A formidable proportion of the grand concourse which filled the fashionable boulevards from curb to curb this beautiful Sunday afternoon was composed of the so-called "boulevardiers," "flâneurs," and "badauds," who invariably appear on occasion offering excitement. For the Parisian world loves to be amused, and to have the pulse quickened by riot and bloodshed is to very many the highest form of amusement. It is better than a bull-fight.
To most of this very large class of Parisians it is immaterial what form of government they live under, provided that in some way or another it furnish plenty of excitement. No other country in the civilized world, unless Spain is to be included under this head, produces this peculiar class, the unseen influence of which seems to have escaped the brilliant French writers who have recorded the turbulent history of France.
The cardinal characteristic of the French individually and as a people is love of and admiration for theatrical display. This finds such ample illustration in all of their known domestic as well as international affairs that even the mere statement seems unnecessary. It permeates every social rank, and it enters into the performance of the simplest private as well as public duties. In higher governmental affairs it was accurately represented by the late President of the republic, Felix Faure, who went among his countrymen in a coach and four preceded by trumpeters and accompanied by a regiment of cuirassiers, and whorequired of his entourage all of the formalities of royalty. The hundreds of thousands who enjoyed his kingly funeral would have been equally entertained by a public execution.
In the French nature, as has been said, is implanted a keen zest for excitement. The Frenchman is ravenous for the theatrical situation,—a perfect gormandizer of the dramatic event. Whatever or whoever lacks this gilded framework is neither remembered nor noted. The supply invariably follows the demand; without spectators there would be no spectacle,—just as there is no sound where there are no ears.
Any Frenchman, therefore, who has any theatrical novelty to offer, whether as a political mountebank, or a bogus hero, or a peculiarly atrocious crime, is sure of a large audience. For there is a wide range of appreciation in that mercurial nature which, according to Voltaire, is half monkey and half tiger.
The evident pleasure with which vast Parisian crowds view riots and revolution and the various phases of alternate anarchy and absolutism may be easily and naturally accepted by the actors in these living dramas as tacit if not positive approval. The professional patriot does not perform to empty seats, and the few hundred hired assassins of the public peace and private liberty would be out of a job but for the hundred thousand passive and more or less amused spectators who scramble for the best places to witness and make merry over the show.
That this curious crowd is greatly swelled by what in other lands is recognized as the gentler or softer sex increases its responsibility. The civilization which hasproduced so many women of the heroic type, so many of the nobler masculine brain and hand, has also generated a vast brood which poisons the germs of human life and hands down bigotry, intolerance, revengefulness, cruelty, and love of turbulence and bloodshed from generation to generation.
Of the performers before this audience Jean Marot and his stalwart companion found themselves particularly observed from their début. The red turban was conspicuous enough, and gave a theatrical aspect to the man who wore it. There was that in his ensemble which recalled the great Revolution and the scarcely less sanguinary conflicts of '71. By his side and contrasting strangely with the coarse brute features of this muscular humanity was the finely chiselled face of the student under the rough cap of the workman. A picturesque pair, they were greeted on all sides with all sorts of cries and comments:
"That red cap is very appropriate."
"It is the head-dress of the barricades."
"Sure!"
"Of la Villette, hein?"
"The man is mad!"
"Ah! look at that!"
"There goes a good rascal."
"A young man and his father perhaps."
"No!"
"Long live the students!"
"En avant!" roared the man in the red turban.
"Vive l'anarchie!" shouted an individual on the curb whose eyes were glazed from absinthe.
The crowd laughed. Some applauded,—not so muchthe sentiment as the drunken wit. The people were being entertained.
"We certainly have the street this day," observed Jean to his companion.
"Right you are, my boy!"
Both noted the squadron of cuirassiers drawn up in front of the Opéra, the police agents massed on either side, and the regiment of the line under arms in the Rue 4 Septembre close at hand. In the middle distance a squadron of the Garde de Paris came leisurely up the Avenue de l'Opéra.
"You see, my friend," said Jean, smiling, "the government is looking sharply after its strategic position."
"Vive l'armée!"
The man in the red turban swung his bâton, and his resounding cry was caught up by the manifestants. It was the voice of flattery and conciliation extended to the army, through which the royalist party hoped to win a throne.
