"What would you have me to do with your gold?" said Cecily, interrupting the notary, and shrugging her shoulders. "To reside in this chamber—what good would the gold do me? You have small invention!"
"But it is not my fault if you are a prisoner. Does this room displease you? Will you have it more magnificent? speak, command."
"For what purpose; once more, for what purpose? Oh! if I expected here an adored being, I would have gold, silk, flowers, perfumes, all the wonders of luxury; nothing could be too sumptuous, too enchanting."
"Well! these wonders of luxury; say a word, and——"
"For what purpose? What should I do with the frame without the picture? The adored being, where is he, oh! my master?"
"It is true!" cried the notary, bitterly. "I am old. I am ugly. I can only inspire disgust and aversion; she loads me with contempt; she scoffs at me, and I have not the strength to drive her away. I have only strength to suffer."
"Oh! the insupportable cry-baby; oh! the silly, with his complaints," cried Cecily, in a sardonic and contemptuous tone; he does nothing but groan and lament, and has been for ten days shut up alone with a young woman, in a deserted house."
"But this woman despises me—is armed—is locked!" cried the notary in a rage.
"Well! overcome the disdain of this woman; cause the dagger to fall from her hand; constrain her to open this door, which separates you from her; and that not by brutal force, which would fail."
"And how then?"
"By the force of your passion."
"Passion! and how can I inspire it?"
"Stop, you are but a notary bound up with a sexton; you make me pity you. Am I to teach you your part? You are ugly; be terrible, your ugliness will be forgotten. You are old; be energetic, your age will be overlooked. You are repulsive; be threatening. Since you cannot be the noble horse, who neighs proudly in the midst of his wives, be not, at least, the stupid camel, who bends the knee and crooks the back; be a tiger. An old tiger, who roars in the midst of carnage, has also its beauty; his tigress answers him from the depths of the desert."
At this language, which was not without a sort of bold natural eloquence, Jacques Ferrard shuddered, at the savage and almost ferocious expression of the face of Cecily, who, with heaving bosom, expanded nostril, haughty mouth, fixed on him her large black and burning eyes.
Never had she appeared so lovely.
"Speak, speak again!" cried he, passionately; "you speak seriously this time. Oh! if I could——"
"One can do what one wishes," said Cecily, abruptly.
"But——"
"But I tell you that if you wish, repulsive as you are——"
"Yes, I will do it! Try me, try me!" cried Jacques Ferrand, more and more excited.
Cecily continued, approaching nearer, and fixing on the notary a penetrating look, "For a woman loving a handsome youth would know," resumed the Creole, "that she would have an exorbitant caprice to satisfy; that the boys would look at their money if they had any, or, if they had none, to a mean trick, while the old tiger——"
"Would regard nothing, do you understand? nothing. Fortune, honor, he would know how to sacrifice all he would!"
"True," said Cecily, placing her charming fingers on the bony and hairy hands of Jacques Ferrand, who, for the first time, touched the soft and velvety skin of the Creole. He became still paler, and uttered a hoarse sigh.
"How this woman would be beloved," added Cecily, "had she an enemy, whom, pointing out to her old tiger, she would say strike, and—"
"And he would strike," cried Jacques Ferrand, endeavoring to approach the ends of her fingers to his withered lips.
"True, the old tiger would strike," said the Creole, placing her hand softly on his.
"If you would love me," cried the wretch, "I believe I would commit a crime."
"Hold, master," said Cecily, suddenly withdrawing her hand; "in your turn go away, go away, I know you no more; you do not appear to me so ugly now as before; go away."
She retired quickly from the wicket. The detestable creature knew how to give to her gestures and to her last words an accent of truth so incredible—her look, at once surprised and annoyed, seemed to express so naturally her spite at having for a moment forgotten the ugliness of Jacques Ferrand—that he, transported with frenzied hope, cried, clinging to the bars of the wicket, "Cecily, return, command, I will be your tiger!"
"No, no, master," said Cecily, retreating still further from the wicket; "and to lay the devil who tempts me—I am going to sing a song of my country. Master, do you hear? without, the wind redoubles, the tempest is unchained; what a fine night for two lovers, seated side by side near a sparkling fire!"
"Cecily, return!" cried Jacques Ferrand, in a supplicating tone.
"No, no, presently, when I can without danger; but the light from this lamp hurts my eyes, a soft languor weighs down my eyelids. I do not know what emotion agitates me; a demi-obscurity will please me more; one would say I am in the twilight of pleasure."
And Cecily went toward the chimney, put out the lamp, took a guitar suspended on the wall, and stirred the fire, whose blaze illuminated this large room.
From the narrow wicket where he remained immovable, such was the picture which Jacques Ferrand perceived. In the midst of the luminous horizon formed by the undulating light of the fire, Cecily, in a position full of languor, half reclining on a divan of pink satin, held a guitar, from whence she drew some harmonious preludes.
The blazing hearth shed its rosy light on the Creole, who appeared brilliantly illumined in the midst of the obscurity of the rest of the apartment.
To complete the effect of this picture, let the reader recall to his mind the mysterious and almost fantastic appearance of a room where the firelight struggles with the long, dark shadows which tremble on the ceiling and walls.
The storm redoubled its violence, its roaring could be heard from within.
While preluding on her guitar, Cecily fixed her magnetic glances on Jacques
Ferrand, who, fascinated, could not withdraw.
"Now, master," said the Creole, "listen to a song of my country; we do not know how to make verses; we muse a simple recitative, without rhyme, and at each pause we improvise a couplet appropriate to the subject; it is very pastoral; it will please you, I am sure, master. This song is called the 'Loving Girl!' it is she who speaks."
And Cecily commenced a kind of recitative, much more accented by the expression of the voice than by the modulations of the song. A few soft and trembling chords served as an accompaniment. This was the song:
"Flowers, everywhere flowers,
My lover comes! The hope of happiness enervates and destroys.
Soften the light of day—pleasure seeks a lucid darkness.
To the fresh perfume of flowers my love prefers my warm breath,
The glare of day shall not wound his eyes, for I will keep them closed
by my kisses.
My angel, come! My heart beats; my blood burns!
Come, come, come!"
These words, chanted with as much ardor as if she had addressed an invisible lover, were, thus to speak, translated by the Creole into a theme of enchanting melody; her charming fingers drew from her guitar sounds full of delicious harmony.
The animated face of Cecily, her veiled and moistened eyes constantly fixed on those of Jacques Ferrand, expressed all the languor of the song. Words of love; intoxicating music; inflamed looks; silence; night! all conspired at this moment to disturb the reason of the notary. He cried, bewildered:
"Mercy! Cecily! mercy I I shall go wild. Hush! I die. Oh! that I were mad!"
