The Mummys Foot

The Mummy's Foot, by
Théophile Gautier

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Title: The Mummy's Foot
Author: Théophile Gautier
Translator: Lafcadio Hearn
Release Date: September 18, 2007 [EBook #22662]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MUMMY'S FOOT ***

Produced by David Widger

THE MUMMY'S FOOT
By Théophile Gautier

Translated By Lafcadio Hearn
1908
I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosity
venders who are called marchands de bric-à-brac in that Parisian argot
which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.
You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some
of these shops, which have become so numerous now that it is
fashionable to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty
stockbroker thinks he must have his chambre au moyen âge.
There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealer in
old iron, the ware-room of the tapestry maker, the laboratory of the
chemist, and the studio of the painter: in all those gloomy dens where a
furtive daylight filters in through the window-shutters the most
manifestly ancient thing is dust. The cobwebs are more authentic than
the gimp laces, and the old pear-tree furniture on exhibition is actually
younger than the mahogany which arrived but yesterday from America.
The warehouse of my bric-à-brac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum.
All ages and all nations seemed to have made their rendezvous there.
An Etruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony
panels, brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the court
of Louis xv. nonchalantly extended her fawn-like feet under a massive
table of the time of Louis xiii., with heavy spiral supports of oak, and
carven designs of chimeras and foliage intermingled.
Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immense
Japanese dishes with red and blue designs relieved by gilded hatching,
side by side with enamelled works by Bernard Palissy, representing
serpents, frogs, and lizards in relief.
From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascades of silver-lustrous
Chinese silks and waves of tinsel, which an oblique sunbeam shot
through with luminous beads, while portraits of every era, in frames
more or less tarnished, smiled through their yellow varnish.

The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armour
glittered in one corner; loves and nymphs of porcelain, Chinese
grotesques, vases of céladon and crackleware, Saxon and old Sèvres
cups encumbered the shelves and nooks of the apartment.
The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrived
between the piles of furniture, warding off with his hand the hazardous
sweep of my coat-skirts, watching my elbows with the uneasy attention
of an antiquarian and a usurer.
It was a singular face, that of the merchant; an immense skull, polished
like a knee, and surrounded by a thin aureole of white hair, which
brought out the clear salmon tint of his complexion all the more
strikingly, lent him a false aspect of patriarchal bonhomie, counteracted,
however, by the scintillation of two little yellow eyes which trembled
in their orbits like two louis-d'or upon quicksilver. The curve of his
nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested the Oriental or
Jewish type. His hands--thin, slender, full of nerves which projected
like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like
those on the terminations of bats' wings--shook with senile trembling;
but those convulsively agitated hands became firmer than steel pincers
or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious article--an onyx cup, a
Venetian glass, or a dish of Bohemian crystal. This strange old man had
an aspect so thoroughly rabbinical and cabalistic that he would have
been burnt on the mere testimony of his face three centuries ago.
'Will you not buy something from me to-day, sir? Here is a Malay
kreese with a blade undulating like flame. Look at those grooves
contrived for the blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to
tear out the entrails in withdrawing the weapon. It is a fine character of
ferocious arm, and will look well in your collection. This two-handed
sword is very beautiful. It is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this
colichemarde with its fenestrated guard--what a superb specimen of
handicraft!'
'No; I have quite enough weapons and instruments of carnage. I want a
small figure,--something which will suit me as a paper-weight, for I
cannot endure those trumpery bronzes which the stationers sell, and

which may be found on everybody's desk.'