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diff --git a/20380.txt b/20380.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e37efa6 --- /dev/null +++ b/20380.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3514 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Tales, by Francois Coppee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ten Tales + +Author: Francois Coppee + +Contributor: Brander Matthews + +Illustrator: Albert E. Sterner + +Translator: Warren Walter Learned + +Release Date: January 15, 2007 [EBook #20380] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: FRANCOIS COPPEE.] + + + +FROM THE FRENCH + + + +Ten Tales + + +By + + +Francois Coppee + + + +_Translated by WALTER LEARNED, with fifty pen-and-ink drawings +by ALBERT E. STERNER, and an introduction by BRANDER MATTHEWS_ + + +NEW YORK +HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE +1891 + + + +Copyright, 1890, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +THE CAPTAIN'S VICES + +TWO CLOWNS + +A VOLUNTARY DEATH + +A DRAMATIC FUNERAL + +THE SUBSTITUTE + +AT TABLE + +AN ACCIDENT + +THE SABOTS OF LITTLE WOLFF + +THE FOSTER SISTER + +MY FRIEND MEURTRIER + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +The _conte_ is a form of fiction in which the French have always +delighted and in which they have always excelled, from the days of the +_jongleurs_ and the _trouveres_, past the periods of La Fontaine and +Voltaire, down to the present. The _conte_ is a tale, something more +than a sketch, it may be, and something less than a short story. In +verse it is at times but a mere rhymed anecdote, or it may attain almost +to the direct swiftness of a ballad. The _Canterbury Tales_ are +_contes_, most of them, if not all; and so are some of the _Tales of a +Wayside Inn_. The free-and-easy tales of Prior were written in imitation +of the French _conte en vers_; and that, likewise, was the model of more +than one of the lively narrative poems of Mr. Austin Dobson. + +No one has succeeded more abundantly in the _conte en vers_ than M. +Coppee. Where was there ever anything better of its kind than _L'Enfant +de la Balle?_--that gentle portrait of the Infant Phenomenon, framed in +a chain of occasional gibes at the sordid ways of theatrical managers +and at their hostility towards poetic plays. Where is there anything of +a more simple pathos than _L'Epave?_--that story of a sailor's son whom +the widowed mother strives vainly to keep from the cruel waves that +killed his father. (It is worthy of a parenthesis that although the ship +M. Coppee loves best is that which sails the blue shield of the City of +Paris, he knows the sea also, and he depicts sailors with affectionate +fidelity.) But whether at the sea-side by chance, or more often in the +streets of the city, the poet seeks out for the subject of his story +some incident of daily occurrence made significant by his +interpretation; he chooses some character common-place enough, but made +firmer by conflict with evil and by victory over self. Those whom he +puts into his poems are still the humble, the forgotten, the neglected, +the unknown; and it is the feelings and the struggles of these that he +tells us, with no maudlin sentimentality, and with no dead set at our +sensibilities. The sub-title Mrs. Stowe gave to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ +would serve to cover most of M. Coppee's _contes_ either in prose or +verse; they are nearly all pictures of _life among the lowly_. But there +is no forcing of the note in his painting of poverty and labor; there is +no harsh juxtaposition of the blacks and the whites. The tone is always +manly and wholesome. + +_La Marchande de Journaux_ and the other little masterpieces of +story-telling in verse are unfortunately untranslatable, as are all +poems but a lyric or two, now and then, by a happy accident. A +translated poem is a boiled strawberry, as some one once put it +brutally. But the tales which M. Coppee has written in prose--a true +poet's prose, nervous, vigorous, flexible, and firm--these can be +Englished by taking thought and time and pains, without which a +translation is always a betrayal. Ten of these tales have been rendered +into English by Mr. Learned; and the ten chosen for translation are +among the best of the two score and more of M. Coppee's _contes en +prose_. These ten tales are fairly representative of his range and +variety. Compare, for example, the passion in "The Foster Sister," pure, +burning and fatal, with the Black Forest _naivete_ of "The Sabots of +Little Wolff." Contrast the touching pathos of "The Substitute," +poignant in his magnificent self-sacrifice, by which the man who has +conquered his shameful past goes back willingly to the horrible life he +has fled from that he may save from a like degradation and from an +inevitable moral decay the one friend he has in the world, all unworthy +as this friend is--contrast this with the story of the gigantic deeds +"My Friend Meurtrier" boasts about unceasingly, not knowing that he has +been discovered in his little round of daily domestic duties, making the +coffee of his good old mother and taking her poodle out for a walk. + +Among these ten there are tales of all sorts, from the tragic adventure +of "An Accident" to the pendent portraits of the "Two Clowns," cutting +in its sarcasm, but not bitter--from "The Captain's Vices," which +suggests at once George Eliot's _Silas Marner_ and Mr. Austin Dobson's +_Tale of Polypheme_, to the sombre revery of the poet "At Table," a +sudden and searching light cast on the labor and misery which underlies +the luxury of our complex modern existence. Like "At Table," "A Dramatic +Funeral" is a picture more than it is a story; it is a marvellous +reproduction of the factitious emotion of the good-natured stage folk, +who are prone to overact even their own griefs and joys. "A Dramatic +Funeral" seems to me always as though it might be a painting of M. Jean +Beraud, that most Parisian of artists, just as certain stories of M. Guy +de Maupassant inevitably suggest the bold freedom of M. Forain's +sketches in black-and-white. + +An ardent admirer of the author of the stories in _The Odd Number_ has +protested to me that M. Coppee is not an etcher like M. de Maupassant, +but rather a painter in water-colors. And why not? Thus might we call M. +Alphonse Daudet an artist in pastels, so adroitly does he suggest the +very bloom of color. No doubt M. Coppee's _contes_ have not the +sharpness of M. de Maupassant's, nor the brilliancy of M. Daudet's--but +what of it? They have qualities of their own; they have sympathy, +poetry, and a power of suggesting pictures not exceeded, I think, by +those of either M. de Maupassant or M. Daudet. M. Coppee's street views +in Paris, his interiors, his impressionist sketches of life under the +shadows of Notre Dame, are convincingly successful. They are intensely +to be enjoyed by those of us who take the same keen delight in the +varied phases of life in New York. They are not, to my mind, really +rivalled either by those of M. de Maupassant, who is a Norman by birth +and a nomad by choice, or by those of M. Daudet, who is a native of +Provence, although now for thirty years a resident of Paris. M. Coppee +is a Parisian from his youth up, and even in prose he is a poet; perhaps +this is why his pictures of Paris are unsurpassable in their felicity +and in their verity. + +It may be fancy, but I seem to see also a finer morality in M. Coppee's +work than in M. de Maupassant's or in M. Daudet's or in that of almost +any other of the Parisian story-tellers of to-day. In his tales we +breathe a purer moral atmosphere, more wholesome and more bracing. It is +not that M. Coppee probably thinks of ethics rather than aesthetics; in +this respect his attitude is undoubtedly that of the others; there is no +sermon in his song--or at least none for those who will not seek it for +themselves; there is never a hint of a preachment. But for all that I +have found in his work a trace of the tonic morality which inheres in +Moliere, for example, also a Parisian by birth, and also in Rabelais, +despite his disguising grossness. This finer morality comes possibly +from a wider and a deeper survey of the universe; and it is as different +as possible from the morality which is externally applied and which +always punishes the villain in the fifth act. + +It is of good augury for our own letters that the best French fiction of +to-day is getting itself translated in the United States, and that the +liking for it is growing apace. Fiction is more consciously an art in +France than anywhere else--perhaps partly because the French are now +foremost in nearly all forms of artistic endeavor. In the short story +especially, in the tale, in the _conte_, their supremacy is +incontestable; and their skill is shown and their aesthetic instinct +exemplified partly in the sense of form, in the constructive method, +which underlies the best short stories, however trifling these may +appear to be, and partly in the rigorous suppression of non-essentials, +due in a measure, it may be, to the example of Merimee. That is an +example we in America may study to advantage; and from the men who are +writing fiction in France we may gain much. From the British fiction of +this last quarter of the nineteenth century little can be learned by any +one--less by us Americans in whom the English tradition is still +dominant. When we look to France for an exemplar we may find a model of +value, but when we copy an Englishman we are but echoing our own faults. +"The truth is," said Mr. Lowell in his memorable essay _On a Certain +Condescension in Foreigners_--"the truth is that we are worth nothing +except so far as we have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism." + + BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + + + +THE CAPTAIN'S VICES. + +[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN'S VICES] + + +I. + +It is of no importance, the name of the little provincial city where +Captain Mercadier--twenty-six years of service, twenty-two campaigns, +and three wounds--installed himself when he was retired on a pension. + +It was quite like all those other little villages which solicit without +obtaining it a branch of the railway; just as if it were not the sole +dissipation of the natives to go every day, at the same hour, to the +Place de la Fontaine to see the diligence come in at full gallop, with +its gay cracking of the whips and clang of bells. + +It was a place of three thousand inhabitants--ambitiously denominated +souls in the statistical tables--and was exceedingly proud of its title +of chief city of the canton. It had ramparts planted with trees, a +pretty river with good fishing, a church of the charming epoch of the +flamboyant Gothic, disgraced by a frightful station of the cross, +brought directly from the quarter of Saint Sulpice. Every Monday its +market was gay with great red and blue umbrellas, and countrymen filled +its streets in carts and carriages. But for the rest of the week it +retired with delight into that silence and solitude which made it so +dear to its rustic population. Its streets were paved with +cobble-stones; through the windows of the ground-floor one could see +samplers and wax-flowers under glass domes, and, through the gates of +the gardens, statuettes of Napoleon in shell-work. The principal inn was +naturally called the Shield of France; and the town-clerk made rhymed +acrostics for the ladies of society. + +Captain Mercadier had chosen that place of retreat for the simple reason +that he had been born there, and because, in his noisy childhood, he had +pulled down the signs and plugged up the bell-buttons. He returned there +to find neither relations, nor friends, nor acquaintances; and the +recollections of his youth recalled only the angry faces of shop-keepers +who shook their fists at him from the shop-doors, a catechism which +threatened him with hell, a school which predicted the scaffold, and, +finally, his departure for his regiment, hastened by a paternal +malediction. + +For the Captain was not a saintly man; the old record of his punishment +was black with days in the guard-house inflicted for breaches of +discipline, absences from roll-calls, and nocturnal uproars in the +mess-room. He had often narrowly escaped losing his stripes as a +corporal or a sergeant, and he needed all the chance, all the license of +a campaigning life to gain his first epaulet. Firm and brave soldier, he +had passed almost all his life in Algiers at that time when our foot +soldiers wore the high shako, white shoulder-belts and huge +cartridge-boxes. He had had Lamoriciere for commander. The Due de +Nemours, near whom he received his first wound, had decorated him, and +when he was sergeant-major, Pere Bugrand had called him by his name and +pulled his ears. He had been a prisoner of Abd-el-Kader, bearing the +scar of a yataghan stroke on his neck, of one ball in his shoulder and +another in his chest; and notwithstanding absinthe, duels, debts of +play, and almond-eyed Jewesses, he fairly won, with the point of the +bayonet and sabre, his grade of captain in the First Regiment of +Sharp-shooters. + +Captain Mercadier--twenty-six years of service, twenty-two campaigns, +and three wounds--had just retired on his pension, not quite two +thousand francs, which, joined to the two hundred and fifty francs from +his cross, placed him in that estate of honorable penury which the State +reserves for its old servants. + +His entry into his natal city was without ostentation. He arrived one +morning on the imperiale of the diligence, chewing an extinguished +cigar, and already on good terms with the conductor, to whom, during his +journey, he had related the passage of the Porte de Fer; full of +indulgence, moreover, for the distractions of his auditor, who often +interrupted the recital by some oath or epithet addressed to the off +mare. When the diligence stopped he threw on the sidewalk his old +valise, covered with railway placards as numerous as the changes of +garrison that its proprietor had made, and the idlers of the +neighborhood were astonished to see a man with a decoration--a rare +thing in the province--offer a glass of wine to the coachman at the bar +of an inn near by. + +He installed himself at once. In a house in the outskirts, where two +captive cows lowed, and fowls and ducks passed and repassed through the +gate-way, a furnished chamber was to let. Preceded by a +masculine-looking woman, the Captain climbed the stair-way with its +great wooden balusters, perfumed by a strong odor of the stable, and +reached a great tiled room, whose walls were covered with a bizarre +paper representing, printed in blue on a white background and repeated +infinitely, the picture of Joseph Poniatowski crossing the Elster on his +horse. This monotonous decoration, recalling nevertheless our military +glories, fascinated the Captain without doubt, for, without concerning +himself with the uncomfortable straw chairs, the walnut furniture, or +the little bed with its yellowed curtain, he took the room without +hesitation. A quarter of an hour was enough to empty his trunk, hang up +his clothes, put his boots in a corner, and ornament the wall with a +trophy composed of three pipes, a sabre, and a pair of pistols. After a +visit to the grocer's, over the way, where he bought a pound of candles +and a bottle of rum, he returned, put his purchase on the mantle-shelf, +and looked around him with an air of perfect satisfaction. And then, +with the promptitude of the camp, he shaved without a mirror, brushed +his coat, cocked his hat over his ear, and went for a walk in the +village in search of a cafe. + + +II. + +It was an inveterate habit of the Captain to spend much of his time at a +cafe. It was there that he satisfied at the same time the three vices +which reigned supreme in his heart--tobacco, absinthe, and cards. It was +thus that he passed his life, and he could have drawn a plan of all the +places where he had ever been stationed by their tobacco shops, cafes, +and military clubs. He never felt himself so thoroughly at ease as when +sitting on a worn velvet bench before a square of green cloth near a +heap of beer-mugs and saucers. His cigar never seemed good unless he +struck his match under the marble of the table, and he never failed, +after hanging his hat and his sabre on a hat-hook and settling himself +comfortably, by unloosing one or two buttons of his coat, to breathe a +profound sigh of relief, and exclaim, + +"That is better!" + +His first care was, therefore, to find an establishment which he could +frequent, and after having gone around the village without finding +anything that suited him, he stopped at last to regard with the eye of a +connoisseur the Cafe Prosper, situated at the corner of the Place du +Marche and the Rue de la Pavoisse. + +It was not his ideal. Some of the details of the exterior were too +provincial: the waiter, in his black apron, for example, the little +stands in their green frames, the footstools, and the wooden tables +covered with waxed cloth. But the interior pleased the Captain. He was +delighted upon his entrance by the sound of the bell which was touched +by the fair and fleshy dame du comptoir, in her light dress, with a +poppy-colored ribbon in her sleek hair. He saluted her gallantly, and +believed that she sustained with sufficient majesty her triumphal place +between two piles of punch-bowls properly crowned by billiard-balls. He +ascertained that the place was cheerful, neat, and strewn evenly with +yellow sand. He walked around it, looking at himself in the glasses as +he passed; approved the panels where guardsmen and amazons were drinking +champagne in a landscape filled with red holly-hocks; called for his +absinthe, smoked, found the divan soft and the absinthe good, and was +indulgent enough not to complain of the flies who bathed themselves in +his glass with true rustic familiarity. + +Eight days later he had become one of the pillars of the Cafe Prosper. + +They soon learned his punctual habits and anticipated his wishes, while +he, in turn, lunched with the patrons of the place--a valuable recruit +for those who haunted the cafe, folks oppressed by the tedium of a +country life, for whom the arrival of that new-comer, past master in all +games, and an admirable raconteur of his wars and his loves, was a true +stroke of good-fortune. The Captain himself was delighted to tell his +stories to folks who were still ignorant of his repertoire. There were +fully six months before him in which to tell of his games, his feats, +his battles, the retreat of Constantine, the capture of Bou-Maza, and +the officers' receptions with the concomitant intoxication of rum-punch. + +[Illustration] + +Human weakness! He was by no means sorry, on his part, to be something +of an oracle; he from whom the sub-lieutenants, new-comers at Saint-Cyr, +fled dismayed, fearing his long stories. + +[Illustration] + +His usual auditors were the keeper of the cafe, a stupid and silent +beer-cask, always in his sleeved vest, and remarkable only for his +carved pipe; the bailiff, a scoffer, dressed invariably in black, +scorned for his inelegant habit of carrying off what remained of his +sugar; the town-clerk, the gentleman of acrostics, a person of much +amiability and a feeble constitution, who sent to the illustrated +journals solutions of enigmas and rebuses; and, lastly, the veterinary +surgeon of the place, the only one who, from his position of atheist and +democrat, was allowed to contradict the Captain. This practitioner, a +man with tufted whiskers and eye-glasses, presided over the radical +committee of electors, and when the cure took up a little collection +among his devotees for the purpose of adorning his church with some +frightful red and gilded statues, denounced, in a letter to the +_Siecle_, the cupidity of the Jesuits. + +The Captain having gone out one evening for some cigars after an +animated political discussion, the aforesaid veterinary grumbled to +himself certain phrases of heavy irritation concerning "coming to the +point," and "a mere fencing-master," and "cutting a figure." But as the +object of these vague menaces suddenly returned, whistling a march and +beating time with his cane, the incident was without result. + +In short, the group lived harmoniously together, and willingly permitted +themselves to be presided over by the new-comer, whose white beard and +martial bearing were quite impressive. And the