The World's Greatest Books - Volume 8 Part 46

Manfred, waking as from a trance, beat his breast and twisted his hands in his locks. Theodore's cries quickly drew some monks to his aid, among them Father Jerome.

"Now, tyrant," said Jerome, "behold the completion of woe fulfilled on thy impious head!"

"Cruel man!" cried Matilda, "to aggravate the woes of a parent!"

"Oh, Matilda," said Manfred, "I took thee for Isabella. Oh, canst thou forgive the blindness of my rage?"

"I can, and do," answered Matilda, "and may heaven confirm it!"

Matilda was carried back to the castle; and Hippolita, when she saw the afflicted procession, ran weeping to her daughter, whose hands the agonized Theodore covered with a thousand kisses.

"I would say something more," said Matilda, struggling, "but it may not be. Isabella--Theodore--for my sake--oh!" She expired.

A clap of thunder at that instant shook the castle to its foundations; the earth rocked, and the clank of more than mortal armour was heard behind. The walls of the castle were thrown down with a mighty force, and the form of Alfonso, dilated to an immense magnitude, appeared in the centre of the ruins. "Behold in Theodore the true heir of Alfonso!"

said the vision; and having p.r.o.nounced these words, accompanied by a clap of thunder, it ascended solemnly towards heaven, where, the clouds parting asunder, the form of St. Nicholas was seen, and receiving Alfonso's shade, they were soon wrapt from mortal eyes in a blaze of glory.

The beholders fell prostrate on their faces, acknowledging the divine will. Manfred at last spoke.

"My story has drawn down these judgements," he said; "let my confession atone. Alfonso died by poison. A fict.i.tious will declared my grandfather Ricardo his heir. Ricardo's crimes have been visited upon my head. St.

Nicholas promised him in a dream that his posterity should reign in Otranto until the rightful owner should be grown too large to inhabit the castle, and as long as male descendants of Ricardo should live to enjoy it. Alas! nor male nor female, except myself, remains of all his wretched race! How this young man can be Alfonso's heir, I know not--yet I do not doubt it."

"What remains, it is my part to declare," said Jerome. "When Alfonso was journeying to the Holy Land, he loved and wedded a fair Sicilian maiden.

Deeming this incongruous with his holy vow of arms, he concealed their nuptials. During his absence, his wife was delivered of a daughter; and straightway afterwards she heard of her lord's death in the Holy Land and Ricardo's succession. The daughter was married to me. My son Theodore has told me that he was captured and enslaved by corsairs, and, on his release, found that my castle was burnt to the ground, and that I was retired into religion, but where no man could inform him. Dest.i.tute and friendless, he wandered into this province, where he has supported himself by the labour of his hands."

On the next morning Manfred signed his abdication of the princ.i.p.ality, with the approbation of Hippolita, and each took on them the habit of religion. Frederic offered his daughter to the new Prince. But Theodore's grief was too fresh to admit the thought of another love, and it was not until after frequent discourses with Isabella of his dear Matilda that he was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.

eMILE ZOLA

Drink

The early days of emile Edouard Charles Antoine Zola were sordid and unromantic. He was born at Paris, on April 2, 1840, his father dying while the son was quite young, and leaving his family no legacy except a lawsuit against the munic.i.p.ality of the town of Aix. And it was at Aix, which figures in many of his novels under the name of "Pla.s.sans," that Zola received the first part of his education. Later he went to Paris and Ma.r.s.eilles, but failed to get his degree. A period of terrible poverty followed, Zola existing as best he might in a garret at Paris, and employing his hours in writing. Towards the beginning of 1862 he obtained a position as clerk in a publis.h.i.+ng house at a salary of a pound a week. Two years after his first novel, "Contes a Ninon," appeared. The book was only moderately successful, but attracted sufficient attention to justify Zola in abandoning clerking, and taking seriously to literature. There followed a long series of powerful and realistic studies of social life, each of unquestioned ability, but failing to win the popularity which was later accorded to Zola's works. The turning-point came in 1877 with the publication of "Drink" ("L'a.s.sommoir"). Its success was extraordinary, and its author found himself the most widely-read writer in France. The story belongs to the "realistic" school, and, although objections may be raised against its nauseating details, there is no mistaking its graphic power and truth to a certain phase of life. Zola was accidentally suffocated by charcoal fumes on September 29, 1902.

_I.--The Lodgers of the Hotel Boncoeur_

Gervaise had waited up for Lantier until two in the morning, exposed in a thin loose jacket to the night air at the window. Then, chilled and drowsy, she had thrown herself across the bed, bathed in tears. For a week he had not appeared till late, alleging that he had been in search of work. This evening she thought she had seen him enter a dancing-hall opposite, and, five or six paces behind, little Adele, a burnisher.

Towards five o'clock Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore. Seated on the edge of the bed, her eyes veiled in tears, she glanced round the wretched room, furnished with a chest of drawers, three chairs and a little greasy table on which stood a broken water-jug. On the mantelpiece was a bundle of p.a.w.n tickets. It was the best room of the lodging house, the Hotel Boncoeur, in the Boulevard de la Chapelle.

The two children were sleeping side by side. Claude was eight years of age, while etienne was only four. The bedewed gaze of their mother rested upon them and she burst into a fresh fit of sobbing. Then she returned to the window and searched the distant pavements with her eyes.

About eight Lantier returned. He was a young fellow of twenty-six, a short, dark, and handsome Provencal. He pushed her aside, and when she upbraided him, shook her violently, and then sent her out to p.a.w.n a few ragged, soiled garments. When she returned with a five-franc-piece he slipped it into his pocket and lay down on the bed and appeared to fall asleep. Rea.s.sured by his regular breathing, she gathered together a bundle of dirty clothes and went out to a wash-house near by.

