Scary Stories

The Painter's Bargain - William Makepeace Thackeray

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Duration:: 33m
Broadcast on:: 27 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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As he was not gaining five pounds a year by his profession, and had arrived at the age of 20 at least, Simon determined to better himself by taking a wife, a plan which a number of otherwise men adopt in similar years and circumstances. So Simon prevailed upon a butcher's daughter, to whom he owed considerably for cutlets, to quit the meat shop and follow him. Griscanisa, such was the fair creature's name, was as lovely as a bit of mutton, her father's head, as ever a man would wish to stick a knife into. She had sat to the painter for all sorts of characters, and the curious who possessed any of Gamburj's pictures will see her as Venus, Minerva, Madonna, and in numberless other characters. Portrait of a lady, Oriscanisa, sleeping nymph, Griscanisa, without a rag of clothes lying in a forest, maternal solicitude, Griscanisa again, with young master Gamburj, who was, by this time, the offspring of her affections. The lady brought the painter a handsome little fortune of a couple of hundred pounds, and as long as this sum lasted no woman could be more lovely or loving. But Wamp began speedily to attack their little household. Baker's bills were unpaid, rent was due, and the relentless landlord gave no quarter, and to crown the whole her father, a natural butcher, suddenly stopped the supplies of mutton-chops and swore that his daughter and the dog or her husband should have no more of his wares. At first they embraced tenderly, and kissing and crying over the little infant, vowed to heaven that they would do without, but in the course of the evening Griscanisa would peckish and poor Simon pawned his best coat. When this habit of pawning is discovered, it appears to the poor a kind of El Dorado. Ambusion his wife were so delighted that they, in the course of a month, made away with her gold chain, her great warming pan, his best crimson plush inexpressibles, two wigs, a wash hand base in Anur, fire irons, window curtains, crockery, and arm chairs. Griscanisa said, smiling, that she had found a second father in her uncle, a base pun which showed that her mind was corrupted and that she was no longer the tender, simple Griscanisa of other days. I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking. She swallowed the warming pan in the course of three days and fuddled herself one whole evening with the crimson plush breeches. Drinking is the devil, the father that is to say of all vices. Griscanisa's face and her mind grew ugly together. Her good humor changed to bilious bitter discontent. Her pretty fond epitess to foul abuse and swearing. Her tender blue eyes grew watery and bleer and the peach color on her cheeks fled from its old habitation and crowded up into her nose where, with a number of pimples, it stuck fast. Add to this a dirty, drag-al-tailed chintz, long-medded hair wandering into her eyes and over her lean shoulders which were once so snowy and you had the picture of drunkenness and Mrs. Simon Gambouge. Her Simon, who had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue and understand her doings. Bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the floor and poor Gambouge's oil and varnish pots went clattering through the windows or down the stairs. The baby wore it all day and Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy bottle when Mrs. Gambouge was out of the way. One day as he sat disconsolently at his easel, furbishing up a picture of his wife and the character of peace, which he had commenced a year before he was more than ordinarily desperate and cursed and swore in the most pathetic manner. "Oh miserable fate of genius!" cried he. "Was I a man of such commanding talents born for this, to be bullied by a fiend of a wife, to have my masterpieces neglected by the world or sold only for a few pieces? Cursed be the love which had misled me, cursed be the art which is unworthy of me. Let me dig or steal, let me sell myself as a soldier or sell myself to the devil I would not be more wretched than I am now." "Quite the contrary!" cried a small cheery voice. "What?" exclaimed Gambouge, trembling and surprised. "Who's there? Where are you? Who are you?" "You were despeaking of me," said the voice. Gambouge held in his left hand his palate. In his right a bladder of crimson lake, which he was about to squeeze out upon the mahogany. "Where are you?" cried he again. "Sco-weeeese!" exclaimed the little voice. Gambouge picked out the nail from the bladder and gave a squeeze. When as sure as I am living a little imp spurted out from the hole upon the palate and began laughing in the most singular and oily manner. When first born he was little bigger than a tadpole. Then he grew to be as big as a mouse. Then he arrived at the size of a cat. And then he jumped off the palate and turning head over heels, asked the poor painter what he wanted with him. The strange little animal twisted head over heels and fixed himself at last upon the top of Gambouge's easel, smearing out with his heels all the white and vermilion which had just been laid on the allegoric portrait of Mrs. Gambouge. "What?" exclaimed Simon. "Is it the devil?" "Exactly so. Talk of me, you know, and I am always at hand. Besides I am not half so black as I am painted as