small city, proud of so +many things, was also proud of its retired Captain. + + +III. + +Perfect happiness exists nowhere, and Captain Mercadier, who believed +that he had found it at the Cafe Prosper, soon recovered from his +illusion. + +For one thing, on Mondays, the market-day, the Cafe Prosper was +untenantable. + +From early morning it was overrun with truck-peddlers, farmers, and +poultrymen. Heavy men with coarse voices, red necks, and great whips in +their hands, wearing blue blouses and otter-skin caps, bargaining over +their cups, stamping their feet, striking their fists, familiar with the +servant, and bungling at billiards. + +When the Captain came, at eleven o'clock, for his first glass of +absinthe, he found this crowd gathered, and already half-drunk, ordering +a quantity of lunches. His usual place was taken, and he was served +slowly and badly. The bell was continually sounding, and the proprietor +and the waiter, with napkins under their arms, were running distractedly +hither and thither. In short, it was an ill-omened day, which upset his +entire existence. + +[Illustration] + +Now, one Monday morning, when he was resting quietly at home, being sure +that the cafe would be much too full and busy, the mild radiance of the +autumn sun persuaded him to go down and sit upon the stone seat by the +side of the house. He was sitting there, depressed and smoking a damp +cigar, when he saw coming down the end of the street--it was a badly +paved lane leading out into the country--a little girl of eight or ten, +driving before her a half-dozen geese. + +As the Captain looked carelessly at the child he saw that she had a +wooden leg. + +There was nothing paternal in the heart of the soldier. It was that of a +hardened bachelor. In former days, in the streets of Algiers, when the +little begging Arabs pursued him with their importunate prayers, the +Captain had often chased them away with blows from his whip; and on +those rare occasions when he had penetrated the nomadic household of +some comrade who was married and the father of a family, he had gone +away cursing the crying babies and awkward children who had touched with +their greasy hands the gilding on his uniform. + +But the sight of that particular infirmity, which recalled to him the +sad spectacle of wounds and amputations, touched, on that account, the +old soldier. He felt almost a constriction of the heart at the sight of +that sorry creature, half-clothed in her tattered petticoats and old +chemise, bravely running along behind her geese, her bare foot in the +dust, and limping on her ill-made wooden stump. + +The geese, recognizing their home, turned into the poultry-yard, and the +little one was about to follow them when the Captain stopped her with +this question: + +"Eh! little girl, what's your name?" + +"Pierette, monsieur, at your service," she answered, looking at him with +her great black eyes, and pushing her disordered locks from her +forehead. + +"You live in this house, then? I haven't seen you before." + +"Yes, I know you pretty well, though, for I sleep under the stairs, and +you wake me up every evening when you come home." + +"Is that so, my girl? Ah, well, I must walk on my toes in future. How +old are you?" + +"Nine, monsieur, come All-Saints day." + +"Is the landlady here a relative of yours?" + +"No, monsieur, I am in service." + +"And they give you?" + +"Soup, and a bed under the stairs." + +"And how came you to be lame like that, my poor little one?" + +"By the kick of a cow when I was five." + +"Have you a father or mother?" + +The child blushed under her sunburned skin. "I came from the Foundling +Hospital," she said, briefly. Then, with an awkward courtesy, she passed +limping into the house, and the Captain heard, as she went away on the +pavement of the court, the hard sound of the little wooden leg. + +Good heavens! he thought, mechanically walking towards his cafe, that's +not at all the thing. A soldier, at least, they pack off to the +Invalides, with the money from his medal to keep him in tobacco. For an +officer, they fix up a collectorship, and he marries somewhere in the +provinces. But this poor girl, with such an infirmity,--that's not at +all the thing! + +Having established in these terms the injustice of fate, the Captain +reached the threshold of his dear cafe, but he saw there such a mob of +blue blouses, he heard such a din of laughter and click of +billiard-balls, that he returned home in very bad humor. + +His room--it was, perhaps, the first time that he had spent in it +several hours of the day--looked rather shabby. His bed-curtains were +the color of an old pipe. The fireplace was heaped with old +cigar-stumps, and one could have written his name in the dust on the +furniture. He contemplated for some time the walls where the sublime +lancer of Leipsic rode a hundred times to a glorious death. Then, for an +occupation, he passed his wardrobe in review. It was a lamentable series +of bottomless pockets, socks full of holes, and shirts without buttons. + +"I must have a servant," he said. + +Then he thought of the little lame girl. + +"That's what I'll do. I'll hire the next little room; winter is coming, +and the little thing will freeze under the stairs. She will look after +my clothes and my linen and keep the barracks clean. A valet, how's +that?" + +But a cloud darkened the comfortable picture. The Captain remembered +that quarter-day was still a long way off, and that his account at the +Cafe Prosper was assuming alarming proportions. + +"Not rich enough," he said to himself. "And in the mean time they are +robbing me down there. That is positive. The board is too high, and that +wretch of a veterinary plays bezique much too well. I have paid his way +now for eight days. Who knows? Perhaps I had better put the little one +in charge of the mess, soup au cafe in the morning, stew at noon, and +ragout every evening--campaign life, in fact. I know all about that. +Quite the thing to try." + +Going out he saw at once the mistress of the house, a great brutal +peasant, and the little lame girl, who both, with pitchforks in their +hands, were turning over the dung-heap in the yard. + +"Does she know how to sew, to wash, to make soup?" he asked, brusquely. + +"Who--Pierette? Why?" + +"Does she know a little of all that?" + +"Of course. She came from an asylum where they learn how to take care of +themselves." + +"Tell me, little one," added the Captain, speaking to the child, "I am +not scaring you--no? Well, my good woman, will you let me have her? I +want a servant." + +"If you will support her." + +"Then that is finished. Here are twenty francs. Let her have to-night a +dress and a shoe. To-morrow we'll arrange the rest." + +And, with a friendly tap on Pierette's cheek, the Captain went off, +delighted that everything was concluded. Possibly he thought he would +have to cut off some glasses of beer and absinthe, and be cautious of +the veterinary's skill at bezique. But that was not worth speaking of, +and the new arrangement would be quite the thing. + + +IV. + +Captain, you are a coward! + +Such was the apostrophe with which the caryatides of the Cafe Prosper +hereafter greeted the Captain, whose visits became rarer day by day. + +For the poor man had not seen all the consequences of his good action. +The suppression of his morning absinthe had been sufficient to cover the +modest expense of Pierette's keeping, but how many other reforms were +needed to provide for the unforeseen expenses of his bachelor +establishment! Full of gratitude, the little girl wished to prove it by +her zeal. Already the aspect of his room was changed. The furniture was +dusted and arranged, the fireplace cleaned, the floor polished, and +spiders no longer spun their webs over the deaths of Poniatowski in the +corner. When the Captain came home the inviting odor of cabbage-soup +saluted him on the staircase, and the sight of the smoking plates on the +coarse but white table-cloth, with a bunch of flowers and polished +table-ware, was quite enough to give him a good appetite. Pierette +profited by the good-humor of her master to confess some of her secret +ambitions. She wanted andirons for the fireplace, where there was now +always a fire burning, and a mould for the little cakes that she knew +how to make so well. And the Captain, smiling at the child's requests, +but charmed with the homelike atmosphere of his room, promised to think +of it, and on the morrow replaced his Londres by cigars for a sou each, +hesitated to offer five points at ecarte, and refused his third glass +of beer or his second glass of chartreuse. + +[Illustration] + +Certainly the struggle was long; it was cruel. Often, when the hour came +for the glass that was denied him by economy, when thirst seized him by +the throat, the Captain was forced to make an heroic effort to withdraw +his hand already reaching out towards the swan's beak of the cafe; many +times he wandered about, dreaming of the king turned up and of quint and +quatorze. But he almost always courageously returned home; and as he +loved Pierette more through every sacrifice that he made for her, he +embraced her more fondly every day. For he did embrace her. She was no +longer his servant. When once she stood before him at the table, calling +him "Monsieur," and so respectful in her bearing, he could not stand it, +but seizing her by her two hands, he said to her, eagerly: + +"First embrace me, and then sit down and do me the pleasure of speaking +familiarly, confound it!" + +And so to-day it is accomplished. Meeting a child has saved that man +from an ignominious age. + +He has substituted for his old vices a young passion. He adores the +little lame girl who skips around him in his room, which is comfortable +and well furnished. + +He has already taught Pierette to read, and, moreover, recalling his +calligraphy as a sergeant-major, he has set her copies in writing. It is +his greatest joy when the child, bending attentively over her paper, and +sometimes making a blot which she quickly licks up with her tongue, has +succeeded in copying all the letters of an interminable adverb in +_ment_. His uneasiness is in thinking that he is growing old and has +nothing to leave his adopted child. + +And so he becomes almost a miser; he theorizes; he wishes to give up his +tobacco, although Pierette herself fills and lights his pipe for him. He +counts on saving from his slender income enough to purchase a little +stock of fancy goods. Then when he is dead she can live an obscure and +tranquil life, hanging up somewhere in the back room of the small shop +an old cross of the Legion of Honor, her souvenir of the Captain. + +Every day he goes to walk with her on the rampart. Sometimes they are +passed by folks who are strangers in the village, who look with +compassionate surprise at the old soldier, spared from the wars, and the +poor lame child. And he is moved--oh, so pleasantly, almost to +tears--when one of the passers-by whispers, as they pass: + +"Poor father! Yet how pretty his daughter is." + +[Illustration] + + + + +TWO CLOWNS. + +[Illustration: TWO CLOWNS] + + +The night was clear and glittering with stars, and there was a crowd +upon the market-place. They crowded in gaping delight around the tent of +some strolling acrobats, where red and smoking lanterns lighted the +performance which was just beginning. Rolling their muscular limbs in +dirty wraps, and decorated from head to foot with tawdry ruffles of fur, +the athletes--four boyish ruffians with vulgar heads--were ranged in +line before the painted canvas which represented their exploits; they +stood there with their heads down, their legs apart, and their muscular +arms crossed upon their chests. Near them the marshal of the +establishment, an old sub-officer, with the drooping mustache of a +brandy-drinker, belted in at the waist, a heart of red cloth on his +leather breastplate, leaned on a pair of foils. The feminine attraction, +a rose in her hair, with a man's overcoat protecting her against the +freshness of the evening air over her ballet-dancer's dress, played at +the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate +accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were +murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of +Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus in scarlet drawers, +roared out his furious appeal in a loud voice. Mixed with the crowd of +loafers, soldiers, and women, I regarded the abject spectacle with +disgust--the last vestige of the olympic games. + +Suddenly the music ceased, and the crowd broke into roars of laughter. +The clown had just made his appearance. + +[Illustration] + +He wore the ordinary costume of his kind, the short vest and +many-colored stockings of the peasants of the opera comique, the three +horns turned backward, the red wig with its turned-up queue and its +butterfly on the end. He was a young man, but alas, his face, whitened +with flour, was already seamed with vice. Planting himself before the +public, and opening his mouth in a silly grin, he showed bleeding gums +almost devoid of teeth. The ringmaster kicked him violently from behind. + +"Come in," he said, tranquilly. + +Then the traditional dialogue, punctuated by slaps in the face, began +between the mountebank and his clown, and the entire audience applauded +these souvenirs of the classic farce, fallen from the theatre to the +stage of the mountebank, and whose humor, coarse but pungent, seemed a +drunken echo of the laughter of Moliere. The clown exerted his low +talent, throwing out at each moment some low jest, some immodest pun, to +which his master, simulating a prudish indignation, responded by thumps +on the head. But the adroit clown excelled in the art of receiving +affronts. He knew to perfection how to bend his body like a bow under +the impulse of a kick, and having received on one cheek a full-armed +blow, he stuffed his tongue at once in that cheek and began to whine +until a new blow passed the artificial swelling into the other cheek. +Blows showered on him as thick as hail, and, disappearing under a shower +of slaps, the flour on his face and the red powder of his wig enveloped +him like a cloud. At last he exhausted all his resources of low +scurrility, ridiculous contortions, grotesque grimaces, pretended aches, +falls at full length, etc., till the ringmaster, judging this gratuitous +show long enough, and that the public were sufficiently fascinated, sent +him off with a final cuff. + +Then the music began again with such violence that the painted canvas +trembled. The clown, having seized the sticks of a drum fixed on one of +the beams of the scaffolding, mingled a triumphant rataplan with the +bombardment of the bass-drum, the cracked thunder of the cymbals, and +the distracted wail of the clarionet. The ringmaster, roaring again with +his heavy voice, announced that the show was about to begin, and, as a +sign of defiance, he threw two or three old fencing-gloves among his +fellow-wrestlers. The crowd rushed into the tent, and soon only a small +group of loungers remained in front of the deserted stage. + +I was just going off, when I noticed by my side an old woman who looked +with strange persistence at the empty stage where the red lights were +still burning. She wore the linen bonnet and the crossed fichu of the +poorer class of women, and her whole appearance was that of neatness and +honesty. Asking myself what powerful interest could hold her in such a +place, I looked at her with more attention, and I saw that her eyes were +full of tears, and that her hands, which she had crossed over her +breast, were trembling with emotion. + +"What is the matter with you?" I said, coming near to her, impelled by +an instinctive sympathy. + +"The matter, good sir?" cried the old woman, bursting into tears. +"Passing by this market-place--oh, quite by chance, I tell you (I have +no heart for pleasure)--passing before that dreadful tent, I have just +seen in the wretch who has received all those blows my only son, sir, my +sole child! It is the grief of my life, do you see? I never knew what +had become of him since--oh, since my poor husband sent him away to sea +as a cabin-boy. He was apprenticed to an ironmonger, sir. He robbed his +master--he, the son of two honest people. As for me, I would have +pardoned him. You know what mothers are. But my man, when they came and +told him that his son had stolen, he was like a madman. It was that that +killed him, I am sure. I have never seen the unhappy child again. For +five years I have heard nothing from him. I sought to deceive myself. I +said experience will reform him, and there--there--just now--" + +And the poor old woman sobbed in a pitiful way. A crowd had formed. It +was no longer to me that she spoke; it was not to the crowd; it was to +herself, to the bitterness of her own heart. + +"He, my Adrien, the child that I nourished at my own breast, a +mountebank in a travelling theatre! struck and insulted before the whole +world! He, whom I saved at four when he was so ill, a clown in a tent! +He, the beautiful baby of whom I was so proud, whom I made the neighbors +admire when he was so small that he rolled naked on my knee, holding his +little foot in his hand!" + +Suddenly at this point in her heart-breaking monologue the old woman +perceived the crowd listening to her. She looked on the spectators in +astonishment, as one who starts from sleep. She recognized me who had +questioned her, and became frightfully pale. + +"What have I said?" she stammered. "Let me pass." And brusquely putting +us aside with an imperious gesture, she went off with a rapid step, and +disappeared in the night. + +The adventure made a lively impression on me. I thought often of it, and +after that, when I saw before my eyes some wretched and degraded +creature, some woman of the street, trailing her light silk skirts in +the flare of a gas-jet, some drunken idler leaning on the bar of a cafe +and bending his bloated face over his glass of absinthe, I have thought, +"Is it possible that that being can ever have been a little child?" + +Now, some little time after that _rencontre_--let us be careful not to +indicate the date--I was taken into a gallery of the Chamber of Deputies +to be present at a sensational sitting. The law that they were +discussing on that day is of no importance, but it was the old and +tedious story: a Ministerial candidate, formerly in the Opposition, +proposed to strike a blow at some liberty--I don't know what--which he +had formerly demanded with virulence and force. And, more than that, the +man in power was going to forfeit his word to the tribune. In good +French that is called "to betray," but in parliamentary language they +employ the phrase, "accomplish a change of base." Opinion was divided, +the majority uncertain; and upon his speech would depend the political +future of the speaker. Therefore, on that day, the legislators were in +their places, and the Chamber did not resemble, as usual, a class of +noisy boys presided over by a master without authority. The +lunch-counter was deserted, and the deputies of the Centre themselves +were not absorbed in their personal correspondence. + +The orator mounted the tribune. He had the commonplace figure of a +verbose orator: bold eye, protruding lips, as enlarged by the abuse of +words. He began by fingering his notes with an important air, tasting +the glass of sweetened water, and settling himself in his place; then he +started a babble of words without sense, with the nauseous facility of +the bar; misusing vague ideas, abstract terms, and words in _ly_ and +_ion_, stereotyped words, and ready-made phrases. A flattering murmur +greeted the end of his exordium; for the French people in general, and +the political world in particular, manifest a depraved taste for that +sort of eloquence. Encouraged, the fine speaker entered the heart of his +subject, and cynically sang his recantation. He abjured none of his +opinions, he repudiated none of his acts; he would always remain liberal +(a blow on his chest), but that which was good yesterday might be +dangerous to-day; truth on the other side of the Alps, error on this +side. The forbearance of the Government was abused. And he threatened +the assembly; became prophet; let loose the dogs of war. He even risked +a bit of poetry, flourished old metaphors, which were worn out in the +time of Cicero, and compared by turn, in the same phrase, his political +career to a pilot, a steed, and a torch. So much poetry could only +accentuate his success. There was a salvo of bravos, and the Opposition +grumbled, foreseeing their defeat. Violent interruptions broke forth: +furious voices recalled the orator's past life, and threw as insults his +former professions in his face. He was unmoved, and stood with a +disdainful air, which was very effective. Then the bravos redoubled, and +he smiled vaguely, thinking, no doubt, of the proof-sheets of the +_Officiel_, where he could by-and-by insert in the margin, without too +much exaggeration, "profound sensation" and "prolonged applause." Then, +when quiet was re-established, sure of his success, he affected a serene +majesty. He took up again his discourse, soaring like a goose, launching +out with high doctrine, citing Royer-Collard. + +[Illustration] + +But I heard no more. The scandalous spectacle of that political +mountebank, who sacrificed eternal principles to the interests of the +day, recalled to my memory the tent of the acrobats. The cold rhetoric +of that harangue, vibrating with neither truth nor emotion, recalled to +me the patter, learned by heart, of the powdered clown on the stage. The +superb air which the orator assumed under the rain of reproaches and +insults singularly resembled the indifference of the clown to the loud +slaps on his face. Those sonorous phrases, whose echoes had just died +away, sounded as false as a strolling band. The word "liberty" rolled +like the bass-drum, "public interests" and "welfare of the State" +clanged discordantly like the cymbals, and when the comedian spoke of +his "patriotism" I almost heard the _couac_ of a clarionet. + +A long uproar woke me from my revery. The speech was finished, and the +orator, having descended from the rostrum, was receiving +congratulations. They were about to vote: the urns were being passed +around, but the result was certain, and the crowd of tribunes was +already dispersing. + +As I went across the vestibule I saw an elderly lady dressed in black. +She was dressed like a wealthy bourgeoise and appeared radiant. I +stopped one of the well-groomed little chaps whom one sees trotting +around in the Ministerial corridors. I knew him slightly, and I asked +him who that lady was. + +"The mother of the orator," he replied, with official emotion. "She must +be very proud." + +Very proud! The old mother who wept so bitterly in the market-place was +not that; and if the mother of his future Excellency had reflected, she +would have regretted--she too--the time when her boy was very small, and +rolled naked on her knee, holding his little foot in his hand. + +But, bah! everything is relative, even shame. + +[Illustration] + + + + +A VOLUNTARY DEATH. + +[Illustration: A VOLUNTARY DEATH] + + +I knew the poet Louis Miraz very well, in the old times in the Latin +Quarter, where we used to take our meals together at a cremerie on the +Rue de Seine, kept by an old Polish woman whom we nicknamed the Princess +Chocolawska, on account of the enormous bowl of creme and chocolate +which she exposed daily in the show-window of her shop. It was possible +to dine there for ten sous, with "two breads," an "ordinaire for thirty +centimes," and a "small coffee." + +Some who were very nice spent a sou more for a napkin. + +Besides some young men who were destined to become geniuses, the +ordinary guests of the cremerie were some poor compatriots of the +proprietress, who had all to some extent commanded armies. There was, +above all, an imposing and melancholy old fellow with a white beard, +whose old befrogged cloak, shabby boots, and old hat, which looked as if +snails had crawled over it, presented a poem of misery, and whom the +other Poles treated with a marked respect, for he had been a dictator +for three days. + +It was, moreover, at the Princess Chocolawska's that I knew a singular +fool, who gained his bread by giving German lessons, and declared +himself a convert to Buddhism. On the mantle of the miserable room, +where he lived with a milliner of Saint-Germain, was enthroned an ugly +little Buddha in jade, fixing his hypnotized eyes on his navel, and +holding his great toes in his hands. The German professor accorded to +the idol the most profound veneration, but on the epoch of quarter-day +he was sometimes forced to carry him to the Mont-de-piete, upon which +he fell into a state of sombre chagrin, and did not recover his serenity +until he was able to make amends for his impious act. He never failed, +moreover, to renew his avowals in prosperous times, and finally to take +his god out of pawn. + +As to Louis Miraz, he had the deep eyes, the pale complexion, and the +long and dishevelled hair of all those young men who come to town in +third-class carriages to conquer glory, who spend more for midnight oil +than for beefsteaks, and who, rich already with some manuscripts, have +thrown out to great Paris from the height of some hill in its environs +the classic defiance of Rastignac. At that time my hair was archaic +enough in length to grease the collar of my coat. Thus we were made to +understand each other, and Louis Miraz soon took me to his attic-room in +the Rue des Quatre-Vents, where he dragged two thousand alexandrines +over me. + +[Illustration] + +Seriously, they were fresh and charming verses, with the inspiration of +spring-tide, having the perfume of the first lilacs, and _Forest Birds_ +(the title of that collection of poems which Louis Miraz published a +little while after he read them to me) will retain a place among the +volumes in the first rank of belles-lettres, by the side of those poets +of a single book--of the Daudet of the Amoureuses, for example. + +For Miraz wrote no more verse. A young eaglet seeking the upper air, he +made his eyrie on the summit of Montmartre, and for quite a while we +lost sight of him. Then I found his name again in Sunday journals and +reviews, when he began to write those short and exquisite sketches which +have made his reputation. Thus five years passed, when I met him one day +in the editor's office of a journal for which I worked. + + * * * * * + +Each of us was as much pleased as the other at thus meeting again; and +after the first "What, is that you? Is that you?" we stood facing each +other, shaking hands, and exposing, in a laugh of cordial delight, our +teeth, which in old times we used to exercise on the same crust of +poverty. He had not changed. He had not even sacrificed his long hair, +which he threw back with the graceful movement of a horse who tosses his +mane. Only he had the clear complexion and calm eye of a contented man, +and his slim figure was clad in most fashionable costume. + +"We won't drift apart again, will we?" said he, affectionately, taking +me by the arm; and he led me out in the boulevard, where the April sun +gilded the young leaves of the plane-trees. + +Ah, happy day! How we exhausted the "Don't you remembers?" "Do you +remember the fried eggs which tasted of straw, and the dreadful +rice-milk of the Princess Chocolawska? and the melancholy air of the old +dictator? and the German who used to pawn his god every three months?" +At last those days of hardship were finished. He had from afar applauded +my success, as I had watched his. But one thing I did not know, and that +was that he had married a woman whom he adored, and that he had a +charming little girl. + +"Come and see them; you shall dine with me." + +I let myself be persuaded, and he carried me down to the Enclos des +Ternes, where he lived in a cottage among the trees. There everything +made you welcome. No sooner had we opened the door of the garden than a +young dog frisked about our feet. + +"Down, Gavroche! He will soil your clothes." + +But at the sound of the bell Madame Miraz appeared at the steps with her +little daughter in her arms. An imposing and beautiful blond, her +well-moulded figure wrapped in a blue gown. + +"Put on a plate more. I've an old comrade with me." + +And the happy father, keeping his hat on his head and carrying his +little girl, showed me all over his establishment--the dining-room, +brightened by light bits of faience, the study, abounding in books, with +its window opening out on the green turf, so that a puff of wind had +strewn with rose-leaves the printer's proofs which were scattered on the +table. + +"This is only a beginning, you know. It wasn't so long ago that we were +working for three sous a line." + +And while I luxuriated under a blossoming Judas-tree which I saw in the +garden, Miraz, at ease in his home, had slipped into his working-vest, +put on his slippers, and, lying on his sofa, caught little Helen in his +arms to toss her in the air--"Houp la! Houp la!" + +I do not remember ever to have had a more perfect impression of +contentment. We dined pleasantly--two good courses, that was all; a +dinner without pretence, where we served ourselves with the pepper-mill. +The charming Madame Miraz presided with her bright smile, having her +child by her side in a high-chair. She spoke but little, but her sweet +and intelligent attention followed our light and paradoxical chat, the +good-humored fooling of men of letters; and at the dessert she took a +rose from the bouquet which ornamented the table, and placed it in her +hair near her ear with a supreme grace. She was indeed that lovely and +silent friend whom a dreamer requires. + +We took our coffee in the study--they intended to furnish the salon very +soon with the price of a story to be published by Levy--then, as the +evening was cool, a fire of sticks and twigs was built, and while we +smoked, Miraz and I, recalling old memories, the mistress of the house, +holding on her knees little Helen, now ready for bed, made her repeat +"Our Father" and "Hail Mary," which the little one lisped, rubbing her +little feet together before the warm flame. + + * * * * * + +We saw each other again, often at first, then less frequently, the +difficult and complicated life of literary labor taking us each his own +way. So the years passed. We met, shook hands. "Everything going well?" +"Splendidly." And that was all. Then, later, I found the name of Louis +Miraz but rarely in the journals and periodicals. "Happy man; he is +resting," I said to myself, remembering that he was spoken of as having +made a small fortune. Finally, last autumn, I learned that he was +seriously ill. + +I hurried to see him. He still lived at the Enclos des Ternes; but on +this sombre day of the last of November the little house seemed cold, +and looked naked among the leafless trees. It seemed to me shrunken and +diminished, like everything that we have not seen for a long time. + +The dog was probably dead, for his bark no longer answered the sound of +the bell when I passed the little gate and entered the garden, all +strewn with dead leaves where the night's frost had withered the last +chrysanthemums. + +It was not Madame Miraz--she was absent--it was Helen who received me, +Helen, who had grown to be a great girl of fourteen, with an awkward +manner. She opened for me the door of her father's study, and brusquely +lifting her great black eyelashes, turned on me a timid and distressed +glance. + +I found Miraz huddled in an easy-chair in the corner of the fireplace, +wrapped in a sort of bed-gown, with gray locks streaking his long hair; +and by the cold, clammy hand which he reached towards me, by the pallid +face which he turned upon me, I knew that he was lost. Horrible! I found +in my unhappy comrade that worn and ruined look which used to strike us +formerly among the poor Poles of the cremerie. + +[Illustration] + +"Ah, well, old man, things are not going well?" + +"Deucedly bad, my boy," he answered, with a heart-breaking smile. "I am +going out stupidly with consumption, as they do in the fifth act, you +know, when the venerable doctor, with a head like Beranger, feels the +first walking gentleman's pulse, and lifts his eyes towards heaven, +saying, 'The death-struggle approaches!' Only the difference is that +with me it continues; it will not conclude, the death-struggle. Smoke +away; that doesn't disturb me," he added, seeing me put my cigar one +side, his cough sounding like a death-rattle. + +I tried to find encouraging words. I talked with him, holding him by the +hand and patting him affectionately on the shoulder; but my voice had in +my own ears the empty hollowness of deceit, and Miraz, looking at me, +seemed to pity my efforts. + +I was silent. + +"Look," said he, pointing to his table; "see my work-bench. For six +months I have not been able to write." + +It was true. Nothing could be more sad than that heap of papers covered +with dust, and in an old Roman plate there was a bundle of pens, crusted +with ink, and like those trophies of rusty foils which hang on the walls +of old fencers. + +I made a new attempt to revive him. Die! at his age. Nonsense! He wasn't +taking care of himself. He must pass the winter in the South, drink a +good draught of sunlight. He could. He was easy in his money matters. + +But he stopped me, putting his hand on my arm. + +"Listen," he said, gravely, "we have seen each other seldom, but you are +my oldest, perhaps my best, friend. You have proved me pen in hand. +Well, I am going to tell you something in confidence, for you to keep to +yourself, unless it may serve on some occasion to discourage the young +literary aspirants who bring their manuscripts to you--always a +praiseworthy action. Yes, I have been successful. Yes, I have been paid +a franc a line. Yes, I have made money, and there in that drawer are a +certain number of yellow, green, and red papers from which a bit is +clipped every six months, and which represent three or four thousand +francs of income. It is rare in our profession, and to gain that poor +hoard I have been obliged--I, a poet--to imitate the unsociable virtues +of a bourgeois, know how to deny a jewel to my wife, a dress to my +daughter. At last I have that money. And I often said to myself, if I +should die their bread is assured, and here is a little marriage portion +for Helen! And I was content--I was proud!--for I know them, the stories +of our widows and our orphans, the fourpenny help of the government, the +tobacco shops for six hundred francs in the province, and, if the +daughter is intelligent and pretty like mine, the dramatic author, an +old friend of the father, who advises her to enter the Conservatoire, +and who makes of her--mercy of God! that shall never be. But for all +that, my boy, it is necessary that I should not linger. Sickness is +expensive, and already it has been necessary to sell one or two bonds +from that drawer. To seek the sunlight, as you suggest, to bask like a +lizard at Cannes or at Menton, one more bond must go, and there would +not be enough to last to the end, if I should wait for seven or eight +years more, now that I can no longer write. Happily, there is nothing to +fear. But what I have suffered since I have been incapable of writing, +and have felt my hoard of gold shrink and diminish in my hand like the +Magic Skin of Balzac, is frightful. Now you understand me, do you not? +and you will no longer bid me take care of myself. No; if you still pray +to God, ask him to send me speedily to the undertaker's." + + * * * * * + +Fifteen days later some thirty of us followed the hearse which carried +Louis Miraz to the Cemetery Montmartre. It had snowed the day before, +and Doctor Arnould, the old frequenter of painters' studios, the friend +and physician of the dead man, walking behind me, called in his brusque +voice, + +"Very commonplace, but always terrible the contrast: a burial in the +snow--black on white. The Funeral of the Poor, by the late Vigneron, +isn't to be ridiculed. Brr!" + +At last we came to the edge of the grave. The place and the time were +sad. Under a cloudy sky the little yew-trees, swayed by the wind, threw +down their burdens of melted snow. The by-standers had formed a circle, +and were watching the grave-diggers, who were lowering the coffin by +cords. Near a cross-bearer, whose short surplice permitted the bottom of +his trousers to be seen, the priest waited with a finger in his book; +and, having grasped the rim of his hat under his left arm, the orator of +the Society of Men of Letters already held in his black-gloved hand the +funeral oration, hastily patched up by the aid of a comrade over a +couple of glasses at the corner of a cafe table. + +Suddenly, as the priest began his Latin prayers, Doctor Arnould seized +me by the arm and whispered in my ear, + +"You know that he killed himself?" + +I looked at him with astonishment. But he pointed to the group in black, +composed of Madame Miraz and her daughter, who were sobbing under their +long veils and clasping each other in a tragic embrace, and he added, + +"For them. Yes, for six months he threw all his medicines in the fire, +and designedly committed all sorts of imprudences. He confessed it to me +before his death. I had not understood it at all--I, who had expected to +prolong his life at least three years by creosote. At last the other +night, when it was freezing cold, he left his window open, as if by +forgetfulness, and was taken with bleeding at the lungs. Yes, that he +might leave bread for those two women. The cure does not dream that he +is blessing a suicide. But what of it, my good fellow? Miraz is in the +paradise of the brave. The details of such a death. Eh? It is tougher +than the passage of the Bridge of Arcole." + +[Illustration] + + + + +A DRAMATIC FUNERAL. + +[Illustration: A DRAMATIC FUNERAL] + + +For twenty-five years he had played the role of the villain at the +Boulevard du Crime,[A] and his harsh voice, his nose like an eagle's +beak, his eye with its savage glitter, had made him a good player of +such parts. For twenty-five years, dressed in the cloak and encircled by +the fawn-colored leather belt of Mordaunt, he had retreated with the +step of a wounded scorpion before the sword of D'Artagnan; draped in the +dirty Jewish gown of Rodin, he had rubbed his dry hands together, +muttering the terrible "Patience, patience!" and, curled on the chair of +the Duc d'Este, he had said to Lucretia Borgia, with a sufficiently +infernal glance, "Take care and make no mistake. The flagon of gold, +madame." When, preceded by a tremolo, he made his entry in the scene, +the third gallery trembled, and a sigh of relief greeted the moment when +the first walking gentleman at last said to him: "Between us two, now," +and immolated him for the grand triumph of virtue. + +[Footnote A: A nickname given to the Boulevard du Temple, on account of +the numerous melodramatic theatres situated there.] + +[Illustration] + +But this sort of success, which is only betrayed by murmurs of horror, +is not of the kind to make a dramatic career seductive; and besides the +old actor had always hidden in a corner of his heart the bucolic ideal +which is in the heart of almost all artists. He sighed for an old age of +leisure, and the comfortable dignity of a retired shopkeeper; the house +in the country, where he could live with his family, with melons, under +an arbor; cakes and wine in the winter evenings; his daughter a scholar +in a convent; his son in the uniform of the Polytechnique; and the cross +of the Legion. + +Now, when we had occasion to know him, he had already nearly realized +his dreams. + +After the failure of the theatre where he had been for a long time +engaged, some capitalists had thought of him to put the enterprise on +its feet again. With his systematic habits, his good sense, his thorough +and practical knowledge of the business, and a sufficiently correct +literary instinct, he became an excellent manager. He was the owner of +stocks and a villa at Montmorency; his son was a student at +Sainte-Barbe, and his daughter had just come out of Les Oiseaux; and if +the malice of small newspapers had retarded his nomination in the Legion +of Honor by recalling every year, about the first of January, his old +ranting on the stage, when he played formerly the villains' parts, he +could yet hope that it would not be long before the red ribbon would +flourish in his button-hole. He had still preserved some of the habits +of a strolling player, such as being very familiar with everybody, and +dyeing his mustaches; but as he was, on the whole, good, honest, and +serviceable, he conquered the esteem and friendship of those with whom +he came in contact. + +So it was with sincere grief that the whole dramatic world learned one +day the terrible sorrow which had smitten that excellent man. His +daughter, a girl of seventeen, had died suddenly