The Mysteries Of Paris Volume V Part 17

"_Pardieu!_ I meant to have gone to you, but I preferred arriving with my hands full,--for I see you do not ride in your carriage. Well, and your children,--and your husband?"

"Has left me these three years, after having sold off every stick, not leaving me or the children one single thing but a straw pallia.s.se."

"Poor Jeanne! How have you managed alone with three children?"

"Why, I have suffered very much. I worked at my business as a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g-maker as well as I could, the neighbours helping me a little, watching my children when I went out. And then I, who haven't much luck, had a bit of good fortune once in my life; but it was no avail, because of my husband."

"How was that?"

"My employer had spoken of my trouble to one of his customers, telling him how my husband had left me with nothing, after having sold all our furniture, and that, in spite of this, I was working as hard as I could to bring up my children. One day when I returned what did I find? Why, my room fitted up again, a good bed, furniture, and linen; it was the kind customer of my employer."

"Poor sister! Why didn't you write and tell me of your misfortune; and then, instead of spending my money, I would have sent you some."

"What! I free to ask of you a prisoner?"

"Why not? I was fed, clothed, lodged, at the cost of government; all I gained was so much profit. But knowing my brother-in-law was a good workman, and you a good manager and worker, I was quite easy, and melted my 'tin' with my eyes shut, and my mouth open."

"My husband was a good workman, that is true; but he became dissipated.

However, thanks to this unexpected aid, I took courage again. My eldest girl began to earn a little, and we were happy, except when we remembered that you were at Melun. Work went well with us, and my children were well clad, and wanted for nothing hardly, and that gave me good heart; and I had actually saved thirty-three francs, when suddenly my husband returned. I had not seen him for a year; and when he found me so well off and tidily dressed, he stood for nothing, but took my money and lived with us without working, getting drunk every day, and beating me when I complained. And that is not all. He gave up a small room adjoining ours to a woman with whom he lived openly as his mistress; so I had that indignity to endure for the second time. He soon began to make away with the few poor things I had managed to get together; so, foreseeing what would be the end of such conduct, I went to a lawyer who lived in the same house, and begged him to advise me how to act to prevent my husband from taking the very bed from me and my children."

"Why, there needed no lawyer, I should think, to tell you that the only thing you had to do was to turn your husband out of your doors."

"Ah, but I could not,--the law gave me no power to do so. The lawyer told me that, as 'head of the family,' my husband could take up his abode wherever I dwelt, and was not compelled to labour unless he liked; that it was very hard for me to have to maintain him, and endure his ill-treatment into the bargain, but that he recommended me to submit to it, though certainly the circ.u.mstance of his having a mistress living under the same roof ent.i.tled me to demand separation from 'bed and board,' as he called it; and further, that as I would bring witnesses to prove his having repeatedly struck me, and otherwise ill-treated me, I could inst.i.tute a suit against him, but that it would cost me, at the very least, from four to five hundred francs to obtain a perfect separation from him. Only think what a sum,--as much as I should earn in a year! And who would lend me so much money, which would have to be repaid heaven knows how? For four or five hundred francs is a perfect fortune."

"Yet there is one very simple means of ama.s.sing the money," replied Pique-Vinaigre, bitterly; "that of living upon air during the twelve months it would take you to earn that sum, working all the same, but denying yourself even the necessaries of life; and I am only surprised the lawyer did not advise you to starve yourself and your children, or any other kind-hearted expediency."

"You always make a jest of everything, brother!"

"This time, however, I am not in a jesting humour. It is scandalous that the law should be so expensive to poor creatures such as we. Now, just look at yourself,--a good and affectionate mother, striving by every means in your power to bring up your children honestly and creditably; your husband, a bad, lazy fellow, who, not content with stripping you of all you earn, that he may spend his time in drinking and all sorts of loose pleasures, beats and ill-uses you into the bargain. Well, you apply to the justice of your country for protection for yourself and your children. 'Ah,' say the lawyers, 'yours is a hard case, and your husband is a worthless vagabond, and you shall have justice. But then you must pay five hundred francs for that same justice,--five hundred francs, mind; precisely all your utmost labour can obtain to nourish yourself and family for a year. I tell you what, Jeanne, all this proves the truth of the old saying, that 'There are but two sorts of people,--those who are hanged, and those who deserve to be!'"

