第9章
During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie's arm rested upon his as they walked to the carriage, Godefroid could not escape the glamour of the words: "Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand francs!"--words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame.The thought, "She must be rich!" entirely changed his way of looking at the matter."How old is she?" he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue Chanoinesse came to him."She certainly has an air of nobility!
Can she be concerned in some bank?" thought he.
In our day nine hundred and ninety-nine young men out of a thousand in Godefroid's position would have had the thought of marrying that woman.
A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three thousand francs for the articles Godefroid was willing to sell, and agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to prepare the shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger with a sick mind.Godefroid went there at once, and obtained from Madame de la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate sum, agreed to whiten the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the woodwork, and stain the floors, within a week.Godefroid took the measure of the rooms, intending to put the same carpet in all of them, --a green carpet of the cheapest kind.He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat, and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea.She calculated, with Manon's assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for the window curtains, and also for those of the modest iron bed; and she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so moderate as to surprise Godefroid.Having brought with him a certain amount of furniture, the whole cost of fitting up the rooms proved to be not over six hundred francs.
"We lead here," said Madame de la Chanterie, "a Christian life, which does not, as you know, accord with many superfluities; I think you have too many as it is."In giving this hint to her future lodger, she looked at a diamond which gleamed in the ring through which Godefroid's blue cravat was slipped.
"I only speak of this," she added, "because of the intention you expressed to abandon the frivolous life you complained of to Monsieur Mongenod."Godefroid looked at Madame de la Chanterie as he listened to the harmonies of her limpid voice; he examined that face so purely white, resembling those of the cold, grave women of Holland whom the Flemish painters have so wonderfully reproduced with their smooth skins, in which a wrinkle is impossible.
"White and plump!" he said to himself, as he walked away; "but her hair is white, too."Godefroid, like all weak natures, took readily to a new life, believing it satisfactory; and he was now quite eager to take up his abode in the rue Chanoinesse.Nevertheless, a prudent thought, or, if you prefer to say so, a distrustful thought, occurred to him.Two days before his installation, he went again to see Monsieur Mongenod to obtain some more definite information about the house he was to enter.
During the few moments he had spent in his future lodgings overlooking the changes that were being made in them, he had noticed the coming and going of several persons whose appearance and behavior, without being exactly mysterious, excited a belief that some secret occupation or profession was being carried on in that house.At that particular period there was much talk of attempts by the elder branch of the Bourbons to recover the throne, and Godefroid suspected some conspiracy.When he found himself in the banker's counting-room held by the scrutinizing eye of Frederic Mongenod while he made his inquiry, he felt ashamed as he saw a derisive smile on the lips of the listener.
"Madame la Baronne de la Chanterie," replied the banker, "is one of the most obscure persons in Paris, but she is also one of the most honorable.Have you any object in asking for information?"Godefroid retreated into generalities: he was going to live among strangers; he naturally wished to know something of those with whom he should be intimately thrown.But the banker's smile became more and more sarcastic; and Godefroid, more and more embarrassed, was ashamed of the step he had taken, and which bore no fruit, for he dared not continue his questions about Madame de la Chanterie and her inmates.