The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

"A knife! Oh, for a knife to kill myself! A knife! since all the world abandons me!" shrieked the wretch, gnawing his fists for very agony and rage.

"A knife! – there's one in your pocket, cut-throat, and with an edge, too. The little old man in the Rue du Roule, you know, one moonlight night, and the cattle-dealer in the Poissy road, could tell the 'moles' all about it. But if you want it, it's here."

The Schoolmaster, when thus instructed, changed the conversation, and replied, in a surly and threatening tone:

"The Chourineur was true; he did not rob, but had pity on me."

"Why did you say that I had 'prigged your blunt'?" inquired the Chouette, hardly able to restrain her laughter.

"It was only you who came into my room," said the miscreant. "I was robbed on the night of your arrival, and who else could I suspect? Those country people could not have done such a thing."

"Why should not country people steal as well as other folks? Is it because they drink milk and gather grass for their rabbits?"

"I don't know. I only know I'm robbed."

"And is that the fault of your own Chouette? What! suspect me? Do you think if I had got your belt that I should stay any longer with you. What a fool you are! Why, if I had chosen to 'pouch your blunt,' I could, of course; but, as true as I'm Chouette, you would have seen me again when the 'pewter' was spent, for I like you as well now with your eyes white, as I did – you rogue, you! Come, be decent, and leave off grinding your 'snags' in that way, or you'll break 'em."

"It's just as if he was a-cracking nuts," said Tortillard.

"Ha! ha! ha! what a droll baby it is! But quiet, now, quiet, my man of men; let him laugh, it is but an infant. You must own you have been unfair; for when the tall man in mourning, who looks like a mute at a funeral, said to me, 'A thousand francs are yours if you carry off this young girl from the farm at Bouqueval, and bring her to the spot in the Plain of St. Denis that I shall tell you,' say, cut-throat, didn't I directly tell you of the affair and agree to share with you, instead of choosing some 'pal' with his eyesight clear? Why, it's like making you a handsome present for doing nothing; for unless to bundle up the girl and carry her, with Tortillard's assistance, you would be of no more use to me than the fifth wheel to an omnibus. But never mind; for, although I could have robbed you if I would, I like, on the contrary, to do you service. I should wish you to owe everything to your darling Chouette – that's my way, that is. We must give two hundred 'bob' to Barbillon for driving the coach, and coming once before with the servant of the tall man in mourning, to look about the place and determine where we should hide ourselves whilst we waited for the young miss; and then we shall have eight hundred 'bob' between us. What do you say to that old boy? What! still angry with your old woman?"

"How do I know that you will give me a 'mag' when once the thing's done? Why! – I" – said the ruffian, in a tone of gloomy distrust.

"Why, if I like, I need not give you a dump, that's true enough; for you are on my gridiron, my lad, as I once had the Goualeuse; and so I will broil you to my own taste, till the 'old one' gets the cooking of my darling – ha! ha! ha! What, still sulky with your Chouette?" added the horrible woman, patting the shoulder of the ruffian, who stood mute and motionless.

"You are right," said he, with a sigh of concentrated rage; "it is my fate – mine – mine! At the mercy of a woman and child whom but lately I could have killed with a blow. Oh, if I were not afraid of dying!" said he, falling back against the bank.

"What! a coward! – you – you a coward!" said the Chouette, contemptuously. "Why, you'll be talking next of your conscience! What a precious farce! Well, if you haven't more pluck than that, I'll 'cut' and leave you."

"And that I cannot have my revenge of the man who in thus making a martyr of me has reduced me to the wretched situation in which I am!" screamed the Schoolmaster, in a renewal of fury. "I am afraid of death – yes, I own it, I am afraid. But if I were told, 'This man Rodolph is between your arms – your two arms – and now you shall both be flung into a pit,' I would say, 'Throw us, then, at once.' Yes, for then I should be safe not to relax my clutch, till we both reached the bottom together. I would fix my teeth in his face – his throat – his heart. I would tear him to pieces with my teeth – yes, my teeth; for I should be jealous of a knife!"

"Bravo, fourline! now you are my own dear love again. Calm yourself. We will find him again, that wretch of a Rodolph, and the Chourineur too. Come, pluck up, old man; we will yet work our will on them both. I say it, on both!"

