The cobbler of Nîmes

The shadows had deepened; night already lay in the little woodland; the distant hills were purple against the pale horizon. The rising wind turned the wheel on the old mill; the rusty vanes moved feebly, as though a cripple waved long arms in the twilight. The stream rippled, and here and there a star was reflected in its bosom, and the leaves rustled continuously now. The scene was suddenly desolate, perhaps because the lovers had deserted it, and the darkness came rolling along like a cloud, rising from every hollow, lurking in every grove of figs or of olives, wrapping every object in an elusive gloom. And away in the distance the night wind sighed drearily, as it gathered strength. No spot could have been more quiet or more lonely.

A man came out of the mill carrying his bundle, and stood awhile on the edge of the stream,—a small man with a hump on his back and a face that showed white even at nightfall. He remained only a short time motionless, then he shouldered his bag of tools and followed the bank of the stream until he came at last to a bridge, and crossing this made his way to the highroad leading toward Nîmes. He walked slowly and painfully, as though he carried a far greater burden than it appeared, and he held his head down. The soul of the little cobbler of St. Antoine was in torment, what matter if his body walked the earth with other men? Pent up in the heart of the hunchback were the passion and longing and anguish of a lifetime.

“Mon Dieu!” he cried out in his bitterness, “why didst thou give me the heart of a man and the body of a toad?”

He had had black hours before when he was well-nigh ready to curse God and die, but never a worse moment than this. The devil was contending for the soul of le Bossu, and the darkness fell, and it seemed as if that road might lead to hell. And what was he, after all? he thought; a peasant, a shoemaker, a hunchback! But, oh, mon Dieu! the long, long years of desolation, the anguish, the hunger for one word of love, of kindness, of sympathy. What evil spirit had led him to lie down in that old windmill? had let him sleep there until her voice awoke him, and out of purgatory he had looked into paradise? Like Dives, he had cried out for a drop of water to slake his thirst, and yet he still lay in the fires of Satan.

Early that day he had set out for St. Césaire, and he had done his work in the village, and before sunset he went up the stream to the old mill and rested, thinking of mademoiselle in the château, thankful that she was sheltered and safe. Sleep had come to the weary cobbler, and when he awoke Rosaline and her lover were talking at the door of the mill. He had heard all, lying there almost in a stupor and he had remained quiet. It was too late to warn them of a listener, and was it not best that she should be ignorant of it? He had heard all; their love for each other, their talk of their religion, their hopes and their fears. He was no longer in doubt of the nature of the dangers that surrounded them, and he possessed a secret that it was a crime to conceal; that the State and the Church had ordered every good Catholic to reveal; and if he revealed it, the lovers would be separated forever, and he would have no cause to think of their happiness with such a pang of miserable jealousy. The poor hunchbacked cobbler held their lives in his hand, their joy, and their desolation.

All these thoughts and many more crowded in upon le Bossu as he toiled along the road, and it seemed to him that Satan walked beside him. When a bodily infirmity as great as his is laid upon a man, there come hours of supreme temptation, when human nature revolts and the starved heart cries out in agony and will not be satisfied. Must one man suffer so, and yet rejoice to see others happy? A soul is strong indeed that rises out of such misery clean.

The little cobbler struggled on, and presently the lights of Nîmes shone in his face and he entered the gate and passed along the Rue St. Antoine to his shop. Babet had been there three times that day to find him, and had gone back at last to St. Cyr without news, and found M. d’Aguesseau there, talking with old madame. Unconscious that he had disappointed such a visitor, Charlot unlocked his door and entered, feeling his way until he could light a candle. There had been another visitor at his door too, though he knew it not, an old woman with a red handkerchief around her head, and with a wide, red mouth. But the cobbler was ignorant of all these things and went about as usual. He had tasted nothing since midday, but he had no appetite and he went up the ladder to his room and lighted a taper before the shrine there. After that he threw himself on the bed, dressed as he was, and all night he wrestled with a temptation that beset him, with a new-born hatred of the man whom he had befriended in the market-place. If he had left M. d’Aguesseau in that tent with the body of the damned person, how different the end might have been! Ah, the desolate soul and the desolate hearth, the misery and the poverty! Dame de Dieu! some men possessed the earth and the fulness thereof, and others starved!

