Those sentences, which Godefroid heard through the door, or rather divined, for a heavy portiere on the inside smothered the sounds, gave him an inkling of the truth. The sick woman, surrounded by luxury, was evidently kept in ignorance of the real situation of her father and son. The violet silk dressing-gown of Monsieur Bernard, the flowers, his remarks to Cartier, had already roused some suspicion of this in Godefroid’s mind. The young man stood still where he was, bewildered by this prodigy of paternal love. The contrast, such as he imagined it, between the invalid’s room and the rest of that squalid place,—yes, it was bewildering!
XIV. HOW THE POOR AND HELPLESS ARE PREYED UPON
Through the door of a third chamber, which the old man had left open, Godefroid beheld two cots of painted wood, like those of the cheapest boarding-schools, each with a straw bed and a thin mattress, on which there was but one blanket. A small iron stove like those that porters cook by, near which lay a few squares of peat, would alone have shown the poverty of the household without the help of other details.
Advancing a step or two, Godefroid saw utensils such as the poorest persons use,—earthenware jugs, and pans in which potatoes floated in dirty water. Two tables of blackened wood, covered with books and papers, stood before the windows that looked out upon the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, and indicated the nocturnal occupations of father and son. On each of the tables was a flat iron candlestick, such as are used by the very poor, and in them Godefroid noticed tallow-candles of the kind that are sold at eight to the pound.
On a third table glittered two forks and spoons and another little spoon of silver-gilt, together with plates, bowls, and cups of Sevres china, and a silver-gilt knife and fork in an open case, all evidently for the service of the sick woman.
The stove was lighted; the water in the copper was steaming slightly. A painted wooden closet or wardrobe contained, no doubt, the linen and clothing of Monsieur Bernard’s daughter. On the old man’s bed Godefroid noticed that the habiliments he had worn the night before lay spread as a covering. The floor, evidently seldom swept, looked like that of a boy’s class-room. A six-pound loaf of bread, from which some slices had been cut, was on a shelf above the table. Here was poverty in its last stages, poverty resolutely accepted with stern endurance, making shift with the lowest and poorest means. A strong and sickening odor came from this room, which was rarely cleaned.
The antechamber, in which Godefroid stood, was at any rate decent, and he suspected that it served to conceal the horrors of the room in which the grandfather and the grandson lived. This antechamber, hung with a checked paper of Scotch pattern, held four walnut chairs, a small table, a colored engraving of the Emperor after Horace Vernet, also portraits of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Prince Poniatowski, no doubt the friend of Monsieur Bernard’s father-in-law. The window was draped with white calico curtains edged with red bands and fringe.
Godefroid watched for Nepomucene, and when the latter made his next trip with wood signed to him to stack it very gently in Monsieur Bernard’s antechamber; then (a perception which proved some progress in our initiate) he closed the door of the inner lair that Madame Vauthier’s slave might not see the old man’s squalor.
The antechamber was just then encumbered with three plant-stands filled with plants; two were oblong, one round, all three were of a species of ebony and of great elegance; even Nepomucene took notice of them and said as he deposited the wood:—