Part 21

“I thought it was on account of that miserable note,--for the same reason that they took us.”

“Oh, no! it’s something better than that. But I do remember now, that fright acted on you like wine; you didn’t know what was going on. Let me tell you that Dufresne is accused of poisoning a certain Madame Dolban, with whom he used to live.”

“Great God! the monster!”

“It seems that his case is serious; he will be sentenced to death in default; but you understand that he won’t return to these diggings, to be caught. We shan’t see him again; I am sorry for that, for he is a smart fellow; it’s a pity that he went too far.”

“And we?”

“We are to be transferred to the Conciergerie before long, to be tried. That’s the place, my man, where you will need firmness and eloquence. If you weep there as you do here, it’s all over; we shall take a sea voyage in the service of the government.”

“You villain! is it possible?”

“Hush, they’re listening to us; enough said.”

While the wretched Edouard was in the throes of all the anguish of terror and remorse, and, surrounded by vile criminals who plumed themselves upon their crimes and their depravity, found himself the object of their contempt, so that not one of them addressed a word of compassion to him or deigned to sympathize with his sufferings, Adeline passed peaceful days at Guillot’s farm. She watched the growth of her daughter, who was already beginning to lisp a few words which only a mother could understand. Jacques, still overflowing with zeal and courage, insisted upon doing the hardest work; he did more than two farm hands, and to him toil was a pleasure. At night he returned to Adeline; he took his little niece on his knees, and danced her up and down to the refrain of a military ballad. Everybody loved Brother Jacques; for that is what he was called in the village after he was known to be Madame Murville’s brother-in-law; and the peasants were proud to have under their humble roof a woman like Adeline, and a fine fellow like Jacques.

But that peaceful life could not endure; a certain trip of Sans-Souci’s to Paris was destined to cause a great change. Jacques’s excellent comrade set out one day for the great city, intrusted as usual with secret commissions from Adeline and her brother-in-law, both of whom, although without communicating with each other, had the same thought, the same desire, and burned to know what Edouard was doing.

Hitherto Sans-Souci had been unable to obtain any information, but an unlucky chance led this time to his meeting a friend whom he had not seen for a very long time. This friend, after practising divers trades, had become a messenger at the Conciergerie. He was employed by those prisoners who were still allowed to communicate with the outside world. Sans-Souci mentioned the name of Edouard Murville; his friend informed him that he was in the prison, and that his sentence was to be pronounced on the following day.

“In prison!” cried Sans-Souci; “my brave comrade’s brother! Ten thousand cartridges! this will be a sad blow to Jacques.”

The messenger, seeing that Sans-Souci was deeply interested in Edouard, regretted having said so much.

“But why is he in prison?” asked Sans-Souci anxiously; “what has he done? Speak! tell me. Is it for debt?”

“Yes, yes; I believe it’s about a note,” replied the messenger, hesitating, and resolved not to disclose the truth; and he tried, but in vain, to change the subject.

“Morbleu! his brother--her husband--in prison! Poor little woman! Poor fellow!”

“Don’t say anything about it to them, my friend, don’t mention it to them. I am sorry myself that I told you this distressing news.”

“You are right, I will hold my tongue, I won’t say anything. After all, they can’t help it. That Edouard is a bad fellow! So much the worse for him.”

“Oh, yes! he is a very bad fellow, and they will do well to forget him.”

“Yes, of course, we can think that, we fellows; but a wife, a brother, they have hearts, you see, and when it’s a question of someone you love, the heart always drives you on.--Good-bye, old man; I am going back to the farm, very sorry that I met you, although it isn’t your fault. My heart is heavy, and the trouble is that I am too stupid to make-believe.”

Sans-Souci left his friend and returned to the farm. Adeline and Jacques questioned him according to their custom, and Sans-Souci replied that he knew no more than at other times; but in vain did he try to dissemble; his sadness betrayed him; his embarrassment, when Adeline spoke to him of Edouard, aroused her suspicions; a woman easily divines our secret thoughts. Edouard’s wife, convinced that Sans-Souci was concealing from her something unpleasant about her husband, was constantly at his heels; she urged him, she implored him to tell her all.

