by Victor Hugo
He passed over the three steps; and, having reached the threshold, stopped.
No candle was burning in the caravan, probably from the economy of want. The hut was lighted only by a red tinge, arising from the opening at the top of the stove, in which sparkled a peat fire. On the stove was smoking a porringer and a saucepan, containing to all appearance something to eat. The savoury odour was perceptible. The hut was furnished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern which hung from the ceiling. Besides, to the partition were attached some boards on brackets and some hooks, from which hung a variety of things. On the boards and nails were rows of glasses, coppers, an alembic, a vessel rather like those used for Raining wax, which are called granulators, and a confusion of strange objects, of which the child understood nothing, and which were utensils for cooking and chemistry. The caravan was oblong in shape, the stove being in front. It was not even a little room; it was scarcely a big box. There was more light outside from the snow than inside from the stove. Everything in the caravan was indistinct and misty. Nevertheless, a reflection of the fire on the ceiling enabled the spectator to read in large letters: URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.
The child, in fact, was entering the house of Homo and Ursus. The one he had just heard growling, the other speaking.
The child, having reached the threshold, perceived near the stove a man, tall, smooth, thin and old, dressed in gray, whose head, as he stood, reached the roof. The man could not have raised himself on tiptoe. The caravan was just his size.
"Come in!" said the man, who was Ursus.
The child entered.
"Put down your bundle."
The child placed his burden carefully on the top of the chest, for fear of awakening and terrifying it.
The man continued:
"How gently you put it down! You could not be more careful were it a case of relics. Is it that you are afraid of tearing a hole in your rags? Worthless vagabond! in the streets at this hour! Who are you? Answer! But no. I forbid you to answer. There! You are cold. Warm yourself as quick as you can," and he shoved him by the shoulders in front of the fire.
"How wet you are! You're frozen through! A nice state to come into a house! Come, take off those rags, you villain!" and as with one hand. and with feverish haste, he dragged off the boy's rags which tore into shreds, with the other he took down from a nail a man's shirt, and one of those knitted jackets which are up to this day called kiss-me-quicks.
"Here are clothes."
He chose out of a heap a woolen rag, and chafed before the fire the limbs of the exhausted and bewildered child, who at that moment, warm and naked, felt as if he revere seeing and touching heaven. The limbs having been rubbed, he next wiped the boy's feet.
"Come, you limb! you have nothing frost-bitten! I was a fool to fancy you had something frozen, hind legs or fore paws. You will not lose the use of them this time. Dress yourself!"
The child put on the shirt, and the man slipped the knitted jacket over it.
"Now . . . ."
The man kicked the stool forward and made the little lion sit down, again shoving him by the shoulders; then he pointed with his finger to the porringer which was smoking upon the stove. What the child saw in the porringer was again heaven to him--namely a potato and a bit of bacon.
"You are hungry--eat!"
The man took from the shelf a crust of hard bread and an iron fork, and handed them to the child.
The boy hesitated.
"Perhaps you expect me to lay the cloth," said the man, and he placed the porringer on the child's lap.
"Gobble that up."
Hunger overcame astonishment. The child began to eat. The poor boy devoured rather than ate. The glad sound of the crunching of bread filled the hut. The man grumbled:
"Not so quick, you horrid glutton! Isn't he a greedy scoundrel? When such scum are hungry, they eat in a revolting fashion. You should see a lord sup. In my time, I have seen dukes eat. They don't eat; that's noble. They drink, however. Come you pig! stuff yourself!"
The absence of ears, which is the concomitant of a hungry stomach, caused the child to take little heed of these violent epithets, tempered as they were by charity of action involving a contradiction resulting in his benefit. For the moment he was absorbed by two exigencies and by two ecstasies--food and warmth.
