by Eugène Sue
The bailiffs, who had experienced a temporary feeling of compassion at the death of the child, soon fell back into their accustomed brutality.
“I say, friend,” said Malicorne to the lapidary, “your child is dead, and there’s an end of it! I dare say you think it a misfortune; but then, you see, we are all mortal, and neither we nor you can bring it back to life. So come along with us; for, to tell you the truth, we’re upon the scent of a spicy one we must nab to-day. So don’t delay us, that’s a trump!”
But Morel heard not a word he said. Entirely preoccupied with his own sad thoughts, the bewildered man kept up a kind of wandering delivery of his own afflicting ideas.
“My poor Adèle!” murmured he; “we must now see about laying you in the grave, and watching by her little corpse till the people come to carry it to its last home, — to lay it in the ground. But how are we to do that without a coffin, — and where shall we get one? Who will give me credit for one? Oh, a very small coffin will do, — only for a little creature of four years of age! And we shall want no bearers! Oh, no, I can carry it under my arm. Ha! ha! ha!” added he, with a burst of frightful mirth; “what a good thing it is she did not live to be as old as Louise! I never could have persuaded anybody to trust me for a coffin large enough for a girl of eighteen years of age.”
“I say, just look at that chap!” said Bourdin to Malicorne. “I’ll be dashed if I don’t think as he’s a-going mad, like the old woman there! Only see how he rolls his eyes about, — enough to frighten one! Come, I say, let’s make haste and be off. Only hark, how that idiot creature is a-roaring for something to eat! Well, they are rum customers, from beginning to end!”
“We must get done with them as soon as we can. Although the law only allows us seventy-six francs, seventy-five centièmes, for arresting this beggar, yet, in justice to ourselves, we must swell the costs to two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty francs. You know the sufferer (the creditor) pays us!”
“You mean, advances the cash. Old Gaffer there will have to pay the piper, since he must dance to the music.”
“Well, by the time he has paid his creditor 2,500 francs for debt, interest, and expenses, etc., he’ll find it pretty warm work.”
“A devilish sight more than we do our job up here! I’m a’most frost-bitten!” cried the bailiff, blowing the ends of his fingers. “Come, old fellow, make haste, will you! Just look sharp! You can snivel, you know, as we go along. Why, how the devil can we help it, if your brat has kicked the bucket?”
“These beggars always have such a lot of children, if they have nothing else!”
“Yes, so they have,” responded Malicorne. Then, slapping Morel on the shoulder, he called out in a loud voice, “I tell you what it is, my friend, we’re not going to be kept dawdling here all day, — our time is precious. So either out with the stumpy, or march off to prison, without any more bother!”
“Prison!” exclaimed a clear, youthful voice; “take M. Morel to prison!” and a bright, beaming face appeared at the door.
“Ah, Mlle. Rigolette,” cried the weeping children, as they recognised the happy, healthful countenance of their young protectress and friend, “these wicked men are going to take our poor father away, and put him in prison! And sister Adèle is just dead!”
“Dead!” cried the kind-hearted girl, her dark eyes filling with compassionating tears; “poor little thing! But it cannot be true that your father is in danger of a prison;” and, almost stupefied with surprise, she gazed alternately from the children to Morel, and from him to the bailiffs.
“I say, my girl,” said Bourdin, approaching Rigolette, “as you do seem to have the use of your senses, just make this good man hear reason, will you? His child has just died. Well, that can’t be helped now; but, you see, he is a-keeping of us, because we’re a-waiting to take him to the debtors’ prison, being sheriffs’ officers, duly sworn in and appointed. Tell him so!”
“Then it is true!” exclaimed the feeling girl.
“True? I should say it was and no mistake! Now, don’t you see, while the mother is busy with the dead babby — and, bless you! she’s got it there, hugging it up in bed, and won’t part with it! — she won’t notice us? So I want the father to be off while she isn’t thinking nothing about it!”
“Good God! Good God!” replied Rigolette, in deep distress; “what is to be done?”
