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The Mysteries of Paris V2

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"I should be of your opinion, if the bloodhound was faithful, but I am
afraid he is not."

"Oh! M. Narcisse, can you think--"

"I think that instead of putting us on the scent, you amuse yourself
by deceiving us, and you abuse the confidence placed in you. Every day
you promise to aid us to place our hands on the band; that day never
comes."

"What if this day comes to-day, M. Narcisse, as I am sure it will; and
if I let you pick up Barbillon, Nicholas Martial, the widow, her
daughter, and La Chouette, will it be a good haul or not? Will you
still suspect me?"

"No; and you will have rendered real service; for we have against this
band strong presumptions, almost certain suspicions, but,
unfortunately, no proofs."

"Hold a moment--caught in the very act, allowing you to nab them so,
will aid furiously to display their cards, M. Narcisse?"

"Doubtless; and you assure me you are not in the plan they have on
hand?"

"No, on my honor. It is La Chouette who came and proposed to me to
entice the broker here, when she learned through my son, that Morel,
the lapidary, who lived in the Rue du Temple, cut real instead of
false stones, and that Mother Mathieu had often about her jewels of
value. I accepted the affair, proposing for La Chouette to add
Barbillon and the Martials, so as to have the whole gang in hand."

"And what of the Schoolmaster, this man so dangerous, so strong, and
so ferocious, who was always with La Chouette? one of the old hands of
the Lapin Blanc?"

"The Schoolmaster?" said Bras-Rouge, feigning astonishment.

"Yes, a galley-slave escaped from Rochefort, named Anselme Duresnel,
condemned for life. He has disfigured himself so as not to be
recognized. Have you no information of him?"

"None," answered Bras-Rouge, intrepidly, who had his reasons for this
falsehood, for the Schoolmaster was then shut up in one of the cellars
of the tavern.

"There is every reason to believe that the Schoolmaster is the author
of some late murders. It would be an important capture. For six weeks
past, no one knows what has become of him."

"Thus we are reproached for having lost sight of him. Always
reproaches, M. Narcisse! always."

"Not without reason. How's your smuggling?"

"Must I not know all sorts of folks, smugglers as well as anybody
else, to put you on the scent? I informed you of the pipe which,
beginning outside of the Barriere du Trone, ended in a house in the
street, to introduce untaxed liquor."

"I know all that," said Narcisse, interrupting Bras-Rouge; but for one
you denounce, you let, perhaps, ten escape, and you continue your
trade with impunity. I am sure you feed out of two mangers, as the
saying is."

"Oh! M. Narcisse, I am incapable of such dishonest hunger."

"And this is not all. In the Rue du Temple, No. 17, lives one Burette,
pawnbroker, who is accused of being your private receiver."

"What would you have me do, M. Borel? one says so many things, the
world is so wicked. Once more I say, I must mix with the greatest
number of scoundrels possible. I must even do as they do, worse than
they, to avoid suspicions; but it cuts me to the heart to imitate
them--to the heart--I must be well devoted to the service to follow
such a trade."

"Poor dear man! I pity you with all my heart."

"You laugh, M. Borel. But if all these stories are believed, why do
they not pay Mother Burette and myself a visit?"

"You know well why--not to startle these bandits whom you have for so
long a time promised to deliver to us."

"And I am going to deliver them to you, M. Narcisse; in one hour's
time you shall have them bound, and without much trouble, for there
are three women. Barbillon and Nicholas Martial are as ferocious as
tigers, but cowardly as chickens."

"Tigers or chickens," said Borel, opening his long riding coat and
showing the butt-ends of two pistols, which stuck out of his trousers
pockets, "I have something here to serve them."

"You will do well to take two of your men with you, M. Borel; when
they find themselves cornered, the greatest cowards become sometimes
tigers."

"I will place two of my men in the little lower room, alongside of the
one where you will put the broker. At the first cry, I will appear at
one door, my two men at the other."

"You must make haste, for the band may arrive any moment, M. Borel."

"So be it; I go to place my men. I hope it will not be for nothing
this time."

The conversation was interrupted by the concerted signal. Bras-Rouge
looked out of a window to see whom Tortillard announced.

"Look! here is La Chouette, already! Well! do you believe me now, M.
Narcisse?"

"This is something, but not all; we shall see. I go to place my men."

The detective disappeared through a side door.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

SCREECH-OWL.


Her rapidity of step, the ferocious ardor of a desire for rapine and
murder which she still possessed, had flushed her hideous visage; her
one green eye sparkled with savage joy.