of brain-fever. + +We knew how he adored the child; how he had brought her up in the +strictest principles of family and religion, far from the theatre, +something as Triboulet hid his daughter Blanche in the little house of +the cul-de-sac Bucy. We understood that all the hopes and ambitions of +the man rested on the head of that charming girl, who, near all the +corruption of the theatre, had grown up in innocence and purity, as one +sees sometimes in the scanty grass of the faubourgs a field-flower +spring up by the door of a hovel. + +[Illustration] + +We were among the first at the funeral, to which we had been summoned by +a black-bordered billet. + +A crowd of the people of the neighborhood encumbered the street before +the house of the dead, attracted by the pomps of the first-class funeral +ordered by the old comedian, who had preserved the taste of the _mise en +scene_ even in his grief. The magnificent hearse and cumbrous +mourning-coaches were already drawn up to the sidewalk, and under the +door, and in the shade of the heavy fringed and silvered draperies, amid +the twinkling of burning candles, between two priests reading prayers in +their Prayer-books, the form of the massive coffin could be seen under +its white cloth, covered with Parma violets. + +As we walked among the crowd we noticed the groups formed of those who, +like us, were waiting the departure of the cortege. There were almost +all the actors, men and women, of Paris, who had come to pay their last +respects to the daughter of their comrade. Undoubtedly nothing could be +more natural; but we experienced not the less a strange sensation on +seeing, around the coffin of that pure young girl who had breathed away +her last breath in a prayer, the gathering of all those faces marked by +the brand of the theatre. + +[Illustration] + +They were all there: the stars, the comedians, the lovers, the traitors; +nobody was lacking: soubrettes, duennas, coquettes, first walking +ladies. Wearing a sack-coat and a felt hat on his long gray hair, the +superb adventurer of all the cloak and sword dramas leaned against the +shutter of a shop in his familiar attitude, and crossed his arms to show +his handsome hands; while a little old fellow with the wrinkled face of +a clown spoke to him briskly in the broad, harsh voice which had so +often made us explode with laughter. By the side of the aged first young +man, who, pinched in his scanty frock-coat, and with trousers trailing +under foot, twirled in his gloved hands his locks of over-black hair, +stood a great handsome fellow, beautiful as a model, who had not been +able to renounce even for that day his eccentricities of costume, and +strutted in a black velvet cape and the boots of an equerry. Oh, how +sad, tired, and old they seemed in the gray light of that winter +morning, all those pathetic heads, graceful or laughable, which we were +only in the habit of seeing when transfigured by the prestige of the +stage. Chins had become blue-black under too frequent shaving; hair thin +and dry under the hot iron of the hair-dresser; skins rough under the +injurious action of unguents and vinegar; eyes dull, burned by the glare +of foot-lights--blinded, almost fixed, like those of an owl in the +sunlight. + +[Illustration] + +The women were especially to be pitied. Obliged by the occasion to rise +at a very early hour, and not having had the time for a careful and +minute toilet, they gathered in groups of four or five, chilled and +shivering in their fur mantles, muffs, and triple black veils. +Notwithstanding the hasty rouge and powder of the morning, they were +unrecognizable, and it required an effort of imagination to find in them +a memory of that sublime seraglio of the Parisian theatres, exposed +every evening to the desires of several thousand men. On all of these +charming types appeared the mark of weariness and age. Some ossified +into faded skeletons, others grew dull with an unhealthy weight of fat; +wrinkles crossed the foreheads and starred the temples; lips were livid +and eyes circled with dark rings; the complexions were particularly +frightful--that uniform tint, morbid and sickly, the work of rouge and +grease-paints. That heavy woman, with the head and neck of a farmer's +wife (one almost sees a basket on her shoulder), is the terrible and +fatal queen of grand, romantic dramas; and that small blonde and pale +creature, so faded under her laces, and who would have completely filled +a music-teacher's carrying roll, was the artless young woman whom all +the vaudevillists married at the denouement of their pieces. There were +the dying glances of the lorette in the hospital, the pose of the old +copyist of the Louvre, and the theatrical sneer. + +[Illustration] + +Soon the cabs drove up with the functionaries connected with the +administration of the theatre, in black hats and coats, with an official +air of sadness; young reporters, the outflow of journalism, staring at +everybody and taking notes; dramatic authors, Monday feuilletonists--in +short, all of those nocturnal beings, tired and worn-out, who are +properly called the actives of Paris. + +The groups became more compact, and talked animatedly. Old friends found +each other; they shook hands, and, in view of the circumstances, smiled +cordially, while the women saluted each other through their veils. + +In passing, we could catch fragments of conversation like this: + +"When will the affair begin?" + +"Were you at the opening of the Varietes yesterday?" + +Theatrical terms were heard--"My talents," "My charms," "My physique." +Some business, even, was done. A new manager was quite surrounded; an +old actress organized her benefit. + +Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd. The undertaker's men had +just placed the coffin in the hearse, and the young girls of the +Sisterhood of the Virgin, to which the dead girl had belonged, arranged +themselves in two lines, in their white veils, at the sides of the +funeral-car. Preceded by the master of ceremonies, in silk stockings and +a wand of office in his hand, the poor father appeared on the pavement +in full mourning, with a white cravat, broken down by grief and +sustained by his friends. + +The procession set out and came to the parish church, fortunately near. + +There was a grand mass, with music which was not finished. It was too +warm in the church stuffed with people, and the inattention was general. +Men who recognized each other saluted with a light movement of the head; +conversation was exchanged in a low voice; some young actors struck +attitudes for the benefit of the women, and the pious responded to +Dominus Vobiscum droned by the priest. At the elevation, from behind the +altar, rang out a magnificent Pie Jesu, sung by a celebrated baritone, +who had never put in his voice so much amorous languor. Outside the +church-yard the small boys of the quarter stood on tiptoe, and, hanging +on to the railings, pointed out the celebrities with their fingers. + +The office finished, the long defile commenced; and every one went to +the entrance of the church to sprinkle some drops of holy-water on the +bier, and press the hand of the old actor, who, broken by grief, and +having hardly strength to hold his hat, leaned against a pillar. + +That was the most horrible moment. + +Carried away by the habit of playing up to the situation, all these +theatrical people put into the token of sympathy which they gave to +their friend the character of their employment. The star advanced +gravely, and with a three-quarter inclination of his head flashed out +the "Look of Fate." The old tragedian with a gray beard assumed a +stoical expression, and did not forget to "vibrate" in pronouncing a +masculine "Courage!" The clown approached with a short, trotting step, +and shaking his head until his cheeks trembled, he murmured, "My poor +old fellow." And the fairy queen, with the sensibility of a sensitive +female, threw herself impulsively on the neck of the unhappy father, +who, with swollen face, bloodshot eyes, and hanging lip, blackened his +face and his gloved hands with the dye of his mustache, diluted by +tears. + +And all the time, a few steps from this grotesque and sinister scene, we +could see--last word of this antithesis--the white figures of the young +girls of the sisterhood, kneeling on the chairs nearest the coffin of +their companion, and who undoubtedly were beseeching God, in their +naive and original prayers, to grant her the paradise of their dreams: +a pretty paradise in the Jesuitical style, all in carved and gilded +wood, and many-colored marble, where one could see at the end a tableau +in a transparent light; the Virgin crowned with stars, with a serpent +under her feet, while little cherubs suspended in mid-air over her head +an azure streamer flaming with these words: "_Ecce Regina Angelorum._" + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SUBSTITUTE. + +[Illustration: THE SUBSTITUTE] + + +He was scarcely ten years old when he was first arrested as a vagabond. + +He spoke thus to the judge: + +"I am called Jean Francois Leturc, and for six months I was with the +man who sings and plays upon a cord of catgut between the lanterns at +the Place de la Bastille. I sang the refrain with him, and after that I +called, 'Here's all the new songs, ten centimes, two sous!' He was +always drunk, and used to beat me. That is why the police picked me up +the other night. Before that I was with the man who sells brushes. My +mother was a laundress; her name was Adele. At one time she lived with +a man on the ground-floor at Montmartre. She was a good work-woman and +liked me. She made money because she had for customers waiters in the +cafes, and they use a good deal of linen. On Sundays she used to put me +to bed early so that she could go to the ball. On week-days she sent me +to Les Freres, where I learned to read. Well, the sergeant-de-ville +whose beat was in our street used always to stop before our windows to +talk with her--a good-looking chap, with a medal from the Crimea. They +were married, and after that everything went wrong. He didn't take to +me, and turned mother against me. Every one had a blow for me, and so, +to get out of the house, I spent whole days in the Place Clichy, where I +knew the mountebanks. My father-in-law lost his place, and my mother her +work. She used to go out washing to take care of him; this gave her a +cough--the steam.... She is dead at Lamboisiere. She was a good woman. +Since that I have lived with the seller of brushes and the catgut +scraper. Are you going to send me to prison?" + +He said this openly, cynically, like a man. He was a little ragged +street-arab, as tall as a boot, his forehead hidden under a queer mop of +yellow hair. + +Nobody claimed him, and they sent him to the Reform School. + +Not very intelligent, idle, clumsy with his hands, the only trade he +could learn there was not a good one--that of reseating straw chairs. +However, he was obedient, naturally quiet and silent, and he did not +seem to be profoundly corrupted by that school of vice. But when, in his +seventeenth year, he was thrown out again on the streets of Paris, he +unhappily found there his prison comrades, all great scamps, exercising +their dirty professions: teaching dogs to catch rats in the the sewers, +and blacking shoes on ball nights in the passage of the Opera--amateur +wrestlers, who permitted themselves to be thrown by the Hercules of the +booths--or fishing at noontime from rafts; all of these occupations he +followed to some extent, and, some months after he came out of the house +of correction, he was arrested again for a petty theft--a pair of old +shoes prigged from a shop-window. Result: a year in the prison of Sainte +Pelagie, where he served as valet to the political prisoners. + +He lived in much surprise among this group of prisoners, all very young, +negligent in dress, who talked in loud voices, and carried their heads +in a very solemn fashion. They used to meet in the cell of one of the +oldest of them, a fellow of some thirty years, already a long time in +prison and quite a fixture at Sainte Pelagie--a large cell, the walls +covered with colored caricatures, and from the window of which one could +see all Paris--its roofs, its spires, and its domes--and far away the +distant line of hills, blue and indistinct upon the sky. There were upon +the walls some shelves filled with volumes and all the old paraphernalia +of a fencing-room: broken masks, rusty foils, breast-plates, and gloves +that were losing their tow. It was there that the "politicians" used to +dine together, adding to the everlasting "soup and beef," fruit, cheese, +and pints of wine which Jean Francois went out and got by the can--a +tumultuous repast interrupted by violent disputes, and where, during the +dessert, the "Carmagnole" and "Ca Ira" were sung in full chorus. They +assumed, however, an air of great dignity on those days when a newcomer +was brought in among them, at first entertaining him gravely as a +citizen, but on the morrow using him with affectionate familiarity, and +calling him by his nickname. Great words were used there: Corporation, +Responsibility, and phrases quite unintelligible to Jean Francois--such +as this, for example, which he once heard imperiously put forth by a +frightful little hunchback who blotted some writing-paper every night: + +"It is done. This is the composition of the Cabinet: Raymond, the Bureau +of Public Instruction; Martial, the Interior; and for Foreign Affairs, +myself." + +His time done, he wandered again around Paris, watched afar by the +police, after the fashion of cockchafers, made by cruel children to fly +at the end of a string. He became one of those fugitive and timid beings +whom the law, with a sort of coquetry, arrests and releases by +turn--something like those platonic fishers who, in order that they may +not exhaust their fish-pond, throw immediately back in the water the +fish which has just come out of the net. Without a suspicion on his part +that so much honor had been done to so sorry a subject, he had a special +bundle of memoranda in the mysterious portfolios of the Rue de +Jerusalem. His name was written in round hand on the gray paper of the +cover, and the notes and reports, carefully classified, gave him his +successive appellations: "Name, Leturc;" "the prisoner Leturc," and, at +last, "the criminal Leturc." + +He was two years out of prison, dining where he could, sleeping in night +lodging-houses and sometimes in lime-kilns, and taking part with his +fellows in interminable games of pitch-penny on the boulevards near the +barriers: He wore a greasy cap on the back of his head, carpet slippers, +and a short white blouse. When he had five sous he had his hair curled. +He danced at Constant's at Montparnasse; bought for two sous to sell for +four at the door of Bobino, the jack of hearts or the ace of clubs +serving as a countermark; sometimes opened the door of a carriage; led +horses to the horse-market. From the lottery of all sorts of miserable +employments he drew a goodly number. Who can say if the atmosphere of +honor which one breathes as a soldier, if military discipline might not +have saved him. Taken, in a cast of the net, with some young loafers who +robbed drunkards sleeping on the streets, he denied very earnestly +having taken part in their expeditions. Perhaps he told the truth, but +his antecedents were accepted in lieu of proof, and he was sent for +three years to Poissy. There he made coarse playthings for children, was +tattooed on the chest, learned thieves' slang and the penal-code. A new +liberation, and a new plunge into the sink of Paris; but very short this +time, for at the end of six months at the most he was again compromised +in a night robbery, aggravated by climbing and breaking--a serious +affair, in which he played an obscure role, half dupe and half fence. On +the whole his complicity was evident, and he was sent for five years at +hard labor. His grief in this adventure was above all in being separated +from an old dog which he had found on a dung-heap, and cured of the +mange. The beast loved him. + +Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the harbor, the blows from a +stick, wooden shoes on bare feet, soup of black beans dating from +Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible sleep in a camp swarming +with convicts; that was what he experienced for five broiling summers +and five winters raw with the Mediterranean wind. He came out from there +stunned, was sent under surveillance to Vernon, where he worked some +time on the river. Then, an incorrigible vagabond, he broke his exile +and came again to Paris. He had his savings, fifty-six francs, that is +to say, time enough for reflection. During his absence his former +wretched companions had dispersed. He was well hidden, and slept in a +loft at an old woman's, to whom he represented himself as a sailor, +tired of the sea, who had lost his papers in a recent shipwreck, and who +wanted to try his hand at something else. His tanned face and his +calloused hands, together with some sea phrases which he dropped from +time to time, made his tale seem probable enough. + +[Illustration] + +One day when he risked a saunter in the streets, and when chance had led +him as far as Montmartre, where he was born, an unexpected memory +stopped him before the door of Les Freres, where he had learned to +read. As it was very warm the door was open, and by a single glance the +passing outcast was able to recognize the peaceable school-room. Nothing +was changed: neither the bright light shining in at the great windows, +nor the crucifix over the desk, nor the rows of benches with the tables +furnished with ink-stands and pencils, nor the table of weights and +measures, nor the map where pins stuck in still indicated the operations +of some ancient war. Heedlessly and without thinking, Jean Francois +read on the blackboard the words of the Evangelist which had been set +there as a copy: + +"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over +ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." + +It was undoubtedly the hour for recreation, for the Brother Professor +had left his chair, and, sitting on the edge of a table, he was telling +a story to the boys who surrounded him with eager and attentive eyes. +What a bright and innocent face he had, that beardless young man, in his +long black gown, and white necktie, and great ugly shoes, and his badly +cut brown hair streaming out behind! All the simple figures of the +children of the people who were watching him seemed scarcely less +childlike than his; above all when, delighted with some of his own +simple and priestly pleasantries, he broke out in an open and frank peal +of laughter which showed his white and regular teeth, a peal so +contagious that all the scholars laughed loudly in their turn. It was +such a sweet, simple group in the bright sunlight, which lighted their +dear eyes and their blond curls. + +Jean Francois looked at them for some time in silence, and for the +first time in that savage nature, all instinct and appetite, there awoke +a mysterious, a tender emotion. His heart, that seared and hardened +heart, unmoved when the convict's cudgel or the heavy whip of the +watchman fell on his shoulders, beat oppressively. In that sight he saw +again his infancy; and closing his eyes sadly, the prey to torturing +regret, he walked quickly away. + +Then the words written on the blackboard came back to his mind. + +"If it wasn't too late, after all!" he murmured; "if I could again, like +others, eat honestly my brown bread, and sleep my fill without +nightmare! The spy must be sharp who recognizes me. My beard, which I +shaved off down there, has grown out thick and strong. One can burrow +somewhere in the great ant-hill, and work can be found. Whoever is not +worked to death in the hell of the galleys comes out agile and robust, +and I learned there to climb ropes with loads upon my back. Building is +going on everywhere here, and the masons need helpers. Three francs a +day! I never earned so much. Let me be forgotten, and that is all I +ask." + +He followed his courageous resolution; he was faithful to it, and after +three months he was another man. The master for whom he worked called +him his best workman. After a long day upon the scaffolding, in the hot +sun and the dust, constantly bending and raising his back to take the +hod from the man at his feet and pass it to the man over his head, he +went for his soup to the cook-shop, tired out, his legs aching, his +hands burning, his eyelids stuck with plaster, but content with himself, +and carrying his well-earned money in a knot in his handkerchief. He +went out now without fear, since he could not be recognized in his white +mask, and since he had noticed that the suspicious glances of the +policeman were seldom turned on the tired workman. He was quiet and +sober. He slept the sound sleep of fatigue. He was free! + +At last--oh, supreme recompense!