The cobbler of Nîmes

The little hunchback, Charlot, sat patiently at his cobbler’s bench making a pair of shoes. The sun was not shining in his window; it shone on the house across the court, and there was only a reflected glare to brighten the shop at the sign of Two Shoes. His door was open, and from where he sat he could see the two children opposite, playing on the threshold of their home. They were not handsome children, and were clad in patched and faded garments, yet the shoemaker looked over at them often as he plied his needle. He heard the voice of their mother singing as she did her work; he saw the father come home for his dinner, the two little ones greeting him with noisy affection. A humble picture of family life, scarcely worth recording, yet every day le Bossu watched it with interest and a dull pain. His hearth was desolate, but not so desolate as his heart. Charlot cut a strip of fine kid and stitched it, but his eyes dwelt sadly on the house across the court. He went in and out his own door daily, but no one ever greeted him; no loving voice spoke kind words of sympathy when his trouble was upon him; no friendly hand performed the little every-day services for him. There was silence always,—silence and loneliness. The hunchback thought of it and of his life. He could remember no great blessings or joys in it. His parents were humble, and he was the one misshapen child in a large family. From his birth he had been unwelcome in the world. A neglected infant, he fell from the bed to the floor, and from that time began to grow crooked and sickly. His mother’s death robbed him of his only friend, and he struggled through painful years of neglect and suffering to manhood—but what a manhood! he said to himself; not even his own brethren cared for him. The brothers and sisters went out into the world, and Charlot would have been left in miserable poverty but for a kind cobbler who taught him his trade, and thus enabled the cripple to earn his own living.

That meagre story of pain and sorrow was Charlot’s history, and now he stitched away patiently on his shoes and made no complaint. No one thought of him as a man endowed with all a man’s feelings and passions. The little hunchbacked shoemaker of St. Antoine was not disliked by his neighbors; he was welcome to gather up the crumbs of joy that fell from the happier man’s table, to look on at feasts and weddings; he was even wanted at funerals—for he had a strangely touching way of showing his sympathy; but Dieu! he was a thing apart, le bossu, a little deformity. No one thought of the soul caged within that wretched shape, and looking out on all it desired of the fulness of life, hungering for a crumb of joy, and debarred forever and ever.

“Ah, mon Dieu!” Charlot said sometimes, “why didst thou give me the soul of a man, and a body that is only a mark for pity or scorn?”

A question that could be answered only when the long and painful journey should be over and the poor, misshapen body laid to rest. Who can say in what beautiful form such a spirit may be clad when the River of Death is crossed?

All these thoughts were in the shoemaker’s mind as he turned a little shoe in his hand. It was of white satin and he was making a rosette of pink ribbon, shaping it like a rose and fastening it on the toe. He fondled his work and held it off at arm’s length, admiring it. Another pair of shoes for Mademoiselle de St. Cyr, but this time they would come as a surprise. Next Thursday was Rosaline’s birthday, and the cobbler had been long fashioning these shoes as a present. He had never dared offer her a gift before, but now he owed them so many kindnesses, they had done so much to help him, that he felt he might offer this humble return on mademoiselle’s birthday. That pair of little white satin shoes stood for much joy in le Bossu’s dreary life; to plan them, to make them, to buy the ribbon for the rosettes, had furnished him with so many separate diversions. In the blankness of his existence there was one sacred spot, the château of St. Cyr; in his sad days, the figure of Rosaline stood before him like an angel. There was a great gulf between these two, the beautiful girl and the humble cobbler, and he knelt down on the farther side and worshipped her, as he would worship a saint in heaven. And she knew it not. To her, he was little Charlot, poor Charlot, and her voice softened when she spoke to him; her manner was more kind too than to others; she could afford to be goodness itself to the hunchbacked cobbler, and she never dreamed that she held his life in the hollow of her hand. Great was the gulf indeed, and she stood a long way off with the merciful sympathy of the angel that she seemed to him to be. He understood it all well enough and looked up to worship, happy to fashion a shoe that pleased her and to see the light in her blue eyes when she thanked him.

So it was that he sat stitching mademoiselle’s little shoe and looking across at the children on his neighbor’s step; they had finished their dinner now, and the father had gone back to his work. Le Bossu’s drawn face was pale to-day, and there was pathos in his brown eyes. He waxed his thread and drew it back and forth and once or twice he sighed. There was no sound in his house but the ticking of his clock, but over the way there were the voices of children, the goodwife’s song, the clatter of dishes. Charlot had finished one slipper and put it away, and was taking up the other when some one entered the court. His work would be done in good season, the cobbler thought with satisfaction, and he was cutting the pink ribbon when he looked up and saw Babet, the cook and housekeeper at St. Cyr. Le Bossu tucked the slipper out of sight and greeted his visitor. She entered with a quick, firm step, bearing herself like a grenadier, and dusted the stool with the end of her shawl before she sat down.