Tortillard followed her, jumping and limping. Just as she was
descending the last steps of the stairs, the son of Bras-Rouge,
through a wicked frolic, placed his foot on the trailing folds of La
Chouette's dress. This caused the old woman to stumble; not being able
to catch hold of the balusters, she fell on her knees, her hands both
stretched out, abandoning her precious basket, from whence escaped a
golden bracelet set with diamonds and fine pearls. La Chouette,
having, in her fall, excoriated her fingers a little, picked up the
bracelet, which had not escaped the quick eyesight of Tortillard, rose
and threw herself furiously on the little cripple, who approached her
with a hypocritical air, saying, "Oh! bless us! your foot slipped!"

Without answering, La Chouette seized him by the hair, and, stooping
down, bit him in the cheek; the blood spurted from the wound. Strange
as it may appear, Tortillard, notwithstanding his wickedness, and the
great pain he endured, uttered not a complaint nor cry. He wiped his
bleeding face, and said, with a forced laugh:

"I would rather you would not kiss me so hard another time, La
Chouette."

"Wicked little devil, why did you step on my gown to make me fall?"

"I? Oh, now! I swear to you that I did not do it on purpose, my good
Chouette; as if your little Tortillard would wish to hurt you; he
loves you too well for that. You did well to beat him, affront him,
bite him; he is attached to you like a poor little dog to his master,"
said the child in a caressing and coaxing voice.

Deceived by the hypocrisy, La Chouette answered, "Very well! if I have
bitten you wrongfully, it shall be punishment for some other time,
when you have deserved it. Come, to-day I bear no malice. Where is
your cheat of a father?"

"In the house; shall I call him?"

"No; have the Martials come yet?"

"Not yet."

"Then I have time to go and see my man; I want to speak to old
No-eyes."

"Are you going to the cellar?" asked Tortillard, hardly concealing his
diabolical joy.

"What is that to you?"

"To me?"

"Yes; you asked me that in such a droll way."

"Because I thought of something funny."

"What?"

"That you must have brought a pack of cards along to amuse him,"
answered Tortillard, in a cunning manner; "it will be a little change
for him; he only plays at biting with the rats; in that game he always
wins, and in the end it tires him."

La Chouette laughed violently at this witticism, and said to the
little cripple, "Mamma's little monkey. I do not know a blackguard
that is more wicked than you are. You little rogue, go, get me a
candle; you shall light me down, help me to open his door; you know
that I can't move it alone."

"Oh, no, it is too dark in the cellar," said Tortillard, shaking his
head.

"How? you, as wicked as the devil, a coward; I would like to see that!
Come, go quick, and say to your father, I will soon return; that I am
with my pet; that we are talking about the publication of our bans of
marriage," added the monster, chuckling. "Come, make haste, you shall
be groomsman, and if you are a good boy, you shall have my garter."

Tortillard went to get a light, and La Chouette, elated with the
success of her robbery, amused herself while he was gone in handling
the precious jewels in her basket. It was to conceal temporarily this
treasure that she wished to visit the Schoolmaster in his cellar, and
not to torment, as was her usual custom, her victim. We will mention
presently why, with the consent of Bras-Rouge, La Chouette had
confined the Schoolmaster in the subterranean hole.

Tortillard, holding a light, reappeared at the cellar door. La
Chouette followed him to the lower room, into which opened the large
trap-door already described.

The son of Bras-Rouge, protecting his light with the hollow of his
hand, and preceding the old woman, descended slowly a flight of steep
stone steps, leading to the entrance of the cellar.

Arrived at the foot, Tortillard appeared to hesitate about following
La Chouette.

"Well! lazybones, go on," said she, turning round.

"It is so dark, and besides, you go so fast, La Chouette; I'd rather
go back, and leave you the candle."

"And the door, imbecile? Can I open it alone! Will you go on?"

"No, I am too much afraid."

"If I come to you, take care."

"Oh, now you threaten me, I'll go back."

And he retreated a few steps.

"Well! listen; be a good boy," answered La Chouette, restraining her
anger, "I will give you something."

"Very well," said the boy, drawing near, "speak so to me, and you will
make me do all you can wish, Mother Chouette."

"Look alive, I am in a hurry."

"Yes, but promise that you will let me torment the Schoolmaster."

"Some other day; now I have no time."

"Only a little; just to make him foam."

"Some other time, I say; I must return at once."

"Why, then, do you open the door of his prison?"

"None of your business. Come, now, will you finish? The Martials,
perhaps, are already above; I want to speak to them. Be a good boy,
and you sha'n't be sorry; go on."

