第 26 页

brought her sister's despair and confusion to a climax. "I really haven't

a centime in the house," said she, "just now I borrowed ten sous for the

children from the servant. I had to get ten francs from the Mont de Piete

on a little ring the other day. And it's always the same at the end of

the month. However, Chretiennot will be paid to-day, and he's coming back

early with the money for dinner. So if I can I will send you something

to-morrow."

At this same moment the servant hastened in with a distracted air, being

well aware that monsieur was in no wise partial to madame's relatives.

"Oh madame, madame!" said she; "here's monsieur coming up the stairs."

"Quick then, quick, go away!" cried Hortense, "I should only have another

scene if he met you here. To-morrow, if I can, I promise you."

To avoid Chretiennot who was coming in, Madame Theodore had to hide

herself in the kitchen. As he passed, she just caught sight of him, well

dressed as usual in a tight-fitting frock-coat. Short and lean, with a

thin face and long and carefully tended beard, he had the bearing of one

who is both vain and quarrelsome. Fourteen years of office life had

withered him, and now the long evening hours which he spent at a

neighbouring cafe were finishing him off.

When Madame Theodore had quitted the house she turned with dragging steps

towards the Rue Marcadet where the Toussaints resided. Here, again, she

had no great expectations, for she well knew what ill-luck and worry had

fallen upon her brother's home. During the previous autumn Toussaint,

though he was but fifty, had experienced an attack of paralysis which had

laid him up for nearly five months. Prior to this mishap he had borne

himself bravely, working steadily, abstaining from drink, and bringing up

his three children in true fatherly fashion. One of them, a girl, was now

married to a carpenter, with whom she had gone to Le Havre, while of the

others, both boys--one a soldier, had been killed in Tonquin, and the

other Charles, after serving his time in the army, had become a working

mechanician. Still, Toussaint's long illness had exhausted the little

money which he had in the Savings Bank, and now that he had been set on

his legs again, he had to begin life once more without a copper before

him.

Madame Theodore found her sister-in-law alone in the cleanly kept room

which she and her husband occupied. Madame Toussaint was a portly woman,

whose corpulence increased in spite of everything, whether it were worry

or fasting. She had a round puffy face with bright little eyes; and was a

very worthy woman, whose only faults were an inclination for gossiping

and a fondness for good cheer. Before Madame Theodore even opened her

mouth she understood the object of her visit. "You've come on us at a bad

moment, my dear," she said, "we're stumped. Toussaint wasn't able to go

back to the works till the day before yesterday, and he'll have to ask

for an advance this evening."

As she spoke, she looked at the other with no great sympathy, hurt as she

felt by her slovenly appearance. "And Salvat," she added, "is he still

doing nothing?"

Madame Theodore doubtless foresaw the question, for she quietly lied: "He

isn't in Paris, a friend has taken him off for some work over Belgium

way, and I'm waiting for him to send us something."

Madame Toussaint still remained distrustful, however: "Ah!" she said,

"it's just as well that he shouldn't be in Paris; for with all these bomb

affairs we couldn't help thinking of him, and saying that he was quite

mad enough to mix himself up in them."

The other did not even blink. If she knew anything she kept it to

herself.

"But you, my dear, can't you find any work?" continued Madame Toussaint.

"Well, what would you have me do with my poor eyes? It's no longer

possible for me to sew."

"That's true. A seamstress gets done for. When Toussaint was laid up here

I myself wanted to go back to my old calling as a needlewoman. But there!

I spoilt everything and did no good. Charring's about the only thing that

one can always do. Why don't you get some jobs of that kind?"

"I'm trying, but I can't find any."

Little by little Madame Toussaint was softening at sight of the other's

miserable appearance. She made her sit down, and told her that she would

give her something if Toussaint should come home with money. Then,

yielding to her partiality for gossiping, since there was somebody to

listen to her, she started telling stories. The one affair, however, on

which she invariably harped was the sorry business of her son Charles and

the servant girl at a wine shop over the way. Before going into the army

Charles had been a most hard-working and affectionate son, invariably

bringing his pay home to his mother. And certainly he still worked and

showed himself good-natured; but military service, while sharpening his

wits, had taken away some of his liking for ordinary manual toil. It

wasn't that he regretted army life, for he spoke of his barracks as a

prison. Only his tools had seemed to him rather heavy when, on quitting

the service, he had been obliged to take them in hand once more.

"And so, my dear," continued Madame Toussaint, "it's all very well for

Charles to be kind-hearted, he can do no more for us. I knew that he

wasn't in a hurry to get married, as it costs money to keep a wife. And

he was always very prudent, too, with girls. But what would you have?

There was that moment of folly with that Eugenie over the road, a regular

baggage who's already gone off with another man, and left her baby

behind. Charles has put it out to nurse, and pays for it every month. And

a lot of expense it is too, perfect ruination. Yes, indeed, every

possible misfortune has fallen on us."

In this wise Madame Toussaint rattled on for a full half hour. Then

seeing that waiting and anxiety had made her sister-in-law turn quite

pale, she suddenly stopped short. "You're losing patience, eh?" she

exclaimed. "The fact is, that Toussaint won't be back for some time.

Shall we go to the works together? I'll easily find out if he's likely to

bring any money home."

They then decided to go down, but at the bottom of the stairs they

lingered for another quarter of an hour chatting with a neighbour who had

lately lost a child. And just as they were at last leaving the house they

heard a call: "Mamma! mamma!"

It came from little Celine, whose face was beaming with delight. She was

wearing a pair of new shoes and devouring a cake. "Mamma," she resumed,

"Monsieur l'Abbe who came the other day wants to see you. Just look! he

bought me all this!"

