The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iii Part 39

"Give it to me, I entreat you," said Goualeuse.

"No! You want to give it back to Mont Saint-Jean."

"Certainly I do."

"Oh, it is not worth while, it is such a rag."

"Mont Saint-Jean has nothing but rags to dress her child in, and you ought to have pity upon her, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, in a mournful voice, and stretching out her hand towards the cap.

"You sha'n't have it!" answered La Louve, in a brutal tone; "must everybody always give way to you because you are the weakest? You come, I see, to abuse the kindness that is shown to you."

"But," said La Goualeuse, with a smile full of sweetness, "where would be the merit of giving up to me, if I were the stronger of the two?"

"No, no; you want to wheedle me over with your smooth, canting words; but it won't do,--you sha'n't have it, I tell you."

"Come, come, now, La Louve, do not be ill-natured."

"Let me alone! You tire me to death!"

"Oh, pray do!"

"I will not!"

"Yes, do,--let me beg of you!"

"Now, don't put me in a pa.s.sion," exclaimed La Louve, thoroughly irritated. "I have said no, and I mean no."

"Take pity on the poor thing, see how she is crying!"

"What is that to me? So much the worse for her; she is our pain-bearer"

(_souffre douleur_).

"So she is," murmured out a number of the prisoners, instigated by the example of La Louve. "No, no, she ought not to have her rags back! So much the worse for Mont Saint-Jean."

"You are right," said Fleur-de-Marie, with bitterness; "it is so much the worse for her; she is your pain-bearer, she ought to submit herself to your pleasure,--her tears and sighs amuse and divert you!--and you must have some way of pa.s.sing your time. Were you to kill her on the spot, she would have no right to say anything. You speak truly, La Louve, this is just and fair, is it not? Here is a poor, weak, defenceless woman; alone in the midst of so many, she is quite unable to defend herself, yet you all combine against her! Certainly your behaviour towards her is most just and generous!"

"And I suppose you mean to say we are all a parcel of cowards?" retorted La Louve, carried away by the violence of her disposition and extreme impatience at anything like contradiction. "Answer me, do you call us cowards, eh? Speak out, and let us know your meaning," continued she, growing more and more incensed.

A murmur of displeasure against La Goualeuse, not unmixed with threats, arose from the a.s.sembled crowd. The offended prisoners thronged around her, vociferating their disapprobation, forgetting, or remembering but as a fresh cause of offence, the ascendency she had until the present moment exercised over them.

"She calls us cowards, you see!"

"What business has she to find fault with us?"

"Is she better than we are, I should like to know?"

"Ah, we have all been too kind to her!"

"And now she wants to give herself fine lady airs, and to domineer over us! If we choose to torment Mont Saint-Jean, what need has she to interfere?"

"Since it has come to this, I tell you what, Mont Saint-Jean, you shall fare the worse for it for the future."

"Take this to begin with!" said one of the most violent of the party, giving her a blow.

"And if you meddle again with what does not concern you, La Goualeuse, we will serve you the same."

"Yes, that we will."

"But that is not all!" said La Louve. "La Goualeuse must ask our pardon for having called us cowards. She must and she shall! If we don't put a stop to her goings on, she will soon leave us without the power of saying our soul is our own, and we are great fools not to have seen this sooner."

"Make her ask our pardon."

"On her knee."

"On both knees."

"Or we will serve her precisely the same as we did her protegee, Mont Saint-Jean!"

"Down on her knees! Down with her!"

"Lo! we are cowards, are we?"

"Dare to say it again!"

Fleur-de-Marie allowed this tumult to pa.s.s away, ere she replied to the many furious voices that were raging around her. Then, casting a mild and melancholy glance at the exasperated crowd, she said to La Louve, who persisted in vociferating, "Will you dare to call us cowards again?"

"You? Oh, no, not you! I call this poor woman, whom you have so roughly treated, whom you have dragged through the mud, and whose clothes you have nearly torn off, a coward. Do you not see how she trembles, and dares not even look at you? No, no! I say again, 'tis she who is a coward, for being thus afraid of you."

Fleur-de-Marie had touched the right chord; in vain might she have appealed to their sense of justice and duty, in order to allay their bitter irritation against poor Mont Saint-Jean; the stupid or brutalised minds of the prisoners would alike have been inaccessible to her pleadings; but, by addressing herself to that sentiment of generosity, which is never wholly extinct, even in the most depraved characters, she kindled a spark of pity, that required but skilful management to fan into a flame of commiseration, instead of hatred and violence. La Louve, amid their continued murmurings against La Goualeuse and her protegee, felt, and confessed, that their conduct had been both unwomanly and cowardly.

Fleur-de-Marie would not carry her first triumph too far. She contented herself with merely saying:

"Surely, if this poor creature, whom you call yours, to tease, to torment, to ill-use,--in fact, your _souffre douleur_,--be not worthy of your pity, her infant has done nothing to offend you. Did you forget, when striking the mother, that the unborn babe might suffer from your blows? And when she besought your mercy, 'twas not for herself, but her child. When she craves of you a morsel of bread, if, indeed, you have it to spare, 'tis not to satisfy her own hunger she begs it, but that her infant may live; and when, with streaming eyes, she implored of you to spare the few rags she had with so much difficulty collected together, it arose from a mother's love for that unseen treasure her heart so loves and prizes. This poor little patchwork cap, and the pieces of old mattresses she has so awkwardly sewed together, no doubt appear to you fit objects of mirth; but, for my own part, I feel far more inclined to cry than to laugh at seeing the poor creature's instinctive attempts to provide for her babe. So, if you laugh at Mont Saint-Jean, let me come in for my share of your ridicule."

Not the faintest attempt at a smile appeared on any countenance, and La Louve continued, with fixed gaze, to contemplate the little cap she still held in her hand.

"I know very well," said Fleur-de-Marie, drying her eyes with the back of her white and delicate hand,--"I know very well that you are not really ill-natured or cruel, and that you merely torment Mont Saint-Jean from thoughtlessness. But consider that she and her infant are one. If she held it in her arms, not only would you carefully avoid doing it the least injury, but I am quite sure, if it were cold, you would even take from your own garments to cover it. Would not you, La Louve? Oh, I know you would, every one of you!"

"To be sure we would,--every one pities a tender baby."

"That is quite natural."

"And if it cried with hunger, you would take the bread from your own mouth to feed it with. Would not you, La Louve?"

"That I would, and willingly, too! I am not more hard-hearted than other people!"

"Nor more are we!"

"A poor, helpless, little creature!"