Madame Plomb returned to her husband's house, and was greeted by the
hounds with exultant barks and gambols.
Her confinement had made her more crazy than ever, and Gabrielle had
insisted on attending her to the door, and would have remained with
her, in spite of her own fears, had not Madame Berthier refused to
permit it.
'No, my dear,' said the poor lady; 'suppose the wolf be here in bed
with a great frilled nightcap on; and when you go up to him, mistaking
him for me, and say, "Oh, what great eyes you have!" he answers, "To
see you the better, my dear;" and when you say, "Oh, what white teeth
you have!" he rushes out upon you roaring, "To eat you the better, my
dear--" That will never do; we must kill the wolf first, then you shall
stay with me.'
'Madame,' said Gustave, 'your honoured husband is at Versailles.'
'At Versailles, is he? Pray, what is he doing there?'
'Madame,' answered the porter, 'he is one of his gracious majesty's new
ministers.'
'Then his gracious majesty is going to eat up the people,' said the
poor lady. 'Gustave, have the dogs been good?'
'They have been devils, madame,' exclaimed the porter, shaking his fist
at them. 'They have leaped and barked all day long, and all night long
as well. How is a person to sleep, if at his ear are chained fiends
whose throats are never tired of emitting frightful howls? Ah, you
ruffians!' he cried, again shaking his fist; 'I will scoop out your
eyes, and pour boiling lead down your throats. I will heat the poker
red hot and make you swallow it; I will take the skin off you with a
file, that I will, sacr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-é.'
'Where is Adolphe?' asked madame.
'Alas! the good Adolphe is at the point of death.'
'What! here?'
'No, madame, he is no longer in M. Berthier's service.'
'In whose service is he, then?'
'In that of your most illustrious father.'
'Pray, when did he change his place?'
'About a month ago, madame.'
'And what is the matter with him now?'
'Alas! he is dying of a fever. I am desolated with grief; but what
can one do? He is young; he is ten years younger than myself. I am
tough, and strong, and wiry, and leathery. Ah! let a fever dare attack
me. I will not yield to it. Madame, it is my belief that people die
of diseases because they have not the pluck to fight against them.
As I said to Adolphe, "Resist, man, resist; don't yield to the nasty
insidious complaint; refuse to admit that you are ill; say to yourself,
I never was better in my life. Shower contempt on the fever, spit upon
it--and it will flee from you." But Adolphe is a poor fellow, he has
no spirit; I could not stimulate his resolution, he yielded at once;
and then, of course, the disorder obtained the mastery. Why, madame,
suppose I were to succumb to these hounds; suppose I were to run away
the moment they leap against me; suppose I were to scream out when
they bark; they would fall on me and mangle me, and tear my throat and
suck my blood. But I resist them, I threaten them, I cast ferocious
glances at them, I swell with wrath against them; I arm myself with a
redoubtable whip, and they slink before me into the kennels. See!'
Gustave dived into his lodge and rushed from it in another moment armed
with a whip like a Russian knout.
Charging with blazing eyes, whirling his scourge above his head, and
thundering forth exclamations of rage, and threats of horrible tortures
in store for the hounds, he sent them flying to their holes with their
tails between their legs.
'See, madame!' he exclaimed; 'that is the way to treat disease. Rush
out upon it, throw yourself into a paroxysm of rage; curse, swear
and blaspheme! It is better than ten thousand pills, powders, and
draughts, provided by twenty millions of doctors.'
'When was M. Berthier here last?' asked madame.
'On Sunday, he has not returned since; and indeed,' he added, with
some hesitation, 'I fear that it would hardly be safe for him to show
himself in Paris at present. You will excuse me, madame, for hinting
this.'
'Why not safe?' asked the poor woman; 'do others hate him as much as I
do?'
'I fear that monsieur is not popular with the Parisians. They are
flushed with victory, and incensed against my master. The mob has
already assembled once or twice before the house, but I have assured
them that he is at Versailles, and they have retired. But their
attitude was threatening. I only wish I had had a few soldiers here,
and we should have bayoneted them all the way up the street, and fed
the dogs for weeks afterwards on their carcases. Ah, ha! Pigeon,
Poulet! how you would have danced to taste man-meat, to lick up human
blood! You would want some taking down afterwards to bring you to
proper obedience! Sapristi! that you would!'
'Madame,' said Gabrielle, 'if Monsieur Berthier is unlikely to return
here, let me remain with you for a few days.'
'Are you sure he will not venture here?' asked the lady of Gustave.
'See, my good mistress,' replied the man, drawing her into his lodge,
and leading her to the window; 'will you do me the favour of looking
out, and turning your head a little to the left?'
'Well,' answered she, when she had complied with his request; 'I see
nothing remarkable.'
'No, madame; but you see a plaster-cast dealer at the corner?'
