第 4 页

Philosopher!"

Madame Theodore had bent down to ascertain if he still lived. "Yes, he

breathes; he's sleeping I think. Oh! if he only had something to eat

every day, he would be well enough. But what would you have? He has

nobody left him, and when one gets to seventy the best is to throw

oneself into the river. In the house-painting line it often happens that

a man has to give up working on ladders and scaffoldings at fifty. He at

first found some work to do on the ground level. Then he was lucky enough

to get a job as night watchman. But that's over, he's been turned away

from everywhere, and, for two months now, he's been lying in this nook

waiting to die. The landlord hasn't dared to fling him into the street as

yet, though not for want of any inclination that way. We others sometimes

bring him a little wine and a crust, of course; but when one has nothing

oneself, how can one give to others?"

Pierre, terrified, gazed at that frightful remnant of humanity, that

remnant into which fifty years of toil, misery and social injustice had

turned a man. And he ended by distinguishing Laveuve's white, worn,

sunken, deformed head. Here, on a human face, appeared all the ruin

following upon hopeless labour. Laveuve's unkempt beard straggled over

his features, suggesting an old horse that is no longer cropped; his

toothless jaws were quite askew, his eyes were vitreous, and his nose

seemed to plunge into his mouth. But above all else one noticed his

resemblance to some beast of burden, deformed by hard toil, lamed, worn

to death, and now only good for the knackers.

"Ah! the poor fellow," muttered the shuddering priest. "And he is left to

die of hunger, all alone, without any succour? And not a hospital, not an

asylum has given him shelter?"

"Well," resumed Madame Theodore in her sad yet resigned voice, "the

hospitals are built for the sick, and he isn't sick, he's simply

finishing off, with his strength at an end. Besides he isn't always easy

to deal with. People came again only lately to put him in an asylum, but

he won't be shut up. And he speaks coarsely to those who question him,

not to mention that he has the reputation of liking drink and talking

badly about the gentle-folks. But, thank Heaven, he will now soon be

delivered."

Pierre had leant forward on seeing Laveuve's eyes open, and he spoke to

him tenderly, telling him that he had come from a friend with a little

money to enable him to buy what he might most pressingly require. At

first, on seeing Pierre's cassock, the old man had growled some coarse

words; but, despite his extreme feebleness, he still retained the pert

chaffing spirit of the Parisian artisan: "Well, then, I'll willingly

drink a drop," he said distinctly, "and have a bit of bread with it, if

there's the needful; for I've lost taste of both for a couple of days

past."

Celine offered her services, and Madame Theodore sent her to fetch a loaf

and a quart of wine with Abbe Rose's money. And in the interval she told

Pierre how Laveuve was at one moment to have entered the Asylum of the

Invalids of Labour, a charitable enterprise whose lady patronesses were

presided over by Baroness Duvillard. However, the usual regulation

inquiries had doubtless led to such an unfavourable report that matters

had gone no further.

"Baroness Duvillard! but I know her, and will go to see her to-day!"

exclaimed Pierre, whose heart was bleeding. "It is impossible for a man

to be left in such circumstances any longer."

Then, as Celine came back with the loaf and the wine, the three of them

tried to make Laveuve more comfortable, raised him on his heap of rags,

gave him to eat and to drink, and then left the remainder of the wine and

the loaf--a large four-pound loaf--near him, recommending him to wait

awhile before he finished the bread, as otherwise he might stifle.

"Monsieur l'Abbe ought to give me his address in case I should have any

news to send him," said Madame Theodore when she again found herself at

her door.

Pierre had no card with him, and so all three went into the room. But

Salvat was no longer alone there. He stood talking in a low voice very

quickly, and almost mouth to mouth, with a young fellow of twenty. The

latter, who was slim and dark, with a sprouting beard and hair cut in

brush fashion, had bright eyes, a straight nose and thin lips set in a

pale and slightly freckled face, betokening great intelligence. With

stern and stubborn brow, he stood shivering in his well-worn jacket.