“Done? Why, pay the money, or go to prison! There is nothing between them two ways. If you happen to have two or three thousand francs by you you can oblige him with, why, shell out, and we’ll be off, and glad enough to be gone!”
“How can you,” cried Rigolette, “be so barbarous as to make a jest of such distress as this?”
“Well, then,” rejoined the other man, “all joking apart, if you really do wish to be useful, try to prevent the woman from seeing us take her husband away. You will spare them both a very disagreeable ten minutes!”
Coarse as was this counsel, it was not destitute of good sense; and Rigolette, feeling she could do nothing else, approached the bedside of Madeleine, who, distracted by her grief, appeared unconscious of the presence of Rigolette, as, gathering the children together, she knelt with them beside their afflicted mother.
Meanwhile Morel, upon recovering from his temporary wildness, had sunk into a state of deep and bitter reflections upon his present position, which, now that his mind saw things through a calmer medium, only increased the poignancy of his sufferings. Since the notary had proceeded to such extremities, any hope from his mercy was vain. He felt there was nothing left but to submit to his fate, and let the law take its course.
“Are we ever to get off?” inquired Bourdin. “I tell you what, my man, if you are not for marching, we must make you, that’s all.”
“I cannot leave these diamonds about in this manner, — my wife is half distracted,” cried Morel, pointing to the stones lying on his work-table. “The person for whom I am polishing them will come to fetch them away either this morning or during the day. They are of considerable value.”
“Capital!” whispered Tortillard, who was still peeping in at the half closed door; “capital, capital! What will Mother Chouette say when I tell her this bit of luck?”
“Only give me till to-morrow,” said Morel, beseechingly; “only till I can return these diamonds to my employer.”
“I tell you, the thing can’t be done. So let’s have no more to say about it.”
“But it is impossible for me to leave diamonds of such value as these exposed, to be lost or even stolen in my absence.”
“Well, then, take them along with you. We have got a coach waiting below, for which you will have to pay when you settle the costs. We will go all together to your employer’s house, and, if you don’t meet with him, why, then, you can deposit these jewels at the office of the prison, where they will be as safe as in the bank; only look sharp, and let’s be off before your wife and children perceive us.”
“Give me but till to-morrow, — only to bury my child!” implored Morel, in a supplicating voice, half stifled by the heavy sobs he strove in vain to repress.
“Nonsense, I tell you; why, we have lost an hour here already!”
“Besides, it’s dull work going to berrins,” chimed in Malicorne. “It would be too much for your feelings, p’raps.”
“Yes,” said Morel, bitterly; “it is dull work to see what we would have given our lives to save laid in the cold earth. But, as you are men, grant me that satisfaction.” Then, looking up, and observing the nonchalant air with which his prayer was received, he added, “But no, persons of so much feeling as you are would fear to indulge me, lest I should find it a gloomy sight. Well, then, at least grant me one word!”
“The deuce take your last words! Why, old chap, there seems no end to them. Come, put the steam on; make haste,” said Malicorne, with brutal impatience, “or we shall lose t’other gent we’re after.”
“When did you receive orders to arrest me?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, why, judgment was signed four months ago! But it was only yesterday our officer got instructions to put it in execution.”
“Only yesterday! And why has it been delayed so long?”
“How the devil should I know? Come, look about you, and put up your things.”
“Only yesterday? And during the whole day we saw nothing of Louise! Where can she be? Or what has become of her?” inquired the lapidary mentally, as he took from his table a small box filled with cotton, in which he placed his stones. “But never mind all that now. I shall have plenty of time to think about it when I am in prison.”
“Come, look sharp there a bit. Tie up your things to take with you, and put your clothes on, there’s a fine fellow!”
“I have no clothes to tie up, and have nothing whatever to take with me except these jewels, that I may deposit them at the office of the prison.”
“Well, then, dress yourself as quick as you can.”
“I have no other dress than that you now see me in.”
“I say, mate,” cried Bourdin, “does he really mean to be seen in our company with such rags as those on?”
