The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 4 of 6

"Well, what then?"

"They will come to the scaffold, like my father."

"What then? What then?"

"And does not their probable fate make you tremble?"

"That fate will be mine, neither better nor worse. I rob, they rob; I kill, they kill. Whoever takes the mother will take the young ones; we will not leave each other. If our heads fall, theirs will fall in the same basket, and we shall all take leave at once! We will not retreat! You are the only coward in the family, and we drive you from us!"

"But the children, – the children!"

"The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite formed already. François is almost ready, and, when you are gone, Amandine will make up for lost time."

"Mother, I entreat of you, consent to having the children sent away from here, and put in apprenticeship at a distance."

"I tell you that they are in apprenticeship here!"

The felon's widow uttered these last words so immovably that Martial lost all hope of mollifying this soul of bronze.

"Since it is so," he replied, "hear me in my turn, mother, – I remain!"

"Ha! ha!"

"Not in this house. I shall be assassinated by Nicholas, or poisoned by Calabash. But, as I have no means of lodging elsewhere, I and the children will occupy the hovel at the end of the island; the door of that is strong, and I will make it still more secure. Once there, I will barricade myself, and, with my gun, my stick, and my dog, I am afraid of no one. To-morrow morning I will take the children with me. During the day they will be with me, either in my boat or elsewhere; and, at night, they shall sleep near me in the hovel. We can live on the fish I catch until I find some means of placing them, and find it I will."

"Oh! That's it, is it?"

"Neither you, nor my brother, nor Calabash can prevent this, can you? If your robberies and murders are discovered during my abode on the island, so much the worse; but I'll chance it. I will declare that I came back and remained here in consequence of the children, to prevent them from becoming infamous. They will decide. The children shall not remain another day in this abode; and I defy you and your gang to drive me from this island!"

The widow knew Martial's resolution, and the children, who loved their eldest brother as much as they feared her, would certainly follow him unhesitatingly whenever and wherever he called them. As to himself, well armed and most determined, always on his guard, in his boat during the day, and secure and barricaded in the hovel on the island at night, he had nothing to fear from the malevolence of his family.

Martial's project, then, might be realised in every particular; but the widow had many reasons for preventing its execution. In the first place, as honest work-people sometimes consider the number of their children as wealth, in consequence of the services which they derive from them, the widow relied on Amandine and François to assist her in her atrocities. Then, what she had said of her desire to avenge her husband and son was true. Certain beings, nurtured, matured, hardened in crime, enter into open revolt, into war of extermination, against society, and believe that, lay fresh crimes, they shall avenge themselves for the just penalties which have been exacted from them and those belonging to them. Then, too, the sinister designs of Nicholas against Fleur-de-Marie, and afterwards against the jewel-matcher, might be thwarted by Martial's presence.

The widow had hoped to effect an immediate separation between herself and Martial, either by keeping up and aiding Nicholas's quarrel, or by disclosing to him that, if he obstinately persisted in remaining in the island, he ran the risk of being suspected as an accomplice in many crimes.

As cunning as she was penetrating, the widow, perceiving that she had failed, saw that she must have recourse to treachery to entrap her son in her bloody snare, and she therefore replied, after a lengthened pause, with assumed bitterness:

"I see your plan. You will not inform against us yourself, but you will contrive that the children shall do so."

"I?"

"They know now that there is a man buried here; they know that Nicholas has robbed. Once apprenticed they would talk, we should be apprehended, and we should all suffer, – you with us. That is what would happen if I listened to you, and allowed you to place the children elsewhere. Yet you say you do not wish us any harm? I do not ask you to love me; but do not hasten the hour of our apprehension!"

The milder tone of the widow made Martial believe that his threats had produced a salutary effect on her, and he fell into the fearful snare.

"I know the children," he replied; "and I am sure that, in desiring them to say nothing, not a word will they say. Besides, in one way or another, I shall be always with them, and I will answer for their silence."

"Can we answer for the chatter of children, especially in Paris, where people are so curious and so gossiping? It is as much that they should not betray us, as that they should assist us in our plans, that I desire to keep them here."

