I lived on Rue Meslay, in a large house where there were apartments for
all sorts of persons, even for those who had no money; and where,
consequently, the man who passed the night working to earn his living
used the same staircase as the man who passed the night amusing himself;
the only difference was that the former went up higher. But even under
the eaves there are pleasures and love and some very charming faces. The
man who knows how to find them is not afraid to go up rather high.
I knew that there were at the top of my house--that is to say, of the
house where I lived--some small, unplastered rooms, with cracks in the
walls and loose doors and windows, where the chimneys smoked, where one
froze in winter, where the rats and mice came every night to visit the
occupants, and which, none the less, the landlord let for the highest
price that he could obtain; however, he would not accept everybody as a
tenant, but insisted upon having none but quiet people. I had never been
up to inspect those little rooms. It was not for lack of inclination,
however, for I had met several times on my staircase a very pretty girl,
who, as I knew, occupied one of the most modest apartments on the fifth
floor. She had not the aspect of a common working girl, nor had she the
wide-awake air of a grisette, and yet she was almost that, for she
worked for her living. She made wreaths, so the concierge told me, and
mended linen when people chose to give her any to mend. But she seemed
so young that she inspired little confidence in the people to whom she
went to ask for work; and yet one may be quite as honest at sixteen
years as at forty. Honesty is in the blood; when one must look to time
and experience for it, it is never built on a very solid foundation.
Little Marguerite had not been able to obtain a room in the house
without difficulty. The landlord considered her too young and did not
want to let a room to her; he was surprised that she should have
quarters of her own so early. But the girl had a certain air of candor
which disarmed the landlord’s sternness; she swore that she was very
quiet, that she made no noise and never stayed out late; and he let a
room to her for a hundred and thirty francs a year. It was necessary to
make many wreaths to earn that amount.
Despite her innocent air, Mademoiselle Marguerite had a lover; but when
a girl has but one, when she receives only him and goes out only with
him, she is justified in saying that she is quiet, and even honest.
Honesty does not consist solely in innocence. I once had a maid who was
absolutely virtuous, and who stole my cravats.
I knew nothing of all these details when I first met the girl on the
stairway. When I saw those small features that indicated that she was
barely fifteen, those great light-blue eyes, that tiny mouth, that tiny
figure--for, except her eyes, everything about Mademoiselle Marguerite
seemed to be tiny--I made eyes at her, that is to say, I looked hard at
her, and tried to make her look at me; but she paid no attention to my
ogling and ran quickly down the stairs. Another time I ventured upon a
few words, a compliment or two, but she did not reply; after that I
ceased to ogle her or to speak to her, for I am not obstinate, and
according to my belief, in order to please a woman one must please her
at the outset.
Once, however, Mademoiselle Marguerite had rung at my door; when I found
that she had come to pay me a visit, I did not know just what to think;
but the girl, whose eyes were swollen with tears and who was sobbing
pitifully, gave no thought to the impropriety of what she was doing. She
came to ask me if I had seen her cat, which had disappeared that
morning. On learning that I had not seen her poor Moquette, she darted
away like an arrow, paying no heed to the consoling words which I
attempted to offer her.
Thereupon I said to myself: “That is a virtuous girl; for I consider it
virtuous to be faithful to her lover.” I talked a little about her with
my concierge, and what I learned confirmed me in my opinion.
“Yes, she is very quiet,” said the concierge, “except when she is
running after her cat, which she plays with as if she was only five
years old. But after all, she is very young still. And she has a friend
who is almost as young as she is. He’s a very nice fellow, too. But
they’re as poor as Job! A room with nothing in it but a bed, and such a
bed! four pieces of wood, which fall apart as soon as you touch ‘em, a
little sideboard that ain’t worth more than fifteen sous, four chairs, a
wash bowl and a little three-franc mirror; how can anyone get along with
that? That’s what Mademoiselle Marguerite calls her household! But still
she pays her rent, and there’s nothing to say.”
“Her lover is a workman, I suppose, an apprentice?”
“No indeed! he’s a dandy, a gentleman, in fact; but he seems to think
that she’s well enough off as she is, or else he can’t do any better;
and I give you my word that the girl eats potatoes oftener than anything
else. But as long as she can see her Ernest and play with her cat, she’s
as happy as a queen.”