"Monsieur l'Abbe wants to leave me his address for the Philosopher's

affair," gently explained Madame Theodore, annoyed to find another there

with Salvat.

The two men had glanced at the priest and then looked at one another,

each with terrible mien. And they suddenly ceased speaking in the bitter

cold which fell from the ceiling. Then, again with infinite precaution,

Salvat went to take his tool-bag from alongside the wall.

"So you are going down, you are again going to look for work?" asked

Madame Theodore.

He did not answer, but merely made an angry gesture, as if to say that he

would no longer have anything to do with work since work for so long a

time had not cared to have anything to do with him.

"All the same," resumed the woman, "try to bring something back with you,

for you know there's nothing. At what time will you be back?"

With another gesture he seemed to answer that he would come back when he

could, perhaps never. And tears rising, despite all his efforts, to his

vague, blue, glowing eyes he caught hold of his daughter Celine, kissed

her violently, distractedly, and then went off, with his bag under his

arm, followed by his young companion.

"Celine," resumed Madame Theodore, "give Monsieur l'Abbe your pencil,

and, see, monsieur, seat yourself here, it will be better for writing."

Then, when Pierre had installed himself at the table, on the chair

previously occupied by Salvat, she went on talking, seeking to excuse her

man for his scanty politeness: "He hasn't a bad heart, but he's had so

many worries in life that he has become a bit cracked. It's like that

young man whom you just saw here, Monsieur Victor Mathis. There's another

for you, who isn't happy, a young man who was well brought up, who has a

lot of learning, and whose mother, a widow, has only just got the

wherewithal to buy bread. So one can understand it, can't one? It all

upsets their heads, and they talk of blowing up everybody. For my part

those are not my notions, but I forgive them, oh! willingly enough."

Perturbed, yet interested by all the mystery and vague horror which he

could divine around him, Pierre made no haste to write his address, but

lingered listening, as if inviting confidence.

"If you only knew, Monsieur l'Abbe, that poor Salvat was a forsaken

child, without father or mother, and had to scour the roads and try every

trade at first to get a living. Then afterwards he became a mechanician,

and a very good workman, I assure you, very skilful and very painstaking.

But he already had those ideas of his, and quarrelled with people, and

tried to bring his mates over to his views; and so he was unable to stay

anywhere. At last, when he was thirty, he was stupid enough to go to

America with an inventor, who traded on him to such a point that after

six years of it he came back ill and penniless. I must tell you that he

had married my younger sister Leonie, and that she died before he went to

America, leaving him little Celine, who was then only a year old. I was

then living with my husband, Theodore Labitte, a mason; and it's not to

brag that I say it, but however much I wore out my eyes with needlework

he used to beat me till he left me half-dead on the floor. But he ended

by deserting me and going off with a young woman of twenty, which, after

all, caused me more pleasure than grief. And naturally when Salvat came

back he sought me out and found me alone with his little Celine, whom he

had left in my charge when he went away, and who called me mamma. And

we've all three been living together since then--"

She became somewhat embarrassed, and then, as if to show that she did not

altogether lack some respectable family connections, she went on to say:

"For my part I've had no luck; but I've another sister, Hortense, who's

married to a clerk, Monsieur Chretiennot, and lives in a pretty lodging

on the Boulevard Rochechouart. There were three of us born of my father's

second marriage,--Hortense, who's the youngest, Leonie, who's dead, and

myself, Pauline, the eldest. And of my father's first marriage I've still

a brother Eugene Toussaint, who is ten years older than me and is an

engineer like Salvat, and has been working ever since the war in the same

establishment, the Grandidier factory, only a hundred steps away in the

Rue Marcadet. The misfortune is that he had a stroke lately. As for me,

my eyes are done for; I ruined them by working ten hours a day at fine

needlework. And now I can no longer even try to mend anything without my

eyes filling with water till I can't see at all. I've tried to find

charwoman's work, but I can't get any; bad luck always follows us. And so

we are in need of everything; we've nothing but black misery, two or

three days sometimes going by without a bite, so that it's like the

chance life of a dog that feeds on what it can find. And with these last

two months of bitter cold to freeze us, it's sometimes made us think that

one morning we should never wake up again. But what would you have? I've

never been happy, I was beaten to begin with, and now I'm done for, left

in a corner, living on, I really don't know why."

