MISERY.
The reader has probably not forgotten that the garret in the Rue du
Temple was occupied by an unfortunate family, the father of whom was a
working lapidary, named Morel. We shall now endeavour to describe the
wretched abode of Morel and his children.
It was six o'clock in the morning; a deep silence dwelt around. The
streets were still deserted, for the snow fell fast, and the cold,
biting wind froze as it blew. A miserable candle, stuck upon a small
block of wood, and supported by two slips of the same material, scarcely
penetrated with its yellow, flickering light the misty darkness of the
garret,--a narrow, low-built place, two-thirds of which was formed by
the sloping roof, which communicated by a sharp angle with the wretched
flooring, and freely exposed the moss-covered tiles of the outer roof.
Walls covered with plaster, blackened by time, and split into countless
crevices, displayed the rotten, worm-eaten laths, which formed the frail
division from other chambers, while in one corner of this deplorable
habitation a door off the hinges opened upon a narrow staircase. The
ground, of a nameless colour, but foul, fetid, and slippery, was partly
strewed with bits of dirty straw, old rags, and bones, the residue of
that unwholesome and vitiated food sold by the dealers in condemned
meat, and frequently bought by starving wretches, for the purpose of
gnawing the few cartilages that may adhere.[4]
[4] It is no uncommon thing to meet, in densely crowded parts
of Paris, with persons who openly sell the flesh of animals born
dead, as well as of others who have died of disease, etc.
So wretched a condition either arises from improvidence and vice, or
from unavoidable misery,--misery so great, so overwhelming and
paralysing, as to enfeeble every energy, and to render the unhappy
object of it too hopeless, too despairing, even to attempt to extricate
himself from the squalor of his utter destitution, and he crouches in
his dirt and desolation like an animal in its den.
During the day, Morel's garret was lighted by a species of long, narrow
skylight formed in the descending roof, framed and glazed, and made to
open and shut by means of a pulley and string; but, at the hour which we
are describing, a heavy fall of snow encumbered the window, and
effectually prevented its affording any light. The candle placed on
Morel's working-table, which stood in the centre of the chamber,
diffused a kind of halo of pale, sickly beams, which, gradually
diminishing, was at last lost in the dim shadow which overspread the
place, in whose murky duskiness might be seen the faint outline of
several white-looking masses. On the work-table, which was merely a
heavy and roughly cut wooden block of unpolished oak, covered with
grease and soot, lay, loosely scattered about, a handful of rubies and
diamonds, of more than ordinary size and brilliancy, while, as the mean
rays of the small candle were reflected on them, they glittered and
sparkled like so many coruscating fires.
Morel was a worker of real stones, and not false ones, as he had given
out, and as was universally believed, in the Rue du Temple. Thanks to
this innocent deception, the costly jewels entrusted to him were merely
supposed to be so many pieces of glass, too valueless to tempt the
cupidity of any one. Such riches, confided to the care of one as poor
and miserably destitute as Morel, will render any reference to the
honesty of his character quite unnecessary.
Seated on a high stool, and wholly overcome by fatigue, cold, and
weariness, after a long winter's night, passed in unceasing labour, the
poor lapidary had fallen asleep on his block, with his head upon his
half-frozen arms, and his forehead resting against a small grindstone,
placed horizontally on the table, and generally put in motion by a
little hand-wheel, while a fine steel saw, and various other tools
belonging to his trade, were lying beside him. The man himself, of whom
nothing but the skull, surrounded by a fringe of gray hairs, was
visible, was dressed in a shabby fustian jacket, without any species of
linen or garment beneath it, and an old pair of cloth trousers, while
his worn-out slippers scarcely concealed the blue, cold feet they
partially covered, from resting solely on the damp, shiny floor; and so
bitter, so freezing, was the sharp winter wind which freely entered into
this scarcely human dwelling, that, spite of the weariness and
exhaustion of the overworked artisan, his frame shuddered and shivered
with involuntary frequency. The length of the wick of the unsnuffed
candle bespoke the length of time even this uneasy slumber must have
lasted, and no sound save his troubled and irregular breathing broke the
deathlike silence that prevailed; for, alas! the other occupants of this
mean abode were not so fortunate as to be able to forget their
sufferings in sleep. Yet this narrow, pent-up, unwholesome spot
contained no less than seven other persons,--five children, the youngest
of whom was four years of age, the eldest twelve, a sick and declining
wife, with an aged grandmother, the parent of Morel's wife, now in her
eightieth year, and an idiot!
The cold must have been intense, indeed, when the natural warmth of so
many persons, so closely packed together in so small a place, could not
in any way affect the freezing atmosphere; it was evident, therefore,
to speak scientifically, that but little caloric was given out by the
poor, weak, emaciated, shivering creatures, all suffering and almost
expiring with cold and hunger, from the puny infant to the idiotic old
grandmother.
With the exception of the father of the family, who had temporarily
yielded to the aching of his heavy eyelids, no other creature slept,--no
other; because cold, starvation, and sickness will not allow so sweet an
enjoyment as the closing the eyes in peaceful rest. Little does the
world believe how rarely comes that sound, healthful, and refreshing
slumber to the poor man's pillow, which at once invigorates the mind and
body, and sends the willing labourer back to his toil refreshed and
recruited by the blessing of a beneficent Creator. To taste of nature's
sweet, refreshing, balmy sleep, sickness, sorrow, poverty, and mental
disquietude must not share the humble pallet.