Ursus continued his imprecations, muttering to himself:
"I have seen King James, supping in propriâ personâ, in the Banqueting House, where are to be admired the paintings of the famous Rubens. His Majesty touched nothing. This beggar here, browses--browses, a word derived from brute. What put it into my head to come to this Weymouth seven times devoted to the infernal deities? I have sold nothing since morning. I have harangued the snow. I have played the flute to the hurricane. I have not pocketed a farthing; and now, to-night beggars drop in. Horrid place! There is battle, struggle, competition between the fools in the street and myself. They try to give me nothing but farthings. I try to give them nothing but drugs. Well! to-day I've made nothing. Not an idiot on the highway. Not a penny in the till. Eat away! Hell-born boy! Tear and crunch! We have fallen on times when nothing can equal the cynicism of spongers. Fatten at my expense, parasite! This wretched boy is more than hungry; he is mad. It is not appetite, it is ferocity. He is carried away by a rapid virus. Perhaps he has the plague. Have you the plague, you thief? Suppose he were to give it to Homo! No, never! Let the populace die, but not my wolf. But by-the-bye I am hungry myself. I declare that this is all very disagreeable. I have worked far into the night. There are seasons in a man's life when he is hard pressed. I was to-night, by hunger. I was alone. I made a fire. I had but one potato, one crust of bread, a mouthful of bacon, and a drop of milk, and I put it to warm. I said to myself, 'good.' I think I am going to eat, and bang! this crocodile falls upon me at the very moment. He installs himself clean between my food and myself. Behold! how my larder is devastated! Eat! pike, eat! You shark! how many teeth have you in your jaws? Guzzle, wolf-cub; no I withdraw that word. I respect wolves. Swallow up my food, boa. I have worked all day, and far into the night, on an empty stomach; my throat is sore; my pancreas in distress; my entrails torn; and my reward is to see another eat. 'Tis all one, though! We will divide. He shall have the bread, the potato and the bacon, but I will have the milk."
Just then a wail, touching and prolonged, arose in the hut. The man listened.
"You cry! sycophant! Why do you cry?"
The boy turned toward him, it was evident that it was not he who cried. He had his mouth full.
The cry continued.
The man went to the chest.
"So it is your bundle that wails! Vale of Jehoshaphat! Behold a vociferating parcel! What the devil has your bundle got to croak about?"
He unrolled the jacket, an infant's head appeared, the mouth open and crying.
"Well! Who goes there?" said the man. "Here is another of them. When is this to end? Who is there? To arms! corporal! call out the guard; another bang! What have you brought me, thief? Don't you see it is thirsty? Come! the little one must have a drink. So now I shall not have even the milk!"
He took down from the things lying in disorder on the shelf a bandage of linen, a sponge, and a phial, muttering savagely:
"What an infernal place!"
Then he looked at the little infant.
"'Tis a girl! one can tell that by her scream, and she is drenched as well."
He dragged away, as he had done from the boy, the tatters in which she was knotted up rather than dressed, and swathed her in a rag, which, though of coarse linen, was clean and dry. This rough and sudden dressing made the infant angry.
"She mews relentlessly," said he.
He bit off a long piece of sponge, tore from the roll a square piece of linen, drew from it a bit of thread, took the saucepan containing the milk from the stove, filled the phial with milk, drove down the sponge half-way into its neck, covered the sponge with linen, tied this cork in with the thread, applied his ch
eeks to the phial to be sure that it was not too hot, and seized under his left arm the bewildered bundle which was still crying. "Come! take your supper, creature! Let me suckle you," and he put the neck of the bottle to its mouth.
The little infant drank greedily.
He held the phial at the necessary incline, grumbling:
"They are all the same, the cowards! When they have all they want they are silent."
The child had drunk so ravenously, and had seized so eagerly this breast offered by a cross-grained Providence, that she was taken with a fit of coughing.
"You are going to choke!" growled Ursus. "A fine gobbler this one, too!"
He drew away the sponge which she was sucking, allowed the cough to subside, and then replaced the phial to her lips, saying:
"Suck! you little wretch!"
