Yet for some time No. 13 had looked like all the other houses in the vicinity. People went in and came out, just as if it had been the domicile of no ghost. The knocker on the door was often heard, and when the porter opened his door, a little flower-garden was seen, with various horticultural treasures, expanding beneath the spring sun.
At length a lodger was found, a very godsend to No. 13, whose lofty reason was superior to all the fables told of the house, and, by his presence defended it from the calumny which had been circulated about it; not by words but deeds, for he lived there, and was neither hung nor stifled, like the old merchants, who had several very evil disposed nephews, and who, to say the least, assisted the man that was hung in procuring the rich inheritance for them. This house had a large ground-floor, and many handsome rooms on the first story. The second story was very expensive, having previously been the studio of a painter, but which had been appropriated by the new lodger to an object which we will describe by and by. We will not attempt a description of this new lodger, but will introduce to our readers one more competent to do it. This person is Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, an old maid between thirty-seven and forty-nine years of age. She was tall and thin, and had all her life rejoiced at this, for she had a form three fingers in diameter. True, a broomstick can be grasped between the thumb and index finger, and yet is not very graceful. Let not any one think, though, in spite of this infantine vanity, that Mlle. Crepineau was of those virgins whom the Bible condemns as foolish about their beauty. She was a prudent honest-minded girl, the heart of whom if it ever spoke, did so in such low terms, that no one ever heard it. Mademoiselle Celestine's virtue was a proverb. Mothers in all that part of the town spoke of her as a model of prudence, and fathers pointed her out to their sons as a warning against the passions of youth. Without father or mother, from her very childhood Mlle. Crepeneau had no protector but her god-father, an old lawyer, who owned No. 13 of Babylonne-street. The worthy lawyer had provided for the youth of Mlle. Celestine, and had long intrusted her with the control of his kitchen: discovering, however, how little talent his god-daughter had for the art of Cussy and Brillot-Savarin, and wishing to provide an honorable and comfortable home for her, he removed her from the charge of her personal to that of his real property. We will see how fully Mlle. Celestine justified the esteem of her god-father: with what martial courage she took possession of this kingdom of shadows; and how, after sprinkling the whole house with holy water and hung a bough of a blessed tree, she had declared that this asylum, thus purified, henceforth would be unapproachable to the man who had been hung.
The fact is, for three years, neither the suicide nor any one else had violated this sanctuary of virtue. But Mlle. Celestine was not only a virtuous and sensible woman, but a woman of eloquence. Nothing could be more attractive than the harangues she made use of to induce lodgers to occupy her rooms. Honey flowed from her mouth, and many persons were led away by the siren's song. But generally they soon became terrified and fled from the terrors which besieged them. Mlle. Celestine Crepeneau therefore could not praise her new lodger too highly. "What a charming man," said she to her neighbors in 11 and 51, the porters of which looked on her as an oracle. "Doctor Matheus is an angel, pure as those of Paradise. God forgive me for saying so, for I think he is handsomer than they, with his magnificent whiskers and moustache. I do not see why angels do not wear them! I am sure they are very becoming. Besides, he is so kind to other people. Only the other day he wished to set Tamburin's leg, which some Jacobin had broken." In Mlle. Crepeneau's mind, a Jacobin was capable of any thing. "And what a magnificent room he has! how beautiful: all full of noble skeletons, Jacobins' heads, and books enough to fill all the Place Louis XV. He has also a fine practice, and patients of every kind coming on horseback, in carriages, on foot, and in wooden shoes. He refuses no one, and cures every body—even Tamburin. The poor animal is very fond of him, never barking when he passes, but wagging his tail as if he knew his physician. I alone attend to Doctor Matheus," continued Mlle. Crepeneau, "and I flatter myself he is well waited on. He has a great deal of trouble, too, especially on his consultation days. One would think then all Paris met at his house. He is a brave man, and is not afraid of ghosts! Yet he said the other day, 'I have killed so many people that one more would run me mad.'"