Her voice had begun to tremble, her red eyes moistened, and Pierre could

realise that she thus wept through life, a good enough woman but one who

had no will, and was already blotted out, so to say, from existence.

"Oh! I don't complain of Salvat," she went on. "He's a good fellow; he

only dreams of everybody's happiness, and he doesn't drink, and he works

when he can. Only it's certain that he'd work more if he didn't busy

himself with politics. One can't discuss things with comrades, and go to

public meetings and be at the workshop at the same time. In that he's at

fault, that's evident. But all the same he has good reason to complain,

for one can't imagine such misfortunes as have pursued him. Everything

has fallen on him, everything has beaten him down. Why, a saint even

would have gone mad, so that one can understand that a poor beggar who

has never had any luck should get quite wild. For the last two months he

has only met one good heart, a learned gentleman who lives up yonder on

the height, Monsieur Guillaume Froment, who has given him a little work,

just something to enable us to have some soup now and then."

Much surprised by this mention of his brother, Pierre wished to ask

certain questions; but a singular feeling of uneasiness, in which fear

and discretion mingled, checked his tongue. He looked at Celine, who

stood before him, listening in silence with her grave, delicate air; and

Madame Theodore, seeing him smile at the child, indulged in a final

remark: "It's just the idea of that child," said she, "that throws Salvat

out of his wits. He adores her, and he'd kill everybody if he could, when

he sees her go supperless to bed. She's such a good girl, she was

learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a

shift to go there in."

Pierre, who had at last written his address, slipped a five-franc piece

into the little girl's hand, and, desirous as he was of curtailing any

thanks, he hastily said: "You will know now where to find me if you need

me for Laveuve. But I'm going to busy myself about him this very

afternoon, and I really hope that he will be fetched away this evening."

Madame Theodore did not listen, but poured forth all possible blessings;

whilst Celine, thunderstruck at seeing five francs in her hand, murmured:

"Oh! that poor papa, who has gone to hunt for money! Shall I run after

him to tell him that we've got enough for to-day?"

Then the priest, who was already in the passage, heard the woman answer:

"Oh! he's far away if he's still walking. He'll p'raps come back right

enough."

However, as Pierre, with buzzing head and grief-stricken heart, hastily

escaped out of that frightful house of suffering, he perceived to his

astonishment Salvat and Victor Mathis standing erect in a corner of the

filthy courtyard, where the stench was so pestilential. They had come

downstairs, there to continue their interrupted colloquy. And again, they

were talking in very low tones, and very quickly, mouth to mouth,

absorbed in the violent thoughts which made their eyes flare. But they

heard the priest's footsteps, recognised him, and suddenly becoming cold

and calm, exchanged an energetic hand-shake without uttering another

word. Victor went up towards Montmartre, whilst Salvat hesitated like a

man who is consulting destiny. Then, as if trusting himself to stern

chance, drawing up his thin figure, the figure of a weary, hungry toiler,

he turned into the Rue Marcadet, and walked towards Paris, his tool-bag

still under his arm.

For an instant Pierre felt a desire to run and call to him that his

little girl wished him to go back again. But the same feeling of

uneasiness as before came over the priest--a commingling of discretion

and fear, a covert conviction that nothing could stay destiny. And he

himself was no longer calm, no longer experienced the icy, despairing

distress of the early morning. On finding himself again in the street,

amidst the quivering fog, he felt the fever, the glow of charity which