CHAPTER II.
A CRUSH AT THE MORGUE.
When the stray dog had finished his welcome repast, licking the sides ofthe bowl which had contained it with a gusto which many a dyspepticfavourite, fondled on the velvet cushion of my lady, and carried aboutby my lady's footman, would have envied, O'Hara began to talk with him;yes, to talk with him--and the dog answered him, as far as eyes and tailcould speak.
'Well, my poor fellow, you seem to like that!'
The dog curled his tail and licked his lips.
'What's your name? You don't know, nor where you were born. You're asignorant as Topsy.'
The dog sought the ground with his eyes.
'I must give you a name. Suppose I call you Chance, to mark how I foundyou; or Bran, like the dog in Ossian; or Hector--no, that's toobumptious a name, and you're no bully.'
The dog wisely shook his head, as if he looked on the idea of bullyismwith pity.
'Let me see; egad, I'll naturalize you! I think you have a very Irishface--an honest, open, grateful face--and I'll call you Pat.'
The dog wagged his tail joyfully, stood on his hind legs, and stretchedout a paw.
'Wonderful creature! can it be that I have hit on your name? Well,Pat'--again the tail wagged--'if you belonged to a rich family you wouldbe housed, perhaps, in that hospital for indisposed gentlemen of yourbreed I see advertised on a kiosk near the Palais Royal; but, becauseyou really want a friend and a crust, you are left without either.That's the way with the world, Pat,[5] and you're a vagabond, thoughgoodness knows you're ugly enough to be a pet. I declare you're asill-favoured as any pug I ever met sitting on a Brussels hearthrug, ifit were not for that face.'
The dog gave an assenting bark.
'But we mustn't be stopping here too long, Pat, though our time isn'tvery precious. George Francis Train says the next best thing to money isthe suspicion of money, and I say the next best thing to occupation isthe suspicion of occupation; and, by my word, they lock you up forhaving no occupation in England, though you may be wearing the soles offyour feet to get one. In the great world they go to the theatre or theopera or the circus after dinner to promote digestion, and I think Iknow where we can enjoy ourselves cheaply after our banquet. Hi! Pat,come along.'
And, rising, our friend retraced his steps towards the bridge, stoppingfor a moment at a tobacco-shop, where he purchased and lit a cigar at asou, at the same time giving loud expression to his regret that he hadforgotten his Turkish pipe.
'We must be economic, you know, and tobacco goes farther than a weed,'and seeming mentally to calculate the state of his finances--'three sousfor milk and two for bread, five, that leaves five'--previous tohazarding the investment.
The open space in front of the Morgue is a favourite 'pitch' of themountebanks who earn their livelihood on Paris streets. At the time ourpair made their appearance, it was occupied by a number of the tribe infull swing. In one corner a low-sized, deformed figure, recalling theQuasimodo whom Victor Hugo's genius has made historic in connection withthe neighbouring church of Notre Dame, was appealing to a crowd ofbystanders to jerk ten sous more into the ring, and he would transferthe hump on his back to his breast. O'Hara did not wait for the tardymoney to come in; he had no taste for the crooked talents of theposture-master.
A group in another corner surrounded a tanned fellow, with long hairand an eye like an onyx, who beat time on a drum, as he chanted a merryskit on a Paris by-word of the season--'_Avez-vous vu Lambert?_' to theair of '_Maman, le mal que j'ai_,' while the woman who accompanied himsold copies of it by the sheaf to laughing workmen, soldiers, andnursery-maids.
But by far the largest assemblage was drawn to a stout acrobat in fadedtights, which might have been washed at some remote era, bedizened withspangles that revealed a faint tradition of glitter. He had an amazingflow of impudent 'patter,' this acrobat, and let it spoutuninterruptedly as he flung up little metal rings, in quick succession,high in the air, catching them as they fell on a tin cone, strapped tohis forehead, in the fashion of a unicorn's horn. Sometimes he missedthem, and they slapped with a crack on his skull, and rolled off behindby a bald channel, which frequent misadventure of the kind had worn inhis hair. But the spectators were as highly amused when he failed aswhen he succeeded--indeed, more so, if the truth must be told--for hadthey not a hit and a miss together? When the cone was encircled withrings, he flung up a monster potato, impaling it on the spike as itdescended, amid the acclamations of his admirers.
'Come along, Pat,' said O'Hara; 'here is something more in our line,' ashe passed to another group, before which the owner of a troop ofeducated dogs and cats was performing.