But they were not alone there. From several quarters came sharp rejoinders of "Vive la justice!" "Vive la république!" "Vive la France!"
While these cries seemed harmless if not proper, they were judged seditious by the police, who made a dash for those who uttered them. In another instant the man with the red turban would have saved the agents the trouble of arresting the nearest person had not Jean grasped the bâton. The brute face had taken on a flush of red ferocity. His blow restrained, the man spat in the face of his intended victim and strode on.
"Not yet, my friend!" exclaimed the student leader. "What! precipitate a fight here! Madness! Weshould be ridden down within three minutes! The government will be sure to protect the Opéra."
"Yes; you are always right, mon enfant," growled the man.
Meanwhile, the unfortunate Parisian who wanted "justice" got it; being dragged off by two police agents, who took turns in kicking and cuffing their prisoner on the way to the dépôt. There he was charged with uttering seditious cries calculated to lead to a breach of the peace.
Gathering confidence from immunity, however, the manifestants soon ceased to observe this respect for public opinion. In Boulevard Haussmann they got out from the eye of the military. They began to hustle those who happened to get in their way. Those who were not sufficiently explicit in their views were compelled to cry "Vive l'armée;" whoever refused was promptly knocked on the head.
"Monsieur Front de Bœuf," said Jean Marot to his companion, who had narrowly missed spattering the young leader with the brains of a misguided Dreyfusarde, "if you will strike less heavily you will longer remain with us, and possibly for a time escape the guillotine. Let us do no murder, mon ami. Your stick is heavy."
"That's so; but it is a lovely stick all the same," replied the man, with a satisfied air, as he wiped the blood from his hands upon his blouse.
Then for the first time Jean noticed that this blouse bore many old stains of the same sanguinary color. Undoubtedly it was blood. Human? Faugh!
Jean saw around him other men of the same type,red-faced and strong-limbed, mentally as well as physically saturated with the brutality of their calling. He thought of Mlle. Fouchette. It was true, then, that these human brutes from the abattoirs were here. That other type, the "camelot,"—he of the callous, cadaverous face, thinly clad body, cunning eyes, husky lungs,—was more familiar.
But these butchers of La Villette, why were they royalists? What special interest had the killers of cattle in the restoration of the monarchy? They had emphasized their devotion to the Duc d'Orléans by re-electing his parliamentary leader, the Comte de Sabran, by an overwhelming vote. From the rich and influential wholesaler to the low hind whose twelve hours a day were passed in knocking bullocks on the head or in slitting throats with precision the butchers stood three to one for the royal régime. Men may be hired for certain services, but in such a case as this there must exist some natural sentiment at bottom. This sentiment was perhaps only the common French intolerance of existing things.
Jean Marot's train of thought had not reached that far, owing to fresh differences of opinion between some of his followers and the spectators, in which it became necessary for a dozen men to kick one helpless fellow-man into insensibility.
They were now nearing the proposed place of meeting, and the hitherto scattered cries of "Vive la justice!" "Vive la liberté!" "Vive la France!" and "Vive la république!" had developed into well-defined opposition. Personal collisions, blows, objurgations, came thicker and faster.
Finally, from the "terrasse" of a fashionable café in the Boulevard Malesherbes came very decided expressions of dissent. They were followed by a general assault on the place. Not less than thirty of the usual respectable Sunday afternoon "consommateurs" occupied the chairs, and, though not more than half a dozen of these could have offended, the mob came down upon them like a living avalanche, throwing the entire Sunday party of both sexes promiscuously among the débris of tables, chairs, glasses, and drinks.
The women shrieked, the men cursed loudly, and everybody struggled in the general wreck. While the male portion were kicked and stamped where they lay, the feminine part of the café crowd fought tooth and nail to escape in any direction.
There were three dissatisfied beings, however, who objected to this summary treatment, and who, having regained a footing, courageously defended themselves with the nearest weapons at hand. These were empty beer-glasses, which, being fraudulently double thick at the bottom, were admirably designed for that particular use. But when three beer-glasses conflict with twenty loaded canes the former, however valiantly wielded, must succumb to the rule of the majority. Among the latter, too, was the particularly heavy stick of the patriot from the abattoirs of La Villette. He had received a blow from a glass that laid his cheek open and had jumped upon his assailant.
