THE MOTHER AND SON.
Unaware of the evil designs of his family, Martial entered the kitchen
slowly.
Some few words let fall by La Louve in her conversation with
Fleur-de-Marie have already acquainted the reader with the singular
existence of this man. Endowed with excellent natural instincts,
incapable of an action positively base or wicked, Martial did not,
however, lead a regular life: he poached on the water; but his strength
and his boldness inspired so much fear that the keepers of the river
shut their eyes on this irregularity.
To this illegal occupation Martial joined another that was equally
illicit. A redoubtable champion, he willingly undertook--and more from
excess of courage, from love of the thing, than for gain--to avenge in
pugilistic or single-stick encounters those victims who had been
overcome by too powerful opponents.
We should add that Martial was very particular in the selection of those
causes which he pleaded by strength of fist, and usually took the part
of the weak against the strong.
La Louve's lover was very much like Francois and Amandine. He was of
middle height, stout, and broad-shouldered; his thick red hair, cropped
short, came in five points over his open brow; his close, harsh, short
beard, his broad, bluff cheeks, his projecting nose, flattened at the
extremity, his blue and bold eyes, gave to his masculine features a
singularly resolute expression.
He was covered with an old glazed hat; and, despite the cold, he had
only a worn-out blouse over his vest, and a pair of velveteen trousers,
which had seen considerable service. He held in his hand a very thick,
knotted stick, which he put down beside him near the dresser.
A large dog, half terrier, half hound, with crooked legs and a black
hide, marked with bright red, came in with Martial, but he remained
close to the door, not daring to approach the fire, nor the guests who
were sitting at table, experience having proved to old Miraut (that was
the name of Martial's poaching companion) that he, as well as his
master, did not possess much of the sympathy of the family.
"Where are the children?" were Martial's first words, as he sat down to
table.
"Where they ought to be," replied Calabash, surlily.
"Where are the children, mother?" said Martial again, without taking the
slightest notice of his sister's reply.
"Gone to bed," replied the widow, in a harsh tone.
"Haven't they had their supper, mother?"
"What's that to you?" exclaimed Nicholas, brutally, after having
swallowed a large glass of wine to increase his courage, for his
brother's disposition and strength had a very strong effect on him.
Martial, as indifferent to the attacks of Nicholas as to those of
Calabash, then said to his mother, "I'm sorry the children are gone to
bed so soon."
"So much the worse," responded the widow.
"Yes, so much the worse; for I like to have them beside me when I am at
supper."
"And we, because they were troublesome and annoyed us, have sent them
off," cried Nicholas; "and if you don't like it, why, you can go after
them."
Martial, astonished, looked steadfastly at his brother. Then, as if
convinced of the futility of a quarrel, he shrugged his shoulders, cut
off a slice of bread and a piece of meat.
The dog had come up towards Nicholas, although keeping at a very
respectful distance; and the ruffian, irritated at the disdain with
which his brother treated him, and hoping to wear out his patience by
ill-using his dog, gave Miraut a savage kick, which made the poor brute
howl fearfully. Martial turned red, clasped in his hand the knife he
held, and struck violently on the table with the handle; but, again
controlling himself, he called the dog to him, saying, quietly, "Here,
Miraut!" The hound came, and crouched at his master's feet.
This composure quite upset Nicholas's plans, who was desirous of pushing
his brother to extremities, in order to produce an explosion. So he
added, "I hate dogs--I do; and I won't have this dog remain here."
Martial's only reply was to pour out a glass of wine, and drink it off
slowly. Exchanging a rapid glance with Nicholas, the widow encouraged
him by a signal to continue his hostilities towards Martial, hoping, as
we have said, that a violent quarrel would arise that would lead to a
rupture and complete separation.
Nicholas, then, taking up the willow stick which the widow had used to
beat Francois, went up to the dog, and, striking him sharply, said, "Get
out, you brute, Miraut!"
Up to this time Nicholas had often shown himself sulkily offensive
towards Martial, but he had never dared to provoke him with so much
audacity and perseverance. La Louve's lover, thinking they were desirous
of driving him to extremities for some secret motive, quelled every
impulse of temper.
At the cry of the beaten dog, Martial rose, opened the door of the
kitchen, made the dog go out, and then returned, and went on with his
supper. This incredible patience, so little in harmony with Martial's
usual demeanour, puzzled and nonplussed his aggressors, who looked at
each other with amazement. He, affecting to appear wholly unconscious of
what was passing around him, ate away with great appetite, keeping
profound silence.