'This is M'sieu Rigolo,' cried the showman, as he placed one chairreversed on another, and taking a poor cat, that looked as if itcouldn't get up an emotion at a family of mice round a Stilton cheese,balanced its claws consecutively lengthwise and crosswise on theupstanding legs. When the cat had been sufficiently tortured it wasdismissed, to its evident satisfaction, to the basket which served asgreen-room to the perambulating theatre.
'Present yourself, M'sieu Romulus,' cried the showman, and a poodle ofremarkably subdued mien reluctantly entered the arena, much as a slavewho was devoted to the lions might have done in the old Roman times.M'sieu Romulus had not the boldness of his illustrious namesake ofantiquity, but he had more than his sagacity. His strong point lay indetecting the most amorous man, the most beautiful lady, the greatestidler and so-forth in the surrounding company. The showman, putting acard in his mouth, asked him to point out such a one. Romulus stood upin the attitude dogs are wont when asked to beg, moved carefully roundand finally trotted off in the way he should go, and dropped the card atthe feet of the chosen person.
Romulus was dismissed in his turn to the green-room, and the showmancalled for Mademoiselle. The call was responded to by one of the saddestshort-eared dogs ever seen, girt round the middle with a miniaturecrinoline which made the creature a grotesque caricature of a woman inthe prevailing fashion as she hopped into the circle painfully on herhind-legs.
'_Salut_, Ma'amselle!' said the showman; 'we want to see you dance aminuet,' and he commenced playing on a pandean pipe. But Ma'amselle didnot dance long. Pat, who had been watching the whole performance withcanine amazement from between O'Hara's legs, suddenly rushed in,extended his paws and lowered his head in front of the disguised memberof his species, and barked a good-natured bark. Ma'amselle dropped onall fours, and looked up inquisitively at the showman's face. Theshowman flung his pandean pipe at Pat's snout, and the poor intruder ranhowling round the amused throng. No one would make room for him toescape, until at last a short thickset man, in a long frieze coat caughthim, pulled him to himself, and cried to the showman, in a foreignaccent, 'It is not French to strike a dog for gallantry; he simplyentered because he didn't like to see Ma'amselle dance without apartner. Didn't you see him make his bow?'
'Pardon me, sir,' said O'Hara, who had been shut out from the innercircle by the forward rush, as he made his way to the friendly stranger;'but I believe I am the next of kin to this unfortunate animal.'
'Have him, sir, and welcome,' said he in the frieze. 'I never like tosee an animal struck that can't strike back for itself.'
'Thanks, sir,' said O'Hara, and then, turning to Pat, he continued,speaking this time in English, 'Come, my companion, we'll leave thatbrute of a showman: every dog has his day, and perhaps you'll have yoursyet.'
The stranger looked after the pair sharply as they turned towards acrowd where a little old man was expatiating on the marvellous abilitiesof Madame La Blague, the celebrated clairvoyante, and muttered somethingbetween his teeth. The celebrated clairvoyante was seated on a chair inthe centre of a crowd, her eyes bandaged like those of the figure ofJustice, and her hands crossed on her lap in the attitude of Patience onthe monument.
'Now then, messieurs,' said the little old man, 'take a ticket and haveyour fortune told. Only ten centimes. Tell me your hopes, your fears,your desires, and madame will at
once read the answer in the Book ofFate when I ask her.'
'Hark you, friend, I want my fortune told.'
It was the man in frieze who spoke. He had moved up after O'Hara and thedog.
'Take a ticket, sir, and wait your turn,' squeaked the little old man.
'Is it so? That's a thing I never do. Ten centimes, you charge; now I'llgive ten francs--that's a thousand centimes--if madame is able to returnme a single true answer to five plain questions I'll put to her myself.'
'I'll try, at all events, sir,' said the woman with bandaged eyes.
'I like that. To start--how old am I?'
'Forty-four,' answered the woman, after a pause.
'You don't flatter. I'm between the thirties and the forties still.Guess again--what's my disposition?'
'Impatient,' was the immediate answer.
'You've got to earn the money yet. My profession?'
'Soldier.'
'What regiment?'
'The Foreign Legion.'
'Ha! Then you've found out I'm a foreigner. From what country, pray?'
'From Ireland.'
The stranger in frieze started, gave an ejaculation of surprise, and,taking out a ten-franc piece, advanced towards the woman, and said hecould understand her guessing he was a military man from his tone ofvoice, and the further fact that he had served in the Legion from hisforeign accent; but he demanded in a puzzled tone that she wouldexplain how she had discovered his country before he redeemed hispromise.
