RECOMPENSE.
"Vive la Charte!" cried the Chourineur. "How precious glad I am to see
you again, M. Rodolph--or, rather, my lord!"
"Good day, my excellent friend. I am equally glad to see you."
"Oh, what a joker M. Murphy is! He told me you had gone away. But stay,
my lord--"
"Call me M. Rodolph; I like that best."
"Well, then, M. Rodolph, I have to ask your pardon for not having been
to see you after the night with the Schoolmaster. I see now that I was
guilty of a great rudeness; but I do not suppose that you had any desire
to see me?"
"I forgive you," said Rodolph, smiling; and then added, "Murphy has
shown you all over the house?"
"Yes, M. Rodolph; and a fine house and fine shop it is,--all so neat and
so comfortable! Talking of comfortable, I am the man that will be so, M.
Rodolph! M. Murphy is going to put me in the way of earning four francs
a day,--yes, four francs a day!"
"I have something better than that to propose to you, my good fellow."
"Better! It's unpolite to contradict you, but I think that would be
difficult. Four francs a day!"
"I tell you I have something better: for this house, all that it
contains, the shop, and a thousand crowns which are in this
pocketbook,--all are yours."
The Chourineur smiled with a stupid air, flattened his long-napped hat
between his knees, and squeezed it convulsively, evidently not
understanding what Rodolph said to him, although his language was plain
enough.
Rodolph, with much kindness, said to him:
"I can imagine your surprise; but I again repeat, this house and this
money are yours,--they are your property."
The Chourineur became purple, passed his horny hand over his brow, which
was bathed with perspiration, and stammered out, in a faltering voice:
"What!--eh!--that is--indeed--my property!"
"Yes, your property; for I bestow it all upon you. Do you understand? I
give it to you."
The Chourineur rocked backwards and forwards on his chair, scratched his
head, coughed, looked down on the ground, and made no reply. He felt
that the thread of his ideas had escaped him. He heard quite well what
Rodolph said to him, and that was the very reason he could not credit
what he heard. Between the depth of misery, the degradation in which he
had always existed, and the position in which Rodolph now placed him,
there was an abyss so wide that the service he had rendered to Rodolph,
important as it was, could not fill it up.
"Does what I give you, then, seem beyond your hopes?" inquired Rodolph.
"My lord," said the Chourineur, starting up suddenly, "you offer me this
house and a great deal of money,--to tempt me; but I cannot take them; I
never robbed in my life. It is, perhaps, to kill; but I have too often
dreamed of the sergeant," added he, in a hoarse tone.
"Oh, the unfortunate!" exclaimed Rodolph, with bitterness. "The
compassion evinced for them is so rare, that they can only explain
liberality as a temptation to crime!"
Then addressing the Chourineur, in a voice full of gentleness:
"You judge me wrong,--you mistake: I shall require from you nothing but
what is honourable. What I give you, I give because you have deserved
it."
"I," said the Chourineur, whose embarrassments recommenced, "I deserve
it! How?"
"I will tell you. Abandoned from your infancy, without any knowledge of
right or wrong, left to your natural instinct, shut up for fifteen years
in the Bagne with the most desperate villains, assailed by want and
wretchedness, compelled by your own disgrace, and the opinion of honest
men, to continue to haunt the low dens infested by the vilest
malefactors, you have not only remained honest, but remorse for your
crime has outlived the expiation which human justice had inflicted upon
you."
This simple and noble language was a new source of astonishment for the
Chourineur; he contemplated Rodolph with respect, mingled with fear and
gratitude, but was still unable to convince himself that all he heard
was reality.
"What, M. Rodolph, because you beat me, because, thinking you a workman,
like myself, because you spoke 'slang' as if you had learned it from the
cradle, I told you my history over two bottles of wine, and afterwards I
saved you from being drowned,--you give me a house--money--I shall be
master! Say really, M. Rodolph, once more, is it possible?"
"Believing me like yourself, you told me your history naturally and
without concealment, without withholding either what was culpable or
generous. I have judged you, and judged you well, and I have resolved to
recompense you."
