“You are not going to dispute it?” cried the man.
“Where’s the bill?” said Rogron.
“Bill! look at the book.”
“Stop talking, and pay him,” said Sylvie, “You see there’s nothing else to be done.”
Rogron went to get the money, and gave the man forty-seven francs, twelve sous.
“And nothing for my comrade and me?” said the conductor.
Sylvie took two francs from the depths of the old velvet bag which held her keys.
“Thank you, no,” said the man; “keep ‘em yourself. We would rather care for the little one for her own sake.” He picked up his book and departed, saying to the servant-girl: “What a pair! it seems there are crocodiles out of Egypt!”
“Such men are always brutal,” said Sylvie, who overhead the words.
“They took good care of the little girl, anyhow,” said Adele with her hands on her hips.
“We don’t have to live with him,” remarked Rogron.
“Where’s the little one to sleep?” asked Adele.
Such was the arrival of Pierrette Lorrain in the home of her cousins, who gazed at her with stolid eyes; she was tossed to them like a package, with no intermediate state between the wretched chamber at Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mittens edged with white, bought for her by the conductor. Her dainty Breton cap (which had been washed in Paris, for the journey from Nantes had rumpled it) was like a halo round her happy little face. This national cap, of the finest lawn, trimmed with stiffened lace pleated in flat folds, deserves description, it was so dainty and simple. The light coming through the texture and the lace produced a partial shadow, the soft shadow of a light upon the skin, which gave her the virginal grace that all painters seek and Leopold Robert found for the Raffaelesque face of the woman who holds a child in his picture of “The Gleaners.” Beneath this fluted frame of light sparkled a white and rosy and artless face, glowing with vigorous health. The warmth of the room brought the blood to the cheeks, to the tips of the pretty ears, to the lips and the end of the delicate nose, making the natural white of the complexion whiter still.
“Well, are you not going to say anything? I am your cousin Sylvie, and that is your cousin Rogron.”
“Do you want something to eat?” asked Rogron.
“When did you leave Nantes?” asked Sylvie.
“Is she dumb?” said Rogron.
“Poor little dear, she has hardly any clothes,” cried Adele, who had opened the child’s bundle, tied up in a handkerchief of the old Lorrains.
“Kiss your cousin,” said Sylvie.
Pierrette kissed Rogron.
“Kiss your cousin,” said Rogron.
Pierrette kissed Sylvie.
“She is tired out with her journey, poor little thing; she wants to go to sleep,” said Adele.
Pierrette was overcome with a sudden and invincible aversion for her two relatives, — a feeling that no one had ever before excited in her. Sylvie and the maid took her up to bed in the room where Brigaut afterwards noticed the white cotton curtain. In it was a little bed with a pole painted blue, from which hung a calico curtain; a walnut bureau without a marble top, a small table, a looking-glass, a very common night-table without a door, and three chairs completed the furniture of the room. The walls, which sloped in front, were hung with a shabby paper, blue with black flowers. The tiled floor, stained red and polished, was icy to the feet. There was no carpet except for a strip at the bedside. The mantelpiece of common marble was adorned by a mirror, two candelabra in copper-gilt, and a vulgar alabaster cup in which two pigeons, forming handles, were drinking.
“You will be comfortable here, my little girl?” said Sylvie.
“Oh, it’s beautiful!” said the child, in her silvery voice.
“She’s not difficult to please,” muttered the stout servant. “Sha’n’t I warm her bed?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Sylvie, “the sheets may be damp.”
Adele brought one of her own night-caps when she returned with the warming-pan, and Pierrette, who had never slept in anything but the coarsest linen sheets, was amazed at the fineness and softness of the cotton ones. When she was fairly in bed and tucked up, Adele, going downstairs with Sylvie, could not refrain from saying, “All she has isn’t worth three francs, mademoiselle.”