"Listen, then, to the second couplet," said the Creole, preluding anew.
And she continued her passionate recitative:
"If my lover were there, and with his hand touched my soft neck, I should
shudder and die.
If he were there, and his hair touched my cheek, my cheek so pale would
become red.
My cheek so pale would be as fire.
Life of my soul, if you were there, my parched lips could not speak.
Life of my life, if you were there—expiring—I would ask no mercy.
Those whom I love as I love you, I kill.
My angel, come. Oh! come! My heart beats: my blood burns I
Come, come, come!"
If the Creole had accented the first stanza with a voluptuous languor, she poured into these last words all the transports of Eros of old. As if the music had been powerless to express her wild delirium, she threw the guitar aside, and half rising from the couch and extending her arms toward the door, she repeated, in an expiring, languishing voice,
"Oh! come, come, come!"
To paint the electric look with which she accompanied these words would he impossible.
Jacques Ferrand uttered a terrible cry.
"O! death—death to him you love so much, to whom you have addressed these words!" cried he, shaking the door in a transport of jealousy.
Active as a tigress, with one bound Cecily was at the wicket, and, as if she had with difficulty dispelled her feigned transports, she said to Jacques Ferrand, in a low, palpitating voice: "Well! I avow I did not wish to return to the door. I am here in spite of myself; for I fear your words spoken just now. If you say strike—I will strike. You love me well, then?"
"Do you wish gold—all my gold?"
"No; I have enough."
"Have you an enemy? I'll kill him."
"I have no enemy."
"Will you be my wife? I will espouse you."
"I am married."
"But what do you wish, then! what do you wish?"
"Prove to me that your passion for me is blind, furious, that you will sacrifice everything for me!"
"All! yes, all! But how?"
"I do not know; but there was a moment when the glance of your eye bewildered me. If now you give me some proof of your love, I do not know of what I should be capable! Hasten! I am capricious; to-morrow the impression of this hour will perhaps be effaced."
"But what proof can I give you on the moment?" cried the wretch. "It is an atrocious torment! What proof? speak! What proof?"
"You are only a fool!" answered Cecily, retreating from the wicket with an appearance of extreme irritation. "I am mistaken! I thought you capable of energetic devotion! Good-night. It is a pity—"
"Cecily! oh! do not go—return. But what must I do? tell me, at least. Oh! my senses wander. What must I do? what do?"
"Guess!"
"But, in fine—speak! what do you wish?" cried the notary, quite beside himself.
"Guess."
"Explain—command."
"Ah! if you love me as passionately as you say, you will find the means.
Good-night."
"Cecily!"
"I am going to shut this wicket—instead of opening the door—"
"Mercy! listen—remain—I have found it," cried Jacques Ferrand, after a moment's pause, with an expression of joy impossible to describe. The wretch was seized with a vertigo. He lost all prudence, all reserve; the instinct of moral preservation abandoned him.
"Well! this proof of your love?" said the Creole: who, having approached the chimney, took hold of her knife, and returned slowly toward the wicket.
Then, without being seen by the notary, she assured herself of the action of a small chain, one end of which was fastened to the door, the other to the door-post.
"Listen," said Jacques Ferrand, in a hoarse and broken voice; "listen. If I place my honor, my fortune, my life, at your mercy—here—on the spot—will you then believe I love you? This proof of an insane passion, will it suffice?"
"Your honor, your fortune, your life? I do not comprehend."
"If I confide to you a secret which would place me on the scaffold?"
"You a criminal? You jest. And your austerity?"
"A lie."
"Your probity?"
"A lie."
"Your piety?"
"A lie."
"You pass for a saint, and you would be a demon! You are a boaster! No; there is no man quite cunning enough, bold enough, thus to insinuate himself into the confidence and respect of men. It would be a frightful defiance cast in the face of society."
"I am this man! I have thrown this taunt, this defiance, in the teeth of society!" cried the monster, in an access of frightful pride.
"Jacques! Jacques! do not speak thus," said Cecily. "You will make me mad!"
"My head for your love—do you wish it?"
"Oh! this is love, indeed!" cried Cecily. "Here—take my poniard; you disarm me."
Jacques Ferrand took, through the wicket the dangerous weapon with precaution, and threw it from him into the corridor.
"Verily—you believe me, then?" cried he, in transport.
"I believe you?" said the Creole, leaning with force her charming hands on those of Jacques Ferrand. "Yes, I believe you; for I see again your look of just now—that look which fascinated me. Your eyes sparkle with savage ardor; Jacques, I love your eyes!"
"Cecily!"
"You should speak the truth."
"I speak the truth! Oh! you shall see."
"Your countenance is lowering. Your expression formidable. Hold, you are as fearful and beautiful as a mad tiger. But you speak the truth, do you not?"
"I have committed crimes, I tell you."
"So much the better, if by their avowal you prove your love."
"And if I tell you all?"
"I grant all; for if you have this blind confidence in me—do you see, Jacques—it will no longer be the ideal lover of the song I call. It is to you, my tiger, you, that I shall say come—come—come."
"Oh, you will be mine. I shall be your tiger," cried he; "and then, if you will, you shall dishonor me—my head shall fall. My honor, my life, all is yours now,"
"Your honor?"
"My honor! Listen; ten years since an infant was confided to my care, and two hundred thousand francs for its support; I have abandoned this child. I spread the report the child was dead, and I kept the money."
"It was bold and skillful—who would have thought it of you?"
"Listen again: I hated my cashier, François Germain. One night he took from me a little gold, which he returned the next day; but to ruin him, I accused him of having robbed me of a considerable sum. I was believed, he was thrown into prison. Now my honor is at your mercy."
"Oh, you love me, Jacques, you love me. To inform me thus of your secrets—what empire I must have over you! I will not be ungrateful; let me kiss this forehead, where so many infernal thoughts were created."
"Oh!" cried the notary, stammering, "if the scaffold stood there, ready, I would not draw back. Listen again: this child, Fleur-de-Marie, once abandoned, crosses my path—she inspires me with fears; I have had her killed!"
"You? How? where?"
"A few days since—near Asnières Bridge, by Ravageurs' Island. One named Martial drowned her in a boat. Are these details sufficient? do you believe me?"
"Oh! demon from hell: you alarm, yet attract me. You inspire me. What is, then, your power?"
"Listen again: before that a man had confided to me a hundred thousand crowns. I set a trap for him. I blew his brains out. I proved that he committed suicide, and I denied the deposit which his sister the Baroness de Fermont reclaimed. Now my life is at your mercy—open."
"Jacques, I adore you!" said the Creole, with warmth.