"Well, then, you will not forsake me?" cried the brigand to the Chouette in a subdued tone, mingled, however, with distrust. "If you do leave me, what will become of me?"

"That's true. I say, fourline, what a joke if Tortillard and I were to 'mizzle' with the 'drag,' and leave you where you are – in the middle of the fields; and the night air begins to nip very sharp. I say, it would be a joke, old cutpurse, wouldn't it?"

At this threat the Schoolmaster shuddered, and, coming towards the Chouette, said tremulously, "No, no, you wouldn't do that, Chouette; nor you, Tortillard. It would be too bad, wouldn't it?"

"Ha! ha! ha! 'Too bad,' says he, the gentle dear! And the little old man in the Rue du Roule; and the cattle-dealer and the woman in Saint Martin's Canal; and the gentleman in the Allée des Veuves; they found you nice and amiable, I don't think – didn't they – with your 'larding-pin?' Why, then, in your turn, shouldn't you be left to such tender mercy as you have showed?"

"I'm in your power, don't abuse it," said the Schoolmaster. "Come, come, I confess I was wrong to suspect you. I was wrong to try and thump Tortillard; and, you see, I beg pardon; and of you too, Tortillard. Yes, I ask pardon of both."

"I will have you ask pardon on your knees for having tried to beat the Chouette," said Tortillard.

"You rum little beggar, how funny you are!" said the Chouette, laughing loudly; "but I should like to see what a 'guy' you will make of yourself. So on your knees, as if you were 'pattering' love to your old darling. Come, do it directly, or we will leave you; and I tell you that in half an hour it will be quite dark, though you don't look as if you thought so, old 'No-Eyes.'"

"Night or day, what's that to him?" said Tortillard, saucily. "The gentleman always has his shutters closed."

"Then here, on my knees, I humbly ask your pardon, Chouette; and yours also, Tortillard! Will not that content you?" said the robber, kneeling in the middle of the highway. "And now will you leave me?"

This strange group, enclosed by the embankment of the ravine, and lighted by the red glimmer of the twilight, was hideous to behold. In the middle of the road the Schoolmaster, on his knees, extended his large and coarse hands towards the one-eyed hag; his thick and matted hair, which his fright had dishevelled, left exposed his motionless, rigid, glassy, dead eyeballs – the very glance of a corpse. Stooping deprecatingly his broad-spread shoulders, this Hercules kneels abjectly, and trembles at the feet of an old woman and a child!

The old hag herself, wrapped in a red-checked shawl, her head covered with an old cap of black lace, which allowed some locks of her grizzled hair to escape, looked down with an air of haughty contempt and domineering pride on the Schoolmaster. The bony, scorched, shrivelled, and livid countenance of the parrot-nosed old harridan expressed a savage and insulting joy; her small but fierce eye glistened like a burning coal; a sinister expression curled her lips, shaded with long straight hairs, and revealed three or four large, yellow, and decayed fangs.

Tortillard, clothed in a blouse with a leathern belt, standing on one leg, leaned on the Chouette's arm to keep himself upright. The bad expression and cunning look of this deformed imp, with a complexion as sallow as his hair, betokened at this moment his disposition – half fiend, half monkey. The shadow cast from the declivity of the ravine increased the horrid tout ensemble of the scene, which the increasing darkness half hid.

"Promise me, – oh, promise me – at least, not to forsake me!" repeated the Schoolmaster, frightened by the silence of the Chouette and Tortillard, who were enjoying his dismay. "Are you not here?" added the murderer, leaning forward to listen, and advancing his arms mechanically.

"Yes, my man, we are here; don't be frightened. Forsake you! leave my love! the man of my heart! No, I'd sooner be 'scragged'! Once for all, I will tell you why I will not forsake you. Listen, and profit. I have always liked to have some one in my grip – beast or Christian. Before I had Pegriotte (oh! that the 'old one' would return her to my clutch! for I have still my idea of scaling off her beauty with my bottle of vitriol) – before Pegriotte's turn, I had a brat who froze to death under my care. For that little job, I got six years in the 'Stone Jug.' Then I used to have little birds, which I used to tame, and then pluck 'em alive. Ha! ha! but that was troublesome work, for they did not last long. When I left the 'Jug,' the Goualeuse came to hand; but the little brat ran away before I had had half my fun out of her carcass. Well, then I had a dog, who had his little troubles as well as she had; and I cut off one of his hind feet and one of his four feet; and you never saw such a rum beggar as I made of him; I almost burst my sides with laughing at him!"