--he had a friend! + +He was a fellow-workman like himself, named Savinien, a little peasant +with red lips who had come to Paris with his stick over his shoulder and +a bundle on the end of it, fleeing from the wine-shops and going to mass +every Sunday. Jean Francois loved him for his piety, for his candor, +for his honesty, for all that he himself had lost, and so long ago. It +was a passion, profound and unrestrained, which transformed him by +fatherly cares and attentions. Savinien, himself of a weak and +egotistical nature, let things take their course, satisfied only in +finding a companion who shared his horror of the wine-shop. The two +friends lived together in a fairly comfortable lodging, but their +resources were very limited. They were obliged to take into their room a +third companion, an old Auvergnat, gloomy and rapacious, who found it +possible out of his meagre salary to save something with which to buy a +place in his own country. Jean Francois and Savinien were always +together. On holidays they together took long walks in the environs of +Paris, and dined under an arbor in one of those small country inns where +there are a great many mushrooms in the sauces and innocent rebusses on +the napkins. There Jean Francois learned from his friend all that lore +of which they who are born in the city are ignorant: learned the names +of the trees, the flowers, and the plants; the various seasons for +harvesting; he heard eagerly the thousand details of a laborious country +life--the autumn sowing, the winter chores, the splendid celebrations of +harvest and vintage days, the sound of the mills at the water-side, and +the flails striking the ground, the tired horses led to water, and the +hunting in the morning mist; and, above all, the long evenings around +the fire of vine-shoots, that were shortened by some marvellous stories. +He discovered in himself a source of imagination before unknown, and +found a singular delight in the recital of events so placid, so calm, so +monotonous. + +One thing troubled him, however: it was the fear lest Savinien might +learn something of his past. Sometimes there escaped from him some low +word of thieves' slang, a vulgar gesture--vestiges of his former +horrible existence--and he felt the pain one feels when old wounds +re-open; the more because he fancied that he sometimes saw in Savinien +the awakening of an unhealthy curiosity. When the young man, already +tempted by the pleasures which Paris offers to the poorest, asked him +about the mysteries of the great city, Jean Francois feigned ignorance +and turned the subject; but he felt a vague inquietude for the future of +his friend. + +His uneasiness was not without foundation. Savinien could not long +remain the simple rustic that he was on his arrival in Paris. If the +gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always repelled him, he was +profoundly troubled by other temptations, full of danger for the +inexperience of his twenty years. When spring came he began to go off +alone, and at first he wandered about the brilliant entrance of some +dancing-hall, watching the young girls who went in with their arms +around each others' waists, talking in low tones. Then, one evening, +when lilacs perfumed the air and the call to quadrilles was most +captivating, he crossed the threshold, and from that time Jean Francois +observed a change, little by little, in his manners and his visage. He +became more frivolous, more extravagant. He often borrowed from his +friend his scanty savings, and he forgot to repay. Jean Francois, +feeling that he was abandoned, jealous and forgiving at the same time, +suffered and was silent. He felt that he had no right to reproach him, +but with the foresight of affection he indulged in cruel and inevitable +presentiments. + +One evening, as he was mounting the stairs to his room, absorbed in his +thoughts, he heard, as he was about to enter, the sound of angry voices, +and he recognized that of the old Auvergnat who lodged with Savinien and +himself. An old habit of suspicion made him stop at the landing-place +and listen to learn the cause of the trouble. + +"Yes," said the Auvergnat, angrily, "I am sure that some one has opened +my trunk and stolen from it the three louis that I had hidden in a +little box; and he who has done this thing must be one of the two +companions who sleep here, if it were not the servant Maria. It concerns +you as much as it does me, since you are the master of the house, and I +will drag you to the courts if you do not let me at once break open the +valises of the two masons. My poor gold! It was here yesterday in its +place, and I will tell you just what it was, so that if we find it again +nobody can accuse me of having lied. Ah, I know them, my three beautiful +gold pieces, and I can see them as plainly as I see you! One piece was +more worn than the others; it was of greenish gold, with a portrait of +the great emperor. The other was a great old fellow with a queue and +epaulettes; and the third, which had on it a Philippe with whiskers, I +had marked with my teeth. They don't trick me. Do you know that I only +wanted two more like that to pay for my vineyard? Come, search these +fellows' things with me, or I will call the police! Hurry up!" "All +right," said the voice of the landlord; "we will go and search with +Maria. So much the worse for you if we find nothing, and the masons get +angry. You have forced me to it." + +[Illustration] + +Jean Francois' soul was full of fright. He remembered the embarrassed +circumstances and the small loans of Savinien, and how sober he had +seemed for some days. And yet he could not believe that he was a thief. +He heard the Auvergnat panting in his eager search, and he pressed his +closed fists against his breast as if to still the furious beating of +his heart. + +"Here they are!" suddenly shouted the victorious miser. "Here they are, +my louis, my dear treasure; and in the Sunday vest of that little +hypocrite of Limousin! Look, landlord, they are just as I told you. Here +is the Napoleon, the man with a queue, and the Philippe that I have +bitten. See the dents? Ah, the little beggar with the sanctified air. I +should have much sooner suspected the other. Ah, the wretch! Well, he +must go to the convict prison." + +At this moment Jean Francois heard the well-known step of Savinien +coming slowly up the stairs. + +He is going to his destruction, thought he. Three stories. I have time! + +And, pushing open the door, he entered the room, pale as death, where he +saw the landlord and the servant stupefied in a corner, while the +Auvergnat, on his knees, in the disordered heap of clothes, was kissing +the pieces of gold. + +"Enough of this," he said, in a thick voice; "I took the money, and put +it in my comrade's trunk. But that is too bad. I am a thief, but not a +Judas. Call the police; I will not try to escape, only I must say a word +to Savinien in private. Here he is." + +In fact, the little Limousin had just arrived, and seeing his crime +discovered, believing himself lost, he stood there, his eyes fixed, his +arms hanging. + +Jean Francois seized him forcibly by the neck, as if to embrace him; he +put his mouth close to Savinien's ear, and said to him in a low, +supplicating voice, + +"Keep quiet." + +Then turning towards the others: + +"Leave me alone with him. I tell you I won't go away. Lock us in if you +wish, but leave us alone." + +With a commanding gesture he showed them the door. They went out. + +[Illustration] + +Savinien, broken by grief, was sitting on the bed, and lowered his eyes +without understanding anything. + +"Listen," said Jean Francois, who came and took him by the hands. "I +understand! You have stolen three gold pieces to buy some trifle for a +girl. That costs six months in prison. But one only comes out from there +to go back again, and you will become a pillar of police courts and +tribunals. I understand it. I have been seven years at the Reform +School, a year at Sainte Pelagie, three years at Poissy, five years at +Toulon. Now, don't be afraid. Everything is arranged. I have taken it on +my shoulders." + +"It is dreadful," said Savinien; but hope was springing up again in his +cowardly heart. + +"When the elder brother is under the flag, the younger one does not go," +replied Jean Francois. "I am your substitute, that's all. You care for +me a little, do you not? I am paid. Don't be childish--don't refuse. +They would have taken me again one of these days, for I am a runaway +from exile. And then, do you see, that life will be less hard for me +than for you. I know it all, and I shall not complain if I have not done +you this service for nothing, and if you swear to me that you will never +do it again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friendship has +made me happy. It is through it that, since I have known you, I have +been honest and pure, as I might always have been, perhaps, if I had +had, like you, a father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me +my prayers. It was my sole regret that I was useless to you, and that I +deceived you concerning myself. To-day I have unmasked in saving you. It +is all right. Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear heavy boots +on the stairs. They are coming with the _posse_, and we must not seem to +know each other so well before those chaps." + +He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then pushed him from him, +when the door was thrown wide open. + +It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who brought the police. Jean +Francois sprang forward to the landing-place, held out his hands for +the handcuffs, and said, laughing, "Forward, bad lot!" + +To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life as an incorrigible. + +[Illustration] + + + + +AT TABLE. + +[Illustration: AT TABLE] + + +When the _maitre d'hotel_--oh, what a respectable paunch in an ample +kerseymere vest! What a worthy and red face, well framed by white +whiskers! (an English physique, I assure you)--when the imposing +_maitre d'hotel_ opened with two raps the door of the salon, and +announced in his musical bass voice, at the same time sonorous and +respectful, "The dinner of madame la comtesse is served," hats were hung +on the corners of brackets, while the more distinguished of the guests +offered their arms to the ladies, and all passed into the dining-room, +silent, almost meditative, like a procession. + +The table glittered. What flowers! What lights! Each guest found his +place without difficulty. As soon as he had read his name on the glazed +card, a grand lackey in silk stockings pushed gently behind him a +luxurious chair embroidered with a count's coronet. Fourteen at the +table, not more: four young women in full toilets, and ten men belonging +to the aristocracy of blood or of merit, who had put on that evening all +their orders in honor of a foreign diplomat sitting at the right hand of +the mistress of the house. Clusters of jewelled decorations hung from +button-holes, plaques of diamonds glittered in the lapel of one or two +black coats, a heavy commander's cross sparkled on the starched front of +a general with a red cravat. As to the ladies, they bore all the +splendors of their jewel-boxes. + +[Illustration] + +An elegant and exquisite reunion! What an atmosphere of good-living in +the high hall--splendidly decorated and ornamented on its four panels +with studies for a dining-hall in the fine style of olden days--where +were fruits, venison, and eatables of all sorts. The service of the +table was noiseless; the domestics seemed to glide upon the thick +carpet. The butler whispered the wines in the ears of the guests with a +confidential tone, and as if he were revealing a secret upon which life +depended. + +At the soup--a _consomme_ at the same time mild and stimulating, giving +force and youthful vigor to the digestion--chat between neighbors began. +Undoubtedly these were the merest trifles that were at first so low +spoken. But what politeness in the grave gestures! What affability in +looks and smiles! Soon after the Chateau-yquem, wit sparkled. These +men, for the most part old or very mature, all remarkable through birth +or through talent, had lived much; full of experience and memories, they +were made for conversation, and the beauty of the women present inspired +them with a desire to shine, and excited them to a courteous rivalry. +There was a snapping of bright words, a flight of sudden sallies, and +the conversationalists broke into groups of two or three. A famous +voyager with bronzed skin, recently returned from the farthest deserts, +told his two neighbors of an elephant hunt, without any boasting, with +as much tranquillity as though he were speaking of shooting rabbits. +Farther off, the fine profile and white hair of an illustrious savant +was gallantly inclined towards the comtesse, who listened to him +laughing--a very slender blonde, her eyes young and intent, with a +collar of splendid emeralds on a bosom like a professional beauty, and +the neck and shoulders of the Venus de Medici. + + * * * * * + +Decidedly the dinner promised to be charming as well as sumptuous. +Ennui, that too frequent guest at mundane feasts, would not come to sit +at that table. These fortunate ones were going to pass a delicious hour, +drinking enjoyment through every pore, by every sense. + +[Illustration] + +Now, at that same table, at the lower end, in the most modest place, a +man still young, the least qualified, the most obscure of all who were +there, a man of reverie and imagination, one of those dreamers in whom +is something of philosophy, something of poetry, sat silent. + +Admitted into that high society by virtue of his renown as an artist, +one of nature's aristocrats but without vanity, sprung from the people +and not forgetting it, he breathed voluptuously that flower of +civilization which is called good company. + +He knew--none better than he--how everything in this environment--the +charm of the women, the wit of the men, the glittering table, the +furnishing of the hall, to the exquisite wine which he had just touched +to his lips--how everything was choice and rare, and he rejoiced that a +concourse of things so lovely and so harmonious existed. He was plunged +in a bath of optimism; it seemed to him good that there should be, +sometimes and somewhere in the weary world, beings almost happy. +Provided that they were accessible to pity, charitable--and these happy +people probably were that--who could distress them? what could injure +them? Ah, beautiful and consoling chimera to believe that for such as +these life is pleasant; that they retain always--or almost always--that +gay, happy light in the eye, that half-blossomed smile upon the lips; +that they have blotted out, as far as possible, from their existence, +imperious and discreditable desires and abject infirmities. + +He whom we will call the Dreamer was pursuing that train of thought, +when the _maitre d'hotel_--the superb _maitre d'hotel_--entered with +solemnity, carrying in a great silver plate a turbot of fabulous +dimensions--one of those phenomenal fish which are only seen in the old +paintings representing the miraculous draught of fish, or perhaps in the +window of Chevet, before a row of astonished street-boys who flatten +their noses against the glass window. + + * * * * * + +Dinner is served. But when the Dreamer had before him on his plate a +portion of the monstrous turbot, the light odor of the sea evoked in his +mind, prone to unexpected suggestions, that corner of Breton, that poor +village of sailors, where he had been belated the other autumn until the +equinox, and where he had rendered assistance in some dreadful storms. +He suddenly called to mind that terrible night when the fishing-boats +could not come back to port, the night that he had passed on the mole +amid a group of frightened women, standing where the sea-spray streamed +down his face, and the cold and furious wind seemed striving to tear his +clothes from his back. What a life was theirs, those poor men! Down +there how many widows, young and old, wearing always the black shawl, +went at break of day, with their swarms of children, to earn their +bread--oh, nothing but bread!--working in the sickening smell of hot oil +in the sardine factories! He saw again in memory the church above the +village, half-way up the cliff, the steeple painted white to show to the +distant boats the passage between the reefs; and he saw, also, in the +short grass of the cemetery nibbled by the sheep, the gravestones on +which this sinister inscription was so often repeated: "_Lost at sea._" +"_Lost at sea._" "_Lost at sea._" + +The enormous turbot was of savory and delicate taste, and the shrimp +sauce with which it was served proved that the _chef_ of the comte had +followed a course in cooking at the Cafe Anglais and profited by it. +For our refined civilization reaches even this point. One takes degrees +in culinary science. There are doctors in roasts and bachelors in +sauces. All of the guests eat as if they appreciated, and with delicate +gestures, but without showing special favor for exceptional dishes, +through good form and because they were habituated to exquisite food. + + * * * * * + +The Dreamer himself had no appetite. He was still in thought with the +Bretons, with the sons of the sea, who had caught, perhaps, this +magnificent turbot. He remembered the day that followed the +tempest--that morning, rainy and gray--when, walking by the heavy, +leaden sea, he had found a body at his feet and recognized it as that of +an old sailor, the father of a family, who had been lost at sea three +days before--mournful jetsam, stranded in the wrack and foam, so +heart-rending to see, with the gray hair of the drowned full of sand and +shells! + +A shudder passed over his heart. + +[Illustration] + +But the lackeys had already removed the plates; every trace of the giant +fish had disappeared, and while they were serving another course, the +diners, elegant triflers, had taken up their chat again. Hunger being +already somewhat appeased, they were more animated, they spoke with more +abandon--light laughs ran round. Oh, charming and gracious company! + + * * * * * + +Then the Dreamer, the silent guest, was seized with an infinite sadness; +for all the work and distress that were required to create this comfort +and well-being came surging on his imagination. + +That these men of the world might wear light dress-coats in +mid-December, that these women might expose their arms and their +shoulders, the temperature of the room was that of a spring morning. And +who furnished the coal? The poor devils of the black country, the +subterranean workmen who lived in hellish mines. How white and fresh is +the complexion of that young woman against her corsage of pink satin! +But who had woven that satin? The human spider of Lyons, the weaver, +always at his trade in the leprous houses of the Croix Rousse. She wears +in her tiny ears two beautiful pearls. What brilliancy! what opaline +transparence! Almost perfect spheres! The pearl which Cleopatra +dissolved in vinegar and swallowed, and which was worth ten thousand +sesterces, was not more pure. But does she know, that young woman, that +in far-off Ceylon, on the pearl-oyster banks of Arripo and Condatchy, +the Indians of the Indian Company plunge heroically down in twelve +fathoms of water, one foot in the heavy stone weight which drags them +down to the bottom, a knife in the left hand for defence against the +shark? + + * * * * * + +But what of that? One is lovely and coquettish. The air of the +dining-hall is warm and perfumed. There one can dine gaily, adorned and +half nude, flirting with one's neighbors. What has one to do, I ask you, +with a dark workman, who digs fifty feet under the ground, with a weaver +sitting with stiffened joints before the loom, with a savage who emerges +from the sea and sometimes reddens it with his blood? Why should one +think of things so sad, so ugly? What an absurdity! + +Meanwhile