by Victor Hugo
They talked together in the undertone and with the suppressed laughter common to a group of young girls when there is a young man among them. The young man whose presence sufficed to call forth all these feminine wiles seemed, for his part, to pay but little heed to them; and while these lovely girls vied with one another in trying to attract his attention, he seemed chiefly occupied in polishing his belt-buckle with his buckskin glove.
From time to time the elderly lady addressed some remark to him in a very low voice, and he replied as best he could, with awkward and forced courtesy. By Madame Aloise's smiles and little significant signs, as well as by the glances which she cast at her daughter Fleur-de-Lys while she whispered to the captain, it was easy to see that she was talking of the recent betrothal, and of the marriage, doubtless to come off soon, between the young man and Fleur-de-Lys; and by the officer's coldness and embarrassment, it was plain that on his side at least there was no question of love. His whole manner expressed a weariness and constraint such as the young officers of our day would aptly translate by saying that he was "horribly bored!"
The good lady, utterly infatuated with her daughter, like the silly mother that she was, did not perceive the officer's lack of enthusiasm, and did her best to point out to him in a whisper the infinite perfection with which Fleur-de-Lys plied her needle or wound her skeins of silk.
"There, cousin," she said, plucking him by the sleeve that she might speak in his ear, "just look at her now! See how gracefully she stoops!"
"To be sure," replied the young man; and he relapsed into his cold and careless silence.
A moment after, he was forced to bend anew, and Dame Aloise said,--
"Did you ever see a merrier or more attractive face than that of your betrothed? Could any one have a fairer, whiter skin? Aren't those clever hands; and isn't her neck a perfect match in grace for a swan's? How I envy you at times! and how lucky it is for you that you are a man, wicked scamp that you are! Isn't my Fleur-de-Lys adorably lovely, and aren't you dead in love with her?"
"Of course," he replied, with his mind upon other things.
"But why don't you talk to her?" suddenly observed Madame Aloise, giving him a push. "Say something to her; you are wonderfully shy all of a sudden."
We can assure our readers that shyness was neither one of the captain's failings nor good points; but he tried to do what was required of him.
"Fair cousin," said he, approaching Fleur-de-Lys, "what is the subject of your tapestry-work?"
"Fair cousin," answered Fleur-de-Lys in an injured tone, "I have told you three times already: it is Neptune's grotto."
It was plain that Fleur-de-Lys was far more clear-sighted than her mother in regard to the captain's cold and careless manners. He felt the necessity of making conversation.
"And what is all this Neptune-work for?" he asked.
"For the Abbey of Saint-Antoine des Champs," said Fleur-de-Lys, without raising her eyes.
The captain picked up a corner of the tapestry.
"And who, my fair cousin, is this fat fellow with puffy cheeks, blowing his trumpet so vigorously?"
"That is Triton," she answered.
There was still a somewhat offended tone about Fleur-de-Lys' brief words. The captain saw that he must absolutely whisper something in her ear,--a compliment, a bit of nonsense, never mind what. He bent towards her accordingly, but his imagination suggested nothing tenderer or more familiar than this: "Why does your mother always wear a petticoat wrought with coats-of-arms, such as our grandmothers wore in the time of Charles VII? Do tell her, fair cousin, that it is no longer the fashion, and that her laurel-tree and her hinges emblazoned all over her gown make her look like a walking mantelpiece. Really, nobody sits upon their banner in that way now, I swear they don't!"
Fleur-de-Lys raised her lovely eyes full of reproach.
"Is that all you have to swear to me?" she said in a low voice.
Meantime good Dame Aloise, enchanted to see them chatting thus confidently, said, as she played with the clasps of her prayer-book, --
"What a touching picture of love!"
The captain, more and more embarrassed, fell back on the tapestry. "That really is a beautiful piece of work!" he exclaimed.
Upon this remark, Colombe de Gaillefontaine, another charming, fair-haired, white-skinned girl, in a high-necked blue damask gown, timidly ventured to address Fleur-de-Lys, in the hope that the handsome captain would reply: "My dear Gondelaurier, have you seen the tapestries at the Roche-Guyon house?"