For two days the honest soldier’s courage held good against Adeline’s prayers. But he reflected upon the plight of Edouard, whom he believed to be in prison for debt; he thought that his wife might have acquaintances in Paris, through whom she could probably alleviate Edouard’s situation. Edouard had been guilty; but perhaps misfortune would have matured his character. And it was not right to deprive him of help and encouragement. These reflections caused Sans-Souci to decide to conceal no longer from Adeline what he knew. The opportunity soon presented itself; the next day the young woman entreated him again to tell her what her husband was doing; Sans-Souci surrendered, on condition that she would not mention it to Jacques, by whom he feared to be scolded. Adeline promised, and then he told her all that he had learned in Paris.

As soon as Adeline heard that her husband was in prison, she made up her mind what course to pursue; she left Sans-Souci, went to her chamber, collected a few jewels, the last remnant of her past fortune, made a little bundle of her clothes, and after writing on a sheet of paper that they must not be disturbed by her absence, she took her little Ermance in her arms and secretly left the farm house, resolved to leave no stone unturned to obtain her husband’s freedom, or to share his captivity.

It was then nine o’clock in the morning; Jacques was in the fields, and the peasants were occupied in different directions. Adeline was on the Paris road before the people at the farm had discovered her departure.

XXIX

THE PLACE DU PALAIS

Adeline did not know as yet what method she should employ to obtain access to her husband; she had formed no plan; she had no idea what steps she must take in order to speak with a prisoner; a single thought filled her mind: her Edouard was unhappy, he was languishing in prison, deprived of all consolation. For Adeline knew the world, she had shrewd suspicions that those people who crowded about Edouard in his prosperity would have abandoned him in his distress. Who then would wipe away the poor prisoner’s tears, if not his wife and his daughter? To be sure, he had cast them aside; he had formerly avoided their caresses. But when the man we love is crushed beneath the weight of misfortune, a generous soul never remembers his wrongdoing.

Sans-Souci had mentioned the Conciergerie; so it was to the Conciergerie she must go. Adeline believed that her prayers, her tears, and the sight of her child, would move the jailers; she had no doubt that they would allow her to see her husband. That hope redoubled her courage. After walking to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, carrying little Ermance, who was not yet a year-and-a-half old, Adeline at last fell in with one of those wretched carriages which take Parisians into the suburbs, and to the open-air festivals. For a modest sum the driver agreed to take the young woman and her child, and headed his nags toward Paris.

There was a single other traveller in the carriage with Adeline; it was an old man of about seventy years, but with a pleasant face, and an open, kindly expression which inspired confidence and respect. His dress indicated wealth without ostentation, and his manners, while they were not those of fashionable society, denoted familiarity with good company.

Adeline bowed to her travelling companion and seated herself beside him, without speaking.

The old gentleman scrutinized her at first with attention, then with interest. Adeline had such a noble and appealing countenance that it was impossible to look upon her without being prepossessed in her favor, and without desiring to know her better.

Little Ermance was on her mother’s knees; her childish graces fascinated the old man, who gave her bonbons and bestowed some caresses upon her. Adeline thanked the old gentleman for his kindness, smiled at her daughter, then relapsed into her reflections.

The traveller tried to engage the young woman in conversation; but her replies were so short, she seemed so preoccupied, that her companion feared to intrude. He said no more, but he noticed Adeline’s melancholy, he heard her sighs, and he saw that her lovely eyes were constantly turned toward Paris, and often wet with tears. He dared not try to divert her thoughts from her trouble, but he pitied her in silence.

Adeline found the journey very long; the wretched horses went at their ordinary pace, nothing on earth could have induced them to gallop. Sometimes, Adeline, giving way to her impatience, was on the point of alighting from the vehicle, in the hope that she would reach Paris sooner on foot. But she would have to carry little Ermance, and her strength was not equal to her courage. So she remained in the carriage and reflected that each turn of the wheels brought her nearer to her husband.

