by Eugène Sue
CHAPTER XXVII. DAGOBERT'S WIFE.
The following scenes occur in Paris, on the morrow of the day when theshipwrecked travellers were received in Cardoville House.
Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of the Rue Brise-Miche, oneend of which leads into the Rue Saint-Merry, and the other into thelittle square of the Cloister, near the church. At this end, the street,or rather alley--for it is not more than eight feet wide--is shut inbetween immense black, muddy dilapidated walls, the excessive height ofwhich excludes both air and light; hardly, during the longest daysof the year, is the sun able to throw into it a few straggling beams;whilst, during the cold damps of winter, a chilling fog, which seems topenetrate everything, hangs constantly above the miry pavement of thisspecies of oblong well.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening; by the faint, reddish lightof the street lamp, hardly visible through the haze, two men, stoppingat the angle of one of those enormous walls, exchanged a few wordstogether.
"So," said one, "you understand all about it. You are to watch in thestreet, till you see them enter No. 5."
"All right!" answered the other.
"And when you see 'em enter so as to make quite sure of the game, go upto Frances Baudoin's room--"
"Under the cloak of asking where the little humpbacked workwomanlives--the sister of that gay girl, the Queen of the Bacchanals."
"Yes--and you must try and find out her address also--from herhumpbacked sister, if possible--for it is very important. Women of herfeather change their nests like birds, and we have lost track of her."
"Make yourself easy; I will do my best with Hump, to learn where hersister hangs out."
"And, to give you steam, I'll wait for you at the tavern opposite theCloister, and we'll have a go of hot wine on your return."
"I'll not refuse, for the night is deucedly cold."
"Don't mention it! This morning the water friz on my sprinkling-brush,and I turned as stiff as a mummy in my chair at the church-door. Ah, myboy! a distributor of holy water is not always upon roses!"
"Luckily, you have the pickings--"
"Well, well--good luck to you! Don't forget the Fiver, the littlepassage next to the dyer's shop."
"Yes, yes--all right!" and the two men separated.
One proceeded to the Cloister Square; the other towards the further endof the street, where it led into the Rue Saint-Merry. This lattersoon found the number of the house he sought--a tall, narrow building,having, like all the other houses in the street, a poor and wretchedappearance. When he saw he was right, the man commenced walkingbackwards and forwards in front of the door of No. 5.
If the exterior of these buildings was uninviting, the gloom and squalorof the interior cannot be described. The house No. 5 was, in a specialdegree, dirty and dilapidated. The water, which oozed from the wall,trickled down the dark and filthy staircase. On the second floor, a wispof straw had been laid on the narrow landing-place, for wiping the feeton; but this straw, being now quite rotten, only served to augment thesickening odor, which arose from want of air, from damp, and fromthe putrid exhalations of the drains. The few openings, cut at rareintervals in the walls of the staircase, could hardly admit more thansome faint rays of glimmering light.
In this quarter, one of the most populous in Paris, such houses asthese, poor, cheerless, and unhealthy, are generally inhabited bythe working classes. The house in question was of the number. A dyeroccupied the ground floor; the deleterious vapors arising from his vatsadded to the stench of the whole building. On the upper stories, severalartisans lodged with their families, or carried on their differenttrades. Up four flights of stairs was the lodging of Frances Baudoin,wife of Dagobert. It consisted of one room, with a closet adjoining, andwas now lighted by a single candle. Agricola occupied a garret in theroof.
Old grayish paper, broken here and there by the cracks covered the crazywall, against which rested the bed; scanty curtains, running upon aniron rod, concealed the windows; the brick floor, not polished, butoften washed, had preserved its natural color. At one end of this roomwas a round iron stove, with a large pot for culinary purposes. On thewooden table, painted yellow, marbled with brown, stood a miniaturehouse made of iron--a masterpiece of patience and skill, the work ofAgricola Baudoin, Dagobert's son.
A plaster crucifix hung up against the wall, surrounded by severalbranches of consecrated box-tree, and various images of saints, verycoarsely colored, bore witness to the habits of the soldier's wife.Between the windows stood one of those old walnut-wood presses,curiously fashioned, and almost black with time; an old arm-chair,covered with green cotton velvet (Agricola's first present to hismother), a few rush bottomed chairs, and a worktable on which layseveral bags of coarse, brown cloth, completed the furniture of thisroom, badly secured by a worm-eaten door. The adjoining closet containeda few kitchen and household utensils.
Mean and poor as this interior may perhaps appear, it would not seemso to the greater number of artisans; for the bed was supplied withtwo mattresses, clean sheets, and a warm counterpane; the old-fashionedpress contained linen; and, moreover, Dagobert's wife occupied all toherself a room as large as those in which numerous families, belongingto honest and laborious workmen, often live and sleep huddledtogether--only too happy if the boys and girls can have separate beds,or if the sheets and blankets are not pledged at the pawnbroker's.
Frances Baudoin, seated beside the small stove, which, in the cold anddamp weather, yielded but little warmth, was busied in preparing her sonAgricola's evening meal.
Dagobert's wife was about fifty years of age; she wore a close jacketof blue cotton, with white flowers on it, and a stuff petticoat; a whitehandkerchief was tied round her head, and fastened under the chin. Hercountenance was pale and meagre, the features regular, and expressive ofresignation and great kindness. It would have been difficult to find abetter, a more courageous mother. With no resource but her labor, shehad succeeded, by unwearied energy, in bringing up not only her ownson Agricola, but also Gabriel, the poor deserted child, of whom, withadmirable devotion, she had ventured to take charge.