Morning found Charlot stirring the fire in the kitchen; the commonplace world possessed him again; he was no longer an individual, only one of many, the little cobbler of Nîmes. He made his coffee and he ate his black bread, and then he went to his bench and worked patiently, finishing a pair of high military riding-boots. They were of fine leather, and he fastened burnished buckles on the high insteps. They were elaborate, and he had put some fine labor upon them, and he looked at them now with a recognition of their perfections; no one made better shoes than the hunchback.

It was twelve o’clock when he rose and put the boots into his green bag, and gathering up his measure and some tools, set out once more. The streets were full and the cobbler made his way slowly through the throng. One or two spoke to him, others noticed him less than the mule that stood waiting for a reverend father outside the Garden of the Récollets. Le Bossu took little heed of it all; his face was drawn and haggard, and the hump seemed larger than ever. He walked on until he passed in front of the inn of the Golden Cup and came to a house a few yards beyond it. Here he knocked and was admitted by a man-servant who wore the uniform of a dragoon. The house had a long, narrow hall, and at the end of this was a flight of stairs, and up these le Bossu was conducted to the second story. Here the soldier opened a door to the right, and the cobbler entered a large room, lighted by three windows, where M. de Baudri sat eating his breakfast. Charlot made his salutation, and putting his bag in the corner, patiently waited the pleasure of his patron. De Baudri noticed him as little as he would have noticed a rat or a mouse, and finished his meal before he even glanced in his direction. Finally, however, he pushed back his chair and called the shoemaker.

“Viens donc, Petit Bossu,” he said, “are the boots finished?”

Charlot took them out of his bag without a word, and displayed them.

“Sacristi! if I had four legs I should come to you for boots,” M. de Baudri remarked, inspecting them. “Diable! those buckles are too small.”

“The latest from Paris, monsieur,” le Bossu replied; “his Majesty has a pair of the same size and design.”

M. de Baudri’s face relaxed, and he thrust out one foot.

“Try them, Bossu,” he said; “and see that they are good,” he added with a smile, “for I expect to wear them at my wedding.”

A strange expression crossed the drawn face of the hunchback, as he knelt to put on the boot.

“Monsieur expects to be married soon?” he asked quietly.

“Dame de Dieu, I do not know!” de Baudri exclaimed with a laugh; “my little white bird likes to use her wings, but—I mean to clip them.”

Le Bossu smoothed the leather on the officer’s ankle, and arranged the buckle, his head bent low over his work.

“Monsieur plans for an early marriage, then?” he ventured again.

M. de Baudri stared at him.

“Au diable!” he said harshly; “what is it to you, worm?”

The cobbler made no reply; he was accustomed to such language from his patrons. He had put both boots on M. de Baudri’s feet, and he sat back now on his own heels, looking at his work.

“Is monsieur satisfied?” he asked meekly.

The officer stood up, looking down at his feet.

“Very good,” he said at last, “they will do; but make your bill small, you little beggar, or you will see that I know how to use them!” and he laughed coarsely as he sat down and waited for Charlot to remove the boots and put on his others, which the hunchback began to do.

“Curse you, you dog!” he exclaimed, with a vicious kick at the shoemaker; “you hurt me in pulling that off!”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur,” le Bossu replied, with white lips, having dexterously dodged the kick.

He knew to his cost that there were some perils attendant upon trying on shoes. He had put back one of M. de Baudri’s high-heeled slippers and was taking off the other boot—with some caution—when the door was opened by a servant, who came to announce a visitor.

“A miserable old woman, monsieur,” the man said hesitatingly, “but she will not be denied.”

“Dame, send her to the devil—or to the Intendant!” retorted M. de Baudri, with a grin at his own joke.

The servant still stood at the door, with a perplexed face. His master cast a frowning glance in his direction.

“What is it, idiot?” he demanded.

“She has some information about these heretics, monsieur,” the fellow answered, stammering; “she wants money.”