"I must love you well, La Chouette, for you can make me do just as you
please," said Tortillard, advancing slowly. The trembling, sickly
light of the candle, only made darkness visible in this gloomy
passage, reflecting the black shadow of the hideous boy on the green
and crumbling walls streaming with humidity.

At the end of the passage, through the obscurity, could be perceived
the low, broken arch of the entrance to the cellar, its heavy door
secured with bands of iron, and contrasting strongly in the shade with
the plaid shawl and white bonnet of La Chouette.

With their united efforts, the door opened, creaking, on its rusty
hinges. A puff of humid vapor escaped from this hole, which was as
dark as night.

The candle, placed on the ground, cast a ray of light on the first
steps of the stone staircase, while the lower part was lost in total
obscurity.

A cry, or rather a savage howl, came up from the depths of the cellar.

"Oh, there is my darling, who says 'good-day' to his mamma," said La
Chouette, ironically; and she descended a few steps to conceal her
prize in some corner.

"I am hungry!" cried the Schoolmaster, in a voice trembling with rage;
"do you mean I am to die here like a mad beast?"

"You are hungry, poor puss!" said La Chouette, shouting with laughter.
"Well, suck your thumb!"

The noise of a chain shaken violently was heard; then a sigh of
restrained rage.

"Take care! take care! you will hurt your leg, poor dear papa!" said
Tortillard.

"The child is right; keep quiet, old pal," said the old woman; "the
chain and rings are strong, old No-eyes; they come from old Micou, who
only sells first rate articles. It is your own fault; for why did you
allow yourself to be tied when you were asleep? Afterward there was
nothing to be done, but to slip on the chain, and bring you down here,
in this nice cool place, to preserve you, my sweet!"

"It's a shame--he'll grow mouldy," said Tortillard.

The chains were heard rattling anew.

"Oh, oh! he jumps like a ladybird, tied by the paw," cried the old
woman. "I think I can see him."

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home! your house is on fire, and the
Schoolmaster is burning!" chanted Tortillard.

This variation augmented the hilarity of La Chouette. Having placed
her basket in a hole under one of the steps, she said, "Look here, my
man."

"He does not see," answered Tortillard.

"The boy is right. Ah, well! Do you hear? You should not have hindered
me, when we returned from the farm, from washing Pegriotte's face with
vitriol. You should not have played the good dog, simpleton. And then,
to talk of your conscience, which was becoming prudish. I saw that
your cake was all dough; that some day or other you might peach,
Mister Eyeless, and then--"

"Old No-eyes will nip you, Screech-Owl, for he is hungry," cried
Tortillard, suddenly, pushing, with all his strength, the old woman by
the back.

La Chouette fell forward, uttering a dreadful imprecation, and rolled
to the foot of the steps.

"Lick 'em, Towser! La Chouette is yours! Jump on her, old man," added
Tortillard.

Then, seizing hold of the basket, which he had seen the old woman
hide, he ran up the stairs precipitately, crying with savage joy,
"There is a push worth double what I gave you a while ago, La
Chouette! This time you can't bite me. Oh! you thought I didn't care;
thank you, I bleed still."

"I have her, oh, I have her!" cried the Schoolmaster from the depths
of the cellar.

"If you have her, old man, fair play," said the boy, chuckling, as he
stopped on the top step of the staircase.

"Help!" cried La Chouette, in a strangled voice.

"Thank you, Tortillard," answered the Schoolmaster; "thank you," and he
uttered an aspiration of fearful joy.

"Oh! I pardon you the harm you have done me, and to reward you, you
shall hear La Chouette sing! Listen to the bird of death--'

"Bravo, bravo! here am I in the dress circle, private box," said
Tortillard, seating himself at the top of the stairs. He raised the
light to endeavor to see what was going on in the cellar, but the
darkness was too great; so faint a light could not dissipate it.
Bras-Rouge's hopeful could distinguish nothing. The struggle between
the Schoolmaster and La Chouette was silent and furious, without a
word, without a cry. Only, from time to time, could be heard a hard
breathing or suffocating respiration, which always accompanies violent
and continued struggles.

Tortillard, seated on the stone step, began to stamp his feet in the
manner peculiar to spectators anxious for the commencement of a play;
then he uttered the familiar cry of the "gods" in the penny-gaffs.
"Hoist that rag! trot 'em out! Begin, begin! Music, music!"

"Oh, I have you as I wish," murmured the Schoolmaster from the bottom
of the cellar, "and you shall--"

A desperate movement of La Chouette interrupted him. She struggled
with that energy which is caused by the fear of death.