you will see when you know me a little better. Upon my words at the painter it is a very singular surprise which you have given me. To tell truth I did not even believe in your existence. The little imp put on a theatrical air and with one of McCready's best looks said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Gambougeo, than are dreamed of in your philosophy." Gambouge being a Frenchman did not understand the quotation but felt somehow strangely and singularly interested in the conversation of his new friend. "Diabolus continued, 'You are a man of merit and want money. You will starve on your merit. You can only get money from me. Come, my friend, how much is it? I ask easiest the interest in the world. Old Mordecai, the Assure, made you pay twice as heavily before now. Nothing but the signature of a bond, which is a mere ceremony and transfer of an article which in itself is a supposition. Valueless wind, the uncertain property of yours, called by some poet of your own, I think an animula-vigula-blandula. There's no use being around the bush, I mean a soul. Come, let me have it! You know you will sell it some other way and not get such good pay for your bargain." And having made this speech, the devil pulled out from his fob a sheet as big as a double times, only there was a different stamp in the corner. It is useless and tedious to describe law documents. Lawyers only love to read them, and they have as good and chitty as any that are to be found in the devil's own. So nobly have the apprentices emulated the skill of the master. Suffice it to say that poor Gamboosh read over the paper and signed it. He was to have all he wished for seven years, and at the end of that time was to become the property of the devil. Provided that, during the course of the seven years, every single wish which he might form should be gratified by the other of the contracting parties. Otherwise, the deed became dull and non-avenue and Gamboosh should be left to go to the devil in his own way. "You will never see me again," said Diabolus in shaking hands with poor Simon on whose fingers he left such a mark as is to be seen at this day. "Never, at least, unless you want me, for everything you ask will be performed in the most quiet and everyday manner. Believe me, it is best and most gentlemen like, and avoids anything like sandal. But if you set me about anything which is extraordinary, and out of the course of nature as it were, come my must, you know, and of this you are the best judge." So sang Diabolus disappeared, but whether up the chimney, through the keyhole, or by any other aperture or contrivance nobody knows. Some and Gamboosh was left in a fever of delight as, heaven forgive me, I believe many a worthy man would be if he were allowed an opportunity to make a similar bargain. "Hi, ho!" said Simon. "I wonder whether this be a reality or a dream. I am sober, I know, but who will give me credit for the means to be drunk? And as for sleeping, I am too hungry for that. I wish I could see a capon and a bottle of white wine." "Mous jesus, Simon!" cried a voice on the landing-place. "Chesus y, Kurth Gamboosh hastening to open the door. He did so, and lo, there was a restaurant tourist boy at the door supporting a tray, a tin-covered dish, and plates on the same, and by its side a tall amber-coloured flask of saw-tune." "I am the new boy, sir," explained this youth on entering, "but I believe this is the right door, and you ask for these things?" Simon grinned and said, "Certainly I did ask for these things." But such was the effect which his interview with the demon had had on his innocent mind, that he took them, although he knew that they were for old Simon, the Jew Dandy, who was mad after an opera-girl had lived on the floor beneath. "Go, my boy," he said, "it is good. Call in a couple of hours and remove the plates and glasses." Little waiter trotted downstairs, and Simon sat greedily down to discuss the cape on and white wine. He bolted the legs, he devoured the wings, he cut every morsel of flesh from the breast, seasoning his repass with pleasant dross of wine, and carrying nothing for the inevitable bill which was to follow all. "Y God," said he as he scraped away at the backbone, "a dinner! What wine!" "And how gay we served up, too!" There were silver forks and spoons, and the remnants of the fowl were upon a silver dish. "Why, the money fordish in these spoons!" cried Simon, "would keep me and Mrs. G for a month! I wish!" And here Simon whistled, and turned round to see that nobody was peeping. "I wish the plate were mine!" "Oh, the hard progress of the devil! Here they are!" thought Simon to himself. "Why should not I take them?" And take them he did. "Detection said he is not so bad, starvation, and I would assume live in the galleys and live with Madame Gamboj." So Gamboj shoveled dish and spoons into the flap of his sirtout, and ran downstairs as if the devil were behind him, as indeed he was. He immediately made for the house of his old friend, the Pawnbroker, that establishment which is called in France, the Montepit. "I am obliged to come to you again, my old friend," said Simon, "with some family plate of which I beseech you to take care." The Pawnbroker smiled as he examined the goods. "I can give you nothing upon them," said he. "What?" cried Simon. "Not even the worth of the silver?" "No. I could buy them at that price, the Café Morissant, Rue de la Ver, where I suppose you got them a little