In contrasting the deep misery of the poor artisan, with whose woes we
are now occupying the reader, with the immense value of the jewelry
confided to him, we are struck by one of those comparisons which afflict
while they elevate the mind. With the distracting spectacle of his
family's want and wretchedness, embracing a wide field from cold and
hunger to drivelling idiocy, constantly before his eyes, this man, in
the pursuance of his daily labour, is compelled to touch and handle and
gaze upon bright and sparkling gems, the smallest of which would be a
mine of wealth to him, and save those dearest to him from sufferings and
privations which wring his very heart; would snatch them from the slow
and lingering death which is consuming them before his eyes. Yet, amid
all these trials and temptations, the artisan remains firmly, truly, and
unflinchingly honest, and would no more appropriate one of the
glittering stones entrusted to him than he would satisfy his hunger at
the expense of his starving babes. Doubtless the man but performed his
duty to his employer,--his simple duty; but because it is enjoined to
all to be honest and faithful in that which is committed to them, does
that render the action itself less noble, magnanimous, or praiseworthy?
Is not this unfortunate artisan, so courageously, so bravely upright and
honest while entrusted with the property of another, the type and model
of an immense class of working people, who, doomed to a life of
continual poverty and privation, see, with calm, patient looks,
thousands of their brethren rolling in splendour and abounding in
riches, yet they toil on, resigned and unenvying, but still
industriously striving for bread their hardest efforts cannot always
procure? And is there not something consolatory, as well as gratifying
to our feelings, to consider that it is neither force nor terror, but
good natural sense and a right mind which alone restrain this formidable
ocean, this heaving mass, whose bounds once broken, a moral inundation
would ensue, in which society itself would be swallowed up? Shall we,
then, refuse to cooperate with all the powers of our mind and body with
those generous and enlightened spirits, who ask but a little sunshine
for so much misfortune, courage, and resignation?
* * * * *
Let us now return to the, alas! too true specimen of distressing want we
shall endeavour to describe in all its fearful and startling reality.
The lapidary possessed only a thin mattress and a portion of a blanket
appropriated to the old grandmother, who, in her stupid and ferocious
selfishness, would not allow any person to share them with her. In the
beginning of the winter she had become quite violent, and had even
attempted to strangle the youngest child, who had been put to sleep with
her. This poor infant was a sickly little creature, of about four years
old, now far gone in consumption, and who found it too cold inside the
mattress, where she slept with her brothers and sisters. Hereafter we
shall explain this mode of sleeping so frequently employed by the very
poor, in comparison with whom the very animals are treated luxuriously,
for their litter is changed. Such was the picture presented in the
humble garret of the poor lapidary, when the eye was enabled to pierce
the gloomy penumbra caused by the flickering rays of the candle. By the
side of the partition wall, not less damp and cracked than the others,
was placed on the floor the mattress on which the idiot grandmother
reposed; as she could not bear anything on her head, her white hair was
cut very short, and revealed the shape of her head and flat forehead;
while her shaggy, gray eyebrows shaded the deep orbits, from which
glared a wild, savage, yet crafty look; her pale, hollow, wrinkled
cheeks hung upon the bones of the face and the sharp angles of her jaws.
Lying upon her side, and almost doubled up, her chin nearly touching her
knees, she lay, shivering with cold, beneath the gray rug, too small to
cover her all over, and which, as she drew it over her shoulders,
exposed her thin, emaciated legs, as well as the wretched old petticoat
in which she was clad. An odour most fetid and repulsive issued from
this bed.
At a little distance from the mattress of the grandmother, and still
extending along the side of the wall, was placed the _paillasse_ which
served as a sleeping-place for the five children, who were accommodated
after the following manner:
An opening was made at each side of the cloth which covered the straw,
and the children were inserted into this bed, or, rather, foul and
noisome dunghill, the outer case serving both for sheet and counterpane.
Two little girls, one of whom was extremely ill, shivered on one side,
and three young boys on the other, all going to bed without undressing,
if, indeed, the miserable rags they wore could be termed clothes. Masses
of thick, dry, light hair, tangled, ragged, and uncombed, left uncut
because their poor mother fancied it helped to keep them warm, half
covered their pale, thin, pinched features. One of the boys drew, with
his cold, benumbed fingers, the covering over their straw bed up to his
chin, in order to defend himself from the cold; while another, fearful
of exposing his hands to the influence of the frost, tried to grasp the
bed-covering with his teeth, which rattled and shook in his head; while
a third strove to huddle up to his brothers in the hopes of gaining a
little warmth. The youngest of the two girls, fatally attacked by
consumption, leaned her poor little face, which already bore the hue of
death, languidly against the chilly bosom of her sister, a girl just one
year older, who vainly sought, by pressing her in her arms, to impart
comfort and ease to the little sufferer, over whom she watched with the
anxious solicitude of a parent.
On another _paillasse_, also placed on the ground, at the foot of that
of the children, the wife of the artisan was extended, groaning in
helpless exhaustion from the effects of a slow fever and an internal
complaint, which had not permitted her to quit her bed for several
months. Madeleine Morel was in her thirty-sixth year; a blue cotton
handkerchief, tied round her low forehead, made the bilious pallor of
her countenance and sharp, emaciated features still more conspicuous. A
dark halo encircled her hollow, sunken eyes, while her lips were split
and bleeding from the effects of the fever which consumed her; her
dejected, grief-worn physiognomy, and small, insignificant features,
indicated one of those gentle but weak natures, without resource or
energy, which unable to struggle with misfortunes, yield at once, and
know no remedy but vain and ceaseless lamentations and regrets. Weak,
spiritless, and of limited capacity, she had remained honest because her
husband was so; had she been left to herself, it is probable that
ignorance and misfortune might have depraved her mind and driven her to
any lengths. She loved her husband and her children, but she had neither
the courage nor resolution to restrain giving vent to loud and open
complaints respecting their mutual misery; and frequently was the
lapidary, whose unflinching labour alone maintained the family, obliged
to quit his work to console and pacify the poor valetudinarian. Over and
above an old ragged sheet of coarse brown cloth, which partially covered
his wife, Morel had, in order to impart a little warmth, laid a few old
clothes, so worn out, and patched and pieced, that the pawnbroker had
refused to have anything to do with them.