On seeing the shoes and the cake, Madame Theodore understood matters. And

when Pierre, who was behind the child, accosted her she began to tremble

and stammer thanks. Madame Toussaint on her side had quickly drawn near,

not indeed to ask for anything herself, but because she was well pleased

at such a God-send for her sister-in-law, whose circumstances were worse

than her own. And when she saw the priest slip ten francs into Madame

Theodore's hand she explained to him that she herself would willingly

have lent something had she been able. Then she promptly started on the

stories of Toussaint's attack and her son Charles's ill-luck.

But Celine broke in: "I say, mamma, the factory where papa used to work

is here in this street, isn't it? Monsieur l'Abbe has some business

there."*

* Although the children of the French peasantry almost

invariably address their parents as "father" and "mother,"

those of the working classes of Paris, and some other large

cities, usually employ the terms "papa" and "mamma."--Trans.

"The Grandidier factory," resumed Madame Toussaint; "well, we were just

going there, and we can show Monsieur l'Abbe the way."

It was only a hundred steps off. Escorted by the two women and the child,

Pierre slackened his steps and tried to extract some information about

Salvat from Madame Theodore. But she at once became very prudent. She had

not seen him again, she declared; he must have gone with a mate to

Belgium, where there was a prospect of some work. From what she said, it

appeared to the priest that Salvat had not dared to return to the Rue des

Saules since his crime, in which all had collapsed, both his past life of

toil and hope, and his recent existence with its duties towards the woman

and the child.

"There's the factory, Monsieur l'Abbe," suddenly said Madame Toussaint,

"my sister-in-law won't have to wait now, since you've been kind enough

to help her. Thank you for her and for us."

Madame Theodore and Celine likewise poured forth their thanks, standing

beside Madame Toussaint in the everlasting mud of that populous district,

amidst the jostling of the passers-by. And lingering there as if to see

Pierre enter, they again chatted together and repeated that, after all,

some priests were very kind.

The Grandidier works covered an extensive plot of ground. Facing the

street there was only a brick building with narrow windows and a great

archway, through which one espied a long courtyard. But, in the rear,

came a suite of habitations, workshops, and sheds, above whose never

ending roofs arose the two lofty chimneys of the generators. From the

very threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all

the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up

above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident

puff, as if it were the very breath of that huge, toiling hive.

Bicycles were now the principal output of the works. When Grandidier had

taken them on leaving the Dijon Arts and Trades School, they were

declining under bad management, slowly building some little motive

engines by the aid of antiquated machinery. Foreseeing the future,

however, he had induced his elder brother, one of the managers of the Bon

Marche, to finance him, on the promise that he would supply that great

emporium with excellent bicycles at 150 francs apiece. And now quite a

big venture was in progress, for the Bon Marche was already bringing out

the new popular machine "La Lisette," the "Bicycle for the Multitude," as

the advertisements asserted. Nevertheless, Grandidier was still in all

the throes of a great struggle, for his new machinery had cast a heavy

burden of debt on him. At the same time each month brought its effort,

the perfecting or simplifying of some part of the manufacture, which

meant a saving in the future. He was ever on the watch; and even now was

thinking of reverting to the construction of little motors, for he

thought he could divine in the near future the triumph of the motor-car.

On asking if M. Thomas Froment were there, Pierre was led by an old

workman to a little shed, where he found the young fellow in the linen

jacket of a mechanician, his hands black with filings. He was adjusting

some piece of mechanism, and nobody would have suspected him to be a

former pupil of the Lycee Condorcet, one of the three clever Froments who

had there rendered the name famous. But his only desire had been to act

as his father's faithful servant, the arm that forges, the embodiment of

the manual toil by which conceptions are realised. And, a giant of three

and twenty, ever attentive and courageous, he was likewise a man of

patient, silent and sober nature.

On catching sight of Pierre he quivered with anxiety and sprang forward.

"Father is no worse?" he asked.

"No, no. But he read in the papers that story of a bradawl found in the

Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, and it made him anxious, because the police may make

a perquisition here."

Thomas, his own anxiety allayed, began to smile. "Tell him he may sleep

quietly," he responded. "To begin with, I've unfortunately not yet hit on

our little motor such as I want it to be. In fact, I haven't yet put it

together. I'm keeping the pieces at our house, and nobody here knows

exactly what I come to do at the factory. So the police may search, it

will find nothing. Our secret runs no risk."

Pierre promised to repeat these words to Guillaume, so as to dissipate

his fears. However, when he tried to sound Thomas, and ascertain the

position of affairs, what the factory people thought of the discovery of

the bradawl, and whether there was as yet any suspicion of Salvat, he

once more found the young man taciturn, and elicited merely a "yes" or a

"no" in answer to his inquiries. The police had not been there as yet?

No. But the men must surely have mentioned Salvat? Yes, of course, on

account of his Anarchist opinions. But what had Grandidier, the master,

said, on returning from the investigating magistrate's? As for that

Thomas knew nothing. He had not seen Grandidier that day.

"But here he comes!" the young man added. "Ah! poor fellow, his wife, I

fancy, had another attack this morning."

He alluded to a frightful story which Guillaume had already recounted to

Pierre. Grandidier, falling in love with a very beautiful girl, had

married her; but for five years now she had been insane: the result of

puerperal fever and the death of an infant son. Her husband, with his

ardent affection for her, had been unwilling to place her in an asylum,

and had accordingly kept her with him in a little pavilion, whose

windows, overlooking the courtyard of the factory, always remained

closed. She was never seen; and never did he speak of her to anybody. It

was said that she was usually like a child, very gentle and very sad, and

still beautiful, with regal golden hair. At times, however, attacks of