“Âme de St. Denis!” exclaimed monsieur, with a sneer, “does she take me for a paymaster?”

The servant summoned his courage.

“She told me to say to you two words, monsieur,” he said, “and they were ‘St. Cyr.’”

“Diable!” M. de Baudri cried fiercely. “Show her up here, you blockhead!”

The man closed the door hastily, and they heard his hurried steps retreating down the hall. M. de Baudri fell to cursing, and Charlot suddenly found that the buckle was hanging by a thread on the other shoe,—the mate to the one on his patron’s foot. The shoemaker got out his thread and his needle, and began to sew the rosette in place, and it was very slow work indeed.

Presently the door opened again, and Charlot looked up quickly and saw Mère Tigrane.—Mère Tigrane, with her blood-red handkerchief about her head, and her blood-red mouth with its yellow fangs. She curtsied low to the officer and grinned as she did when she intended to be most amiable, but all this had no effect upon de Baudri; he cursed her roundly and ordered her to tell her tale and be gone. The old hag took it in good part, leering at him out of her evil eyes.

“I have a little news for monsieur,” she said pleasantly, “a little information about his friends, and ’tis worth a little money; monsieur knows that.”

“Diable, you old witch, out with it!” he said, tossing her some coins.

La Louve grovelled on the floor after them as they rolled away, her talon fingers clutching each piece greedily. One fell near the cobbler, and he thrust it toward her with the end of his awl, a look of disgust on his face. M. de Baudri laughed loudly.

“Dame!” he exclaimed; “there are degrees even among vermin!”

Mère Tigrane gave le Bossu an evil, triumphant look, and then began to count her money.

“’Tis not enough,” she said bluntly, turning on the officer with a sinister smile; “’tis worth more, my beauty.”

Her insolent tone offended him and he stared at her.

“Diantre!” he said, “I will have you thrown from the roof if you do not tell all you know, you thievish hag!”

Mère Tigrane hesitated, looking at the coins in her hand, but she had a motive more powerful than greed this time. She changed her tone, however.

“I’m a poor woman, Excellency,” she whined; “’tis worth more.”

He threw her a broad piece, with a curse.

“Go on!” he shouted, fiercely; “or I’ll break your neck.”

She put the money into her wallet and then licked her lips; there was a good taste in her mouth.

“Monsieur knows the family at St. Cyr,” she said, one evil eye seeming to fix itself on Charlot; “the old woman and her granddaughter are there, and a steward.”

M. de Baudri was interested now; he frowned darkly upon her.

“Does monsieur know who the steward is?” she demanded, her head on one side. “No, I thought not! ’Tis M. d’Aguesseau,—the heretic from Dauphiné,—whose father was broken on the wheel at Montpellier to the edification of all good people; and his sister was in the Tour de Constance. Her body was shown here at a fair. Dame! but her flesh was white.”

M. de Baudri threw her another coin.

“Your information is good,” he said, leaning back in his chair with a smile.

She curtsied and thrust the money in her wallet.

“That is not all, monsieur,” she said amiably; “the young mademoiselle at the château—she went with this heretic to a prayer-meeting out there by the old quarry and sang psalms there. Mère Tigrane knows! And old Madame de St. Cyr, she too is a heretic. Dame! the château would make a good burning, monsieur.”

M. de Baudri turned a black face on her.

“Look you, hag,” he said, “there is more money. You are well paid, but if a word of this goes to any one else, nom de Ciel! I will hang you. Now—au diable!”

Mère Tigrane took the money eagerly, vowing that she would be discreet, and got out of the room just in time to escape a boot that M. de Baudri picked up to throw at her.

He was in a storm of passion; he summoned his servants and ordered one to bring his horse and the other to get his riding-suit, and then he went to his room to dress, cursing heaven and earth in his haste to be off to St. Cyr.

The hunchbacked cobbler had been forgotten, and when M. de Baudri went out he quietly gathered up his bag and left the house. His face was white, but he had never walked so fast as he did then. He did not go to the shop; he went straight along the Rue St. Antoine and out at the gate, and the road to St Césaire stretched before him, as endless and as steep—to his vision—as the road to heaven.