The old gentleman looked at his watch, and at that Adeline addressed him:

“Monsieur, would you kindly tell me what time it is?”

“Almost one o’clock, madame.”

“Are we still far from Paris?”

“Why, no, only a short league; in three-quarters of an hour you will be there.”

“In three-quarters of an hour! Oh! how slowly the time goes!”

“I see that madame has some important business calling her to Paris?”

“Yes, monsieur, oh, yes! I long to be there!”

“Of course madame has friends there? If not, if I could be of any service to madame----”

Adeline made no reply; she did not hear her companion; she was once more absorbed in thought, she was with her husband.

The old gentleman profited nothing by his offer of his services; but far from taking offence, he felt all the deeper interest in the young woman, who seemed beset by such profound sorrow.

At last they reached Paris, and the carriage stopped. Adeline alighted hastily, took her child in her arms, and paid the driver; then she bowed to her companion, and disappeared before the old gentleman had had time to put his foot on the little stool which a street urchin had placed on the ground to help him to alight from the vehicle.

“Poor young woman!” said the old man, looking in the direction in which Adeline had disappeared; “how she runs! how excited she seems! dear me! I hope that she will not learn any bad news.”

Adeline went as fast as it is possible to go when one has a child in one’s arms. She asked the way to the Conciergerie; it was pointed out to her, and she hurried on without stopping. Love and anxiety redoubled her strength; she drew near at last; she saw a square--it was that in front of the Palais de Justice.

That square was surrounded by people; the crowd was so dense that one could hardly walk.

“And I must pass through,” said Adeline sadly to herself; “well, as there is no other road, I must make one last effort and try to force my way through.”

But why had so many people assembled there? Was it a fête-day, some public rejoicing? Had some charlatan established his travelling booth there? Was that multitude attracted by singers or jugglers, with their music or their tricks? No, it was none of those things; our Parisian idlers would show less interest, if it were a matter of pleasant diversion only. It was an execution which was to take place; several miserable wretches were to be branded, and exposed to public view upon the fatal stool of repentance; and it was to gaze on that spectacle, distressing to mankind, that those children, those young maidens, those old men, hastened thither so eagerly! Are you surprised to hear it? Do you not know that La Grève is crowded, that the windows which look on the square are rented, when a criminal is to undergo capital punishment there? And whom do we see gloat with the greatest avidity over these ghastly spectacles? Women, young women, whose faces are instinct with gentleness and sensitiveness.--What takes place in the depths of the human heart, if this excess of stoicism is to be found in a weak and timid sex?

But let us do justice to those who shun such abhorrent spectacles, and who cannot endure to look upon an execution. Adeline was one of these; she did not know what was about to happen on the square, and she paid no attention to the cries of the mob that surrounded her.

“Here they come! here they come!” cried the people; “ah! just wait and see what faces they will make in a minute, when they feel the red hot iron!”

Adeline tried to cross the square, but she could not do it; the crowd either forced her back or dragged her in the opposite direction; thus, without intention, she found herself quite near the gendarmes who surrounded the culprits. She raised her eyes, and saw the miserable wretches, marked with the brand of infamy. She instantly looked away, she preferred not to see that horrid spectacle. At that moment a piteous cry arose; it came from one of the wretches who had just been branded. That cry went to Adeline’s heart, it revolutionized all her senses; she heard it constantly, for she had recognized the griefstricken tone. A sentiment which she could not control caused her to turn her eyes toward the culprits. A man, still young, but pale, downcast, disfigured, was bound upon the stool in front of her. Adeline gazed at him. She could not fail to recognize him. The miserable wretch’s eyes met hers. It was Edouard, it was her husband, who had been cast out from society, and whom she found upon the stool of repentance.

