As for Remonencq, he had gradually come to feel such a passion as uneducated people can conceive when they come to Paris from the depths of the country, bringing with them all the fixed ideas bred of the solitary country life; all the ignorance of a primitive nature, all the brute appetites that become so many fixed ideas. Mme. Cibot’s masculine beauty, her vivacity, her market-woman’s wit, had all been remarked by the marine store-dealer. He thought at first of taking La Cibot from her husband, bigamy among the lower classes in Paris being much more common than is generally supposed; but greed was like a slip-knot drawn more and more tightly about his heart, till reason at length was stifled. When Remonencq computed that the commission paid by himself and Elie Magus amounted to about forty thousand francs, he determined to have La Cibot for his legitimate spouse, and his thoughts turned from a misdemeanor to a crime. A romantic purely speculative dream, persistently followed through a tobacco-smoker’s long musings as he lounged in the doorway, had brought him to the point of wishing that the little tailor were dead. At a stroke he beheld his capital trebled; and then he thought of La Cibot. What a good saleswoman she would be! What a handsome figure she would make in a magnificent shop on the boulevards! The twofold covetousness turned Remonencq’s head. In fancy he took a shop that he knew of on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, he stocked it with Pons’ treasures, and then—after dreaming his dream in sheets of gold, after seeing millions in the blue spiral wreaths that rose from his pipe, he awoke to find himself face to face with the little tailor. Cibot was sweeping the yard, the doorstep, and the pavement just as his neighbor was taking down the shutters and displaying his wares; for since Pons fell ill, La Cibot’s work had fallen to her husband.
The Auvergnat began to look upon the little, swarthy, stunted, copper-colored tailor as the one obstacle in his way, and pondered how to be rid of him. Meanwhile this growing passion made La Cibot very proud, for she had reached an age when a woman begins to understand that she may grow old.
So early one morning, she meditatively watched Remonencq as he arranged his odds and ends for sale. She wondered how far his love could go. He came across to her.
“Well,” he said, “are things going as you wish?”
“It is you who makes me uneasy,” said La Cibot. “I shall be talked about; the neighbors will see you making sheep’s eyes at me.”
She left the doorway and dived into the Auvergnat’s back shop.
“What a notion!” said Remonencq.
“Come here, I have something to say to you,” said La Cibot. “M. Pons’ heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M. Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep the secret—such a secret!—With your head on the block, you must not say where the pictures come from, nor who it was that sold them. When M. Pons is once dead and buried, you understand, nobody will know how many pictures there ought to be; if there are fifty-three pictures instead of sixty-seven, nobody will be any the wiser. Besides, if M. Pons sold them himself while he was alive, nobody can find fault.”
“No,” agreed Remonencq, “it is all one to me, but M. Elie Magus will want receipts in due form.”
“And you shall have your receipt too, bless your life! Do you suppose that I should write them?—No, M. Schmucke will do that. But tell your Jew that he must keep the secret as closely as you do,” she continued.