Chapter 12

Périne had no sooner gone than Jean came out and flung himself angrily on a chair.

"I shall stand this no longer. I give you notice of my determination, Marie. You have her here, I believe, solely to torment me. Figure to yourself having to stand by helpless, and see the creature put an end to both one's dinner and one's pipe! She is not to come here any more, those are my orders. Do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear," said Marie quietly, "but I beg of you to change your mind. We are badly off, I allow, yet somehow or other we can always rub along, and this poor child is in worse plight than we are."

"Worse? Nonsense. No one can be worse off than I am. Denounced, executed, for I assure you I felt that bullet go through my brain, saved just by the hair of my head--"

"Such a mercy!" breathed the wife.

"A mercy, yes--but you who can go and come and amuse yourself, never think what this life must be to me, cooped up like a rat in his hole. There are times when I believe I should do better to give myself up."

"For the sake of Heaven, Jean--!"

"At any rate," said Jean, descending from his heights, "I will not have that _imbécile_ here. You understand?"

Marie looked at him indulgently. "Yes, my friend, I understand."

"I'll lay a wager you never got that journal from old Plon-Plon?"

"He had not finished with it."

"Of course not. Then I shall go to sleep, for there is nothing else for me to do."

He flung a handkerchief over his eyes as he spoke, put his feet on Périne's stool, and his elbow on the table. Marie moved quietly about, set the saucepan again on the stove, and taking some needlework from a box, sat down near her husband, stitching rapidly. Every now and then she glanced at him, and her mind was tenderly busy over his concerns all the while, so that tears would have stood in her eyes if they had not had other work to do.

"How sad the poor fellow looks!" she thought. "I'm glad he's asleep, after that unfortunate affair with the pipe. When I remember how hard it is to get tobacco for him, for I am dreadfully afraid that some one will suspect me when I ask for it, I must own that Périne is an unlucky child. But as for her not coming again, he doesn't mean that, no, no--he's so kind hearted that he would be the last to keep her away; besides, I know very well that while he grumbles he feels an interest in hearing her do those wonderful sums. Anything is better for him than seeing no one but stupid me from year's end to year's end--my poor Jean! Three years! I declare it quite hurts me to go out and about, though to be sure I must. But it seems so selfish."

There is no knowing to what depths of accusing wickedness Madame Didier's meditations would have led her, but that presently she heard a heavy creaking step upon the stairs; and flew to awake her husband and to hustle him into his refuge. M. Plon's visits were rare, and she discouraged them with all her might, yet when he arrived panting and puffing at the door, she was standing by the stove working, with a little coquettish air of greeting about her.

"You don't mean to say that you have brought the journal yourself, M. Plon! Now that is kind of you, but it is disarranging yourself too much to climb up those steep stairs, when I could have fetched it with pleasure."

"Ugh, ugh, they are steep, there's no denying it," said Plon, sinking into the rickety chair. "But what would you have? Up here on the sixth, you can't expect all the luxuries of the first or second."

"Heavens, no!"

"You should cultivate a contented frame of mind. Madame Didier, and beware of grumbling."

"Was I grumbling?"

"You were complaining--complaining of the stairs, and it is a pernicious habit. Don't encourage it."

"But, indeed--" Marie was beginning with a smile, when he interrupted her with a majestic wave of his hand.

"_Halte là_! Now you are contradicting, and that is another bad habit, particularly for a woman. But nobody knows when they are well off in these days. I often say to my friends: 'There is Madame Didier, she lives in that nice airy attic of ours; she has no one to think of but herself, no cares, no responsibilities; she ought to be as happy as a bird.' Look at me, I entreat you; what a contrast! At everybody's beck and call, cooped up in a draughty little den, making shoes with a thousand interruptions. I ask you what sort of a life is that for a man of my stamp? If you were to try it for a week, you'd find out whether you were not a lucky woman! But, there, as I said before, nobody ever knows when they are well off--not even widows. I say all this because I take a real interest in you."

"I know you do, M. Plon, if only for the sake of my poor husband," said Marie demurely. To say the truth she was often in a state of uncomfortable doubt as to whether M. Plon's interest might not be going to take a warmer form, in which case it might be more difficult than ever for Jean to forget that he was no longer in the land of the living.

"But I must say I don't think you are the best of managers," said M. Plon with a magisterial sweep of his hand which took in all the poor surroundings. "With your earnings you might do better than you do, Madame Didier. One mouth to feed, one person to dress--"

"There is Périne," faltered poor Marie.

"Yes, there is Périne, and it is true those imbeciles have appetites like wolves. Still--well, well, you must not suppose that I am blaming you; on the contrary, it might surprise you to hear--"

M. Plon was edging his chair a little nearer to Madame Didier, and she thought it was time to interrupt his explanation, so she said briskly:

"Ah, by the way, what news is there to-day in _Le Petit Journal?_"

"There is the great robbery."

