by Eugène Sue
“Gone to bed,” replied the widow, in a harsh tone.
“Haven’t they had their supper, mother?”
“What’s that to you?” exclaimed Nicholas, brutally, after having swallowed a large glass of wine to increase his courage, for his brother’s disposition and strength had a very strong effect on him.
Martial, as indifferent to the attacks of Nicholas as to those of Calabash, then said to his mother, “I’m sorry the children are gone to bed so soon.”
“So much the worse,” responded the widow.
“Yes, so much the worse; for I like to have them beside me when I am at supper.”
“And we, because they were troublesome and annoyed us, have sent them off,” cried Nicholas; “and if you don’t like it, why, you can go after them.”
Martial, astonished, looked steadfastly at his brother. Then, as if convinced of the futility of a quarrel, he shrugged his shoulders, cut off a slice of bread and a piece of meat.
The dog had come up towards Nicholas, although keeping at a very respectful distance; and the ruffian, irritated at the disdain with which his brother treated him, and hoping to wear out his patience by ill-using his dog, gave Miraut a savage kick, which made the poor brute howl fearfully. Martial turned red, clasped in his hand the knife he held, and struck violently on the table with the handle; but, again controlling himself, he called the dog to him, saying, quietly, “Here, Miraut!” The hound came, and crouched at his master’s feet.
This composure quite upset Nicholas’s plans, who was desirous of pushing his brother to extremities, in order to produce an explosion. So he added, “I hate dogs — I do; and I won’t have this dog remain here.” Martial’s only reply was to pour out a glass of wine, and drink it off slowly. Exchanging a rapid glance with Nicholas, the widow encouraged him by a signal to continue his hostilities towards Martial, hoping, as we have said, that a violent quarrel would arise that would lead to a rupture and complete separation.
Nicholas, then, taking up the willow stick which the widow had used to beat François, went up to the dog, and, striking him sharply, said, “Get out, you brute, Miraut!”
Up to this time Nicholas had often shown himself sulkily offensive towards Martial, but he had never dared to provoke him with so much audacity and perseverance. La Louve’s lover, thinking they were desirous of driving him to extremities for some secret motive, quelled every impulse of temper.
At the cry of the beaten dog, Martial rose, opened the door of the kitchen, made the dog go out, and then returned, and went on with his supper. This incredible patience, so little in harmony with Martial’s usual demeanour, puzzled and nonplussed his aggressors, who looked at each other with amazement. He, affecting to appear wholly unconscious of what was passing around him, ate away with great appetite, keeping profound silence.
“Calabash, take the wine away,” said the widow to her daughter.
She hastened to comply, when Martial said, “Stay, I haven’t done my supper.”
“So much the worse,” said the widow, taking the bottle away herself.
“Oh, that’s another thing!” answered La Louve’s lover. And pouring out a large glass of water, he drank it, smacking his tongue, and exclaiming, “Capital water!”
This excessive calmness irritated the burning anger of Nicholas, already heated by copious libations; but still he hesitated at making a direct attack, well knowing the vast power of his brother. Suddenly he cried out, as if delighted at the idea, “Martial, you were quite right to turn the dog out. It is a good habit to begin to give way, for you have but to wait a bit, and you will see us kick your sweetheart out just as we have driven away your dog.”
“Oh, yes; for if La Louve is impudent enough to come to the island when she leaves gaol,” added Calabash, who quite understood Nicholas’s motive, “I’ll serve her out.”
“And I’ll give her a dip in the mud by the hovel at the end of the island,” continued Nicholas; “and, if she gets out, I’ll give her a few rattlers over the nob with my wooden shoe, the — —”
This insult addressed to La Louve, whom he loved with savage ardour, triumphed over the pacific resolutions of Martial; he frowned, and the blood mounted to his cheeks, whilst the veins in his brow swelled and distended like cords. Still, he had so much control over himself as to say to Nicholas, in a voice slightly altered by his repressed wrath:
“Take care of yourself! You are trying to pick a quarrel, and you will find a bone to pick that will be too tough for you.”
“A bone for me to pick?”
“Yes; and I’ll thrash you more soundly than I did last time.”
“What! Nicholas,” said Calabash, with a sardonic grin, “did Martial thrash you? Did you hear that, mother? I’m not astonished that Nicholas is so afraid of him.”
“He walloped me, because, like a coward, he took me off my guard,” exclaimed Nicholas, turning pale with rage.
“You lie! You attacked me unexpectedly; I knocked you flat, and then showed you mercy. But if you talk of my mistress, — I say, mind you, of my mistress, — this time I look it over, — you shall carry my marks for many a long day.”
“And suppose I choose to talk of La Louve?” inquired Calabash.
“Why, I’ll pull your ears to put you on your guard; and if you begin again, why, so will I.”
“And suppose I speak of her?” said the widow, slowly.
“You?”
“Yes, — I!”
“You?” said Martial, making a violent effort over himself; “you?”
“You’ll beat me, too, I suppose, — won’t you?”
“No; but, if you speak to me unkindly of La Louve, I’ll give Nicholas a hiding he shall long remember. So now, mind! It is his affair as well as yours.”
“You?” exclaimed the ruffian, rising, and drawing his dangerous Spanish knife; “you give me a hiding?”
The Brigand dashed at his brother.
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel.
“Nicholas, no steel!” cried the widow, quickly, leaving her seat, and trying to seize her son’s arm; but he, drunk with wine and passion, repulsed his mother savagely, and rushed at his brother.
Martial receded rapidly, laid hold of the thick, knotted stick which he had put down by the dresser, as he entered, and betook himself to the defensive.
“Nicholas, no steel!” repeated the widow.
“Let him alone!” cried Calabash, taking up the ravageur’s hatchet.
Nicholas, still brandishing his formidable knife, watched for a moment when he could spring on his brother.
“I tell you,” he exclaimed, “you and your trollop, La Louve, that I’ll slash your eyes out; and here goes to begin! Help, mother! Help, Calabash! Let’s make cold meat of the scamp; he’s been in our way too long already!” And, believing the moment favourable for his attack, the brigand dashed at his brother with his uplifted knife.
Martial, who was a dexterous cudgeller, retreated a pace rapidly, raising his stick, which, as quick as lightning, cut a figure of eight, and fell so heavily on the right forearm of Nicholas that he, seized with a sudden and overpowering pain, dropped his trenchant weapon.
“Villain, you have broken my arm!” he shouted, grasping with his left hand the right arm, which hung useless by his side.
“No; for I felt my stick rebound!” replied Martial, kicking, as he spoke, the knife underneath the dresser.
Then, taking advantage of the pain which Nicholas was suffering, he seized him by the collar, and thrust him violently backwards, until he had reached the door of the little cellar we have alluded to, which he opened with one hand, whilst, with the other, he thrust his brother into it, and locked him in, all stupefied as he was with this sudden attack.
Then, turning round upon the two women, he seized Calabash by the shoulders, and, in spite of her resistance, her shrieks, and a blow from the hatchet, which cut his head slightly, he shut her up in the lower room of the cabaret, which communicated with the kitchen.
>
Then addressing the widow, who was still stupefied with this manœuvre, as skilful as it was sudden, Martial said to her, calmly, “Now, mother, you and I are alone.”
“Yes, we are alone,” replied the widow, and her usually immobile features became excited, her sallow skin grew red, a gloomy fire lighted up her dull eye, whilst anger and hate gave to her countenance a terrible expression. “Yes, we two are alone now!” she repeated, in a menacing voice. “I have waited for this moment; and at length you shall know all that I have on my mind.”
“And I will tell you all I have on my mind.”
“If you live to be a hundred years old, I tell you you shall remember this night.”
“I shall remember it, unquestionably. My brother and sister have tried to murder me, and you have done nothing to prevent them. But come, let me hear what you have against me?”
“What have I?”
“Yes.”
“Since your father’s death you have acted nothing but a coward’s part.”
“I?”
“Yes, a coward’s! Instead of remaining with us to support us, you went off to Rambouillet, to poach in the woods with that man who sells game whom you knew at Bercy.”
“If I had remained here, I should have been at the galleys like Ambroise, or on the point of going there like Nicholas. I would not be a robber like the rest, and that is the cause of your hatred.”
“And what track are you following now? You steal game, you steal fish, — thefts without danger, — a coward’s thefts!”
“Fish, like game, is no man’s property. To-day belongs to one, to-morrow to another. It is his who can take it. I don’t steal. As to being a coward—”
“Why, you fight — and for money — men who are weaker than yourself.”
“Because they have beaten men weaker than themselves.”
“A coward’s trade, — a coward’s trade!”
“Why, there are more honest pursuits, it is true. But it is not for you to tell me this!”
“Then why did you not take up with those honest trades, instead of coming here skulking and feeding out of my saucepans?”
“I give you the fish I catch, and what money I have. It isn’t much, but it’s enough; and I don’t cost you anything. I have tried to be a locksmith to earn more; but when one has from one’s infancy led a vagabond life on the river and in the woods, it is impossible to confine oneself to one spot. It is a settled thing, and one’s life is decided. And then,” added Martial, with a gloomy air, “I have always preferred living alone on the water or in the forest. There no one questions me; whilst elsewhere men twit me about my father, who was (can I deny it?) guillotined, — of my brother, a galley-slave, — of my sister, a thief!”
“And what do you say of your mother?”
“I say—”
“What?”
“I say she is dead.”
“You do right; it is as if I were, for I renounce you, dastard! Your brother is at the galleys; your grandfather and your father finished their lives daringly on the scaffold, mocking the priest and the executioner! Instead of avenging them you tremble!”
“Avenging them?”
“Yes, by showing yourself a real Martial, spitting at the headsman’s knife and the red cassock, and ending like father, mother, brother, sister—”
Accustomed as he was to the savage excitement of his mother, Martial could not forbear shuddering. The countenance of the widow as she uttered the last words was fearful. She continued, with increasing wrath:
“Oh, coward! and even worse than coward! You wish to be honest! Honest? Why, won’t you ever be despised, repulsed, as the son of an assassin or the brother of a felon? But you, instead of rousing your revenge and wrath, this makes you frightened! Instead of biting, you run away! When they guillotined your father, you left us, — coward! And you knew we could not leave the island to go into the city, because they call after us, and pelt us with stones, like mad dogs. Oh, they shall pay for it, I can tell you, — they shall pay for it!”