"Death!" he roared.
The man sank without a groan amid the broken glass, beer, and blood. The savage aimed a terrificblow of the boot at the upturned face, but was jostled out of his aim. Again, and with the snarl of a wild beast; but a woman had thrown herself across the prostrate figure and encircled the still form with her protecting arm. The butcher would have planted his iron-shod heel upon her, but at this critical juncture another woman—a slender, pale, weak-looking thing whose blonde hair fell loosely over her rouged cheeks—flew at him with a scream half human, half feline,—such as chills the blood in the midnight of the forest. With one hand she tore out great bunches of beard by the roots, with the other she left red furrows on his face like the paths of a garden-rake. Quick as lightning-flashes, again and again, and with each successive stroke of her claws came the low, hysterical whine of the wild beast.
It was Mlle. Fouchette.
Her catlike jaws were distended and quivering,—the white teeth glistened,—the eyes of steel seemed to emit sparks of fire,—the small, lithe body swayed and undulated like that of an angry puma.
"Yes!—so!—death!—yes!—death!—you!—beast!—you devil!"
With each energetic word went a wild sweep of the claws or came a wisp of beard.
The man bellowed with pain. The unexpected fury of her onslaught, the general mêlée of close quarters, the instinct of protection, contributed to prevent the man from simply braining her with his "casse-tête." He was a lion against a hornet, powerless to punish his puny assailant. As he finally broke away, shesuddenly whirled and delivered beneath the arm that shielded his eyes a kick that half choked him with his own teeth.
Blinded with blood and howling with pain, the wretch plunged headlong through the café front amid a crash of falling glass.
In the mean time, while this little curtain-raiser had been getting under way, there was still another and more important drama in active preparation.
The police, as if to lend such material aid to the royalist cause as lay in their power, and to assist in the punishment of those misguided Frenchmen who took the words "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité," inscribed over the doors of the public hall, in a too literal sense, had violently closed those doors against the latter and by cunningly arranged barriers driven the unsuspecting Dreyfusardes down upon their armed enemies. It was a most admirably arranged plot to destroy the public peace, and reflected credit upon the clerico-royalist-military council that had planned it.
Before the indignant republicans had begun to realize the character of the trap set for them they found themselves hemmed in on three sides by the police and attacked by the combination of hostile forces on the other side.
The latter had been quietly assembled in the vicinity in anticipation of this dénouement. They were led by Senators and Deputies wearing the official scarf of their high legislative function. This at once afforded the latter reasonable immunity from arrest, and served to encourage and assure those accustomed to look forsome shadow of authority to conceal or excuse the evil of their deeds.
The French Senator or Deputy who leads street rioters against a peaceable assemblage of his fellow-citizens one day and serenely sits in national legislative deliberation the next day is the faithful representative of a constituency as far removed from the American type of citizenship as the French legislator is from our national legislator.
With shouts of "Vive l'armée!" "À bas les vendus!" "Vive France aux Français!" "À bas les Juifs!" the waiting combination, or "nationalistes," fell upon their victims with fist, heel, and club. This was not as a body, the assailants being cleverly scattered everywhere through the crowd, and assaulting individually and supporting each other where resistance was encountered. As many were mere spectators, they were compelled to declare themselves or come in for a share of the drubbing, though this opportunity for escape was not always offered or accepted.
The pure love of fighting is strong in the French as in the Irish breast, and once roused the Frenchman is not too particular whose head comes beneath his bâton.
It naturally happened, therefore, that on this occasion the innocent curious of all opinions received impartial treatment, often without knowing to which side they were indebted for their thumping. Every man thus assaulted at once became a rioter and began the work on his own particular account. Within a brief period not less than a hundred personal combatswere going on at the same moment. As far as the eye could reach the broad boulevard was a surging sea of scuffling humanity, above which rose a cloud of dust and a continuous roar of angry voices. To the distant ear this was as one voice,—that of terrible imprecation.