"Calabash, take the wine away," said the widow to her daughter.
She hastened to comply, when Martial said, "Stay, I haven't done my
supper."
"So much the worse," said the widow, taking the bottle away herself.
"Oh, that's another thing!" answered La Louve's lover. And pouring out a
large glass of water, he drank it, smacking his tongue, and exclaiming,
"Capital water!"
This excessive calmness irritated the burning anger of Nicholas, already
heated by copious libations; but still he hesitated at making a direct
attack, well knowing the vast power of his brother. Suddenly he cried
out, as if delighted at the idea, "Martial, you were quite right to turn
the dog out. It is a good habit to begin to give way, for you have but
to wait a bit, and you will see us kick your sweetheart out just as we
have driven away your dog."
"Oh, yes; for if La Louve is impudent enough to come to the island when
she leaves gaol," added Calabash, who quite understood Nicholas's
motive, "I'll serve her out."
"And I'll give her a dip in the mud by the hovel at the end of the
island," continued Nicholas; "and, if she gets out, I'll give her a few
rattlers over the nob with my wooden shoe, the----"
This insult addressed to La Louve, whom he loved with savage ardour,
triumphed over the pacific resolutions of Martial; he frowned, and the
blood mounted to his cheeks, whilst the veins in his brow swelled and
distended like cords. Still, he had so much control over himself as to
say to Nicholas, in a voice slightly altered by his repressed wrath:
"Take care of yourself! You are trying to pick a quarrel, and you will
find a bone to pick that will be too tough for you."
"A bone for me to pick?"
"Yes; and I'll thrash you more soundly than I did last time."
"What! Nicholas," said Calabash, with a sardonic grin, "did Martial
thrash you? Did you hear that, mother? I'm not astonished that Nicholas
is so afraid of him."
"He walloped me, because, like a coward, he took me off my guard,"
exclaimed Nicholas, turning pale with rage.
"You lie! You attacked me unexpectedly; I knocked you flat, and then
showed you mercy. But if you talk of my mistress,--I say, mind you, of
my mistress,--this time I look it over,--you shall carry my marks for
many a long day."
"And suppose I choose to talk of La Louve?" inquired Calabash.
"Why, I'll pull your ears to put you on your guard; and if you begin
again, why, so will I."
"And suppose I speak of her?" said the widow, slowly.
"You?"
"Yes,--I!"
"You?" said Martial, making a violent effort over himself; "you?"
"You'll beat me, too, I suppose,--won't you?"
"No; but, if you speak to me unkindly of La Louve, I'll give Nicholas a
hiding he shall long remember. So now, mind! It is his affair as well as
yours."
"You?" exclaimed the ruffian, rising, and drawing his dangerous Spanish
knife; "you give me a hiding?"
[Illustration: _The Brigand dashed at his brother._
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel.]
"Nicholas, no steel!" cried the widow, quickly, leaving her seat, and
trying to seize her son's arm; but he, drunk with wine and passion,
repulsed his mother savagely, and rushed at his brother.
Martial receded rapidly, laid hold of the thick, knotted stick which he
had put down by the dresser, as he entered, and betook himself to the
defensive.
"Nicholas, no steel!" repeated the widow.
"Let him alone!" cried Calabash, taking up the ravageur's hatchet.
Nicholas, still brandishing his formidable knife, watched for a moment
when he could spring on his brother.
"I tell you," he exclaimed, "you and your trollop, La Louve, that I'll
slash your eyes out; and here goes to begin! Help, mother! Help,
Calabash! Let's make cold meat of the scamp; he's been in our way too
long already!" And, believing the moment favourable for his attack, the
brigand dashed at his brother with his uplifted knife.
Martial, who was a dexterous cudgeller, retreated a pace rapidly,
raising his stick, which, as quick as lightning, cut a figure of eight,
and fell so heavily on the right forearm of Nicholas that he, seized
with a sudden and overpowering pain, dropped his trenchant weapon.
"Villain, you have broken my arm!" he shouted, grasping with his left
hand the right arm, which hung useless by his side.
"No; for I felt my stick rebound!" replied Martial, kicking, as he
spoke, the knife underneath the dresser.
Then, taking advantage of the pain which Nicholas was suffering, he
seized him by the collar, and thrust him violently backwards, until he
had reached the door of the little cellar we have alluded to, which he
opened with one hand, whilst, with the other, he thrust his brother into
it, and locked him in, all stupefied as he was with this sudden attack.