Since I had known all this, I had regarded the girl with a friendly
interest simply. Some time after, that interest became still greater. I
overheard involuntarily a conversation between Mademoiselle Marguerite
and an old count who lived on the same landing with me. Monsieur le
comte was an old rake; there was nothing extraordinary in that; we are
all rakes more or less. He, too, used to ogle our young neighbor, and
one day, when I was about to go out, my door happened to be ajar, and
the following dialogue reached my ears:
“Listen, listen, my pretty little minx; I have a couple of words to say
to you.”
“What are they, monsieur?”
“In the first place, that you are a sweetheart.”
“Oh! if that’s all, it is----”
“Listen, my dear love, I wish to make you happy.”
“Happy? Why, I am very happy, monsieur.”
“A girl can’t be happy when she lives under the eaves, in a wretched,
poorly-furnished chamber. I will give you a pretty apartment and money
to buy whatever you want.”
“What’s that, monsieur? What do you take me for?”
“Come, come, Mademoiselle Marguerite, don’t play the prude; when a girl
has a lover, when she lives with a young man, she should not be so
severe.”
“Because I have a lover, monsieur, is that any reason why I should
listen to such things?”
“Your little popinjay of a lover gives you nothing, and will drop you
the first thing you know; whereas I will agree to give you an allowance,
and, if you behave yourself, I----”
“I beg you to say no more, monsieur, and never speak to me again; if you
do, I will tell Ernest that you called him a popinjay, and how you have
been talking to me. Ah! he will teach you a lesson.”
“What’s that? You insolent, impertinent little hussy!”
“Bah! you old fool!”
And with that, the girl ran quickly upstairs. Monsieur le comte returned
to his room grumbling, and I said to myself:
“She must really love her Ernest, since she prefers poverty with him to
comfort with another;” and I was almost ashamed of having made some few
sweet speeches to her, for, without being constant oneself, one may well
do homage to constancy.
I was curious to see her lover; but probably he came early in the
morning and went away late, or not at all. One day, however, I met him;
and I was surprised to find that I knew him; I had met him several times
in society. He was a young man of excellent family, not more than twenty
years old; he was a comely youth, but he had a mania for writing for the
stage, and had not as yet succeeded in having any of his plays produced,
except a few unimportant things at some of the boulevard theatres. His
parents did not approve of his taste for the drama, and desired to force
him to enter the government service; but he always found a way to delay
until the place was filled; and his parents, who were not at all
satisfied with him, gave him very little pocket money. Poor fellow! I
understood why his little mistress had potatoes oftener than quail.
I knew him only by his family name; I did not know that his name was
Ernest. When we met on the stairs, he smiled and we bowed. I did not try
to stop him, he always went up so rapidly. I understood that he was more
anxious to be up there with her than to talk with me.
It was a long time since I had met Marguerite and her young lover. On
returning from Giraud’s party, I noticed much commotion in my
concierge’s lodge; the husband and wife were both up, although it was
after midnight, and one of them was ordinarily in bed by eleven o’clock.
An old cook who lived in the house was also in their lodge; they were
talking earnestly and I overheard these words:
“She is very ill; the midwife shook her head, and that’s a very bad
sign.”
“Who is very ill?” I asked, as I took my candle.
“Why, monsieur, it’s little Marguerite; she has had a miscarriage.”
“What! was that poor child enceinte?”
“You don’t mean to say that you haven’t noticed it, monsieur? She was
four and a half months gone.”
“Is not Monsieur Ernest with her?”
“Oh! he is like a madman. He has just gone home; it’s only a few steps
away. He took our little nephew with him, so as to bring something back
with him probably; for there ain’t anything at all upstairs.”
At that moment there was a loud knocking at the gate. Someone opened it
and Ernest came into the courtyard with a mattress on his head; the
young man had not hesitated to endanger his fine clothes by doing the
work of a porter; when it is a question of helping the woman one loves,
such things are not considered. Moreover, at midnight, the streets are
not crowded.
The little nephew came behind, bringing an armchair covered with Utrecht
velvet; I saw that young Ernest, without the knowledge of his parents,
had despoiled his own chamber in order to provide his young friend with
a little furniture.
“It is high time that you came back, monsieur,” said the concierge, with
that alarming manner which heightens the effect of bad news.
