After generously
pardoning Madeleine, he extended his forgiveness to the other
servants, promising to use his influence with his cousin the
Presidente on their behalf.
It was unspeakably pleasant to Pons to find all his old enjoyments
restored to him without any loss of self-respect. The world had come
to Pons, he had risen in the esteem of his circle; but Schmucke looked
so downcast and dubious when he heard the story of the triumph, that
Pons felt hurt. When, however, the kind-hearted German saw the sudden
change wrought in Pons' face, he ended by rejoicing with his friend,
and made a sacrifice of the happiness that he had known during those
four months that he had had Pons all to himself. Mental suffering has
this immense advantage over physical ills--when the cause is removed
it ceases at once. Pons was not like the same man that morning. The
old man, depressed and visibly failing, had given place to the
serenely contented Pons, who entered the Presidente's house that
October afternoon with the Marquise de Pompadour's fan in his pocket.
Schmucke, on the other hand, pondered deeply over this phenomenon, and
could not understand it; your true stoic never can understand the
courtier that dwells in a Frenchman. Pons was a born Frenchman of the
Empire; a mixture of eighteenth century gallantry and that devotion to
womankind so often celebrated in songs of the type of _Partant pour la
Syrie_.
So Schmucke was fain to bury his chagrin beneath the flowers of his
German philosophy; but a week later he grew so yellow that Mme.
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