by Eugène Sue
“Unfortunate girl! The anger of heaven will weigh heavily on those who, by casting you into the vile road of perdition, have compelled you to undergo all your life the sad consequences of a first fault.”
“Oh, yes, they were indeed cruel, father,” replied Fleur-de-Marie, bitterly, “for my shame is ineffaceable. As Clara talked to me of the happiness that awaited her, — her marriage, her peaceful joys of home, I could not help comparing my lot with hers; for, in spite of the kindness showered upon me, my fate must always be miserable. You and Madame Georges, in teaching me what virtue is, have taught me the depth of that abasement into which I had fallen; nothing can take from me the brand of having been the refuse of all that is vilest in the world. Alas! if the knowledge of good and evil was to be so sad to me, why not have abandoned me to my unhappy fate?”
“Oh, Marie, Marie!”
“Father, I speak ill, do I not? Alas! I dare not confess it; but I am at times so ungrateful as to repine at the benefits heaped upon me, and to say to myself, ‘If I had not been snatched from infamy, why, wretchedness, misery, blows, would soon have ended my life; and, at least, I should have remained in ignorance of that purity which I must for ever regret.’”
“Alas! Marie, that is indeed fatal! A nature ever so nobly endowed by the Creator, though plunged but for one day in the foul mire from which you have been extricated, will preserve for ever the ineffaceable stigma.”
“Yes, yes, my father,” cried Fleur-de-Marie, full of grief, “I must despair until I die!”
“You must despair of ever tearing out this frightful page from the book of your existence,” said the priest, in a sad and serious voice; “but you must have faith in the infinite mercy of the Almighty. Here, on earth, my poor child, there are for you tears, remorse, expiation; but, one day, there, — up there,” and he raised his hand to the sky, now filling with stars, “there is pardon and everlasting happiness.”
“Pity, pity, mon Dieu! I am so young, and my life may still endure so long,” said the Goualeuse, in a voice rent by agony, and falling at the curé’s knees almost involuntarily.
The priest was standing at the top of the hill, not far from where his “modest mansion rose;” his black cassock, his venerable countenance, shaded by long white locks, lighted by the last ray of twilight, stood out from the horizon, which was of a deep transparency, — a perfect clearness: pale gold in the west, sapphire over his head. The priest again elevated towards heaven one of his tremulous hands, and gave the other to Fleur-de-Marie, who bedewed it with her tears. The hood of her gray cloak fell at this moment from her shoulders, displaying the perfect outline of her lovely profile, — her charming features full of suffering, and suffused with tears.
This simple and sublime scene offered a strange contrast, — a singular coincidence with the horrid one which, almost at the same moment, was passing in the ravine between the Schoolmaster and the Chouette. Concealed in the darkness of the sombre cleft, assailed by base fears, a fearful murderer, carrying on his person the punishment of his crimes, was also on his knees, but in the presence of an accessory, a sneering, revengeful Fury, who tormented him mercilessly, and urged him on to fresh crimes, — that accomplice, the first cause of Fleur-de-Marie’s misery.
Of Fleur-de-Marie, whose days and nights were embittered by never-dying remorse; whose anguish, hardly endurable, was not conceivable; surrounded from her earliest days by degraded, cruel, infamous outcasts of society; leaving the walls of a prison for the den of the ogress, — even a more horrid prison; never leaving the precincts of her gaol, or the squalid streets of the Cité; this unhappy young creature had hitherto lived in utter ignorance of the beautiful and the good, as strange to noble and religious sentiments as to the magnificent splendour of nature. Then all that was admirable in the creature and in the Creator was revealed in a moment to her astonished soul. At this striking spectacle her mind expanded, her intelligence unfolded itself, her noble instincts were awakened; and because her mind expanded, because her intelligence was unfolded, because her noble instincts were awakened, yet the very consciousness of her early degradation brings with it the feeling of horror for her past life, alike torturing and enduring, — she feels, as she had described, that, alas! there are stains which nothing can remove.
“Ah, unhappiness for me!” said the Goualeuse, in despair; “my whole life has long to run, it may be; were it as long, as pure as your own, father, it must henceforth be blighted by the knowledge and consciousness of the past; unhappiness for me for ever!”
