Produced by David Widger
THE MUMMY'S FOOT
By Theophile Gautier
Translated By Lafcadio Hearn
1908
I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosityvenders who are called _marchands de bric-a-brac_ in that Parisian_argot_ which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.
You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some ofthese shops, which have become so numerous now that it is fashionableto buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stockbroker thinks hemust have his _chambre au moyen age_.
There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealerin old iron, the ware-room of the tapestry maker, the laboratory of thechemist, and the studio of the painter: in all those gloomy dens wherea furtive daylight filters in through the window-shutters the mostmanifestly ancient thing is dust. The cobwebs are more authenticthan the gimp laces, and the old pear-tree furniture on exhibition isactually younger than the mahogany which arrived but yesterday fromAmerica.
The warehouse of my bric-a-brac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum. Allages and all nations seemed to have made their rendezvous there. AnEtruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony panels,brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the court ofLouis xv. nonchalantly extended her fawn-like feet under a massivetable of the time of Louis xiii., with heavy spiral supports of oak, andcarven designs of chimeras and foliage intermingled.
Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immenseJapanese dishes with red and blue designs relieved by gilded hatching,side by side with enamelled works by Bernard Palissy, representingserpents, frogs, and lizards in relief.
From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascades of silver-lustrous Chinesesilks and waves of tinsel, which an oblique sunbeam shot through withluminous beads, while portraits of every era, in frames more or lesstarnished, smiled through their yellow varnish.
The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armourglittered in one corner; loves and nymphs of porcelain, Chinesegrotesques, vases of _celadon_ and crackleware, Saxon and old Sevrescups encumbered the shelves and nooks of the apartment.
The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrivedbetween the piles of furniture, warding off with his hand the hazardoussweep of my coat-skirts, watching my elbows with the uneasy attention ofan antiquarian and a usurer.
It was a singular face, that of the merchant; an immense skull, polishedlike a knee, and surrounded by a thin aureole of white hair, whichbrought out the clear salmon tint of his complexion all the morestrikingly, lent him a false aspect of patriarchal _bonhomie_,counteracted, however, by the scintillation of two little yellow eyeswhich trembled in their orbits like two louis-d'or upon quicksilver. Thecurve of his nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested theOriental or Jewish type. His hands--thin, slender, full of nerves whichprojected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed withclaws like those on the terminations of bats' wings--shook with seniletrembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became firmerthan steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any preciousarticle--an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a dish of Bohemian crystal.This strange old man had an aspect so thoroughly rabbinical andcabalistic that he would have been burnt on the mere testimony of hisface three centuries ago.
'Will you not buy something from me to-day, sir? Here is a Malay kreesewith a blade undulating like flame. Look at those grooves contrived forthe blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to tear out theentrails in withdrawing the weapon. It is a fine character of ferociousarm, and will look well in your collection. This two-handed swordis very beautiful. It is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this_colichemarde_ with its fenestrated guard--what a superb specimen ofhandicraft!'
'No; I have quite enough weapons and instruments of carnage. I want asmall figure,--something which will suit me as a paper-weight, for Icannot endure those trumpery bronzes which the stationers sell, andwhich may be found on everybody's desk.'
The old gnome foraged among his ancient wares, and finally arrangedbefore me some antique bronzes, so-called at least; fragments ofmalachite, little Hindoo or Chinese idols, a kind of poussah-toys injade-stone, representing the incarnations of Brahma or Vishnoo, andwonderfully appropriate to the very undivine office of holding papersand letters in place.
I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon, all constellated withwarts, its mouth formidable with bristling tusks and ranges ofteeth, and an abominable little Mexican fetich, representing the godVitziliputzili _au naturel_, when I caught sight of a charming foot,which I at first took for a fragment of some antique Venus.
It had those beautiful ruddy and tawny tints that lend to Florentinebronze that warm living look so much preferable to the gray-green aspectof common bronzes, which might easily be mistaken for statues in a stateof putrefaction. Satiny gleams played over its rounded forms, doubtlesspolished by the amorous kisses of twenty centuries, for it seemed aCorinthian bronze, a work of the best era of art, perhaps moulded byLysippus himself.
'That foot will be my choice,' said to the merchant, who regarded mewith an ironical and saturnine air, and held out the object desired thatI might examine it more fully.
I was surprised at its lightness. It was not a foot of metal, but insooth a foot of flesh, an embalmed foot, a mummy's foot. On examiningit still more closely the very grain of the skin, and the almostimperceptible lines impressed upon it by the texture of the bandages,became perceptible. The toes were slender and delicate, and terminatedby perfectly formed nails, pure and transparent as agates. The greattoe, slightly separated from the rest, afforded a happy contrast, in theantique style, to the position of the other toes, and lent it an aeriallightness--the grace of a bird's foot. The sole, scarcely streaked bya few almost imperceptible cross lines, afforded evidence that it hadnever touched the bare ground, and had only come in contact with thefinest matting of Nile rushes and the softest carpets of panther skin.
'Ha, ha, you want the foot of the Princess Hermonthis!' exclaimed themerchant, with a strange giggle, fixing his owlish eyes upon me. 'Ha,ha, ha! For a paper-weight! An original idea!--artistic idea!-OldPharaoh would certainly have been surprised had some one told him thatthe foot of his adored daughter would be used for a paper-weight afterhe had had a mountain of granite hollowed out as a receptacle forthe triple coffin, painted and gilded, covered with hieroglyphics andbeautiful paintings of the Judgment of Souls,' continued the queerlittle merchant, half audibly, as though talking to himself.
'How much will you charge me for this mummy fragment?'
'Ah, the highest price I can get, for it is a superb piece. If I had thematch of it you could not have it for less than five hundred francs. Thedaughter of a Pharaoh! Nothing is more rare.'
'Assuredly that is not a common article, but still, how much do youwant? In the first place let me warn you that all my wealth consists ofjust five louis. I can buy anything that costs five louis, but nothingdearer. You might search my vest pockets and most secret drawers withouteven finding one poor five-franc piece more.'
'Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermonthis! That is verylittle, very little indeed. 'Tis an authentic foot,' muttered themerchant, shaking his head, and imparting a peculiar rotary motion tohis eyes. 'Well, take it, and I will give you the bandages into thebargain,' he added, wrapping the foot in an ancient damask rag. 'Veryfine? Real damask--Indian damask which has never been redyed. It isstrong, and yet it is soft,' he mumbled, stroking the frayed tissue withhis fingers, through the trade-acquired habit which moved him to praiseeven an object of such little value that he himself deemed it only worththe giving away.
He poured the gold coins into a sor
t of mediaeval alms-purse hanging athis belt, repeating:
'The foot of the Princess Hermonthis to be used for a paper-weight!'
Then turning his phosphorescent eyes upon me, he exclaimed in a voicestrident as the crying of a cat which has swallowed a fish-bone:
'Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased. He loved his daughter, the dearman!'
'You speak as if you were a contemporary of his. You are old enough,goodness knows! but you do not date back to the Pyramids of Egypt,' Ianswered, laughingly, from the threshold.
I went home, delighted with my acquisition.
With the idea of putting it to profitable use as soon as possible, Iplaced the foot of the divine Princess Hermonthis upon a heap of papersscribbled over with verses, in themselves an undecipherable mosaic workof erasures; articles freshly begun; letters forgotten, and postedin the table drawer instead of the letter-box, an error to whichabsent-minded people are