Even as the "fixed idea" works miracles of evasion, and brings
forth prodigies of sentiment, so greed transformed the portress till
she became as formidable as a Nucingen at bay, as subtle beneath her
seeming stupidity as the irresistible La Palferine.
About seven o'clock one morning, a few days afterwards, she saw
Remonencq taking down his shutters. She went across to him.
"How could one find out how much the things yonder in my gentlemen's
rooms are worth?" she asked in a wheedling tone.
"Oh! that is quite easy," replied the owner of the old curiosity shop.
"If you will play fair and above board with me, I will tell you of
somebody, a very honest man, who will know the value of the pictures
to a farthing--"
"Who?"
"M. Magus, a Jew. He only does business to amuse himself now."
Elie Magus has appeared so often in the _Comedie Humaine_, that it is
needless to say more of him here. Suffice it to add that he had
retired from business, and as a dealer was following the example set
by Pons the amateur. Well-known valuers like Henry, Messrs. Pigeot and
Moret, Theret, Georges, and Roehn, the experts of the Musee, in fact,
were but children compared with Elie Magus. He could see a masterpiece
beneath the accumulated grime of a century; he knew all schools, and
the handwriting of all painters.
He had come to Paris from Bordeaux, and so long ago as 1835 he had
retired from business without making any change for the better in his
dress, so faithful is the race to old tradition.
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