Rigolette, alone and pensively inclined, had not lost a word of all that tale of woe breathed by the poor, suffering, and patient wife into her brother's ear; while her naturally kind heart deeply sympathised with all she heard, and she fully resolved upon relating the whole history to Rodolph the very first time she saw him, feeling quite sure of his ready and benevolent aid in succouring them. Deeply interested in the mournful fate of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, she could not take her eyes from the poor woman's face, and was endeavouring to draw a little closer to her; but unluckily, just at that moment, a fresh visitant, entering the room, inquired for a prisoner, and while the person he wished to see was sent for, he very coolly seated himself on the bench between Jeanne and the grisette, who, at the sight of the individual who so unceremoniously interrupted her making closer acquaintance with her neighbour, felt a degree of surprise almost amounting to fear, for in him she recognised one of the bailiffs sent by Jacques Ferrand to arrest poor Morel, the lapidary. This circ.u.mstance, recalling as it did to the mind of Rigolette the implacable enemy of Germain, redoubled her sadness, which had been in some manner diverted while listening to the touching recital of the unfortunate sister of Pique-Vinaigre.

Retreating from the fresh arrival as far as she could, the grisette leaned her back against the wall, and once more relapsed into her mournful ruminations.

"Look here, Jeanne!" cried Pique-Vinaigre, whose mirthful, pleasure-loving countenance was suddenly overcast by a deep gloom; "I am by nature neither very strong nor very courageous; but, certainly, if I had chanced to have been by when your husband so shamefully treated you, I don't think I should have let him slip through my fingers without leaving my mark. But you were too good for him, and you put up with more than you ought!"

"Why, what would you have had me do? I was obliged to endure what I could not avoid. So long as there remained an article that would fetch money did my husband sell it, even to the frock of my little girl, and then repair to the alehouse with his mistress."

"But why did you give him your daily earnings?--you should have hid them from him."

"So I did; but he beat me so dreadfully that I was obliged to give them to him. I cared less for the blows he gave me than because I dreaded his doing me some bodily injury, such as breaking my arm and dislocating my wrist, that would have hindered me from working; and then, what would have become of my poor children? Suppose I had been compelled to go to a hospital, they must have perished with hunger. So, you see, brother, I thought it was better to give up my earnings to my husband than run the risk of being lamed by him."

"Poor woman! People talk of martyrs, but what martyrdom can exceed what you have endured?"

"And yet I can truly say I never injured a living creature, and my only desire was to work hard and do my duty to my husband and children. But it is no use thinking about it; there are fortunate and unfortunate persons, just the same as there are good people and bad people in the world!"

"True; and it is a beautiful sight to see how happy and prosperous the good always are,--aren't they, sister? And do you now believe yourself for ever freed from your scoundrel of a husband?"

"I trust so. He staid till he had sold even my bedstead and the cradle in which my youngest child lay. But when I think that, even more than that, he wished--"

"What did he wish?"

"When I say he, I ought rather to tell you that it was rather that wicked woman who urged him on. One day he said to me, 'I tell you what, when folks have a pretty girl of fifteen belonging to them, they are cursed fools if they do not turn her to good account.'"

"Oh, to be sure! When he had sold the poor girl's clothes, he was willing to sell her also."

"When I heard him say those dreadful words I lost all command over myself, and, I promise you, I did not spare him all the reproaches he merited. And when his vile paramour took upon herself to interfere, and say that my husband had a right to do what he liked with his own child, I could contain myself no longer; but I fell with all my fury on the wretched creature. This obtained for me a severe beating from my husband, who then left me; and I have never seen him since."

"I tell you, Jeanne, that there are men condemned to ten years'

punishment and imprisonment who have not done so much to deserve it as your husband has done."

"Still he had not a bad heart. It was his frequenting alehouses, and the bad companions he met there who made him the lost creature he is."

"True, he would not hurt a child; but a grown-up person he was not so very particular."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Then Left Me_"

Original Etching by Adrian Marcel]

"Alas, it is no use repining! We must take life as we find it. Well, when my husband had left me I seemed to regain my courage, for I had no longer the constant dread of being crippled by him, and so prevented from earning bread for my children. For want of money to buy a mattress (for one must live and pay one's rent before thinking of other things), and poor Catherine (my eldest girl) working with me fifteen hours a day, we could scarcely earn twenty pence a day both together, and my other two children were too young to be able to earn anything; so, as I was saying, for want of a mattress we slept upon straw we picked up from time to time before the door of a large furniture packer in the neighbourhood."

"And to think that I have spent and squandered all my money as I have done!"