“Well, Charlot,” she said, opening a bundle that she had brought, “here are my boots, and the left one pinches me and the right is too large. I tell you, man, that you never make two shoes alike.”

The cobbler smiled. “Your feet are not alike; that is the trouble, Babet,” he retorted; “the left one is larger than the right.”

“Tush!” ejaculated the woman in disgust, “do you take me for a fool? I’ve set my right foot forward all my life, little man, and yet you say the left is larger.”

“You have worn the flesh off your right, thrusting it forward, Babet,” replied the cobbler; “’tis the way with some noses—they are ground off, being thrust into other people’s business.”

“Humph!” said Babet, “’tis not so with mine. Can you fix the shoe so I can wear it?”

The shoemaker knelt down and patiently tried on Babet’s boots, while she found fault first with one and then with the other. It was evident that she was in no very good humor. A different customer was this from mademoiselle, and Charlot’s thoughts were not set on pleasing her. His guest had left him to go to St. Cyr and had ostensibly become steward there; but the hunchback was not deceived. He had long suspected that the women of the château were of the new religion, and now he was secretly convinced of it, and in d’Aguesseau he saw a grave danger for them. Charlot was a sincere Romanist too, and his conscience was troubled, but his heart was full of sympathy for misery; he had himself been miserable all his life. In spite of Babet’s bickering, therefore, he found an opportunity to broach the subject nearest his heart.

“Does the new steward suit Madame de St. Cyr?” he asked, as he finally took off the offending boots and put back the old ones on Babet’s large feet.

“The new steward indeed!” said she, with a sniff; “a precious steward!—I have no use for fine gentlemen without money! What did you send him to us for?”

“I send him?” exclaimed the cobbler, in mild surprise. “Mademoiselle asked him to come to see her grandmother.”

Babet tossed her head. “’Twas all your fault,” she said emphatically. “I’ve nothing to say against M. d’Aguesseau himself, but what need have we for a steward? And what does he do at once, this fine gentleman?”

Charlot had seldom seen his friend so out of humor before, and he regarded her in amazement.

“What has he done?” he inquired.

“Fallen in love with Mademoiselle Rosaline,” retorted Babet, bluntly; “and what use is there in that? I tell you, Charlot, I am jealous for mademoiselle; I have no patience with these young fools—they all do it, from M. de Baudri down.”

The hunchback laid down the shoes, the pain in his patient eyes, and the lines deepening around his mouth.

“M. d’Aguesseau is a gentleman,” he said slowly. “I know who he is. Does—does mademoiselle—find him pleasing?”

This was too much for Babet; she drew a long breath and stared at the offender with eyes of scorn.

“Mademoiselle Rosaline!” she said; “Mademoiselle Rosaline pleased with him! Ciel! why, you fool, she must marry a duke or a prince. But what is the use of having a young gentleman hopelessly in love with her and willing to play at being steward to be near her?”

Charlot sighed; he was resting his chin on his hand and looking thoughtfully out into the court.

“I am sorry,” he said, “if it annoys mademoiselle.”

“Annoys her!” repeated the indignant woman. “If it did—but it doesn’t, bless her innocent heart; she does not even suspect it yet. But I see it plain enough. He’s a fine man too, and I might be sorry for him, but what business has he at St. Cyr?”

With this, Babet arose and adjusting her little white shawl on her broad shoulders, she smoothed the folds of her black petticoat, and giving Charlot some more arbitrary directions about her boots, stalked out. She crossed the court and trudged away toward the gate of Nîmes with a feeling of satisfaction. She had relieved her mind, and she believed that she had disarmed the hunchback’s suspicions. Babet knew that Charlot thought her a Huguenot, and she took many different ways of deceiving him. She thought now that she had given a reason for M. d’Aguesseau’s stay at St. Cyr. It was a truthful statement, but she had made it to excuse the presence there of a stranger. No one knew of her intentions; Babet always acted on her own impulses and she fancied herself a wise woman. Her jealousy for mademoiselle was so genuine that she did not have to feign her anger; no one was good enough for her darling.

She left the hunchback in a thoughtful mood. He did not immediately resume his work; he sat staring out at the door, but he saw nothing. A vision rose indeed before his mind of a tall, straight figure, a handsome, strong face, the voice and manners of a station far above his own in life. The little cobbler sighed painfully, his lips tightened, he felt as if some one had thrust a dagger in his heart.

He was still sitting there, staring into space, when a large figure darkened his doorway and a stout man wearing the habit of a priest entered his shop.