"But, M. Rodolph, it ought not to be; there are poor labourers who have
been honest all their lives, and who--"
"I know it, and it may be I have done for many others more than I am
doing for you; but, if the man who lives honestly in the midst of
honest men, encouraged by their esteem, deserves assistance and support,
he who, in spite of the aversion of good men, remains honest amidst the
most infamous associates on earth,--he, too, deserves assistance and
support. This is not all; you saved my life, you saved the life of
Murphy, the dearest friend I have; and what I do for you is as much the
dictate of personal gratitude as it is the desire to withdraw from
pollution a good and generous nature, which has been perverted, but not
destroyed. And that is not all."
"What else have I done, M. Rodolph?"
Rodolph took his hand, and, shaking it heartily, said:
"Filled with commiseration for the mischief which had befallen the very
man who had tried just before to kill you, you even gave him an asylum
in your humble dwelling,--No. 9, close to Notre Dame."
"You knew, then, where I lived, M. Rodolph?"
"If you forget the services you have done to me, I do not. When you left
my house you were followed, and were seen to enter there with the
Schoolmaster."
"But M. Murphy told me that you did not know where I lived, M. Rodolph."
"I was desirous of trying you still further; I wished to know if you had
disinterestedness in your generosity, and I found that, after your
courageous conduct, you returned to your hard daily labour, asking
nothing, hoping for nothing, not even uttering a word of reproach for
the apparent ingratitude with which I repaid your services; and when
Murphy yesterday proposed to you employment a little more profitable
than that of your habitual toil, you accepted it with joy, with
gratitude."
"Why, M. Rodolph, do you see, sir, four francs a day are always four
francs a day. As to the service I rendered you, why, it is rather I who
ought to thank you."
"How so?"
"Yes, yes, M. Rodolph," he added, with a saddened air, "I do not forget
that, since I knew you, it was you who said to me those two words,'You
have both heart and honour!' It is astonishing how I have thought of
that. They are only two little words, and yet those two words had that
effect. But, in truth, sow two small grains of anything in the soil, and
they will put forth shoots."
This comparison, just and almost poetical as it was, struck Rodolph. In
sooth, two words, but two magic words for the heart that understood
them, had almost suddenly developed the generous instincts which were
inherent in this energetic nature.
"You placed the Schoolmaster at St. Mandé?" said Rodolph.
"Yes, M. Rodolph. He made me change his notes for gold, and buy a belt,
which I sewed round his body, and in which I put his 'mopuses;' and
then, good day! He boards for thirty sous a day with good people, to
whom that sum is of much service. When I have time to leave my
wood-piles, I shall go and see how he gets on."
"Your wood-piles! You forget your shop, and that you are here at home!"
"Come, M. Rodolph, do not amuse yourself by jesting with a poor devil
like me; you have had your fun in 'proving' me, as you term it. My house
and my shop are songs to the same tune. You said to yourself,'Let us see
if this Chourineur is such a gulpin as to believe that I will make him
such a present.' Enough, enough, M. Rodolph; you are a wag, and there's
an end of the matter."
And he laughed long, loud, and heartily.
"But, once more, believe--"
"If I were to believe you, then you would say, 'Poor Chourineur! go! you
are a trouble to me now.'"
Rodolph began to be really troubled how to convince the Chourineur, and
said in a solemn, impressive, and almost severe tone:
"I never make sport of the gratitude and sympathy with which noble
conduct inspires me. I have said this house and this establishment are
yours, if they suit you, for the bargain is conditional. I swear to you,
on my honour, all this belongs to you; and I make you a present of it,
for the reasons I have already given."
The dignified and firm tone, and the serious expression of the features
of Rodolph, at length convinced the Chourineur. For some moments he
looked at his protector in silence, and then said, in a voice of deep
emotion:
"I believe you, my lord, and I thank you much. A poor man like me cannot
make fine speeches, but once more, indeed, on my word, I thank you very
much. All I can say is, that I will never refuse assistance to the
unhappy; because Hunger and Misery are ogresses of the same sort as
those who laid hands on the poor Goualeuse; and, once in that sink, it
is not every one that has the fist strong enough to pull you out again."
"My worthy fellow, you cannot prove your gratitude more than in speaking
to me thus."
"So much the better, my lord; for else I should have a hard job to prove
it."