Then, turning round upon the two women, he seized Calabash by the
shoulders, and, in spite of her resistance, her shrieks, and a blow from
the hatchet, which cut his head slightly, he shut her up in the lower
room of the cabaret, which communicated with the kitchen.
Then addressing the widow, who was still stupefied with this
manoeuvre, as skilful as it was sudden, Martial said to her, calmly,
"Now, mother, you and I are alone."
"Yes, we are alone," replied the widow, and her usually immobile
features became excited, her sallow skin grew red, a gloomy fire lighted
up her dull eye, whilst anger and hate gave to her countenance a
terrible expression. "Yes, we two are alone now!" she repeated, in a
menacing voice. "I have waited for this moment; and at length you shall
know all that I have on my mind."
"And I will tell you all I have on my mind."
"If you live to be a hundred years old, I tell you you shall remember
this night."
"I shall remember it, unquestionably. My brother and sister have tried
to murder me, and you have done nothing to prevent them. But come, let
me hear what you have against me?"
"What have I?"
"Yes."
"Since your father's death you have acted nothing but a coward's part."
"I?"
"Yes, a coward's! Instead of remaining with us to support us, you went
off to Rambouillet, to poach in the woods with that man who sells game
whom you knew at Bercy."
"If I had remained here, I should have been at the galleys like
Ambroise, or on the point of going there like Nicholas. I would not be a
robber like the rest, and that is the cause of your hatred."
"And what track are you following now? You steal game, you steal
fish,--thefts without danger,--a coward's thefts!"
"Fish, like game, is no man's property. To-day belongs to one, to-morrow
to another. It is his who can take it. I don't steal. As to being a
coward--"
"Why, you fight--and for money--men who are weaker than yourself."
"Because they have beaten men weaker than themselves."
"A coward's trade,--a coward's trade!"
"Why, there are more honest pursuits, it is true. But it is not for you
to tell me this!"
"Then why did you not take up with those honest trades, instead of
coming here skulking and feeding out of my saucepans?"
"I give you the fish I catch, and what money I have. It isn't much, but
it's enough; and I don't cost you anything. I have tried to be a
locksmith to earn more; but when one has from one's infancy led a
vagabond life on the river and in the woods, it is impossible to confine
oneself to one spot. It is a settled thing, and one's life is decided.
And then," added Martial, with a gloomy air, "I have always preferred
living alone on the water or in the forest. There no one questions me;
whilst elsewhere men twit me about my father, who was (can I deny it?)
guillotined,--of my brother, a galley-slave,--of my sister, a thief!"
"And what do you say of your mother?"
"I say--"
"What?"
"I say she is dead."
"You do right; it is as if I were, for I renounce you, dastard! Your
brother is at the galleys; your grandfather and your father finished
their lives daringly on the scaffold, mocking the priest and the
executioner! Instead of avenging them you tremble!"
"Avenging them?"
"Yes, by showing yourself a real Martial, spitting at the headsman's
knife and the red cassock, and ending like father, mother, brother,
sister--"
Accustomed as he was to the savage excitement of his mother, Martial
could not forbear shuddering. The countenance of the widow as she
uttered the last words was fearful. She continued, with increasing
wrath:
"Oh, coward! and even worse than coward! You wish to be honest! Honest?
Why, won't you ever be despised, repulsed, as the son of an assassin or
the brother of a felon? But you, instead of rousing your revenge and
wrath, this makes you frightened! Instead of biting, you run away! When
they guillotined your father, you left us,--coward! And you knew we
could not leave the island to go into the city, because they call after
us, and pelt us with stones, like mad dogs. Oh, they shall pay for it, I
can tell you,--they shall pay for it!"
"A man?--ten men would not make me afraid! But to be called after by all
the world as the son and brother of criminals! Well, I could not endure
it. I preferred going into the woods and poaching with Pierre, who sells
game."
"Why didn't you remain in the woods?"
"I returned because I got into trouble with a keeper, and besides on the
children's account, because they are of an age to take to evil from
example."
"And what is that to you?"
"To me? Why, I will not allow them to become depraved like Ambroise,
Nicholas, and Calabash."
"Indeed!"
"And if they were left with you, then they would not fail to become so.
I went apprentice to try and gain a livelihood, so that I might take
them into my own care and leave the island with the children; but in
Paris everything was known, and it was always, 'You son of the
guillotined!' or, 'You brother of the felon!' I had battles daily, and I
grew tired of it."
"But you didn't grow tired of being honest,--that answered so well!
