Chapter XVIII

Beneath the cell, which our recluse occupied, a large smoky room (a thick and mournful vault, which received no other light than that of the fire in a vast chimney, continually filled with iron pots, boiling and hissing) contained the Swartz family. While the wife made the greatest possible number of dinners out of the smallest number of comestibles, the husband sat before a table, blackened with ink and oil, and, by the light of a lamp which burned constantly in this dark sanctuary, wrote out immense bills containing the most fabulous items imaginable. The miserable dinners were for the large number of prisoners whom Swartz had contrived to number among his boarders; the bills were to be presented to their relations or bankers without being always submitted to the recipients of this luxurious alimentation. While the speculative couple were devoting themselves with all their power to toil, two more peaceable personages, in the chimney-corner, sat by in silence, perfect strangers to the advantage and profit of what was going on. The first was a poor starved cat, thin and famished, whose whole existence seemed wasted in sucking its paws. The second was a young man, or rather a lad, if possible uglier than the cat, who wasted his life in reading a book, if possible, more greasy than his mother's pots, and whose eternal reveries seemed to partake more of tranquil idiocy than the meditation of a sentient being. The cat had been christened Belzebub, as an antithesis to the name conferred by Herr and Vrau Swartz on the lad, who was called Gottlieb.

Gottlieb, intended for the church, until he was fifteen had made rapid progress in Protestant Theology. For four years, however, he had been inert and invalid, hanging over the hearth side, unwilling to see the sun, and unable to continue his studies. A rapid and irregular growth had reduced him to a state of languor and indolence. His long, thin legs scarcely sufficed to support his unnatural and ungainly height. His arms were so feeble, and his hands so clumsy, that he could touch nothing without breaking it. His avaricious mother had, therefore, forbidden him to interfere at all, and he was ready enough to obey her. His face was coarse and beardless, terminated by a high forehead, and was altogether not unlike a ripe pear. His features were irregular as his figure. His eyes seemed decidedly astray, so cross and diverging were they. His thick lips had a stupid smile; his nose was shapeless, his complexion colorless, his ears flat, and sticking close to his head. A few coarse, wiry hairs covered his head, which was more like a turnip than the poll of a Christian: this, at least, was the poetical comparison of his good mother.

In spite of his natural disadvantages, in spite of the shame and disappointment with which Vrau Swartz regarded him, Gottlieb, her only son, an inoffensive and patient invalid, was yet the pride and joy of the authors of his existence. They flattered themselves, when he became less ugly, that some day he would be a handsome man. They had expected, from his studious childhood, that his success in life would be brilliant. Notwithstanding the precarious state to which he was reduced, they hoped he would recover strength, power, intelligence, and beauty, as soon as his growth had stopped. It is, besides, needless to remark, that maternal love becomes used to anything, and is satisfied with little. Vrau Swartz, though she abused, adored him, and had she not seen him all day long planted like a _pillar of salt_ (such were her words) at the corner of the fireplace, would have been unable to mix her sauces or remember the items of her bills. Old Swartz, who, like many men, had more self-love than tenderness in his paternal regard, persisted in jewing and robbing his prisoners, in the hope that some day Gottlieb would be a minister and a famous preacher. This was his fixed idea, because, before he became rich, the young man had always displayed great facility of expression. For four years, however, he had not said one single sensible thing, and if he ever united two or three sentences together, he spoke them to his cat Belzebub. In fine, Gottlieb was said by the physicians to be an idiot, and his parents, alone thought that he could be cured.

Gottlieb, however, once shook off his apathy, and told his parents that he wished to learn a trade, to amuse himself, and make his tiresome hours profitable. They yielded to this innocent desire, though it scarcely conformed with the dignity attached to a preacher of the reformed church to work with his hands. The mind of Gottlieb appeared, however, so sunk in repose, that it was deemed prudent to permit him to acquire the art of making shoes in a cobbler's stall. His father would have wished him to study a more elegant profession. In vain did they exhibit to him every branch of industry; he had a decided predilection for the craft of Saint Crispin, and said that he was satisfied Providence called him to embrace it. As this wish became a fixed idea, and as the very fear of being interfered with threw him into an intense melancholy, he was suffered to pass a month in the shop of a master workman, whence he came one day with all the tools of the trade, and installed himself in the chimney-corner, saying that he knew enough, and had no need of further instruction. This was not probable; and his parents, hoping that his experience had disgusted him, and that he probably would resume the study of theology, neither reproached nor laughed at him on his return. A new era in Gottlieb's life then began, which was entirely delighted by the prospect of the manufacture of an imaginary pair of shoes. Three or four hours a-day, he took his last and worked at a shoe, which no one over wore, for it was never finished. Every day it was stitched, stretched beaten, pointed, and took all possible shapes, except that of a shoe. The artisan was, however, delighted with his work, and was attentive, careful, patient, and content, so that he utterly disregarded all criticism. At first, his parents were afraid of this monomania, but gradually became used to it, and the great shoe and the volume of sermons and prayers alternated in his hands. Nothing more was required of him than to go from time to time with his father through the galleries and courts, to get fresh air. These promenades gave Swartz a great deal of annoyance, because the children of the other keepers of the prison ran after Gottlieb, imitating his idle and negligent gait, and shouting out "Shoes! shoes! _Cobbler_, make me a pair of shoes! Take my measure--who wants shoes?" For fear of getting him into difficulty with this rabble, Swartz dragged him along, and the shoemaker was not at all troubled nor distressed at being thus hurried from his work.