"The great robbery! Where?"

"In the Rue Vivienne. The paper is full of it--jewellery, diamonds, plate, treasures of all kinds carried off, chest and all, that's the wonderful part of it, for a chest is not a thing to hide in your pocket."

"And have they no clue?" asked Marie, much interested.

"Not yet, but there must have been a cart or a cab, or some vehicle in the affair. It is clear enough that this belongs to the _haute pègre_, none of your common burglars would have attempted such a daring stroke; and I would lay a wager, too, that they're not so far off from here, if they're in Paris, that is. I shall keep a sharp look-out, for the reward is fabulous."

"Really!" said Madame Didier with a sigh.

"One would suppose you wanted it yourself," said Plon angrily. "Now what possible good could it do to you? It is extraordinary that people--women especially--can't be contented, but must always be wishing for what they haven't got."

"I was only thinking," Marie answered apologetically.

"Then don't think. Women should leave that to others," Having delivered which sententious maxim, M. Plon rose with some difficulty from his chair, and gazed round the room. It was a habit of his, but it always frightened Marie, and it frightened her yet more when he turned towards the recess and stood contemplating the curtains. "You keep those so tightly drawn one would--Eh! what's the matter!"

For Madame Didier, stooping over the stove, had uttered a sharp feminine shriek.

"I have burnt my finger?" she exclaimed, wringing her hand.

"That comes of thinking. Does it hurt?"

"Hurt! Of course it does."

"Let me see," he said coming over.

But Marie hastily bound a bit of rag round her hand.

"The great thing is to exclude the air," she said quickly. "Then you mean to be on the lookout for these grand robbers, M. Plon?"

"Yes, instead of idling away my time up here," he said, rolling towards the door. "But you women dearly love a little gossip, don't you? And though you are not the best of managers, Madame Didier, no one can say you don't work with industry. So keep a good heart. You shall hear if I get the reward."

As the sound of his heavy footsteps creaked down the stairs, Jean came out and flung himself on the chair which M. Plon had occupied.

"Now that that old idiot has taken himself off, let's see what he was talking about."

"Is it true about the robbery?" asked Marie, leaning over his shoulder.

"So it seems."

"And the reward?"

"Twelve thousand francs."

"Twelve thousand francs!" repeated his wife in amazement. "Oh, you must be mistaken!"

"There are the figures at any rate, see for yourself."

"Yes, I see. I suppose it must be so, as it is in the paper; but--but--if we could only have a little part of it!"

"Ah, if!" said Jean with a shrug. "But how will you manage? Stand about the corners of the Streets and ask every _escarpe_ that passes?"

"I could almost do that," his wife answered stoutly, "when I reflect that with money we might have an advocate, and you might be free. My store grows so slowly, Jean!"

Jean dashed the paper to the ground, and thrust his hands through his hair.

"Don't talk of it, if you wouldn't madden me!" he exclaimed. "Might--might--I am sick of mights! Cooped up here I can do nothing, but if I had only common luck I might get the end of a clue as well as any other poor devil. I tell you, Marie, I have half a mind to give myself up, and end everything."

She clung to him, pale as death.

"No, no!"

"You'd get on better without me."

"No, no!"

Jean's tragic air vanished in a rush of real emotion. He put his wife from him and looked at her sorrowfully.

"Poor soul!" he said slowly. "And you really mean that I haven't tired you out yet with all my moods and cross words? No? Then, decidedly, we must rub on a little longer still."

She embraced him with all the gratitude a woman feels when her good offices are accepted.

"To-morrow," she said cheerfully, "to-morrow will bring you some tobacco."

"To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Périne," he replied, with a laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young fellow the haggard man had been. "Well, I am not sure that Périne isn't preferable to old Plon-Plon. When I hear him prosing away to you on the duty of being contented, it's all I can do not to knock him down. You a bad manager, indeed!"

"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."

"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.

"Jean!"

"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a little fresh air, or drop in at the _brasserie_ and hear what is doing!"

"See, here," said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, "to-night we shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle. Sometimes I am afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a foolish fancy. The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile, tell me what more news you have got there in the paper. M. Plon has a great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over his journals--aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!"

"Plon is an ass," said Jean gruffly, for he did not like any one to find a flaw in the wife whom he often scolded himself.

"Perhaps," said Marie happily. "But now, find me something horribly delightful to-night, something to make me shudder."

"Capture of a wolf in Auvergne."

"Of a wolf! Is it possible!" demanded Madame Didier, much interested. "And how many people did he eat?"

"Only one."

"Only one! What a stupid wolf! Go on, my friend."

"Suicide of a husband."

"Not that, I do not like anything so sad," she said in a changed voice. "And where was his wife all the time, that she could not prevent it, I should like to know? No, let me hear a little more about this robbery, and then we will have our dinner."