the Dreamer pursued his train of thought. + +An instant ago, without taking thought, mechanically he crumbled on the +cloth a bit of the gilded bread which was placed near his napkin. As a +viand, a mere bit of fancy, insignificant in such a repast, it made him +think of the _naif_ phrase of the great lady concerning the starving +wretches--"Let them eat cake." Nevertheless, this little cake is bread +all the same--bread made of flour, which in turn is made of wheat. Great +heaven! yes, it is bread, simply bread, like the loaf of the peasant, +like the bran-roll of the soldier; and that it might be here, on the +table of the rich, required the patient labor of many poor. + +The peasant labored, sowed, reaped. He pushed his plough or led his +harrow across the fertile field, under the cold needles of the autumn +rain; he started from sleep, full of terror for his crop, when it +thundered by night; he trembled, seeing the passage of great violet +clouds charged with hail; he went forth, dissatisfied and gloomy, to the +heavy work and exhausting labor of harvest. + +And when the old miller, twisted by rheumatism which he has caught in +the river fogs, has sent the flour to Paris, the market-porters with the +great white hats have carried the crushing sacks on their broad backs, +and last night, even, in the baker's cellar the workmen toiled until +morning. + +Verily, yes! It has cost all these efforts, all these pains--the bit of +bread carelessly broken by the white hands of these patricians. + +And now the incorrigible Dreamer was possessed by these things. The +delicacies of the repast only recalled to him the suffering of humanity. +Presently, when the butler poured for him a glass of Chambertin, did he +not remember that certain glass-blowers became consumptive through +blowing bottles? + +Let it pass--it is absurd. He well knows that so the world is made. An +economist would have laughed in his face. Would he become a Socialist, +perhaps? There will always be rich and poor, as there will always be +well-formed men and hunchbacks. + +Besides, the fortunates before him were not unjustly so. These were not +vulgar favorites of the Gilded Calf--parvenus gross and conceited. The +nobleman who presides at the table bears with honor and dignity a name +associated with all the glories of France; the general with the gray +mustache is a hero, and charged at Rezonville with the intrepidity of a +Murat; the painter, the poet, have faithfully served Art and Beauty; the +chemist, a self-made man who began life as a shop-boy in a drug-store, +and to whom the learned world listens to-day as to an oracle, is simply +a man of genius; these high-born dames are generous and good, and they +will often dip their fair hands courageously in the depth of misfortune. +Why should not these members of the _elite_ have exceptional enjoyment? + +The Dreamer said to himself that he had been unjust. These were old +sophisms--good, at the best, for the clubs of the faubourgs, which had +been awakened in his memory, and by which he had been duped. Is it +possible? He was ashamed of himself. + +But the dinner neared its end; and while the lackeys refilled for the +last time the champagne-glasses, the table grew silent--the guests felt +the apathy of digestion. The Dreamer looked at them, one after the +other, and all the faces had satiated, _blase_ expressions which +disturbed and disquieted him. A sentiment, obscure, inexplicable, but so +bitter! protested even from the depth of his soul against that repast; +and when they rose at last from the table, he repeated softly and +stubbornly to himself: + +"Yes; they are within their rights. But do they know, do they +understand, that their luxury is made from many miseries? Do they think +of it sometimes? Do they think of it as often as they should? Do they +think of it?" + +[Illustration] + + + + +AN ACCIDENT. + +[Illustration: AN ACCIDENT.] + + +I. + +Saint Medard, the old church of the Rue Mouffetard, once well known as +the scene of the Convulsionnaires, is a very poor parish. The "Faubourg +Marceau," as they call it there, has not much religion, and the +vestry-board must have hard work to make both ends meet. On Sundays, at +the hours of service, there are but few there, and they are for the most +part women: some twenty of the folk of the quarter and some servants in +their round caps. As for the men, there are not at the most more than +three or four--old men in peasant jackets, who kneel awkwardly on the +stone floor, near a pillar, their caps under their arms, rolling a great +chaplet of beads between their fingers, moving their lips, and raising +their eyes towards the arched roof, with an air as if they had given the +stained-glass windows. On week days, nobody. On Thursdays, in the +winter, the aisles resounded for an instant with the clang of wooden +shoes, when the students of the catechism came and went. Sometimes a +poor woman, leading one or two children and carrying a baby in her arms, +came to burn a little candle on the stand at the chapel of the Virgin, +or perhaps one heard by the baptismal font the wailing of a new-born +babe; or, more often, the funeral of some poor wretch: a deal box, +covered with a black cloth and resting on two trestles, hastily blessed +by the priest, before a little group of women, the men being +free-thinkers, and waiting the conclusion of the ceremony in the +drinking-shop across the way, where they played bagatelle for drinks. + +Therefore, the old Abbe Faber, one of the vicars of the parish, is sure +that twice out of three times he will find no penitent before his +confessional, and has only to hear, for the most part of the time, the +uninteresting confession of some good women. But he is conscientious, +and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at seven o'clock precisely, +he betakes himself regularly to the chapel of St. John, only to make a +short prayer and return should there be nobody there. + + +II. + +One day last winter, struggling against a heavy wind with his open +umbrella, the Abbe Faber toiled painfully up the Rue Mouffetard, on the +way to his parish, and, almost certain that his toil was useless, he +regretted to himself the warm fire he had just quitted in his little +room in the Rue D'homond, and the folio _Bollandiste_ which he had left +lying on the table, with his eye-glasses on its open pages. But it was +Saturday night, the day when certain old widows, who earned their scant +income in the neighboring boarding-houses, sometimes sought absolution +for the morrow's communion. The honest priest could not, therefore, +excuse himself from entering his oak box and opening, with the +punctuality of a cashier, that wicket where the devotees, for whom the +confessional is a spiritual savings-bank, make a weekly deposit of their +venial sins. + +The Abbe Faber was the more sorry to go out, because that particular +Saturday was pay-day, and on such occasions the Rue Mouffetard swarmed +with people, and a people not well disposed toward his cloth. However +good a man one may be, it is far from agreeable to be forced to lower +the eyes to avoid malevolent looks, and to stop the ears against +insolent words heard in passing. There was a certain drinking-shop which +the abbe particularly dreaded--a shop brilliant with gas and exhaling +an odor of alcohol through its open doors, through which one could see a +perspective of barrels labelled: "Absinthe," "Bitter," "Madere," +"Vermouth," etc. Here, leaning against the bar, were always a band of +loafers in long blouses and high hats, who saluted the poor abbe, +walking quickly along the pavement, with ribald jests. + +However, on this night the streets were deserted on account of the bad +weather, and the abbe reached his church without interruption. He +dipped his finger in the holy water, crossed himself, made a brief +reverence before the grand altar, and went towards his confessional. At +least he had not come for nothing. A penitent was waiting. + + +III. + +A male penitent! a rare and exceptional thing at Saint Medard. But, +distinguishing by the red light of the lamp hanging from the roof of the +chapel the short white jacket and the heavy nailed shoes of the kneeling +man, the Abbe Faber believed him to be some workman who had kept his +rustic faith and his early habits of religious observance. Without doubt +the confession that he was about to hear would be as stupid as that of +the cook of the Rue Monge, who, after having accused himself of petty +thefts, exclaimed loudly against a single word of restitution. The +priest even smiled to himself as he remembered the formal confession of +one of the inhabitants of the faubourg, who came to ask for a billet of +confession that he might marry. "I have neither killed or robbed. Ask me +about the rest." And so the vicar entered very tranquilly into his +confessional, and, after having taken a copious pinch of snuff, opened +without emotion the little curtain of green serge which closed the +wicket. + +"Monsieur le cure," stammered a rough voice, which was making an effort +to speak low. + +"I am not a cure, my friend. Say your _confiteor_, and call me father." + +The man, whose face the abbe could not see among the shadows, stumbled +through the prayer, which he seemed to have great difficulty in +recalling, and he began again in a hoarse whisper: + +"Monsieur le cure--no--my father--excuse me if I do not speak properly, +but I have not been to confession for twenty-five years--no, not since I +quitted the country--you know how it is--a man in Paris, and yet I have +not been worse than other people, and I have said to myself, 'God must +be a good sort of fellow.' But to-day what I have on my conscience is +too heavy to carry alone, and you must hear me, monsieur le cure: I +have killed a man!" + +The abbe half rose from his seat. A murderer! There was no longer any +question of his mind wandering from the duties of his office, of half +annoyance at the garrulity of the old women, to whom he listened with a +half attentive ear, and whom he absolved in all confidence. A murderer! +That head which was so near his had conceived and planned such a crime! +Those hands, crossed on the confessional, were perhaps still stained +with blood! In his trouble, perhaps not unmixed with a certain amount of +fear, the Abbe Faber could only speak mechanically. + +"Confess yourself, my son. The mercy of God is infinite." + +"Listen to my whole story," said the man, with a voice trembling with +profound grief. "I am a workingman, and I came to Paris more than twenty +years ago with a fellow-countryman, a companion from childhood. We +robbed birds'-nests, and we learned to read in school together--almost a +brother, sir. He was called Philip; I am called Jack, myself. He was a +fine big fellow; I have always been heavy and ill-formed. There was +never a better workman than he--while I am only a 'botcher'--and so +generous and good-natured, wearing his heart on his sleeve. I was proud +to be his friend, to walk by his side--proud when he clapped me on the +back and called me a clumsy fellow. I loved him because I admired him, +in fact. Once here, what an opportunity! We worked together for the same +employer, but he left me alone in the evenings more than half the time. +He preferred to amuse himself with his companions--natural enough, at +his age. He loved pleasure, he was free, he had no responsibilities. All +this was impossible for me. I was forced to save my money, for at that +time I had an invalid mother in the country, and I sent her all my +savings. As for me, I stayed at the fruiterer's where I lodged, and who +kept a lodging-house for masons. Philip did not dine there; he used to +go somewhere else, and, to tell the truth, the dinners were not +particularly good. But the fruiterer was a widow, far from happy, and I +saw that my payments were of help to her; and then, to be frank, I fell +at once in love with her daughter. Poor Catherine! You will soon know, +monsieur le cure, what came from it all. I was there three years +without daring to tell her of the love I had for her. I have told you +that I am not a good workman, and the little that I gained hardly +sufficed for me and for the support of my mother. There could be no +thought of marrying. At last my good mother left this world for a +better. I was somewhat less pressed for money, and I began to save, and +when it seemed to me that I had enough to begin with, I told Catherine +of my love. She said nothing at first--neither yes nor no. Well, I knew +that no one would fall upon my neck; I am not attractive. In the mean +time Catherine consulted her mother, who thought well of me as a steady +workman, as a good fellow, and the marriage was decided upon. Ah, I had +some happy weeks! I saw that Catherine barely accepted me, and that she +was by no means carried away with me; but as she had a good heart, I +hoped that she would love me some day--I would make her love me. As a +matter of course, I told everything to Philip, whom I saw every day at +the work-yard, and as Catherine and I were engaged, I wanted him to meet +her. Perhaps you have already guessed the end, monsieur le cure. Philip +was handsome, lively, good-tempered--everything that I was not; and +without attempting it, innocently enough, he fascinated Catherine. Ah, +Catherine had a frank and honest heart, and as soon as she recognized +what had happened she at once told me everything. Ah, I can never forget +that moment! It was Catherine's birthday, and in honor of it I had +bought a little cross of gold which I had arranged in a box with cotton. +We were alone in the back shop, and she had just brought me my soup. I +took my box from my pocket, and, opening it, I showed her the jewel. +Then she burst into tears. + +[Illustration] + +"'Forgive me, Jack,' she said, 'and keep that for her whom you will +marry. As for me, I can never become your wife. I love another--I love +Philip.' + + +IV. + +"Believe me, I had trouble enough then, monsieur le cure; my soul was +full of it. But what could I do, since I loved them both? Only what I +believed was for their happiness--let them marry. And as Philip had +always lived freely, and spent as he made, I lent him my hoard to buy +the furniture. + +"Then they were married, and for a while all went well. They had a +little boy, and I stood sponsor for him and named him Camille, in +remembrance of his mother. It was a little after the birth of the baby +that Philip began to go wrong. I was mistaken in him--he was not made +for marriage; he was too fond of frivolity and pleasure. You live in a +poor quarter, monsieur le cure, and you must know the sad story by +heart--the workman who glides little by little from idleness into +drunkenness, who is off on a spree for two or three days, who does not +bring home his week's wages, and who only returns to his home, broken up +by his spree, to make scenes and to beat his wife. In less than two +years Philip became one of these wretches. At first I tried to reform +him, and sometimes, ashamed of himself, he would attempt to do better; +but that did not last long. Then my remonstrances only irritated him; +and when I went to his house, and he saw me look sadly around the +chamber made bare by the pawn-shop, at poor Catherine, thin and pale +with grief, he became furious. One day he had the audacity to be jealous +of me on account of his wife, who was as pure as the blessed Virgin, +reminding me that I was once her lover and accusing me of still being +so, with slanders and infamies that I should be ashamed to repeat. We +almost flew at each other's throats. I saw what I must do. I would see +Catherine and my godson no more; and as for Philip, I would only meet +him when by chance we worked on the same job. + +"Only, you will understand, I loved Catherine and little Camille too +well to lose sight of them entirely. On Saturday evenings, when I knew +that Philip was drinking up his wages with his comrades, I used to prowl +about the quarter, and chat with the boy when I found him; and if it was +too miserable at home, he did not return with empty hands, you know. I +believe that the wretched Philip knew that I was helping his wife, and +that he closed his eyes to the fact, finding it rather convenient. I +will hurry on, for the story is too miserable. Some years have passed; +Philip plunging deeper in vice; but Catherine, whom I had helped all I +could, has educated her son, who is now a fellow of twenty years, good +and courageous like herself. He is not a workman; he is educated; he has +learned to draw at the evening schools, and he is now with an architect, +where he gets good wages. And though the house is saddened by the +presence of the drunkard, things go fairly well, for Camille is a great +comfort to his mother; and for a year or two, when I see Catherine--she +is so changed, the poor woman!--leaning on the arm of her manly son, it +warms my heart. + +"But yesterday evening, coming out of my cook-shop, I met Camille; and +shaking hands with him--oh, he is not ashamed of me, and he doesn't +blush at a blouse covered with plaster--I saw that something was the +matter. + +"'Let's see--what's the matter now?' + +"'I drew the lot yesterday,' he replied, 'and I drew the number ten--a +number that sends you to die with fever in the colonies with the +marines. That will, at all events, send me there for five years, to +leave mother alone, without resources, with father, who has never been +drinking so much, who has never been so wicked. And it will kill her--it +will kill her! How cursed it is to be poor!' + +"Oh, what a horrible night I passed! Think of it, monsieur le cure, +that poor woman's labor for twenty years destroyed in a minute by an +unhappy chance; because a child, rummaging in a sack, has drawn an +unfortunate number! In the morning I was broken as by age when I went to +the house we were building on the Boulevard Arago. Of what use is +sorrow? we must work all the same. So I mounted the scaffolding. We had +already built the house to the fourth story, and I began to place my +mortar. Suddenly I felt some one strike me on the shoulder. It was +Philip. He only worked now when the inclination seized him, and he was +apparently putting in a day's work to get something to drink; but the +builder, having a forfeit to pay if the building was not finished by a +certain date, accepted the first-comers. + + +V. + +"I had not seen Philip for a long time, and it was with difficulty that +I recognized him. Burned and fevered by brandy, his beard gray, his +hands trembling, he was more than an old man--he was a ruin. + +"'Well,' I said to him, 'the boy has drawn a bad number.' + +"'What of it?' he replied, with an angry look. 'Are you going to worry +me about that, too, like Catherine and Camille? The boy will do as +others have done: he will serve his country. I know what worries them, +both my wife and son. If I were dead he would not have to go. But, so +much the worse for them, I am still solid at my post, and Camille is not +the son of a widow.' + +"The son of a widow! Ah, monsieur le cure, why did he use that unhappy +phrase? The evil thought came to me at once, and it never quitted me all +the morning that I worked at the wretch's side. I imagined all that she +was about to suffer--poor Catherine!