A stove, a saucepan, a damaged earthen stewpan, two or three cracked
cups, scattered about on the floor, a bucket, a board to wash on, and a
large stone pitcher, placed beneath the angle of the roof near the
broken door, which the wind kept continually blowing to and fro,
completed the whole of the family possessions.
This picture of squalid misery and desolation was lighted up by the
candle, whose flame, agitated by the cold northeasterly wind which found
its way through the tiles on the roof, sometimes imparted a pale,
unearthly light on the wretched scene, and then, playing on the heaps of
diamonds and rubies lying beside the sleeping artisan, caused a thousand
scintillating sparks to spring forth and dazzle the eye with their
prismatic rays of brightness.
Although the profoundest silence reigned around, seven out of the eight
unfortunate dwellers in this attic were awake; and each, from the
grandmother to the youngest child, watched the sleeping lapidary with
intense emotion, as their only hope, their only resource, and, in their
childlike selfishness, they murmured at seeing him thus inactive and
relinquishing that labour which they well knew was all they had to
depend on; but with different feelings of regret and uneasiness did the
lookers-on observe the slumber of the toil-worn man. The mother trembled
for her children's meal; the children thought but of themselves; while
the idiot neither thought of nor cared for any one. All at once she sat
upright in her wretched bed, crossed her long, bony arms, yellow and
dry as box-wood, on her shrivelled bosom, and kept watching the candle
with twinkling eyes; then, rising slowly and stealthily, she crept
along, trailing after her her old ragged coverlet, which clung around
her as though it had been her winding-sheet. She was above the middle
height, and her hair being so closely shaven made her head appear
disproportionately small; a sort of spasmodic movement kept up a
constant trembling in her thick, pendulous under-lip, while her whole
countenance offered the hideous model of ferocious stupidity. Slowly and
cautiously the idiot approached the lapidary's work-table, like a child
about to commit some forbidden act. When she reached the candle, she
held her two trembling hands over the flame; and such was their
skeleton-like condition, that the flickering light shone through them,
imparting a pale, livid hue to her features. From her pallet Madeleine
Morel watched every movement of the old woman, who, still warming
herself over the candle, stooped her head, and with a silly kind of
delight watched the sparkling of the diamonds and rubies, which lay
glittering on the table. Wholly absorbed in the wondrous contemplation
of such bright and beautiful things, the idiot allowed her hands to fall
into the flame of the candle, nor did she seem to recollect where they
were till the sense of burning recalled her attention, when she
manifested her pain and anger by a harsh, screaming cry.
At this sound Morel started, and quickly raised his head. He was about
forty years of age, with an open, intelligent, and mild expression of
countenance, but yet wearing the sad, dejected look of one who had been
the sport of misery and misfortune till they had planted furrows in his
cheeks and crushed and broken his spirit. A gray beard of many weeks'
growth covered the lower part of his face, which was deeply marked by
the smallpox; premature wrinkles furrowed his already bald forehead;
while his red and inflamed eyelids showed the overtaxed and sleepless
days and nights of toil he so courageously endured. A circumstance, but
too common with such of the working class as are doomed by their
occupation to remain nearly all day in one position, had warped his
figure, and, acting upon a naturally feeble constitution, had produced a
contraction of his whole frame. Continually obliged to stoop over his
work-table and to lean to the left, in order to keep his grindstone
going, the lapidary, in a manner petrified, ossified in the attitude he
was frequently obliged to preserve from twelve to fifteen hours a day,
had acquired an habitual stoop of the shoulders, and was completely
drawn on one side. So his left arm, incessantly exercised by the
difficult management of the grindstone, had acquired a considerable
muscular development; whilst the right arm, always inert and leaning on
the table, the better to present the faces of the diamonds to the action
of the grindstone, had wasted to the most extreme attenuation; his
wasted limbs, almost paralysed by complete want of exercise, could
scarcely support the weary, worn-out body, as though all strength,
substance, and vitality had concentrated themselves in the only part
called into play when toiling for the subsistence of, with himself,
eight human creatures.
And often would poor Morel touchingly observe: "It is not for myself
that I care to eat, but to give strength to the arm which turns the
mill."
Awaking with a sudden start, the lapidary found himself directly
opposite to the poor idiot.
"What ails you? what is the matter, mother?" said Morel; and then added,
in a lower tone, for fear of awaking the family, whom he hoped and
believed were asleep, "Go back to bed, mother; Madeleine and the
children are asleep!"
"No, father," cried the eldest of the little girls, "I am awake; I am
trying to warm poor little Adèle."
"And I am too hungry to go to sleep," added one of the boys; "it was not
my turn to-night to have supper with Mlle. Rigolette."
"Poor things!" said Morel, sorrowfully; "I thought you were asleep--at
least--"
"I was afraid of awaking you, Morel," said the wife, "or I should have
begged of you to give me a drink of water; I am devoured with thirst! My
feverish fit has come on again!"
"I will directly," said the lapidary; "only let me first get mother back
to bed. Come! come! what are you meddling with those stones for? Let
them alone, I say!" cried he to the old woman, whose whole attention
seemed riveted upon a splendid ruby, the bright scintillations of which
had so charmed the poor idiot that she was trying by every possible
means to gain possession of it.
"There's a pretty thing! there, there!" replied the woman, pointing with
vehement gestures to the prize she so ardently coveted.
"I shall be angry in a few minutes," exclaimed Morel, speaking in a loud
voice to terrify his mother-in-law into submission, and gently pushing
back the hand she advanced to seize her desired treasure.