cheaper." And so, saying he showed to the guilt, stricken Gamboj, how the name of that coffeehouse was ascribed upon every one of the articles which he had wished upon. The effects of conscience are dreadful indeed. Oh, how fearful is retribution, how deep is despair, how bitter is remorse for crime, when the crime is found, cut? Otherwise, conscience takes matters much more easily. Gamboj cursed his faitons, for henceforth to be virtuous. "But Harky, my friend," continued the honest broker, "there is no reason why, because I cannot lend upon these things, I should not buy them. They will do to melt if for no other purpose." "Will you have half the money?" "Speak!" "Or I peach." Gamboj's resolves about virtue were dissipated instantaneously. "Give me half," he said, "and let me go." "What scoundrels are these pawn-brokers ejaculated he is, he passed out of the accursed shop, seeking every wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his hard-won gain." When he had marched forwards for a street or two, Gamboj counted the money which he had received, and found that he was in possession of no less than a hundred francs. It was night as he reckoned out his equivocal gains, and he counted them at the light of a lamp. He looked up at the lamp, endowed as to the course he should next pursue. Upon it was inscribed the simple number "one-five-two." "A gambling house," thought Gamboj. "I wish I had half the money that is now on the table upstairs." He mounted, as many a rogue has done before him, and found half a hundred persons busy at a table of red and black. Gamboj's five Napoleons looked insignificant by the side of the heaps which were around him, but the effects of the wine, of the theft, and of the detection by the pawn-broker were upon him, and he threw down his capital stoutly upon the zero-zero. "It is a dangerous spot that zero-zero are double-zero." But to Simon it was more lucky than to the rest of the world. The ball went spinning round, in its predestined circle rolled, as Shelley has it, after Gauta, and plopped down at last in the double-zero. One hundred and thirty-five gold Napoleons, Louis they were then, were counted out to the delighted painter. "Oh, Diabolus cried he. Now it is that I begin to believe in thee. Don't talk about merit, he cried. Talk about fortune. Tell me not about heroes for the future, tell me of zeros." And down went twenty Napoleons more upon the zero. The devil was certainly in the ball, rounded twirled and dropped into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. Our friend received five hundred pounds for his stake, and the creepier's and lookers on began to stare at him. There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to say, that Simon won half, and retired from the play Royao with a thick bundle of bank notes crammed into his dirty three-chordered hat. He had been but half an hour in the place, and he had won the revenues of a prince for half-year. Gamboosh, as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist, and that he had a stake in the country, discovered that he was an altered man. He repented of his foul deed, and his base purloining of the restaurateur's plate. "Oh, honesty," he cried, "how unworthy is an action like this of a man who has a property like mine?" So he went back to the pond-broker with the gloomiest face imaginable. "My friend," said he, "I have sinned against all that I hold most sacred. I have forgotten my family and my religion. Give us thy money. In the name of heaven restore me the plate, which I have wrongfully sold thee." But the pond-broker grinned and said, "Nay, Mr. Gamboosh. I will sell that plate for a thousand francs to you, or I will never sell it at all." "Well," said Gamboosh, "thou are an inexorable ruffian, Troy's boylies. I will give thee all I am worth, and here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. Look!" said he, "this money is all I own. It is the payment of two years lodging. To raise it I have told for many months, and failing I have been a criminal." "Oh, heaven, I stole that plate that I might pay my debt and keep my dear wife from wandering house-less, but I cannot bear this load of enormity. I cannot suffer the thought of this crime. I will go to the person to whom I did wrong. I will starve, I will confess, but I will, I will do right." The broker was alarmed. "Give me thy note, he cried. Here is the plate." "Give me an acquittal first!" cried Simon, almost broken-hearted. "Sign me a paper, and the money is yours." So, Troy's boylies wrote according to Gamboosh's dictation, received for thirteen ounces of plate, twenty pounds. "Monster of inequity!" cried the painter. "Been of wickedness. Thou art caught in thine own snares. Hast thou not sold me five pounds worth of plate for twenty? Have I not in my pocket? Are thou not a convicted dealer in stolen goods?" "Yield, scoundrel. Yield thy money, or I will bring thee to justice." The frightened pawn-broker burned and battled for a while, but he gave up his money at last and the dispute ended. Thus, it will be seen that Diabolus had a rather hard bargain in the wily Gamboosh. He had taken a victim prisoner, but he had assuredly caught a tartar. Simon now returned home and, to do him justice, paid the bill for his dinner and restored the plate. And now I may add, and the reader should ponder upon this as a profound picture of human life, that Gamboosh, since he had grown rich, grew likewise abundantly moral. He was a most