The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iii Part 47

"Now, then, my poor girl, I am all attention to you."

"It is three months nearly since M. Rodolph placed me at a farm, which is situated four or five leagues from Paris--"

"Did M. Rodolph take you there himself?"

"Yes, madame, and confided me to the charge of a worthy lady, as good as she was venerable; and I loved her like my mother. She and the cure of the village, at the request of M. Rodolph, took charge of my education."

"And M.--Rodolph,--did he often come to the farm?"

"No, madame, he only came three times during the whole time I was there."

Clemence's heart throbbed with joy.

"And when he came to see you that made you very happy, did it not?"

"Oh, yes, madame! It was more than happiness to me; it was a feeling mingled with grat.i.tude, respect, adoration, and even a degree of fear."

"Of fear?"

"Between him and me, between him and others, the distance is so great!"

"But what, then, was his rank?"

"I do not know that he had any rank, madame."

"Yet you allude to the distance which exists between him and others."

"Oh, madame, what places him above all the rest of the world is the elevation of his character, his inexhaustible generosity towards those who suffer, the enthusiasm which he inspires in every one. The wicked, even, cannot hear his name without trembling, and respect as much as they dread him! But forgive me, madame, for still speaking of him. I ought to be silent, for I seek to give you an adequate idea of him who ought to be adored in silence. I might as well try to express by words the goodness of Heaven!"

"This comparison--"

"Is, perhaps, sacrilegious, madame; but will it offend the good G.o.d to compare to him one who has given me the consciousness of good and evil, one who has s.n.a.t.c.hed me from the abyss, one, in fact, to whom I owe a new existence?"

"I do not blame you, my child; I can understand all your n.o.ble exaggerations. But how was it that you abandoned this farm, where you must have been so happy?"

"Alas, not voluntarily, madame!"

"Who, then, forced you away?"

"One evening, some days since," said Fleur-de-Marie, trembling even as she spoke, "I was going towards the parsonage-house in the village, when a wicked woman, who had used me very cruelly during my infancy, and a man, her accomplice, who had concealed themselves in a ravine, threw themselves upon me, and, after having gagged me, carried me off in a hackney-coach."

"For what purpose?"

"I know not, madame. My ravishers, as I think, were acting in conformity to orders from some powerful personages."

"What followed this?"

"Scarcely was the hackney-coach in motion, than the wicked creature, who is called La Chouette, exclaimed, 'I have some vitriol here, and I'll rub La Goualeuse's face, to disfigure her with it!'"

"Oh, horrible! Unhappy girl! And who has saved you from this danger?"

"The woman's confederate, a blind man called the Schoolmaster."

"And he defended you?"

"Yes, madame, this and another time also. On this occasion there was a struggle between him and La Chouette: exerting his strength, the Schoolmaster compelled her to throw out of window the bottle which held the vitriol. This was the first service he rendered me, after having, however, aided in carrying me off. The night was excessively dark. At the end of an hour and a half the coach stopped, as I think, on the highroad which traverses the Plain St. Denis, and here was a man on horseback, evidently awaiting us. 'What!' said he, 'have you got her at last?' 'Yes, we've got her,' answered La Chouette, who was furious because she had been hindered from disfiguring me. 'If you wish to get rid of the little baggage at once, it will be a good plan to stretch her on the ground, and let the coach wheels pa.s.s over her skull. It will appear as if she had been accidentally killed.'"

"You make me shudder."

"Alas, madame, La Chouette was quite capable of doing what she said!

Fortunately, the man on horseback replied that he would not have any harm done to me, and all he wanted was to have me confined somewhere for two months in a place whence I could neither go out nor be allowed to write to any one. Then La Chouette proposed to take me to a man's called Bras Rouge, who keeps a tavern in the Champs Elysees. In this tavern there are several subterranean chambers, and one of these, La Chouette said, would serve me for a prison. The man on horseback agreed to this proposition; and he promised me that, after remaining two months at Bras Rouge's, I should be properly taken care of, and not be sorry for having quitted the farm at Bouqueval."

"What a strange mystery!"