In the meantime the boy had laid down his fork. Seeing the infant drink had made him forget to eat. The moment before, while he ate, the expression in his face was satisfaction--now it was gratitude. He watched the infant's renewal of life; the completion of the resurrection begun by himself filled his eyes with an ineffable brilliancy. Ursus went on muttering angry words between his teeth. The little boy now and then lifted toward Ursus his eyes moist with the unspeakable emotion which the poor little being felt but was unable to express. Ursus addressed him furiously.
"Well, will you eat?"
"And you?" said the child, trembling all over, and with tears in his eyes. "You will have nothing!"
"Will you be kind enough to eat it all up, you cub! There is not too much for you, since there was not enough for me."
The child took up his fork, but did not eat.
"Eat," shouted Ursus. "What has it got to do with me? Who speaks of me? Wretched little barefooted clerk of Penniless Parish, I tell you, eat it all up. You are here to eat, drink, and sleep--eat, or I will kick you out, both of you."
The boy, under this menace, began to eat again. He had not much trouble in finishing what was left in the porringer.
Ursus muttered:
"This building is badly Joined. The cold comes in by the window-pane."
A pane had indeed been broken in front, either by a jolt of the caravan or by a stone thrown by some mischievous boy. Ursus had placed a star of paper over the fracture, which had become unpasted. The blast entered there.
He was half seated on the chest. The infant in his arms, and at the same time on his lap, was sucking rapturously at the bottle, in the happy somnolency of cherubim before their Creator and infants at their mothers' breast.
"She is drunk," said Ursus; and he continued, "After this, preach sermons on temperance!"
The wind tore from the pane the plaster of paper, which flew across the hut; but this was nothing to the children who were entering life anew; while the little girl drank, and the little boy ate, Ursus grumbled:
"Drunkenness begins in the infant in swaddling clothes. What useless trouble Bishop Tillotson gives himself, thundering against excessive drinking. What an odious draught of wind! And then my stove is old. It allows puffs of smoke to escape enough to give you trichiasis. One has the inconvenience of cold, and the inconvenience of fire. One can not see clearly. That being over there abuses my hospitality. Well! I have not been able to distinguish the animal's face yet. Comfort is wanting here. By Jove! I am a great admirer of exquisite banquets in well-closed rooms. I have missed my vocation. I was born to be a sensualist. The greatest of Stoics was Philoxenus, who wished to possess the neck of a crane, so as to be longer in tasting the pleasures of the table. Receipts to-day, naught. Nothing sold all day. Inhabitants, servants, and tradesmen, here is the doctor, here are the drugs. You are losing your time, old friend. Pack up your physic. Every one is well down here. It's a cursed town, where every one is well! The skies alone have diarrhoea--what snow! Anaxagoras taught that the snow was black, and he was right, cold being blackness. Ice is night. What a hurricane! I can fancy the delight of those at sea. The hurricane is the passage of demons. It is the row of the tempest fiends galloping and rolling head over heels above our bone-boxes. In the cloud this one has a tail, that one has horns, another a flame for a tongue' another claws to its wings, another a lord chancellor's paunch, another an academician's pate. You may observe a form in every sound. To every fresh wind a fresh demon. The ear hears, the eye sees, the crash is a face. Zounds! There are folks at sea--that is certain. My friends! get through the storm as best you can. I have enough to do to get through life. Come now, do I keep an inn, or do I not? Why should I trade with these travelers? The universal distress sends its sputterings even as far as my poverty. Into my cabin fall hideous drops of the far-spreading mud of mankind. I am given up to the voracity of travelers. I am a prey--the prey of those dying of hunger. Stinter, night, a pasteboard hut, an unfortunate friend below and without, the storm, a potato, a fire as big as my fist, parasites, the wind penetrating through every cranny, not a halfpenny, and bundles which set to howling. I open them, and find beggars inside. Is this fair? Besides, the laws are violated. Ah! vagabond with your vagabond child! Mischievous pickpocket, evil-minded abortion, so you walk the streets after curfew? If our good king only knew it, would he not have you thrown into the bottom of a ditch, just to teach you better! My gentleman walks out at night with my lady, and with the glass at fifteen degrees of frost, bareheaded and barefooted. Understand that such things are forbidden. There are rules and regulations, you lawless wretches. Vagabonds are