"Don't they go sometimes to the villages, and even to Paris? Who could prevent them from talking if they were inclined to talk? If they were a long way off, why, so much the better; for what they would then say would do us no harm."

"A long way off, – and where?" inquired the widow, looking steadfastly at her son.

"Let me take them away, – where is no consequence to you."

"How will you and they live?"

"My old master, the locksmith, is a worthy man, and I will tell him as much as he need know, and, perhaps, he will lend me something for the sake of the children; with that I will go and apprentice them a long way off. We will leave in two days, and you will hear no more of us."

"No, no! I prefer their remaining with me. I shall then be perfectly sure of them."

"Then I will take up my quarters in the hovel on the island until something turns up. I have a way and a will of my own, and you know it."

"Yes, I know it. Oh, how I wish you were a thousand miles away! Why didn't you remain in your woods?"

"I offer to rid you of myself and the children."

"What! Would you leave La Louve here, whom you love so much?" asked the widow, suddenly.

"That's my affair. I know what I shall do. I have my plans."

"If I let you take away Amandine and François, will you never again set foot in Paris?"

"Before three days have passed, we shall have departed, and be as dead to you."

"I prefer that to having you here, and always distrusting you and them. So, since I must give way, take them, and be off as quickly as possible, and never let me see you more!"

"Agreed!"

"Agreed! Give me the key of the cellar, that I may let Nicholas out!"

"No; let him sleep his liquor off, and I'll give you the key to-morrow morning."

"And Calabash?"

"Ah, that's another affair! Let her out when I have gone. I can't bear the sight of her."

"Go, and may hell confound you!"

"That's your farewell, mother?"

"Yes."

"Fortunately your last!" said Martial.

"My last!" responded the widow.

Her son lighted a candle, then opened the kitchen door, whistled to his dog, who ran in, quite delighted at being admitted, and followed his master to the upper story of the house.

"Go, – your business is settled!" muttered the widow, shaking her clenched hand at her son, as he went up the stairs; "but it is your own act."

Then, by Calabash's assistance, who brought her a bundle of false keys, the widow unlocked the cellar door where Nicholas was, and set him at liberty.

CHAPTER VI

FRANÇOIS AND AMANDINE

François and Amandine slept in a room immediately over the kitchen, and at the end of a passage which communicated with several other apartments that were used as "company rooms" for the guests who frequented the cabaret. After having eaten their frugal supper, instead of putting out their lantern, as the widow had ordered them, the two children watched, leaving their door ajar, for their brother Martial's passing on his way to his own chamber.

Placed on a crippled stool, the lantern shed its dull beams through the transparent horn. Walls of plaster, with here and there brown deal boards, a flock-bed for François, a little old child's bed, much too short, for Amandine, a pile of broken chairs and dismembered benches, mementoes of the turbulent visitors to the cabaret of the Isle du Ravageur, – such was the interior of this dog-hole.

Amandine, seated at the edge of the bed, was trying how to dress her head en marmotte, with the stolen silk handkerchief, the gift of her brother Nicholas. François was on his knees, holding up a piece of broken glass to his sister, who, with her head half turned, was employed in spreading out the large rosette which she had made in tying the two ends of the kerchief together. Wonder-struck at this head-dress, François for an instant neglected to present the bit of glass in such a way that her face could be reflected in it.

"Lift the looking-glass higher," said Amandine; "I can't see myself at all now! There, that's it, – that'll do! Hold it so a minute! Now I've done it! Well, look! How have I done my head?"

"Oh, capitally, – excellently! What a handsome rosette! You'll make me just such a one for my cravat, won't you?"

"Yes, directly. But let me walk up and down a little. You can go before me – backwards – holding the glass up, just in that way. There – so! I can then see myself as I walk."

François then went through this difficult manœuvre to the great satisfaction of Amandine, who strutted up and down in all her pride and dignity, under the large bow of her head attire.

