THE TOILET.
The condemned cell of Bicetre was situated at the end of a gloomy
passage, into which a trifling portion of light and air was admitted by
means of small gratings let into the lower part of the wall. The cell
itself would have been wholly dark but for a kind of wicket, let into
the upper part of the door, which opened into the corridor before
mentioned.
In this wretched dungeon, whose crumbling ceiling, damp, mouldy walls,
and stone-paved floor struck a death-chill like that of the grave, were
confined the Widow Martial, and her daughter Calabash.
The harsh, angular features of the widow stood out amidst the imperfect
light of the place, cold, pale, and immovable as those of a marble
statue. Deprived of the use of her hands, which were fastened beneath
her black dress by the strait-waistcoat of the prison, formed of coarse
gray cloth and tightly secured behind her, she requested her cap might
be taken off, complaining of an oppression and burning sensation in her
head; this done, a mass of long, grizzled hair fell over her shoulders.
Seated at the side of her bed, she gazed earnestly and fixedly at her
daughter, who was separated from her by the width of the dungeon, and,
wearing like her mother the customary strait-waistcoat, was partly
reclining and partly supporting herself against the wall, her head bent
forward on her breast, her eye dull and motionless, and her breathing
quick and irregular. From time to time a convulsive tremor rattled her
lower jaw, while her features, spite of their livid hue, remained
comparatively calm and tranquil.
Within the cell, and immediately beneath the wicket of the entrance
door, was seated an old, gray-headed soldier, whose rough, sunburnt
features betokened his having felt the scorch of many climes, and borne
his part in numerous campaigns. His duty was to keep constant watch over
the condemned prisoners.
"How piercing cold it is here!" exclaimed Calabash; "yet my eyes burn in
my head, and I have a burning, quenchless thirst!" Then addressing the
bald-headed veteran, she said, "Water! Pray give me a drink of water!"
The old soldier filled a cup of water from a pitcher placed near him,
and held it to her lips. Eagerly swallowing the draught, she bowed her
head in token of thankfulness, and the soldier proceeded to offer the
same beverage to the mother.
"Would you not like to moisten your lips?" asked he, kindly.
With a rough, repulsive gesture, she intimated her disinclination, and
the old man sat down again.
"What's o'clock?" inquired Calabash.
"Nearly half past four," replied the soldier.
"Only three hours!" replied Calabash, with a sinister and gloomy smile.
"Three hours more! And then--" She could proceed no further.
The widow shrugged up her shoulders. Her daughter divined her meaning,
and said, "Ah, mother, you have so much more courage than I have,--you
never give way, you don't."
"Never!"
"I see it, and I know you too well to expect it. You look at this moment
as calm and collected as if we were sitting sewing by our own fireside.
Ah! those happy days are gone,--gone forever!"
"Folly! Why prate thus?"
"Nay, mother, I cannot bear to rest shut up with my own wretched
thoughts! It relieves my heart to talk of bygone times, when I little
expected to come to this."
"Mean, cowardly creature!"
"I know I am a coward, mother. I am afraid to die! Every one cannot
boast of your resolution. I do not possess it. I have tried as much as I
could to imitate you. I refused to listen to the priest because you did
not like it. Still I may have been wrong in sending the holy man away;
for," added the wretched creature, with a shudder, "who can tell what is
after death? Mother, do you hear me? After, I say! And it only wants--"
"Exactly three hours, and you will know all about it!"
"How can you speak so indifferently on such a dreadful subject? Yet true
enough; in three short hours, we who now sit talking to each other, who,
if at liberty, should ail nothing, but be ready to enjoy life, must die.
Oh, mother, can you not say one word to comfort me?"
"Be bold, girl, and die as you have lived, a true Martial!"
"You should not talk thus to your daughter," interposed the old soldier,
with a serious air; "you would have acted more like a parent had you
allowed her to listen to the priest when he came."
Again the widow contemptuously shrugged her shoulders, and, without
deigning to notice the soldier further than by bestowing on him a look
of withering contempt, she repeated to Calabash:
"Pluck up your courage, my girl, and let the world see that women have
more courage than men, with their priests and cowardly nonsense!"
"General Leblond was one of the bravest officers of the regiment he
belonged to. Well, this dauntless man fell at the siege of Saragossa,
covered with wounds, and his last expiring act was to sign himself with
the cross," said the veteran. "I served under him. I only tell you this
to prove that to die with a prayer on our lips is no sign of cowardice!"