"Pray do not reproach yourself. How could you possibly imagine I was in want or difficulties when I never said a word to lead you to conclude so? So poor dear Catherine and I set to work again with redoubled courage and determination. If you only knew what a dear, good child she is, so honest, industrious, and good, watching me with her eyes to try and find out what I wish her to do. Never has a murmur escaped her lips; and yet she has seen much want and misery, though scarcely fifteen years of age! She has consoled me in the midst of my severest troubles. Oh, brother," added Jeanne, drying her eyes, "such a child is enough to repay one for the severest trials!"

"You were just such another yourself at her age; and it is but fair you should have some consolation amidst your troubles!"

"Believe me, 'tis rather on her account than mine I grieve; for it really seems out of nature to see a young creature like her slaving herself to death. For months together she has never quitted her work, except once a week, when she goes to wash the trifle of linen we possess in the river, near the Pont-au-Charge, where they only charge three sous an hour for the use of the boats, beaters, etc. All the rest of her time she is working like a galley-slave. Ah, she has known misfortune too early! I know well that troubles must come; but then a poor girl should be able to look back upon a happy childhood, at least! And another thing that grieves and vexes me almost as much as that, is not being able to render you any a.s.sistance. Still I will endeavour."

"Nonsense; don't talk so! Do you suppose I would accept of anything from you? On the contrary, I'll tell you what I'll do to help you. From this time forward I'll insist upon being paid for my amusing tales and wonderful recitals; and those who object to pay from one to two sous for hearing shall no more be treated to the entertaining histories of Pique-Vinaigre. I shall soon collect a pretty little sum for you, I know. But why don't you take furnished lodgings, so that your husband could not molest you by selling your little possessions?"

"Furnished lodgings! Only consider, there are four, and for such a number we should have to pay at least twenty sous (ten pence) a day.

What should we have to live upon if we paid all that for rent? And now we give but fifty francs a year for the rooms we occupy."

"True, my girl," replied Pique-Vinaigre, with bitter irony. "That's right,--work, slave, begrudge yourself necessary rest or food, in order to refurnish your place. And directly you have once more got things comfortably about you, your husband will come and strip you of everything; and when he has deprived you almost of the garments you wear, he will take your dear Catherine from you and sell her also."

"No, no, brother; he should take my life ere I would suffer him to injure my good, my virtuous child."

"Oh, but he does not wish to do her any bodily harm; he only wants to sell her. And then, remember, as the lawyer said, he is master until you can find five hundred francs to be legally separated from him. So, as that is not the case, at present you must make up your mind to submit to what cannot be helped. It seems that, by law, your husband has a right to take his child from you and send her where he pleases. And if he and his mistress are bent upon the ruin of the poor girl, doubtless they will stop at nothing to achieve it."

"Merciful G.o.d!" exclaimed the almost frantic mother, "surely such wickedness can never be tolerated in a Christian land! Justice itself would interpose if a father could insist upon selling his daughter's honour."

"Justice!" repeated Pique-Vinaigre, with a sardonic laugh, "justice! No, no, that meat is too dear for poor folks like you and I. Only, do you see, if it refers to sending a parcel of poor wretches to prison or the galleys, then it is quite a different affair; and they have justice without its costing them anything,--nay, it becomes a matter of life and death. An unhappy criminal gets his head shaved off by the guillotine for nothing; not a single farthing are they or their friends, whether rich or poor, tailed upon to pay for this act of impartial justice. The object of it only gives his head! All other expenses are defrayed by a liberal and justice-loving legislature. But the justice that would protect a worthy and ill-treated mother of a family from being beaten and pillaged to support the vices of a man who seeks even to sell the honour of his innocent child,--such justice as that costs five hundred francs! So, my dear Jeanne, you must do without it."

"Brother, brother," exclaimed the poor woman, bursting into tears, "you break my heart by such words as these!"

"Well, and my own heart aches even to bursting as I think of your fate and that of your children, while I recollect that I am powerless to help you. I seem always gay and merry; but don't you be deceived by appearances, Jeanne! I tell you what, I have two descriptions of gaiety, my gay gaiety, and my sad gaiety. I have neither the strength or the courage to indulge in envy, hatred, or malice, like the other prisoners; I never go beyond words, more or less droll as occasion requires. My cowardice and bodily weakness would never have allowed me to be worse than I am. And nothing but the opportunity presenting itself of robbing that poor little lone house, where there was neither a cat nor a dog to frighten one, would have drawn me into the scheme that brought me here.

And then, again, by chance it was a brilliant moonlight night; for if ever there was a poor devil afraid of being alone in the dark it is me."

"Ah, dear brother, I have always told you you are better than you yourself think! Well, I trust the judges will be of my opinion and deal mercifully with you."