“I fear, indeed, I shall shame such gentlemen as you are!” said Morel, bitterly.
“It don’t much signify,” replied Malicorne, “as nobody will see us in the coach.”
“Father!” cried one of the children, “mother is calling for you!”
“Listen to me!” said Morel, addressing one of the men with hurried tones; “if one spark of human pity dwells within you, grant me one favour! I have not the courage to bid my wife and children farewell; it would break my heart! And if they see you take me away, they will try to follow me. I wish to spare all this. Therefore, I beseech you to say, in a loud voice, that you will come again in three or four days, and pretend to go away. You can wait for me at the next landing-place, and I will come to you in less than five minutes; that will spare all the misery of taking leave. I am quite sure it would be too much for me, and that I should become mad! I was not far off it a little while ago.”
“Not to be caught!” answered Malicorne; “you want to do me! But I’m up to you! You mean to give us the slip, you old chouse!”
“God of heaven!” cried Morel, with a mixture of grief and indignation, “has it come to this?”
“I don’t think he means what you say,” whispered Bourdin to his companion; “let us do what he asks; we shall never get away unless we do. I’ll stand outside the door; there is no other way of escaping from this garret; he cannot get away from us.”
“Very well. But what a dog-hole! What a place for a man to care about leaving! Why, a prison will be a palace to it!” Then, addressing Morel, he said, “Now, then, be quick, and we will wait for you on the next landing; so make up some pretence for our going.”
“Well,” said Bourdin in a loud voice, and bestowing a significant look on the unhappy artisan, “since things are as you say, and as you think you shall be able to pay us in a short time, why, we shall leave you for the present, and return in about four or five days; but you must not disappoint us then, remember!”
“Thank you, gentlemen. I have no doubt I shall be able to pay you then.”
The bailiffs then withdrew, while Tortillard, hearing the men talk of quitting the room, had hastened down-stairs for fear of being detected listening.
“There, Madame Morel!” said Rigolette, endeavouring to draw the wife of the lapidary from the state of gloomy abstraction into which she had fallen, “do you hear that? The men have gone, and left your husband undisturbed.”
“Mother! mother!” exclaimed the children, joyfully, “they have not taken father away!”
“Morel, Morel!” murmured Madeleine, her brain quite turned, “take one of those diamonds — take the largest — and sell it; no one will know it, and then we shall be delivered from our misery; poor little Adèle will get warm then, and come back to us.”
Taking advantage of the instant when no one was observing him, the lapidary profited by it to steal from the room. One of the men was waiting for him on the little landing-place, which was also covered only by the roof; on this small spot opened the door of a garret, which adjoined the apartment occupied by the Morels, and in which M. Pipelet kept his dépôt of leather; and, further, this little angular recess, in which a person could not stand upright, was dignified by the melancholy porter with the name of his Melodramatic Cabinet, because, by means of a hole between the lath and plaster, he frequently indulged in the luxury of woe by witnessing the many touching scenes occasioned by the distress of the wretched family who dwelt in the garret beyond it. This door had not escaped the lynx eye of the bailiff, who had, for a time, suspected his prisoner of intending either to escape or conceal himself by means of it.
“Now, then, let us make a start of it!” cried he, beginning to descend the stairs as Morel emerged from the garret. “Rather a ragged recruit to march with,” added he, beckoning to the lapidary to follow him.
“Only an instant, one single instant, for the love of God!” exclaimed Morel, as, kneeling down, he cast a last look on his wife and children through a chink in the door. Then clasping his hands, he said, in a low, heart-broken voice, while bitter tears flowed down his haggard cheeks:
“Adieu, my poor children! my wife! May Heaven preserve you all! Farewell, farewell!”
“Come, don’t get preaching!” said Bourdin, coarsely, “or your sermons may keep us here till night, which is what I can’t stand, for I am almost froze to death as it is. Ugh! what a kennel! what a hole!”
Morel rose from his knees and was about to follow the bailiff, when the words, “Father! father!” sounded up the staircase.
