Chapter VI.

"Dark the evening shadows rolled On the eye that gleamed in death, And the evening dews fell cold On the lip that gasped for breath."

James Montgomery.

A year had passed away when one day Pelagie Vautrin went out in the morning, as usual, with her hand-cart, but did not return as usual in the evening. Marcel had been on a spree with Polycarpe, and was glad, when he crept to bed late at night, all muzzy with tippling, to find his dirty home vacant.

But when, at a late hour the next day, he opened his hot, aching eyes and looked around him, he was at first astonished and then frightened to see that he was still alone. He started up and ran down-stairs to ask the neighbors if they had seen Madame Vautrin that morning. There was soon a great excitement in the house; for no one had seen her, and it was well known that Pelagie never staid out at night; she was generally very regularly drunk in bed by ten o'clock.

"Go to the prefect of police," cried one to the anxious boy, "they'll find her for you!"

"Go to the Morgue," cried another. "I shouldn't wonder if she had fallen into the river."

"Or been run over by an omnibus, the drunken slut!" cried a third.

"Ay, go to the Morgue, Marcel," said Polycarpe, who had just got up, and had hurried down to take part, as usual, in what was going on. "Come, I'll go with you."

Marcel was by this time as pale as death: the idea of Pelagie being dead was dreadful to him; for though the poor boy could not love the cruel woman who had worked him so unsparingly for her own profit, still she seemed something more to him than the rest of the world; she had sheltered him when he had no shelter; she had given him a dry crust when he knew not where to find one; and the child's heart was made of such tender stuff that the slightest kindness could kindle in it a flame of never forgetful gratitude.

Pale and trembling, he now followed Polycarpe to the low, black, sinister-looking building then situated close by St. Michael's bridge, on the right bank of the Seine. [Footnote 131] Many persons were going in and out of the horrible place, some seeking missing friends; others, and the greater number, urged on by a depraved curiosity and love of excitement.

[Footnote 131: It has since been pulled down, and rebuilt more handsomely behind the cathedral of Notre Dame.]

The two boys entered; Polycarpe noisily, and with an air of busy importance that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances; Marcel sick and faint with anxiety and fear; and awful indeed was the interior of that house of death. At one end of the stone-floored room in which they found themselves was an iron grating, behind which, on marble slabs, were laid out the perfectly naked forms of the unknown dead, victims of accident or of violence. {348} The bloated body of a drowned man, whose starting eyes first caught the scared glance of the shuddering child, made him start with horror and surprise. He had often thought, from all he had heard, that the sights to be seen in the Morgue must be dreadful, but the reality surpassed all his imaginings. He closed his eyes, but opened them an instant after to take a look at the corpse of a woman, whose blood-clotted hair and battered features showed but too plainly that the wretched creature had been the victim of some foul crime.

"'Tis she!" cried Polycarpe. But Marcel could bear no more; the child's nerves and heart had been tried to the uttermost, and he fell insensible on the cold, damp floor. Polycarpe and two or three bystanders dragged him out of the building, and, getting some water from the river, soon brought him to again, but very shaky and weak.

Polycarpe Poquet was a regular scamp, an idle beggar, a street-thief; nevertheless very gently and lovingly did he help his friend on his legs again, and very softly did he speak to him as they walked slowly away from that horrible place. "Come in here, old fellow," said he, when they arrived before the door on the second landing. "Mother wants to see you," he added, as he perceived that Marcel hesitated.