"I must serve a dog I know of, who bit me one day, in the same way," said the promising Master Tortillard.

"When I fell in again with you, my darling," continued the Chouette, "I was trying what I could do that was miserable with a cat. Well, now, at this moment, you, old boy, shall be my cat, my dog, my bird, my Pegriotte; you shall be anything to worry (bête de souffrance). Do you understand, my love? Instead of having a bird or a child to make miserable, I shall have, as it were, a wolf or a tiger. I think that's rather a bright idea; isn't it?"

"Hag! devil!" cried the Schoolmaster, rising in a desperate rage.

"What, my pet angry with his darling old deary? Well, if it must be so, it must. Have your own way; you have a right to it. Good night, blind sheep!"

"The field-gate is wide open, so walk alone, Mister No-eyes; and, if you toddle straight, you'll reach the right road somehow," said Tortillard, laughing heartily.

"Oh, that I could die! die! die!" said the Schoolmaster, writhing and twisting his arms about in agony.

At this moment, Tortillard, stooping to the ground, exclaimed, in a low voice:

"I hear footsteps in the path; let us hide; it is not the young miss, for they come the same way as she did."

On the instant, a stout peasant girl in the prime of youth, followed by a large shepherd's dog, carrying on her head an open basket, appeared, and followed the same path which the priest and the Goualeuse had taken. We will rejoin the two latter, leaving the three accomplices concealed in the hollow of the path.

CHAPTER V

THE RECTORY-HOUSE

The last rays of the sun were gradually disappearing behind the vast pile of the Château d'Ecouen and the woods which surrounded it. On all sides, until the sight lost them in the distance, were vast tracts of land lying in brown furrows hardened by the frost – an extensive desert, of which the hamlet of Bouqueval appeared to be the oasis. The sky, which was serenely glorious, was tinted by the sunset, and glowed with long lines of empurpled light, the certain token of wind and cold. These tints, which were at first of a deep red, became violet; then a bluish black, as the twilight grew more and more dark on the atmosphere. The crescent of the moon was as delicately and clearly defined as a silver ring, and began to shine beautifully in the midst of the blue and dimmed sky, where many stars already had appeared. The silence was profound; the hour most solemn. The curate stopped for a moment on the summit of the acclivity to enjoy the calm of this delicious evening. After some minutes' reflection, he extended his trembling hand towards the depths of the horizon, half veiled by the shadows of the evening, and said to Fleur-de-Marie, who was walking pensively beside him:

"Look, my child, at the vastness and extent to which we have no visible limit; we hear not the slightest sound. Say, does not this silence give us an idea of infinity and of eternity? I say this to you, Marie, because you are peculiarly sensitive of the beauties of creation. I have often been struck at the admiration, alike poetical and religious, with which they inspire you, – you, a poor prisoner so long deprived of them. Are you not, as I am, struck with the solemn tranquillity of the hour?"

The Goualeuse made no reply. The curé, regarding her with astonishment, found she was weeping.

"What ails you, my child?"

"My father, I am unhappy!"

"Unhappy! – you? – still unhappy!"

"I know it is ingratitude to complain of my lot after all that has been and is done for me; and yet – "

"And yet?"

"Father, I pray of you forgive my sorrows; their expression may offend my benefactors."

"Listen, Marie. We have often asked you the cause of these sorrows with which you are depressed, and which excite in your second mother the most serious uneasiness. You have avoided all reply, and we have respected your secret whilst we have been afflicted at not being able to solace your sorrows."

"Alas; good father, I dare not tell you what is passing in my mind. I have been moved, as you have been, at the sight of this calm and saddening evening. My heart is sorely afflicted, and I have wept."

"But what ails you, Marie? You know how we love you! Come, tell me all. You should; for I must tell you that the time is very close at hand when Madame Georges and M. Rodolph will present you at the baptismal font, and take upon themselves the engagement before God to protect you all the days of your life."

"M. Rodolph – he who has saved me?" cried Fleur-de-Marie, clasping her hands; "he will deign to give me this new proof of affection! Oh, indeed, my father, I can no longer conceal from you anything, lest I should, indeed, deserve to be called and thought an ingrate."

"An ingrate! How?"

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1

A sort of viscous, phlegmy complaint.