"Oh! come a thousand deaths, and I'd dare them!" cried the notary, in an intoxication impossible to describe. "Yes, you are right; were I young and charming, I should not experience this triumphant joy. The key! throw me the key! draw the bolt!"
The Creole took the key from the lock, and handed it to the notary through the wicket, saying, "Jacques, I am mad!"
"You are mine, at length!" cried he, with a savage roar, turning the key in the lock. But the door, fastened with a bolt, did not open.
"Come, my tiger! come," said Cecily, in an expiring voice.
"The bolt! the bolt!" cried Jacques Ferrand.
"But, if you deceive me," cried the Creole, suddenly, "if these secrets are an invention, to cajole me—-"
The notary remained for a moment, struck with stupor; he thought he had succeeded: this last difficulty raised his impatient fury to its climax.
He thrust his hand quickly in his bosom, opened his waistcoat, broke with violence a small chain of steel, to which was suspended a small, thin pocket-book, took it, and showing it through the wicket to Cecily, he said, in an oppressed and breathless tone,
"Here is what would cause my head to fall! draw the bolt—the book is yours."
"Give it to me, my tiger," cried Cecily.
And hastily drawing the bolt with one hand, with the other she seized the book.
But Jacques Ferrand did not abandon it until the moment he felt the door yielding to his efforts.
But though the door yielded, it was only for about six inches, confined, as it was, by the chain above mentioned. At this unforeseen obstacle, Jacques Ferrand threw himself against the door, and shook it with a desperate effort. Cecily, with the rapidity of thought, put the wallet between her teeth, opened the window, threw a cloak into the court, and with great dexterity making use of a cord previously fastened to the balcony, she let herself down into the court, as rapidly and lightly as an arrow falls to the ground.
Then, wrapping herself up in haste in the mantle, she ran to the porter's lodge, opened it, drew the bolt, went out into the street, and jumped into a carriage, which, since her residence at Jacques Ferrand's, was sent every night by order of Baron de Graun, stationed not twenty steps from the notary's mansion.
This carriage was quickly driven off, drawn by two stout horses. It reached the boulevard before Jacques Ferrand had perceived the flight of Cecily. Let us return to this monster.
Through the opening of the door it was impossible for him to see the window by which the Creole escaped. With one mighty effort with his broad shoulders, he burst the chain which confined the door, and rushed into the chamber, and found no one.
The cord waved in the wind, as he leaned from the balcony. Then, from the other side of the court, by the light of the moon, which burst forth at intervals from the driving clouds, he saw the gate open.
In a moment he divined everything. A last ray of hope remained.
Vigorous and determined, he sprang over the balcony, using the cord in his turn, lowered himself into the court, and rushed out of the house. The street was deserted—he was alone.
He heard no other noise than the distant rolling of the carriage which was rapidly carrying off the Creole. The notary thought it was some belated vehicle, and attached no importance to this circumstance.
Thus, for him no chance remained of finding Cecily, who carried off with her the proofs of his crimes!!!
On this frightful certainty, he fell, thunderstruck, on his own threshold.
He remained there a long time, dumb, immovable, petrified. With wan eyes, his teeth compressed, his mouth foaming, tearing mechanically with his nails his breast, he felt his reason totter, and was lost in an abyss of darkness. When he awoke from his stupor, he walked heavily, and with an ill-assured step; objects trembled in his sight; he felt as if recovering from a fit of intoxication.
He shut with violence the street door, and re-entered the court. The rain had ceased, but the wind continued to blow with violence, chasing the heavy laden clouds, which veiled, without concealing, the light of the moon.
Slightly calmed by the brisk and cold air of the night, Ferrand, hoping to combat his internal agitation by the rapidity of his walk, plunged into the obscure walks of his garden, marching with rapid strides, and from time to time striking his forehead with his clinched fists.
Walking thus at hazard, he reached the end of a walk near a greenhouse in ruins. Suddenly he stumbled violently over a mound of earth newly raised. He stooped, and looked mechanically on some linen stained with blood.
He was near the grave where Louise Morel buried her dead child. Her child—also the child of Jacques Ferrand! Notwithstanding his obduracy, notwithstanding the frightful fears which agitated him, Jacques Ferrand shuddered with alarm.
There was something supernatural in this stumbling-block. Pursued by the avenging punishment of his vice, chance carried him to the grave of his child—unhappy fruit of his violence. Under any other circumstances, Jacques Ferrand would have trampled on this sepulcher with atrocious indifference; but having exhausted his savage energy in the scene we have related, he was seized with a weakness and sudden alarm. His face was covered with an icy sweat, his trembling knees shook under him, and he fell lifeless across this open grave.
CHAPTER III.
LA FORCE.
The interior of a prison is a frightful pandemonium—a sad thermometer of the state of society, and an instructive study.
In a word, the varied physiognomies of all classes of prisoners, the relations of family or affection which connects them still to the world, from which the prison walls separate them, have appeared to us worthy of regard.
The reader will, then, excuse us for having grouped around several of the prisoners personages to be known in this tale, and other secondary figures, destined to place in active relief certain critical events necessary to complete this initiation into prison life. Let us enter La Force.
There is nothing gloomy, nothing sinister in the aspect of this house of detention.
In the middle of one of the first courts are to be seen some mounds of earth, planted with shrubbery, at the foot of which are already shooting forth some precocious cowslips and snowdrops; a trellised doorway leads to one of the seven or eight exercise-grounds destined for the prisoners.
The vast buildings surrounding this court resemble much a barrack or manufactory, kept with extreme neatness. They are built of limestone, with lofty windows, in order to allow a free circulation of air. The steps and pavement of the yard are of scrupulous cleanliness. On the ground-floor, vast halls, heated during winter, and well aired during summer, serve during the day as a place for conversation, workshops, or refectories. The upper stories are used as immense sleeping apartments, ten or twelve feet in height, with shining floors; they are furnished with two rows of iron bedsteads, excellent beds, composed of a soft thick mattress, a bolster, sheets of white linen, and a warm woolen covering.
At the sight of these accommodations, uniting all the requisites of comfort and salubrity, a stranger is much surprised, accustomed as he is to suppose all prisons as sorrowful, dirty, unhealthy, and gloomy. He is mistaken.
Sad, dirty, and gloomy are the holes where so many poor and honest workmen languish exhausted, forced to abandon their beds to their infirm wives, and to leave with powerless despair their half-starving, naked children, struggling with the cold, in the infectious straw.
There is some contrast between the physiognomies of the inhabitants of these two dwellings. Incessantly occupied with the wants of his family, to whom the day is hardly long enough, seeing a mad perversity reducing his salary, the artisan will be cast down and worn out; the hour of repose will not be sound to him; a kind of sleep like lassitude alone interrupts his daily toil. Then, on awaking from this mournful drowsiness, he will find himself overwhelmed with the same racking thoughts of the present, with the same inquietudes for the morrow.
