“No, so long as you didn’t find the scent. Hum! more of the ill effects of time. I come back, and I find nobody left: some are dead; others have disappeared. Ah! it’s foolish to travel; or if one must travel, one should do like the Wandering Jew: keep going all the time, and never stop. But the Wandering Jew didn’t have the gout.—Here, my boy, this is for your commission.”
Monsieur de Roncherolle paid the messenger handsomely, because the man who has always borne himself like a gentleman retains the habit of making a show of generosity, even when his means allow him no longer to be generous; and sometimes imposes great privations upon himself in order to enjoy the pleasure of throwing money out of the window.
“Then monsieur has no further need of my services?” said Chicotin, his appetite whetted by the fee he had received for his errand.
“Faith, my boy, I should have been very glad to find the lady to whom I wrote the letter. It isn’t certain that she’s dead, like the concierge of the house where she lived, for she was quite young a dozen years ago, and she should be a woman of about forty now. If chance should make you acquainted with her present residence, come at once and tell me, and you shall have a good pourboire.”
“All right, master. I’ll look, I’ll ask questions, and I shall end by finding her. I go into every corner of Paris, you know; but perhaps it will take rather a long time. However, as soon as I find out anything, I’ll come to tell you.”
When Chicotin had gone, Monsieur de Roncherolle, whose face had assumed a melancholy expression, looked at the bouquet which he still held, muttering:
“Well, I will keep the bouquet; these flowers are very pretty; it’s a long while since anyone gave me any; I will imagine that someone has sent them to me; I have reached the age where I must live on illusions.”
XIV
THE MOTHER AND THE SON
Georget passed several days scouring Paris; but he made the most minute investigations in the Chaussée-d’Antin quarter; he asked for Monsieur de Roncherolle in all the fine hotels, and received everywhere the answer that no person of that name had apartments there. Then the young messenger would return in the afternoon to Boulevard du Château d’Eau, to say good-evening to Violette, to whom he would confide the ill success of his efforts; and before going home he would try to find work to do in order to earn a little money. Georget no longer passed the day loafing on the boulevard as before; he no longer passed the time with his friend Chicotin, who, if he had known why Georget was exploring Paris, could have put an end to his search with a word. Chicotin, on his side, was looking for the Baronne de Grangeville, but without fatiguing himself overmuch and without exhibiting as much zeal as his friend in his inquiries. And when night came, instead of returning to the neighborhood of the Château d’Eau, Monsieur Patatras, as he adored the play, hung about in the neighborhood of the people who were on their way to the theatres on Boulevard du Temple, and his felicity was complete when, toward the close of the evening, he succeeded in obtaining a check, by means of which he witnessed the last act of a melodrama or a farce.
Every morning before starting out, Georget deemed it his duty to go to Monsieur Malberg, to tell him what quarter and what streets he had explored the day before. Although the result of his investigations was not as yet satisfactory, he was desirous to prove to the man who had assisted him so generously that his zeal had not abated. The young messenger was rarely admitted to Monsieur Malberg’s presence, but he always found Pongo deep in conversation with the furniture; then he would tell the mulatto what he had done, and he never failed to report faithfully to his master all that Georget had told him.