The Mysteries Of Paris Volume V Part 21

"So soon! Does it seem to you so soon? You mean by those words to reproach me for coming so frequently. Well--"

"Have I not good cause to find fault with you for taking so much pains and trouble for me, while I, alas! can merely thank you for all your goodness?"

"That is a little mistake of yours, my fussy friend, because the little services in my power to render you afford me quite as much pleasure as they do you; so that, you see, I am as much bound to say 'Thank you for all favours,' as you are. So, you see, I am not to be cheated that way.

And now I think of it, the best way to punish you for such very improper ideas will be not to give you what I have brought for you."

"What! Another proof of your thoughtful care of me? Oh, you spoil me--you do, indeed! I shall be fit for nothing but to be somebody's pet when (if ever, alas!) I get out of prison. A thousand thanks! Nay, you must pardon my using that word, although it does displease you. But, indeed, you leave me nothing else to say."

"Ah, but don't be in such a hurry to thank me, before you even know what I have brought!"

"Why, what do I care what it is?"

"Well, I'm sure that's very civil, M. Germain!"

"Nay, I only meant to say that, be it what it may, it must needs be dear and precious to me, since it comes from you. Oh, Mlle. Rigolette, your unwearied kindness, your touching sympathy, fills me with the deepest grat.i.tude, and--and--" But finding it impossible to conclude the sentence, Germain cast down his eyes and remained silent.

"Well," said Rigolette, "and what else?"

"And--devotion!" stammered out Germain.

"Why could you not have said 'respect,' as people write at the end of a letter?" asked Rigolette, impatiently. "Ah, but I know very well that was not what you were going to say, else why did you stop all of a sudden?"

"I a.s.sure you--"

"There, don't endeavour to a.s.sure me of anything; I can see you are blus.h.i.+ng through this grating. Now why can't you speak out, and tell me every thought and wish of your heart? Am I not your true and faithful friend as well as old companion?" continued the grisette, timidly, for she but waited the confession of Germain's love for her to tell him frankly and sincerely how truly she returned his affection with a pa.s.sion as true and as generous as his own.

"I a.s.sure you Mlle. Rigolette," said the poor prisoner with a sigh, "that I had nothing else to say, and that I am concealing nothing whatever from you."

"For shame for shame," cried Rigolette, stamping her foot; "don't tell such stories. Now, look here," continued she, drawing a large, white, woollen neck wrapper from her basket; "do you see this beautiful thing?

Well, I brought it on purpose for you. But now--to punish you for being so deceitful and sly--I will not give it to you. I knitted it on purpose for you, too; for, said I, it must be so damp and cold in those yards in the prison. And this nice, soft, woollen handkerchief is just the thing to keep him warm; he is so delicate!"

"And is it possible you--"

"Yes, sir, I said you were delicate--and so you are," cried Rigolette, interrupting him. "I suppose I may recollect, if I please, how chilly you used to be of an evening, though all the time you tried to conceal it, that you might hinder me from putting more wood on my fire when you came to sit with me. I've got a good memory, I can tell you; so don't contradict me."

"And so have I," replied Germain, in a voice of deep feeling "far too good for my present position;" and, with these words, he pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes.

"Now then, I declare, I believe you are falling into low spirits again, though I so strictly forbade it."

"How is it possible for me to avoid being moved even to tears, when I recollect all you have done for me ever since I entered this prison? And is not your last kind attention another proof of your amiable care for me? And do I not know that you are obliged to work at night to make up for the time it occupies for you to visit me in my misfortunes, and that on my account you impose additional labour and fatigue on yourself?"

"Oh, if that be all you have to be miserable about I beg you will make very short work of it. Truly, I deserve a great deal of pity for taking a nice refres.h.i.+ng walk two or three times a week just to see a friend--I who so dearly love walking--and having a good stare at all the pretty shops as I come along."

"And see, to-day, too, what weather you have ventured out in! Such wind and rain! Oh, it is too selfish of me to permit you thus to sacrifice your health for me!"

"Oh, bless you, the wind and rain only make the walk more amusing. You have no idea what very droll sights one sees,--first comes a party of men holding on their hats with both hands, to prevent the storm from carrying them away; then you see an unfortunate individual with his umbrella blown inside out, making the most ludicrous grimaces, and shutting his eyes while the wind drives him about like a peg-top. I declare, all the way I came along this morning, it was more diverting than going to a play. I thought I should make you laugh by telling you of it; but there you are looking more dull, and solid, and serious than ever!"

"Pray forgive me if I cannot be as mirthful as your kind heart would have me; you know I never have what is styled high spirits, and just now I feel it impossible even to affect them."

Rigolette was very desirous of concealing that, spite of her lively prattle, she was to the full as sad and heavy-hearted as Germain himself could be. She therefore hastened to change the conversation by saying:

"You say it is impossible for you to conquer your low spirits, but there are other things you choose to style impossibilities I have begged and prayed of you to do, because I very well know you could, if you chose."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your obstinate avoidance of all the other prisoners, and never speaking to one of them; the turnkey has just been talking to me about it, and he says that for your own sake you ought to a.s.sociate with them a little. I am sure it would not do you any harm; you do not speak; it is always the way. I see very well you will never be satisfied till these dreadful men have played you some dangerous trick in revenge."

"You know not the horror with which they inspire me, any more than you can guess the personal reasons I have for avoiding and execrating them, and all who resemble them."