Instead of having the pluck to come to us, and do as we do,--as the
children will do, in spite of you,--yes, in spite of you! You think to
cajole them with your preaching! But we are always here. Francois is
already one of us, or nearly. Let the occasion serve, and he'll be one
of the band."
"I tell you, no!"
"You will see,--yes! I know what I say. He has vice in him; but you
spoil him. As to Amandine, as soon as she is fifteen she will begin on
her own account! Ah, they throw stones at us! Ah, they pursue us like
mad dogs! They shall see what our family is made of! Except you,
dastard; for here you are the only one who brings down shame upon
us!"[5]
[5] These frightful facts are, unfortunately, not exaggerated.
The following is from the admirable report of M. de Bretigneres
on the Penitentiary Colony of Mettray (March 12, 1843):
"The civil condition of our colonists it is important to state. Amongst
them we count thirty-two natural children; thirty-four whose fathers and
mothers are re-married; fifty-one whose parents are in prison; 124 whose
parents have not been pursued by justice, but are in the utmost
distress. These figures are eloquent, and full of instruction. They
allow us to go from effects to causes, and give us the hope of arresting
the progress of an evil whose origin is thus arrived at. The number of
parents who are criminals enable us to appreciate the education which
the children have received under the tutelage of such instructors.
Taught evil by their fathers, the sons have become wicked by their
orders, and have believed they were acting properly in following their
example. Arrested by the hand of the law, they resign themselves to
share the destiny of their family in prison, to which they only bring
the emulation of vice; and it is absolutely necessary that a ray of
divine light should still exist within these rude and coarse natures, in
order that all the germs of honesty should not be utterly destroyed."
"That's a pity!"
"And as you may be spoiled amongst us, why, to-morrow you shall leave
this place, and never return to it."
Martial looked at his mother with surprise, then, after a moment's
silence, said, "Was it for this that you tried to get up a quarrel with
me at supper?"
"Yes, to show you what you might expect if you would stay here in spite
of us,--a hell upon earth,--I tell you, a hell! Every day a quarrel and
blows--struggles. And we shall not be alone as we were this, evening;
we shall have friends who will help us. And you will not hold out for a
week."
"Do you think to frighten me?"
"I only tell you what will happen."
"I don't heed it. I shall stay!"
"You will stay?"
"Yes."
"In spite of us?"
"In spite of you, of Calabash, of Nicholas, and all blackguards like
him."
"Really, you make me laugh."
From the lips of this woman, with her repulsive and ferocious look,
these words were horrible.
"I tell you I will remain here until I find the means of gaining my
livelihood elsewhere with the children. Alone, I should not long be
unemployed, for I could return to the woods; but, on their account, I
may be some time in finding what I am seeking for. In the meanwhile,
here I remain."
"Oh, you remain until the moment when you can take away the children?"
"Exactly as you say."
"Take away the children?"
"When I say to them 'Come!' they will come; and quickly too, I promise
you."
The widow shrugged her shoulders, and replied:
"Listen! I told you a short time since that, even if you were to live
for a hundred years, you should recollect this night. I will explain
those words. But, before I do so, have you quite made up your mind?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times over, yes!"
"In a little while, however, you will say 'No! No! No! A thousand times,
no!' Listen to me attentively! Do you know the trade your brother
follows?"
"I have my suspicions; but I do not wish to know."
"You shall know. He steals!"
"So much the worse for him!"
"And for you!"
"For me?"
"He commits robberies at night, with forcible entry,--burglary; a case
of the galleys. We receive what he plunders. If we are discovered, we
shall be sentenced to the same punishment as he is, as receivers, and
you too. They will sweep away the whole family, and the children will be
turned out into the streets, where they will learn the trade of their
father and grandfather as well as here."
"I apprehended as a receiver,--as your accomplice? Where's the proofs?"
"No one knows how you live. You are vagabondising on the water; you have
the reputation of a bad fellow; you dwell with us, and who will believe
that you are ignorant of our thefts and receivings?"
"I will prove the contrary."
"We will accuse you as our accomplice."
"Accuse me! And why?"
"To pay you off for staying amongst us against our will."
"Just now you tried to make me frightened in one way, now you are trying
another tack. But it won't do. I will prove that I never robbed. I
remain."
"Ah! You remain? Listen then, again! Do you remember last year a person
who passed the Christmas night here?"
"Christmas night?" said Martial, trying to recall his memory.
"Try and remember,--try!"
"I do not recollect."
"Don't you recollect that Bras Rouge brought here in the evening a
well-dressed man, who was desirous of concealing himself?"
