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The Mysteries of Paris V2

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"And why this fear?"

"Because she would then have to avow a past life, of which they are
doubtless ignorant."

"Really, this peasant's dress--"

"Besides, another circumstance has strengthened my suspicions. Last
night, as I made my inspection, I drew near the Goualeuse's bed; she
slept profoundly; her face was calm and serene; her thick flaxen hair,
half escaping from under her cap, fell in profusion on her neck and
shoulders. She had her small hands clasped over her bosom, as if she
had fallen asleep while in the act of prayer. I contemplated with
compassion this angelic countenance, when, in a low voice, and in a
tone at once respectful, sorrowful and endearing, she pronounced a
name."

"And this name?"

After a moment's silence, Madame Armand said gravely, "Although I
consider as sacred that which one hears another express in their
sleep, you interest yourself so generously in this unfortunate,
madame, that I can confide to you this secret. The name was Rudolph."

"Rudolph!" cried Madame d'Harville, thinking of the prince. Then,
reflecting that, after all, the Grand Duke of Gerolstein could have no
connection with the Rudolph of poor Goualeuse, she said to the
inspectress, who seemed astonished at her exclamation, "This name
surprised me, madame, for by a singular chance, one of my relations
bears it also; but all you have told me of the Goualeuse interests me
more and more. Can I not see her to-day? Now?"

"Yes, madame, I will go, if you wish, to find her, I can also ask
about Louise Morel, who is in the other part of the prison."

"I shall be much obliged," answered Madame d'Harville, and she
remained alone.

"It is singular," said she; "I cannot account for the strange
impression which the name of Rudolph caused me. Truly, I am mad!
between _him_ and such a creature, what relations can exist?"
Then, after a pause, she added, "He was right! how much all this
interests me! the mind, the heart, expand when they are applied to
such noble occupations! As he says, it seems as if one participated in
the power of Providence, when relieving those who are deserving. And
these excursions in a world of whose existence we have no suspicion
are so interesting, so _amusing_, as _he_ was pleased to
say! What romance could give me such touching emotions, excite to this
point my curiosity! This poor Goualeuse, for example, inspires me with
profound pity, and this unfortunate daughter of the artisan, whom the
prince had so generously relieved in my name! Poor people! their
frightful misery served as a pretext to save me. I have escaped shame,
death, perhaps, by a hypocritical falsehood; this deceit oppresses me;
but I will expiate it by force of benefactions. This will be easy! it
is so sweet to follow the noble counsels of Rudolph, it is rather to
love than to obey him! Oh! I feel it--I know it. I experience a sweet
delight in acting through him; for I love him. Oh, yes, I love him!
yet he will be for ever ignorant of this eternal passion of my life."

While Madame d'Harville awaits the Goualeuse, we will return to the
prison-yard.




CHAPTER XV.

WOLF AND LAMB.


Fleur-de-Marie, the Songstress, wore the blue dress and black cap of
the prisoners; but even in this common costume she was charming. Yet
since she was carried off from the farm of Bouqueval, her features
were much altered; her natural paleness, slightly tinted with rose,
was now as dead as the whitest alabaster; her expression had also
changed; it had now assumed a kind of dignified sadness.
Fleur-de-Marie knew that to endure courageously the grievous sacrifices
of expiation is almost to obtain a kind of regeneration.

"Ask their pardon for me, La Goualeuse," said Mont Saint Jean. "See
how they drag in the dirt all that I had collected with so much
trouble; what good can it do them?"

Fleur-de-Marie did not say a word, but she began actively to collect,
one by one, from under the feet of the prisoners, all the rags she
could find. One of the prisoners retaining mischievously under her
foot a piece of coarse muslin, Fleur-de-Marie, stooping, raised her
enchanting face toward this woman, and said, in her sweet voice, "I
beg you to let me take this, in the name of the poor weeping woman."

The prisoner withdrew her foot. The muslin was saved, as well as all
the other rags, which the Goualeuse secured piece by piece. There
remained only one little cap, which two of them were contending for,
laughing.

Fleur-de-Marie said to them, "Come, be good now, and give her that
little cap."

"My eye! is it for a baby harlequin, this cap? Made of gray stuff,
with peaks of green and black fustian, and a bedtick lining!" This
description of the cap was received with shouts of laughter.

"Laugh at it as much as you please, but give it to me," said Mont
Saint Jean; "don't drag it in the gutter, as you did the rest. I beg
your pardon, La Goualeuse, for having made you soil your hands for
me," added she, in a grateful voice.

"Give me the harlequin cap," said La Louve, who caught it, and shook
it in the air as a trophy.