But if, hardened by vice, indifferent to the past, happy with the present, certain of the future (he can assure himself of it by an offense or crime), regretting his liberty without doubt, but finding large compensation in the personal well-being he enjoys, certain to carry away with him on his release a good sum of money, gained by moderate and easy labor, esteemed, or, may be, feared by his companions, either for his impudence or perversity, the convict, on the contrary, will be almost always careless and gay. Once more; what does he want?
Does he not find in prison good shelter, good bed, good food, good pay, easy labor, and above all and before all, a society to his taste, a society, let us repeat, which measures his merit by the magnitude of his offenses?
A hardened criminal, then, knows neither poverty, hunger, nor cold. What matters to him the horror he inspires in honest men? He does not see them—he knows none.
His crimes are his glory, influence, and strength with the bandits among whom he will henceforth pass his life. How can he fear shame?
Instead of grave and charitable remonstrances, which might force him to blush and to repent, he hears savage plaudits, which encourage him to robbery and murder, Scarcely imprisoned, he meditates new misdeeds. What is more logical?
If he is discovered, arrested anew, he will find repose, the personal care of the prison, and his joyous and bold companions in crime and debauchery.
Is his corruption less great than that of the others? does he manifest, on the contrary, the slightest remorse that he is exposed to atrocious railings, infernal shouts, terrible threats?
In fine—a thing so rare that it has become an exception to the rule—should a condemned man come out of this frightful pandemonium with a firm resolution to reform by prodigies of labor, courage, patience, and honesty, and be able to conceal his past offenses, a meeting with one of his old prison companions would be sufficient to overturn his plan of reformation so carefully designed. In this way:
A hardened ticket-of-leave proposes a job to a repentant one; the latter, in spite of dangerous threats, refuses the criminal association; immediately an anonymous communication strips the veil from the past life of this unfortunate, who wishes, at any sacrifice, to conceal and expiate a first fault by honorable conduct.
Then, exposed to the contempt, or, at least, the suspicion of those whose interest he had obtained by force of industry and probity, reduced to distress, soured by injustice, carried away by want, yielding, in fine, to these fatal derelictions, this man, almost restored, falls back again, and forever, to the bottom of the abyss from whence he had with so much difficulty escaped.
In the following scenes we shall endeavor, then, to show the monstrous and inevitable consequences of promiscuous confinement.
After ages of barbarous proofs and pernicious doubts, it begins to be understood how unreasonable it is to plunge into an atmosphere abominably vitiated, people whom a pure and salubrious air might have saved.
How much time shall be required to find out that, to associate gangrened beings is to redouble the intensity of their corruption, which thus becomes incurable?
How long to find out that there is but one remedy to this growing leprosy, which threatens the body social, Solitary confinement?
We should esteem ourselves happy if our feeble voice could be, if not counted, at least heard, among all those which, more imposing, more eloquent than ours, demand, with so just and so impatient an importunity, the complete, absolute adoption of the solitary system.
Some day, also, perhaps, society will know that evil is an accidental, not organic malady; that criminals are almost always good in substance, but false and wicked through ignorance, selfishness, or negligence of those governing; and that the health of the soul, like that of the body, is invincibly subordinate to the laws of a "hygiene" at once salubrious and preservative.
God gives to all, along with healthy organs, energetic appetites, and the desire of comfort; it is for society to modify and satisfy these wants.
The man who only has as his share strength, good-will, and health, has the right, sovereign right to a labor justly remunerated, which will assure him, not the superfluities, but the necessaries of life, the means to be healthy and robust, active and industrious, therefore honest and virtuous, because his condition will be happy.
The dismal regions of misery and ignorance are peopled with beings of sorrowful hearts. Cleanse these sewers, spread there the inclination to labor, equitable salaries, just rewards, and soon these sickly faces, these broken hearts, will be brought back to virtue, which is the life and health of the soul.
We will conduct the reader to the visitors' room of the prison. It is an obscure apartment, separated down its whole length into two equal parts by a narrow, railed passage. One part communicates with the interior, destined for the prisoners.
The other communicates with the office, destined for strangers admitted to visit the prisoners.
These interviews and conversations take place through the double grating of iron, in presence of a warder, who remains inside, at the extremity of the passage. The appearance of the prisoners assembled in the visiting room on this day offered numerous contrasts: some were covered with wretched vestments; some seemed to belong to the working class; others, again, to the well-to-do class.
The same contrast of condition was observable among the persons who came to see the prisoners; they were almost all of them women. Generally the prisoners appear less sad than the visitors; for, strange as it may appear, it is proved by experience, there are few sorrows and little shame which resist three or four days of imprisonment passed in company.
Those who are most alarmed at this hideous communion are soon habituated; the contagion reaches them; surrounded by degraded beings, hearing only infamous words, a kind of ferocious emulation drags them on, and either to impose upon their companions by rivaling their obduracy or to stupefy themselves by this moral intoxication, almost always the newly-arrived show as much depravity and insolent gayety as the old hands. Let us return to the visitors' room.
Notwithstanding the humming noise of a great number of conversations carried on in a low tone, from one side of the passage to the other, prisoners and visitors succeeded, after some practice, in being able to converse among themselves—on the absolute condition not to allow themselves, for a moment, to be distracted or occupied with the conversation of their neighbors, which created a kind of secret in the midst of all this noisy exchange of words, each one being forced to hear, but not to listen, to a word of that which was spoken around him.
Among the prisoners summoned to the visitors' room, and the furthest from the place where the guardian was seated, was one whom we still particularize.
To the sad state of dejection he was in on his arrest had succeeded impudent assurance. Already the contagious and detestable influence of imprisonment in common bore its fruits. Without doubt, if he had been immediately transferred to a solitary cell, this wretch, still under the blow of his first detection, the thought of his crimes constantly before him, alarmed at the punishment which awaited him, might have experienced, if not repentance, at least a salutary alarm, from which nothing might have distracted him. And who knows what effect may be produced on a criminal by an incessant, forced meditation on the crimes which he had committed, and their punishment? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a ruffianly crowd in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice, or, rather, treachery, which they dearly expiate, for, in their savage obduracy and in senseless distrust, they look upon as a spy every man (if there should be such a one) who, sad and mournful, regretting his fault, does not partake of their audacious thoughtlessness, and shudders at their contact.
Thrown among the bandits, this man, knowing, for a long time and by tradition, the manners and ways of prisons, overcame his weakness, and wished to appear worthy of a name already celebrated in the annals of robbery and murder.