Ever since her economical regime began, Sylvie had compelled the maid to sit in the dining-room so that one fire and one lamp could do for all; except when Colonel Gouraud and Vinet came, on which occasions Adele was sent to the kitchen.
Pierrette’s arrival enlivened the rest of the evening.
“We must get her some clothes to-morrow,” said Sylvie; “she has absolutely nothing.”
“No shoes but those she had on, which weigh a pound,” said Adele.
“That’s always so, in their part of the country,” remarked Rogron.
“How she looked at her room! though it really isn’t handsome enough for a cousin of yours, mademoiselle.”
“It is good enough; hold your tongue,” said Sylvie.
“Gracious, what chemises! coarse enough to scratch her skin off; not a thing can she use here,” said Adele, emptying the bundle.
Master, mistress, and servant were busy till past ten o’clock, deciding what cambric they should buy for the new chemises, how many pairs of stockings, how many under-petticoats, and what material, and in reckoning up the whole cost of Pierrette’s outfit.
“You won’t get off under three hundred francs,” said Rogron, who could remember the different prices, and add them up from his former shop-keeping habit.
“Three hundred francs!” cried Sylvie.
“Yes, three hundred. Add it up.”
The brother and sister went over the calculation once more, and found the cost would be fully three hundred francs, not counting the making.
“Three hundred francs at one stroke!” said Sylvie to herself as she got into bed.
Pierrette was one of those children of love whom love endows with its tenderness, its vivacity, its gaiety, its nobility, its devotion. Nothing had so far disturbed or wounded a heart that was delicate as that of a fawn, but which was now painfully repressed by the cold greeting of her cousins. If Brittany had been full of outward misery, at least it was full of love. The old Lorrains were the most incapable of merchants, but they were also the most loving, frank, caressing, of friends, like all who are incautious and free from calculation. Their little granddaughter had received no other education at Pen-Hoel than that of nature. Pierrette went where she liked, in a boat on the pond, or roaming the village and the fields with Jacques Brigaut, her comrade, exactly as Paul and Virginia might have done. Petted by everybody, free as air, they gaily chased the joys of childhood. In summer they ran to watch the fishing, they caught the many-colored insects, they gathered flowers, they gardened; in winter they made slides, they built snow-men or huts, or pelted each other with snowballs. Welcomed by all, they met with smiles wherever they went.
When the time came to begin their education, disasters came, too. Jacques, left without means at the death of his father, was apprenticed by his relatives to a cabinet-maker, and fed by charity, as Pierrette was soon to be at Saint-Jacques. Until the little girl was taken with her grandparents to that asylum, she had known nothing but fond caresses and protection from every one. Accustomed to confide in so much love, the little darling missed in these rich relatives, so eagerly desired, the kindly looks and ways which all the world, even strangers and the conductors of the coaches, had bestowed upon her. Her bewilderment, already great, was increased by the moral atmosphere she had entered. The heart turns suddenly cold or hot like the body. The poor child wanted
to cry, without knowing why; but being very tired she went to sleep.
The next morning, Pierrette being, like all country children, accustomed to get up early, was awake two hours before the cook. She dressed herself, stepping on tiptoe about her room, looked out at the little square, started to go downstairs and was struck with amazement by the beauties of the staircase. She stopped to examine all its details: the painted walls, the brasses, the various ornamentations, the window fixtures. Then she went down to the garden-door, but was unable to open it, and returned to her room to wait until Adele should be stirring. As soon as the woman went to the kitchen Pierrette flew to the garden and took possession of it, ran to the river, was amazed at the kiosk, and sat down in it; truly, she had enough to see and to wonder at until her cousins were up. At breakfast Sylvie said to her: —
“Was it you, little one, who was trotting over my head by daybreak, and making that racket on the stairs? You woke me so that I couldn’t go to sleep again. You must be very good and quiet, and amuse yourself without noise. Your cousin doesn’t like noise.”
