第 75 页

she had little to eat, and still showed herself active and clear-headed,

however great her misfortunes.

"It's a friendly visit, Toussaint," said she. "It's Monsieur Thomas who

has come to see you with Monsieur l'Abbe." Then quietly correcting

herself she added: "With Monsieur Pierre, his uncle. You see that you are

not yet forsaken."

Toussaint wished to speak, but his fruitless efforts only brought two big

tears to his eyes. Then he gazed at his visitors with an expression of

indescribable woe, his jaws trembling convulsively.

"Don't put yourself out," repeated his wife. "The doctor told you that it

would do you no good."

At the moment of entering the room, Pierre had already noticed two

persons who had risen from their chairs and drawn somewhat on one side.

And now to his great surprise he recognised that they were Madame

Theodore and Celine, who were both decently clad, and looked as if they

led a life of comfort. On hearing of Toussaint's misfortune they had come

to see him, like good-hearted creatures, who, on their own side, had

experienced the most cruel suffering. Pierre, on noticing that they now

seemed to be beyond dire want, remembered what he had heard of the

wonderful sympathy lavished on the child after her father's execution,

the many presents and donations offered her, and the generous proposals

that had been made to adopt her. These last had ended in her being

adopted by a former friend of Salvat, who had sent her to school again,

pending the time when she might be apprenticed to some trade, while, on

the other hand, Madame Theodore had been placed as a nurse in a

convalescent home. In such wise both had been saved.

When Pierre drew near to little Celine in order to kiss her, Madame

Theodore told her to thank Monsieur l'Abbe--for so she still respectfully

called him--for all that he had previously done for her. "It was you who

brought us happiness, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she. "And that's a thing one

can never forget. I'm always telling Celine to remember you in her

prayers."

"And so, my child, you are now going to school again," said Pierre.

"Oh yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I'm well pleased at it. Besides, we no

longer lack anything." Then, however, sudden emotion came over the girl,

and she stammered with a sob: "Ah! if poor papa could only see us!"

Madame Theodore, meanwhile, had begun to take leave of Madame Toussaint.

"Well, good by, we must go," said she. "What has happened to you is very

sad, and we wanted to tell you how much it grieved us. The worry is that

when misfortune falls on one, courage isn't enough to set things right..

.. Celine, come and kiss your uncle.... My poor brother, I hope

you'll get back the use of your legs as soon as possible."

They kissed the paralysed man on the cheeks, and then went off. Toussaint

had looked at them with his keen and still intelligent eyes, as if he

longed to participate in the life and activity into which they were

returning. And a jealous thought came to his wife, who usually was so

placid and good-natured. "Ah! my poor old man!" said she, after propping

him up with a pillow, "those two are luckier than we are. Everything

succeeds with them since that madman, Salvat, had his head cut off.

They're provided for. They've plenty of bread on the shelf."

Then, turning towards Pierre and Thomas, she continued: "We others are

done for, you know, we're down in the mud, with no hope of getting out of

it. But what would you have? My poor husband hasn't been guillotined,

he's done nothing but work his whole life long; and now, you see, that's

the end of him, he's like some old animal, no longer good for anything."

Having made her visitors sit down she next answered their compassionate

questions. The doctor had called twice already, and had promised to

restore the unhappy man's power of speech, and perhaps enable him to

crawl round the room with the help of a stick. But as for ever being able

to resume real work that must not be expected. And so what was the use of

living on? Toussaint's eyes plainly declared that he would much rather

die at once. When a workman can no longer work and no longer provide for

his wife he is ripe for the grave.

"Savings indeed!" Madame Toussaint resumed. "There are folks who ask if

we have any savings.... Well, we had nearly a thousand francs in the

Savings Bank when Toussaint had his first attack. And some people don't

know what a lot of prudence one needs to put by such a sum; for, after

all, we're not savages, we have to allow ourselves a little enjoyment now

and then, a good dish and a good bottle of wine.... Well, what with

five months of enforced idleness, and the medicines, and the underdone

meat that was ordered, we got to the end of our thousand francs; and now

that it's all begun again we're not likely to taste any more bottled wine

or roast mutton."

Fond of good cheer as she had always been, this cry, far more than the

tears she was forcing back, revealed how much the future terrified her.

She was there erect and brave in spite of everything; but what a downfall

if she were no longer able to keep her room tidy, stew a piece of veal on

Sundays, and gossip with the neighbours while awaiting her husband's

return from work! Why, they might just as well be thrown into the gutter

and carried off in the scavenger's cart.

However, Thomas intervened: "Isn't there an Asylum for the Invalids of

Labour, and couldn't your husband get admitted to it?" he asked. "It

seems to me that is just the place for him."

"Oh dear, no," the woman answered. "People spoke to me of that place

before, and I got particulars of it. They don't take sick people there.

When you call they tell you that there are hospitals for those who are

ill."

With a wave of his hand Pierre confirmed her statement: it was useless to

apply in that direction. He could again see himself scouring Paris,

hurrying from the Lady President, Baroness Duvillard, to Fonsegue, the

General Manager, and only securing a bed for Laveuve when the unhappy man

was dead.

However, at that moment an infant was heard wailing, and to the amazement

of both visitors Madame Toussaint entered the little closet where her son

Charles had so long slept, and came out of it carrying a child, who

looked scarcely twenty months old. "Well, yes," she explained, "this is

Charles's boy. He was sleeping there in his father's old bed, and now you

hear him, he's woke up.... You see, only last Wednesday, the day

before Toussaint had his stroke, I went to fetch the little one at the

nurse's at St. Denis, because she had threatened to cast him adrift since

Charles had got into bad habits, and no longer paid her. I said to myself

at the time that work was looking up, and that my husband and I would

always be able to provide for a little mouth like that.... But just

afterwards everything collapsed! At the same time, as the child's here

now I can't go and leave him in the street."

