Mysteries of Paris Volume II Part 42

"Besides, another circ.u.mstance has strengthened my suspicions. Last night, as I made my inspection, I drew near the Goualeuse's bed; she slept profoundly; her face was calm and serene; her thick flaxen hair, half escaping from under her cap, fell in profusion on her neck and shoulders. She had her small hands clasped over her bosom, as if she had fallen asleep while in the act of prayer. I contemplated with compa.s.sion this angelic countenance, when, in a low voice, and in a tone at once respectful, sorrowful and endearing, she p.r.o.nounced a name."

"And this name?"

After a moment's silence, Madame Armand said gravely, "Although I consider as sacred that which one hears another express in their sleep, you interest yourself so generously in this unfortunate, madame, that I can confide to you this secret. The name was Rudolph."

"Rudolph!" cried Madame d'Harville, thinking of the prince. Then, reflecting that, after all, the Grand Duke of Gerolstein could have no connection with the Rudolph of poor Goualeuse, she said to the inspectress, who seemed astonished at her exclamation, "This name surprised me, madame, for by a singular chance, one of my relations bears it also; but all you have told me of the Goualeuse interests me more and more. Can I not see her to-day? Now?"

"Yes, madame, I will go, if you wish, to find her, I can also ask about Louise Morel, who is in the other part of the prison."

"I shall be much obliged," answered Madame d'Harville, and she remained alone.

"It is singular," said she; "I cannot account for the strange impression which the name of Rudolph caused me. Truly, I am mad!

between _him_ and such a creature, what relations can exist?"

Then, after a pause, she added, "He was right! how much all this interests me! the mind, the heart, expand when they are applied to such n.o.ble occupations! As he says, it seems as if one partic.i.p.ated in the power of Providence, when relieving those who are deserving. And these excursions in a world of whose existence we have no suspicion are so interesting, so _amusing_, as _he_ was pleased to say! What romance could give me such touching emotions, excite to this point my curiosity! This poor Goualeuse, for example, inspires me with profound pity, and this unfortunate daughter of the artisan, whom the prince had so generously relieved in my name! Poor people! their frightful misery served as a pretext to save me. I have escaped shame, death, perhaps, by a hypocritical falsehood; this deceit oppresses me; but I will expiate it by force of benefactions. This will be easy! it is so sweet to follow the n.o.ble counsels of Rudolph, it is rather to love than to obey him! Oh! I feel it--I know it. I experience a sweet delight in acting through him; for I love him. Oh, yes, I love him!

yet he will be for ever ignorant of this eternal pa.s.sion of my life."

While Madame d'Harville awaits the Goualeuse, we will return to the prison-yard.

CHAPTER XV.

WOLF AND LAMB.

Fleur-de-Marie, the Songstress, wore the blue dress and black cap of the prisoners; but even in this common costume she was charming. Yet since she was carried off from the farm of Bouqueval, her features were much altered; her natural paleness, slightly tinted with rose, was now as dead as the whitest alabaster; her expression had also changed; it had now a.s.sumed a kind of dignified sadness.

Fleur-de-Marie knew that to endure courageously the grievous sacrifices of expiation is almost to obtain a kind of regeneration.

"Ask their pardon for me, La Goualeuse," said Mont Saint Jean. "See how they drag in the dirt all that I had collected with so much trouble; what good can it do them?"

Fleur-de-Marie did not say a word, but she began actively to collect, one by one, from under the feet of the prisoners, all the rags she could find. One of the prisoners retaining mischievously under her foot a piece of coa.r.s.e muslin, Fleur-de-Marie, stooping, raised her enchanting face toward this woman, and said, in her sweet voice, "I beg you to let me take this, in the name of the poor weeping woman."

The prisoner withdrew her foot. The muslin was saved, as well as all the other rags, which the Goualeuse secured piece by piece. There remained only one little cap, which two of them were contending for, laughing.

Fleur-de-Marie said to them, "Come, be good now, and give her that little cap."

"My eye! is it for a baby harlequin, this cap? Made of gray stuff, with peaks of green and black fustian, and a bedtick lining!" This description of the cap was received with shouts of laughter.