Having thus ingeniously united the conflicting currents in one tempest, the police precipitated themselves on the whole.
Had any additional element been required to bring things to the highest stage of combativeness this would have answered quite well. As interference in family affairs almost invariably brings the wrath of both parties down on the peacemaker, so now the police began to receive their share of the public attention.
The Parisian population have not that docile disposition and submissive respect for authority characteristic of our Americans. The absence of the night-stick and ready revolver must be supplied by overwhelming physical force. Even escaping criminals cannot be shot down in France with impunity.
Though deprived of both clubs and sabres and not trusted with revolvers, these police agents make good use of hands and feet. Not being bound by the rules of the ring, their favorite blow is the blow below the belt. It is viciously administered by both foot and knee. Next to that is the kick on the shins, which, delivered by a heavy, iron-shod cowhide boot, is pretty apt to render the recipient hors de combat. Supplemented by a quick fist and directed by a quicker temper, the French police agent is no mean antagonist in a general row. In brutality and impulsive crueltyhe is but the flesh and blood of those with whom he has mostly to deal.
The battle now raged with increasing violence, the combatants being slowly driven down upon the approaching manifestants from the Quartier Latin, Montmartre, and La Villette. It had become everybody's fight, the original Dreyfusardes having been largely eliminated by nationaliste clubs and police arrests. The ambulances and cellular vans, playfully termed "salad-baskets," thoughtfully stationed in the side streets, were being rapidly filled, and as fast as filled were driven to hospital and prison respectively.
The reverberating roar of human voices beat against the tall buildings, rising and falling in frightful diapason, as if it were the echo from a thousand savage creatures of the jungle clashing their fangs in deadly combat.
Jean Marot and his immediate followers had scarcely turned from the scene at the café before they were swallowed up in the vortex that now met them. Indeed, Jean had not witnessed either the horrible brutality of the butcher or his punishment. The cries of "Les agents! à bas les agents!" had suddenly carried him elsewhere on the field of battle. He found himself, fired by the fever of conflict, in the middle of the broad street so closely surrounded by friends and foes that sticks were encumbrances. A short arm blow only was now and then effective. A dozen police agents were underfoot somewhere, being pitilessly stamped and trampled by the frantic mob. The platoon that had charged was wiped out as a platoon. Those who were hemmed in fought like demons. Menthrottled each other and swayed back and forth and yelled imprecations and fell in struggling masses and got upon their feet again and twisted and squirmed and panted, like so many monsters, half serpent and half beast, seeking to bury their fangs in some vital part or tear each other limb from limb.
Suddenly Jean saw rise before him a face that drove everything else from his mind. It was that of one who saw him at the same instant. And when these bloodshot eyes of passion met a fierce yell of wrath burst from the two men.
It was Henri Lerouge.
He was hatless and his clothes were in shreds and covered with the grime of the street. His hair was matted with coagulated blood,—his lips were swollen hideously. A police agent in about the same condition held him by the throat.
When Henri Lerouge saw Jean Marot he seemed imbued with the strength of a giant and the agility of a cat. He shook off the grip of the agent as if it were that of a child and at a bound cleared the struggling group that separated him from his former friend.
They grappled without a word and without a blow, and, linked in the embrace of mortal hatred, rolled together in the dust.
The cruel human waves broke over them and rolled on and receded, and went and came again, and eddied and seethed and roared above them.
These two rose no more.
When the police, supported by the Garde de Paris, had finally swept the boulevard clear of the mob, they found among the human débris two men locked in each other's grasp, insensible. The imprint on two throats showed with what desperate ferocity they had clung to each other. Indeed, their hands were scarcely yet relaxed from exhaustion. Their faces were black and their tongues protruded.
In the nearest pharmacy, where ambulances were being awaited by a dozen others, Jean Marot quickly revived under treatment. The case of Henri Lerouge, however, was more serious. He had received a severe cut in the head early in the row and the young surgeon in charge feared internal injuries. Artificial means were required to induce respiration. This was restored slowly and laboriously. At the first sign of life he murmured,—
"Andrée! Sister! Ah! my poor little sister!"
Jean roused himself. The sounds of voices and wheels came to him indistinctly. Everything merged in these words,—
"Andrée! Sister!"
