The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iv Part 40

She jealous of me! Then she must love him, and I must love, too--him?

Yes, and my love must have betrayed itself in spite of me! Love him,--I--I--a creature fallen for ever, ungrateful and wretched as I am! Oh, if it were so, death were a hundred times preferable!"

Let us hasten to say that the unhappy girl, thus a martyr to her feelings, greatly exaggerated what she called her love.

To her profound grat.i.tude towards Rodolph was united involuntary admiration of the gracefulness, strength, and manly beauty which distinguished him from other men. Nothing could be less gross, more pure, than this admiration; but it existed in full and active force, because physical beauty is always attractive. And then the voice of blood, so often denied, mute, unknown, or misinterpreted, is sometimes in full force, and these throbs of pa.s.sionate tenderness which attracted Fleur-de-Marie towards Rodolph, and which so greatly startled her, because in her ignorance she misinterpreted their tendency, these feelings resulted from mysterious sympathies, as palpable, but as inexplicable, as the resemblance of features. In a word, Fleur-de-Marie, on learning that she was Rodolph's daughter, could have accounted to herself for the strong affection she had for him, and thus, completely enlightened on the point, she would have admired without a scruple her father's manly beauty.

Thus do we explain Fleur-de-Marie's dejection. Although she was every instant awaiting, according to Madame d'Harville's promise, her release from St. Lazare, Fleur-de-Marie, melancholy and pensive, was seated on her bench near the basin, looking with a kind of mechanical interest at the sports of some bold little birds who came to play on the margin of the stone-work. She had ceased for an instant to work at a baby's nightgown, which she had just finished hemming. Need we say that this nightgown belonged to the lying-in clothes so generously offered to Mont Saint-Jean by the prisoners, through the kind intervention of Fleur-de-Marie? The poor misshapen protegee of La Goualeuse was sitting at her feet, working at a small cap, and, from time to time, casting at her benefactress a look at once grateful, timid, and confiding, such a look as a dog throws at his master. The beauty, attraction, and delicious sweetness of Fleur-de-Marie had inspired this fallen creature with sentiments of the most profound respect.

There is always something holy and great in the aspirations of a heart, which, although degraded, yet feels for the first time sensations of grat.i.tude; and, up to this time, no one had ever given Mont Saint-Jean the opportunity of even testifying whether or not she could comprehend the religious ardour of a sentiment so wholly unknown to her. After some moments Fleur-de-Marie shuddered slightly, wiped a tear from her eyes, and resumed her sewing with much activity.

"You will not then leave off your work even during the time for rest, my good angel?" said Mont Saint-Jean to La Goualeuse.

"I have not given you any money towards buying your lying-in clothes, and I must therefore furnish my part with my own work," replied the young girl.

"Your part! Why, but for you, instead of this good white linen, this nice warm wrapper for my child, I should have nothing but the rags they dragged in the mud of the yard. I am very grateful to my companions who have been so very kind to me; that's quite true! But you!--ah, you!--how can I tell you all I feel?" added the poor creature, hesitating, and greatly embarra.s.sed how to express her thought. "There," she said, "there is the sun, is it not? That is the sun?"

"Yes, Mont Saint-Jean; I am attending to you," replied Fleur-de-Marie, stooping her lovely face towards the hideous countenance of her companion.

"Ah, you'll laugh at me," she replied, sorrowfully. "I want to say something, and I do not know how."

"Oh, yes, say it, Mont Saint-Jean!"

"How kind you look always," said the prisoner, looking at Fleur-de-Marie in a sort of ecstasy; "your eyes encourage me,--those kind eyes! Well, then, I will try and say what I wish: There is the sun, is it not? It is so warm, it lights up the prison, it is very pleasant to see and feel, isn't it?"

"Certainly."

"But I have an idea,--the sun didn't make itself, and if we are grateful to it, why, there is greater reason still why--"

"Why we should be grateful to him who created it; that is what you mean, Mont Saint-Jean? You are right; and we ought to pray to, adore him,--he is G.o.d!"

"Yes, that is my idea!" exclaimed the prisoner, joyously. "That is it! I ought to be grateful to my companions, but I ought to pray to, adore you, Goualeuse, for it is you who made them so good to me, instead of being so unkind as they had been."

"It is G.o.d you should thank, Mont Saint-Jean, and not me."

