So the enemy was to be brought into the citadel, and a stab dealt to Pons’ very heart.  For ten years Pons had carried his keys about with him; he had forbidden La Cibot to allow any one, no matter whom, to cross his threshold; and La Cibot had so far shared Schmucke’s opinions of bric-a-brac, that she had obeyed him.  The good Schmucke, by speaking of the splendors as “chimcracks,” and deploring his friend’s mania, had taught La Cibot to despise the old rubbish, and so secured Pons’ museum from invasion for many a long year.

When Pons took to his bed, Schmucke filled his place at the theatre and gave lessons for him at his boarding-schools.  He did his utmost to do the work of two; but Pons’ sorrows weighing heavily upon his mind, the task took all his strength.  He only saw his friend in the morning, and again at dinnertime.  His pupils and the people at the theatre, seeing the poor German look so unhappy, used to ask for news of Pons; and so great was his grief, that the indifferent would make the grimaces of sensibility which Parisians are wont to reserve for the greatest calamities.  The very springs of life had been attacked, the good German was suffering from Pons’ pain as well as from his own.  When he gave a music lesson, he spent half the time in talking of Pons, interrupting himself to wonder whether his friend felt better to-day, and the little school-girls listening heard lengthy explanations of Pons’ symptoms.  He would rush over to the Rue de Normandie in the interval between two lessons for the sake of a quarter of an hour with Pons.

When at last he saw that their common stock was almost exhausted, when Mme. Cibot (who had done her best to swell the expenses of the illness) came to him and frightened him; then the old music-master felt that he had courage of which he never thought himself capable —­courage that rose above his anguish.  For the first time in his life he set himself to earn money; money was needed at home.  One of the school-girl pupils, really touched by their troubles, asked Schmucke how he could leave his friend alone.  “Montemoiselle,” he answered, with the sublime smile of those who think no evil, “ve haf Montame Zipod, ein dreasure, montemoiselle, ein bearl!  Bons is nursed like ein brince.”

So while Schmucke trotted about the streets, La Cibot was mistress of the house and ruled the invalid.  How should Pons superintend his self-appointed guardian angel, when he had taken no solid food for a fortnight, and lay there so weak and helpless that La Cibot was obliged to lift him up and carry him to the sofa while she made the bed?