In the early part of her imprisonment, Consuelo had been humbly requested by Swartz to get into conversation with Gottlieb, and try to awaken in him the memory of and taste for that eloquence with which he had been endowed in his childhood. While he owned the unhealthy state and the apathy of his heir, Swartz, faithful to the law of nature, so well defined by La Fontaine--

"Nos petits sont mignons, Beaux, bienfaits, et jolis sur touts leurs compagnons."

had not described very faithfully the attractions of poor Gottlieb. Had they done so, Consuelo, it is probable, would not have refused to receive in her cell a young man of nineteen, five feet eight inches high, who made the mouth of all the recruiters of the country water, but who, unfortunately for his health, but fortunately for his independence, was weak in the arms and legs, so as to be unfit for a soldier. The prisoner thought that the society of a _child_ of that age and stature was not exactly proper, and refused positively to receive him. This was an insult the female Swartz made her atone for, by adding a pint of water every day to her _bouillon._

On her way to the esplanade, where she was permitted to walk every day, Consuelo was forced to pass the filthy home of the Swartz, and also to go through it under the escort, and with the permission of her keeper, who ever insisted on persuasion, (the article of _ceaseless complaisance_ being highly charged in his bills.) It happened, then, that in passing through this kitchen, one door of which opened on the esplanade, Consuelo observed Gottlieb. A child's head on a giant's frame, badly formed too, at first disgusted her; but, gradually, she learned to pity him; questioned him kindly, and tried to make him talk. Ere long, she discovered that his mind was paralysed either by disease or extreme timidity. He would not accompany her to the rampart, until his parents forced him to do so, and replied to her questions only by monosyllables. In talking to him, therefore, she was afraid of aggravating the _ennui_ she fancied he suffered from, and would not either speak or talk to him. She had told his father she saw not the slightest disposition for the oratorical art in him.

Consuelo had been searched a second time by Madame Swartz, on the day when she had met Porporino and sang to the Berlinese public. She contrived, however, to deceive the vigilance of the female Cerberus. The hour was late, and the old woman was out of humor at being disturbed in her first slumber. While Gottlieb slept in one room, or rather in a closet which opened into the kitchen, and the jailer went up stairs to open her cell, Consuelo had approached the fire, which was smothered by the ashes, and while pretending to caress Belzebub, managed to save her funds from the hands of the searcher, so as to be no longer fully at her control. While Madame Swartz was lighting her lamp and putting on her spectacles, Consuelo observed in the chimney-corner, where Gottlieb habitually sat, a recess in the wall about the elevation of her arm, and in this mysterious recess lay his library and tools. This hole, blackened by soot and smoke, contained all Gottlieb's wealth and riches. By an adroit movement, Consuelo slipped her purse into the recess, and then suffered herself to be patiently examined by the old vixen, who persisted for a long time in passing her oily fingers over all the folds of her dress, and who was surprised and angry at finding nothing. The _sang froid_ of Consuelo, who after all, was not very anxious to succeed in her enterprise, at last satisfied the jailer that she had nothing hidden; and, as soon as the examination was over, she contrived to recover her purse, and keep it in her hand under her cloak until she reached her cell. There she set about concealing it, being well aware that when she was taking her walk, her cell was searched regularly. She could do nothing better than keep her little fortune always about her, sewed up in a girdle, the female Swartz having no right to search her except when she had left the prison.

By and by, the first sum which had been found on the person of the prisoner, when she reached the fortress, was exhausted, thanks to the ingenious bills of Swartz. When he had given her a few very meagre meals and a round bill, being, as usual, too timid to speak of business, and ask a person condemned to poverty for money, in consonance with information had from her, on the day of her incarceration, in relation to the money in Porporino's hands, Swartz went to Berlin, and presented his bill to the contralto. Porporino, in obedience to Cousuelo's directions, refused to pay the bill until the prisoner directed it, and bade the creditor ask his prisoner, whom he knew to have a comfortable sum of money, to pay it.