Then again all was blank.
When he revived he was first of all conscious of a gentle feminine touch,—that subtle something which cools the fevered veins and softens the pangs of suffering, mind and body.
He felt it rather as if it were a dream, and kept his eyes closed for fear the dream would vanish. Thehand softly bathed his head, which consciously lay in a woman's lap. He remembered but one hand—his mother's—that had soothed him thus, and the sweet souvenir provoked a deep sigh.
"Ah! mon Dieu!" murmured the voice of Mlle. Fouchette.
"L'hôpital ou dépôt?" inquired the nearest agent.
"Dépôt," said the sous-brigadier.
"Oh! no! no!" exclaimed the girl, indignantly. "See, messieurs; he is wounded and weak, and——"
"One moment!"
A young surgeon knelt and applied his ear to the heaving breast, while the police agents whispered among each other.
Mlle. Fouchette caught the words, "It is La Savatière," and smiled faintly, but was at once recalled to the situation by a pair of open eyes through which Jean Marot regarded her intently.
"So! It—it is only Mademoiselle Fouchette. I——"
He saw the cloud that rose upon her face and heard the gentle humility of her reply,—
"Yes, monsieur, it is only Fouchette. How do you find yourself, Monsieur Jean?"
She put a flask of brandy to his lips and saw him swallow a mouthful mechanically. Suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture and looked anxiously about.
"Where is he?"
"Who? Where is who, monsieur?"
"Lerouge. Why, he was here but now. Where is he?"
"Lerouge! That wretch!" cried the girl, with passion. "I could strangle him!"
"Oh! no, no, no!" he interposed. "It is a mistake. His sister, Fouchette——"
His glance was more than she could bear. She would have drawn him back to her as a mother protects a sick child, only a rough hand interposed.
"See! he raves, messieurs."
"Let him rave some more," said the sous-brigadier. "This is our affair. So it was Monsieur Lerouge, was it? Very good! Henri Lerouge, medical student, Quartier Latin, anarchist, turbulent fellow, rascal,—well cracked this time!"
Jean looked from the girl to the man and laid himself back in her arms without a word.
"Make a note," continued the police official,—"bad characters, both. This man goes to dépôt!"
"For shame!" cried Mlle. Fouchette.
"And hear this!" added the sous-brigadier in an angry voice,—"if this grisette of Rue St. Jacques gives you any of her guff run her in!"
"But—no, monsieur, that you will not! My business is here,—my authority above your authority,—and here I will remain!"
"Show it!" demanded the official.
She regarded him wrathfully.
"Very well, mademoiselle," said he, choking back his anger. "I know my duty and will not be interfered with by——"
"Gare à vous!" she interrupted, threateningly.
"Don't!" whispered Jean. "It is nothing. But tell me quickly,—has Lerouge gone to prison?"
"Hôtel Dieu," she replied.
"Good! Go to his place, 7 Rue Dareau, you know,—tell her,—Mademoiselle Remy,—his sister, Fouchette——"
She bent lower over his head, hiding her face from his sight.
"Ah! what a fool I have been, Fouchette! Tell her gently—that he is injured—slightly, mind—and where he is. That's a good girl, Fouchette,—good girl that you are!"
He could not see her face for the hair that fell over the bowed head,—the living picture of the repentant Magdalen. But he felt her warm breath upon his cheek, and, was it a tear that splashed hotly on his neck?
But she merely pressed his hand for a reply and, disengaging her dress, darted from the place.
Threading her way rapidly among the arriving and departing vans and ambulances, the scattered remnants of the mob and the swarms of shifting police agents, Mlle. Fouchette finally reached a street open to traffic.
It was only at rare intervals that she indulged herself in a cab. This was one of the times. Hailing the first-comer, she jumped in and called out to the fat cabby, "Place Monge."
He drove thoughtfully as far as the next corner and then inquired over his shoulder where Place Monge was. She stood up behind him and fairly screamed in his ear,—
"Square Monge, espèce de melon! Quartier Latin!"