"I entreat you to give it to me," said La Goualeuse.

"No; because you will give it to Mont Saint Jean."

"Certainly!"

"Ah! bah! such a fag! it's not worth the trouble."

"It is because Mont Saint Jean has nothing but rags to dress her child
with that you should have pity on her, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie,
sadly, extending her hand toward the cap.

"You sha'n't have it!" answered La Louve, brutally; "must one always
give up to you because you are the weakest? You take advantage of
this."

"Where would be the merit of giving it to me if I were the strongest?"
answered La Goualeuse, with a smile full of grace.

"No, no, you wish to twist me about again with your little soft voice;
you sha'n't have it."

"Come, now, La Louve, don't be naughty."

"Leave me alone, you tire me."

"I entreat you!"

"Stop! don't make me angry--I have said no, and no it is!" cried La
Louve, very much irritated.

"Have pity upon her; see how she weeps!"

"What is that to me? So much the worse for her; she is our target."

"That's true, that's true, don't give it up," murmured several of the
prisoners, carried away by the example of La Louve.

"You are right--so much the worse for her!" said Fleur-de-Marie, with
bitterness. "She is your butt; she ought to be resigned to it; her
groans amuse you, her tears make you laugh. You must pass the time in
some way; if you should kill her on the spot, she has no right to say
anything. You are right, La Louve--it is just! this poor woman has
done no harm; she cannot defend herself; she is one against the whole--
you overpower her--that is very brave and very generous."

"Are we cowards, then?" cried La Louve, carried away by the violence
of her character, and by her impatience of all contradiction. "Will
you answer? are we cowards, eh?" said she, more and more irritated.

Murmurs, very threatening for the Goualeuse, began to be heard. The
offended prisoners approached and surrounded her, vociferating,
forgetting or revolting against the ascendancy that the young girl had
until then obtained over them.

"She calls us cowards! By what right does she scold us? Is it because
she is greater than we are? We have been too good to her, and now she
wants to put on airs with us. If we choose to torment Mont Saint Jean,
what has she got to say about it? Since it is so, you shall be worse
beaten than before, do you hear, Mont Saint Jean?"

"Hold, here is one to begin with," said one of them, giving her a
blow. "And if you meddle with what don't concern you, La Goualeuse,
we'll treat you in the same way."

"Yes, yes!"

"This isn't all!" cried La Louve; "La Goualeuse must ask our pardon
for having called us cowards! If not, and we let her go on, she'll
finish by eating us up; we are very stupid not to see that. She must
ask our pardon. On her knee! on both knees! or we'll treat her like
Mont Saint Jean, her _protegee_. On your knees--on your knees!
Oh! we are cowards, are we?"

Fleur-de-Marie was not alarmed at these furious cries; she let the
storm rage, but as soon as she could be heard, casting a calm and
melancholy glance around her, she replied to La Louve, who vociferated
anew, "Dare to repeat that we are cowards!"

"You? no, no; it is this poor woman whose clothes you have torn, whom
you have beaten, dragged in the mire, who is a coward! Do you not see
how she weeps, how she trembles in looking at you? It is she who is a
coward, since she is afraid of you."

The discernment of Fleur-de-Marie served her perfectly. She might have
invoked justice and duty to disarm the stupid and brutal conduct of
the prisoners, they would not have listened to her; but in addressing
them with this sentiment of natural generosity, which is never extinct
even in the most contemptible natures, she awoke a feeling of pity.

La Louve and her companions still murmured; Fleur-de-Marie continued:
"Your target does not deserve compassion, you say; but her child
deserves it. Alas! does it not feel the blows given to the mother?
When she cries for mercy, it is not for herself, it is for her child!
When she asks for some of your bread, if you have too much, because
she has more hunger than usual, it is not for her, but for her child!
When she begs you, with tears in her eyes, to spare these rags, which
she has had so much trouble to collect, it is not for her, but for her
child! This poor little cap, which you have made so much fun of, is
laughable, perhaps; yet only to look at it makes me feel like weeping.
I avow it. Laugh at us both, Mont Saint Jean and me, if you will." The
prisoners did not laugh. La Louve even looked sadly at the little cap
she held in her hand. "Come, now!" continued Fleur-de-Marie, wiping
her eyes with the back of her white and delicate hand; "I know you are
not so hard. You torment Mont Saint Jean from want of employment, not
from cruelty. But you forget that she has her child. Could she hold it
in her arms that it should protect her, not only would you not strike
her, for fear of hurting the poor innocent, but if it was cold, you
would give to its mother all you could to cover it, eh, La Louve?"