“On the contrary, Marie, it is happiness for you, — yes, happiness for you. Your remorse, so full of bitterness, but so purifying, testifies the religious susceptibility of your mind. How many there are who, less nobly sensitive than you, would, in your place, have soon forgotten the fact, and only revelled in the delight of the present. Believe me, every pang that you now endure will tell in your favour when on high. God has left you for a moment in an unrighteous path, to reserve for you the glory of repentance and the everlasting reward reserved for expiation. Has he not said himself, ‘Those who fight the good fight and come to me with a smile on their lips, they are my chosen; but they who, wounded in the struggle, come to me fainting and dying, they are the chosen amongst my chosen!’ Courage, then, my child! Support, help, counsel, — nothing will fail you. I am very aged, but Madame Georges and M. Rodolph have still many years before them; particularly M. Rodolph, who has taken so deep an interest in you, who watches your progress with so much anxiety.”
“‘So I Have Brought Turk with Me’”
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel
The Goualeuse was about to reply, when she was interrupted by the peasant girl whom we have already mentioned, who, having followed in the steps of the curé and Marie, now came up to them. She was one of the peasants of the farm.
“Beg your pardon, M. le Curé,” she said to the priest, “but Madame Georges told me to bring this basket of fruit to the rectory, and then I could accompany Mlle. Marie back again, for it is getting late. So I have brought Turk with me,” added the dairy-maid, patting an enormous dog of the Pyrenees, which would have mastered a bear in a struggle. “Although we never have any bad people about us here in the country, it is as well to be careful.”
“You are quite right, Claudine. Here we are now at the rectory. Pray thank Madame Georges for me.”
Then addressing the Goualeuse in a low tone, the curé said to her, in a grave voice:
“I must go to-morrow to the conference of the diocese, but I shall return at five o’clock. If you like, my child, I will wait for you at the rectory. I see your state of mind, and that you require a lengthened conversation with me.”
“I thank you, father,” replied Fleur-de-Marie. “To-morrow I will come, since you are so good as to allow me to do so.”
“Here we are at the garden gate,” said the priest. “Leave your basket there, Claudine; my housekeeper will take it. Return quickly to the farm with Marie, for it is almost night, and the cold is increasing. To-morrow, Marie, at five o’clock.”
“To-morrow, father.”
The abbé went into his garden. The Goualeuse and Claudine, followed by Turk, took the road to the farm.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RENCOUNTER.
THE NIGHT SET in clear and cold. Following the advice of the Schoolmaster, the Chouette had gone to that part of the hollow way which was the most remote from the path, and nearest to the cross-road where Barbillon was waiting with the hackney-coach. Tortillard, who was posted as an advanced guard, watched for the return of Fleur-de-Marie, whom he was desirous of drawing into the trap by begging her to come to the assistance of a poor old woman. The son of Bras Rouge had advanced a few steps out of the ravine to try and discern Marie, when he heard the Goualeuse some way off speaking to the peasant girl who accompanied her. The plan had failed; and Tortillard quickly went down into the ravine to run and inform the Chouette.
“There is somebody with the young girl,” said h
e, in a low and breathless tone.
“May the hangman squeeze her weasand, the little beggar,” exclaimed the Chouette in a rage.
“Who’s with her?” asked the Schoolmaster.
“Oh, no doubt, the country wench who passed along the road just now, followed by a large dog. I heard a woman’s voice,” said Tortillard. “Hark! — do you hear? There’s the noise of their sabots,” and, in the silence of the night, the wooden soles sounded clearly on the ground hardened by the frost.
“There are two of ’em. I can manage the young ‘un in the gray mantle, but what can we do with t’other? Fourline can’t see, and Tortillard is too weak to do for the companion — devil choke her! What can be done?” asked the Chouette.
“I’m not strong, but, if you like, I’ll cling to the legs of the country-woman with the dog. I’ll hold on by hands and teeth, and not let her go, I can tell you. You can take away the little one in the meantime, you know, Chouette.”
“If they cry or resist, they will hear them at the farm,” replied the Chouette, “and come to their assistance before we can reach Barbillon’s coach. It is no easy thing to carry off a woman who resists.”