“Louise!” exclaimed the lapidary, raising his hands towards heaven in a transport of gratitude; “thank God I shall be able to embrace you before I go!”
“Heaven be praised, I am here in time!” cried the voice, as it rapidly approached, and quick, light steps were distinguishable, swiftly ascending the stairs.
“Don’t be uneasy, my dear,” said a second voice, evidently proceeding from some individual considerably behind the first speaker, but whose thick puffing and laborious breathing announced the coming of one who did not find mounting to the top of the house so easy an affair as it seemed to her light-footed companion.
The reader may, perhaps, have already guessed that the last comer was no other than Madame Pipelet, who, less agile than Louise, was compelled to advance at a much slower pace.
“Louise! Is it, indeed, you, my own, my good Louise?” said Morel, still weeping. “But how pale you look! For mercy’s sake, my child, what is the matter?”
“Nothing, father, nothing, I assure you!” said Louise, in much agitation; “but I have run so fast! See, I have brought the money!”
“What?”
“You are free!”
“You knew, then, that—”
“Oh, yes! Here, sir, you will find it quite right,” said the poor girl, placing the rouleau of gold in the hands of Malicorne.
“But this money, Louise, — how did you become possessed of it?”
“I will tell you all about it by and by; pray do not be uneasy; let us go and comfort my mother. Come, father.”
“No, not just this minute!” cried Morel, remembering that, as yet, Louise was entirely ignorant of the death of her little sister; “wait an instant. I have something to say to you first. But about this money?”
“All right,” said Malicorne, as, having finished counting the gold, he put it in his pocket; “precisely one thousand three hundred francs. And is that all you have got for me, my pretty dear?”
“I thought, father,” said Louise, struck with alarm and surprise at the man’s question, “that you only owed one thousand three hundred francs.”
“Nor do I,” replied Morel.
“Precisely so!” answered the bailiff; “the original debt is one thousand three hundred francs; well, that is all right now, and we may put ‘settled’ against that: but then, you s
ee, there are the costs, caption, etc., amounting to eleven hundred and forty francs, still to be paid.”
“Gracious heavens!” cried Louise, “I thought one thousand three hundred francs would pay everything! But, sir, we will make up the money, and bring it to you very soon; take this for the present, it is a good sum; take it as paid on account; it will go towards the debt, at least, won’t it, father?”
“Very well; then all you have to do is to bring the required sum to the prison, and then, and not till then, your father — if he is your father — will be set at liberty. Come, master, we must start, or we never shall get there.”
“Do you really mean to take him away?”
“Do I? Don’t I? Just look here; I am ready to give you a memorandum of having received so much on account; and, whenever you bring the rest, you shall have a receipt in full, and your father along with it. There, now, that’s a handsome offer, ain’t it?”
“Mercy! mercy!” supplicated Louise.
“Whew!” cried the man, “here’s a scene over again! My stars, I hope this one isn’t a-going mad, too, for the whole family seems uncommon queer about the head! Well, I declare I never see anything like it! It is enough to set a man ‘prespiring’ in the midst of winter!” and here the bailiff burst into a loud, coarse laugh at his own brutal wit.
“Oh, my poor, dear father!” exclaimed Louise, almost distractedly; “when I had hoped to have saved you!”
“No, no!” cried the lapidary, in a tone of utter despair, and stamping his foot in wild desperation, “hope nothing for me; God has forgotten me, and Heaven has ceased to be just to a wretch like me!”
“Calm yourself, my worthy friend,” said a rich, manly voice; “there is always a kind Providence that watches over and preserves good and honest men like you.”
At the same instant Rodolph appeared at the door of the small recess we have spoken of, from whence he had been an invisible spectator of much that we have related; he was pale, and extremely agitated. At this sudden apparition the bailiff drew back, with surprise; while Morel and his daughter gazed on the stranger with bewildered wonder. Taking from his waistcoat pocket a quantity of folded bank-notes, Rodolph selected three, and, presenting them to Malicorne, he said: