第 25 页

That house of the Rue des Saules, that horrible home of want and agony,

had lingered in Pierre's memory. To him it was like an embodiment of the

whole filthy _cloaca_, in which the poor of Paris suffer unto death. And

on returning thither that afternoon, he found the same slimy mud around

it; its yard littered with the same filth, its dark, damp stairways

redolent of the same stench of neglect and poverty, as before. In winter

time, while the fine central districts of Paris are dried and cleansed,

the far-away districts of the poor remain gloomy and miry, beneath the

everlasting tramp of the wretched ones who dwell in them.

Remembering the staircase which conducted to Salvat's lodging, Pierre

began to climb it amidst a loud screaming of little children, who

suddenly became quiet, letting the house sink into death-like silence

once more. Then the thought of Laveuve, who had perished up there like a

stray dog, came back to Pierre. And he shuddered when, on the top

landing, he knocked at Salvat's door, and profound silence alone answered

him. Not a breath was to be heard.

However, he knocked again, and as nothing stirred he began to think that

nobody could be there. Perhaps Salvat had returned to fetch the woman and

the child, and perhaps they had followed him to some humble nook abroad.

Still this would have astonished him; for the poor seldom quit their

homes, but die where they have suffered. So he gave another gentle knock.

And at last a faint sound, the light tread of little feet, was heard

amidst the silence. Then a weak, childish voice ventured to inquire: "Who

is there?"

"Monsieur l'Abbe."

The silence fell again, nothing more stirred. There was evidently

hesitation on the other side.

"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day," said Pierre again.

This evidently put an end to all uncertainty, for the door was set ajar

and little Celine admitted the priest. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur

l'Abbe," said she, "but Mamma Theodore has gone out, and she told me not

to open the door to anyone."

Pierre had, for a moment, imagined that Salvat himself was hiding there.

But with a glance he took in the whole of the small bare room, where man,

woman and child dwelt together. At the same time, Madame Theodore

doubtless feared a visit from the police. Had she seen Salvat since the

crime? Did she know where he was hiding? Had he come back there to

embrace and tranquillise them both?

"And your papa, my dear," said Pierre to Celine, "isn't he here either?"

"Oh! no, monsieur, he has gone away."

"What, gone away?"

"Yes, he hasn't been home to sleep, and we don't know where he is."

"Perhaps he's working."

"Oh, no! he'd send us some money if he was."

"Then he's gone on a journey, perhaps?"

"I don't know."

"He wrote to Mamma Theodore, no doubt?"

"I don't know."

Pierre asked no further questions. In fact, he felt somewhat ashamed of

his attempt to extract information from this child of eleven, whom he

thus found alone. It was quite possible that she knew nothing, that

Salvat, in a spirit of prudence, had even refrained from sending any

tidings of himself. Indeed, there was an expression of truthfulness on

the child's fair, gentle and intelligent face, which was grave with the

gravity that extreme misery imparts to the young.

"I am sorry that Mamma Theodore isn't here," said Pierre, "I wanted to

speak to her."

"But perhaps you would like to wait for her, Monsieur l'Abbe. She has

gone to my Uncle Toussaint's in the Rue Marcadet; and she can't stop much

longer, for she's been away more than an hour."

Thereupon Celine cleared one of the chairs on which lay a handful of

scraps of wood, picked up on some waste ground.

The bare and fireless room was assuredly also a breadless one. Pierre

could divine the absence of the bread-winner, the disappearance of the

man who represents will and strength in the home, and on whom one still

relies even when weeks have gone by without work. He goes out and scours

the city, and often ends by bringing back the indispensable crust which

keeps death at bay. But with his disappearance comes complete

abandonment, the wife and child in danger, destitute of all prop and

help.

Pierre, who had sat down and was looking at that poor, little, blue-eyed

girl, to whose lips a smile returned in spite of everything, could not

keep from questioning her on another point. "So you don't go to school,

my child?" said he.

She faintly blushed and answered: "I've no shoes to go in."

He glanced at her feet, and saw that she was wearing a pair of ragged old

list-slippers, from which her little toes protruded, red with cold.

"Besides," she continued, "Mamma Theodore says that one doesn't go to

school when one's got nothing to eat. Mamma Theodore wanted to work but

she couldn't, because her eyes got burning hot and full of water. And so

we don't know what to do, for we've had nothing left since yesterday, and

if Uncle Toussaint can't lend us twenty sous it'll be all over."

She was still smiling in her unconscious way, but two big tears had

gathered in her eyes. And the sight of the child shut up in that bare

room, apart from all the happy ones of earth, so upset the priest that he

again felt his anger with want and misery awakening. Then, another ten

minutes having elapsed, he became impatient, for he had to go to the

Grandidier works before returning home.

"I don't know why Mamma Theodore doesn't come back," repeated Celine.

"Perhaps she's chatting." Then, an idea occurring to her she continued:

"I'll take you to my Uncle Toussaint's, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you like.

It's close by, just round the corner."

"But you have no shoes, my child."

"Oh! that don't matter, I walk all the same."

Thereupon he rose from the chair and said simply: "Well, yes, that will

be better, take me there. And I'll buy you some shoes."

Celine turned quite pink, and then made haste to follow him after

carefully locking the door of the room like a good little housewife,

though, truth to tell, there was nothing worth stealing in the place.

In the meantime it had occurred to Madame Theodore that before calling on

her brother Toussaint to try to borrow a franc from him, she might first

essay her luck with her younger sister, Hortense, who had married little

Chretiennot, the clerk, and occupied a flat of four rooms on the

Boulevard de Rochechouart. This was quite an affair, however, and the

poor woman only made the venture because Celine had been fasting since

the previous day.

Eugene Toussaint, the mechanician, a man of fifty, was her stepbrother,

by the first marriage contracted by her father. A young dressmaker whom

the latter had subsequently wedded, had borne him three daughters,

Pauline, Leonie and Hortense. And on his death, his son Eugene, who

already had a wife and child of his own, had found himself for a short

time with his stepmother and sisters on his hands. The stepmother,

fortunately, was an active and intelligent woman, and knew how to get out

of difficulties. She returned to her former workroom where her daughter

Pauline was already apprenticed, and she next placed Leonie there; so

that Hortense, the youngest girl, who was a spoilt child, prettier and

more delicate than her sisters, was alone left at school. And, later

on,--after Pauline had married Labitte the stonemason, and Leonie, Salvat

the journeyman-engineer,--Hortense, while serving as assistant at a

confectioner's in the Rue des Martyrs, there became acquainted with

Chretiennot, a clerk, who married her. Leonie had died young, only a few

weeks after her mother; Pauline, forsaken by her husband, lived with her

brother-in-law Salvat, and Hortense alone wore a light silk gown on

Sundays, resided in a new house, and ranked as a _bourgeoise_, at the

price, however, of interminable worries and great privation.

Madame Theodore knew that her sister was generally short of money towards

the month's end, and therefore felt rather ill at ease in thus venturing

to apply for a loan. Chretiennot, moreover, embittered by his own

mediocrity, had of late years accused his wife of being the cause of

their spoilt life, and had ceased all intercourse with her relatives.

Toussaint, no doubt, was a decent workman; but that Madame Theodore who

lived in misery with her brother-in-law, and that Salvat who wandered

from workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employer

would keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had ended

by incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler for

the proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered in

his own life. And thus he had forbidden Hortense to receive her sister.

All the same, as Madame Theodore climbed the carpeted staircase of the

house on the Boulevard Rochechouart, she experienced a certain feeling of

pride at the thought that she had a relation living in such luxury. The

Chretiennot's rooms were on the third floor, and overlooked the

courtyard. Their _femme-de-menage_--a woman who goes out by the day or

hour charring, cleaning and cooking--came back every afternoon about four

o'clock to see to the dinner, and that day she was already there. She

admitted the visitor, though she could not conceal her anxious surprise

at her boldness in calling in such slatternly garb. However, on the very

threshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short in

wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on

one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so

proud.

"What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore.

Her sister, though scarcely two and thirty, was no longer "the beautiful

Hortense" of former days. She retained a doll-like appearance, with a

tall slim figure, pretty eyes and fine, fair hair. But she who had once

taken so much care of herself, had now come down to dressing-gowns of

doubtful cleanliness. Her eyelids, too, were reddening, and blotches were

appearing on her skin. She had begun to fade after giving birth to two

daughters, one of whom was now nine and the other seven years of age.

Very proud and egotistical, she herself had begun to regret her marriage,

for she had formerly considered herself a real beauty, worthy of the

palaces and equipages of some Prince Charming. And at this moment she was

plunged in such despair, that her sister's sudden appearance on the scene

did not even astonish her: "Ah! it's you," she gasped. "Ah! if you only

knew what a blow's fallen on me in the middle of all our worries!"

Madame Theodore at once thought of the children, Lucienne and Marcelle.

"Are your daughters ill?" she asked.

"No, no, our neighbour has taken them for a walk on the Boulevard. But

the fact is, my dear, I'm _enceinte_, and when I told Chretiennot of it

after _dejeuner_, he flew into a most fearful passion, saying the most

dreadful, the most cruel things!"

Then she again sobbed. Gentle and indolent by nature, desirous of peace

and quietness before anything else, she was incapable of deceiving her

husband, as he well knew. But the trouble was that an addition to the

family would upset the whole economy of the household.

"_Mon Dieu_!" said Madame Theodore at last, "you brought up the others,

and you'll bring up this one too."

At this an explosion of anger dried the other's eyes; and she rose,

exclaiming: "You are good, you are! One can see that our purse isn't

yours. How are we to bring up another child when we can scarcely make

both ends meet as it is?"

And thereupon, forgetting the _bourgeois_ pride which usually prompted

her to silence or falsehood, she freely explained their embarrassment,

the horrid pecuniary worries which made their life a perpetual misery.

Their rent amounted to 700 francs,* so that out of the 3000 francs**

which the husband earned at his office, barely a couple of hundred were

left them every month. And how were they to manage with that little sum,

provide food and clothes, keep up their rank and so forth? There was the

indispensable black coat for monsieur, the new dress which madame must

have at regular intervals, under penalty of losing caste, the new boots

which the children required almost every month, in fact, all sorts of

things that could not possibly be dispensed with. One might strike a dish

or two out of the daily menu, and even go without wine; but evenings came

when it was absolutely necessary to take a cab. And, apart from all this,

one had to reckon with the wastefulness of the children, the disorder in

which the discouraged wife left the house, and the despair of the

husband, who was convinced that he would never extricate himself from his

difficulties, even should his salary some day be raised to as high a

figure as 4000 francs. Briefly, one here found the unbearable penury of

the petty clerk, with consequences as disastrous as the black want of the

artisan: the mock facade and lying luxury; all the disorder and suffering

which lie behind intellectual pride at not earning one's living at a

bench or on a scaffolding.

* $140.

** $600.

"Well, well," repeated Madame Theodore, "you can't kill the child."

"No, of course not; but it's the end of everything," answered Hortense,

sinking into the armchair again. "What will become of us, _mon Dieu_!

What will become of us!" Then she collapsed in her unbuttoned dressing

gown, tears once more gushing from her red and swollen eyes.

Much vexed that circumstances should be so unpropitious, Madame Theodore

nevertheless ventured to ask for the loan of twenty sons; and this