Calabash eyed the bronzed features of the speaker with deep attention.
The scarred and weather-beaten countenance of the old man told of a life
passed in scenes of danger and of death, encountered with calm bravery.
To hear those wrinkled lips urging the necessity of prayer, and
associating religion with the memory of the good and valiant, made the
miserable, vacillating culprit think that, after all, there could be no
cowardice in recommending one's soul to the God who gave it, and
breathing a repentant supplication for the past.
"Alas, alas!" cried she. "Why did I not attend to what the priest had to
say to me? It could not have done me any harm, and it might have given
me courage to face that dreadful afterwards, that makes death so
terrible."
"What! Again?" exclaimed the widow, with bitter contempt. "'Tis a pity
time does not permit of your becoming a nun! The arrival of your brother
Martial will complete your conversion; but that honest man and excellent
son will think it sinful to come and receive the last wishes of his
dying mother!"
As the widow uttered these last words, the huge lock of the prison was
heard to turn with a loud sound, and then the door to open.
"So soon!" shrieked Calabash, with a convulsive bound. "Surely the time
here is wrong,--it cannot be the hour we were told! Oh, mother! Mother!
Must we die at least two hours before we expected?"
"So much the better if the executioner's watch deceives me! It will put
an end to your whining folly, which disgraces the name you bear!"
"Madame," said an officer of the prison, gently opening the door, "your
son is here,--will you see him?"
"Yes," replied the widow, without turning her head.
Martial entered the cell, the door of which was left open that those
without in the corridor might be within hearing, if summoned by the old
soldier, who still remained with the prisoners.
Through the gloom of the corridor, lighted only by the faint beams of
the early morning, and the dubious twinkling of a single lamp, several
soldiers and gaolers might be seen, the former standing in due military
order, the later sitting on benches.
Martial looked as pale and ghastly as his mother, while his features
betrayed the mental agony he suffered at witnessing so afflicting a
sight. Still, spite of all it cost him, as well as the recollection of
his mother's crimes and openly expressed aversion for himself, he had
felt it imperatively his duty to come and receive her last commands. No
sooner was he in the dungeon than the widow, fixing on him a sharp,
penetrating look, said, in a tone of concentrated wrath and bitterness,
with a view to rouse all the evil passions of her son's mind:
"Well, you see what the good people are going to do with your mother and
sister!"
"Ah, mother, how dreadful! Alas, alas! Have I not warned you that such
would be the end--"
Interrupting him, while her lips became blanched with rage, the widow
exclaimed:
"Enough! 'Tis sufficient that your mother and sister are about to be
murdered, as your father was!"
"Merciful God!" cried Martial. "And to think that I have no power to
prevent it! 'Tis past all human interference. What would you have me do?
Alas! Had you or my sister attended to what I said, you would not now
have been here."
"Oh, no doubt!" returned the widow, with her usual tone of savage irony.
"To you the spectacle of mine and your sister's sufferings is a matter
of delight to your proud heart; you can now tell the world without a
lie that your mother is dead,--you will have to blush for her no more!"
"Had I been wanting in my duty as a son," answered Martial, indignant at
the unjust sarcasms of his mother, "I should not now be here."
"You came but from curiosity! Own the truth if you dare!"
"No, mother! You desired to see me, and I obeyed your wish."
"Ah, Martial," cried Calabash, unable longer to struggle against the
agonising terror she endured, "had I but listened to your advice,
instead of being led by my mother, I should not be here!" Then losing
all further control of herself, she exclaimed, "'Tis all your fault,
accursed mother! Your bad example and evil counsel have brought me to
what I am!"
"Do you hear her?" said the widow, bursting into a fiendish laugh.
"Come, this will repay you for the trouble of paying us a last visit!
Your excellent sister has turned pious, repents of her own sins, and
curses her mother!"
Without making any reply to this unnatural speech, Martial approached
Calabash, whose dying agonies seemed to have commenced, and, regarding
her with deep compassion, said:
"My poor sister! Alas, it is now too late to recall the past!"
"It is never too late to turn coward, it seems!" cried the widow, with
savage excitement. "Oh, what a race you are! Happily Nicholas has
escaped; Francois and Amandine will slip through your fingers; they have
already imbibed vice enough, and want and misery will finish them!"
"Oh, Martial," groaned forth Calabash, "for the love of God, take care
of those two poor children, lest they come to such an end as mother's
and mine!"