"Oh, Morel! Morel!" murmured Madeleine, "I am parching, dying with
thirst. How can you be so cruel as to refuse me a little water?"
"But how can I at present? I must not allow mother to meddle with these
stones,--perhaps to lose me a diamond, as she did a year ago; and God
alone knows the wretchedness and misery it cost us,--ay, may still
occasion us. Ah, that unfortunate loss of the diamond, what have we not
suffered by it!"
As the poor lapidary uttered these words, he passed his hand over his
aching brow with a desponding air, and said to one of the children:
"Felix, give your mother something to drink. You are awake, and can
attend to her."
"No, no," exclaimed Madeleine; "he will take cold. I will wait."
"Oh, mother," said the boy, rising, "never mind me. I shall be quite as
warm up as I am in this _paillasse_."
"Come, will you let the things alone?" cried Morel, in a threatening
tone, to the idiot woman, who kept bending over the precious stones and
trying to seize them, spite of all his efforts to move her from the
table.
"Mother," called out Felix, "what shall I do? The water in the pitcher
is frozen quite hard."
"Then break the ice," murmured Madeleine.
"It is so thick, I can't," answered the boy.
"Morel!" exclaimed Madeleine, in a querulous and impatient tone, "since
there is nothing but water for me to drink, let me at least have a
draught of that! You are letting me die with thirst!"
"God of heaven grant me patience!" cried the unfortunate man. "How can I
leave your mother to lose and destroy these stones? Pray let me manage
her first."
But the lapidary found it no easy matter to get rid of the idiot, who,
beginning to feel irritated at the constant opposition she met with,
gave utterance to her displeasure in a sort of hideous growl.
"Call her, wife!" said Morel. "She will attend to you sometimes."
"Mother! mother!" called Madeleine, "go to bed, and be good, and then
you shall have some of that nice coffee you are so fond of!"
"I want that! and that! There! there!" replied the idiot, making a
desperate effort this time to possess herself of a heap of rubies she
particularly coveted. Morel firmly, but gently, repulsed her,--all in
vain; with pertinacious obstinacy the old woman kept struggling to break
from his grasp, and snatch the bright gems, on which she kept her eyes
fixed with eager fondness.
"You will never manage her," said Madeleine, "unless you frighten her
with the whip; there is no other means of making her quiet."
"I am afraid not," returned Morel; "but, though she has no sense, it yet
goes to my heart to be obliged to threaten an old woman, like her, with
the whip."
Then, addressing the old woman, who was trying to bite him, and whom he
was holding back with one hand, he said, in a loud and terrible voice:
"Take care; you'll have the whip on your shoulders if you don't make
haste to bed this very instant!"
These menaces were equally vain with his former efforts to subdue her.
Morel then took a whip which lay beside his work-table, and, cracking it
violently, said: "Get to bed with you directly! Get to bed!"
As the loud noise of the whip saluted the ear of the idiot, she hurried
away from the lapidary's work-table, then, suddenly turning around, she
uttered low, grumbling sounds between her clenched teeth; while she
surveyed her son-in-law with looks of the deepest hatred.
"To bed! to bed, I say!" continued he, still advancing, and feigning to
raise his whip with the intention of striking; while the idiot, holding
her fist towards her son-in-law, retreated backwards to her wretched
couch.
The lapidary, anxious to terminate this painful scene, that he might be
at liberty to attend to his sick wife, kept still advancing towards the
idiot woman, brandishing and cracking his whip, though without allowing
it to touch the unhappy creature, repeatedly exclaiming, "To bed! to
bed,--directly! Do you hear?"
The old woman, now thoroughly conquered, and fully believing in the
reality of the threats held out, began to howl most hideously; and
crawling into her bed, like a dog to his kennel, she kept up a continued
series of cries, screams, and yells, while the frightened children,
believing their poor old grandmother had actually been beaten, began
crying piteously, exclaiming, "Don't beat poor granny, father! Pray
don't flog granny!"
It is wholly impossible to describe the fearful effect of these
nocturnal horrors, in which were mingled, in one turmoil of sounds, the
supplicating cries of the children, the furious yellings of the idiot,
and the wailing complaints of the lapidary's sick wife.
To poor Morel such scenes as this were but too frequent. Still, upon the
present occasion, his patience and courage seemed utterly to forsake
him; and, throwing down the whip upon his work-table, he exclaimed, in
bitter despair, "Oh, what a life! what a life!"
"Is it my fault if my mother is an idiot?" asked Madeleine, weeping.
"Is it mine, then?" replied Morel. "All I ask for is peace and quiet
enough to allow me to work myself to death for you all. God knows I
labour alike night and day! Yet I complain not. And, as long as my
strength holds out, I will exert myself to the utmost; but it is quite
impossible for me to attend to my business, and be at once a keeper to a
mad woman and a nurse to sick people and young children. And Heaven is
unjust to put it upon me,--yes, I say unjust! It is too much misery to
heap on one man," added Morel, in a tone bordering on distraction. So
saying, the heart-broken lapidary threw himself on his stool, and
covered his face with his hands.
"Can I help the people at the hospital having refused to receive my
mother, because she was not raving mad?" asked Madeleine, in a low,
peevish, and complaining voice. "What can I do to alter it? What is the
use of your grumbling to me about my mother? and, if you fret ever so
much about what neither you nor I can alter, what good will that do?"
"None at all," rejoined the artisan, hastily brushing the large bitter
drops despair had driven to his eyes; "none whatever,--you are right;
but when everything goes against you, it is difficult to know what to
do or say."
"Gracious Father!" cried Madeleine; "what an agony of thirst I am
enduring! My lips are parched with the fever which is consuming me, and
yet I shiver as though death were on me!"