For it had been to him, Nicholas Martial, that Ferrand had applied when the idea struck him to be rid of his housekeeper and Fleur-de-Marie at a blow.
His family were what are called ravageurs, that is dredgers, living on what they could pick up out of the mud of the Seine. At least they were openly these, but, secretly, they were river pirates, "lumpers," "light horsemen," housebreakers, and bravoes. The father had perished on the scaffold. His widow, forty-five years old, was confirmed in crime, stern, hard, coldly cruel, and bent on training all her children up into the life which would most revenge on society the slaying of her husband. One son, Ambrose, had been sold by Bras-Rouge (Red-Arm), a tavern keeper and fence, and now languished in the Rochefort hulks. The eldest son, known as Martial, being head of the family, was a poacher, a fisherman at unlawful seasons, but not irreclaimably bad. The youngest children, François and Amandine, were not yet spoiled by evil surroundings.
To this family, who added to their evil income by keeping a thieves' resort in their house on Ravageur's Island, La Chouette had applied for the murdering of Fleur-de-Marie. Nicholas and his sister, known as Calabash (from her yellow complexion) had succeeded in drowning Ferrand's housekeeper only. But, believing they had fulfilled the twofold bargain, they had gone off rejoicing with their mother, to meet La Chouette, report their success, and join in a fresh atrocity. This new crime, the robbery and murder of a diamond-dealer in Red-Arm's public-house, was frustrated by the landlord's secret connection with the police. They had made their descent just as the jewel-broker was in the villains' hands, and arrested the whole gang. Bras-Rouge (taken to prevent his fellows suspecting his treachery), Nicholas Martial, and a scamp named Barbillon, were put in La Force, widow Martial and Calabash in Saint Lazare. Another capture, a ruffian called the Maitre d'École (Schoolmaster), from his caligraphic abilities, who had killed La Chouette in a fit of madness, was put in the Conciergerie Prison, in a cell for the insane.
To return to Nicholas Martial in La Force. Some veteran gallows-birds had known his executed father, others, his brother, the galley-slave; he was received and immediately patronized by these revelers in crime with savage interest.
This paternal reception from murderer to murderer exhilarated the widow's son, these praises bestowed on the hereditary perversity of his family intoxicated him. Soon forgetting, in this hideous thoughtlessness, the future which menaced him, he only remembered his past misdeeds but to exaggerate them and glorify himself in the eyes of his companions. The expression, then, of his face, was as impudent as his visitor's was uneasy and concerned. This individual was one Micou, a receiver, dwelling in the Passage de la Brasserie, to whose house Madame de Fermont and her daughter, victims of the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand, had been obliged to retire. Micou knew to what punishment he was subject, for having several times acquired, at a miserable price, the fruits of Nicholas's robberies, and of several others.
He being arrested, the receiver found himself almost at the discretion of the bandit, who could point him out as his habitual fence. Although this accusation might not be sustained by flagrant proofs, it was not the less very dangerous for Micou: so he had immediately executed the orders which Nicholas had sent him by a prisoner whose time had expired.
"Well! how do you get on, Daddy Micou?" said the thief.
"To serve you, sir," answered the receiver, eagerly. "As soon as I saw the person you sent me, right away I—"
"Stop! why do you speak so loftily, Micou?" said Nicholas, interrupting him, with a sardonic air. "Do you not despise me because I am in quod?"
"No, I despise no one," said the receiver, who did not care to make public his past familiarity with this wretch.
"Well, then, speak as usual, or I shall believe you have no friendship for me, and that would break my heart."
"As you like," said Micou, sighing. "I have busied myself with all your little commissions."
"Well spoken, Micou. I knew well that you would not forget friends. The weed?"
"I have left two pounds at the office, my lad."
"Is it good?"
"None better."
"And the ham?"
"Also left there, with a quartern loaf. I have added a little surprise you did not expect—half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and a fine Dutch cheese."
"That's what I call acting like a pal! And wine?"
"There are six bottles, sealed; but, you know, they will only give you one bottle a day."
"What would you have? One ought to be content with that."
"I hope you are satisfied with me, my friend?"
"Certainly; and shall be still, and shall be again, Daddy Micou, for this ham, cheese, eggs, and wine will only last the time to swallow them; but, when there is no more, there will come some more, thanks to Daddy Micou, who will give me some more sugar-plums, if I am a good boy."
"How? you wish—"
"In two or three days you would renew my little provision, Micou."
"May the devil burn me if I do. It is all very well for once."
"Good for once! Come, come; ham and wine are good always, you know that well enough."
"It is possible; but I am not obliged to feed you with dainties."
"Oh, Micou! it is wrong, it is unjust, to refuse ham to me, who have so often brought you fat tripe (sheet-lead)."
"Hush!" said the alarmed receiver.
"No; I'll make the beak decide; I will tell him. Imagine that, Daddy
Micou—"
"Good, good!" cried the receiver, seeing, with as much fear as anger,
Nicholas was disposed to abuse the position which their dealings gave him;
"I consent—I will replenish your stock of provisions when they are
exhausted."
"It is just—nothing but just. Neither must you forget to send some coffee to my mother and Calabash, who are at Saint Lazare; they used to take their cup every morning—they will feel the want of it."
"Still more? But do you mean to ruin me, lad?"
"As you please, old Micou; let us speak no more about it. I will ask the big-wig if—"
"Agreed, then, for the coffee," said the receiver, interrupting him. "But may the devil take you! cursed be the day I knew you!"
"My old man, as for me, it is just the contrary. At this moment, I am delighted to know you. I venerate you as my foster-father."
"I hope that you have nothing more to order?" answered Micou, with bitterness.
"Yes! tell my mother and sister that, though I trembled when I was arrested, I tremble no more, and that I am now as bold as both of them."
"I will tell them. Is that all?"
"Stop! I forgot to ask for two pair of warm woolen stockings—you do not wish me to take cold, do you?"
"I wish you were froze!"
"Thank you, Micou, that shall be later; at present, I prefer something else. I wish to pass life calmly—at least, if they do not make me a head shorter, like father, I shall have enjoyed life."
"Your life is very pleasant!"
"It is superb! Since I have been here, I have amused myself like a king. If there had been lamps and guns, there would have been an illumination and a salvo in my honor, when it was known that I was the son of the famous Martial!"
"It is touching. Beautiful relationship!"
"Hold! there are many dukes and marquises; why, then, should not we of the oldest family have our nobility?" said the thief with savage irony.
"Yes, Jack Ketch gives you your letters of nobility in Palace Square!"