“A man? — ten men would not make me afraid! But to be called after by all the world as the son and brother of criminals! Well, I could not endure it. I preferred going into the woods and poaching with Pierre, who sells game.”
“Why didn’t you remain in the woods?”
“I returned because I got into trouble with a keeper, and besides on the children’s account, because they are of an age to take to evil from example.”
“And what is that to you?”
“To me? Why, I will not allow them to become depraved like Ambroise, Nicholas, and Calabash.”
“Indeed!”
“And if they were left with you, then they would not fail to become so. I went apprentice to try and gain a livelihood, so that I might take them into my own care and leave the island with the children; but in Paris everything was known, and it was always, ‘You son of the guillotined!’ or, ‘You brother of the felon!’ I had battles daily, and I grew tired of it.”
“But you didn’t grow tired of being honest, — that answered so well! Instead of having the pluck to come to us, and do as we do, — as the children will do, in spite of you, — yes, in spite of you! You think to cajole them with your preaching! But we are always here. François is already one of us, or nearly. Let the occasion serve, and he’ll be one of the band.”
“I tell you, no!”
“You will see, — yes! I know what I say. He has vice in him; but you spoil him. As to Amandine, as soon as she is fifteen she will begin on her own account! Ah, they throw stones at us! Ah, they pursue us like mad dogs! They shall see what our family is made of! Except you, dastard; for here you are the only one who brings down shame upon us!”
These frightful facts are, unfortunately, not exaggerated. The following is from the admirable report of M. de Bretignères on the Penitentiary Colony of Mettray (March 12, 1843):
“The civil condition of our colonists it is important to state. Amongst them we count thirty-two natural children; thirty-four whose fathers and mothers are re-married; fifty-one whose parents are in prison; 124 whose parents have not been pursued by justice, but are in the utmost distress. These figures are eloquent, and full of instruction. They allow us to go from effects to causes, and give us the hope of arresting the progress of an evil whose origin is thus arrived at. The number of parents who are criminals enable us to appreciate the education which the children have received under the tutelage of such instructors. Taught evil by their fathers, the sons have become wicked by their orders, and have believed they were acting properly in following their example. Arrested by the hand of the law, they resign themselves to share the destiny of their family in prison, to which they only bring the emulation of vice; and it is absolutely necessary that a ray of divine light should still exist within these rude and coarse natures, in order that all the germs of honesty should not be utterly destroyed.”
“That’s a pity!”
“And as you may be spoiled amongst us, why, to-morrow you shall leave this place, and never return to it.”
Martial looked at his mother with surprise, then, after a moment’s silence, said, “Was it for this that you tried to get up a quarrel with me at supper?”
“Yes, to show you what you might expect if you would stay here in spite of us, — a hell upon earth, — I tell you, a hell! Every day a quarrel and blows — struggles. And we shall not be alone as we were this, evening; we shall have friends who will help us. And you will not hold out for a week.”
“Do you think to frighten me?”
“I only tell you what will happen.”
“I don’t heed it. I shall stay!”
“You will stay?”
“Yes.”
“In spite of us?”
“In spite of you, of Calabash, of Nicholas, and all blackguards like him.”
“Really, you make me laugh.”
From the lips of this woman, with her repulsive and ferocious look, these words were horrible.
> “I tell you I will remain here until I find the means of gaining my livelihood elsewhere with the children. Alone, I should not long be unemployed, for I could return to the woods; but, on their account, I may be some time in finding what I am seeking for. In the meanwhile, here I remain.”
“Oh, you remain until the moment when you can take away the children?”
“Exactly as you say.”
“Take away the children?”
“When I say to them ‘Come!’ they will come; and quickly too, I promise you.”
The widow shrugged her shoulders, and replied:
“Listen! I told you a short time since that, even if you were to live for a hundred years, you should recollect this night. I will explain those words. But, before I do so, have you quite made up your mind?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times over, yes!”
“In a little while, however, you will say ‘No! No! No! A thousand times, no!’ Listen to me attentively! Do you know the trade your brother follows?”
“I have my suspicions; but I do not wish to know.”
“You shall know. He steals!”
“So much the worse for him!”
“And for you!”
“For me?”
“He commits robberies at night, with forcible entry, — burglary; a case of the galleys. We receive what he plunders. If we are discovered, we shall be sentenced to the same punishment as he is, as receivers, and you too. They will sweep away the whole family, and the children will be turned out into the streets, where they will learn the trade of their father and grandfather as well as here.”
“I apprehended as a receiver, — as your accomplice? Where’s the proofs?”
“No one knows how you live. You are vagabondising on the water; you have the reputation of a bad fellow; you dwell with us, and who will believe that you are ignorant of our thefts and receivings?”
“I will prove the contrary.”
“We will accuse you as our accomplice.”
“Accuse me! And why?”
“To pay you off for staying amongst us against our will.”