"Isn't that the house with the garden, which belongs to the linen-dealer of the Louvre?" asked Diane de Christeuil with a laugh; for she had fine teeth, and consequently laughed on every occasion.
"And where there is that big old tower belonging to the ancient wall of Paris," added Amelotte de Montmichel, a pretty, curly-haired, rosy-cheeked brunette, who was as much given to sighing as the other was to laughing, without knowing why.
"My dear Colombe," put in Dame Aloise, "are you talking of the house which belonged to M. de Bacqueville in the reign of King Charles VI? It does indeed contain some superb high-warp tapestries."
"Charles VI! Charles VI!" muttered the young captain, twirling his moustache. "Heavens! What a memory the good lady has for bygone things!"
Madame de Gondelaurier went on: "Beautiful tapestries, indeed. Such magnificent work that it is thought to be unique!"
At this instant Berangere de Champchevrier, a slender little girl of seven, who was gazing into the square through the trefoils of the balcony railing, cried out,--
"Oh, look, pretty godmother Fleur-de-Lys, see that dear dancing-girl dancing down there on the pavement, and playing on the tambourine among those common clowns!"
The shrill jingle of a tambourine was in fact heard by all.
"Some gipsy girl," said Fleur-de-Lys, turning nonchalantly towards the square.
"Let us see! let us see!" exclaimed her lively companions; and they all ran to the edge of the balcony, while Fleur-de-Lys, musing over her lover's coldness, followed them slowly, and her lover, relieved by this incident, which cut short an embarrassing conversation, returned to the farther end of the room with the satisfied air of a soldier released from duty. Yet it was a delightful and an easy duty to wait upon the fair Fleur-de-Lys, and so it had once seemed to him; but the captain had gradually wearied of it; the prospect of a speedy marriage grew less and less attractive day by day. Besides, he was of an inconstant humor, and--we must confess--his taste was somewhat vulgar. Although of very noble birth, he had contracted while in harness more than one of the habits of the common soldier. He loved the tavern and all its accompaniments. He was never at his ease except among coarse witticisms, military gallantries, easy-going beauties, and easy conquests. He had received some education and some polish from his family; but he had roamed the country too young, joined the garrison too young, and every day the veneer of the gentleman was worn away a little more by the hard friction of his military baldric. Although he still visited her occasionally, from a lingering spark of common respect, he felt doubly embarrassed in Fleur-de-Lys' presence: first, because by dint of distributing his love in all sorts of places he had very little left for her; and next, because amid so many stately, starched, and modest dames he trembled continually lest his lips, accustomed to oaths, should suddenly lose all restraint and break out into the language of the tavern. Fancy what the effect would be!
However, with all this were mingled great pretensions to elegance in dress and to a fine appearance. Let those who can reconcile these things. I am only the historian.12
He had been standing for some moments, thinking or not thinking, leaning silently against the carved chimney-piece, when Fleur-de-Lys, turning suddenly, spoke to him. After all, the poor girl only looked back at him in self-defense.
"Fair cousin, didn't you tell us of a little gipsy girl whom you rescued from a dozen robbers some two months since, while you were on the night patrol?"
"I think I did, fair
cousin," said the captain.
"Well," she continued, "it may be that same gipsy girl who is dancing in the square below. Come and see if you recognize her, fair Cousin Phoebus!"
He perceived a secret desire for reconciliation in this gentle invitation to return to her side, and in the pains she took to call him by his Christian name. Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers (for it is he whom the reader has had before him from the beginning of this chapter) slowly approached the balcony. "There," said Fleur-de-Lys, tenderly, laying her hand upon Phoebus's arm, "look at that little thing dancing in the ring. Is that your gipsy girl?"
Phoebus looked, and said,--
"Yes; I know her by her goat."
"Oh, yes! what a pretty little goat!" said Amelotte, clasping her hands in admiration.
"Are its horns really, truly gold?" asked Berangere.
Without moving from her easy-chair, Dame Aloise took up the word: "Isn't it one of those gipsies who came here last year through the Porte Gibard?"