Madame Poquet and Loulou were both at home; for the charwoman was just then at liberty, her last mistress having been mean enough to lock up the charcoal and bread and butter, and various other useful items in housekeeping, and as Madame Poquet said to her neighbors, "After that evident want of confidence, she felt herself obliged to leave, especially as the wages were so low that without the perquisites the place was worth nothing!" She was a good-natured woman, notwithstanding her dishonesty, and received poor Marcel in a kind, motherly manner that contributed much to soothe and console him. "Now, you see, Marcel," said she, "you need not feel so bad; you shall come and live with us; there's room for four, and so there's room for five. I'm sure I always wanted to have you, for Madame Vautrin was not good to you--you know that she wasn't--everybody knows that she wasn't. Now, come, don't cry so; it shows that you've a good heart, but it is not reasonable, and I can't bear to hear you. I never could bear to hear any one cry. Come, courage, courage!" And the old thieving charwoman kissed the weeping boy tenderly, and then wiped her own overflowing eyes. He threw his arms around her neck and sobbed aloud, and the motherly old soul sobbed with him. "Come now," said she presently, and she placed him as she spoke on a chair by the table, "here's some good hot coffee and milk, and a piece of nice fresh bread. I got it ready for you half an hour ago. There, you and Polycarpe sit down and take your breakfast; that'll do you good, and comfort you."

And certainly the good meal did much to calm him, though perhaps the sympathy of Madame Poquet and her children did more.

And so it was settled; the landlord sold the few miserable sticks of furniture belonging to Pelagie Vautrin for the arrears of rent, and Marcel became one of the Poquet family.

As for the battered corpse lying on the marble slab in the Morgue, it was never reclaimed, but was hurriedly buried in the pauper grave that the state provides for the unknown dead. Yet it was a long time before the orphan whom Pelagie Vautrin had so cruelly ill-treated ceased to think of her, or shudder as he remembered her terrible death. {349} It was an end, however, as _we_ know, to be expected for one cursed with so wicked a temper and of such dissolute habits. Drunkenness, quarrels, blows, and death! It is a natural sequence!

Poor Marcel gained by the change; at least, his life was not so hard a one as it had been. He was no longer obliged to bring home a certain quantity of rags and old iron every day; he had no regular task set him. But Monsieur and Madame Poquet nevertheless fully expected him to pick up his own living and something more, in the same way as did their son Polycarpe.

The two boys after a time adopted, as their principal source of income, the business of gathering cigar-ends and converting them into pipe-tobacco. It was a profession that required early rising, quick eyes, and light heels, for there were other lads in the same walk of life, but who could be better fitted for such a pursuit than Marcel and Polycarpe? At four every morning they sallied forth to make their round; hunting for the precious bits on the sidewalks and in the gutters of the most frequented and fashionable streets, the Boulevards, the Champs Elysées, and the purlieus of the theatres. Sometimes, when they were flush of money, they bought from the waiters in the coffee-houses the permission to pick up the ends that might be under the tables.

The harvest made, they hastened down to the river's side, and there, seated under or near the dry arches of one of the bridges, they emptied their bags on the ground beside them and commenced the sorting of their merchandise. The prime or first quality consisted of the ends of Havana cigars, regalias, londres, etc.; the second quality, of those of home growth, or bits picked up in dirty gutters, and consequently somewhat deteriorated. The sorting finished, our young tobacconists commenced their work of metamorphosis. Each one was furnished with a small square of smooth wood, a sharp, thin-bladed knife, and a whetstone, for the knife required frequent sharpening during the operation of cutting up the ends. This was performed on the square of wood, and as fine as possible, so as to resemble _new_ smoking tobacco. Paper parcels were then made up of this novel manufacture; the inferior quality selling at one sou the packet; the superior fetching as much as fifty sous the pound.

The rest of the day was passed in disposing of their morning labors, and this was never difficult; they found plenty of customers, masons, street-sweepers, and rat-catchers, and often made as much as three francs each in the day. They might have gained an honest living by this humble means, had they only possessed an honest home. But Monsieur and Madame Poquet were thieves, and the more the lads gained the more was exacted from them. And then in the dreadful drinking-dens they frequented to sell their merchandise they became each day initiated in some new vice. There was indeed nothing to stop them on their downward course; and soon, alas, the orphan boy, intelligent, and naturally conscientious, became versed in knavery and a common street-thief! Poor, poor Marcel!

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