by Eugène Sue
“Then what makes you uneasy about Louise?”
The lapidary impatiently interrupted his wife by saying:
“Because I have noticed for the last three months that, whenever Louise comes to see us, she seems embarrassed, and even confused. When I take her in my arms and embrace her, as I have been used to do from her birth, she blushes.”
“Ah, that is with delight at seeing you, or from shame.”
“She seems sadder and more dejected, too, each visit she pays us.”
“Because she finds our misery constantly increasing. Besides, when I spoke to her concerning the notary, she told me he had quite ceased his threats of putting you in prison.”
“But did she tell you the price she has paid to induce him to lay aside his threats? She did not tell you that, I dare say, did she? Ah, a father’s eye is not to be deceived; and her blushes and embarrassments, when giving me her usual kiss, make me dread I know not what. Why, would it not be an atrocious thing to say to a poor girl, whose bread depended on her employer’s word, ‘Either sacrifice your virtuous principles, and become what I would have you, or quit my house? And if any one should inquire of me respecting the character you have with me, I shall speak of you in such terms that no one will take you into their service.’ Well, then, how much worse is it to frighten a fond and affectionate child into surrendering her innocence, by threatening to put her father into prison if she refused, when the brute knows that upon the labour of that father a whole family depends? Surely the earth contains nothing more infamous, more fiendlike, than such conduct.”
“Ah,” replied Madeleine, “and then only to think that with the value of one, only one of those diamonds now lying on your table, we might pay the notary all we owe him, and so take Louise out of his power and keep her at home with us. Don’t you see, husband?”
“What is the use of your repeating the same thing over and over again? You might just as well tell me that if I were rich I should not be poor,” answered Morel, with sorrowful impatience. For such was the innate and almost constitutional honesty of this man, that it never once occurred to him that his weak-minded partner, bowed down and irritated by long suffering and want, could ever have conceived the idea of tempting him to a dishonourable appropriation of that which belonged to another.
With a heavy sigh, the unfortunate man resigned himself to his hard fate. “Thrice happy those parents who can retain their innocent children beneath the paternal roof, and defend them from the thousand snares laid to entrap their unsuspecting youth. But who is there to watch over the safety of the poor girl condemned at an early age to seek employment from home? Alas, no one! Directly she is capable of adding her mite to the family earnings, she leaves her dwelling at an early hour, and repairs to the manufactory where she may happen to be engaged. Meanwhile, both father and mother are too busily employed to have leisure to attend to their daughter’s comings or goings. ‘Our time is our stock in trade,’ cry they, ‘and bread is too dear to enable us to lay aside our work while we look after our children.’ And then there is an outcry raised as to the quantity of depraved females constantly to be met with, and of the impropriety of conduct among those of the lower orders, wholly forgetting that the parents have neither the means of keeping them at home, nor of watching over their morals when away from them.”
Thus mentally moralised Morel. Then, speaking aloud, he added:
“After all, our greatest privation is when forced to quit our parents, wives, or children. It is to the poor that family affection is most comforting and beneficial. Yet, directly our children grow up, and are capable of becoming our dearest companions, we are forced to part with them.”
At this moment some one knocked loudly at the door.
CHAPTER XIII.
JUDGMENT AND EXECUTION.
THE LAPIDARY, MUCH astonished, rose and opened the door. Two men entered the garret. One, tall, lanky, with an ill-favoured and pimply face, shaded by thick grizzly whiskers, held in his hand a thick cane, loaded at the head; he wore a battered hat, and a long-tailed and bespattered green coat, buttoned up close to his throat. Above the threadbare velvet collar was displayed his long neck, red and bald like that of a vulture. This man’s name was Malicorne. The other was a shorter man, with a look as low-lived, and red, fat, puffed features, dressed with a great effort at ridiculous splendour. Shiny buttons were in the folds of the front of his shirt, whose cleanliness was most suspicious, and a long chain of mosaic gold serpentined down a faded plaid waistcoat, which was seen beneath his seedy Chesterfield, of a yellowish gray colour. This gentleman’s name was Bourdin.