"Mother," said Fleur-de-Lys, gently, "that gate is now called Porte d'Enfer."
Mademoiselle de Gondelaurier knew how much her mother's superannuated modes of speech shocked the captain. In fact, he began to sneer, and muttered between his teeth: "Porte Gibard! Porte Gibard! That's to admit King Charles VI."
"Godmother," cried Berangere, whose restless eyes were suddenly raised to the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, "what is that black man doing up there?"
All the girls looked up. A man was indeed leaning on his elbows on the topmost balustrade of the northern tower, overlooking the Place de Greve. He was a priest. His dress was distinctly visible, and his face rested on his hands. He was as motionless as a statue. His eye was fixed intently on the square.
There was something in his immobility like a kite which has just discovered a nest of sparrows, and gazes at it.
"It is the archdeacon of Josas," said Fleur-de-Lys.
"You have good eyes if you can recognize him from this distance!" remarked Mademoiselle Gaillefontaine.
"How he watches the little dancer," added Diane de Christeuil.
"The gipsy girl had better beware," said Fleur-de-Lys, "for he is not fond of gipsies."
"'T is a great pity the man should stare at her so," added Amelotte de Montmichel, "for she dances ravishingly."
"Fair Cousin Phoebus," suddenly said Fleur-de-Lys, "as you know this little gipsy girl, pray beckon to her to come up. It will amuse us."
"Oh, yes!" cried all the girls, clapping their hands.
"What nonsense!" replied Phoebus. "She has doubtless forgotten me, and I don't even know her name. Still, if you wish it, ladies, I will make an attempt;" and leaning over the balcony-rail, he called, "Little one!"
The dancer was not playing her tambourine at the moment. She turned her head towards the point whence this call came, her sparkling eye fell on Phoebus, and she stopped short.
"Little one!" repeated the captain; and he signed to her to come.
The young girl looked at him again; then she blushed as if her cheeks were on fire, and putting her tambourine under her arm, she moved through the astonished spectators towards the door of the house to which Phoebus called her, with slow, hesitating steps, and the troubled gaze of a bird yielding to the fascination of a snake.
A moment later, the tapestry hanging before the door was lifted, and the gipsy appeared on the threshold of the room, red, abashed, breathless, her large eyes cast down, and not daring to advance another step.
Berangere clapped her hands.
But the dancer stood motionless at the door. Her appearance produced a strange effect upon the group of young girls. It is certain that a vague and indistinct desire to please the handsome officer animated them all alike; that his splendid uniform was the aim of all their coquetries; and that so long as he was present there was a certain secret lurking rivalry among them, which they hardly confessed to themselves, but which none the less appeared every instant in their gestures and words. Still, as they were possessed of an almost equal share of beauty, the contest was a fair one, and each might well hope for victory. The gipsy's arrival abruptly destroyed this equilibrium. Her beauty was so remarkable that when she appeared on the threshold of the room she seemed to diffuse a sort of light peculiar to herself. Shut into this room, in this dark frame of hangings and wainscotting, she was incomparably more beautiful and more radiant than in the public square. She was like a torch brought from broad daylight into darkness. The noble maidens were dazzled in spite of themselves. Each of them felt her beauty in some sort impaired. Therefore their battle-front (if we may be pardoned the expression) changed at once, without exchanging a word. Still, they understood one another to perfection. The instincts of women read and reply to one another more rapidly than the understandings of men. An enemy had arrived; all felt it, all rallied for mutual support. A drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water; the entrance of a prettier woman than themselves is enough to tinge a whole party of pretty women with a certain amount of ill-humor,--especially when there is but one man present.
Thus their reception of the gipsy girl was marvelously cold. They examined her from head to foot, then looked at one another, and that was enough: they understood one another. But the young girl waited for them to speak, so much agitated that she dared not raise her eyes.
The captain was the first to break the silence.
"On my word," he said in his tone of bold assurance, "a charming creature! What do you think of her, fair cousin?"
The observation, which a more delicate admirer would at least have uttered in an undertone, was not adapted to soothe the feminine jealousies arrayed against the gipsy girl.