"Speak up, we can't hear," cried Tortillard.

"You have a fine chance in my hand. I have you as I wish to have you,"
continued the Schoolmaster. Then, having doubtless succeeded in
holding La Chouette, he added, "That's it. Now listen--"

"Tortillard, call your father!" cried La Chouette, in a breathless,
exhausted tone. "Help, help!"

"Turn out that old woman! turn her out! We can't hear," said the
little cripple, screaming with laughter. "Silence! out with her!"

The cries of La Chouette could not reach the upper apartments. The
wretch, seeing she had no aid to expect from the son of Bras-Rouge,
tried a last effort.

"Tortillard, go for help; and I will give you my basket, it is full of
jewels. It is there under a stone."

"How generous you are! Thank you, ma'am! Don't you know that I have
your swag? Hold, don't you hear it jingle?" said Tortillard shaking
it. "But give me two sous to buy some hot cake and I'll go seek papa."

"Have pity on me, and I--" La Chouette could not proceed. Again there
was a pause.

The little cripple recommenced the stamping of his feet, and cried,
"Why don't you begin? Up with the curtain! Go ahead, will you, now?
Music, music!"

"La Chouette, you can no longer deafen me with your cries," said the
Schoolmaster, after some minutes, during which he had succeeded in
gagging the old woman. "You know well," resumed he, in a slow and
hollow tone, "that I do not wish to finish you at once. Torture for
torture. You have made me suffer enough. I must talk to you a long
time before I kill you--yes, a long time. It will be frightful for
you! What agony!"

"Come, none of your nonsense, old man," cried Tortillard, half rising.
"Correct her; but do not hurt her. You speak of killing her; it's only
a joke, is it not! I like my Chouette. I have lent her to you, but you
must return her to me. Don't damage her. I will not have any one harm
my Chouette, or I will go and call papa."

"Be not alarmed; she shall only have what she deserves--a profitable
lesson," said the robber, to reassure Tortillard, fearing that the
cripple would go for help.

"Very good! bravo! Now the play begins," said the boy, who did not
believe that the Schoolmaster seriously meditated to destroy La
Chouette.

"Let us talk a little," resumed the Schoolmaster, in a calm voice, to
the old woman. "In the first place, since a dream I had at the farm of
Bouqueval, which brought before my eyes all our crimes, which almost
made me mad, which will make me mad--for in the solitude and profound
state of isolation in which I live, all my thoughts, in spite of
myself, tend toward this dream--a strange change has taken place
within me. Yes, I have thought with horror of my past wickedness. In
the first place, I did not allow you to disfigure the Goualeuse. That
was nothing. By chaining me here in this cave, by making me suffer
cold and hunger, but by delivering me from your provocation, you have
left me alone to all the horrors of my thoughts. Oh! you do not know
what it is to be alone, always alone, with a black veil over the eyes,
as the implacable man said who punished me." (This was Rudolph who had
had him blinded.) "It is fearful! See now! In this cellar I wished to
kill him, but this cellar is the place of my punishment. It will be
perhaps my grave!

"I repeat to you, this is frightful. All that man predicted is
realized. He told me: 'You have abused your strength: you shall be the
plaything of the weakest.' This has been. He told me: 'Henceforth,
separated from the exterior world, face to face with the eternal
remembrance of your crimes, one day you will repent them.' That day
has arrived; solitude has confirmed it. I could not have thought it
possible. Another proof that I am, perhaps, less wicked than formerly,
is, that I experience an indescribable joy in holding you there,
monster, not to avenge myself, but to avenge our victims. Yes, I shall
have accomplished a duty, when, with my own hand, I shall have
punished my accomplice. A voice tells me, that if you had fallen
sooner into my power, much blood might have been spared. I feel now a
horror of my past murders, and yet, strange! it is without fear, it is
with security that I intend to execute on you a frightful murder, with
horrible refinement of cruelty. Speak, speak! can you realize this?"

"Bravo, bravo! well played, first old man. You warm up," cried
Tortillard, applauding. "This is only a joke, though?"

"Only a joke?" answered the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice. "Be
still, La Chouette; I must finish explaining to you how, little by
little, I came to repent. This revelation will be odious to you, heart
of iron, and it will also prove to you how merciless I ought to be in
the vengeance I wish to exercise on you in the name of our victims. I
must hurry on. The joy of having you thus makes my blood run wild, my
head throb with violence, as when I think of my dream. My mind
wanders; perhaps one of my attacks is coming on; but I shall have time
to render the approaches of death more frightful, in forcing you to
hear me."