"Very sure that it is not the parson! So much the more reason in prison one should be of high Toby nobility, otherwise you are looked upon as a nobody. You ought to see how they treat those mere fogle-hunters, and who do their—Hold! there is one here named Germain, a young man who plays the disgusted, and seems to despise us. Let him take care of his skin. He is a sneak; he is suspected of being a spy. If this is so, they will slit his nose, by way of warning!"
"Germain! A young man called Germain?"
"Yes. Do you know him? He is, then, in the family line, notwithstanding his innocent looks?"
"I do not know him. But if it is the Germain of whom I have heard speak, his lookout is good."
"How?"
"He once escaped a snare which Velu and the Big Cripple laid for him."
"Why did they do it?"
"I don't know. They said that down among the yokels he had sold one of their band."
"I was sure of it. Germain is a spy. Well! I will tell this to my friends; that will give them an appetite. Does the Big Cripple still play tricks on your lodgers?"
"I am rid of the villain! you will see him here to-day or to-morrow."
"Bravo! we shall have a laugh! He's another who never looks glum!"
"Because he is going to meet Germain here, is why I said his account was good—if he is the same—"
"And why has the Cripple been nabbed?"
"For a robbery committed with a lagger (released convict) who wished to remain honest and labor. Oh, yes! the Big Cripple nicely fixed him; he is so wicked! I am sure it was he who forced the trunk of two women who occupy my fourth floor."
"What women? Oh! the two, the youngest of whom was so handsome, old brigand."
"Oh, yes; but it is all over with her; for, at this present moment, the mother must be dead, and the daughter not far from it. I shall be in for two weeks' lodgings; but may the devil burn me if I give a rag to bury them! I have had losses enough, without counting the presents which you beg me to give you and your family. This will nicely derange my business. I have luck this year."
"Bah, bah! you are always complaining, old Micou; you are as rich as Croesus. When you come to bring me some more provisions, you can give me news of my mother and Calabash!"
"Yes, it must be so."
"Oh! I forget, while you are out, buy me also a new cap, of plaid velvet, with a tassel; mine is no longer fit to be worn."
"Decidedly—you are joking!"
"No, Micou. I want a cap of plaid velvet; it is my notion."
"But you are determined, then, to make me sleep on straw?"
"Come, Daddy Micou, don't get vexed; it is yes or no; I do not force you.
But enough."
The receiver, reflecting that he was at the mercy of Nicholas, arose, fearing to be assailed with new demands if he prolonged his visit.
"You shall have your cap," said he; "but take care, if you ask me for anything more, I shall give nothing; happen what may, you will lose as much as I."
"Be tranquil, Micou; I shall not blackmail you any more than is necessary, for this would be a pity; you pay much heavy postage as it is."
The receiver went out, shrugging his shoulders with rage, and the warder reconducted Nicholas into the prison. At the moment Micou left, Rigolette entered.
The warder, a man of forty years, an old soldier of energetic appearance, was dressed in a jacket, cap, and trousers of blue cloth; two silver stars were embroidered on the collar and skirts of his coat.
At sight of the grisette, his face brightened up, and assumed an expression of affectionate benevolence. He had always been struck with the grace, gentility, and touching goodness with which Rigolette consoled Germain when she came to converse with him. Germain, on his part, was no ordinary prisoner. His reserve, his mildness, his sadness, inspired interest in the prison officials; an interest they were careful not to show him, for fear of exposing him to the bad treatment of his vicious companions, who, as we have shown, regarded him with suspicious hatred.
It rained in torrents, but thanks to her overshoes and umbrella, Rigolette had courageously braved the wind and rain.
"What a horrible day, my poor girl!" said the guardian to her, kindly. "You must have had a good deal of courage to come out such a time as this, at least!"
"When one is thinking all along the way of the pleasure they are going to give a poor prisoner, one does not pay much attention to the weather, sir!"
"I have no need to ask you whom you come to see?"
"Surely not. And how is my poor Germain?"
"My dear, I have seen many prisoners; they were sad, one or two days, but by degrees they fell in with the rest, and the most sorrowful at first often became the most gay. Germain is not so; he appears to grow sadder every day."
"It is this that troubles me."
"When I am on service in the yards, I watch him out of the corner of my eye; he is always alone. I have already told you, you should advise him not to act thus, but to speak to his comrades, otherwise he will become their butt. The yards are watched, but—a blow is soon struck!"
"Oh, sir! is there still more danger for him?" cried Rigolette.
"Not precisely; but the knaves see he is not one of them, and they hate him because he appears honest and proud."
"Yet I have advised him to do what you have told me, sir; to endeavor to converse with the least wicked; but it is too much for him; he cannot overcome his repugnance."
"He is wrong—wrong; a quarrel is soon got up."
"Can he not be separated from the others?"
"Since I have noticed two or three days ago their evil intentions toward him, I have advised him to take a room by himself."
"Well?"
"I did not think of one thing. A whole range of cells are comprised in the repairs now going on in the prison, and the others are occupied."
"But these bad men are capable of killing him!" cried Rigolette, with her eyes filled with tears. "If by chance he had some persons interested in his fate, what could they do for him, sir?"
"Nothing more than to obtain what the prisoners can obtain themselves by paying money—a separate cell."
"Alas! then he is lost, if they hate him in the prison."
"Don't disturb yourself; he shall be watched closely. But I repeat, my dear, counsel him to be a little familiar with them; only the first step costs!"
"I will recommend him to do this with all my strength, sir; but for a good and honest heart it is hard to be familiar with such people."
"Of two evils, choose the least. I go to ask for Germain. But, stop," said the warder, reflecting; "there are only two visitors left; as soon as they are gone—no more will come to-day, for it is now two o'clock—I will send for Germain; you can talk more at ease. I can, even, when you are alone, let him enter into the passage, so that you will be separated by one grating instead of two; so much less."
"Oh, sir! how kind you are; how much I thank you!"
"Hush! let not any one hear you; it will cause jealousy. Seat yourself up there, at the end of the bench, and as soon as this man and woman are gone, I will send for Germain."
The warder returned to his post inside the passage. Rigolette went and seated herself sadly at the extremity of the visitor's bench.
Thus we have a fine chance to draw the grisette's portrait.
Rigolette was hardly eighteen, of a middling size, perhaps rather small, but so gracefully shaped, so finely modeled, so voluptuously developed, that her size responded well to her bearing, fearless and yet modest; one inch more in height would have caused her to lose much of her grace; the movement of her small feet, always irreproachably confined in gaiter-boots of black cloth, with rather thick soles, recalled to mind the coquettish, light and discreet run of a quail. She did not appear to walk, she merely touched the pavement; she slid rapidly on its surface. This walk, peculiar to grisettes, ought to be attributed, without doubt, to three causes: To their desire to be thought handsome; to their fear of an admiration expressed in pantomime too expressive; to the desire that they always have to lose as little time as possible in their peregrinations.