"Yes, yes, yes, it is you, I see you; and it is you who did me such kindness, by yourself and others."

"But if I am as good as you say, Mont Saint-Jean, it is G.o.d who has made me so, and it is he, therefore, whom we ought to thank."

"Ah, indeed, it may be so since you say it!" replied the prisoner, whose mind was by no means decided; "and if you desire it, let it be so; as you please."

"Yes, my poor Mont Saint-Jean, pray to him constantly, that is the best way of proving to me that you love me a little."

"If I love you, Goualeuse? Don't you remember, then, what you said to those other prisoners to prevent them from beating me?--'It is not only her whom you beat, it is her child also!' Well, it is all the same as the way I love you; it is not only for myself that I love you, but also for my child."

"Thanks, thanks, Mont Saint-Jean, you please me exceedingly when you say that." And Fleur-de-Marie, much moved, extended her hand to her companion.

"What a pretty, little, fairy-like hand! How white and small!" said Mont Saint-Jean, receding as though she were afraid to touch it with her coa.r.s.e and clumsy hands.

Yet, after a moment's hesitation, she respectfully applied her lips to the end of the slender fingers which Fleur-de-Marie extended to her, then, kneeling suddenly, she fixed on her an attentive, concentrated look.

"Come and sit here by me," said La Goualeuse.

"Oh, no, indeed; never, never!"

"Why not?"

"Respect discipline, as my brave Mont Saint-Jean used to say; soldiers together, officers together, each with his equals."

"You are crazy; there is no difference between us two."

"No difference! And you say that when I see you, as I do now, as handsome as a queen. Oh, what do you mean now? Leave me alone, on my knees, that I may look at you as I do now. Who knows, although I am a real monster, my child may perhaps resemble you? They say that sometimes happens from a look."

Then by a scruple of incredible delicacy in a creature of her position, fearing, perhaps, that she had humiliated or wounded Fleur-de-Marie by her strange desire, Mont Saint-Jean added, sorrowfully:

"No, no, I was only joking, Goualeuse; I never could allow myself to look at you with such an idea,--unless with your free consent. If my child is as ugly as I am, what shall I care? I sha'n't love it any the less, poor little, unhappy thing; it never asked to be born, as they say. And if it lives what will become of it?" she added, with a mournful and reflective air. "Alas, yes, what will become of us?"

La Goualeuse shuddered at these words. In fact, what was to become of the child of this miserable, degraded, abased, poor, despised creature?

"What a fate! What a future!"

"Do not think of that, Mont Saint-Jean," said Fleur-de-Marie; "let us hope that your child will find benevolent friends in its way."

"That chance never occurs twice, Goualeuse," replied Mont Saint-Jean, bitterly, and shaking her head. "I have met with you, that is a great chance; and then--no offence--I should much rather my child had had that good luck than myself, and that wish is all I can do for it!"

"Pray, pray, and G.o.d will hear you."

"Well, I will pray, if that is any pleasure to you, Goualeuse, for it may perhaps bring me good luck. Indeed, who could have thought, when La Louve beat me, and I was the b.u.t.t of all the world, that I should meet with my little guardian angel, who with her pretty soft voice would be even stronger than all the rest, and that La Louve who is so strong and so wicked--"

"Yes, but La Louve became very good to you as soon as she reflected that you were doubly to be pitied."

"Yes, that is very true, thanks to you; I shall never forget it. But, tell me, Goualeuse, why did she the other day request to have her quarters changed,--La Louve, she, who, in spite of her pa.s.sionate temper, seemed unable to do without you?"

"She is rather wilful."

"How odd! A woman, who came this morning from the quarter of the prison where La Louve now is, says that she is wholly changed."

"How?"

"Instead of quarrelling and contending with everybody, she is sad, quite sad, and sits by herself, and if they speak to her she turns her back and makes no answer. It is really wonderful to see her quite still, who used always to be making such a riot; and then the woman says another thing, which I really cannot believe."

"And what is that?"

"Why, that she had seen La Louve crying; La Louve crying,--that's impossible!"

"Poor Louve! It was on my account she changed her quarters; I vexed her without intending it," said La Goualeuse, with a sigh.

"You vex any one, my good angel?"

At this moment, the inspectress, Madame Armand, entered the yard. After having looked for Fleur-de-Marie, she came towards her with a smiling and satisfied air.