"He may watch over them as much as he likes," cried the widow, with
settled hatred in her looks, "vice and destitution will have greater
effect than his words, and some of these days they will avenge their
father, mother, and sister!"
"Your horrible expectations, mother, will never be fulfilled," replied
the indignant Martial; "neither my young brother, sister, nor self have
anything to fear from want. La Louve saved the life of the young girl
Nicholas tried to drown, and the relations of the young person offered
us either a large sum of money or a smaller sum and some land at
Algiers; we preferred the latter, and to-morrow we quit Europe, with the
children, for ever."
"Is that absolutely true?" asked the widow of Martial, in a tone of
angry surprise.
"Mother, when did I ever tell you a falsehood?"
"You are doing so now to try and put me into a passion!"
"What, displeased to learn that your children are provided for?"
"Yes, to find that my young wolves are to be turned into lambs, and to
hear that the blood of father, mother, and sister have no prospect of
being avenged!"
"Do not talk so--at a moment like this!"
"I have murdered, and am murdered in my turn,--the account is even, at
any rate."
"Mother, mother, let me beseech you to repent ere you die!"
Again a peal of fiendish laughter burst from the pallid lips of the
condemned woman.
"For thirty years," cried she, "have I lived in crime; would you have me
believe that thirty years' guilt is to be repented of in three days,
with the mind disturbed and distracted by the near approach of death?
No, no, three days cannot effect such wonders; and I tell you, when my
head falls its last expression will be rage and hatred!"
"Brother, brother," ejaculated Calabash, whose brain began to wander,
"help, help! Take me from hence," moaned she in an expiring voice; "they
are coming to fetch me--to kill me! Oh, hide me, dear brother, hide me,
and I will love you ever more!"
"Will you hold your tongue?" cried the widow, exasperated at the
weakness betrayed by her daughter. "Will you be silent? Oh, you base,
you disgraceful creature! And to think that I should be obliged to call
myself your parent!"
"Mother," exclaimed Martial, nearly distracted by this horrid scene,
"will you tell me why you sent for me?"
"Because I thought to give you heart and hatred; but he who has not the
one cannot entertain the other. Go, coward, go!"
At this moment a loud sound of many footsteps was heard in the corridor;
the old soldier looked at his watch.
A rich ray of the golden brightness, which marked the rising of that
day's sun, found its way through the loopholes in the walls, and shed a
flood of light into the very midst of the wretched cell, rendered now
completely illumined by means of the opening of the door at the opposite
end of the passage to that in which the condemned cell was situated. In
the midst of this blaze of day appeared two gaolers, each bearing a
chair; an officer also made his appearance, saying to the widow in a
voice of sympathy:
"Madame, the hour has arrived."
The mother arose on the instant, erect and immovable, while Calabash
uttered the most piercing cries. Then four more persons entered the
cell; four of the number, who were very shabbily dressed, bore in their
hands packets of fine but very strong cord. The taller man of the party
was dressed in black, with a large cravat; he handed a paper to the
officer. This individual was the executioner, and the paper a receipt
signifying his having received two females for the purpose of
guillotining them. The man then took sole charge of these unhappy
creatures, and, from that moment, was responsible for them.
To the wild terror and despair which had first seized Calabash, now
succeeded a kind of stupefaction; and so nearly insensible was she that
the assistant executioners were compelled to seat her on her bed, and to
support her when there; her firmly closed jaws scarcely enabled her to
utter a sound, but her hollow eyes rolled vacantly in their sockets, her
chin fell listlessly on her breast, and, but for the support of the two
men, she would have fallen forwards a lifeless, senseless mass.
After having bestowed a last embrace on his wretched sister, Martial
stood petrified with terror, unable to speak or move, and as though
perfectly spellbound by the horrible scene before him.
The cool audacity of the widow did not for an instant forsake her; with
head erect, and firm, collected manner, she assisted in taking off the
strait-waistcoat she had worn, and which had hitherto fettered her
movements; this removed, she appeared in an old black stuff dress.
"Where shall I place myself?" asked she, in a clear, steady voice.
"Be good enough to sit down upon one of those chairs," said the
executioner, pointing to the seats arranged at the entrance of the
dungeon.
With unfaltering step, the widow prepared to follow the directions given
her, but as she passed her daughter she said, in a voice that betokened
some little emotion:
"Kiss me, my child!"