“How poverty-stricken this hole smells,” said Malicorne, pausing on the threshold.
“Why, it does not scent of lavender-water. Confound it, but we have a lowish customer to deal with,” responded Bourdin, with a gesture of disgust and contempt, and then advanced towards the artisan, who was looking at him with as much surprise as indignation.
Through the door, left a little ajar, might be seen the villainous, watchful, and cunning face of the young scamp Tortillard, who, having followed these strangers unknown to them, was sneaking after, spying, and listening to them.
“What do you want?” inquired the lapidary, abruptly, disgusted at the coarseness of these fellows.
“Jérome Morel?” said Bourdin.
“I am he!”
“Working lapidary?”
“Yes.”
“You are quite sure?”
“Quite sure. But you are troublesome, so tell me at once your business, or leave the room.”
“Really, your politeness is remarkable! Much obliged! I say, Malicorne,” said the man, turning to his comrade, “there’s not so much fat to cut at here as there was at that ’ere Viscount de Saint-Rémy’s.”
“I believe you; but when there is fat, why the door’s kept shut in your face, as we found in the Rue de Chaillot. The bird had hopped the twig, and precious quick, too, whilst such vermin as these hold on to their cribs like a snail to his shell.”
“I believe you; well, the stone jug just suits such individuals.”
“The sufferer (creditor) must be a good fellow, for it will cost him more than it’s worth; but that’s his lookout.”
“If,” said Morel, angrily, “you were not drunk, as you seem to be, I should be angry with you. Leave this apartment instantly!”
“Ha! ha! He’s a fine fellow with his elegant curve,” said Bourdin, making an insulting allusion to the contorted figure of the poor lapidary. “I say, Malicorne, he has cheek enough to call this an apartment, — a hole in which I would not put my dog.”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” exclaimed Madeleine, who had been so frightened that she could not say a word before. “Call for assistance; perhaps they are rogues. Take care of your diamonds!”
And, seeing these two ill-looking strangers come closer to his working-bench, on which his precious stones were still lying, Morel, fearful of some evil intentions, ran towards the table, and covered the jewels with his two hands.
Tortillard, still on the watch, caught at Madeleine’s words, observed the movement of the artisan, and said to himself:
“Ha! ha! ha! So they said he was a lapidary of sham stones; if they were mock he would not be afraid of being robbed; this is a good thing to know. So Mother Mathieu, who comes here so often, is a matcher of real stones, after all, and has real diamonds in her basket; this is a good thing to know, and I’ll tell the Chouette,” added Bras Rouge’s brat.
“If you do not leave this room, I will call in the guard,” said Morel.
The children, alarmed at this scene, began to cry, and the idiotic mother sat up in her bed.
“If any one has a right to call for the guard, it is we, you Mister Twistabout,” said Bourdin.
“And the guard would lend us a hand to carry you off to gaol if you resist,” added Malicorne. “We have not the magistrate with us, it is true; but if you have any wish for his company, we’ll find you one, just out of bed, hot and heavy; Bourdin wi
ll go and fetch him.”
“To prison! me?” exclaimed Morel, struck with dismay.
“Yes, to Clichy.”
“To Clichy?” repeated the artisan, with an air of despair.
“It seems a hardish pill,” said Malicorne.
“Well, then, to the debtors’ jail, if you like that better,” said Bourdin.
“You — what — indeed — why — the notary — ah, mon Dieu!”
And the workman, pale as death, fell on his stool, unable to add another word.
“We are bound bailiffs, come to lay hold of you; now are you fly?”
“Morel, it is the note of Louise’s master! We are undone!” exclaimed Madeleine, in a tone of agony.
“Hear the judgment,” said Malicorne, taking from his dirty and crammed pocketbook a stamped writ.
After having skimmed over, according to custom, a part of this document in an unintelligible tone, he distinctly articulated the last words, which were, unfortunately, but too important to the artisan:
“Judgment finally given. The Tribunal condemns Jérome Morel to pay to Pierre Petit-Jean, merchant, by every available means, even to the arrest of body, the sum of 1,300 francs, with interest from the day of protest, and to pay all other and extra costs. Given and judged at Paris, 13 September, etc., etc.”