The bony horse started up at the sound of her voice as from the lash. Evidently, Mlle. Fouchette was notin good temper. She had no relish for the work of good-will cut out for her. She was disgusted at the weakness of man. If she had been driver at that moment she would have run down a few of them en route. Still, her cocher did his best.
At Place du Parvis Notre Dame she called out to him to stop. Getting out, she bade him wait near by, and started down along the quai in front of the Préfecture de Police. The man seemed suspicious and kept a sharp eye on his fare. Just as he was about to follow the girl he saw her start back, as if she had changed her mind.
She began to walk very rapidly towards him, looking neither to the right nor to the left. A man in a soft hat who had just left the Préfecture crossed the street in the opposite direction and, curiously enough, though there was an empty desert of space in the vicinity, the two jostled each other almost rudely and exchanged angry words.
After which the girl retook her place in the fiacre and said "Allons!" in a subdued tone that strongly contrasted with her former acerbity.
"Sure!" said the cabby to himself,—"she's drunk." And he looked forward to the near future rather gloomily.
His suspicion seemed more than justified when she again said Place Monge instead of Square Monge, the former being nearly half a mile farther. He almost collapsed when she finally got down and not only handed him the legal fare without dispute but double the usual pourboire.
"Toujours de même ces femmes-là!" he growled,philosophically. Which meant that women were pretty much alike,—you never could tell what one of them would do.
Mlle. Fouchette, quite indifferent at any time to the private judgment of the cab-driving world, now silently and swiftly pursued the uneven tenor of her thoughts, not yet manifest. She hurried along the sombre walls of the giant caserne de la garde on the Rue Ortolan, plunged across the crowded Rue Mouffetard, and entered the picturesque little wine-shop on the corner.
It was a low, grim, two-story affair in time-worn stone, the door and windows heavily grilled in the elaborate and artistic wrought-iron work of the middle ages. A heavy oaken door supplemented the big barred gate and added to the ancient prison-like appearance of the place. Against the grilles of the Rue Mouffetard hung specimens of the filthy illustrated Paris papers, either the pictures or text of which would debar them from any respectable English-speaking community. Over the door opening into the Rue du Pot de Fer and below a lamp of that exquisite iron-work which is now one of the lost arts was displayed a small bush, intimating that, in spite of the strong improbability, good wine was to be had inside.
While a casual glance showed that the rooms above could not be high enough of ceiling for an ordinary individual to stand upright, the flowers in the little square recessed and grilled windows showed that this upper portion was inhabited. It was connected with the wine-shop below by a narrow and very much worn stone staircase, which ascended "à tire-bouchon," or corkscrew fashion, like the steep steps of a light-house.
As to the general reputation of the neighborhood, Mlle. Fouchette knew it to be "assez mauvaise,"—tolerably bad,—though it was not this knowledge that induced her to complete her journey on foot.
Her entrance caused a subdued but perceptible flutter among the occupants of the resort. These were, at the moment, four respectable-looking men in blouses, an old gentleman in the last stage of genteel rustiness, and a couple of camelots in the second stage of drunkenness,—that of undying friendship. The four, who appeared to be worthy tradesmen of the neighborhood, occupied a far table in the small and time-begrimed room, where they played at cards for small stakes; the rusty old gentleman sat alone with a half-emptied beer-glass and an evening newspaper before him; the street-hawkers were standing at the zinc, which in Paris represents our American bar, discussing the events of the day in the hoarse-lunged, insolent tone of their class.
Presiding over the establishment was—yes, it was Madame Podvin. Somewhat stouter, redder of face, more piggy of eye, with more decided whiskers, but still Madame Podvin.
She busied herself behind the zinc washing glasses, occasionally glancing at the men in the corner, smiling upon the inebriated camelots, and now and then casting a suspicious eye upon the quiet old gentleman behind his beer.
Madame Podvin had retired from the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers upon the retirement of Monsieur Podvin from public life by the State, and had found this congenial city resort vacant by reason of death,—theproprietor having been stabbed by one of his friendly customers over the question of pay for a drink of four sous.
Upon the entrance of Mlle. Fouchette Madame Podvin tapped the zinc sharply with the glass as if to knock something out of it, then greeted the new-comer effusively.