Rigolette's two broad thick bands of shining hair, black as jet, fell very low on her forehead; her fine eyebrows seemed traced with ink, and overshadowed large black eyes, sparkling and wicked; her full, plump cheeks were like velvet of the freshest carnation, fresh to the sight, fresh to the touch, like a rosy peach impregnated with the cold dew of the morning.
Her little turned-up nose, saucy and cunning, would have made the fortune of a stage chambermaid; her mouth, somewhat large, with lips of rose well moistened, and little, white, pearly teeth, was smiling and provoking; of three charming dimples, which gave enticing grace to her face, two buried themselves in her cheeks, the other in her chin, not far from a beauty spot, a little black patch most killingly placed near the corner of her mouth.
Up to the day of Germain's arrest, Rigolette had had no sorrows but those of others; she sympathized with all her flowers—devoted herself, body and soul, to those who suffered—but thought no more about it when her back was turned. Often she ceased from laughing to weep sincerely, and then she ceased from weeping to laugh again. A true child of Paris—she preferred noise to solitude, movement to repose the resounding harmony of the orchestra at the Chartreuse or Coliseum balls, to the soft murmur of the winds, the waters, and the foliage—the deafening noise of the streets of Paris to the solitude of the country—the glare of fireworks, the glitter of a ball, the noise of rockets, to the serenity of a fine night, with stars and darkness and silence. Alas! yes; the good girl frankly preferred the black mud of the streets of the capital to the verdure of the flowery meadows—its dirty or scorching pavements to fresh and velvet moss of wood-paths perfumed with violets—the suffocating dust of the barriers or the boulevards to the waving of golden corn, enameled with the scarlet flowers of the wild poppy and the azure of the bluebells. Rigolette only left her room on Sundays—and each morning, to lay in her provision of chickweed, bread, milk, and hempseed, for herself and her two birds, but she lived in Paris for Paris' sake. She would have been in despair to have lived elsewhere than in the capital.
Another anomaly: notwithstanding this taste for Parisian pleasures; notwithstanding the liberty, or, rather, the state of abandonment in which she found herself, being alone in the world; notwithstanding the rigid economy which she was obliged to use in her smallest expenses in order to live on thirty sous a day; notwithstanding the most mischievous and adorable little face in the world, never had Rigolette been a man's prey.
Early in life, she had lost her parents by the cholera, and, at ten years of age, strangers had taken care of her, until she left them to find her own living. At this period she had made Fleur-de-Marie's passing acquaintance, and later, as she dwelt in Rudolph's lodging-house—that of the prince whom she only thought to be a workman—she had been in the habit of going out on Sundays and other holidays with young men of her house, but they had given up the companionship when they found how virtuous she was, without knowing it. Germain, also her neighbor in the house, had, however, fallen desperately in love with Rigolette, without daring to breathe one word respecting it. Far from imitating his predecessors, who resorted to other sources of solace, without losing their regard for her, Germain had delightfully enjoyed his intimacy with the girl, and the pleasure afforded by her society on Sundays and every other evening that he was disengaged. During these long hours, Rigolette was always gay and merry, and Germain affectionate, serious, and attentive, and often slightly melancholy. This sadness was his only disadvantage, for his manners, being naturally refined, did not suffer by comparison with the ridiculous pretensions of M. Girandeau, a traveling clerk, or with the boisterous eccentricities of Cabrion, an artist, though Girandeau, by his excessive loquacity, and the painter, by his no less excessive hilarity, had the advantage of Germain, whose gentlemanly gravity rather awed his lively neighbor.
Rigolette had never evinced any partiality for either of her three lovers; but, with excellent judgment, she soon discovered that Germain combined all the qualities which would render any reasonable woman happy.
When the latter was imprisoned, her feeling manifested itself as love.
CHAPTER IV.
PIQUE-VINAIGRE.
The prisoner who was placed alongside of Barbillon in the visitor's room, was a man about forty years of age, and of slender make, and with a cunning, intelligent, jovial, and jeering face; he had an enormous mouth, almost entirely without teeth; when he spoke he twisted it from side to side, according to the pretty general custom of those who address the populace of market places; his nose was flat, his head immensely large, and almost entirely bald; he wore an old gray waistcoat, trousers of an indescribable color, pieced in a thousand different places; his naked feet, red from the cold, half wrapped up in old linen, were thrust into wooden shoes.
This man, named Fortune Gobert, nick-named Pique-Vinaigre (Sharp Vinegar, to prevent mistakes), formerly a juggler, and a prisoner for the crime of passing counterfeit money, was accused of breaking the terms of his ticket-of-leave, and of burglary.
Confined but for a few days at La Force, already Pique-Vinaigre filled, to the general satisfaction of his prison companions, the post of story-teller. At the present day these are rare, but formerly each ward generally had, at the expense of a light, individual contribution, its tale-teller, who, by his improvisations, made the interminable winter evenings appear less long, the prisoners retiring to rest at nightfall.
Pique-Vinaigre excelled in that kind of heroic recital where weakness, after a thousand crosses, finishes by triumphing over its persecutors. Pique-Vinaigre possessed, besides, an immense fund of irony, which had given him his nickname. He had just entered the room.
Opposite him, on the other side of the railing, was a woman of about thirty-five, with a pale, sweet, and interesting face, poorly but neatly clad; she wept bitterly, and kept her handkerchief to her eyes. Pique-Vinaigre looked at her with a mixture of impatience and affection.
"Come now, Jeanne," said he, "do not be a child; it is sixteen years since we have met; if you keep your handkerchief over your eyes, we won't know each other."
"My brother, my poor Fortune—I suffocate—I cannot speak."
"Ain't you droll! what ever is the matter with you?"
This sister—for this woman was his sister—restrained her sobs, dried her eyes, and regarding him with stupor, answered, "What is the matter? I find you again in prison, who had already been in fifteen years!"
"It is true; to-day six months I came out of Melun prison, without going to see you at Paris, because the capital was forbidden to me."
"Already retaken! What have you then done? Why did you leave Beaugency, where you were sent, with orders to report yourself now and then?"
"Why? You ought to ask me why I went there?"
"You are right."
"In the first place, my poor Jeanne, since these gratings are between us both, imagine that I have embraced you, folded you in my arms, as one ought to do when he sees a sister after an age. Now, let us chat. A prisoner of Melun, called the Big Cripple, told me that there was at Beaugency an old galley-slave of his acquaintance, who employed liberated convicts in a manufactory of white-lead. Do you know what that is?"
"No, brother."