"Yes, now I remember. I went up to bed and left him taking his supper
with you. He passed the night here, and, before daybreak, Nicholas took
him to St. Ouen."
"You are sure Nicholas took him to St. Ouen?"
"You told me so next morning."
"On Christmas night you were here?"
"Yes; and what of that?"
"Why, that night this man, who had a good deal of money about him, was
murdered in this house."
"Mur--! He! Here?"
"And robbed and buried by the little wood-pile."
"It is not true!" cried Martial, becoming pale with horror, and unable
to believe in this fresh crime of his family. "You mean to frighten me.
Once more, it is not true?"
"Ask Francois what he saw this morning in the wood-pile."
"Francois! And what did he see?"
"A man's foot sticking out of the ground. Take a lantern; go and
convince your eyes!"
"No," said Martial, wiping his brow, which had burst forth in a cold
sweat. "No, I do not believe you. You say it to--"
"To prove to you that, if you remain here in spite of us, you risk every
moment being apprehended as an accomplice in robbery and murder. You
were here on Christmas night, and we shall declare that you helped us to
do this job. How will you prove the contrary?"
"Merciless wretch!" said Martial, hiding his face in his hands.
"Now will you go?" said the widow, with a devilish smile.
Martial was overwhelmed. He, unfortunately, could not doubt what his
mother had said to him. The wandering life he led, his dwelling with so
criminal a family, must induce the most horrible suspicions of him, and
these suspicions would be converted into certainty in the eyes of
justice, if his mother, brother, and sister declared him to be their
accomplice. The widow was rejoiced at the depression of her son:
"You have one means of getting out of the difficulty: denounce us!"
"I ought, but I will not; and you know that right well."
"That is why I have told you all this. Now, will you go?"
Martial, wishing to soften this hag, said to her, in a subdued voice:
"Mother, I do not believe you are capable of this murder!"
"As you please; but go!"
"I will go on one condition."
"No condition at all!"
"You shall put the children apprentices somewhere in the country."
"They shall remain here!"
"But, mother, when you have made them like Nicholas, Calabash, Ambroise,
my father,--what good will that be to you?"
"To make good 'jobs' by their assistance. We are not too many now.
Calabash will remain here with me to keep the cabaret. Nicholas is
alone. Once properly instructed, Francois and Amandine will help him.
They have already been pelted with stones,--young as they are,--and they
must revenge themselves!"
"Mother, you love Calabash and Nicholas, don't you?"
"Well, if I do, what then?"
"Suppose the children imitate them, and their crimes are detected?"
"Well, what then?"
"They will come to the scaffold, like my father."
"What then? What then?"
"And does not their probable fate make you tremble?"
"That fate will be mine, neither better nor worse. I rob, they rob; I
kill, they kill. Whoever takes the mother will take the young ones; we
will not leave each other. If our heads fall, theirs will fall in the
same basket, and we shall all take leave at once! We will not retreat!
You are the only coward in the family, and we drive you from us!"
"But the children,--the children!"
"The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite
formed already. Francois is almost ready, and, when you are gone,
Amandine will make up for lost time."
"Mother, I entreat of you, consent to having the children sent away from
here, and put in apprenticeship at a distance."
"I tell you that they are in apprenticeship here!"
The felon's widow uttered these last words so immovably that Martial
lost all hope of mollifying this soul of bronze.
"Since it is so," he replied, "hear me in my turn, mother,--I remain!"
"Ha! ha!"
"Not in this house. I shall be assassinated by Nicholas, or poisoned by
Calabash. But, as I have no means of lodging elsewhere, I and the
children will occupy the hovel at the end of the island; the door of
that is strong, and I will make it still more secure. Once there, I will
barricade myself, and, with my gun, my stick, and my dog, I am afraid of
no one. To-morrow morning I will take the children with me. During the
day they will be with me, either in my boat or elsewhere; and, at night,
they shall sleep near me in the hovel. We can live on the fish I catch
until I find some means of placing them, and find it I will."
"Oh! That's it, is it?"
"Neither you, nor my brother, nor Calabash can prevent this, can you? If
your robberies and murders are discovered during my abode on the island,
so much the worse; but I'll chance it. I will declare that I came back
and remained here in consequence of the children, to prevent them from
becoming infamous. They will decide. The children shall not remain
another day in this abode; and I defy you and your gang to drive me from
this island!"