"Indeed, but I do know your reasons! I read the accounts you wrote for me, and which I went to fetch away from your lodgings after your imprisonment; from them I learned all the dangers you had incurred upon your arrival in Paris, because, when you were in the country, you refused to partic.i.p.ate in the crimes of the bad man who had brought you up; and that it was in consequence of the last snare they laid to catch you that you quitted the Rue du Temple, without telling any one but me where you had gone to. And I read something else, too, in those papers,"

said Rigolette, casting down her eyes, while a bright blush dyed her cheeks; "I read things that--that--"

"You would never have known, I solemnly declare," exclaimed Germain, eagerly, "had it not been for the misfortune which befell me. But let me ask you to be as generous as you are good; forget and pardon my past follies, my insane hopes. 'Tis true, in times past I ventured to indulge such dreams, wild and unfounded as they were."

Rigolette had endeavoured a second time to draw a confession of his love from the lips of Germain by alluding to those tender and pa.s.sionate effusions written by him, and dedicated to the remembrance of the grisette, for whom, as we have before stated, he had always felt the sincerest affection; but, the better to preserve the confiding familiarity with which he was treated by his pretty neighbour, he concealed his regard under the semblance of friends.h.i.+p.

Rendered more timid and sensitive by imprisonment, he could not for an instant believe it possible for Rigolette to reciprocate the attachment of a poor prisoner like himself, whose character was, moreover, tarnished by so foul an accusation as he laboured under, while previous to this calamity she had never manifested more than a sisterly interest in him. The grisette, finding herself so little understood, stifled a sigh, and awaited with hopeful eagerness a better opportunity of opening the eyes of Germain to the real state of her heart. She contented herself, therefore, with merely replying:

"To be sure, it is quite natural the sight of these wicked men should fill you with horror and disgust; but that is no reason for your exposing yourself to unnecessary dangers."

"I a.s.sure you that, in order to follow your advice, I have endeavoured to force myself to converse with such as seemed the least depraved among them; but you can form no notion what dreadful men they are, or what shocking language they talk."

"I dare say they do, poor unfortunate creatures! It must be horrid to hear them."

"But there is something more terrible than that, the getting gradually used to the disgusting conversations which, in spite of yourself, you are compelled to hear all day long. Yes, I am sorry to say, I now hear with gloomy indifference horrible remarks and speeches that would have excited my utmost indignation when I first came here. So, you see,"

continued Germain, bitterly, "I begin to be more afraid of myself than I am of them."

"Oh, M. Germain!"

"I am sure of it," pursued the unfortunate young man. "After a residence within a prison in company with such as are always to be found a.s.sembled there, the mind becomes accustomed to guilty thoughts, in the same manner as the ear gets inured to the coa.r.s.e and vulgar expressions continually in use. Oh, G.o.d, I can well believe how possible it is to enter these walls innocent of the crimes ascribed to one, and to leave them with principles utterly and irretrievably perverted!"

"But you never could be so changed! Oh, no, not you!"

"Ay, me, and others twenty times better than myself! Alas, alas! those who condemn men to this fearful a.s.sociation little think that they expose their fellow creatures to breathe an air laden with the direst moral contagion, and inevitably fatal to every right or honourable feeling!"

"Pray do not go on so! You know not how you grieve me!"

"Nay, I but wished to explain to you why I am daily more and more melancholy. I wished not to have said so much, but I have only one way of repaying the pity you have evinced for me."

"Pity? Pity? Indeed--"

"Pardon me for interrupting you, but the only way by which I can acquit myself towards you is to speak with perfect candour; and, with shuddering alarm, I confess that I am no longer the same person I was.

In vain do I fly these unfortunate wretches, their very presence, their contact seems to take effect on me; in spite of myself, I seem to feel a fatal influence in breathing the same atmosphere, as though the moral pestilence entered at every pore, and rested not till it had mingled with the heart's blood. Should I even be acquitted on my trial, the very sight of, and a.s.sociation with, good and virtuous men would cover me with shame and confusion; for, though I have not yet been able to find pleasure in the society of my companions, I have, at least, learned to dread the day when I shall again mix with persons of respectability, because now I am conscious of my weakness and cowardice; for is not he guilty of both who dares to make a compromise with his duties or his honesty? And have not I done so? When I first came here I did not deceive myself as to the extent of my fault, however excusable the circ.u.mstances under which it was committed might have seemed to make it; but now it appears to me an offence of a trifling description when compared with the crimes of which the robbers and murderers by whom I am surrounded make daily boast. And I sometimes surprise myself envying their audacious indifference, and blaming myself with my own weak regrets for so insignificant an action."

"And so it was an insignificant action, far more generous than wrong.

Why, what did you do but borrow for a few hours a sum of money you knew you could replace on the following morning; and that, too, not for yourself, but to save a whole family from ruin, perhaps death."

"That matters not, it was a theft in the eyes of the law and all honest men. Doubtless it is better to rob with a good motive than a bad one, but it is a fearful thing to be obliged to seek an excuse for oneself by comparing one's own guilt with that of persons far beneath ourselves. I can no longer venture to compare my actions with those of upright persons, consequently, then, I am compelled to inst.i.tute a comparison between myself and the degraded beings with whom I live; so that I plainly perceive in the end the conscience becomes hardened and is put to sleep. The next theft I commit, probably without the prospect of replacing the money, but from mere cupidity, I might still find an excuse for myself by comparing my conduct with that of a man who adds murder to theft; and yet at this moment there is as great a difference between me and a murderer as there is between a person of untainted character and myself. So, because there are beings a thousand times more degraded and debased than I am, by degrees my own degradation would become diminished in my estimation; instead of being able to say, as I once could, 'I am as honest a man as any I meet with,' I shall be obliged to content myself with saying I am the least guilty of the vile wretches among whom I am condemned for ever to live."