'We show-folk travel a great deal, sir,' she said in a low voice. 'Ihave been in Ireland, and I recognised the accent.'
'That explains the mystery. Like Columbus's egg, all things are easywhen they're known. Well, madame,' he continued aloud with a chuckle,'if you've been in Ireland you know us. When we promise France we givethe Isle of St. Louis.[6] Here is a ten-sous bit for you.'
Her countenance fell until her delicate fingers conveyed to her sensesthat it was, indeed, ten francs she possessed. The crowd applauded, saidhe was as witty as he was generous, and the man in frieze turned on hisheel. He looked curiously towards the neat white one-storied structurebeside the footpath from the Pont d'Archev?che to the Pont St. Louis,into which a stream of wayfarers was continually flowing, and finallydirected his steps thitherward too. It was a cheerful-looking buildingthat, which drew so many visitors, but, nevertheless, it was theMorgue--half-way house between untimely death and the outcast's grave.The stranger entered the wide door--a tall partition divided what wasinside from his view; he passed around it and was within the grislyhall. O'Hara mechanically followed; he had no curiosity to scan thelineaments of the naked corpses which awaited recognition within--he wasrather _blas?_ of sights of the kind, and regarded a body on a Morgueslab as he would a carcase on a butcher's stall; but he felt a somethingimpelling him towards this stranger who had discovered himself to be acountryman. As he entered, reading, perhaps for the hundredth time, theinscriptions on the wall, which told friends who identified the deceasedthat they could establish their identity with the greffier free ofcharge, he caught an exclamation of surprise in English in the brusquevoice of the man in frieze.
'Hah! so you've shuffled off this mortal coil, Marguerite.'
O'Hara turned in the direction from which the voice came; hedistinguished his compatriot in the middle of an unusually excited masswhich pressed against the bars of this loathsome cage of mysterioushorrors, a grim smile twisting his features. He could not see any of thetwelve sloping tables on which the bodies were laid out in their lasttoilette--their stiff limbs stretched, hair combed back, hands fixed bytheir cold sides, and squares of black boarding covering the stomach andthighs--because of the intervening crowd. The clothing of the unclaimeddead, hats, jackets, and blouses, suspended from racks overhead, alonewas visible.
'What's the excitement?' he asked of a grizzled soldier, who edged hisway back from the bars.
'Oh, it's only a _cocotte_ of the quarter, who's been fool enough to goto the devil before the devil came to her. Sapristi! but she's been awell-favoured wench, and's got a well-turned leg even on hercalafaque.'[7]
'Marguerite, Marguerite,' said O'Hara, as if recalling some train ofthought.
'Yes, that's what's yonder individual, who pretends that he knew her,denominated her; but I inflect he's a joker.'
'Tall, with an Italian face and black hair?' asked O'Hara eagerly.
'Ay, ay, tall, with a handsome, despising face, and long hair, as blackas a grenadier's bearskin.'
'I, too, think I know her--if it be the same.'
'If it be the same! It strikes me, jokers are consolidating in theMorgue to-day. Good-morning, bourgeois, I'm an old soldier,' and awaymarched the veteran.
A pretty little girl, coquettishly clad in the costume of the grisette,a well-fitting robe of gray, relieved by a tidy patent leather belt withclasp, setting off her figure, and large imitation coral dropsglistening under her bright chestnut hair, entered at the moment, abasket on her arm, as if returning from her work.
'Have you seen the bodies yet, please, sir?' she said to O'Hara.
'Not yet, mademoiselle,' he replied graciously; 'but if you wait alittle, I shall get a place for both to see them.'
She smiled her thanks.
'Now, then, forward. It's the first time I have ever seen a crush at theMorgue;' and they perseveringly made their way to the front.
On a black slab lay extended the nude limbs of a woman who had beentaken from life before she had reached its noon, whilst she might havebeen full of strength and lusty joy. They were bloodless to the view,but round and beautiful of proportion, and clean of colour as a statueof purest marble by a master hand. The head was pillowed on a luxuriantmass of wet, matted raven hair. There was a smile on the face (which waswickedly handsome, as the soldier had described it), even in death, anda proud, disdainful curl had left its unchangeable impress on the mouth.
'By Jove, it _is_ Marguerite!' cried O'Hara involuntarily.
At the same instant the little grisette, whom he had helped to a place,turned pale and trembled, and falling back in a faint, sank into hisarms as she murmured from between her white lips, 'Merciful God!Caroline, poor Caroline!'
Mated from the Morgue: A Tale of the Second Empire Page 2