In her youth, she had, as it were, anticipated the strength of laterlife, by twelve years of incessant toil, rendered lucrative by the mostviolent exertions, and accompanied by such privations as made it almostsuicidal. Then (for it was a time of splendid wages, compared to thepresent), by sleepless nights and constant labor, she contrived to earnabout two shillings (fifty sous) a day, and with this she managed toeducate her son and her adopted child.
At the end of these twelve years, her health was ruined, and herstrength nearly exhausted; but, at all events, her boys had wanted fornothing, and had received such an education as children of the peoplecan obtain. About this time, M. Francois Hardy took Agricola as anapprentice, and Gabriel prepared to enter the priest's seminary,under the active patronage of M. Rodin, whose communications with theconfessor of Frances Baudoin had become very frequent about the year1820.
This woman (whose piety had always been excessive) was one of thosesimple natures, endowed with extreme goodness, whose self-denialapproaches to heroism, and who devote themselves in obscurity to a lifeof martyrdom--pure and heavenly minds, in whom the instincts of theheart supply the place of the intellect!
The only defect, or rather the necessary consequence of this extremesimplicity of character, was the invincible determination she displayedin yielding to the commands of her confessor, to whose influence shehad now for many years been accustomed to submit. She regarded thisinfluence as most venerable and sacred; no mortal power, no humanconsideration, could have prevented her from obeying it. Did any disputearise on the subject, nothing could move her on this point; she opposedto every argument a resistance entirely free from passion--mild as herdisposition, calm as her conscience--but, like the latter, not tobe shaken. In a word, Frances Baudoin was one of those pure, butuninstructed and credulous beings, who may sometimes, in skillful anddangerous hands, become, without knowing it, the instruments of muchevil.
For some time past, the bad state of her health, and particularly theincreasing weakness of her sight, had condemned her to a forced repose;unable to work more than two or three hours a day, she consumed the restof her time at church.
Frances rose from her seat, pushed the coarse bags at which she had beenworking to the further end of the table, and proceeded to lay the clothfor her son's supper, with maternal care and solicitude. She took fromthe press a small leathern bag, containing an old silver cup, very muchbattered, and a fork and spoon, so worn and thin, that the latter cutlike a knife. These, her only plate (the wedding present of Dagobert)she rubbed and polished as well as she was able, and laid by the side ofher son's plate. They were the most precious of her possessions, not somuch for what little intrinsic value might attach to them, as for theassociations they recalled; and she had often shed bitter tears, when,under the pressure of illness or want of employment, she had beencompelled to carry these sacred treasures to the pawnbroker's.
Frances next took, from the lower shelf of the press, a bottle of water,and one of wine about three-quarters full, which she also placed nearher son's plate; she then returned to the stove, to watch the cooking ofthe supper.
Though Agricola was not much later than usual, the countenance of hismother expressed both uneasiness and grief; one might have seen, by theredness of her eyes, that she had been weeping a good deal. Afterlong and painful uncertainty, the poor woman had just arrived at theconviction that her eyesight, which had been growing weaker and weaker,would soon be so much impaired as to prevent her working even the two orthree hours a day which had lately been the extent of her labors.
Originally an excellent hand at her needle, she had been obliged, asher eyesight gradually failed her, to abandon the finer for thecoarser sorts of work, and her earnings had necessarily diminished inproportion; she had at length been reduced to the necessity of makingthose coarse bags for the army, which took about four yards of sewing,and were paid at the rate of two sous each, she having to find her ownthread. This work, being very hard, she could at most complete threesuch bags in a day, and her gains thus amounted to threepence (sixsous)!
It makes one shudder to think of the great number of unhappy females,whose strength has been so much exhausted by privations, old age, orsickness, that all the labor of which they are capable, hardly sufficesto bring them in daily this miserable pittance. Thus do their gainsdiminish in exact proportion to the increasing wants which age andinfirmity must occasion.
Happily, Frances had an efficient support in her son. A first-rateworkman, profiting by the just scale of wages adopted by M. Hardy, hislabor brought him from four to five shillings a day--more than doublewhat was gained by the workmen of many other establishments. Admittingtherefore that his mother were to gain nothing, he could easily maintainboth her and himself.
But the poor woman, so wonderfully economical that she denied herselfeven some of the necessaries of life, had of late become ruinouslyliberal on the score of the sacristy, since she had adopted the habitof visiting daily the parish church. Scarcely a day passed but she hadmasses sung, or tapers burnt, either for Dagobert, from whom she hadbeen so long separated, or for the salvation of her son Agricola, whomshe considered on the high-road to perdition. Agricola had so excellenta heart, so loved and revered his mother, and considered her actionsin this respect inspired by so touching a sentiment, that he nevercomplained when he saw a great part of his week's wages (which he paidregularly over to his mother every Saturday) disappear in pious forms.
Yet now and then he ventured to remark to Frances, with as much respectas tenderness, that it pained him to see her enduring privationsinjurious at her age, because she preferred incurring these devotionalexpenses. But what answer could he make to this excellent mother, whenshe replied with tears: "My child, 'tis for the salvation of your fatherand yours too."
To dispute the efficacy of masses, would have been venturing on asubject which Agricola, through respect for his mother's religiousfaith, never discussed. He contented himself, therefore, with seeing herdispense with comforts she might have enjoyed.
A discreet tap was heard at the door. "Come in," said Frances. Theperson came in.