A shriek of horror escaped from the young woman’s lips. The criminal dropped his head on his breast, and Adeline, beside herself, bereft of her senses, succumbed at last to the violence of her grief, and fell unconscious to the ground, still pressing her child to her bosom with a convulsive movement.

XXX

GOODMAN GERVAL

The French, especially the lower classes, have this merit, that they pass readily from one sensation to another; after witnessing an execution, they will stop in front of a Punch and Judy show; they laugh and weep with amazing rapidity; and the same man who has just pushed his neighbor roughly aside because he prevented him from seeing a criminal led to the gallows, will eagerly raise and succor the unfortunate mortal whom destitution or some accident causes to fall at his feet.

The gossips and the young girls who crowded Place du Palais forgot the pleasant spectacle they had come to see, and turned their attention to the young woman who lay unconscious on the ground.

Adeline and her child were carried to the nearest café, and there everything that could be done was done for the poor mother. Everybody formed his or her own conjectures concerning the incident.

“Perhaps it was the crowd, or the heat, which was too much for this pretty young lady,” said some. Others thought with more reason that the stranger’s trouble seemed to be too serious to have been caused by so simple a matter.

“Perhaps,” they said, “she saw among those poor devils someone she once knew and loved.”

While they all tried to guess the cause of the accident, little Ermance uttered piercing shrieks, and although she was too young to appreciate her misfortune, she wept bitterly none the less because her mother did not kiss her.

They succeeded at last in restoring the young woman to consciousness. The unhappy creature! Did they do her a service thereby? Everybody waited with curiosity to see what she would say; but Adeline gazed about her with expressionless eyes; then, taking her daughter in her arms, as if she wished to protect her from some peril, she started to leave the café without uttering a word.

This extraordinary behavior surprised all those who were present.

“Why do you go away so soon, madame?” said one kindhearted old woman, taking Adeline’s arm; “you must rest a little longer, and recover your wits entirely.”

“Oh! I must go, I must go and join him,” Adeline replied, looking toward the street; “he is there waiting for me; he motioned for me to rescue him from that place, to take off those chains. I can still hear his voice; yes, he is calling me. Listen, don’t you hear? He is groaning--ah! that heartrending cry! Poor fellow! How they are hurting him!”

Adeline fell motionless on a chair; her eyes turned away in horror from a spectacle which she seemed to have constantly in her mind. All those who stood about her shed tears; they saw that she had lost her reason; one and all pitied the unfortunate creature and tried to restore peace to her mind; but to no purpose did they offer her such comfort as they could; Adeline did not hear them, she recognized no one but her daughter, and persisted in her purpose to fly with her.

What were they to do? How could they find out who the family or the kindred of the poor woman were? Her dress did not indicate wealth; the bundle of clothes, containing in addition to her garments the jewels that she had taken away, was not found by Adeline’s side when they picked her up; doubtless some spectator, observing in anticipation the place that he was likely to occupy some day, had found a way to abstract Adeline’s property. So she seemed to be without means, and as with many people, emotion is always sterile, they were already talking of taking the poor woman to a refuge, and her child to the Foundling Hospital, when the arrival of a new personage suspended their plans.

An old man entered the café and enquired the cause of the gathering. Everyone tried to tell him the story. The stranger walked in, forcing his way through the curious crowd of spectators who surrounded the unfortunate young woman; he approached Adeline, and uttered a cry of surprise when he recognized the person with whom he had travelled from Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to Paris.

“It is really she!” he cried; and little Ermance held out her arms to him with a smile; for she recognized the man who had given her bonbons but a few hours before.

Thereupon the old man became an interesting character to the crowd, who were most eager to learn the poor mother’s story. They all plied the old gentleman with questions, and he, annoyed and wearied by their importunities, sent for a carriage, and after learning from the keeper of the café exactly what had happened to the young stranger, he put Adeline and her child into the cab, and thus removed them from the scrutiny of the curiosity seekers.