Madame Boche, the doorkeeper of the Hotel Boncoeur, had kept a place for her, and immediately started talking, without leaving off her work.

"No, we're not married" said Gervaise presently. "Lantier isn't so nice that one should care to be his wife. We have lived together eight years.

In the country he was very good to me, but his mother died last year and left him seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, and since then I don't know what to make of him. He's ambitious and a spendthrift, and at the end of two months we came to the Hotel Boncoeur."

The gossip continued and Gervaise had nearly finished when she recognised, a few tubs away, the tall Virginie, her supposed rival in the affections of Lantier, and the sister of Adele. Suddenly some laughter arose at the door of the wash-house and Claude and Etienne ran to Gervaise through the puddles. Claude had the key of the room on his finger, and he exclaimed in his clear voice, "Papa's gone. He jumped off the bed, put all the things in the box and carried it down to a cab.

He's gone."

Gervaise rose to her feet, ghastly pale, unable to cry.

"Come, my dear," murmured Madame Boche.

"If you but knew," she said at length. "He sent me this morning to p.a.w.n the last of my things so that he could pay the cab." And she burst out crying. Then, seeing the tall Virginie, with other women, staring at her, a mad rage seized her, and noticing a bucket of water, she threw its contents with all her might. A fierce quarrel ensued, ending in a hand-to-hand conflict with flowing blood and torn garments. When her rival was driven to flight Gervaise returned to her deserted lodgings.

Her tears again took possession of her. Lantier had forgotten nothing.

Even a little hand-gla.s.s and the packet of p.a.w.n tickets were gone.

_II.--Gervaise and Coupeau_

About three weeks later, at half-past eleven one beautiful day of suns.h.i.+ne, Gervaise and Coupeau, the zinc-worker, were partaking together of plums preserved in brandy at the "a.s.sommoir" kept by old Colombe.

Coupeau, who had been smoking a cigarette on the pavement, had prevailed on her to go inside as she crossed the road returning from taking home a customer's was.h.i.+ng; and her large square laundress's basket was on the floor beside her, behind the little zinc-covered table.

Coupeau was making a fresh cigarette. He was very clean in a cap and a short blue linen blouse, laughing and showing his white teeth. With a projecting under jaw, and slightly snub nose, he had yet handsome chestnut eyes, and the face of a jolly dog, and a good fellow. His coa.r.s.e, curly hair stood erect. His skin still preserved the softness of his twenty-six years. Opposite to him, Gervaise, in a frock of black Orleans stuff, and bareheaded, was finis.h.i.+ng her plum, which she held by the stalk between the tips of her fingers.

The zinc-worker, having lit his cigarette, placed his elbows on the table, and said, "Then it's to be 'No,' is it?"

"Oh, most decidedly 'No,' Monsieur Coupeau," she replied. "You'll find someone else prettier than I am who won't have two monkeys to drag about with her."

But she did not repulse him entirely, and as, in his urgency, Coupeau made a point of offering marriage, little by little Gervaise gave way.

At last, after a month, she yielded.

"How you do tease me," she murmured. "Well, then, yes. Ah, we're perhaps doing a very foolish thing."

During the following days Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call on his sister in the Rue de la Goutte d'Or, but the young woman showed a great dread of this visit to the Lorilleux. Coupeau was in no wise dependent on his sister, only the Lorilleux had the reputation of earning as much as ten francs a day as gold chain makers, and on that ground they exercised special authority. They lived on the sixth floor in a tenement house crammed with tenants of every degree of squalor. They were so busy that they could not cease their work, and welcomed their new relative with but a few cold words. Her reception was very trying to Gervaise, but the disappointment of herself and Coupeau was dispelled when the Lorilleux agreed to attend the wedding and pay their share of the wedding dinner.

Gervaise did not want to have guests at her wedding. What was the use of spending money? Besides, it seemed quite unnecessary to show off her marriage before the whole neighbourhood. But Coupeau exclaimed at this.

One could not be married without having a spread, and at length he got her to consent.

They formed a party of twelve, including the Lorilleux and some of Coupeau's comrades who frequented the "a.s.sommoir." The day was excessively hot. At the mayor's they had to wait their turn and thus were late at the church. On the way the men had some beer and after the religious ceremony they adjourned to a wine-shop. Then a heavy storm preventing a proposed excursion into the country before dinner, they went to the Louvre. The general opinion was that the pictures were quite wonderful. Shut out of the galleries with still two hours to spare, the party decided to take a short walk and filled up the interval in climbing to the top of the Vendome monument.

Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down to the long-desired feast. The repast was p.r.o.nounced fairly good. It was accompanied by quant.i.ties of cheap wine and enlivened with much coa.r.s.e joking, becoming violent as the discussion turned on politics. Quiet being obtained, there followed the settling-up squabble with the landlord. Each paid his share and Coupeau found himself starting married life on seven sous, the day's entertainment having cost him over forty francs.

There were four years of hard work after this. Gervaise worked twelve hours a day at Madame Fauconnier's, the laundress, and still found means to keep their lodging clean and bright as a son. Coupeau never got drunk and brought his wages home regularly from the zinc-works. During the earlier days especially, they had to work slavishly to make ends meet.

The marriage had burdened them with a two-hundred-franc debt. Then, too, they hated the Hotel Boncoeur. It was a disgusting place and they dreamed of a home of their own. Then there came a piece of good luck.

Claude was taken off their hands by an old gentleman who had been struck by some of his sketches. Eight months later they were able to furnish a room and a kitchen in a house nearly facing Madame Fauconnier's. There, soon after, Nana was born. They had two good friends in Jean Goujet, a blacksmith, and his mother. They went out nearly every Sunday with the Goujes.