While speaking in this fashion she walked to and fro, rocking the baby in

her arms. And naturally enough she reverted to Charles's folly with the

girl, who had run away, leaving that infant behind her. Things might not

have been so very bad if Charles had still worked as steadily as he had

done before he went soldiering. In those days he had never lost an hour,

and had always brought all his pay home! But he had come back from the

army with much less taste for work. He argued, and had ideas of his own.

He certainly hadn't yet come to bomb-throwing like that madman Salvat,

but he spent half his time with Socialists and Anarchists, who put his

brain in a muddle. It was a real pity to see such a strong, good-hearted

young fellow turning out badly like that. But it was said in the

neighbourhood that many another was inclined the same way; that the best

and most intelligent of the younger men felt tired of want and

unremunerative labour, and would end by knocking everything to pieces

rather than go on toiling with no certainty of food in their old age.

"Ah! yes," continued Madame Toussaint, "the sons are not like the fathers

were. These fine fellows won't be as patient as my poor husband has been,

letting hard work wear him away till he's become the sorry thing you see

there.... Do you know what Charles said the other evening when he

found his father on that chair, crippled like that, and unable to speak?

Why, he shouted to him that he'd been a stupid jackass all his life,

working himself to death for those _bourgeois_, who now wouldn't bring

him so much as a glass of water. Then, as he none the less has a good

heart, he began to cry his eyes out."

The baby was no longer wailing, still the good woman continued walking to

and fro, rocking it in her arms and pressing it to her affectionate

heart. Her son Charles could do no more for them, she said; perhaps he

might be able to give them a five-franc piece now and again, but even

that wasn't certain. It was of no use for her to go back to her old

calling as a seamstress, she had lost all practice of it. And it would

even be difficult for her to earn anything as charwoman, for she had that

infant on her hands as well as her infirm husband--a big child, whom she

would have to wash and feed. And so what would become of the three of

them? She couldn't tell; but it made her shudder, however brave and

motherly she tried to be.

For their part, Pierre and Thomas quivered with compassion, particularly

when they saw big tears coursing down the cheeks of the wretched,

stricken Toussaint, as he sat quite motionless in that little and still

cleanly home of toil and want. The poor man had listened to his wife, and

he looked at her and at the infant now sleeping in her arms. Voiceless,

unable to cry his woe aloud, he experienced the most awful anguish. What

dupery his long life of labour had been! how frightfully unjust it was

that all his efforts should end in such sufferings! how exasperating it

was to feel himself powerless, and to see those whom he loved and who

were as innocent as himself suffer and die by reason of his own suffering

and death! Ah! poor old man, cripple that he was, ending like some beast

of burden that has foundered by the roadside--that goal of labour! And it

was all so revolting and so monstrous that he tried to put it into words,

and his desperate grief ended in a frightful, raucous grunt.

"Be quiet, don't do yourself harm!" concluded Madame Toussaint. "Things

are like that, and there's no mending them."

Then she went to put the child to bed again, and on her return, just as

Thomas and Pierre were about to speak to her of Toussaint's employer, M.

Grandidier, a fresh visitor arrived. Thereupon the others decided to

wait.

The new comer was Madame Chretiennot, Toussaint's other sister, eighteen

years younger than himself. Her husband, the little clerk, had compelled

her to break off almost all intercourse with her relatives, as he felt

ashamed of them; nevertheless, having heard of her brother's misfortune,

she had very properly come to condole with him. She wore a gown of cheap

flimsy silk, and a hat trimmed with red poppies, which she had freshened

up three times already; but in spite of this display her appearance

bespoke penury, and she did her best to hide her feet on account of the

shabbiness of her boots. Moreover, she was no longer the beautiful

Hortense. Since a recent miscarriage, all trace of her good looks had

disappeared.

The lamentable appearance of her brother and the bareness of that home of

suffering chilled her directly she crossed the threshold. And as soon as

she had kissed Toussaint, and said how sorry she was to find him in such

a condition, she began to lament her own fate, and recount her troubles,

for fear lest she should be asked for any help.

"Ah! my dear," she said to her sister-in-law, "you are certainly much to

be pitied! But if you only knew! We all have our troubles. Thus in my

case, obliged as I am to dress fairly well on account of my husband's

position, I have more trouble than you can imagine in making both ends

meet. One can't go far on a salary of three thousand francs a year, when

one has to pay seven hundred francs' rent out of it. You will perhaps say

that we might lodge ourselves in a more modest way; but we can't, my

dear, I must have a _salon_ on account of the visits I receive. So just

count!... Then there are my two girls. I've had to send them to

school; Lucienne has begun to learn the piano and Marcelle has some taste

for drawing.... By the way, I would have brought them with me, but I

feared it would upset them too much. You will excuse me, won't you?"

Then she spoke of all the worries which she had had with her husband on

account of Salvat's ignominious death. Chretiennot, vain, quarrelsome

little fellow that he was, felt exasperated at now having a _guillotine_

in his wife's family. And he had lately begun to treat the unfortunate

woman most harshly, charging her with having brought about all their

troubles, and even rendering her responsible for his own mediocrity,

embittered as he was more and more each day by a confined life of office

work. On some evenings they had downright quarrels; she stood up for

herself, and related that when she was at the confectionery shop in the

Rue des Martyrs she could have married a doctor had she only chosen, for

the doctor found her quite pretty enough. Now, however, she was becoming

plainer and plainer, and her husband felt that he was condemned to

everlasting penury; so that their life was becoming more and more dismal

and quarrelsome, and as unbearable--despite the pride of being

"gentleman" and "lady"--as was the destitution of the working classes.