第 37 页

who had passed him on, one to another. And now, on his return from them,

he had his hands full of lottery tickets: "Ah! my fine fellow," said he,

"I don't advise you to venture among all those young persons. You would

have to part with your last copper. But, just look! there's Mademoiselle

Camille beckoning to you!"

Camille, indeed, from the moment she had perceived Gerard, had been

smiling at him and awaiting his approach. And when their glances met he

was obliged to go to her, although, at the same moment, he felt that

Eve's despairing and entreating eyes were fixed upon him. The girl, who

fully realised that her mother was watching her, at once made a marked

display of amiability, profiting by the license which charitable fervour

authorised, to slip a variety of little articles into the young man's

pockets, and then place others in his hands, which she pressed within her

own, showing the while all the sparkle of youth, indulging in fresh,

merry laughter, which fairly tortured her rival.

So extreme was Eve's suffering, that she wished to intervene and part

them. But it so chanced that Pierre barred her way, for he wished to

submit an idea to her before leaving the bazaar. "Madame," said he,

"since that man Laveuve is dead, and you have taken so much trouble with

regard to the bed which you now have vacant, will you be so good as to

keep it vacant until I have seen our venerable friend, Abbe Rose? I am to

see him this evening, and he knows so many cases of want, and would be so

glad to relieve one of them, and bring you some poor _protege_ of his."

"Yes, certainly," stammered the Baroness, "I shall be very happy,--I will

wait a little, as you desire,--of course, of course, Monsieur l'Abbe."

She was trembling all over; she no longer knew what she was saying; and,

unable to conquer her passion, she turned aside from the priest, unaware

even that he was still there, when Gerard, yielding to the dolorous

entreaty of her eyes, at last managed to escape from Camille and join

her.

"What a stranger you are becoming, my friend!" she said aloud, with a

forced smile. "One never sees you now."

"Why, I have been poorly," he replied, in his amiable way. "Yes, I assure

you I have been ailing a little."

He, ailing! She looked at him with maternal anxiety, quite upset. And,

indeed, however proud and lofty his figure, his handsome regular face did

seem to her paler than usual. It was as if the nobility of the facade

had, in some degree, ceased to hide the irreparable dilapidation within.

And given his real good nature, it must be true that he

suffered--suffered by reason of his useless, wasted life, by reason of

all the money he cost his impoverished mother, and of the needs that were

at last driving him to marry that wealthy deformed girl, whom at first he

had simply pitied. And so weak did he seem to Eve, so like a piece of

wreckage tossed hither and thither by a tempest, that, at the risk of

being overheard by the throng, she let her heart flow forth in a low but

ardent, entreating murmur: "If you suffer, ah! what sufferings are

mine!--Gerard, we must see one another, I will have it so."

"No, I beg you, let us wait," he stammered in embarrassment.

"It must be, Gerard; Camille has told me your plans. You cannot refuse to

see me. I insist on it."

He made yet another attempt to escape the cruel explanation. "But it's

impossible at the usual place," he answered, quivering. "The address is

known."

"Then to-morrow, at four o'clock, at that little restaurant in the Bois

where we have met before."

He had to promise, and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and

was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the

stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe

and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and

Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of their dinner that

evening.

Pierre had heard a part of the conversation between Gerard and the

Baroness. He knew what skeletons the house concealed, what physiological

and moral torture and wretchedness lay beneath all the dazzling wealth

and power. There was here an envenomed, bleeding sore, ever spreading, a

cancer eating into father, mother, daughter and son, who one and all had

thrown social bonds aside. However, the priest made his way out of the

_salons_, half stifling amidst the throng of lady-purchasers who were

making quite a triumph of the bazaar. And yonder, in the depths of the

gloom, he could picture Salvat still running and running on; while the

corpse of Laveuve seemed to him like a buffet of atrocious irony dealt to

noisy and delusive charity.

II. SPIRIT AND FLESH

How delightful was the quietude of the little ground-floor overlooking a

strip of garden in the Rue Cortot, where good Abbe Rose resided!

Hereabouts there was not even a rumble of wheels, or an echo of the

panting breath of Paris, which one heard on the other side of the height

of Montmartre. The deep silence and sleepy peacefulness were suggestive

of some distant provincial town.

Seven o'clock had struck, the dusk had gathered slowly, and Pierre was in

the humble dining-room, waiting for the _femme-de-menage_ to place the

soup upon the table. Abbe Rose, anxious at having seen so little of him

for a month past, had written, asking him to come to dinner, in order

that they might have a quiet chat concerning their affairs. From time to

time Pierre still gave his friend money for charitable purposes; in fact,

ever since the days of the asylum in the Rue de Charonne, they had had

accounts together, which they periodically liquidated. So that evening

after dinner they were to talk of it all, and see if they could not do

even more than they had hitherto done. The good old priest was quite

radiant at the thought of the peaceful evening which he was about to

spend in attending to the affairs of his beloved poor; for therein lay

his only amusement, the sole pleasure to which he persistently and

passionately returned, in spite of all the worries that his inconsiderate

charity had already so often brought him.

Glad to be able to procure his friend this pleasure, Pierre, on his side,

grew calmer, and found relief and momentary repose in sharing the other's

simple repast and yielding to all the kindliness around him, far from his

usual worries. He remembered the vacant bed at the Asylum, which Baroness

Duvillard had promised to keep in reserve until he should have asked Abbe

Rose if he knew of any case of destitution particularly worthy of

interest; and so before sitting down to table he spoke of the matter.