“And they have a large dog with them,” said Tortillard.
“Bah! bah! If it was only that, I could break the brute’s skull with a blow of my shoe-heel,” said the Chouette.
“Here they are,” replied Tortillard, who was listening still to the echo of their footsteps. “They are coming down the hollow now.”
“Why don’t you speak, fourline?” said the Chouette to the Schoolmaster. “What is best to be done, long-headed as you are, eh? Are you grown dumb?”
“There’s nothing to be done to-day,” replied the miscreant.
“And the thousand ‘bob’ of the man in mourning,” said the Chouette; “they are gone, then? I’d sooner — Your knife — your knife, fourline! I will stick the companion, that she may be no trouble to us; and, as to the young miss, Tortillard and I can make off with her.”
“But the man in mourning does not desire that we should kill any one.”
“Well, then, we must put the cold meat down as an extra in his bill. He must pay, for he will be an accomplice with us.”
“Here they come — down the hill,” said Tortillard, softly.
“Your knife, lad!” said the Chouette, in a similar tone.
“Ah, Chouette,” cried Tortillard, in alarm, and extending his hands to the hag, “that is too bad — to kill. No! — oh, no!”
“Your knife, I tell you!” repeated the Chouette, in an undertone, without paying the least attention to Tortillard’s supplication, and putting her shoes off hastily. “I have taken off my shoes,” she added, “that I may steal on them quietly from behind. It is almost dark; but I can easily make out the little one by her cloak, and I will do for the other.”
“No,” said the felon; “to-day it is useless. There will be plenty of time to-morrow.”
“What! you’re afraid, old patterer, are you?” said the Chouette, with fierce contempt.
“Not at all,” replied the Schoolmaster. “But you may fail in your blow and spoil all.”
The dog which accompanied the country-woman, scenting the persons hidden in the hollow road, stopped short, and barked furiously, refusing to come to Fleur-de-Marie, who called him frequently.
“Do you hear their dog? Here they are! Your knife! — or, if not—” cried the Chouette, with a threatening air.
“Come and take it from me, then — by force,” said the Schoolmaster.
“It’s all over — it’s too late,” added the Chouette, after listening for a moment attentively; “they have gone by. You shall pay for that, gallows-bird,” added she, furiously, shaking her fist at her accomplice. “A thousand francs lost by your stupidity!”
“A thousand — two thousand — perhaps three thousand gained,” replied the Schoolmaster, in a tone of authority. “Listen, Chouette! Do you go back to Barbillon, and let him drive you to the place where you were to meet the man in mourning. Tell him that it was impossible to do anything to-day, but that to-morrow she shall be carried off. The young girl goes every evening to walk home with the priest, and it was only a chance which to-day led her to meet with any one. To-morrow we shall have a more secure opportunity. So to-morrow do you return and be with Barbillon at the cross-road in his coach at the same hour.”
“But thou — thou?”
“Tortillard shall lead me to the farm where the young girl lives. I will cook up some tale — say we have lost our road, and ask leave to pass the night at the farm in a corner of the stable. No one could refuse us that. Tortillard will examine all the doors, windows, and ins and outs of the house. There is always money to be looked for amongst these farming people. You say the farm is situated in a lone spot; and, when once we know all the ways and outlets, we need only return with some safe friends, and the thing is done as easy—”
“Always ‘downy!’ What a head-piece!” said the Chouette, softening. “Go on, fourline.”
“To-morrow morning, instead of leaving the farm, I will complain of a pain which prevents me from walking. If they will not believe me, I’ll show them the wound which I have always had since I smashed the ‘loop of my darbies,’ and which is always painful to me. I’ll say it is a burn I had from a red-hot bar when I was a workman, and they’ll believe me. I’ll remain at the farm part of the day, whilst Tortillard looks about him. When the evening comes on, and the little wench goes out as usual with the priest, I’ll say I’m better, and fit to go away. Tortillard and I will follow the young wench at a distance, and await your coming to us here. As she will know us already, she will have no mistrust when she sees us. We will speak to her, Tortillard and I; and, when once within reach of my arms, I will answer for the rest. She’s caught safe enough, and the thousand francs are ours. That is not all. In two or three days we can ‘give the office’ of the farm to Barbillon and some others, and share with them if they get any ‘swag,’ as it will be me who put them on the ‘lay.’”