"Come, now, let us visit your house; my good old Murphy has had the
pleasure, and I should like it also."
Rodolph and the Chourineur came down-stairs. At the moment they reached
the yard, the shopman, addressing the Chourineur, said to him,
respectfully:
"Since you, sir, are to be my master, I beg to tell you that our custom
is capital. We have no more cutlets or legs of mutton left, and we must
kill a sheep or two directly."
"_Parbleu!_" said Rodolph to the Chourineur; "here is a capital
opportunity for exercising your skill. I should like to have the first
sample,--the open air has given me an appetite, and I will taste your
cutlets."
"You are very kind, M. Rodolph," said the Chourineur, in a cheerful
voice; "you flatter me, but I will do my best."
"Shall I bring two sheep to the slaughter-house, master?" asked the
journeyman.
"Yes; and bring a well-sharpened knife, not too thin in the blade, and
strong in the back."
"I have just what you want, master. There, you could shave with it. Take
it--"
"_Tonnerre_, M. Rodolph!" said the Chourineur, taking off his upper coat
with haste, and turning up his shirtsleeves, which displayed a pair of
arms like a prize-fighter's; "this reminds me of my boyish days and the
slaughter-house. You shall see how I handle a knife! _Nom de nom!_ I
wish I was at it. The knife, lad! the knife! That's it; I see you know
your trade. This is a blade! Who will have it? _Tonnerre!_ with a tool
like this I could face a wild bull."
And the Chourineur brandished his knife,--his eyes began to fill with
blood; the beast was regaining the mastery; the instinct and thirst for
blood reappeared in all the fullness of their fearful predominance.
The butchery was in the yard,--a vaulted, dark place, paved with stones,
and lighted by a small, narrow opening at the top.
The man drove one of the sheep to the door.
"Shall I fasten him to the ring, master?"
"Fasten him! _Tonnerre!_ and I with my knees at liberty? Oh, no; I will
hold him here as fast as if in a vice. Give me the beast, and go back to
the shop."
The journeyman obeyed. Rodolph was left alone with the Chourineur, and
watched him attentively, almost anxiously.
"Now, then, to work!" said he.
"Oh, I sha'n't be long. _Tonnerre!_ you shall see how I handle a knife!
My hands burn, and I have a singing in my ears; my temples beat, as they
used when I was going to 'see red.' Come here, thou--Ah, _Madelon!_ let
me stab you dead!"
Then his eyes sparkled with a fierce delight, and, no longer conscious
of the presence of Rodolph, the Chourineur lifted the sheep without an
effort; with one spring he carried it off as a wolf would do, bounding
towards his lair with his prey.
Rodolph followed him, and leaned on one of the wings of the door, which
he closed. The butchery was dark; one strong ray of light, falling
straight down, lighted up, _à la Rembrandt_, the rugged features of the
Chourineur, his light hair, and his red whiskers. Stooping low, holding
in his teeth a long knife, which glittered in the "darkness visible," he
drew the sheep between his legs, and, when he had adjusted it, took it
by the head, stretched out its neck, and cut its throat.
At the instant when the sheep felt the keen blade, it gave one gentle,
low, and pitiful bleat, and, raising its dying eyes to the Chourineur,
two spurts of blood jetted forth into the face of its slayer. The cry,
the look, the blood that spouted out, made a fearful impression on the
man. His knife fell from his hands; his features grew livid, contracted,
and horrible, beneath the blood that covered them; his eyes expanded,
his hair stiffened; and then retreating, with a gesture of horror, he
cried, in a suffocating voice, "Oh, the sergeant! the sergeant!"
Rodolph hastened to him: "Recover yourself, my good fellow!"
"There! there! the sergeant!" repeated the Chourineur, retreating step
by step, with his eyes fixed and haggard, and pointing with his finger
as if at some invisible phantom. Then uttering a fearful cry, as if the
spectre had touched him, he rushed to the bottom of the butchery, into
the darkest corner; and there, with his face, breast, and arms against
the wall, as if he would break through it to escape from so horrible a
vision, he repeated, in a hollow and convulsive tone, "Oh, the sergeant!
the sergeant! the sergeant!"