"This man gave money to La Chouette, and promised her more when she should bring me from Bras Rouge's, and then galloped away. Our hackney-coach continued its way on to Paris; and a short time before we reached the barrier the Schoolmaster said to La Chouette, 'You want to shut Goualeuse up in one of Bras Rouge's cellars, when you know very well that, being so close to the river's side, these cellars are always under water in the winter! Do you wish to drown her?' 'Yes,' replied La Chouette."

"Poor girl! What had you ever done to this horrid woman?"

"Nothing, madame; and from my very infancy she had always been so full of hatred towards me. The Schoolmaster replied, 'I won't have Goualeuse drowned! She sha'n't go to Bras Rouge's!' La Chouette was as astonished as I was, madame, to hear this man defend me thus, and she flew into a violent rage, and swore she would take me to Bras Rouge's in spite of the Schoolmaster. 'I defy you!' said he, 'for I have got Goualeuse by the arm, and I will not let go my hold of her; and, if you come near her, I'll strangle you!' 'What do you mean, then, to do with her,' cried La Chouette, 'since she must be concealed somewhere for two months, so that no one may know where she is?' 'There's a way,' said the Schoolmaster. 'We are going by the Champs Elysees; we will stop the coach a little way off the guard-house, and you shall go to Bras Rouge's tavern. It is midnight, and you will be sure to find him; bring him here, and he shall lead La Goualeuse to the guard-house, declaring that she is a _fille de la Cite_, whom he has found loitering about his house. As girls are sentenced to three months' imprisonment if found in the Champs Elysees, and as La Goualeuse is still on the police books, she will be apprehended and sent to St. Lazare, where she will be better taken care of and concealed than in Bras Rouge's cellar.' 'But,'

answered La Chouette, 'Goualeuse will not allow herself to be arrested even at the _corps-de-garde_. She will declare that we have carried her off, and give information against us; and, supposing even that she goes to prison, she will write to her protectors, and all will be discovered.' 'No, she will go to prison willingly,' answered the Schoolmaster; 'and she shall take an oath not to give any information against any person as long as she is in St. Lazare, nor afterwards, either. This is a debt she owes me, for I prevented you from disfiguring her, La Chouette, and saved her from being drowned at Bras Rouge's; but if, after having sworn not to speak, she dares to do so, we will attack the farm at Bouqueval with fire and blood!' Then, addressing me, the Schoolmaster added,'Decide, then: take the oath I demand of you, and you shall get off for three months in prison; if not, I abandon you to La Chouette, who will take you to Bras Rouge's, where you will be drowned, and we will set Bouqueval farm on fire. So, come, decide. I know, if you take the oath, you will keep it.'"

"And you did swear?"

"Alas, yes, madame! I was so fearful they would do my protectors at the farm an injury, and then I so much dreaded being drowned by La Chouette in a cellar, it seemed so frightful to me; another death would have seemed to me less horrid, and, perhaps, I should not have tried to escape it."

"What a dreadful idea at your age!" said Madame d'Harville, looking at La Goualeuse with surprise. "When you have left this place, and have been restored to your benefactors, shall you not be very happy? Has not your repentance effaced the past?"

"Can the past ever be effaced? Can the past ever be forgotten? Can repentance kill memory, madame?" exclaimed Fleur-de-Marie, in a tone so despairing that Clemence shuddered.

"But all faults are retrieved, unhappy girl!"

"And the remembrance of stain, madame, does not that become more and more terrible in proportion as the soul becomes purer, in proportion as the mind becomes more elevated? Alas, the higher we ascend, the deeper appears the abyss which we have quitted!"

"Then you renounce all hope of restoration--of pardon?"

"On the part of others--no, madame, your kindness proves to me that remorse will find indulgence."

"But you will be pitiless towards yourself?"

"Others, madame, may not know, pardon, or forget what I have been, but I shall never forget it!"

"And do you sometimes desire to die?"

"Sometimes!" said Goualeuse, smiling bitterly. Then, after a moment's silence, she added, "Sometimes,--yes, madame."

"Still you were afraid of being disfigured by that horrid woman; and so you wish to preserve your beauty, my poor little girl. That proves that life has still some attraction for you; so courage! Courage!"

"It is, perhaps, weakness to think of it, but if I were handsome, as you say, madame, I should like to die handsome, p.r.o.nouncing the name of my benefactor."