"Destitution worthy of interest!" replied Abbe Rose, "ah! my dear child,

every case is worthy of interest. And when it's a question of old toilers

without work the only trouble is that of selection, the anguish of

choosing one and leaving so many others in distress." Nevertheless,

painful though his scruples were, he strove to think and come to some

decision. "I know the case which will suit you," he said at last. "It's

certainly one of the greatest suffering and wretchedness; and, so humble

a one, too--an old carpenter of seventy-five, who has been living on

public charity during the eight or ten years that he has been unable to

find work. I don't know his name, everybody calls him 'the big Old'un.'

There are times when he does not come to my Saturday distributions for

weeks together. We shall have to look for him at once. I think that he

sleeps at the Night Refuge in the Rue d'Orsel when lack of room there

doesn't force him to spend the night crouching behind some palings. Shall

we go down the Rue d'Orsel this evening?"

Abbe Rose's eyes beamed brightly as he spoke, for this proposal of his

signified a great debauch, the tasting of forbidden fruit. He had been

reproached so often and so roughly with his visits to those who had

fallen to the deepest want and misery, that in spite of his overflowing,

apostolic compassion, he now scarcely dared to go near them. However, he

continued: "Is it agreed, my child? Only this once? Besides, it is our

only means of finding the big Old'un. You won't have to stop with me

later than eleven. And I should so like to show you all that! You will

see what terrible sufferings there are! And perhaps we may be fortunate

enough to relieve some poor creature or other."

Pierre smiled at the juvenile ardour displayed by this old man with snowy

hair. "It's agreed, my dear Abbe," he responded, "I shall be very pleased

to spend my whole evening with you, for I feel it will do me good to

follow you once more on one of those rambles which used to fill our

hearts with grief and joy."

At this moment the servant brought in the soup; however, just as the two

priests were taking their seats a discreet ring was heard, and when Abbe

Rose learnt that the visitor was a neighbour, Madame Mathis, who had come

for an answer, he gave orders that she should be shown in.

"This poor woman," he explained to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten

francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me

at the time. But I've since procured it. She lives in the house, you

know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps her

in bread."

"But hasn't she a big son of twenty?" asked Pierre, suddenly remembering

the young man he had seen at Salvat's.

"Yes, yes. Her parents, I believe, were rich people in the provinces.

I've been told that she married a music master, who gave her lessons, at

Nantes; and who ran away with her and brought her to Paris, where he

died. It was quite a doleful love-story. By selling the furniture and

realising every little thing she possessed, she scraped together an

income of about two thousand francs a year, with which she was able to

send her son to college and live decently herself. But a fresh blow fell

on her: she lost the greater part of her little fortune, which was

invested in doubtful securities. So now her income amounts at the utmost

to eight hundred francs; two hundred of which she has to expend in rent.

For all her other wants she has to be content with fifty francs a month.

About eighteen months ago her son left her so as not to be a burden on

her, and he is trying to earn his living somewhere, but without success,

I believe."

Madame Mathis, a short, dark woman, with a sad, gentle, retiring face,

came in. Invariably clad in the same black gown, she showed all the

anxious timidity of a poor creature whom the storms of life perpetually

assailed. When Abbe Rose had handed her the ten francs discreetly wrapped

in paper, she blushed and thanked him, promising to pay him back as soon

as she received her month's money, for she was not a beggar and did not

wish to encroach on the share of those who starved.

"And your son, Victor, has he found any employment?" asked the old

priest.

She hesitated, ignorant as she was of what her son might be doing, for

now she did not see him for weeks together. And finally, she contented

herself with answering: "He has a good heart, he is very fond of me. It

is a great misfortune that we should have been ruined before he could

enter the Ecole Normale. It was impossible for him to prepare for the

examination. But at the Lycee he was such a diligent and intelligent

pupil!"

"You lost your husband when your son was ten years old, did you not?"

said Abbe Rose.

At this she blushed again, thinking that her husband's story was known to

the two priests. "Yes, my poor husband never had any luck," she said.

"His difficulties embittered and excited his mind, and he died in prison.

He was sent there through a disturbance at a public meeting, when he had

the misfortune to wound a police officer. He had also fought at the time

of the Commune. And yet he was a very gentle man and extremely fond of

me."

Tears had risen to her eyes; and Abbe Rose, much touched, dismissed her:

"Well, let us hope that your son will give you satisfaction, and be able

to repay you for all you have done for him."

With a gesture of infinite sorrow, Madame Mathis discreetly withdrew. She

was quite ignorant of her son's doings, but fate had pursued her so

relentlessly that she ever trembled.

"I don't think that the poor woman has much to expect from her son," said

Pierre, when she had gone. "I only saw him once, but the gleam in his

eyes was as harsh and trenchant as that of a knife."

"Do you think so?" the old priest exclaimed, with his kindly _naivete_.

"Well, he seemed to me very polite, perhaps a trifle eager to enjoy life;

but then, all the young folks are impatient nowadays. Come, let us sit

down to table, for the soup will be cold."

Almost at the same hour, on the other side of Paris, night had in like

fashion slowly fallen in the drawing-room of the Countess de Quinsac, on

the dismal, silent ground-floor of an old mansion in the Rue St.

Dominique. The Countess was there, alone with her faithful friend, the

Marquis de Morigny, she on one side, and he on the other side of the

chimney-piece, where the last embers of the wood fire were dying out. The

servant had not yet brought the lamp, and the Countess refrained from

ringing, finding some relief from her anxiety in the falling darkness,

which hid from view all the unconfessed thoughts that she was afraid of

showing on her weary face. And it was only now, before that dim hearth,

and in that black room, where never a sound of wheels disturbed the

silence of the slumberous past, that she dared to speak.

"Yes, my friend," she said, "I am not satisfied with Gerard's health. You

will see him yourself, for he promised to come home early and dine with