Very simple and unsophisticated under any other circumstances, this coquetry became guilt when displayed in reference to the produce of a robbery of which François and Amandine were not ignorant. Another proof of the frightful facility with which children, however well disposed, become corrupted almost imperceptibly when they are continually immersed in a criminal atmosphere.

Then, the sole mentor of these unfortunate children, their brother Martial, was by no means irreproachable himself, as we have already said. Incapable, it is true, of a theft or a murder, still he led a vagabond and ill-regulated life. Undoubtedly his mind revolted at the crimes of his family. He loved these two children very fondly, and protected them from ill-treatment, endeavouring to withdraw them from the pernicious influences of the family; but not taking his stand on the foundations of rigorous and sound morality, his advice was but an ineffective safeguard to these children. They refused to commit certain bad actions, not from honest sentiments, but in order to obey Martial, whom they loved, and to disobey their mother, whom they dreaded and hated.

As to ideas of right and wrong, they had none, familiarised as they were with the infamous examples which they had every day under their eyes; for, as we have said, this country cabaret, haunted by the refuse of the lowest order, was the theatre of most disgraceful orgies and most disgusting debaucheries; and Martial, opposed as he was to thefts and murders, appeared perfectly indifferent to these infamous saturnalia.

It may be supposed, therefore, that the instincts of morality in these children were doubtful and precarious, especially those of François, who had reached that dangerous time of life when the mind pauses, and, oscillating between good and evil, might be in a moment lost or saved.

"How well you look in that handkerchief, sister!" said François; "it is very pretty. When we go to play on the shore by the chalk-burner's lime-kiln you must dress yourself in this manner, to make the children jealous who pelt us with stones and call us little guillotines. And I shall put on my nice red cravat, and we will say to them, 'Never mind, you haven't such pretty silk handkerchiefs as we have!'"

"But, I say, François," said Amandine, after a moment's reflection, "if they knew that the handkerchiefs we wear were stolen, they would call us little thieves."

"Well, and what should we care if they did call us little thieves?"

"Why, not at all, if it were not true. But now – "

"Since Nicholas gave us these handkerchiefs, we didn't steal them!"

"No; but he took them out of a barge; and Brother Martial says no one ought to steal."

"But, as Nicholas states, that is no affair of ours."

"Do you think so, François?"

"Of course I do."

"Still, it seems to me that I would rather the person who really owns them had given them to us. What do you say, François?"

"Oh, it's all one to me! They were given to us, and so they're ours."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Why, yes – yes; make yourself easy about that."

"So much the better, then, for we are not doing what Brother Martial forbids, and we have such nice handkerchiefs!"

"But, Amandine, if he had known the other day that Calabash had made you take the plaid handkerchief from the peddler's pack whilst his back was turned?"

"Oh, François, don't talk about it; I have been so very sorry. But I was really forced to do it, for my sister pinched me until the blood came, and looked at me so – oh, in such a way! And yet my heart failed me twice, and I thought I never could do it. The peddler didn't find it out; yet, if they had caught me, François, I should have been sent to prison."

"But you weren't caught; so it's just the same as if you had not stolen."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes."

"And in prison how unhappy we must be."

"On the contrary – "

"How do you mean on the contrary?"

"Why, you know the fat cripple who lodges at Father Micou's, the man who buys all Nicholas's things, and keeps a lodging-house in the Passage de la Brasserie?"

"A fat cripple?"

"Why, yes, who came here the end of last autumn from Father Micou, with a man who had monkeys and two women."

"Ah, yes, a stout, lame man, who spent such a deal of money."

"I believe you; he paid for everybody. Don't you recollect the rows on the water when I pulled them, and the man with the monkeys brought his organ, that they might have music in the boat?"

"Yes; and in the evening the beautiful fireworks they let off, François?"

"And the fat cripple was not stingy, either. He gave me ten sous for myself. He drank nothing but our best wine, and they had chickens at every meal. He spent full eighty francs."

"So much as that, François?"

"Oh, yes!"

"How rich he must be!"

"Not at all. What he spent was money he had gained in prison, from which he had just come."

"Gained all that money in prison?"

"Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs beside, and that, when that was all gone, he should try another good 'job;' and if he were taken, he didn't care, because he should go back to his jolly 'pals in the Stone Jug,' as he said."

"Then he wasn't afraid of prison, François?"

"On the contrary; he told Calabash that they were a party of friends and merrymakers all together; and that he had never had a better bed and better food than when he was in prison. Good meat four times a week, fire all the winter, and a lump of money when he left it; whilst there are fools of honest workmen who are starving with cold and hunger, for want of work."

"Are you sure he said that, François, – the stout lame man?"

"I heard him, for I was rowing him in the punt whilst he told his story to Calabash and the two women, who said that it was the same thing in the female prisons they had just left."

"But then, François, it can't be so bad to steal, if people are so well off in prison."

"Oh, the deuce! I don't know. Here it is only Brother Martial who says it is wrong to steal; perhaps he is wrong."

"Never mind if he is, François. We ought to believe him, for he loves us so much!"

"Yes, he loves us; and, when he is by, there is no fear of our being beaten. If he had been here this evening, our mother would not have thrashed me so. An old beast! How savage she is! Oh, how I hate her – hate her! And how I wish I was grown up, that I might pay her back the thumps she gives us, especially to you, who can't bear them as well as I can."

"Oh, François, hold your tongue; it quite frightens me to hear you say that you would beat mother!" cried the poor little child, weeping, and throwing her arms around her brother's neck, and kissing him affectionately.

"It's quite true, though," answered François, extricating himself gently from Amandine. "Why are my mother and Calabash always so savage to us?"

"I do not know," replied Amandine, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "It is, perhaps, because they sent Brother Ambroise to the galleys, and guillotined our father, that they are unjust towards us."

"Is that our fault?"

"Oh, no! But what would you have?"

"Ma foi! If I am always to have beatings, – always, always, at last I should rather steal, as they do, I should. What do I gain by not being a thief?"

"Ah, what would Martial say to that?"

"Ah, but for him, I should have said yes a long time ago, for I am tired of being thumped for ever; why, this evening, my mother was more savage than ever; she was like a fury! It was pitch dark. She didn't say a word; and I felt nothing but her clammy hand holding me by the scruff of my neck, whilst with the other she beat me; and whilst she did so, her eyes seemed to glare in the dark."

"Poor François! for only having said you saw a dead man's bone by the wood-pile."

"Yes, a foot that was sticking out of the ground," said François, shuddering with fright; "I am quite sure of it."

"Perhaps there was a burying-ground there once."

"Perhaps; but then, why did mother say she'd be the death of me, if I said a word about the bone to our Brother Martial? I rather think it is some one who has been killed in a quarrel, and that they have buried him there, that no one might know anything about it."

"You are right; for don't you remember that such a thing did nearly happen once?"

"When?"

"Don't you remember once when M. Barbillon wounded with a knife that tall man, who is so very thin, that he showed himself for money?"

"Oh, the walking skeleton, as they call him? Yes; and mother came and separated them; if she hadn't, I think Barbillon would have killed the tall, thin man. Did you see how Barbillon foamed at the mouth? and his eyes seemed ready to start from his head. Oh, he does not mind who he cuts and slashes with his knife, – he's such a headstrong, passionate fellow!"

"So young and so wicked, François?"

"Tortillard is much younger, and he would be quite as wicked as he, if he were strong enough."

"Oh, yes, he's very, very wicked! The other day he beat me, because I would not play with him."

"He beat you, did he? Then, the first time he comes – "

"No, no, François; it was only in jest."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, quite sure."

"Very well, then, for, if not – But I don't know how he manages, the scamp! But he always has so much money. He's so lucky! When he came here with the Chouette, he showed us pieces of gold of twenty francs; and didn't he look knowing as he said, 'Oh, you might have the same, if you were not such little muffs!'"

"Muffs?"

"Yes; in slang that means fools, simpletons."

"Yes, to be sure."

"Forty francs in gold! What a many fine things I could buy with that! Couldn't you, Amandine?"

"That I could."

"What should you buy?"