The four men hastily gathered up their stakes and began talking about the weather; the subdued camelots sipped their absinthe in silence; the old gentleman fell to reading his paper with renewed interest.
"Bonjour, madame," said Mlle. Fouchette, smilingly ignoring the private signal, though inwardly vexed.
"Mademoiselle Fouchette! Ah! how charming of you!" exclaimed Madame Podvin, hastily wiping her hands and coming around the open end of the bar to embrace her visitor.
Beneath the most elaborate politeness the Parisian conceals the bitterest hatred. French politeness is mostly superficial at best,—it often scarcely hides a cynicism that stings without words, a satire that bites to the verge of insult. The more Frenchwomen dislike each other the more formal and overpowering their compliments—if they do not come to blows.
"Thank you very much, madame," Mlle. Fouchette replied, as Madame Podvin kissed her cheeks. "Ah! you are always so gay and delightful, madame!"
"And how lovely you have grown to be!" exclaimed the Podvin, with a good show of enthusiasm, holding the girl off at arm's length for inspection. "It seems impossible that you should have come out of a rag-heap! And your sweet disposition——"
Madame Podvin elevated her hands in sheer despair of being able to describe it.
"It must go well with you, madame, you are always so amiable and cheerful," retorted Mlle. Fouchette.
"But you are more lovely every day you grow older," said Madame Podvin.
"Ah! Madame does not grow older!"
"Fouchette, chérie, I'm sure you must belong to a good family, you are so naturally winning and well-bred. The clothes you had on when I found you——"
"Madame?"
"I gave them away—for twenty—yes, it was twenty francs—they were not worth as many sous—to a gentleman——"
Madame Podvin stopped at the sight of Mlle. Fouchette's face; but, uncertain whether the subject pained, interested, or irritated the latter, she continued,——
"It was shortly after you left. He was very curious,—one of these government spies, you know, Fouchette——"
"Madame, I would see Mademoiselle Madeleine," interrupted the other.
Madame Podvin frowned.
"Not sick, I hope," added Fouchette.
"Oh! no; only——"
"Drinking?"
"Like a fish!"
"Poor Madeleine!"
"She's a beast!" cried Madame Podvin.
Madame Podvin sold vile liquor but despised the fools who drank it, and in this she was not singular.
"Is she——" Mlle. Fouchette raised her eyes heavenward inquiringly.
"No,—she's in the street. Ever since she got out of the hospital she has been going from bad to worse every day. And she owes me two weeks' lodging. If she doesn't pay up soon I'll——"
Whatever the Podvin intended to do with Madeleine she left it unsaid, for the latter stood in the doorway.
Great, indeed, was the change which had come over this unfortunate girl. Stout to repulsiveness, shabby of attire, fiery of face, unsteady of pose, with one bright beautiful eye burning with the supernatural fire of absinthe, the other sealed in internal darkness.
"Oh! Madeleine——" began Mlle. Fouchette, painfully impressed and hesitating.
"What! No! Fouchette? Mon ange!"
The drunken woman staggered forward to embrace her friend.
"Why, Madeleine——"
"Hold! And first tell me your bad news. You know you always bring me bad news, deary. You hunt me up when you have bad news. Come, now!"
"Là, là, là, là!" trilled Mlle. Fouchette, passing her arm around the other's thick waist to gain time.
"Come! mon ange,—we'll have a drink anyhow. Mère! some absinthe,—we have thirst."
"No, no; not now, Madeleine."
"Not a drop here!" said Madame Podvin, seeing that Mlle. Fouchette was not disposed to pay.
"Not now," interposed the latter,—"a little later. I want a word or two with you, Madeleine, first. Just two minutes!"
The one brilliant orb regarded the girl intently, as if it would dive into her soul; but the habitual good-nature yielded.
"Very well. Come then, chérie,—à l'impériale!"
And, indeed, the narrow, spiral stair more closely resembled that which leads to the impériale of the Paris omnibus than anything found in the modern house.