--when she no longer had her son to +care for and protect her, and she must be alone with the miserable +drunkard, now completely brutalized, ugly, and capable of anything. A +neighboring clock struck eleven, and the workmen all descended to lunch. +We remained until the last, Philip and I, but in stepping on the ladder +to descend, he turned to me with a leer, and said, in his hoarse, +dissipated voice: + +"'You see, steady as a sailor; Camille is not nearly the son of a +widow.' + +"The blood mounted to my head. I was beside myself. I seized with both +hands the rounds of the ladder to which Philip clung shouting 'Help!' +and with a single effort I toppled it over. + +"He was instantly killed--by an accident, they said--and now Camille is +the son of a widow and need not go. + +"That is what I have done, monsieur le cure, and what I want to tell to +you and to the good God. I repent, I ask pardon, of course; but I must +not see Catherine in her black dress, happy on the arm of her son, or I +could not regret my crime. To prevent that I will emigrate--I will lose +myself in America. As to my penance--see, monsieur le cure, here is the +little cross of gold that Catherine refused when she told me that she +was in love with Philip. I have always kept it, in memory of the only +happy days that I ever knew in my life. Take it and sell it. Give the +money to the poor." + + * * * * * + +Jack rose absolved by the Abbe Faber. + +One thing is certain, and that is that the priest never sold the little +cross of gold. After having paid its price into the Treasury of the +Church, he hung the jewel, as an _ex-voto_, on the altar of the chapel +of the Virgin, where he often went to pray for the poor mason. + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SABOTS OF LITTLE WOLFF. + +[Illustration: The Sabots of little Wolff. + +(a Christmas Story).] + + +Once upon a time--it was so long ago that the whole world has forgotten +the date--in a city in the north of Europe--whose name is so difficult +to pronounce that nobody remembers it--once upon a time there was a +little boy of seven, named Wolff, an orphan in charge of an old aunt who +was hard and avaricious, who only embraced him on New-Year's Day, and +who breathed a sigh of regret every time that she gave him a porringer +of soup. + +But the poor little chap was naturally so good that he loved the old +woman just the same, although she frightened him very much, and he could +never see without trembling the great wart, ornamented with four gray +hairs, which she had on the end of her nose. + +As the aunt of Wolff was known through all the village to have a house +and an old stocking full of gold, she did not dare send her nephew to +the school for the poor. But she so schemed to obtain a reduction of the +price with the school-master whose school little Wolff attended, that +the bad teacher, vexed at having a scholar so badly dressed and who paid +so poorly, punished him very often and unjustly with the backboard and +fool's cap, and even stirred his fellow-pupils against him, all sons of +well-to-do men, who made the orphan their scapegoat. + +The poor little fellow was therefore as miserable as the stones in the +street, and hid himself in out-of-the-way corners to cry; when Christmas +came. + +The night before Christmas the school-master was to take all of his +pupils to the midnight mass, and bring them back to their homes. + +Now, as the winter was very severe that year, and as for several days a +great quantity of snow had fallen, the scholars came to the rendezvous +warmly wrapped and bundled up, with fur caps pulled down over their +ears, double and triple jackets, knitted gloves and mittens, and good +thick nailed boots with strong soles. Only little Wolff came shivering +in the clothes that he wore week-days and Sundays, and with nothing on +his feet but coarse Strasbourg socks and heavy sabots, or wooden shoes. + +His thoughtless comrades made a thousand jests over his sad looks and +his peasant's dress. But the orphan was so occupied in blowing on his +fingers, and suffered so much from his chilblains, that he took no +notice of them; and the troop of boys, with the master at their head, +started for the church. + +[Illustration] + +It was fine in the church, which was resplendent with wax-candles; and +the scholars, excited by the pleasant warmth, profited by the noise of +the organ and the singing to talk to each other in a low voice. They +boasted of the fine suppers that were waiting for them at home. The son +of the burgomaster had seen, before he went out, a monstrous goose that +the truffles marked with black spots like a leopard. At the house of the +first citizen there was a little fir-tree in a wooden box, from whose +branches hung oranges, sweetmeats, and toys. And the cook of the first +citizen had pinned behind her back the two strings of her cap, as she +only did on her days of inspiration when she was sure of succeeding with +her famous sugar-candy. And then the scholars spoke, too, of what the +Christ-child would bring to them, of what he would put in their shoes, +which they would, of course, be very careful to leave in the chimney +before going to bed. And the eyes of those little chaps, lively as a +parcel of mice, sparkled in advance with the joy of seeing in their +imagination pink paper bags of burnt almonds, lead soldiers drawn up in +battalions in their boxes, menageries smelling of varnished wood, and +magnificent jumping-jacks covered with purple and bells. + +Little Wolff knew very well by experience that his old miserly aunt +would send him supperless to bed. But in the simplicity of his soul, and +knowing that he had been all the year as good and industrious as +possible, he hoped that the Christ-child would not forget him, and he, +too, looked eagerly forward by-and-by to putting his wooden shoes in the +ashes of the fireplace. + +The midnight mass concluded, the faithful went away, anxious for supper, +and the band of scholars, walking two by two after their teacher, left +the church. + +Now, under the porch, sitting on a stone seat under a Gothic niche, a +child was sleeping--a child covered by a robe of white linen, and whose +feet were bare, notwithstanding the cold. He was not a beggar, for his +robe was new and nice, and near him on the ground were seen, lying in a +cloth, a square, a hatchet, a pair of compasses, and the other tools of +a carpenter's apprentice. Under the light of the stars, his face, with +its closed eyes, bore an expression of divine sweetness, and his long +locks of golden hair seemed like an _aureole_ about his head. But the +child's feet, blue in the cold of that December night, were sad to see. + +[Illustration] + +The scholars, so well clothed and shod for the winter, passed heedlessly +before the unknown child. One of them, even, the son of one of the +principal men in the village, looked at the waif with an expression in +which could be seen all the scorn of the rich for the poor, the well-fed +for the hungry. + +But little Wolff, coming the last out of the church, stopped, full of +compassion, before the beautiful sleeping infant. + +"Alas!" said the orphan to himself, "it is too bad: this poor little one +going barefoot in such bad weather. But what is worse than all, he has +not to-night even a boot or a wooden shoe to leave before him while he +sleeps, so that the Christ-child could put something there to comfort +him in his misery." + +And, carried away by the goodness of his heart, little Wolff took off +the wooden shoe from his right foot, and laid it in front of the +sleeping child; and then, as best he could, limping along on his poor +blistered foot and dragging his sock through the snow, he went back to +his aunt's. + +"Look at the worthless fellow!" cried his aunt, full of anger at his +return without one of his shoes. "What have you done with your wooden +shoe, little wretch?" + +Little Wolff did not know how to deceive, and although he was shaking +with terror at seeing the gray hairs bristle up on the nose of the angry +woman, he tried to stammer out some account of his adventure. + +But the old woman burst into a frightful peal of laughter. + +"Ah, monsieur takes off his shoes for beggars! Ah, monsieur gives away +his wooden shoe to a barefoot! That is something new for example! Ah, +well, since that is so, I am going to put the wooden shoe which you have +left in the chimney, and I promise you the Christ-child will leave there +to-night something to whip you with in the morning. And you shall pass +the day to-morrow on dry bread and water. We will see if next time you +give away your shoes to the first vagabond that comes." + +And the wicked woman, after having given the poor boy a couple of slaps, +made him climb up to his bed in the attic. Grieved to the heart, the +child went to bed in the dark, and soon went to sleep on his pillow +steeped with tears. + +But on the morrow morning, when the old woman, awakened by the cold and +shaken by her cough, went down stairs--oh, wonderful sight!--she saw the +great chimney full of beautiful playthings, and sacks of magnificent +candies, and all sorts of good things; and before all these splendid +things the right shoe, that her nephew had given to the little waif, +stood by the side of the left shoe, that she herself had put there that +very night, and where she meant to put a birch-rod. + +And as little Wolff, running down to learn the meaning of his aunt's +exclamation, stood in artless ecstasy before all these splendid +Christmas presents, suddenly there were loud cries of laughter +out-of-doors. The old woman and the little boy went out to know what it +all meant, and saw all the neighbors gathered around the public +fountain. What had happened? Oh, something very amusing and very +extraordinary. The children of all the rich people of the village, those +whose parents had wished to surprise them by the most beautiful gifts, +had found only rods in their shoes. + +Then the orphan and the old woman, thinking of all the beautiful things +that were in their chimney, were full of amazement. But presently they +saw the cure coming with wonder in his face. Above the seat, placed +near the door of the church, at the same place where in the evening a +child, clad in a white robe, and with feet bare notwithstanding the +cold, had rested his sleeping head, the priest had just seen a circle of +gold incrusted with precious stones. + +And they all crossed themselves devoutly, comprehending that the +beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter's tools, was +Jesus of Nazareth in person, become for an hour such as he was when he +worked in his parents' house, and they bowed themselves before that +miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and +charity of a child. + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE FOSTER SISTER. + +[Illustration: THE FOSTER SISTER] + + +I. + +Sitting in her office at the end of the shop, shut off from it by glass +windows, pretty Madame Bayard, in a black gown and with her hair in +sober braids, was writing steadily in an enormous ledger with leather +corners, while her husband, following his morning custom, stopped at the +door to scold his workmen, who had not finished unloading a dray from +the Northern Railway, which blocked the road, and carried to the +druggist of the Rue Vieille du Temple a dozen casks of glucose. + +[Illustration] + +"I have bad news to tell you," said Madame Bayard, sticking her pen in a +cup of leaden shot, when her husband had entered the glass cage. "Poor +Voisin is dead." + +"The nurse of Leon? Poor woman! And her little daughter?" + +"That is the saddest part, my dear. A relative of poor Voisin writes me +that they are too poor to take charge of the child, and she must be sent +to an orphan asylum." + +"Oh, those peasants!" + +The druggist was silent for a moment, rubbing his thick blond beard; +then suddenly looking at his wife with kindly eyes: + +"Say, Mimi, the child is the foster sister of our Leon. Suppose we give +her a home?" + +"I should think so," was the quiet reply of the pretty wife. + +"Well done," cried Bayard, as, caring little if he were seen by his +clerks and store-boys, he leaned towards his wife and kissed her +forehead, "well done! you're a good woman, Mimi. We will take little +Norine with us, and bring her up with Leon. That won't ruin us, eh? +Besides, I have just made a good stroke in quinine. We will go after the +child Sunday to Argenteuil, sha'n't we?" + +"We will make that our Sunday excursion." + + +II. + +Good people, these Bayards; an honor to the drug trade. Their marriage +had united two houses which had been for a long time rivals; for Bayard +was the son of _The Silver Pill_, founded by his great-great-grandfather +in 1756 in the Rue Vieille du Temple, and had espoused the daughter of +the _Offering to Esculapius_, of the Rue des Lombards, an establishment +which dated from the First Empire, as was shown by the sign, copied from +the celebrated painting of Guerin. Honest people, excellent people--and +there are many more, like them, whatever folks may say, among the older +Paris houses, conservators of old traditions; going to the second tier, +on Sunday, at the opera comique, and ignorant of false weights and +measures. It was the cure of Blancs-Manteaux who had managed that +marriage with his confrere of Saint-Merry. The first had ministered at +the death-bed of the elder Bayard, and was dismayed to see a young man +of twenty-five all alone in a house so gloomy as that of _The Silver +Pill_, justly famed for its ipecac; and the second was anxious to +establish Mademoiselle Simonin, to whom he had administered her first +communion, and whose father was one of his most important parishioners, +old Simonin of the _Offering to Esculapius_, celebrated for its camphor. +The negotiations were successful; camphor and ipecac, two excellent +specialties, were united in the holy bonds of matrimony, there was a +dinner and ball at the Grand Vefour, and now for ten years, tranquilly +working every day, summer and winter, in her glass cage, Madame Bayard, +with her pale brown face and her plaited hair, had smitten the hearts of +all the young clerks of the quarter Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie. + +And yet for a long time there had been a disappointment in that happy +household, a cloud in that bright sky. An heir was wanted, and it was +five years before little Leon came into the world. One can imagine with +what joy he was received. Now one day they might write over the door of +_The Silver Pill_ these words, "Bayard & Son." But as the infant arrived +at the time of a boom in isinglass, Madame Bayard, whose presence in the +shop was indispensable, could not think of nursing him. She even gave up +the idea of taking a nurse in the house, fearing for the new-born the +close air of that corner of old Paris, and contented herself with taking +every Sunday with her husband a little excursion to Argenteuil to see +her son with his nurse Voisin, who was overwhelmed with coffee, sugar, +soap, and other dainties. At the end of eighteen months Mother Voisin +brought back the baby in a magnificent state, and for two years a +child's nurse, chosen with great care, had taken the child out for his +airings in the square of the Tour Saint-Jacques, and had exhibited for +the admiration of her companion-nurses, the pouting lips, the high +color, and the dimpled back of the future druggist. + +And now these good Bayards, learning of the death of Mother Voisin, +could not bear the thought that the little girl who had been nourished +at the same breast with their boy should be abandoned to public charity, +so they went to Argenteuil for Norine. + +Poor little one! Since the fifteen days that her mother slept in the +cemetery she had been taken charge of by a cousin who kept a +billiard-saloon; and though she was not yet five years old, she had been +put to work washing the beer-glasses. + +[Illustration] + +The Bayards found her charming, with great eyes as blue as the summer +sun, and her thick blond tresses escaping from her ugly black bonnet. +Leon, who had been brought with his nurse, embraced his foster sister; +and the cousin, who that very morning had boxed the orphan's ears for +negligence in sweeping out the hall, appeared before the Parisians to be +as much touched as if parting with Norine was a heart-breaking affair. + +The order for an ample breakfast restored his serenity. + +It was a beautiful Sunday in June, and they were in the country--"an +occasion which should be improved," declared Bayard, "by taking the air; +shouldn't it, Mimi?" + +And while pretty Madame Bayard, having pinned up her skirts, went out +with the children and the nurse to pick flowers in a neighboring field, +the druggist, who was less ambitious, treated the saloon-keeping cousin +to a glass of vermouth, seated at the billiard-table, which was covered +with dead flies. They breakfasted under a vineless arbor, which the hot +noonday sun riddled with its rays. But what of that? They were pleased +and contented all the same. Madame Bayard had hung her hat on the +lattice; and her husband, wearing a bargeman's straw helmet, which had +been lent to him by the saloon-keeper, cut up the duck in the best of +spirits. Little Leon and Norine, who had immediately become the best of +friends, emptied the salad-bowl of its cream-cheese. Then they all +romped in the grass, went boating on the stream, and, intoxicated with +the fresh country air, the indwellers of the city, coming from the close +Paris streets, pushed to its fullest extreme this idyl in the fashion of +Paul de Kock. + +[Illustration] + +For, yes; there was a moment, as they came back in the boat, in a +delicious sunset, when tinted clouds floated in a glowing sky, when +Madame Bayard--the serious Madame Bayard--whose frown turned to stone +the shop-boys of the druggist, sang the air called "To the Shores of +France," to the rhythmic fall of the oars, plied by her husband in his +shirt-sleeves. They dined in the arbor where they had breakfasted, but +the second repast was a shade less happy. The night-moths, which dashed +in to burn themselves at the candles, frightened the children; and +Madame Bayard was so tired that she could not even guess the simple +rebus on her dessert napkin. + +Never mind; it has been a good day; and on their return in a first-class +carriage--this was not a time for petty economies--Madame Bayard, with +her head on her husband's shoulder, watching Leon and Norine, limp with +sleep on the lap of the nurse, half asleep herself, murmured to her +husband, in a happy voice: + +"See, Ferdinand; we have done well to take the little one. She will be a +comrade for Leon. They will be like brother and sister." + + +III. + +In fact, they did thus grow up together. + +They were most kind-hearted people, these Bayards. They made no +difference between the humble orphan and their own dear boy, who would +one day in the firm of "Bayard & Son" work monopolies in rhubarb and +corners in castor-oil; indeed, they loved as their own child little +Norine, who was as intelligent as she was charming, as fair in mind as +she was delicate in body. + +Now the nurse took the two children to the square of the Tour +Saint-Jacques when the weather was pleasant, and in the evening at the +family table there were two high-chairs side by side for the boy and his +foster sister. + +In addition to which, the Bayards were not slow to perceive the good +influence which Norine had upon Leon. Quicker, of a more nervous +temperament, more easy of comprehension than the lymphatic boy, whose +wits were "wool-gathering," according to his father, she seemed to +communicate to him something of her own spirit and fire. "She jogs him +up," said Madame Bayard. + +And since he had lived with his foster sister Leon had perceptibly grown +brighter and quicker. When they were of an age to learn to read, Leon, +who made but little progress, and stumbled along with one of those +alphabets with pictures where the letter E is by the side of an elephant +and the letter Z by the side of a zouave, was the despair of his mother. +But as soon as Norine, who in a very short time learned to spell and +read, came to the aid of the little man, he immediately made rapid +progress. + +So things went on, until both children were sent to a school for little +children kept by a gentlewoman named Merlin, in the Rue de l'Homme +Arme. According to the fallacious circular which Mademoiselle Merlin +sent to the folks of the quarter, there was a garden--that is to say, +four broomsticks in a sandy court; and it was there, the first day +during recess, that the innocent Leon burst into cries of terror when he +saw the school-mistress, forced by some accident to interrupt her +knitting, stick one of her great knitting-needles in her capacious +head-dress. A "senior," who was more familiar with her head-dress, +explained the phenomenon in vain to Leon and Norine, for the boy, none +the less, preserved in the presence of Mademoiselle Merlin an impression +of superstitious terror. + +[Illustration] + +She would have paralyzed his infant faculties, and have prevented him in +the class from following the pointer of Mademoiselle Merlin, as she +sniffled through her sing-song lecture before the map of Europe, or the +table of weights and measures, if Norine had not been there to reassure +and encourage him. She was at once the first scholar in the school, and +became for slow and lazy Leon a sort of sisterly counsellor and +affectionate under-teacher. Towards four o'clock Madame Bayard had the +two children, whom the nurse had brought back to the store, placed near +her in the glass office; and Norine, opening a copy-book or a book, +explained to Leon the uncomprehended task or made him repeat the lesson +that he