“Mademoiselle Marguerite is very sick; there’s complications. In fact,
she is losing all her blood, and you know it can’t go on long that way.”
The young man uttered a cry of dismay, and throwing the mattress to the
ground, ran up the stairs four at a time, without stopping to listen to
anything more. I remained in front of the concierges’ lodge, both of
them being too old and too lazy to offer to carry up the mattress; as
for the little nephew, it was all that he could do to climb up with the
chair, and the cook was there solely to gossip. I soon made up my mind:
I took the mattress on my shoulders and I went up with it to the fifth
floor.
I reached the door of little Marguerite’s bedroom. It was not locked,
and yet I dared not go in. I knew that the girl was so poor; and one
should be especially careful when dealing with poor people. Perhaps she
and her lover would be offended to think that I had ventured to come up.
And yet, since she was so ill----
While I was hesitating, standing at the door with the mattress on my
shoulders, I heard a shrill voice say:
“Send for a doctor, monsieur; I won’t be responsible; you must have a
doctor, she needs one very bad.”
A very weak voice, which I recognized as the young girl’s, said:
“Stay here, Ernest, don’t leave me. I feel better when you are here.”
I pushed the door open and dropped the mattress in a corner of the room,
saying:
“I will go out and call a doctor; stay with her, as it does her good.”
“Oh! yes, yes, do go,” said Ernest; “oh! how grateful I shall be to
you!”
I heard no more; I descended the stairs rapidly and nearly overturned
the concierge’s little nephew, who had only reached the third floor with
his chair; I believe that the little rascal sat down on it at every
landing. At last I was in the street; I ran at random, looking about for
some shop that was still open, where I could inquire if there was a
doctor in the neighborhood.
Where should I apply? Everybody was in bed; I saw many midwives’ signs,
but a midwife was not what I wanted. I ventured to ring at several
doors; I jerked the bells and made an infernal noise.
“Who is there?” the concierges asked me; and I shouted:
“Isn’t there a doctor in the house?”
They answered me with abuse, or not at all; people are not polite when
they want to sleep.
I knew two doctors, but they lived so far away that the poor child would
have time to die before they could get to her. What was I to do? I did
not wish to return alone. I was tempted to cry fire. That method, which
has been employed in several plays, might serve in real life as well;
one always has to frighten one’s fellow-citizens, to obtain anything
from them. Then, when everybody had come to the windows, I would call
for a doctor.
I was about to give the alarm, when two men passed me, talking with
great earnestness. I recognized Ernest’s voice; it was he, in fact;
fearing that I would not return quickly enough, he had followed me; but
he had thought to ask the nurse for the address of a doctor, and he had
found one. I ran after him, and he thanked me, although I had been of no
service to him. We returned, walking rapidly, without speaking; poor
Ernest had but one thought, to save his little Marguerite. We arrived.
Ernest went up to his mistress with the surgeon. I remained in the hall,
going upstairs and down in my excitement. I had simply said to Ernest:
“If you need anything, I shall be here.”
How long the minutes seemed to me! Those young lovers loved each other
so dearly! the poor girl was so sweet! if she should die, how her lover
would grieve for her and regret her! To lose such a long future of
happiness! Ah! Death goes sadly astray when it closes eyes of sixteen
years.
It seemed to me that an hour had passed since the doctor went up. But I
heard steps coming down, and someone called me; it was Ernest. Joy
gleamed in his eyes, and he cried:
“My friend, my friend, she is saved; there is no more danger!”
“Ah! I am so glad to hear it!”
We shook hands. He had called me his friend, and a few hours earlier we
had hardly known each other; but there are events which bind two people
more closely than sixty evenings passed together in society. It was one
of those events which had happened to us.
The surgeon came downstairs and Ernest ran to meet him.
“Are you going, monsieur? Then she is out of danger?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, have no fear; everything is all right now, and as it should
be; I will answer for her; all she needs now is rest.”
“But you will come to-morrow morning, won’t you, monsieur?”
“Yes, I will come to see her to-morrow.”
With that the doctor went away and Ernest followed him to the street
door, gazing at him, and listening to him as to an oracle. Ah! that is a
noble art which gives us the means of saving the lives of our fellowmen.
The man who has saved the life of a person whom we love ceases to be a
man in our eyes, and becomes a god.