exemplary father. He fed the poor and was loved by them. He scorned a base action. There was but one blot upon his character. He hated Mrs. Gamboosh worse than ever. As he grew more benevolent, she grew more virulent. When he went to plays, she went to Bible societies and vice versa. In fact, she led him such a life as Zientipi led Socrates, or as a dog leads a cat in the same kitchen. With all his fortune, for as may be supposed, Simon prospered in all worldly things. He was the most miserable dog in the whole city of Paris. Only on the point of drinking did he and Mrs. Simon agree. And for many years, and during a considerable number of hours in each day, he thus dissipated partially his domestic chagrin. Oh philosophy, we may talk of thee, but accept at the bottom of a wine cup where thou lice like truth in a well, where shall we find thee? He lived so long, and in his worldly matters prospered so much, there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes, and the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end of six years, began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all as that which we have described at the commencement of this history. He had grown, as we said, very pious and moral. He went regularly to mass and had a confessor into the bargain. He resolved, therefore, to consult that reverend, gentlemen, and to lay before him the whole matter. "I am inclined to think, holy sir," said Gamboj, after he had concluded his history, and shown how, in some miraculous way all his desires were accomplished, that, after all, this demon was no other than the creation of my own brain, heated by the effects of that bottle of wine, the cause of my crime and my prosperity. The confessor agreed with him, and they walked out of church comfortably together and entered afterwards a café where they sat down to refresh themselves after the fatigues of their devotion. A respectable old gentleman, with a number of orders at his button-hole, presently entered the room and sauntered up to the marble table before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said as he took a place opposite them and began reading the papers of the day. "Mah," said he at last, "look, sir," he said, handing over an immense sheet of the times to Mr. Gamboj, "was ever anything so monstrous?" Gamboj smiled politely and examined the proffered page. "It is enormous," said he, "but I do not read English." "Nay," said the man with the orders, "look closer at it," said your Gamboj, "it is astonishing how easy the language is." Wondering, Simon took the sheet of paper. He turned to pale as he looked at it and began to curse the ices and the waiter. "Come, Miss Yolabé," he said, "the heat and the glare of this place are intolerable." The stranger rose with them. "I do not mind speaking before the Abbe here, who will be my very good friend one of these days, but I thought it necessary to refresh your memory concerning our little business transaction six years since and could not exactly talk of it at church as you may fancy." Simon Gamboj had seen in the double-cheated times the paper signed by himself, which the little double had pulled out of his spot. There was no doubt on the subject, and Simon, who had but a year to live, grew more pious and more careful than ever. He had consultations with all the doctors of the Sorbon, and all the lawyers of the Palais. But his magnificence grew as worrisome to him as his poverty had been before, and that one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a penny worth of consolation. Then he grew outrageous in his demands upon the devil, and put him to all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks, but they were all punctually performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and the devil sat all day with his hands in his pockets doing nothing. One day Simon's confessor came back into the room with the greatest glee. "My friend," says he, "I have it, Eureka, I have found it." Send the pope a hundred thousand crowns, build a new Jesuit college at Rome, give a hundred gold candlestick to St. Peter's, and tell his holiness you will double all, if he will give you absolution. Ambush caught at the notion, and hurried off a courier to Rome. His holiness agreed to the request of the petition, and sent him an absolution written out with his own fist, and all in dew form. "Now," said he, "fou fiend, I defy you. Arise, Diabolus, your contract is not worth a jot. The pope has absolved me, and I am safe on the road to salvation. In a fervor of gratitude he clasped the hands of his confessor and embraced him. Tears of joy ran down the cheeks of these good men. They heard an inordinate roar of laughter, and there was Diabolus sitting opposite to them, holding his sides, and lashing his tail about, as if he would have gone mad with glee. "Why," said he, "what nonsense is this? Do you suppose I care about that?" and he tossed the pope's missive into a corner. "Monsieur Labe knows," he said, bowing and grinning, "that though the pope's paper may pass current here, it is not worth two pence in our country. What do I care about the pope's absolution? You might just as well be absolved by your underbutler." "You can't," said the abbey. The rogue is right; I quite forgot the fact which he points out clearly enough. "No, Gamboge," continued Diabolus, with horrid familiarity, "go thy way, old fellow, that cock won't fight!" And he retired up the chimney, chuckling at his wit and