"Wait one instant, and I will give you some drink!" So saying, Morel
took the pitcher which stood beneath the roof, and, after having with
difficulty broken the ice which covered the water, he filled a cup with
the frozen liquid, and brought it to the bedside of his wife, who
stretched forth her impatient hands to receive it; but, after a moment's
reflection, he said, "No, no, I must not let you have it cold as this;
in your present state of fever it would be dangerous."
"So much the better if it be dangerous! Quick, quick--give it me!" cried
Madeleine, with bitterness; "it will the sooner end my misery, and free
you from such an incumbrance as I am; then you will only have to look
after mad folks and young children,--there will be no sick-nurse to take
up your time."
"Why do you say such hard words to me, Madeleine?" asked Morel,
mournfully; "you know I do not deserve them. Pray do not add to my
vexations, for I have scarcely strength or reason enough left to go on
with my work; my head feels as though something were amiss with it, and
I fear much my brain will give way,--and then what would become of you
all? 'Tis for you I speak; were there only myself, I should trouble very
little about to-morrow,--thank Heaven, the river flows for every one!"
"Poor Morel!" said Madeleine, deeply affected. "I was very wrong to
speak so angrily to you, and to say I knew you would be glad to get rid
of me. Pray forgive me, for indeed I did not mean any harm; for, after
all, what use am I either to you or the children? For the last sixteen
months I have kept my bed! Gracious God! what I do suffer with thirst!
For pity's sake, husband, give me something to moisten my burning lips!"
"You shall have it directly; I was trying to warm the cup between my
hands."
"How good you are! and yet I could say such wicked things to you!"
"My poor wife, you are ill and in pain, and that makes you impatient;
say anything you like to me, but pray never tell me again I wish to get
rid of you!"
"But what good am I to any one? what good are our children? None
whatever; on the contrary, they heap more toil upon you than you can
bear."
"True; yet you see that my love for them and you has endued me with
strength and resolution to work frequently twenty hours out of the
twenty-four, till my body is bent and deformed by such incessant labour.
Do you believe for one instant that I would thus toil and struggle on my
own account? Oh, no! life has no such charms for me; and if I were the
only sufferer, I would quickly put an end to it."
"And so would I," said Madeleine. "God knows, but for the children I
should have said to you, long ago, 'Morel, we have had more than enough
to weary us of our lives; there is nothing left but to finish our misery
by the help of a pan of charcoal!' But then I recollected the poor,
dear, helpless children, and my heart would not let me leave them, alone
and unprotected, to starve by themselves."
"Well, then, you see, wife, that the children are, after all, of real
good to us, since they prevent us giving way to despair, and serve as a
motive for exerting ourselves," replied Morel, with ready ingenuity, yet
perfect simplicity of tone and manner. "Now, then, take your drink, but
only swallow a little at a time, for it is very cold still."
"Oh, thank you, Morel!" cried Madeleine, snatching the cup, and drinking
it eagerly.
"Enough! enough! no more! you shall not have any more just now,
Madeleine."
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Madeleine, giving back the cup, "how cold
it seems now I have swallowed it,--it has brought back those dreadful
shiverings!"
"Alas!" ejaculated Morel, "I told you so,--ah, now you are quite ill
again!"
"I have not strength even to tremble,--I seem as though I were covered
over with ice."
Morel took off his jacket, and laid it over his wife's feet, remaining
quite naked down to his waist,--the unhappy man did not possess a shirt.
"But you will be frozen to death, Morel!"
"Never mind me; if I find it cold by and by, I will put my jacket on for
a few minutes."
"Poor fellow!" sighed Madeleine. "Ah, as you say, Heaven is not just!
What have we done to be so wretched, while so many others--"
"Every one has their troubles,--some more, some less,--the great as well
as the small."
"Yes; but great people know nothing of the gnawings of hunger, or the
bitter pinching of the cold. Why, when I look on those diamonds, and
remember that the smallest amongst them would place us and the poor
children in ease and comfort, my heart sickens, and I ask myself why it
is some should have so much, and others nothing? And what good are these
diamonds, after all, to their owners?"
"Why, if we were to go to the question of what half the luxuries of life
are really good for, we might go a great way; for instance, what is the
good of that grand gentleman Madame Pipelet calls the commandant having
engaged and furnished the first floor of this house, when he seldom
enters it? What use is it his having there good beds, and warm covering
to them, since he never sleeps in them?"
"Very true; there is more furniture lying idle there than would supply
two or three poor families like ours. And then Madame Pipelet lights a
fire every day, to preserve the things from the damp. Only think of so
much comfortable warmth being lost, while we and the children are almost
frozen to death! But then, you will say, we are not articles of value;
no, indeed, we are not. Oh, these rich folks, what hard hearts they
have!"
"Not harder than other people's, Madeleine; but then, you see, they do
not know what misery or want are. They are born rich and happy, they
live and die so. How, then, do you expect they can ever think such poor
distressed beings exist in a world which to them is all happiness? No! I
tell you, they have no idea of such things as fellow creatures toiling
beyond their strength for food, and perishing at last with hunger! How
is it possible for them to imagine privations like ours? The greater
their hunger, the greater enjoyment of their abundant meal. Is the
weather severe, or the cold intense, they call it a fine frost, a
healthful, bracing season. If they walk out, they return to a glowing,
cheerful fire, which the cold only makes them relish the more; so that
they can scarcely be expected to sympathise with such as are said to
suffer from cold and hunger, when those two things rather add to than
diminish their pleasure."