"It is a very fine trade; those who are employed in it, at the end of a month or two, have the painter's colic; of three attacked, about one dies. To be just, the two others die also, but at their ease; they take their time; take good care of themselves, and they may last a year, eighteen months at the most. After all, the trade is not so badly paid as some others, and there are some folks born already dressed, who hold out two or three years; but these are the old folks, the centenaries of the white-leaders. They die, it is true, but that's not fatiguing."
"And why did you choose a trade so dangerous, my poor Fortune?"
"And what would you have me do? When I entered Melun for this affair of false money, I was a juggler. As in the prison there was no work-shop for my trade, and as I was no stronger than a fly, they put me at making toys for children. It was a manufacturer of Paris who found it advantageous to have made by the prisoners his harlequins, his trumpets of wood, and his swords of ditto. Thus, I tell you, haven't I sharpened, and cut, and carved for fifteen years, these toys! I am sure that I supplied the pets of an entire quarter of Paris—it was, above all, on the trumpet I excelled; and rattles too! With these two instruments one could have put on edge the teeth of a whole battalion! I pride myself, on it. My time out, behold me with the degree of penny-trumpet manufacturer. They allowed me to choose for my residence three or four places, at forty leagues from Paris; I had for sole resource my knowledge of trumpet-making. Now, admitting that, from old men to babies, all the inhabitants of the town should have had a passion to play toot-too on my trumpets. I should have had, even then, trouble enough to pay my expenses; but I could not seduce a whole village into blowing trumpets from morning to night. They would have taken me for a conspirator!"
"You always laugh."
"That is better than to cry. Finally, seeing that at forty leagues from Paris my trade as a juggler would be of no more resource to me than my trumpets, I demanded an exchange to Beaugency, wishing to engage myself in the white-lead factory. It is a pastry which gives you an indigestion of misery; but, until one dies from it, one has a living; it is always something gained, and I like that trade as well as that of a robber; to steal I am not brave or strong enough, and it was by pure chance I have committed the act of which I shall speak directly."
"You would have been brave and strong if you had only had the idea not to steal any more."
"Ah! you believe that, do you?"
"Yes, at the bottom you are not wicked; for, in this dangerous affair of false money, you had been dragged into it in spite of yourself, almost forced—you know it well."
"Yes, my girl—but, do you see, fifteen years in a prison, that spoils a man like my old pipe which you see, whenever it comes in the jail white as a new pipe; on coming out of Melun, then, I felt myself too cowardly to steal."
"And you had the courage to follow a deadly calling. Hold, Fortune! I tell you that you wish to make yourself worse than you are."
"Stop a moment, then; all greenhorn that I was, I had an idea, may the devil burn me if I know why! that I would not care for the colic, that the malady would find too little in me to feed on, and that it would go elsewhere; in fine, that I would become one of the old white-leaders. On leaving the prison I began by squandering my savings, augmented, understand, by what I had gained by relating stories at night in our ward."
"As you used to tell us in old times, my brother? It used to amuse our mother so much, do you remember?"
"Pardieu! good woman! And she never suspected before she died that I was at
Melun?"
"Never: to her last moments she thought you had gone to the islands."
"What could I do, my girl? My escapades were the fault of my father, who brought me up to play the clown, to assist him in his juggling, to eat flax and spit fire; that was the cause that I had not the time to associate with the sons of peers of France, and that I made bad acquaintances. But, to return to Beaugency: once out of Melun, I spent my money as I had a right. After fifteen years in a cage one must have a little air, and amuse one's self so much the more, as, without being too greedy, the white lead might give me a last indigestion; then, what good would my pension money be to me? I ask you. Finally, I arrived at Beaugency almost without a sou: I asked for Velu, the friend of Big Cripple, the chief of the factory. Serviteur! no more manufactory of white-lead than you could put under your hand; eleven persons had died there in one year; the old galley-slave had shut up shop. Here I was in this village, with my talents for making wooden trumpets for my dinner, and my convict's passport for my sole recommendation. I asked for employment suited to my strength, and, as I had no strength, you can comprehend how I was received; robber here, gueux there, jail bird! in fine, as soon as I made my appearance anywhere, every one clapped their hands on their pockets; I could not, then, prevent myself from starving with hunger in a hole which I was not to leave for five years. Seeing this, I broke my 'parole' to come to Paris to use my talents. As I had not the means to come in a carriage and four, I came begging all along the road; avoiding the constables as a dog does a kick. I was lucky—I arrived without difficulty at Auteuil. I was worried, I was as hungry as the devil, I was dressed, as you see, without profuseness." And Pique-Vinaigre cast a merry glance at his rags. "I had not a sou; I could at any moment be arrested as a vagabond. Faith, an opportunity offered, the devil tempted me, and, in spite of my cowardice—"
"Enough, my brother, enough," said his sister, fearing that the warder, although at this moment some distance off, might hear the dangerous confession.
"You are afraid that some one will listen?" answered he: "be tranquil, I do not conceal it; I was taken in the act; there are no means to deny it; I have confessed all; I know what I have to expect; my account is good."
"Alas!" answered the poor woman, weeping, "with what ease you speak of this."
"If I were to speak of it with uneasiness, what should I gain? Come, be reasonable, Jeanne; must I console you?" Jeanne wiped away her tears, and sighed.
"But to return to my affair," said Pique-Vinaigre; "I arrived near Auteuil in the dusk of the evening. I could go no further; I did not wish to enter Paris but at night; I seated myself behind a hedge to repose and reflect upon my plans. From the intensity of my thoughts I fell asleep; a noise of voices awoke me; it was quite dark; I listened, it was a man and a woman talking on the road, on the other side of my hedge; the man said to the woman, 'Who do you think would rob us? have we not left the house alone a hundred times?' 'Yes,' answered the woman, 'but then we did not leave a hundred francs in our chest.' 'Who knows it, fool?' said the husband. 'You are right,' replied the woman, and they passed on. The chance appeared too favorable for me to lose—there was no danger.
"I waited until they had got a little distance to come out from behind my hedge; I looked around: at twenty steps off I saw a small cottage; that must be the house with the hundred francs; there was no other hovel on the road but this one; Auteuil was five hundred yards off. I said to myself, 'Courage, my old boy, there is no one there, it is night, if there is no dog (you know I always was afraid of dogs), the affair is done.' Luckily there was no dog. To be still more sure, I knocked against the door—nothing; that encouraged me. The shutters of the ground floor were closed: I passed my stick between the two, I forced them, I entered through the window into a chamber; there was some fire in the fireplace; this served as a light; I saw a chest from whence the key had been taken; I took the tongs, I forced the drawers, and under a heap of linen I found the treasure, wrapped up in an old woolen stocking; I did not amuse myself by taking anything else; I jumped out of the window and I fell—guess where? There's luck!"