his triumph. Gamboge heard his tail scuttling all the way up, as if he had been a sweeper by profession. Gamboge was left in that condition of grief in which, according to the newspapers, cities and nations are found when a murder is committed or a lord ill of the gout, a situation we say more easy to imagine than to describe. To add to his woes, Mrs. Gamboge, who was now first made acquainted with his compact and its probable consequences, raised such a storm about his years, as made him wish almost his seven years were expired. She screamed, she scolded, she swore, she swept. She went into such fits of hysterics that poor Gamboge, who had completely knocked under to her, was worn out of his life. He was allowed no rest, day or night. He moped about his fine house, solitary and wretched, and cursed his stars that he had ever married the butcher's daughter. It wanted six months of the time. A sudden and desperate resolution seemed all at once to have taken possession of Simon Gamboge. He called his family and his friends together. He gave one of the greatest feasts that was ever known in the city of Paris. He gaily presided at one end of his table while Mrs. Gamboge splendidly arrayed, gave herself heirs at the other extremity. After dinner using the customary formula, he called upon Diabolus to appear. The old lady screamed and hoped he would not appear naked. The young ones tittered and longed to see the monster. Everybody was pale with expectation and a fright. A very quiet, gentlemanly man, neatly dressed in black, made his appearance to the surprise of all present, and bowed all round to the company. "I will not show my credentials," he said, blushing and pointing to his hooves, which were cleverly hidden by his pumps and shoe-buckles, "unless the ladies absolutely wish it. But I am the person you want, Mr. Gamboge. Pray tell me what is your will." "You know," said that gentleman, in a stately and determined voice, "that you are bound to me according to our agreement for six months to come." "I am," replied the newcomer. "You are to do all that I ask, whatsoever it may be, or you forfeit the bond which I gave you." "It is true. You declare this before the present company?" "Upon my honor, as a gentleman," said Diabolus, bowing and laying his hand upon his waistcoat. A whisper of applause ran around the room. All were charmed with the bland manners of the fascinating stranger. "My love," continued Gamboge, mildly addressing his lady, "will you be so polite as to step this way?" "You know I must go soon, and I am anxious before this noble company to make a provision for one who, in sickness as in health, in poverty as in riches, has been my truest and fondest companion." Gamboge mopped his eyes with his handkerchief. All the company did likewise. Diabolus sobbed audibly, and Mrs. Gamboge sidled up to her husband's side and took him tenderly by the hand. "Simon," she said, "is it true, and do you really love your Griskinesa?" Simings continued solemnly. "Come here, Diabolus, you are bound to obey me in all things for the six months during which our contract has to run. Take then Griskinesa Gamboge, live alone with her for half a year, never leave her from morning to night, obey all her caprices, follow all her whips, and listen to all the abuse which falls from her infernal tongue. Do this, and I ask no more of you, I will deliver myself up at the appointed time." No one could have looked more crestfallen, nor howled more hideously than Diabolus did now. "Take another year, Gamboge," screamed he, "two more, ten more, a century, roast me on Lars' gritter and boil me in holy water, but don't ask that, don't, don't bid me live with Mrs. Gamboge!" Simon smiled sternly. "I have said it," he cried. "Do this, or our contract is at an end." Diabolus at this grinned so horribly that every drop of beer in the house turned sour. He gnashed as he so frightfully that every person in the company well-nigh fainted with the colic. He slapped down the great parchment upon the floor, trampled upon it madly, and lashed it with his hooves and his tail, at last spreading out a mighty pair of wings as wide as from here to Regent Street. He slapped Gamboge with his tail over one eye, and vanished abruptly through the keyhole. Gamboge screamed with pain and started up. "You drunken lazy scoundrel!" cried a shrill and well-known voice. "You have been asleep these two hours!" From here he received another terrific box on the year. It was too true he had fallen asleep at his work, and the beautiful vision had been dispelled by the thumps of the tipsy Grish canissa. Nothing remained to corroborate his story. "I wish," said the poor fellow rubbing his tingling cheeks, "the dreams were true," and he went to work again at his portrait. My last accounts of Gamboge are that he has left the arts and is a footman and a small family. Mrs. Gamboge takes in washing, and it is said that her continual dealings with soap-suds and hot water have been the only things in life which have kept her from spontaneous combustion. End of The Painters' Bargain by William Make-Peace Thackeray "Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. I'm going to make him an orphan, he can't refuse, with family, canoles, and spins mean everything." "Now, you want to get mixed up in the family business." Introducing The Godfather at ChampaCasino.com. Test your luck in the shadowy world of The Godfather's Slides. 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