“And you must wipe your feet,” said Rogron. “You went into the kiosk with your dirty shoes, and they’ve tracked all over the floor. Your cousin likes cleanliness. A great girl like you ought to be clean. Weren’t you clean in Brittany? But I recollect when I went down there to buy thread it was pitiable to see the folks, — they were like savages. At any rate she has a good appetite,” added Rogron, looking at his sister; “one would think she hadn’t eaten anything for days.”
Thus, from the very start Pierrette was hurt by the remarks of her two cousins, — hurt, she knew not why. Her straightforward, open nature, hitherto left to itself, was not given to reflection. Incapable of thinking that her cousins were hard, she was fated to find it out slowly through suffering. After breakfast the brother and sister, pleased with Pierrette’s astonishment at the house and anxious to enjoy it, took her to the salon to show her its splendors and teach her not to touch them. Many celibates, driven by loneliness and the moral necessity of caring for something, substitute factitious affections for natural ones; they love dogs, cats, canaries, servants, or their confessor. Rogron and Sylvie had come to the pass of loving immoderately their house and furniture, which had cost them so dear. Sylvie began by helping Adele in the mornings to dust and arrange the furniture, under pretence that she did not know how to keep it looking as good as new. This dusting was soon a desired occupation to her, and the furniture, instead of losing its value in her eyes, became ever more precious. To use things without hurting them or soiling them or scratching the woodwork or clouding the varnish, that was the problem which soon became the mania of the old maid’s life. Sylvie had a closet full of bits of wool, wax, varnish, and brushes, which she had learned to use with the dexterity of a cabinet-maker; she had her feather dusters and her dusting-cloths; and she rubbed away without fear of hurting herself, — she was so strong. The glance of her cold blue eyes, hard as steel, was forever roving over the furniture and under it, and you could as soon have found a tender spot in her heart as a bit of fluff under the sofa.
After the remarks made at Madame Tiphaine’s, Sylvie dared not flinch from the three hundred francs for Pierrette’s clothes. During the first week her time was wholly taken up, and Pierrette’s too, by frocks to order and try on, chemises and petticoats to cut out and have made by a seamstress who went out by the day. Pierrette did not know how to sew.
“That’s pretty bringing up!” said Rogron. “Don’t you know how to do anything, little girl?”
Pierrette, who knew nothing but how to love, made a pretty, childish gesture.
“What did you do in Brittany?” asked Rogron.
“I played,” she answered, naively. “Everybody played with me. Grandmamma and grandpapa they told me stories. Ah! they all loved me!”
“Hey!” said Rogron; “didn’t you take it easy!”
Pierrette opened her eyes wide, not comprehending.
“She is as stupid as an owl,” said Sylvie to Mademoiselle Borain, the best seamstress in Provins.
“She’s so young,” said the workwoman, looking kindly at Pierrette, whose delicate little muzzle was turned up to her with a coaxing look.
Pierrette preferred the sewing-women to her relations. She was endearing in her ways with them, she watched their work, and made them those pretty speeches that seem like the flowers of childhood, and which her cousin had already silenced, for that gaunt woman loved to impress those under her with salutary awe. The sewing-women were delighted with Pierrette. Their work, however, was not carried on without many and loud grumblings.
“That child will make us pay through the nose!” cried Sylvie to her brother.
“Stand still, my dear, and don’t plague us; it is all for you and not for me,” she would say to Pierrette when the child was being measured. Sometimes it was, when Pierrette would ask the seamstress some question, “Let Mademoiselle Borain do her work, and don’t talk to her; it is not you who are paying for her time.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Mademoiselle Borain, “am I to back-stitch this?”
“Yes, do it firmly; I don’t want to be making such an outfit as this every day.”