"Laugh at it as much as you please, but give it to me," said Mont Saint Jean; "don't drag it in the gutter, as you did the rest. I beg your pardon, La Goualeuse, for having made you soil your hands for me," added she, in a grateful voice.

"Give me the harlequin cap," said La Louve, who caught it, and shook it in the air as a trophy.

"I entreat you to give it to me," said La Goualeuse.

"No; because you will give it to Mont Saint Jean."

"Certainly!"

"Ah! bah! such a f.a.g! it's not worth the trouble."

"It is because Mont Saint Jean has nothing but rags to dress her child with that you should have pity on her, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, sadly, extending her hand toward the cap.

"You sha'n't have it!" answered La Louve, brutally; "must one always give up to you because you are the weakest? You take advantage of this."

"Where would be the merit of giving it to me if I were the strongest?"

answered La Goualeuse, with a smile full of grace.

"No, no, you wish to twist me about again with your little soft voice; you sha'n't have it."

"Come, now, La Louve, don't be naughty."

"Leave me alone, you tire me."

"I entreat you!"

"Stop! don't make me angry--I have said no, and no it is!" cried La Louve, very much irritated.

"Have pity upon her; see how she weeps!"

"What is that to me? So much the worse for her; she is our target."

"That's true, that's true, don't give it up," murmured several of the prisoners, carried away by the example of La Louve.

"You are right--so much the worse for her!" said Fleur-de-Marie, with bitterness. "She is your b.u.t.t; she ought to be resigned to it; her groans amuse you, her tears make you laugh. You must pa.s.s the time in some way; if you should kill her on the spot, she has no right to say anything. You are right, La Louve--it is just! this poor woman has done no harm; she cannot defend herself; she is one against the whole-- you overpower her--that is very brave and very generous."

"Are we cowards, then?" cried La Louve, carried away by the violence of her character, and by her impatience of all contradiction. "Will you answer? are we cowards, eh?" said she, more and more irritated.

Murmurs, very threatening for the Goualeuse, began to be heard. The offended prisoners approached and surrounded her, vociferating, forgetting or revolting against the ascendancy that the young girl had until then obtained over them.

"She calls us cowards! By what right does she scold us? Is it because she is greater than we are? We have been too good to her, and now she wants to put on airs with us. If we choose to torment Mont Saint Jean, what has she got to say about it? Since it is so, you shall be worse beaten than before, do you hear, Mont Saint Jean?"

"Hold, here is one to begin with," said one of them, giving her a blow. "And if you meddle with what don't concern you, La Goualeuse, we'll treat you in the same way."

"Yes, yes!"

"This isn't all!" cried La Louve; "La Goualeuse must ask our pardon for having called us cowards! If not, and we let her go on, she'll finish by eating us up; we are very stupid not to see that. She must ask our pardon. On her knee! on both knees! or we'll treat her like Mont Saint Jean, her _protegee_. On your knees--on your knees!

Oh! we are cowards, are we?"

Fleur-de-Marie was not alarmed at these furious cries; she let the storm rage, but as soon as she could be heard, casting a calm and melancholy glance around her, she replied to La Louve, who vociferated anew, "Dare to repeat that we are cowards!"

"You? no, no; it is this poor woman whose clothes you have torn, whom you have beaten, dragged in the mire, who is a coward! Do you not see how she weeps, how she trembles in looking at you? It is she who is a coward, since she is afraid of you."

The discernment of Fleur-de-Marie served her perfectly. She might have invoked justice and duty to disarm the stupid and brutal conduct of the prisoners, they would not have listened to her; but in addressing them with this sentiment of natural generosity, which is never extinct even in the most contemptible natures, she awoke a feeling of pity.

La Louve and her companions still murmured; Fleur-de-Marie continued: "Your target does not deserve compa.s.sion, you say; but her child deserves it. Alas! does it not feel the blows given to the mother?

When she cries for mercy, it is not for herself, it is for her child!

When she asks for some of your bread, if you have too much, because she has more hunger than usual, it is not for her, but for her child!