hat, and parted company with his crony without saying a word, and ran to his hole like a poisoned rat. He arrives and knocks, the door is opened, he runs hastily up the stairs, finds two covers laid, sees his wife coming out of the chamber of love, and then says to her, “My dear, here are two covers laid.”

  “Well, my darling, are we not two?”

  “No,” said he, “we are three.”

  “Is your friend coming?” said she, looking towards the stairs with perfect innocence.

  “No, I speak of the friend who is in the chest.”

  “What chest?” said she. “Are you in your sound senses? where do you see a chest? is it usual to put friends in chests? am I a woman to keep chests full of f
riends? How long have friends been kept in chests? are you come home mad to mix up your friends with your chests? I know no other friend than Master Cornille the draper, and no other chest than the one with our clothes in.”

  “Oh!” said the jeweller, “my good woman, there is a bad young man, who has come to warn me that you allow yourself to be embraced by our advocate, and that he is in the chest.”

  “I!” said she, “I would not put up with his knavery, he does everything the wrong way.”

  “There, there, my dear,” replied the jeweller, “I know you to be a good woman, and won’t have a squabble with you about this paltry chest. The giver of the warning is a box-maker, to whom I am about to sell this cursed chest that I wish never again to see in my house, and for this one he will sell me two pretty little ones, in which there will not be space enough even for a child; thus the scandal and the babble of those envious of thy virtues will be extinguished for want of nourishment.”

  “You give me great pleasure,” said she; “I don’t attach any value to my chest, and by chance there is nothing in it. Our linen is at the wash. It will be easy to have the mischievous chest taken away to-morrow morning. Will you sup?”

  “Not at all,” said he, “I shall sup with a better appetite without this chest.”

  “I see,” said, she, “that you won’t easily get the chest out of your head.”

  “Halloa there!” said the jeweller to his smiths and apprentices; “come down!”

  In the twinkling of an eye his people were before him. Then he, their master, having briefly ordered the handling of the said chest, this piece of furniture dedicated to love was suddenly tumbled across the room, but in passing, the advocate, finding his feet in the air to the which he was not accustomed, tumbled over a little.

  “Go on,” said the wife, “go on, it’s the lid shaking.”

  “No, my dear, it’s the bolt.”

  And without any other opposition the chest slid gently down the stairs.

  “Ho there, carrier!” said the jeweller, and Chiquon came whistling his mules, and the good apprentices lifted the litigious chest into the cart.

  “Hi! hi!” said the advocate.

  “Master, the chest is speaking,” said an apprentice.

  “In what language?” said the jeweller, giving him a good kick between two features that luckily were not made of glass. The apprentice tumbled over on to a stair in a way that induced him to discontinue his studies in the language of chests. The shepherd, accompanied by the good jeweller, carried all the baggage to the waterside without listening to the high eloquence of the speaking wood, and having tied several stones to it, the jeweller threw it into the Seine.

  “Swim, my friend,” cried the shepherd, in a voice sufficiently jeering at the moment when the chest turned over, giving a pretty little plunge like a duck.

  Then Chiquon continued to proceed along the quay, as far as the Rue-du-port, St. Laudry, near the cloisters of Notre Dame. There he noticed a house, recognized the door, and knocked loudly.

  “Open,” said he, “open by order of the king.”

  Hearing this, an old man who was no other than the famous Lombard, Versoris, ran to the door.

  “What is it?” said he.

  “I am sent by the provost to warn you to keep good watch to-night,” replied Chiquon, “as for his own part he will keep his archers ready. The hunchback who has robbed you has come back again. Keep under arms, for he is quite capable of easing you of the rest.”

  Having said this, the good shepherd took to his heels and ran to the Rue des Marmouzets, to the house where Captain Cochegrue was feasting with La Pasquerette, the prettiest of town girls, and the most charming in perversity that ever was; according to all the gay ladies, her glance was sharp and piercing as the stab of a dagger. Her appearance was so tickling to the sight, that it would have put all paradise to rout. Besides which she was as bold as a woman who has no other virtue than her insolence. Poor Chiquon was greatly embarrassed while going to the quarter of the Marmouzets. He was greatly afraid that he would be unable to find the house of La Pasquerette, or find the two pigeons gone to roost, but a good angel arranged things speedily to his satisfaction. This is how. On entering the Rue des Marmouzets, he saw several lights at the windows, and night-capped heads thrust out, and good wenches, gay girls, housewives, husbands, and young ladies, all of them just out of bed, looking at each other as if a robber were being led to execution by torchlight.

  “What’s the matter?” said the shepherd to a citizen who in great haste had rushed to the door with a chamber utensil in his hand.

  “Oh! it’s nothing,” replied the good man. “We thought it was the Armagnacs descending upon the town, but it’s only Mau-cinge beating La Pasquerette.”

  “Where?” asked the shepherd.

  “Below there, at that fine house where the pillars have the mouths of flying frogs delicately engraved upon them. Do you hear the varlets and the serving maids?”

  And in fact there were nothing but cries of “Murder! Help! Come, some one!” and in the house blows were raining down and the Mau-cinge said with his gruff voice, “Death to the wench! Ah, you sing out now, do you? Ah, you want money now, do you? Take that——”

  And La Pasquerette was groaning, “Oh! oh! I die! Help! help! Oh! oh!” Then came the blow of a sword, and the heavy fall of the light body of the fair girl sounded, and was followed by a great silence, after which the lights were put out, servants, waiting women, roysterers, and others went in again, and the shepherd who had come opportunely mounted the stairs in company with them, but on beholding in the room above broken glasses, slit carpets, and the cloth on the floor with the dishes, every one remained at a distance.