"Bold, La Chouette!" cried Tortillard; "be bold with your answer.
Don't you know your part? Come, tell the devil to prompt you, my old
dear."

"Oh! you do well to struggle and bite," said the Schoolmaster, after a
pause; "you shall not escape; you have cut my ringers to the bone, but
I will tear your tongue out if you stir. Let us continue to converse.

"On finding myself alone--constantly alone in obscurity and silence--I
began to have fits of furious rage; powerless, for the first time I
lost my senses, my head wandered. Yes, although awake, I have dreamed
the dream you know: the dream of the old man in the Rue de Roule--the
woman drowned--the drover--all murdered! and you, soaring above all
these phantoms! I tell you, it is frightful. I am blind; yet my
thoughts assume a form, a body, and represent continually to me in a
visible manner, almost palpable, the features of my victims.

"I should not have this fearful dream, but that my mind, continually
absorbed by the recollection of my past crimes, is troubled with the
same visions.

"Doubtless, when one is deprived of sight, besetting ideas trace
themselves almost materially on the brain. Yet, sometimes, by force of
contemplating them with resigned alarm, it seems to me that these
menacing specters have pity on me; they grow dim, fade away, and
disappear. Then I think I awake from a vivid dream; but I feel myself
weak, exhausted, broken, and will you believe it--oh! how you will
laugh, La Chouette--I weep--do you hear? I weep. You do not laugh? But
laugh! I say, laugh!" La Chouette uttered a stifled groan.

"Louder," cried Tortillard; "we can't hear."

"Yes," continued the Schoolmaster, "I wept, for I suffered, and rage
is fruitless. I say to myself, to-morrow, and to-morrow, forever I
shall be a prey to the same delirium, the same mournful desolation.
What a life! oh, what a life! Better I had chosen death, than to be
interred alive in this abyss, which incessantly racks my thoughts!
Blind, solitary, and a prisoner! what can distract my thoughts?
Nothing--nothing.

"When the phantoms cease for a moment to pass and repass on the black
veil which I have before my eyes, there are other tortures--there are
overwhelming comparisons. I say to myself, 'if I had remained an
honest man, at this moment I should be free, tranquil, happy, loved,
and honored by mine own, instead of being blind and chained in this
dungeon, at the mercy of my accomplices.'

"Alas! the regret of happiness, lost by crime, is the first step
toward repentance. And when to this repentance is added an expiation
of frightful severity--an expiation which changes life into a long
sleep filled with avenging hallucinations of desperate reflections,
perhaps then the pardon of man will follow remorse and expiation."

"Take care, old man!" cried Tortillard; "you are cutting into the
parson's part! Found out, found out!"

The Schoolmaster paid no attention. "Does it astonish you to hear me
talk thus, La Chouette? If I had continued to harden myself, either by
other bloody misdeeds, or by the savage drunkenness of a galley-slave's
life, this salutary change in me had never taken place, I know
well. But alone--blind--and tortured with a visible remorse, what
could I think of? New crimes--how commit them? An escape--how escape?
And if I escaped, where should I go--what should I do with my liberty?
No; I must henceforth live in eternal night, between the anguish of
repentance, and the alarm of horrifying apparitions by which I am
pursued. Yet sometimes a feeble ray of hope shines in the midst of the
gloom--a moment of calm succeeds to my torments: yes, for sometimes I
succeed in conjuring the specters which besiege me, by opposing to
them the recollections of a past life, honest and peaceful--by
carrying back my thoughts to the days of my childhood.

"Happily, you see the blackest villains have had, at least, some years
of peace and innocence to offer in opposition to their long years of
crime and blood. We are not born wicked.

"The most perverse have had the amiable simplicity of childhood--have
known the sweet joys of that charming age. So, I repeat, sometimes I
feel a bitter consolation in saying, 'Though I am at this moment the
object of universal execration, there was a time when I was beloved
and cherished, because I was inoffensive and good.'

"Alas! I must take refuge in the past, when I can; there alone can I
find any repose."

On pronouncing these last words, the voice of the Schoolmaster had
lost its roughness; the formidable man seemed profoundly affected; he
went on: "Now, you see, the salutary influence of these thoughts is
such that my rage is appeased; courage, strength, the will, all fail
me to punish you; no, it is not for me to shed your blood."

"Bravo, old one! Now you see, La Chouette, that it was only a joke,"
cried Tortillard, applauding.

"No, it is not for me to shed your blood," resumed the Schoolmaster;
"it would be a murder--excusable, perhaps, but still a murder; and I
have enough with three specters! And then, who knows, you, even you!
will repent some day."

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