The cunning notary, unable to prosecute in his own name, had made the unfortunate Morel give a blank acceptance, and had filled up the note of hand with the name of a third party.
“And Louise! Louise!” cried Morel, almost distracted in his brain, and apparently unheeding the long preamble which had just been read. “Where is Louise, then, for, doubtless, she has quitted the notary, since he sends me to prison? My child! My Louise! What has become of you?”
“Who the devil is Louise?” asked Bourdin.
“Let him alone!” replied Malicorne, brutally; “don’t you see the respectable old twaddler is not right in his nonsense-box?” Then, approaching Morel, he added: “I say, my fine fellow, right about file! March on! Let us get out of here, will you, and have a little fresh air. You stink enough to poison a cat in this here hole!”
“Morel!” shrieked Madeleine, wildly, “don’t go! Kill those wretches! Oh, you coward, not to knock them down! What! are you going to let them take you away? Are you going to abandon us all?”
“Pray don’t put yourself out of the way, ma’am,” said Bourdin, with an ironical grin. “I’ve only just got to remark that if your good man lays his little finger on me, why I’ll make him remember it,” continued he, swinging his loaded stick round and round.
Entirely occupied with thoughts of Louise, Morel scarcely heard a word of what was passing. All at once an expression of bitter satisfaction passed over his countenance, as he said:
“Louise has doubtless left the notary’s house; now I shall go to prison willingly.” Then, casting a troubled look around him, he exclaimed: “But my wife! Her mother! The children! Who will provide for them? No one will trust me with stones to work at in prison, for it will be supposed my bad conduct has sent me there. Does this hard-hearted notary wish the destruction of myself and all my family also?”
“Once, twice, old chap,” said Bourdin, “will you stop your gammon? You are enough to bore a man to death. Come, put on your things, and let us be off.”
“Good gentlemen, kind gentlemen,” cried Madeleine, from her sick-bed, “pray forgive what I said just now! Surely you will not be so cruel as to take my husband away; what will become of me and my five poor children, and my old mother, who is an idiot? There she lies; you see her, poor old creature, huddled up on her mattress; she is quite out of her senses, my good gentlemen; she is, indeed, quite mad!”
“La! what, that old bald-headed thing a woman? Well, hang me if that ain’t enough to astonish a man!”
“I’ll be hanged if it isn’t, then!” cried the other bailiff, bursting into a horse-laugh; “why, I took it for something tied up in an old sack. Look! her old head is shaved quite close; it seems as though she had got a white skull-cap on.”
“Go, children, and kneel down, and beg of these good gentlemen not to take away your poor father, our only support,” said Madeleine, anxious by a last effort to touch the hearts of the bailiffs. But, spite of their mother’s orders, the terrified children remained weeping on their miserable mattress.
At the unusual noise which prevailed, added to the aspect of two strange men in the room, the poor idiot turned herself towards the wall, as though striving to hide from them, uttering all the time the most discordant cries and moans. Morel, meanwhile, appeared unconscious of all that was going on; this last stroke of fate had been so frightful and unexpected, and the consequences of his arrest were so dreadful, that his mind seemed almost unequal to understanding its reality. Worn out by all manner of privations, and exhausted by over-toil, his strength utterly forsook him, and he remained seated on his stool, pale and haggard, and as though incapable of speech or motion, his head drooping on his breast, and his arms hanging listlessly by his side.
“Deuce take me,” cried Malicorne, “if that old patterer is not going fast asleep! Why, I say, my chap, you seem to think nothing of keeping gen’l’men like us waiting; just remember, will you, our time is precious! You know this is not exactly a party of pleasure, so march, or I shall be obliged to make you.”
Suiting the action to the word, the man grasped the artisan by the shoulder, and shook him roughly; which so alarmed the children, that, unable to restrain their terror, the three little boys emerged from their paillasse, and, half naked as they were, came in an agony of tears to throw themselves at the feet of the bailiffs, holding up their clasped hands, and crying, in tones of touching earnestness:
“Pray, pray don’t hurt our dear father!”