Yet while Mlle. Crepineau was thus prodigal of her praises, in front of No. 13, her lodger, as she called him, was in the third story of the house, and was shut up in his room engaged in the strangest manner. The studio had preserved nothing of its original destination but its name. Instead of pictures, plaster casts, statuettes, and manikins, the table was covered with manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and loose papers; on this battle-field, where science, art and politics seemed to contend together, stood a noble Japan vase from which arose a noble bouquet of white camelias—above this hung the portrait of a protestant preacher.
Doctor Matheus, as Mlle. Celestine had said, was young and handsome. He had luxuriant fair hair, hanging in clusters around his face and falling on his shoulders, so as to give a seraphic air to his face, very well calculated to touch the heart of pious Celestine. In his mild blue eyes, however, there was an expression of will, decision and daring which strangely contrasted with the rest of his face. The Doctor was tall and elegantly formed, and wore at home the costume yet popular at Leipsig, Gottingen and Heidelberg, a doublet of velvet and a kind of cap surmounted by a plume. He had suppressed the plume. This is exactly the costume of Karl de Moor in Schiller's robber; and in 1847 we saw the pupils of those venerable universities strolling through the streets of the German capitals in this very theatrical costume, precisely that of Wilhelm Meister's actors when they met Mignon on the Ingolstadt road just after their unfortunate representation of Hamlet. The Doctor, we have said, was strangely engaged. He leaned over a vast chart of Europe, extended before him like a body waiting for the knife of the anatomist. His eyes were expanded, his brow flushed, and from time to time he stuck black pins into this chart, and whenever he did so consulted the manuscripts which he held in his hand. When he had inserted the last pin, he arose, and with a cry of joy looked around like a conqueror; as great men are wont to survey their fields of triumphs. "Europe is ours," said he, "and the world is Europe's." The vaccine of Carbonarism has taken, and courses from vein to vein, to the very noblest portion of the social body. It has reached and taken possession of the heart. The old man is dead and a new being is about to be born. Better still, Lazarus, regenerated, is about to burst from the tomb.
Afraid to yield to a false hope, trembling lest he should be deceived in his calculations, the Doctor leaned again over his chart, and began to compute the black pins which, like a mourning cloak, covered the map of Europe. And indeed the terrible monster he had named was a pall thrown over the happiness of the people of the world. The idealists and ambitious men who sought to extend it were the murderers of all prosperity. A Gothic clock which leaned against the wall struck eleven. The features of the Doctor at once changed their expression, and infinite grief replaced the enthusiasm which pervaded them. He hurried to a low window of his cabinet, and pushing aside the curtain, looked anxiously into a garden which was behind the house he dwelt in, and from which he was separated only by the parterre of which we have spoken before. This garden belonged to a magnificent hotel in the street of Verennes. A large portal decked with flower vases led to rooms on the ground-floor. This door was just then opened and a beautiful girl hurried past, when the Doctor went to the window of his cabinet. The young girl walked down an alley well lighted; she seemed to seek for the generous heat of the sun, and turned toward it like a true Heliotrope. She seemed to take no care of her complexion, for her head was scarcely covered by a straw-hat which could not avert the heat. A thin dress of embroidered muslin with short sleeves displayed her arms, and a blue sash surrounded her thin and delicate form. She gathered a few flowers, and cut away a few bad branches of the rose-trees with an elegant English pruning-knife. Then after having passed two or three times up and down the alley in front of the portal, she put her hand to her brow as if to make a visor to shield her eyes from the burning rays of the sun. Just in front of her was the window—the curtain of which Doctor Matheus had drawn aside, and there he stood more beautiful and radiant than ever. The young girl blushed slightly and looked hastily away, for the sun probably appeared too bright just then. The Doctor seemed fascinated by what he had seen, and we cannot say how long his ecstasy continued. At last a well-known voice exclaimed on the other side of the door, which was closed even to Mlle. Celestine Crepineau, "Doctor—you are wanted in the parlor. A gentleman—a patient. He has given me his card to bring you."
"Very well," said the Doctor, "I am coming."
"But, sir, if you will open the door I will give you his card."
"Keep it," said the Doctor, "as I am coming down and do not need it."
"Yet," said the inquisitive porteress.—"Monsieur may wish to know the name in advance."