"I'm afraid I must owe it to you," I said lightly and brutally. "I
haven't a sou in the world," and I added mendaciously, "I'm going
away for six months or perhaps longer."
Laploshka said nothing, but his eyes bulged a little and his cheeks
took on the mottled hues of an ethnographical map of the Balkan
Peninsula. That same day, at sundown, he died. "Failure of the
heart's action," was the doctor's verdict; but I, who knew better,
knew that he died of grief.
There arose the problem of what to do with his two francs. To have
killed Laploshka was one thing; to have kept his beloved money would
have argued a callousness of feeling of which I am not capable. The
ordinary solution, of giving it to the poor, would by no means fit
the present situation, for nothing would have distressed the dead
man more than such a misuse of his property. On the other hand, the
bestowal of two francs on the rich was an operation which called for
some tact. An easy way out of the difficulty seemed, however, to
present itself the following Sunday, as I was wedged into the
cosmopolitan crowd which filled the side-aisle of one of the most
popular Paris churches. A collecting-bag, for "the poor of Monsieur
le Cure," was buffeting its tortuous way across the seemingly
impenetrable human sea, and a German in front of me, who evidently
did not wish his appreciation of the magnificent music to be marred
by a suggestion of payment, made audible criticisms to his companion
on the claims of the said charity.
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