"It is true: who would not pity a child?"

"It is very plain."

"If it was hungry you would take the bread out of your own mouth;
would you not, La Louve?"

"Yes, and willingly. I am no worse than others."

"Nor we neither."

"A poor little innocent!"

"Who would have a heart to hurt it?"

"Must be a monster!"

"No hearts!"

"Wild beasts!"

"I told you truly," said Fleur-de-Marie. "That you were not cruel. You
are kind; your error is not reflecting that Mont Saint Jean deserves
as much compassion as though she had her child in her arms, that's
all."

"That's all!" cried La Louve, with warmth; "no, that's not all. You
were right, La Goualeuse; we were cowards, and you were brave in
daring to tell us so; and you are brave in not trembling after having
told us. You see we were right in constantly insisting that _you
were not one of us_--it must always come to that. It vexes me; but
so it is. We were all wrong just now. You were pluckier than the whole
gang of us!"

"That's true; this little blonde must have had courage to tell us the
truth right in our faces."

"After all, it is true, when we strike Mont Saint Jean, we do strike
her child."

"I didn't think of that."

"Nor I either."

"But La Goualeuse thinks of everything."

"And to strike a child is shameful!"

"There isn't one of us capable of doing it."

"Nothing is more easily moved than popular passion-nothing more abrupt
and rapid than the return from evil to good and from good to evil." The
few simple and touching words from Fleur-de-Marie had caused a sudden
reaction in favor of Mont Saint Jean, who wept gently.

Suddenly La Louve, violent and hasty in everything, took the little
cap she held in her hand, made a kind of purse of it, fumbled in her
pocket, and drew out twenty sous, threw them into the cap, and cried,
presenting it to her companions, "I give twenty sous toward buying
baby-linen for Mont Saint Jean. We'll cut it all out and sew it
ourselves, so that the making-up sha'n't cost a copper!"

"Yes, yes."

"That's it! let us club together."

"I'm agreed!"

"Famous idea!"

"Poor woman!"

"She is as ugly as a monster; but she is a mother, like any one else."

"I give ten sous."

"I thirty."

"I twenty."

"I four sous; got no more."

"I have nothing; but I will sell my ration for tomorrow-who'll buy?"

"I," said La Louve; "I put ten sous for you; but you'll keep your
ration, and Mont Saint Jean's baby shall be togged out like a
princess."

To express the surprise and joy of Mont Saint Jean would be
impossible; her grotesque and ugly visage became almost touching.
Happiness and gratitude beamed the Fleur-de-Marie was also very happy,
although she had been obliged to say to La Louve, when she held the
little cap toward her, "I have no money; but I will work as much as
you like."

"Oh! my good little angel from Paradise," cried Mont Saint Jean,
falling at the feet of La Goualeuse, and trying to take her hand to
kiss it. "What is it I have done that you should be so charitable
toward me, and all these _ladies_ also? Is it possible, my good
angel? For my child--everything that I want! Who could have believed
it? I shall go off my head, I am sure. Why, I was just now the
scapegoat of every one! In a moment, because you said something in
your dear little voice of a seraph, you turn them from evil to good;
and now they love me, and I love them. They are so good! I was wrong
to get angry. Wasn't I a fool, and unjust, and ungrateful? All they
have done to me was only for a laugh; they didn't wish me any harm--it
was for my good; for here is the proof. Why, now, if they were to kill
me on the spot, I would not say a word."

"We have eighty-four francs and seven sous," said La Louve, having
finished counting the money she had collected. "Who will be treasurer?
Mustn't give it to Mont Saint Jean; she is too stupid."

"Let Goualeuse take charge of the money," they all cried unanimously.

"If you listen to me," said Fleur-de-Marie, "you will beg Madame
Armand, the inspectress, to take charge of this sum, and make the
necessary purchases; and then she will know the good action you have
done, and, perhaps, will ask to have your time reduced. Well, La
Louve," added she, taking her companion by the arm, "don't you now
feel happier than when you were casting to the winds, just now, the
poor rags of Mont Saint Jean?"

La Louve at first did not answer. To the generous warmth which had for
a moment animated her features had succeeded a kind of savage
defiance.

Fleur-de-Marie looked at her with surprise, not understanding this
sudden change.

"La Goualeuse, come; I want to talk to you," said La Louve, in a
sullen manner; and leaving the other prisoners, she led Fleur-de-Marie
near to the basin which was in the center of the court. La Louve and
her companion seated themselves, isolated from the rest of their
companions.