"Let's see," said the little girl, bending her head, and meditating. "I should first buy Brother Martial a good thick outside coat, that would keep him warm in his boat."

"But for yourself, – for yourself."

"I should like a crucifixion, like those image-sellers had on Sunday, you know, under the church porch at Asnières."

"Yes; and, now I think of it, we must not tell mother or Calabash that we went into a church."

"To be sure, for she has always forbidden us to go into a church. What a pity! For church is such a nice place inside, isn't it, François?"

"Yes; and what beautiful silver candlesticks!"

"And the picture of the holy Virgin, how kind she looks!"

"And did you look at the fine lamps, and the handsome cloth on the large table at the bottom, when the priest was saying mass with his two friends, dressed like himself, and who gave him water and wine?"

"Tell me, François, do you remember last year, at the Fête-Dieu, when we saw from here the little communicants, with their white veils, pass over the bridge?"

"What nice nosegays they had!"

"How they sang in a soft tone, holding the ribands of their banners!"

"And how the silver lace of their banners shone in the sunshine! What a deal of money it must have cost!"

"Oh, how beautiful it was! Wasn't it, François?"

"I believe you! And the communicants with their bows of white satin on the arm, and their wax candles, with red velvet and gold on the part by which they hold them."

"And the little boys had their banners, too, hadn't they, François? Ah, François, how I was thumped that day for asking our mother why we did not go in the procession, like the other children!"

"And it was then she forbade us from ever going into a church when we should go into the town, or to Paris; 'Unless it was to rob the poor-box, or the pockets of the people who were hearing mass,' Calabash said, grinning, and showing her nasty yellow teeth. Oh, what a bad thing she is!"

"Oh, and as for that, they should kill me before I would rob in a church; and you, too, François?"

"There, or anywhere; what difference does it make, when once one has made up one's mind?"

"Why, I don't know; but I should be so frightened, I could never do it."

"Because of the priests?"

"No; but because of the portrait of the holy Virgin, who seems so kind and good."

"What consequence is a portrait? It won't eat or drink, you silly child!"

"That's very true; but then I really couldn't. It is not my fault."

"Talking of priests, Amandine, do you remember that day when Nicholas gave me two such hard boxes on the ear, because he saw me make a bow to the curate, who passed on the bank? I had seen everybody salute him, and so I saluted him; I didn't think I was doing any wrong."

"Yes; but then, you know, Brother Martial said, as Nicholas did, that there was no occasion to salute the priests."

At this moment François and Amandine heard footsteps in the passage. Martial was going to his chamber, without any mistrust, after his conversation with his mother, believing that Nicholas was safely locked up until the next morning. Seeing a ray of light coming from out the closet in which the children slept, Martial came into the room. They both ran to him, and he embraced them affectionately.

"What! Not in bed yet, little gossips?"

"No, brother, we waited until you came, that we might see you, and wish you good night," said Amandine.

"And then we heard you speaking very loud below, as if there were a quarrel," added François.

"Yes," said Martial, "I had some dispute with Nicholas, but it was nothing. Besides, I am glad to see you awake, as I have some good news for you."

"For us, brother?"

"Should you like to go away from here, and come with me a long way off?"

"Oh, yes, brother!"

"Yes, brother!"

"Well, then, in two or three days we shall all three leave the island."

"Oh, how delightful!" exclaimed Amandine, clapping her hands with joy.

"And where shall we go to?" inquired François.

"You will see, Mr. Inquisitive; no matter; but where you will learn a good trade, which will enable you to earn your living, be sure of that."

"Then I sha'n't go fishing with you any more, brother?"

"No, my boy, you will be put apprentice to a carpenter or locksmith. You are strong and handy, and with a good heart; and working hard, at the end of a year you may already have earned something. But you don't seem to like it: why, what ails you now?"

"Why, brother, – I – "

"Come, come! Speak out."

"Why, I'd rather not leave you, but stay with you, and fish, and mend your nets, than go and learn a trade."

"Really?"

"Why, to be shut up in a workshop all day is so very dull; and then it must be so tiresome to be an apprentice."

Martial shrugged his shoulders.