At the sight of these poor, shivering, half-clad infants, weeping with affright, and trembling with cold, Bourdin, spite of his natural callousness and long acquaintance with scenes of this sort, could not avoid a feeling almost resembling compassion from stealing over him, while his pitiless companion, brutally disengaging himself from the grasp of the small, weak creatures who were clinging to him, exclaimed:
“Hands off, you young ragamuffins! A devilish fine trade ours would be, if we were to allow ourselves to be mauled about by a set of beggars’ brats like you!”
As though the scene were not sufficiently distressing, a fearful addition was made to its horrors. The eldest of the little girls, who had remained in the paillasse with her sick sister, suddenly exclaimed:
“Mother! mother! I don’t know what’s the matter with Adèle! She is so cold, and her eyes are fixed on my face, and yet she does not breathe.”
The poor little child, whose consumptive appearance we have before noticed, had expired gently, and without a sigh, her looks fixed earnestly on the sister she so tenderly loved.
No language can describe the cry which burst from the lips of the lapidary’s wife at these words, which at once revealed the dreadful truth; it was one of those wild, despairing, convulsive shrieks, which seem to sever the very heart-strings of a mother.
“My poor little sister looks as though she were dead!” continued the child; “she frightens me, with her eyes fixed on me, and her face so cold!”
Saying which, in an agony of terror, she leaped from beside the corpse of the infant, and ran to shelter herself in her mother’s arms, while the distracted parent, forgetting that her almost paralysed limbs were incapable of supporting her, made a violent effort to rise and go to the assistance of her child, whom she could not believe was actually past recovery; but her strength failed her, and with a deep sigh of despair she sunk upon the floor. That cry found an echo in the heart of Morel, and roused him from his stupor. He sprang with one bound to the paillasse, and withdrew from it the stiffened form of an infant four years old, dead and cold. Want and misery had accelerated its end, although its complaint, which had originated in the positive want of common necessaries, was beyond the reach of any human aid to
remove. Its poor little limbs were already rigid with death. Morel, whose very hair seemed to stand on end with despair and terror, stood holding his dead child in his arms, motionlessly contemplating its thin features with a fixed bloodshot gaze, though no tear moistened his dry, burning eyeballs.
“Morel! Morel, give Adèle to me!” cried the unhappy mother, extending her arms towards him; “she is not dead, — it is not possible! Let me have her, and I shall be able to warm her in my arms.”
The curiosity of the idiot was excited by observing the pertinacity with which the bailiffs kept close to the lapidary, who would not part with the body of his child. She ceased her yells and cries, and, rising from her mattress, approached gently, protruded her hideous, senseless countenance over Morel’s shoulder, staring in vacant wonder at the pale corpse of her grandchild, the features of the idiot retaining their usual expression of stupid sullenness. At the end of a few minutes, she uttered a sort of horrible yawning noise, almost resembling the roar of a famished animal; then, hurrying back to her mattress, she threw herself upon it, exclaiming:
“Hungry! hungry! hungry!”
“Well, gentlemen,” said the poor, half-crazed artisan, with haggard looks, “you see all that is left me of my poor child, my Adèle, — we called her Adèle, she was so pretty she deserved a pretty name; and she was just four years old last night. Ay, and this morning even I kissed her, and she put her little arms about my neck and embraced me, — oh, so fondly! And now, you see, gentlemen, perhaps you will tell me there is one mouth less to feed, and that I am lucky to get rid of one, — you think so, don’t you?”
The unfortunate man’s reason was fast giving way under the many shocks he had received.
“Morel,” cried Madeleine, “give me my child! I will have her!”
“To be sure,” replied the lapidary; “that is only fair. Everybody ought to secure their own happiness!” So saying, he laid the child in its mother’s arms, and uttering a groan, such as comes only from a breaking heart, he covered his face with his hands; while Madeleine, almost as frenzied as her husband, placed the body of her child amid the straw of her wretched bed, watching it with frantic jealousy, while the other children, kneeling around her, filled the air with their wailings.