"Ah, poor folks are better than rich, since they can feel for each
other, and are always ready and willing to assist each other as much as
lies in their power. Look at that kind, good Mlle. Rigolette, who has so
often sat up all night, either with me or the children, during our
illness. Why, last night she took Jérome and Pierre into her room, to
share her supper, and it was not much, either, she had for
herself,--only a cup of milk and some bread; at her age, all young
people have good appetites, and she must have deprived herself to give
to the children."
"Poor girl! she is indeed most kind,--and why is she so? Because she
knows what poverty is. As I said to you just now, if the rich only
knew--"
"And then that nice-looking lady who came, seeming so frightened all the
while, to ask us if we wanted anything. Well, now she knows that we do
want everything, will she ever come again, think you?"
"I dare say she will; for, spite of her uneasy and terrified looks, she
seemed very good and kind."
"Oh, yes; if a person be but rich, they are always right in your
opinion. One might almost suppose that rich folks are made of different
materials to poor creatures like us."
"Stop, wife!" said Morel, gently; "you are getting on too fast. I did
not say that; on the contrary, I agree that rich people have as many
faults as poor ones; all I mean is, that, unfortunately, they are not
aware of the wretchedness of one-half of the world. Agents in plenty are
employed to hunt out poor wretches who have committed any crime, but
there are no paid agents to find out half-starving families and honest
artisans, worn-out with toil and privations, who, driven to the last
extremity of distress, are, for want of a little timely succour, led
into sore temptation. It is quite right to punish evil-doers; it would,
perhaps, be better still to prevent ill deeds. A man may have striven
hard to remain honest for fifty years; but want, misery, and utter
destitution put bad thoughts in his head, and one rascal more is let
loose on the world; whilst there are many who, if they had but known of
his distressed condition--However, it is no use talking of that,--the
world is as it is: I am poor and wretched, and therefore I speak as I
do; were I rich, my talk would be of fêtes, and happy days, and worldly
engagements--And how do you find yourself now, wife?"
"Much the same; I seem to have lost all feeling in my limbs. But how you
shiver! Here, take your jacket, and pray put it on. Blow out that
candle, which is burning uselessly,--see, it is nearly day!"
And, true enough, a faint, glimmering light began to struggle through
the snow with which the skylight was encumbered, and cast a dismal ray
on the interior of this deplorable human abode, rendering its
squalidness still more apparent; the shade of night had at least
concealed a part of its horrors.
"I shall wait now for the daylight before I go back to work," said the
lapidary, seating himself beside his wife's _paillasse_, and leaning his
forehead upon his two hands.
After a short interval of silence, Madeleine said:
"When is Madame Mathieu to come for the stones you are at work upon?"
"This morning. I have only the side of one false diamond to polish."
"A false diamond! How is that?--you who only make up real stones,
whatever the people in the house may believe."
"Don't you know? But I forgot, you were asleep the other day when Madame
Mathieu came about them. Well, then, she brought me ten false
diamonds--Rhine crystals--to cut exactly to the same size and form as
the like number of real diamonds she also brought. There, those are them
mixed with the rubies on my table. I think I never saw more splendid
stones, or of purer water, than those ten diamonds, which must, at
least, be worth 60,000 francs."
"And why did she wish them imitated?"
"Because a great lady to whom they belonged--a duchess, I think she
said--had given directions to M. Baudoin, the jeweller, to dispose of
her set of diamonds, and to make her one of false stones to replace it.
Madame Mathieu, who matches stones for M. Baudoin, explained this to me,
when she gave me the real diamonds, in order that I might be quite sure
to cut the false ones to precisely the same size and form. Madame
Mathieu gave a similar job to four other lapidaries, for there are from
forty to fifty stones to cut; and I could not do them all, as they were
required by this morning, because M. Baudoin must have time to set the
false gems. Madame Mathieu says that grand ladies, very frequently
unknown to anybody but the jeweller, sell their valuable diamonds, and
replace them with Rhenish crystals."
"Why, don't you see, the mock stones look every bit as well as the real
stones? Yet great ladies, who only use such things as ornaments, would
never think of sacrificing one of their diamonds to relieve the distress
of such unfortunate beings as we are."
"Come, come, wife! Be more reasonable than this; sorrow makes you
unjust. Who do you think knows that such people as Morel and his family
are in existence, still less that they are in want?"
"Oh, what a man you are, Morel! I really believe, if any one were to cut
you in pieces, that, while they were doing it, you would try to say,
'Thank you!'"
Morel compassionately shrugged his shoulders.
"And how much will Madame Mathieu owe you this morning?" asked
Madeleine.
"Nothing; because you know I have already had an advance of 120 francs."
"Nothing! Why, our last sou went the day before yesterday. We have not a
single farthing belonging to us!"
"Alas, no!" cried Morel, with a dejected air.
"Well, then, what are we to do?"
"I know not."
"The baker refuses to let us have anything more on credit,--will he?"
"No; and I was obliged yesterday to beg Madame Pipelet to lend me part
of a loaf."
"Can we borrow anything more of Mother Burette?"
"She has already every article belonging to us in pledge. What have we
to offer her to lend more money on,--our children?" asked Morel, with a
smile of bitterness.
"But yourself, my mother, and all the children had but part of a loaf
among you all yesterday. You cannot go on in this way; you will be
starved to death. It is all your fault that we are not on the books of
the charitable institution this year."
"They will not admit any persons without they possess furniture, or some
such property; and you know we have nothing in the world. We are looked
upon as though we lived in furnished apartments, and, consequently,
ineligible. Just the same if we tried to get into any asylum, the
children are required to have at least a blouse, while our poor things
have only rags. Then, as to the charitable societies, one must go
backwards and forwards twenty times before we should obtain relief; and
then what would it be? Why, a loaf once a month, and half a pound of
meat once a fortnight.[5] I should lose more time than it would be
worth."
[5] Such is the ordinary allowance made at charitable
societies, in consequence of the vast number of applicants for
relief.