The winter's sun shed its pale rays upon them, the blue sky was
partially obscured by white and fleecy clouds; some birds, deceived by
the mildness of the atmosphere, were warbling in the black branches of
the large chestnut-trees in the court; two or three sparrows, bolder
than the rest, came to drink and to bathe in a little brook which
flowed from the fountain; the stone margin was covered with green
moss, and here and there from the interstices rose some tufts of green
herbs, which the frost had spared. This description of the prison
basin may seem trifling, but Fleur-de-Marie lost not one of these
details; with her eyes fixed sadly on the clouds as they broke the
azure of the sky, or reflected the golden rays of the sun, she
thought, with a sigh, of the magnificence of nature, which she much
loved, admired poetically, and of which she was deprived.

"What do you wish to say to me?" asked La Goualeuse of her companion,
who, seated alongside of her, remained somber and silent.

"It is necessary that we have a settlement," cried La Louve, harshly,
"this can't go on."

"I don't understand you, La Louve."

"Just now, in the court, I said to myself, 'I will not yield to La
Goualeuse,' and yet I have again given way to you." "But--"

"I tell you this can't last so."

"What have you against me, La Louve?"

"Why, I am no longer the same since your arrival; no, I have no more
courage, strength, or hardihood."

Interrupting herself, she pushed up the sleeve of her dress and showed
to La Goualeuse her strong white arm, pointing out to her, pricked in
with indelible ink, a poniard half plunged in a red heart; over this
emblem were these words:

"Death to Dastards! MARTIAL. For life!"

"Do you see that?" cried La Louve.

"Yes; it makes me afraid," said La Goualeuse, turning away her head.

"When Martial, my lover, wrote this with a red-hot needle, he thought
me brave; if he knew my conduct for three days past, he would drive
his knife in my body, as this poniard is planted in this heart; and he
would be right, for be has written there '_Death to Dastards_'
and I am one."

"What have you done cowardly?"

"Everything."

"Do you regret what you have done just now?"

"Yes!"

"I do not believe you."

"I tell you that I regret it, for it is another proof of the power you
have over us all. Did you not hear what Mont Saint Jean said when she
was on her knees to thank you?"

"What did she say?"

"She said, in speaking of us, that with nothing you turn us from evil
to good. I could have strangled her when she said that, for, to our
shame, it is true. Yes, in a moment you change us from black to white:
we listen to you, we give way to our impulses, and we are your dupes."

"My dupe--because you have generously assisted this poor woman!"

"It shall not be said," cried La Louve, "that a little girl like you
can trample me under foot."

"I! how?"

"Do I know how? You come here--you commence by offending me."

"Offend you?"

"Yes: you ask who wants your bread: I answer first 'I.' Mont Saint
Jean only asks for it afterward and you give her the preference.
Furious at this, I rush on you with my knife raised."

"And I said to you, 'Kill me if you will, but do not make me suffer
too much,'" answered La Goualeuse; "that was all."

"That was all! Yes, that was all! and yet, these words alone caused
the knife to fall from my hands; made me ask pardon from you, who had
offended me. Is it natural? Why, when I return to my senses, I pity
myself. And the night when you arrived here, when you knelt to say
your prayers, why, instead of laughing at you and arousing the whole
company--why was it that I said, 'Leave her alone; she prays because
she has the right to do so.' And, the next morning, why were we all
ashamed to dress before you?"

"I do not know, La Louve."

"Really!" said this violent creature, with irony, "you don't know! It
is, doubtless, as we have told you sometimes in jest, that you are of
another family than ours. Perhaps you believe that?"

"I never said so."

"You never said so, but you act so."

"I pray you to listen to me."

"No! it has been of no service for me to listen to you--to look at
you. Up to now I have never envied any one. Well, two or three times I
have surprised myself in envying--can anything be more sneaking?--in
envying your face--like the Holy Virgin's! your soft, sad manner! Yes,
I have envied even your fair hair, and your blue eyes. I--who have
always detested fair faces, since I am a brunette--wish to resemble
you!"

"No, La Louve! me?"

"A week ago I should have left my mark on any one who would have dared
to tell me this. However, I do not envy you your lot; you are as sad
as a Magdalen. Is it natural? speak!"

"How can you expect me to account to you for the impressions I cause?"

"Oh, you know well enough what you do with your touch-me-not air."

"But what design can I have?"

"Do you think I know? It is exactly because I cannot understand all
this that I suspect you. There is another thing: until now I have
always been gay or angry, but never a thinker; and you have made me
think. Yes, there are some words you say which, in spite of me, have
touched my heart, and make me think all manner of sad things."

