dying gesture, in the convulsive clutch of his claw-like hands. The
pillow had been flung to the floor at the foot of the bed; I could see

the print of her heel upon it. At her feet lay a paper with the
Count's arms on the seals; I snatched it up, and saw that it was

addressed to me. I looked steadily at the Countess with the pitiless
clear-sightedness of an examining magistrate confronting a guilty

creature. The contents were blazing in the grate; she had flung them
on the fire at the sound of our approach, imagining, from a first

hasty glance at the provisions which I had suggested for her children,
that she was destroying a will which disinherited them. A tormented

conscience and involuntaryhorror of the deed which she had done had
taken away all power of reflection. She had been caught in the act,

and possibly the scaffold was rising before her eyes, and she already
felt the felon's branding iron.

"There she stood gasping for breath, waiting for us to speak, staring
at us with haggard eyes.

"I went across to the grate and pulled out an unburned fragment. 'Ah,
madame!' I exclaimed, 'you have ruined your children! Those papers

were their titles to their property.'
"Her mouth twitched, she looked as if she were threatened by a

paralytic seizure.
" 'Eh! eh!' cried Gobseck; the harsh, shrill tone grated upon our ears

like the sound of a brass candlestick scratching a marble surface.
"There was a pause, then the old man turned to me and said quietly:

" 'Do you intend Mme. la Comtesse to suppose that I am not the
rightful owner of the property sold to me by her late husband? This

house belongs to me now.'
"A sudden blow on the head from a bludgeon would have given me less

pain and astonishment. The Countess saw the look of hesitation in my
face.

" 'Monsieur,' she cried, 'Monsieur!' She could find no other words.
" 'You are a trustee, are you not?' I asked.

" 'That is possible.'
" 'Then do you mean to take advantage of this crime of hers?'

" 'Precisely.'
"I went at that, leaving the Countess sitting by her husband's

bedside, shedding hot tears. Gobseck followed me. Outside in the
street I separated from him, but he came after me, flung me one of

those searching glances with which he probed men's minds, and said in
the husky flute-tones, pitched in a shriller key:

" 'Do you take it upon yourself to judge me?'
"From that time forward we saw little of each other. Gobseck let the

Count's mansion on lease; he spent the summers on the country estates.
He was a lord of the manor in earnest, putting up farm buildings,

repairing mills and roadways, and planting timber. I came across him
one day in a walk in the Jardin des Tuileries.

" 'The Countess is behaving like a heroine,' said I; 'she gives
herself up entirely to the children's education; she is giving them a

perfect bringing up. The oldest boy is a charming young fellow----'
" 'That is possible.'

" 'But ought you not to help Ernest?' I suggested.
" 'Help him!' cried Gobseck. 'Not I. Adversity is the greatest of all

teachers; adversity teaches us to know the value of money and the
worth of men and women. Let him set sail on the seas of Paris; when he

is a qualified pilot, we will give him a ship to steer.'
"I left him without seeking to explain the meaning of his words.

"M. de Restaud's mother has prejudiced him against me, and he is very
far from taking me as his legal adviser; still, I went to see Gobseck

last week to tell him about Ernest's love for Mlle. Camille, and
pressed him to carry out his contract, since that young Restaud is

just of age.
"I found the old bill-discounter had been kept to his bed for a long

time by the complaint of which he was to die. He put me off, saying
that he would give the matter his attention when he could get up again

and see after his business; his idea being no doubt that he would not
give up any of his possessions so long as the breath was in him; no

other reason could be found for his shuffling answer. He seemed to me
to be much worse than he at all suspected. I stayed with him long

enough to discern the progress of a passion which age had converted
into a sort of craze. He wanted to be alone in the house, and had

taken the rooms one by one as they fell vacant. In his own room he had
changed nothing; the furniture which I knew so well sixteen years ago

looked the same as ever; it might have been kept under a glass case.
Gobseck's faithful old portress, with her husband, a pensioner, who

sat in the entry while she was upstairs, was still his housekeeper and
charwoman, and now in addition his sick-nurse. In spite of his

feebleness, Gobseck saw his clients himself as heretofore, and
received sums of money; his affairs had been so simplified, that he

only needed to send his pensioner out now and again on an errand, and
could carry on business in his bed.

"After the treaty, by which France recognized the Haytian Republic,
Gobseck was one of the members of the commission appointed to

liquidate claims and assess repayments due by Hayti; his special
knowledge of old fortunes in San Domingo, and the planters and their

heirs and assigns to whom the indemnities were due, had led to his
nomination. Gobseck's peculiargenius had then devised an agency for

discounting the planters' claims on the government. The business was
carried on under the names of Werbrust and Gigonnet, with whom he

shared the spoil without disbursements, for his knowledge was accepted
instead of capital. The agency was a sort of distillery, in which

money was extracted from doubtful claims, and the claims of those who
knew no better, or had no confidence in the government. As a

liquidator, Gobseck could make terms with the large landed
proprietors; and these, either to gain a higher percentage of their

claims, or to ensure prompt settlements, would send him presents in
proportion to their means. In this way presents came to be a kind of

percentage upon sums too large to pass through his control, while the
agency bought up cheaply the small and dubious claims, or the claims

of those persons who preferred a little ready money to a deferred and
somewhat hazy repayment by the Republic. Gobseck was the insatiable

boa constrictor of the great business. Every morning he received his
tribute, eyeing it like a Nabob's prime minister, as he considers

whether he will sign a pardon. Gobseck would take anything, from the
present of game sent him by some poor devil or the pound's weight of

wax candles from devout folk, to the rich man's plate and the
speculator's gold snuff-box. Nobody knew what became of the presents

sent to the old money-lender. Everything went in, but nothing came
out.

" 'On the word of an honest woman,' said the portress, an old
acquaintance of mine, 'I believe he swallows it all and is none the

fatter for it; he is as thin and dried up as the cuckoo in the clock.'
"At length, last Monday, Gobseck sent his pensioner for me. The man

came up to my private office.
" 'Be quick and come, M. Derville,' said he, 'the governor is just

going to hand in his checks; he has grown as yellow as a lemon; he is
fidgeting to speak with you; death has fair hold of him; the rattle is

working in his throat.'
"When I entered Gobseck's room, I found the dying man kneeling before

the grate. If there was no fire on the hearth, there was at any rate a
monstrous heap of ashes. He had dragged himself out of bed, but his

strength had failed him, and he could neither go back nor find the
voice to complain.

" 'You felt cold, old friend,' I said, as I helped him back to his
bed; 'how can you do without a fire?'

" 'I am not cold at all,' he said. 'No fire here! no fire! I am going,
I know not where, lad,' he went on, glancing at me with blank,

lightless eyes, 'but I am going away from this.--I have carpology,'
said he (the use of the technical term showing how clear and accurate

his mental processes were even now). 'I thought the room was full of
live gold, and I got up to catch some of it.--To whom will all mine