"But, still, what are we to do?"
"Perhaps the lady who came yesterday will not forget us!"
"Perhaps not. But don't you think Madame Mathieu would lend us four or
five francs, just to keep us from starving? You have worked for her
upwards of ten years; and surely she will not see an honest workman like
you, burthened with a large and sickly family, perish for want of a
little assistance like that?"
"I do not think it is in her power to aid us. She did all in her power
when she advanced me little by little 120 francs. That is a large sum
for her. Because she buys diamonds, and has sometimes 50,000 francs in
her reticule, she is not the more rich for that. If she gains 100
francs a month, she is well content, for she has heavy expenses,--two
nieces to bring up; and five francs is as much to her as it would be to
me. There are times when one does not possess that sum, you know; and
being already so deeply in her debt, I could not ask her to take bread
from her own mouth and that of her family to give it to me."
"This comes of working for mere agents in jewelry, instead of procuring
employment from first-hand master jewellers. They are sometimes less
particular. But you are such a poor, easy creature, you would almost let
any one take the eyes out of your head. It is all your fault that--"
"My fault!" exclaimed the unhappy man, exasperated by this absurd
reproach. "Was it or was it not your mother who occasioned all our
misfortunes, by compelling me to make good the price of the diamond she
lost? But for that we should be beforehand with the world; we should
receive the amount of my daily earnings; we should have the 1,100 francs
in our possession we were obliged to draw out of the savings-bank to put
to the 1,300 francs lent us by M. Jacques Ferrand. May every curse light
on him!"
"And you still persist in not asking him to help you? Certainly he is so
stingy that I daresay he would do nothing for you; but then it is right
to try. You cannot know without you do try."
"Ask him to help me!" cried Morel. "Ask him! I had rather be burnt
before a slow fire. Hark ye, Madeleine! Unless you wish to drive me mad,
mention that man's name no more to me."
As he uttered these words, the usually mild, resigned expression of the
lapidary's countenance was exchanged for a look of gloomy energy, while
a slight suffusion coloured the ordinarily pale features of the agitated
man, as, rising abruptly from the pallet beside which he had been
sitting, he began to pace the miserable apartment with hurried steps;
and, spite of the deformed and attenuated appearance of poor Morel, his
attitude and action bespoke the noblest, purest indignation.
"I am not ill-disposed towards any man," cried he, at length, pausing of
a sudden; "and never, to my knowledge, harmed a human being. But, I tell
you, when I think of this notary, I wish him--ah! I wish him--as much
wretchedness as he has caused me." Then pressing both hands to his
forehead, he murmured, in a mournful tone: "Just God! what crime have I
committed that a hard fate should deliver me and mine, tied hand and
foot, into the power of such a hypocrite? Have his riches been given him
only to worry, harass, and destroy those his bad passions lead him to
persecute, injure, and corrupt?"
"That's right! that's right!" said Madeleine; "go on abusing him. You
will have done yourself a great deal of good, shall you not, when he
puts you in prison, as he can do any day, for that promissory note of
1,300 francs on which he obtained judgment against you? He holds you
fast as a bird at the end of a string. I hate this notary as badly as
you do; but since we are so completely in his power, why you should--"
"Let him ruin and dishonour my child, I suppose?" burst from the pale
lips of the lapidary, with violent and impatient energy.
"For heaven's sake, Morel, don't speak so loud; the children are awake,
and will hear you."
"Pooh, pooh!" returned Morel, with bitter irony; "it will serve as a
fine example for our two little girls. It will instruct them to expect
that, one of these days, some villain or other like the notary may take
a fancy to them,--perhaps the same man; and then, I suppose, you would
tell me, as now, to be careful how I offended him, since he had me in
his power. You say, if I displease him, he can put me in prison. Now,
tell the truth: you advise me, then, to leave my daughter at his mercy,
do you not?"
And then, passing from the extreme of rage at the idea of all the
wickedness practised by the notary to tender recollections of his child,
the unhappy man burst into a sort of convulsive weeping, mingled with
deep and heavy sobs, for his kindly nature could not long sustain the
tone of sarcastic indignation he had assumed.
"Oh, my children!" cried he, with bitter grief; "my poor children! My
good, my beautiful, too--too beautiful Louise! 'Tis from those rich
gifts of nature all our troubles proceeded. Had you been less lovely,
that man would never have pressed his money upon me. I am honest and
hard-working; and if the jeweller had given me time, I should never have
been under the obligation to the old monster, of which he avails himself
to seek to dishonour my child. I should not then have left her a single
hour within his power; but I dare not remove her,--I dare not! For am I
not at his mercy? Oh, want! oh, misery! What insults do they not make us
endure!"
"But what can you do?" asked Madeleine. "You know he threatens Louise
that if she quits him he will put you in prison directly."
"Oh, yes! He dares address her as though she were the very vilest of
creatures."
"Well, you must not mind that; for should she leave the notary, there is
no doubt he would instantly throw you into prison, and then what would
become of me, with these five helpless creatures and my mother? Suppose
Louise did earn twenty francs a month in another place, do you think
seven persons can live on that?"
"And so that we may live, Louise is to be disgraced and left to ruin?"
"You always make things out worse than they are. It is true the notary
makes offers of love to Louise; she has told us so repeatedly. But then
you know what a good girl she is; she would never listen to him."
"She is good, indeed; and so right-minded, active, and industrious!