The space above was divided in four, the first part being the small antechamber, dimly lighted from the roof, which they now entered. Through a door to the right they were in a room one-third of which was already occupied by an iron camp-bed. The rest of the furniture consisted of a little iron washstand, a chair, and some sort of a box covered with very much soiled chintz that was once pretty. Above this latter article of furniture was a small shelf, on which were coquettishly arranged a folding mirror and other cheap articles of toilet. A few fans of the cheap Japanesque variety were pinned here and there in painful regularity. A cheap holiday skirt and other feminine belongings hung on the wall over the cot. In the small, square, recessed window opening on Rue Mouffetard were pots of flowering plants that gave an air of refinement and comfort to a place otherwise cheerless and miserable.
And over all of this poverty and wretchedness hung a blackened ceiling so low that the feather of Mlle. Fouchette swept it,—so low and dark and heavy and lugubrious that it seemed to threaten momentarily to crush out what little human life and happiness remained there.
Madeleine silently motioned her visitor to the chairand threw herself on the creaking bed. She waited, suspiciously.
"The riots, you know, Madeleine," began Mlle. Fouchette.
"Dame! There is always rioting. One hears, but one doesn't mind."
"Unless one has friends, Madeleine——"
The maimed and half-drunken woman tried to straighten up.
"Well? Out with it, Fouchette. If one has friends in the row——"
"Why, then we feel an interest in our friends, n'est-ce pas?"
"It is about Lerouge!"
"Yes, Madeleine, I want——"
"Is he hurt?"
"Yes,—badly,—and is at the Hôtel Dieu. I want his address. He has moved from 7 Rue Dareau since the police—since——"
"You want his address for the police," said the girl.
"Oh! no! no! not for that, dear!"
"Not for that; then what for? Tell me why you want it."
This was exactly what Mlle. Fouchette evidently did not desire to do. Madeleine saw it, and added firmly,—
"Tell me first, then—well, then I'll see."
"I will, then," rejoined the other, savagely.
"Speak!"
"I wish to notify his sister."
Madeleine looked at the speaker fixedly, as if still waiting for her to begin; stupidly, for her poor muddled brain refused to comprehend.
Mlle. Fouchette continued,—
"I say I wish to go to his place," she said, with great deliberation, "and notify his sister that her brother is injured and is lying at Hôtel Dieu. I promised. It is important. Believing you knew the address I have come to you. You will help me, for his sister's sake,—for his sake, Madeleine? You know his sister lives with him——"
"You—you said his sister——"
But the voice choked. The words came huskily, like a death-rattle in her throat.
"Yes, sister," began again Mlle. Fouchette. But she was almost afraid now. The aspect of her listener's face was enough to touch even a harder heart than possessed this not too tender bearer of ill news.
However, Madeleine would have heard nothing more. She gazed vacantly at the opposite wall, a knee between her hands, and swaying slightly to and fro. Her face, bloated with drink, had become almost pale, and was the picture of long-settled grief. It was as if she were in fresh mourning for the long ago.
Presently a solitary tear from the unseen and unseeing eye stole out of its dark retreat and rolled slowly and reluctantly down upon the cheek and stopped and dried there.
Mlle. Fouchette saw it as the weather observer sees the moisture on the glass and speculated on the character of the coming storm.
She was disappointed. For instead of an explosion Madeleine suddenly rose and began fumbling among the garments on the wall without a word. She selected the best from her humble wardrobe and laid the piecesout one by one on the bed, then began rapidly to divest herself of what she wore.
When interrogated by the wondering Fouchette she never replied. Indeed, she no longer appeared to notice that her visitor was there. She bathed her face, and washed her hands, and scrubbed her white teeth, and carefully rearranged her hair. All of this with a calmness and precision of a perfectly sober woman,—as she now undoubtedly was. She then resumed her hat.
"How!" exclaimed Mlle. Fouchette, noting this quiet preparation with growing astonishment,—"not going out?"
"Yes," replied the girl.
"But, dear, you have not yet given me the address."
"It is unnecessary."
"But, Madeleine!"
"It is unnecessary, Fouchette. I will go and see his—his sister and lead her to him."
"But, deary!"
"And I will go alone," she added, looking at the other for the first time.
Unmindful of the wheedling voice of remonstrance, without another word, and leaving her door wide open and Mlle. Fouchette to follow or not at her pleasure, the miserable girl gained the street and swiftly sped away through the falling shadows of the night.