Swartz returned, pale and in despair, asserting that he was ruined. He looked on himself as robbed, although the hundred ducats he first found on the prisoner would have paid him four-fold for all she had consumed during two entire months. The old woman bore this pretended loss with the philosophy of a stronger head and more persevering mind.

"We are robbed," said she, "of a surety; but you never relied on this prisoner certainly? I told you what would happen. An actress--bah! those sort of people never save anything. An actor as her banker!--what would you expect? We have lost two hundred ducats--we will make this loss up on others, however, who have means. This will teach you to go headlong and offer your services to the first comer. I am not sorry, Swartz, you have had this lesson. I will now do myself the pleasure of putting her on dry bread, and that, too, rather stale, for being so careless as not to put a single 'Frederick' in her pocket to pay the searcher, and for treating Gottlieb as a fool, because he would not make love to her."

Thus scolding and shrugging her shoulders, the old woman seating herself near the chimney by Gottlieb, said--"What do you think of all this, my clever fellow?"

She talked merely to hear herself, being well aware that Gottlieb paid no more attention than the cat Belzebub did to her words.

"My shoe is almost done, mother; I will soon begin a new pair."

"Yes," said the old woman, with an expression of pity; "work so, and you will make a pair a-day. Go on, my boy; you will be very rich. My God! my God!" she continued, opening her pots, and with an expression of pitiful resignation, just as if the maternal instinct had endowed her with any of the feelings of humanity.

Consuelo, seeing her dinner did not come, was well aware what had happened, though she could scarcely think a hundred ducats had been absorbed in such a short time. She had previously marked out a plan of conduct, in regard to the jailer: not having as yet received a penny from the King of Prussia, (that was the way Voltaire was paid.) She was well aware that the money she had gained by charming the ears of some less avaricious persons would not last her long, if her incarceration were prolonged and Swartz did not modify his claims. She wished to force him to reduce his demands, and for two or three days contented herself with the bread and water he brought, without remarking the change in her diet. The stove also, began to be neglected, and Consuelo suffered with cold, without complaining of it. The weather, fortunately, was not very severe. It was April, when in Prussia the weather is not as mild as it is in France, but when the genial season commences.

Before entering into a parley with her avaricious tyrant, she set about disposing her money in a place of safety. She could not hope that she would not be subjected to an examination and an arbitrary seizure of her funds, as soon as she should own her resources. Necessity makes us shrewd, if it does not do more. Consuelo had nothing with which she could cut either wood or stone. On the next day as she examined with the minute patience of a prisoner, every corner of her cell, she observed a brick which did not seem to be as well jointed as the others. She scratched it with her nails, took out the mortar, which she saw was not lime, but a friable substance, which she supposed to be dried bread. She took out the brick, and found behind it a recess carefully formed in the depth of the wall. She was not surprised to find in it many things which to a prisoner were real luxuries; a package of pencils, a penknife, a flint, tinder, and parcels of that thin waxlight, twisted in rolls, and called _care_-nots. These things were not at all injured, the wall being dry, and besides, they could not have been there long before she took possession of the cell. With them she placed her purse, her filagree crucifix, which Swartz looked greedily at, saying it would be such a pretty thing for Gottlieb. She then replaced the brick and cemented it with her loaf, which she soiled a little by rubbing it on the floor, to make it appear the color of mortar.

Having become tranquil for a time, in relation to the occupation of her evenings and her means of existence, she waited with not a little eagerness for the domiciliary visit of Swartz, and felt proud and happy as if she had discovered a new world.

Swartz soon became tired of having no speculation. If he must work, said he, it was better to do it for a small sum than for nothing, and he broke the silence by asking prisoner _No. 3_ if she had nothing to order? Then Consuelo resolved to tell him that she had no money, but would receive funds every week by a means which it was impossible for him to discover.

"If you should do so," said she, "it would make it impossible for me to receive anything, and you must say whether you prefer the letter of your orders, to your interests."

After a long discussion, and after having for some days examined the clothes, floor, furniture, and bed, Swartz began to think that Consuelo received the means of existence from some superior officer of the fortress. Corruption existed in every grade of the prison officials, and subalterns never contradicted their more powerful associates.

"Let us take what God sends us," said Swartz, with a sigh, and he consented to settle every week with Porporina. She did not dispute about the disbursement of her funds, but regulated the accounts, so as not to pay more than twice the value of each article, a plan which Vrau Swartz thought very mean, but which did not prevent her from earning it.