Fleur-de-Lys answered the captain with a sweet affectation of disdain: "She's not bad-looking."
The others whispered together.
At last Madame Aloise, who was not the least jealous of the party since she was jealous for her daughter, addressed the dancer. "Come in, little one."
"Come in, little one!" repeated, with comic dignity, Berangere, who would have reached about to the gipsy's waist.
Esmeralda approached the noble lady.
"My pretty child," said Phoebus with emphasis, taking a few steps towards her, "I don't know whether I have the supreme happiness of being recognized by you--"
She interrupted him with a smile and a glance of infinite sweetness,--
"Oh, yes!"
"She has a good memory," observed Fleur-de-Lys.
"Now, then," continued Phoebus, "you escaped very nimbly the other night. Did I frighten you?"
"Oh, no!" said the gipsy.
There was an indefinite something in the tone in which this "Oh, no!" was uttered directly after the "Oh, yes!" which wounded Fleur-de-Lys.
"You left me in your place, my beauty," resumed the captain, whose tongue was loosened when he talked to a girl from the streets, "a very surly knave, blind of one eye, and a hunchback, the bishop's bell-ringer, I believe. They tell me he's the archdeacon's son, and a devil. He has a droll name; they call him Ember Days, Palm Sunday, Shrove Tuesday, or something of the sort! He's named for some high holiday or other! He took the liberty of carrying you off; as if you were a mate for such as he! That was coming it rather strong. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you, eh? Tell me!"
"I don't know," answered she.
"Did any one ever hear of such insolence,--a bell-ringer to carry off a girl as if he were a viscount! a common fellow to poach the game of gentlemen! A pretty state of things, indeed! However, he paid dearly for it. Master Pierrat Torterue is the roughest groom that ever combed and curried a knave; and I can tell you, if it will please you, that he gave your bell-ringer's hide a most thorough dressing."
"Poor man!" said the gipsy, reminded by these words of the scene at the pillory.
The captain burst out laughing. "By the great horn-spoon! your pity is as much out of place as a feather on a pig's tail. May I be as fat as a pope, if--"
He stopped short. "Ex
cuse me, ladies! I was just about to utter a folly."
"Fie, sir!" said Gaillefontaine.
"He speaks to that creature in her own tongue!" added Fleur-de-Lys in a low voice, her anger growing every instant. Nor was this wrath diminished when she saw the captain, charmed with the gipsy and above all with himself, turn on his heel, repeating with the coarse and frank gallantry of a soldier,--
"A lovely girl, upon my soul!"
"Very badly dressed," said Diane de Christeuil, smiling to show her fine teeth.
This remark was a ray of light to the others. It showed them the gipsy's vulnerable point: unable to carp at her beauty, they attacked her dress.
"Why, that's true, little one," said Montmichel; "where did you learn to run about the streets in this way, without a wimple or a neckerchief?"
"Your skirt is so short it fairly makes me shiver," added Gaillefontaine.
"My dear," continued Fleur-de-Lys, somewhat sharply, "you will be taken up one of these days, by the sergeants of the dozen, for your gilded belt."
"Little one, little one," resumed Christeuil with a pitiless smile, "if you wore a decent pair of sleeves upon your arms, they would be less sunburnt."
It was indeed a scene worthy of a more intelligent spectator than Phoebus, to see how these beautiful girls, with their angry, venomous tongues, glided and twisted and twined about the street dancer; they were cruel and yet gracious; they maliciously searched and scanned her shabby, fantastic garb of rags and tinsel. Their laughter, their mockery, and their sneers were endless. Sarcasms rained upon the gipsy, with wicked glances and a haughty pretence of benevolence. They were like those young Roman damsels who amused themselves by plunging golden pins into the bosom of a beautiful slave girl. They were like elegant greyhounds, hanging, with distended nostrils and fiery eyes, about a poor wood-deer which their master's eye forbids them to devour.
After all, what was a miserable street dancer to these daughters of noble houses? They seemed to pay no heed to her presence, and spoke of her, before her, to her, in loud tones, as of something rather dirty, rather low, but still rather pretty.