had not understood. + +"The good God has rewarded us," Madame Bayard sometimes whispered to her +husband in the evening. "That little Norine is a treasure, and so good, +so industrious! Only to-day I listened to her helping Leon again. I +believe that without her he would never have learned the +multiplication-table." + +"I believe you, Mimi," responded Bayard. "I have observed it. Things go +on marvellously well with us, and we will portion her and marry her, +shall we not, when she comes to a suitable age?" + + +IV. + +Age comes--ah, how fast age comes! And behold! now in the glass cage of +the shop there is a slender and beautiful young girl sitting at the side +of Madame Bayard, who already shows some silver threads in her black +bands. It is Norine now who writes in the great ledger with leather +corners, while her adopted mother plies her needles on some embroidery. + +Seven o'clock! Time that they came home, and the shop must be closed +against the November wind which is twisting and turning the flames of +the gas-jets. + +Look at them now: Bayard grown stout, portly, and covered with trinkets, +while Leon, who has just entered the first class in pharmacy, has +actually become a fine-looking young fellow. + +"Good-day, Mimi; good-day, Norine! Let us go right in to dinner. I will +tell you all the news while we are eating the soup," said the druggist. + +They went up to the dining-room, and while Madame Bayard, sitting under +a barometer in the shape of a lyre, served the thick soup, Bayard, +tucking his napkin in his vest and regarding his wife with a knowing +look, said, + +"You know it is all right." + +"The Forgets agree?" + +"Exactly; and Leon will espouse Hortense in six months, and our +daughter-in-law will come and live with us. Yes, Norine, you have known +nothing about it, because one does not speak of such things before young +girls; but for more than a year Leon has been in love with Hortense +Forget, and has been teasing us to arrange the marriage--not such a +difficult thing after all, since it only required a word. Leon is a good +catch. The only difficulty was that we wanted to keep our son with us. +At last it is all arranged, and your foster brother will have the wife +he wants. I hope you are pleased." + +"Very much pleased," replied Norine. + +Oh, deaf and blind! They never heard the voice of Norine when she +replied to them--that low, pathetic tone, which is the echo of a broken +heart. Nor did they see how pale she became, and that her head, suddenly +grown heavy, swayed from side to side as if Norine were about to faint. +They saw nothing, comprehended nothing; and for a long time they had +seen and comprehended nothing. Yet they dearly loved this Norine, who +was the grace, the charm of the house. They dreamed, these good people, +of marrying her one of these days to their head-clerk, a widower of +prudent and economical habits, and "all that is necessary to make a +woman happy." Leon loved her, too, with all his heart; but as a dear, +good sister. Nor did the great spoiled boy suspect that Norine loved +him, and suffered from her love--aye, to death itself. No; even that +evening, when they had unconsciously inflicted upon her the worst of +torture, they never suspected the truth; and they would sleep +peacefully, indulging in beautiful dreams of the future, at the very +hour when, shut in her chamber--the chamber separated by such a thin +partition from that of her adopted parents--Norine would fall upon her +bed, fainting with grief, and bury her head in her pillow to stifle her +sobs. + + +V. + +The ball is finished; and in the empty rooms the candles, burned to the +very end, have broken some of the sconces and the fragments lie upon the +waxed floors. + +The Bayards have insisted that the wedding should be celebrated at their +house; but by the aid of many flowers (it is midsummer) they have given +a holiday appearance to the apartment in the Rue Vieille du Temple where +they have triumphantly installed their daughter-in-law. + +At last it is finished; the young couple have retired to their nuptial +chamber, where Madame Bayard has gone for a moment with them. Coming out +she found Norine still in the little salon, helping the servants +extinguish the lights. She embraced the young girl tenderly, saying, + +"Go to bed, my child. You must be very tired." And she added, with a +smile, "Well, it will be your turn before long." + +And Norine was at last alone in the room, now so gloomy, and lighted +only by her single candle resting on the piano. + +Heavens! how heavy was the odor of the flowers, and how her head ached. + +Ah, that horrible day! What torment she had endured since the moment +when she knelt, impressed into service as a lady's-maid, with pins in +her lips, at the feet of her rival Hortense, and arranged her white +satin train, to the hour when Leon, holding his wife by the waist, drew +her towards her, Norine, and the lips of the young couple met almost +upon her very forehead! + +[Illustration] + +Oh, the odor of the flowers is insupportable, and she is so giddy and +faint. + +She fell upon a sofa, unnerved by a frightful headache, her head thrown +back, clasping her forehead with her two hands, but with open eyes +staring always at the door--the door of that chamber which was shut upon +the young couple, closed upon the mystery which was breaking her heart. +A sort of delirium overwhelmed her. How the heavy perfume of those +flowers overpowered her, and how a thousand memories assailed her at +once. She was a child again in the saloon at Argenteuil, and the kind +Parisians came and caressed her. She was embraced by the dear little boy +wearing a white plume in his hat. Rapid pictures flashed upon her soul. +The _pension_ of the Rue de l'Homme Arme, and Mademoiselle Merlin, with +her knitting-needle stuck in her head-dress, pointed with the end of her +stick to the table of weights and measures. The drug-store on Sundays, +all dark, the shutters closed, and she playing catch with Leon among the +barrels and sacks. + +Good God! was she losing her head? She could not help humming that +waltz, during which Leon once held her in his arms. She was stifled. Oh, +the flowers! She must go out, or at least open a window. But she could +not rise; her strength had deserted her. Could she die thus? Two iron +fingers seemed to be pressing her temples. Oh, the roses and the +orange-flowers--those orange-flowers above all! + +At last she made a great effort. She rose upright and pale--pale as her +white robe. But suddenly her strength left her, and falling first upon +her knees, and then with her head and shoulders upon the wood floor, +poor Norine lay stretched at the threshold of the bridal chamber, killed +by disappointed love and by the flowers. + +[Illustration] + + + + +MY FRIEND MEURTRIER. + +[Illustration: MY FRIEND MEURTIER] + + +I. + +I was at one time employed in a government office. Every day from ten +o'clock until four I became a voluntary prisoner in a depressing office, +adorned with yellow pasteboard boxes, and filled with the musty odor of +old papers. There I lunched on Italian cheese and apples which I roasted +at the grate. I read the morning papers, even to the advertisements; I +rhymed verses, and I attended to the affairs of state to the extent of +drawing at the end of each month a salary which barely kept me from +starving. + +I recall to-day one of my companions in captivity at that epoch. + +He was called Achille Meurtrier, and certainly his fierce look and tall +form seemed to warrant that name. He was a great big fellow, about forty +years old, not too much chest or shoulders, but who increased his +apparent size by wearing felt hats with wide brims, ample and short +coats, large plaid trousers, and neckties of a sanguine red under +rolling collars. He wore a full beard, long hair, and was very proud of +his hairy hands. + +The chief boast of Meurtrier, otherwise the best and most amiable of +companions, was to trifle with an athletic constitution, to possess the +biceps of a prize-fighter, and, as he said himself, not to know his own +strength. He never made a gesture, even in the exercise of his peaceful +profession, that did not have for its object to convince the spectators +of his prodigious vigor. Did he have to take from its case a half-empty +pasteboard box, he advanced towards the shelf with the heavy step of a +street porter, grasped the box solidly with a tight hand, and carried it +with a stiff arm as far as the next table, with a shrugging of shoulders +and frowning of brow worthy of Milo of Crotona. He carried this manner +so far that he never used less apparent effort even to lift the lightest +objects, and one day when he held in his right hand a basket of old +papers I saw him extend his left arm horizontally as if to make a +counterpoise to the tremendous weight. + +I ought to say that this robust creature inspired me with a profound +respect, for I was then, even more than to-day, physically weak and +delicate, and in consequence filled with admiration for that energetic +physique which I lacked. + +The conversations of Meurtrier were not of a nature to diminish the +admiration with which he inspired me. + +In the summer, above all, on Monday mornings, when we had returned to +the office after our Sunday holiday, he had an inexhaustible fund of +stories concerning his adventures and feats of strength. After taking +off his felt-hat, his coat, and his vest, and wiping the perspiration +from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, to indicate his sanguine +and ardent temperament, he would thrust his hands deep in the pockets of +his trousers, and, standing near me in an attitude of perpendicular +solidity, begin a monologue something as follows: + +"What a Sunday, my boy! Positively no fatigue can lay me up. Think of +it: yesterday was the regatta at Joinville-le-Pont; at six o'clock in +the morning the rendezvous at Bercy, at The Mariners, for the crew of +the _Marsouin_; the sun is up; a glass of white wine and we jump into +our rowing suits, seize an oar and give way--one-two, one-two--as far as +Joinville; then overboard for a swim before breakfast--strip to swimming +drawers, a jump overboard, and look out for squalls. After my bath I +have the appetite of a tiger. Good! I seize the boat by one hand and I +call out, 'Charpentier, pass me a small ham.' Three motions in one time +and I have finished it to the bone. 'Charpentier, pass me the +brandy-flask.' Three swallows and it is empty." + +[Illustration] + +So the description would continue--dazzling, Homeric. + +"It is the hour for the regatta--noon--the sun just overhead. The boats +draw up in line on the sparkling river, before a tent gaudy with +streamers. On the bank the mayor with his staff of office, gendarmes in +yellow shoulder-belts, and a swarm of summer dresses, open parasols, and +straw hats. Bang! the signal-gun is fired. The _Marsouin_ shoots ahead +of all her competitors and easily gains the prize--and no fatigue! We go +around Marne, and, returning, dine at Creteil. How cool the evening in +the dusky arbor, where pipes glow through the darkness, and moths singe +their wings in the flame of the _omelette au kirsch_. At the end of a +dessert, served on decorated plates, we hear from the ball-room the call +of the cornet--'Take places for the quadrille!' But already a rival +crew, beaten that same morning, has monopolized the prettiest girls. A +fight!--teeth broken, eyes blackened, ugly falls, and whacks below the +belt; in a word, a poem of physical enthusiasm, of noisy hilarity, of +animal spirits, without speaking of the return at midnight, through +crowded stations, with girls whom we lift into the cars, friends +separated calling from one end of the train to the other, and fellows +playing a horn upon the roof." + +And the evenings of my astonishing companion were not less full of +adventure than his Sundays. Collar-and-elbow wrestling in a tent, under +the red light of torches, between him--simple amateur--and Du Bois, the +iron man, in person; rat-chases near the mouths of sewers, with dogs as +fierce as tigers; sanguinary encounters at night, in the most dangerous +quarters, with ruffians and nose-eaters, were the most insignificant +episodes of his nightly career. Nor do I dare relate other adventures of +a more intimate character, from which, as the writers of an earlier day +would say in noble style, a pen the least timorous would recoil with +horror. + +However painful it may be to confess an unworthy sentiment, I am obliged +to say that my admiration for Meurtrier was not unmixed with regret and +bitterness. Perhaps there was mingled with it something of envy. But the +recitation of his most marvellous exploits had never awakened in me the +least feeling of incredulity, and Achille Meurtrier easily took his +place in my mind among heroes and demigods, between Roland and +Pirithous. + + +II. + +At this time I was a great wanderer in the suburbs, and I occupied the +leisure of my summer evenings by solitary walks in those distant +regions, as unknown to the Parisians of the boulevards as the country of +the Caribbees, and of whose sombre charm I endeavored later to tell in +verse. + +One evening in July, hot and dusty, at the hour when the first +gas-lights were beginning to twinkle in the misty twilight, I was +walking slowly from Vaugirard through one of those long and depressing +suburban streets lined on each side by houses of unequal height, whose +porters and porteresses, in shirt sleeves and in calico, sat on the +steps and imagined that they were taking the fresh air. Hardly any one +passing in the whole street; perhaps, from end to end, a mason, white +with plaster, a sergeant-de-ville, a child carrying home a four-pound +loaf larger than himself, or a young girl hurrying on in hat and cloak, +with a leather bag on her arm; and every quarter-hour the half-empty +omnibus coming back to its place of departure with the heavy trot of its +tired horses. + +Stumbling now and then on the pavement--for asphalt is an unknown luxury +in these places--I went down the street, tasting all the delights of a +stroller. Sometimes I stopped before a vacant lot to watch, through the +broken boards of the fence, the fading glories of the setting sun and +the black silhouettes of the chimneys thrown against a greenish sky. +Sometimes, through an open window on the ground-floor, I caught sight of +an interior, picturesque and familiar: here a jolly-looking laundress +holding her flat-iron to her cheek; there workmen sitting at tables and +smoking in the basement of a cabaret, while an old Bohemian with long +gray hair, standing before them, sang something about "Liberty," +accompanying himself on a guitar about the color of bouillon--the scenes +of Chardin and Van Ostade. + +Suddenly I stopped. + +One of these personal pictures had caught my eye by its domestic and +charming simplicity. + +[Illustration] + +She looked so happy and peaceful in her quiet little room, the dear old +lady in her black gown and widow's cap, leaning back in an easy-chair +covered with green Utrecht velvet, and sitting quietly with her hands +folded on her lap. Everything around her was so old and simple, and +seemed to have been preserved, less through a wise economy than on +account of hallowed memories, since the honey-moon with monsieur of the +high complexion, in a frock-coat and flowered waistcoat, whose oval +crayon ornamented the wall. By two lamps on the mantle-shelf every +detail of the old-fashioned furniture could be distinguished, from the +clock on a fish of artificial and painted marble to the old and +antiquated piano, on which, without doubt, as a young girl, in +leg-of-mutton sleeves and with hair dressed _a la Grecque_, she had +played the airs of Romagnesi. + +Certainly a loved and only daughter, remaining unmarried through her +affection for her mother, piously watched over the last years of the +widow. It was she, I was sure, who had so tenderly placed her dear +mother; she who had put the ottoman under her feet, she who had put near +her the inlaid table, and arranged on it the waiter and two cups. I +expected already to see her coming in carrying the evening coffee--the +sweet, calm girl, who should be dressed in mourning like the widow, and +resemble her very much. + +Absorbed by the contemplation of a scene so sympathetic, and by the +pleasure of imagining that humble poem, I remained standing some steps +from the open window, sure of not being noticed in the dusky street, +when I saw a door open and there appeared--oh, how far he was from my +thoughts at that moment--my friend Meurtrier himself, the formidable +hero of tilts on the river and frays in unknown places. + +A sudden doubt crossed me. I felt that I was on the point of discovering +a mystery. + +It was indeed he. His terrible hairy hand held a tiny silver coffee-pot, +and he was followed by a poodle which greatly embarrassed his steps--a +valiant and classic poodle, the poodle of blind clarionet-players, a +poor beggar's poodle, a poodle clipped like a lion, with hairy ruffles +on his four paws, and a white mustache like a general of the Gymnase. + +"Mamma," said the giant, in a tone of ineffable tenderness, "here is +your coffee. I am sure that you will find it nice to-night. The water +was boiling well, and I poured it on drop by drop." + +"Thank you," said the old lady, rolling her easy-chair to the table with +an air; "thank you, my little Achille. Your dear father said many a time +that there was not my equal at making coffee--he was so kind and +indulgent, the dear, good man--but I begin to believe that you are even +better than I." + +At that moment, and while Meurtrier was pouring out the coffee with all +the delicacy of a young girl, the poodle, excited no doubt by the +uncovered sugar, placed his forepaws on the lap of his mistress. + +"Down, Medor," she cried, with a benevolent indignation. "Did any one +ever see such a troublesome animal? Look here, sir! you know very well +that your master never fails to give you the last of his cup. +By-the-way," added the widow, addressing her son, "you have taken the +poor fellow out, have you not?" + +[Illustration] + +"Certainly, mamma," he replied, in a tone that was almost infantile. "I +have just been to the creamery for your morning milk, and I put the +leash and collar on Medor and took him with me." + +"And he has attended to all his little wants?" + +"Don't be disturbed. He doesn't want anything." + +Reassured on this point, important to canine hygiene, the good dame +drank her coffee, between her son and her dog, who each regarded her +with an inexpressible tenderness. + +It was assuredly unnecessary to see or hear more. I had already descried +what a peaceful family life--upright, pure, and devoted--my friend +Meurtrier hid under his chimerical gasconades. But the spectacle with +which chance had favored me was at once so droll and so touching that I +could not resist the temptation to watch for some moments longer. That +indiscretion sufficed to show me the whole truth. + +Yes, this type of roisterers, who seemed to have stepped from one of the +romances of Paul de Kock--this athlete, this despot of bar-rooms and +public-houses--performed simply and courageously, in these lowly rooms +in the suburbs, the sublime duties of a sister of charity. This intrepid +oarsman had never made a longer voyage than to conduct his mother to +mass or vespers every Sunday. This billiard expert knew only how to play +bezique. This trainer of bull-dogs was the submissive slave of a +poodle. This Mauvaise-Philibert was an Antigone. + + +III. + +The next morning, on arriving at the office, I asked Meurtrier how he +had employed the previous evening, and he instantly improvised, without +a moment's hesitation, an account of a sharp encounter on the boulevard +at two in the morning, when he had knocked down with a single blow of +his fist, having passed his thumb through the ring of his keys, a +terrible street rough. I listened, smiling ironically, and thinking to +confound him; but remembering how respectable a virtue is which is +hidden even under an absurdity, I struck him amicably on the shoulder, +and said, with conviction: + +"Meurtrier, you are a hero!" + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Tales, by Francois Coppee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 20380.txt or 20380.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/8/20380/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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