The widow knew Martial's resolution, and the children, who loved their
eldest brother as much as they feared her, would certainly follow him
unhesitatingly whenever and wherever he called them. As to himself, well
armed and most determined, always on his guard, in his boat during the
day, and secure and barricaded in the hovel on the island at night, he
had nothing to fear from the malevolence of his family.
Martial's project, then, might be realised in every particular; but the
widow had many reasons for preventing its execution. In the first place,
as honest work-people sometimes consider the number of their children as
wealth, in consequence of the services which they derive from them, the
widow relied on Amandine and Francois to assist her in her atrocities.
Then, what she had said of her desire to avenge her husband and son was
true. Certain beings, nurtured, matured, hardened in crime, enter into
open revolt, into war of extermination, against society, and believe
that, lay fresh crimes, they shall avenge themselves for the just
penalties which have been exacted from them and those belonging to them.
Then, too, the sinister designs of Nicholas against Fleur-de-Marie, and
afterwards against the jewel-matcher, might be thwarted by Martial's
presence.
The widow had hoped to effect an immediate separation between herself
and Martial, either by keeping up and aiding Nicholas's quarrel, or by
disclosing to him that, if he obstinately persisted in remaining in the
island, he ran the risk of being suspected as an accomplice in many
crimes.
As cunning as she was penetrating, the widow, perceiving that she had
failed, saw that she must have recourse to treachery to entrap her son
in her bloody snare, and she therefore replied, after a lengthened
pause, with assumed bitterness:
"I see your plan. You will not inform against us yourself, but you will
contrive that the children shall do so."
"I?"
"They know now that there is a man buried here; they know that Nicholas
has robbed. Once apprenticed they would talk, we should be apprehended,
and we should all suffer,--you with us. That is what would happen if I
listened to you, and allowed you to place the children elsewhere. Yet
you say you do not wish us any harm? I do not ask you to love me; but do
not hasten the hour of our apprehension!"
The milder tone of the widow made Martial believe that his threats had
produced a salutary effect on her, and he fell into the fearful snare.
"I know the children," he replied; "and I am sure that, in desiring them
to say nothing, not a word will they say. Besides, in one way or
another, I shall be always with them, and I will answer for their
silence."
"Can we answer for the chatter of children, especially in Paris, where
people are so curious and so gossiping? It is as much that they should
not betray us, as that they should assist us in our plans, that I desire
to keep them here."
"Don't they go sometimes to the villages, and even to Paris? Who could
prevent them from talking if they were inclined to talk? If they were a
long way off, why, so much the better; for what they would then say
would do us no harm."
"A long way off,--and where?" inquired the widow, looking steadfastly at
her son.
"Let me take them away,--where is no consequence to you."
"How will you and they live?"
"My old master, the locksmith, is a worthy man, and I will tell him as
much as he need know, and, perhaps, he will lend me something for the
sake of the children; with that I will go and apprentice them a long way
off. We will leave in two days, and you will hear no more of us."
"No, no! I prefer their remaining with me. I shall then be perfectly
sure of them."
"Then I will take up my quarters in the hovel on the island until
something turns up. I have a way and a will of my own, and you know it."
"Yes, I know it. Oh, how I wish you were a thousand miles away! Why
didn't you remain in your woods?"
"I offer to rid you of myself and the children."
"What! Would you leave La Louve here, whom you love so much?" asked the
widow, suddenly.
"That's my affair. I know what I shall do. I have my plans."
"If I let you take away Amandine and Francois, will you never again set
foot in Paris?"
"Before three days have passed, we shall have departed, and be as dead
to you."
"I prefer that to having you here, and always distrusting you and them.
So, since I must give way, take them, and be off as quickly as possible,
and never let me see you more!"
"Agreed!"
"Agreed! Give me the key of the cellar, that I may let Nicholas out!"
"No; let him sleep his liquor off, and I'll give you the key to-morrow
morning."
"And Calabash?"
"Ah, that's another affair! Let her out when I have gone. I can't bear
the sight of her."
"Go, and may hell confound you!"
"That's your farewell, mother?"
"Yes."
"Fortunately your last!" said Martial.
"My last!" responded the widow.
Her son lighted a candle, then opened the kitchen door, whistled to his
dog, who ran in, quite delighted at being admitted, and followed his
master to the upper story of the house.
"Go,--your business is settled!" muttered the widow, shaking her
clenched hand at her son, as he went up the stairs; "but it is your own
act."
Then, by Calabash's assistance, who brought her a bundle of false keys,
the widow unlocked the cellar door where Nicholas was, and set him at
liberty.