When, seeing how badly we were off in consequence of your long illness,
she insisted upon going to service that she might not be a burthen to
us, did I not say what it cost me to part with her? To think of my sweet
Louise being subjected to all the harshness and humiliation of a
servant's life,--she who was naturally so proud that we used
jokingly--ah, we could joke then!--to call her the Princess, because she
always said that, by dint of care and cleanliness, she would make our
little home like a palace! Dear Louise! It would have been my greatest
happiness to have kept her with me, though I had worked all day and all
night too. And when I saw her blooming face, with her bright eyes
glancing at me as she sat beside my work-table, my labour always seemed
lightened; and when she sung like a bird those little songs she knew I
liked to hear, I used to fancy myself the happiest father alive. Poor
dear Louise! so hard-working, yet always so gay and lively! Why, she
could even manage your mother, and make her do whatever she wished. But
I defy any one to resist her sweet words or winning smile. And how she
watched over and waited upon you! What pains she would take to try and
divert you from thinking of what you suffered! And how tenderly she
looked after her little brothers and sisters, finding time for
everything! Ah, with our Louise all our joy and happiness--all--all--left
us!"
"Don't go on so, Morel. Don't remind me of all these things, or you will
break my heart," cried Madeleine, weeping bitterly.
"And, then, when I think that perhaps that old monster--Do you know,
when that idea flashes across my brain, my senses seem disturbed, and I
have but one thought, that of first killing him and then killing
myself?"
"What would become of all of us if you were to do so? Besides, I tell
you again, you make things worse than they really are. I dare say the
notary was only joking with Louise. He is such a pious man, and goes so
regularly to mass every Sunday, and only keeps company with priests
folks say. Why, many people think that he is safer to place money with
than the bank itself."
"Well, and what does all that prove? Merely that he is a rich hypocrite,
instead of a poor one. I know well enough what a good girl Louise is;
but then she loves us so tenderly that it breaks her heart to see the
want and wretchedness we are in. She knows well enough that if anything
were to happen to me you would all perish with hunger; and by
threatening to put me into prison he might work on the dear child's
mind,--like a villain as he is,--and persuade her, on our account! O,
God, my brain burns! I feel as though I were going mad."
"But, Morel, if ever that were the case, the notary would be sure to
make her a great number of fine presents or money, and, I am sure, she
would not have kept them all to herself. She would certainly have
brought part to us."
"Silence, woman! Let me hear no more such words escape your lips. Louise
touch the wages of infamy! My good, my virtuous girl, accept such foul
gifts! Oh, wife!"
"Not for herself, certainly. But to bring to us perhaps she would--"
"Madeleine," exclaimed Morel, excited almost to frenzy, "again, I say,
let me not hear such language from your lips; you make me shudder.
Heaven only knows what you and the children also would become were I
taken away, if such are your principles."
"Why, what harm did I say?"
"Oh, none."
"Then what makes you uneasy about Louise?"
The lapidary impatiently interrupted his wife by saying:
"Because I have noticed for the last three months that, whenever Louise
comes to see us, she seems embarrassed, and even confused. When I take
her in my arms and embrace her, as I have been used to do from her
birth, she blushes."
"Ah, that is with delight at seeing you, or from shame."
"She seems sadder and more dejected, too, each visit she pays us."
"Because she finds our misery constantly increasing. Besides, when I
spoke to her concerning the notary, she told me he had quite ceased his
threats of putting you in prison."
"But did she tell you the price she has paid to induce him to lay aside
his threats? She did not tell you that, I dare say, did she? Ah, a
father's eye is not to be deceived; and her blushes and embarrassments,
when giving me her usual kiss, make me dread I know not what. Why, would
it not be an atrocious thing to say to a poor girl, whose bread depended
on her employer's word, 'Either sacrifice your virtuous principles, and
become what I would have you, or quit my house? And if any one should
inquire of me respecting the character you have with me, I shall speak
of you in such terms that no one will take you into their service.'
Well, then, how much worse is it to frighten a fond and affectionate
child into surrendering her innocence, by threatening to put her father
into prison if she refused, when the brute knows that upon the labour of
that father a whole family depends? Surely the earth contains nothing
more infamous, more fiendlike, than such conduct."
"Ah," replied Madeleine, "and then only to think that with the value of
one, only one of those diamonds now lying on your table, we might pay
the notary all we owe him, and so take Louise out of his power and keep
her at home with us. Don't you see, husband?"
"What is the use of your repeating the same thing over and over again?
You might just as well tell me that if I were rich I should not be
poor," answered Morel, with sorrowful impatience. For such was the
innate and almost constitutional honesty of this man, that it never once
occurred to him that his weak-minded partner, bowed down and irritated
by long suffering and want, could ever have conceived the idea of
tempting him to a dishonourable appropriation of that which belonged to
another.
With a heavy sigh, the unfortunate man resigned himself to his hard
fate. "Thrice happy those parents who can retain their innocent children
beneath the paternal roof, and defend them from the thousand snares laid
to entrap their unsuspecting youth. But who is there to watch over the
safety of the poor girl condemned at an early age to seek employment
from home? Alas, no one! Directly she is capable of adding her mite to
the family earnings, she leaves her dwelling at an early hour, and
repairs to the manufactory where she may happen to be engaged.
Meanwhile, both father and mother are too busily employed to have
leisure to attend to their daughter's comings or goings. 'Our time is
our stock in trade,' cry they, 'and bread is too dear to enable us to
lay aside our work while we look after our children.' And then there is
an outcry raised as to the quantity of depraved females constantly to be
met with, and of the impropriety of conduct among those of the lower
orders, wholly forgetting that the parents have neither the means of
keeping them at home, nor of watching over their morals when away from
them."
Thus mentally moralised Morel. Then, speaking aloud, he added:
"After all, our greatest privation is when forced to quit our parents,
wives, or children. It is to the poor that family affection is most
comforting and beneficial. Yet, directly our children grow up, and are
capable of becoming our dearest companions, we are forced to part with
them."
At this moment some one knocked loudly at the door.