punished, honest folks who have houses are guarded an] protected. Kings are the fathers of their people. I have my own house You would have been whipped in the public street had you chanced to have been met, and quite right, too. There must be order in an established city. For my own part, I did wrong not to denounce you to the constable. But I am such a fool! I understand what is right and do what is wrong. Oh, the ruffian! to come here in such a state! I did not see the snow upon them when they came in; it had melted, and here's my whole house swamped. I have an inundation in my home. I shall have to burn an incredible amount of coals to dry up this lake--coals at twelve farthings, the miners' standard! How am I going to manage to fit three into this caravan? Now it is over; I enter the nursery; I am going to have in my house the weaning of the future beggardom of England. I shall have for employment, office, and function, to fashion the miscarried fortunes of that colossal Prostitute, Misery, to bring to perfection future gallows' birds, and to give young thieves the forms of philosophy. The tongue of the wolf is the warning of God. And to think that if I had not been eaten up by creatures of this kind for the last thirty years, I should be rich; Homo would be fat; I should have a medicine-chest full of rarities: as many surgical instruments as Doctor Linacre, surgeon to King Henry VIII; divers animals of all kinds; Egyptian mummies, and similar curiosities; I should be a member of the College of Physicians, and have the right of using the library, built in 1652 by the celebrated Hervey, and of studying in the lantern of that dome whence you can see the whole of London. I could continue my observations of solar obfuscation, and prove that a caligenous vapour arises from the planet. Such was the opinion of John Kepler, who was born the year before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and who was mathematician to the emperor. The sun is a chimney which sometimes smokes; so does my stove. My stove is no better than the sun. Yes, I should have made my fortune; my part would have been different one I should not be the insignificant fellow I am. I should not degrade science in the highways, for the crowd is not worthy of the doctrine, the crowd being nothing better than a confused mixture of all sorts of ages, sexes, humours, and conditions, that wise men of all periods have not hesitated to despise, and whose extravagance and passion the most moderate men in their justice detest! Oh, I am weary of existence! After all, one does not live long! This human life is soon done with. But, no--it is long. At intervals, that we should not become too discouraged, that we may have the stupidity to consent to bear our being, and not profit by the magnificent opportunities to hang ourselves which cords and vigils afford, nature
puts on an air of taking a little care of man--not to-night, though. The rogue causes the wheat to spring up, ripens the grape, gives her song to the nightingale. From time to time a ray of morning or a glass of gin, and that is what we call happiness! It is a narrow border of good round a huge winding-sheet of evil. We have a destiny of which the devil has woven the stuff, and God has sewn the hem. In the meantime, you have eaten my supper, you thief!"
In the meantime the infant whom he was holding all the time in his arms very tenderly while he was vituperating shut its eyes languidly; a sign of repletion. Ursus examined the phial, and grumbled:
"She has drunk it all up, the impudent creature!"
He arose, and sustaining the infant with his left arm, with his right he raised the lid of the chest and drew from beneath it a bearskin, the one he called, as will be remembered, his real skin. While he was doing this he heard the other child eating, and looked at him sidewise.
"It will be something to do if, henceforth, I have to feed that grooving glutton. It will be a worm gnawing at the Ideals of my industry."
He spread out, still with one arm, the bearskin on the chest, working his elbows and managing his movements so as not to disturb the sleep into which the infant was just sinking.
Then he laid her down on the fur, on the side next the fire. Having done so, he placed the phial on the stove, and exclaimed:
"I am thirsty, if you like!"
He looked into the pot. There were a few good mouthfuls of milk left in it; he raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drink his eye fell on the little girl. He replaced the pot on the stove, took the phial, uncorked it, poured into it all the milk that remained, which was just sufficient to fill it, replaced the sponge and the linen rag over it, and tied it round the neck of the bottle.
"All the same, I'm hungry and thirsty," he observed.
And he added:
"When one can not eat bread one must drink water."
Behind the stove there was a jug with the spout off. He took it and handed it to the boy.