Adeline had fallen into a state of listless prostration. She allowed herself to be taken away, without uttering a word; she seemed to pay no heed to what was taking place about her, and even her daughter no longer engaged her attention.

Monsieur Gerval--such was the old man’s name--gazed at the young woman with deep emotion; he could not as yet believe that she whom he had seen in the morning, sad, it is true, but in the full enjoyment of her senses, could so soon be deprived of her reason. He lost himself in conjectures as to the cause of that strange occurrence.

The cab stopped in front of a handsome, furnished lodging house. It was where Monsieur Gerval stopped when he was in Paris. He was well known in the house, and everyone treated him with the regard which his years and his character deserved.

He caused Adeline and her daughter to alight and took them to his hostess.

“Look you, madame,” he said, “here is a stranger whom I beg you to take care of until further orders.”

“Ah! mon Dieu! how pretty she is! But what a melancholy expression! what an air of depression!--Can’t she speak, Monsieur Gerval?”

“She is ill; she has undergone some great misfortune; they say even that her mind----”

“Merciful heaven! what a pity!”

“I hope that with the best care, we shall succeed in calming her excitement. I commend this unfortunate woman and her child to you.”

“Never fear, Monsieur Gerval, she shall have everything she needs.--Another unfortunate of whom you have taken charge, I see.”

“What would you have, my dear hostess; a man must needs make himself useful when he can. I have no children, and I am growing old; what good would all my wealth do me, if I did not assist the unfortunate? Moreover, it is a source of enjoyment to myself. I am like Florian’s man: ‘I often do good for the pleasure of it.’”

“Ah! if all the rich men thought as you do, Monsieur Gerval!”

“Tell me, madame, has my old Dupré come in?”

“Yes, monsieur, he is waiting for you in your room.”

“I will go up to him. Look after this young woman, I beg you, and see that she lacks nothing.”

“Rely upon me, monsieur.”

Worthy Monsieur Gerval went up to his apartment, where he found his old servant Dupré impatiently awaiting his master’s return.

“Ah! here you are, monsieur; I was anxious because you stayed away so long. Have you had a pleasant journey? Have you learned anything?”

“No, my friend; the house where the Murville family used to live is now for sale. I was told that one Edouard Murville lived there for some time with his wife, but no one knows what has become of them. And you, Dupré?”

“I have found out nothing more, monsieur. Your old friends are dead; and their children are nobody knows where. Several people did mention a Murville, who was a business agent, then a swindler, and all-in-all a thoroughly bad fellow. But no one was able or willing to tell me what has become of him. Perhaps he may have been the younger of the two sons, the one who ran away from his father’s house at fifteen; such an escapade as that promises nothing good for the future.”

“I should be very sorry if it were so; I would have liked--but I see that I have returned too late. My travels kept me away from Paris ten years, and it was only within a year that, on retiring from business, I was able to return to this city. But what changes ten years have produced! My friends--to be sure they were quite old when I went away--my friends are dead or else they have disappeared. That depresses me, Dupré; there is nothing left for me in this city but memories. I think we will leave it, and go back to my little place in the Vosges to live; I propose to end my life there.--But let us drop this subject; I have something to tell you, for my journey has not been altogether without fruit; it has made me acquainted with a very interesting young woman, who seems most unfortunate too.”

“Indeed! Where did monsieur meet her?”

“We returned to Paris in the same carriage; for notwithstanding your advice, I made the trip in one of those miserable cabriolets.”

“Oh! the idea of subjecting yourself to such a jolting! That is unreasonable!”

“Nonsense! nonsense! I’m perfectly well, and I congratulate myself that I did not take your advice, as I travelled with a poor woman, whom I found afterward by chance in a most melancholy plight.”

Monsieur Gerval told the servant what had happened to him, and the chance which had led to his finding the traveller again in a café, just as those present were talking of taking her to a refuge. Dupré, whose heart was as soft as his master’s, was very impatient to see the young woman and her pretty little girl; he followed his master, who asked to be taken to the room which had been given to Adeline.