“Well done, No-Eyes! No one can come up to you,” said the Chouette, embracing the Schoolmaster. “Your plan is capital! Tell you what, fourline, when you are done up and old, you must turn consulting ‘prig’; you will earn as much money as a ‘big-wig.’ Come, kiss your old woman, and be off as quick as you may, for these joskins go to sleep with their poultry. I shall go to Barbillon; and to-morrow, at four o’clock, we will be at the cross-road with the ‘trap,’ unless he is nabbed for having assisted Gros-Boiteux and the Skeleton to ‘do for’ the milk-woman’s husband in the Rue de la Vieille-Draperie. But if he can’t come, another can, for the pretended hackney-coach belongs to the man in mourning who has used it before. A quarter of an hour after we get to the cross-road, I will be here and wait for you.”
“All right! Good-by till to-morrow, Chouette.”
“I had nearly forgot to give the wax to Tortillard, if there is any lock to get the print of at the farm. Here, chickabiddy, do you know how to use it?” said the one-eyed wretch to Tortillard, as she gave him a piece of wax.
“Yes, yes, my father showed me how to use it. I took for him the print of the lock of the little iron chest which my master, the quack doctor, keeps in his small closet.”
“Ah, that’s all right; and, that the wax may not stick, do not forget to moisten the wax after you have warmed it well in your hand.”
“I know all about it,” replied Tortillard.
“To-morrow, them, fourline,” said the Chouette.
“To-morrow,” replied the Schoolmaster.
The Chouette went towards the coach. The Schoolmaster and Tortillard quitted the hollow way, and bent their steps towards the farm, the lights which shone from the windows serving to guide them on their way.
Strange fatality, which again brought Anselm Duresnel under the same roof with his wife, who had not seen him since his condemnation to hard labour for life!
CHAPTER VII.
AN EVENING AT THE FARM.
PERHAPS A MORE gratifying sight does not exist than the interior of a large farm-kitchen prepared for the evening meal, especially during the winter season. Its bright wood fire, the long table covered with the savoury, smoking dishes, the huge tankards of foaming beer or cider, with the happy countenances scattered round, speak of peaceful labour and healthful industry. The farm-kitchen of Bouqueval was a fine exemplification of this remark. Its immense open chimney, about six feet high and eight feet wide, resembled the yawning mouth of some huge oven. On the hearth blazed and sparkled enormous logs of beech or oak; and from this prodigious brazier there issued forth such a body of light, as well as heat, that the large lamp suspended from the centre beam sunk into insignificance, and was rendered nearly useless. Every variety of culinary utensils, sparkling in all the brightness of the most elaborate cleanliness, and composed invariably of copper, brass, and tin, glowed in the bright radiance of the winter fire, as they stood ranged with the utmost nicety and effect on their appropriate shelves. An old-fashioned cistern of elaborately polished copper showed its bright face, polished as a mirror; and close beside stood a highly polished bread-trough and cover, composed of walnut-tree wood, rubbed by the hand of housewifery till you could see your face in it and from which issued a most tempting smell of hot bread. A long and substantial table occupied the centre of the kitchen; a tablecloth, which, though coarse in texture, vied with the falling snow for whiteness, covered its entire length; while for each expected guest was placed an earthenware plate, brown without, but white within, and by its side a knife, fork, and spoon, lustrous as silver itself. In the midst of the table, an immense tureen of vegetable soup smoked like the crater of a volcano, and diffused its savoury vapours over a dish of ham and greens, flanked by a most formidable array of mutton, most relishly stewed with onions and potatoes. Below was placed a large joint of roast veal, followed by two great plates of winter salad, supported by a couple of baskets of apples; and a similar number of cheeses completed the arrangements of the table. Three or four stone pitchers filled with sparkling cider, and a like quantity of loaves of brown bread, equal in size to the stones of a windmill, were placed at the discretionary use of the supping party.