Sylvie put the same spirit of emulation into Pierrette’s outfit that she had formerly put into the house. She was determined that her cousin should be as well dressed as Madame Garceland’s little girl. She bought the child fashionable boots of bronzed kid like those the little Tiphaines wore, very fine cotton stockings, a corset by the best maker, a dress of blue reps, a pretty cape lined with white silk, — all this that she, Sylvie, might hold her own against the children of the women who had rejected her. The underclothes were quite in keeping with the visible articles of dress, for Sylvie feared the examining eyes of the various mothers. Pierrette’s chemises were of fine Madapolam calico. Mademoiselle Borain had mentioned that the sub-prefect’s little girls wore cambric drawers, embroidered and trimmed in the latest style. Pierrette had the same. Sylvie ordered for her a charming little drawn bonnet of blue velvet lined with white satin, precisely like the one worn by Dr. Martener’s little daughter.
Thus attired, Pierrette was the most enchanting little girl in all Provins. On Sunday, after church, all the ladies kissed her; Mesdames Tiphaine, Garceland, Galardon, Julliard, and the rest fell in love with the sweet little Breton girl. This enthusiasm was deeply flattering to old Sylvie’s self-love; she regarded it as less due to Pierrette than to her own benevolence. She ended, however, in being affronted by her cousin’s success. Pierrette was constantly invited out, and Sylvie allowed her to go, always for the purpose of triumphing over “those ladies.” Pierrette was much in demand for games or little parties and dinners with their own little girls. She had succeeded where the Rogrons had failed; and Mademoiselle Sylvie soon grew indignant that Pierrette was asked to other children’s houses when those children never came to hers. The artless little thing did not conceal the pleasure she found in her visits to these ladies, whose affectionate manners contrasted strangely with the harshness of her two cousins. A mother would have rejoiced in the happiness of her little one, but the Rogrons had taken Pierrette for their own sakes, not for hers; their feelings, far from being parental, were dyed in selfishness and a sort of commercial calculation.
The handsome outfit, the fine Sunday dresses, and the every-day frocks were the beginning of Pierrette’s troubles. Like all children free to amuse themselves, who are accustomed to follow the dictates of their own lively fancies, she was very hard on her clothes, her shoes, and above all on those embroidered drawers. A mother when she reproves her child thinks only of the child; her voice is gentle; she does not raise it unless driven to extremities, or when the child is much in fault. But here, in this great matter of Pierrette’s clothes, the cousins’ money was the first consideration; their interests were to be thought of, not the child’s. Children have the perceptions of the canine race for the sentiments of those who rule them; they know instinctively whether they a
re loved or only tolerated. Pure and innocent hearts are more distressed by shades of difference than by contrasts; a child does not understand evil, but it knows when the instinct of the good and the beautiful which nature has implanted in it is shocked. The lectures which Pierrette now drew upon herself on propriety of behavior, modesty, and economy were merely the corollary of the one theme, “Pierrette will ruin us.”
These perpetual fault-findings, which were destined to have a fatal result for the poor child, brought the two celibates back to the old beaten track of their shop-keeping habits, from which their removal to Provins had parted them, and in which their natures were now to expand and flourish. Accustomed in the old days to rule and to make inquisitions, to order about and reprove their clerks sharply, Rogron and his sister had actually suffered for want of victims. Little minds need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts. Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.
Thenceforth Pierrette became a necessity to the lives of her cousins. From the day of her coming their minds were occupied, — first, with her outfit, and then with the novelty of a third presence. But every new thing, a sentiment and even a tyranny, is moulded as time goes on into fresh shapes. Sylvie began by calling Pierrette “my dear,” or “little one.” Then she abandoned the gentler terms for “Pierrette” only. Her reprimands, at first only cross, became sharp and angry; and no sooner were their feet on the path of fault-finding than the brother and sister made rapid strides. They were no longer bored to death! It was not their deliberate intention to be wicked and cruel; it was simply the blind instinct of an imbecile tyranny. The pair believed they were doing Pierrette a service, just as they had thought their harshness a benefit to their apprentices.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 346
