Mademoiselle Scuderi handed her the open casket, and when she saw the splendid and valuable stones, and the workmanship of them, she could not repress a loud expression of admiration. She took the bracelets and necklace to the window, letting the sunlight play on the jewels, and holding the beautiful goldsmith's work close to her eyes, so as to see with what wonderful skill each little link of the chains was formed. She turned suddenly to Mademoiselle Scuderi, and cried, "Do you know, there is only one man who can have done this work--and that is René Cardillac." René Cardillac was then the cleverest worker in gold in all Paris, one of the most artistic, and at the same time extraordinary men of his day. Short, rather than tall, but broad-shouldered, and of strong and muscular build, Cardillac, now over fifty, had still the strength and activity of a youth. To this vigour, which was to be called unusual, testified also his thick, curling, reddish hair, and his massive, shining face. Had he not been known to be the most upright and honourable of men, unselfish, open, without reserve, always ready to help, his altogether peculiar glance out of his grimly sparkling eyes might have brought him under suspicion of being secretly ill-tempered and wicked. In his art he was the most skilful worker, not only in Paris, but probably in the world at that time. Intimately acquainted with every kind of precious stones, versed in all their special peculiarities, he could so handle and treat them that ornaments which at a first glance promised to be poor and insignificant, came from his workshop brilliant and splendid. He accepted every commission with burning eagerness, and charged prices so moderate as to seem out of all proportion to the work. And the work left him no rest. Day and night he was to be heard hammering in his shop; and often, when a job was nearly finished, he would suddenly be dissatisfied with the form--would have doubts whether some of the settings were tender enough; some little link would not be quite to his mind--in fine, the whole affair would be thrown into the melting-pot, and begun all over again. Thus every one of his works was a real, unsurpassable _chef-d'œuvre_, which set the person who had ordered it into amazement. But then, it was hardly possible to get the finished work out of his hands. He would put the customer off from one week to another, by a thousand excuses, ay, from month to month. He might be offered twice the price he had agreed upon, but it was useless; he would take no more; and when, ultimately, he was obliged to yield to the customer's remonstrances, and deliver the work, he could not conceal the vexation--nay, the rage--which seethed within him. If he had to deliver some specially valuable and unusually rich piece of workmanship, worth perhaps several thousand francs, he would get into such a condition that he ran up and down like one demented,