But as the sound of her mother's voice reached her ear, Calabash seemed
suddenly to wake up from her lethargy, she raised her head, and, with a
wild and almost frenzied cry, exclaimed:
"Away! Leave me! And if there be a hell, may it receive you!"
"My child," repeated the widow, "let us embrace for the last time!"
"Do not approach me!" cried the distracted girl, violently repulsing her
mother; "you have been my ruin in this world and the next!"
"Then forgive me, ere I die!"
"Never, never!" exclaimed Calabash; and then, totally exhausted by the
effort she had made, she sank back in the arms of the assistants.
A cloud passed over the hitherto stern features of the widow, and a
moisture was momentarily visible on her glowing eyeballs. At this
instant she encountered the pitying looks of her son. After a trifling
hesitation, during which she seemed to be undergoing some powerful
internal conflict, she said:
"And you?"
Sobbing violently, Martial threw himself into his mother's arms.
"Enough!" said the widow, conquering her emotion, and withdrawing
herself from the close embrace of her son; "I am keeping this gentleman
waiting," pointing to the executioner; then, hurrying towards a chair,
she resolutely seated herself, and the gleam of maternal sensibility she
had exhibited was for ever extinguished.
"Do not stay here," said the old soldier, approaching Martial with an
air of kindness. "Come this way," continued he, leading him, while
Martial, stupefied by horror, followed him mechanically.
The almost expiring Calabash having been supported to a chair by the two
assistants, one sustained her all but inanimate form, while the other
tied her hands behind with fine but excessively strong whipcord, knotted
into the most inextricable meshes, while with a cord of the same
description he secured her feet, allowing her just so much liberty as
would enable her to proceed slowly to her last destination. The widow
having borne a similar pinioning with the most imperturbable composure,
the executioner, drawing from his pocket a pair of huge scissors, said
to her with considerable civility:
"Be good enough to stoop your head, madame."
Yielding immediate obedience to the request, the widow said:
"We have been good customers to you; you have had my husband in your
hands, and now you have his wife and daughter!"
Without making any reply, the executioner began to cut the long gray
hairs of the prisoner very close, especially at the nape of the neck.
"This makes the third time in my life," continued the widow, with a
dismal smile, "that I have had my head dressed by a professor: when I
took my first communion the white veil was arranged; then on my
marriage, when the orange-flowers were placed there; and upon the
present occasion; upon my word, I hardly know which became me most. You
cannot guess what I am thinking of?" resumed the widow, addressing the
executioner, after having again contemplated her daughter.
But the man made her no sort of answer, and no sound was heard but that
of the scissors, and the sort of convulsive and hysterical sob that
occasionally escaped from Calabash.
At this moment a venerable priest approached the governor, and addressed
him in a low, earnest voice, the import of which was to express his
desire to make another effort to rescue the souls of the condemned.
"I was thinking that at five years old my daughter, whose head you are
going to cut off, was the prettiest child I ever saw, with her fair hair
and red cheeks. Who that saw her then would have said that--" She was
silent for a moment, and then said, with a burst of indescribable
laughter, "What a farce is destiny!"
At this moment the last of her hair was cut off.
"I have done, madame," said the executioner, politely.
"Many thanks; and I recommend my son Nicholas to you," said the widow;
"you will cut off his hair some day." A turnkey came in and said a few
words to her in a low tone. "No,--I have already said no!" she answered,
angrily.
The priest hearing these words, and seeing any further interference
useless, immediately withdrew.
"Madame, we are all ready to go. Will you take anything?" inquired the
executioner, civilly.
"No, I thank you; this evening I shall take a mouthful of earth." And
after this remark the widow rose firmly. Her hands were tied behind her
back, and a rope was also attached to each ankle, allowing her
sufficient liberty to walk. Although her step was firm and resolute, the
executioner and his assistant offered to support her; but she turned to
them disdainfully, and said, "Do not touch me, I have a steady eye and a
firm foot, and they will hear on the scaffold whether or not I have a
good voice." Calabash was carried away in a dying state.
After having traversed the long corridor, the funereal cortege ascended
a stone staircase, which led to an exterior court, where was a picquet
of _gens-d'armes_, a hackney-coach, and a long, narrow carriage with a
yellow body, drawn by three post-horses, who were neighing loudly.
"We shall not be full inside," said the widow, as she took her seat.
The two vehicles, preceded and followed by the picquet of
_gens-d'armes_, then quitted the outer gate of Bicetre, and went quickly
towards the Boulevard St. Jacques.