Gobseck | Page 5

the light. He had the thin lips that you see in Rembrandt's
or Metsu's portraits of alchemists and shrunken old men, and a nose so
sharp at the tip that it put you in mind of a gimlet. His voice was so low;
he always spoke suavely; he never flew into a passion. His age was a
problem; it was hard to say whether he had grown old before his time,
or whether by economy of youth he had saved enough to last him his
life.
"His room, and everything in it, from the green baize of the bureau to
the strip of carpet by the bed, was as clean and threadbare as the chilly
sanctuary of some elderly spinster who spends her days in rubbing her
furniture. In winter time, the live brands of the fire smouldered all day
in a bank of ashes; there was never any flame in his grate. He went
through his day, from his uprising to his evening coughing-fit, with the
regularity of a pendulum, and in some sort was a clockwork man,
wound up by a night's slumber. Touch a wood-louse on an excursion
across your sheet of paper, and the creature shams death; and in
something the same way my acquaintance would stop short in the
middle of a sentence, while a cart went by, to save the strain to his
voice. Following the example of Fontenelle, he was thrifty of pulse-
strokes, and concentrated all human sensibility in the innermost
sanctuary of Self.
"His life flowed soundless as the sands of an hour-glass. His victims
sometimes flew into a rage and made a great deal of noise, followed by
a great silence; so is it in a kitchen after a fowl's neck has been wrung.
"Toward evening this bill of exchange incarnate would assume
ordinary human shape, and his metals were metamorphosed into a

human heart. When he was satisfied with his day's business, he would
rub his hands; his inward glee would escape like smoke through every
rift and wrinkle of his face;--in no other way is it possible to give an
idea of the mute play of muscle which expressed sensations similar to
the soundless laughter of Leather Stocking. Indeed, even in transports
of joy, his conversation was confined to monosyllables; he wore the
same non-committal countenance.
"This was the neighbor Chance found for me in the house in the Rue de
Gres, where I used to live when as yet I was only a second clerk
finishing my third year's studies. The house is damp and dark, and
boasts no courtyard. All the windows look on the street; the whole
dwelling, in claustral fashion, is divided into rooms or cells of equal
size, all opening upon a long corridor dimly lit with borrowed lights.
The place must have been part of an old convent once. So gloomy was
it, that the gaiety of eldest sons forsook them on the stairs before they
reached my neighbor's door. He and his house were much alike; even
so does the oyster resemble his native rock.
"I was the one creature with whom he had any communication, socially
speaking; he would come in to ask for a light, to borrow a book or a
newspaper, and of an evening he would allow me to go into his cell,
and when he was in the humor we would chat together. These marks of
confidence were the results of four years of neighborhood and my own
sober conduct. From sheer lack of pence, I was bound to live pretty
much as he did. Had he any relations or friends? Was he rich or poor?
Nobody could give an answer to these questions. I myself never saw
money in his room. Doubtless his capital was safely stowed in the
strong rooms of the Bank. He used to collect his bills himself as they
fell due, running all over Paris on a pair of shanks as skinny as a stag's.
On occasion he would be a martyr to prudence. One day, when he
happened to have gold in his pockets, a double napoleon worked its
way, somehow or other, out of his fob and fell, and another lodger
following him up the stairs picked up the coin and returned it to its
owner.
" 'That isn't mine!' said he, with a start of surprise. 'Mine indeed! If I

were rich, should I live as I do!'
"He made his cup of coffee himself every morning on the cast-iron
chafing dish which stood all day in the black angle of the grate; his
dinner came in from a cookshop; and our old porter's wife went up at
the prescribed hour to set his room in order. Finally, a whimsical
chance, in which Sterne would have seen predestination, had named