"I am sorry to have made you sad, La Louve; but I do not remember to
have said any--"

"Oh!" cried La Louve; "what you do is often as touching as what you
say! You are so malignant!"

"Do not be angry, La Louve! explain yourself."

"Yesterday, in the workshop, I saw you plainly. You had your eyes
down, fixed on your work; a tear fell on your hand; you looked at it
for a moment, and then you carried your hand to your lips, as if to
kiss away this tear; is it not true?"

"It is true," said La Goualeuse, blushing.

"That has the appearance of nothing! But, at that moment you looked so
unhappy--so unhappy, that I felt myself all heartache--every feeling
stirred up. Say now? do you think this is amusing? I have always been
as hard as a rock about everything concerning myself. No one can boast
of ever having seen me weep; and it must be that in looking at your
little face I should feel cowardice at my heart! Yes, for all that is
pure cowardice; and the proof is, that for three days I have not dared
to write to Martial, my conscience accuses me so much. Yes, keeping
company with you has weakened my character; it must stop; I have
enough of it; I wish to remain as I am, and not have people laugh at
me."

"Why should they laugh at you?"

"Because they would see me acting a stupid good-natured part, who made
them all tremble here! No, no, I am twenty; I am as handsome as you,
in my style; I am wicked; I am feared, and that's what I want. I laugh
at the rest. Perish all who say the contrary!"

"You are angry with me, La Louve!"

"Yes, you are for me a bad acquaintance; if this is continued, in
fifteen days, instead of being called Wolf, they will call me Sheep.
Thank you! it's not me they'll baptize so. Martial would kill me. In
short, I want none of your company; I am going to ask to be put in
another hall; if they refuse, I'll flare up so that they will put me
in the dungeon until my time is out. That's what I have to say to you,
La Goualeuse."

"I assure you, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, "that you feel an
interest in me, not because you are soft, but because you are
generous--brave hearts alone feel the misfortunes of others."

"There is neither generosity nor courage in this," said La Louve,
brutally; "it is cowardice. Besides, I do not wish you to tell me that
I am touched--softened; it is not true."

"I will not say so any more, La Louve; but since you have shown some
interest for me, you will let me be grateful to you for it, will you
not?"

"To-night I shall be in another hall from you, or alone in the
dungeon; and soon I shall be away from here."

"And where will you go?"

"Home; Rue Pierre Lescot. I have my own furnished room."

"And Martial!" said La Goualeuse, who hoped to continue the
conversation by speaking of an object interesting to her; "you'll be
very happy to see him?"

"Yes; oh, yes!" answered she. "When I was arrested he was recovering
from sickness--a fever which he had, because he is always on the
water. For sixteen or seventeen nights I never left him for a moment.
I sold half that I possessed to pay for a doctor and medicines. I can
boast of it; and I do boast of it. If my man lives, he owes it to me.
I yesterday burned a candle before the Virgin for him. It is foolish;
but never mind, some very good effects have proceeded from this, for
he is convalescent."

"Where is he now? what does he do?"

"He lives near the Asnieres Bridge, on the shore."

"On the shore?"

"Yes, with his family, in a solitary house. He is always warring with
the river-keepers; and when once he is in his boat, with his
double-barreled gun, it's no good to approach him!" said La Louve,
proudly.

"What is his trade?"

"He fishes by stealth at night; his father had some
_misunderstanding_ with justice. He has still a mother, two
sisters, and a brother. It would be better for him not to have such a
brother, for he is a scoundrel, who will be guillotined one of these
days; his sisters also. However, never mind, their necks belong to
themselves."

"Where did you first meet Martial?"

"In Paris. He wished to learn the trade of a locksmith; a fine trade,
always red-hot iron and fire around one, and danger, too; that suited
him, but, like me, he had a bad head--couldn't agree with the
slow-pokes: so he returned to his family, and began to maraud on the
river. He came to Paris to see me, and I went to see him at Asnieres; it
is very near; but if it had been further, I should have gone, even if I
had been obliged to go on my hands and knees."

"You will be very happy to go to the country, you, La Louve," said the
Goualeuse, sighing; "above all, if you love, as I do, to walk in the
fields."

"I prefer to walk in the woods--in the large forests, with Martial!"

"In forests? are you not afraid?"

"Afraid! Is a wolf afraid? The thicker and darker the forest, the more
I like it. A lonely hut, where I should live with Martial, who should
be a poacher; to go with him at night, to set traps for the game; and
then, if the guards come to arrest us, to fire on them, hiding in the
bushes--ah! that's what I like!"

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