  The shepherd, bold as a man with but one end in view, opened the door of the handsome chamber where slept La Pasquerette, and found her quite exhausted, her hair dishevelled, and her neck twisted, lying upon a bloody carpet, and Mau-cinge frightened, with his tone considerably lower, and not knowing upon what note to sing the remainder of his anthem.

  “Come, my little Pasquerette, don’t pretend to be dead. Come, let me put you tidy. Ah! little minx, dead or alive, you look so pretty in your blood I’m going to kiss you.” Having said which the cunning soldier took her and threw her upon the bed, but she fell there all of a heap, and stiff as the body of a man that had been hanged. Seeing which her companion found it was time for his hump to retire from the game; however, the artful fellow before slinking away said, “Poor Pasquerette, how could I murder so good a girl, and one I loved so much? But, yes, I have killed her, the thing is clear, for in her life never did her sweet breast hang down like that. Good God, one would say it was a crown at the bottom of a wallet.” Thereupon La Pasquerette opened her eyes and bent her head slightly to look at her flesh, which was white and firm, and she brought herself to life again by a box on the ears, administered to the captain.

  “That will teach you to speak ill of the dead,” said she, smiling.

  “And why did he kill you, my cousin?” asked the shepherd.

  “Why? to-morrow the bailiffs seize everything that’s here, and he who has no more money than virtue, reproached me because I wished to be agreeable to a handsome gentleman, who would save me from the hands of justice.”

  “Pasquerette, I’ll break every bone in your skin.”

  “There! there!” said Chiquon, whom the Mau-cinge had just recognized, “is that all? Oh well, my good friend, I bring you a large sum.”

  “Where from?” asked the captain, astonished.

  “Come here, and let me whisper in your ear—if 30,000 crowns were walking about at night under the shadow of a pear-tree, would you not stoop down to pluck them, to prevent them spoiling?”

  “Chiquon, I’ll kill you like a dog if you are making game of me, or I will kiss you there where you like it, if you will put me opposite 30,000 crowns, even when it shall be necessary to kill three citizens at the corner of the Quay.”

  “You will not eve
n kill one. This is how the matter stands. I have for a sweetheart in all loyalty, the servant of the Lombard who is in the city near the house of our good uncle. Now I have just learned on sound information that this dear man has departed this morning into the country, after having hidden under a pear-tree in his garden a good bushel of gold, believing himself to be seen only by the angels. But the girl who had by chance a bad toothache, and was taking the air at her garret window, spied the old crookshanks, without wishing to do so, and chattered of it to me in fondness. If you will swear to give me a good share I will lend you my shoulders in order that you may climb on to the top of the wall, and from there throw yourself into the pear-tree, which is against the wall. There, now do you say that I am a blockhead, an animal?”

  “No, you are a right loyal cousin, an honest man, and if you have ever to put an enemy out of the way, I am there, ready to kill even one of my own friends for you. I am no longer your cousin, but your brother. Ho there, sweetheart,” cried Mau-cinge to La Pasquerette, “put the tables straight, wipe up your blood, it belongs to me, and I’ll pay you for it, by giving you a hundred times as much of mine as I have taken of thine. Make the best of it, shake the black dog off your back, adjust your petticoats, laugh, I wish it, look to the stew, and let us recommence our evening prayer where we left it off. To-morrow I will make thee braver than a queen. This is my cousin whom I wish to entertain, even when to do so it were necessary to turn the house out of windows. We shall get back everything to-morrow in the cellars. Come, fall to.”

  Thus, and in less time than it takes a priest to say his Dominus vobiscum, the whole rookery passed from tears to laughter as it had previously passed from laughter to tears. It is only in these houses of ill-fame that love is made with the blow of a dagger, and where tempests of joy rage between four walls. But these are things ladies of the high-necked dresses do not understand.

  The said Captain Cochegrue was gay as a hundred school-boys at the breaking up of class, and made his good cousin drink deeply, who swilled everything country fashion, and pretended to be drunk, spluttering out a hundred stupidities, as, that “to-morrow he would buy Paris, would lend a hundred thousand crowns to the king, that he would be able to roll in gold”; in fact, talked so much nonsense that the captain, fearing some compromising avowal and thinking his brain quite muddled enough, led him outside with the good intention, instead of sharing with him, of ripping Chiquon open to see if he had not a sponge in his stomach, because he had just soaked in a big quart of the good wine of Suresne. They went along, disputing about a thousand theological subjects, which got very much mixed up, and finished by rolling quietly up against the garden where were the crowns of the Lombard. Then Cochegrue, making a ladder of Chiquon’s broad shoulders, jumped on to the pear-tree like a man expert in attacks upon towns, but Versoris, who was watching him, made a blow at his neck; and repeated it so vigorously that with three blows fell the upper portion of the said Cochegrue, but not until he had heard the clear voice of the shepherd, who cried to him, “Pick up your head, my friend.” Thereupon the generous Chiqoun, in whom virtue received its recompense, thought it would be wise to return to the house of the good canon, whose heritage was by the grace of God considerably simplified. Thus he gained the Rue St. Pierre-aux-Bœufs with all speed, and soon slept like a new-born baby, no longer knowing the meaning of the word “cousin-german.” Now on the morrow he rose according to the habit of shepherds, with the sun, and came into his uncle’s room to inquire if he spat white, if he coughed, if he had slept well; but the old servant told him that the canon, hearing the bells of St. Maurice, the first patron of Notre Dame, ring for matins, he had gone out of reverence to the cathedral, where all the Chapter were to breakfast with the Bishop of Paris; upon which Chiquon replied, “Is his reverence the canon out of his senses thus to disport himself, to catch a cold, to get rheumatism? does he wish to die? I’ll light a big fire to warm him when he returns”; and the good shepherd ran into the room where the canon generally sat, and to his great astonishment beheld him seated in his chair.