'Yes, I do; but what of that?'
'In half an hour his place will be taken by a seller of quack
medicines, and that man will remain there till dusk. As soon as the
bell goes at six, a man in a white blouse with his hands in his pockets
will take the doctor's place, and will pace up and down till midnight,
when he will disappear, and another man will occupy the same post. At
day-break there will be a colporteur selling pamphlets.'
'And what does that mean?'
'It means, madame, that a strict watch is kept upon the house; and
that, if monsieur were to return, it would be reported all over
the town. I think I know the faces of some of these sentinels. The
plaster-cast dealer lost his betrothed some few years ago. I need not
tell you, madame, what had become of her, and the man found out and
vowed vengeance on the Intendant, for which threat he was imprisoned.
The quack doctor's little daughter was supposed by many to have been
decoyed into this house. Anyhow she disappeared, and the father came
here to make inquiries. I had orders to turn the dogs loose upon him.
I do not know the other men. The colporteur's face I think I have seen
at Bernay, but I cannot be sure.'
Madame Berthier laughed and danced round the yard.
'This is charming!' she cried; 'others are after the Beast. We will
hunt him down, shall we not, Pigeon, dearest; shall we not, my treasure
of a Poulet?' Then whirling up to Gabrielle, she caught her in her arms
and said, 'Yes, stay here now with me; he dare not come to the house,
or, if he does, I will deliver him over to the dogs and the men, and
they will tear him in pieces.'
'Will you allow me, dear mistress, to run home to Madame Deschwanden's,
and bring a few of my things?'
'Certainly,' answered the crazy lady; 'but be quick, for I have many
things to show you and my seraph Gabriel. And I will keep his curiosity
on the stretch till you return.'
Events of importance had followed the capture of the Bastille. The
National Assembly sent a deputation, consisting of Bailly, Lafayette,
the Archbishop of Paris, and the stout half-Irish Lally-Tolendal,
to the Hôtel de Ville to announce the reconciliation effected with
the king. Their presence caused the liveliest joy; and the electors
proceeded to confer on Lafayette the command of the national guard, as
they now called the newly-organized militia, and to choose Bailly to be
Mayor of Paris in the place of the unfortunate Flesselles.
Whereupon a Te Deum was voted; and the multitude of French guards,
soldiers of the line, and militia, together with a crowd of citizens,
marched to Notre-Dame, where the ceremony was performed with due
splendour.
The city had settled down into something like calm. The barricades were
not removed, nor did the sentries cease to pace their distance. The
feverish excitement had subsided, but anxiety still remained dominant.
Would the king suffer the forty thousand men round Paris to remain
inactive, and make no attempt to punish those who had broken open his
fortress? In spite of the royal promise that the troops should be
withdrawn, they remained at their posts.
The court, which had at first refused to believe in the fall of the
Bastille, when all doubt of the fact disappeared, made light of
the circumstance, for they trusted in a few hours to recapture the
citadel. But when the king, obstinate for once in his life, refused all
solicitations to employ force, then they felt that their hopes were at
an end, and the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs,
Vaudreuil, De Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc and others, absconded from
France. Necker had left the Polignacs in power at Versailles; they were
the first to announce to him at Basle the ruin and dispersion of the
three days' ministry. De Breteuil hung on a few days longer, and then
emigrated, to act as Louis XVIth's secret minister at foreign courts.
Berthier was nowhere to be found, and with him had disappeared all
the officers charged with the administration of provisions. Foulon was
reported to be sick to death, poisoned by his own hand, in his stately
mansion in the Rue du Temple.
Gabrielle was sitting one morning with Madame Plomb in the window, and
the poor woman had recurred to her dream of a flight to the land of
rocks and mountains.
'You know that it is a promise,' said she; 'you assured me that when I
escaped from that hateful prison, I should go to the place where I was
when a child.'
'But where was it?' asked Gabrielle.
'That I cannot say distinctly. I remember the mountains glittering
with snow, and the roar of the falling torrents. I remember the blue
lakes----'
'Dear madame,' said Gabrielle, interrupting her, 'your words remind me
of what Nicholas and the corporal are continually repeating. You must
mean Switzerland.'
'I am not certain,' answered Madame Berthier. 'There are so many
mountains in the world. We have ranges of snowy peaks in the south
and in the east, and there are the mountains of Auvergne. How can I
say that it was not the Pyrenees or the mountains of Dauphiné that
I remember?--Why are you blushing, child?' This was asked abruptly
as Gabrielle drew her face from the window, and looked down at the
needlework on which she was engaged.
Directly after a servant announced that there was some one at the door
who wanted to speak to Mademoiselle André.
'Show him up here,' said madame. 'Do not stir from your seat,
Gabrielle. I must see what it was that made you blush.'
The door immediately opened to admit Nicholas, who on entering stood
shyly, hat in one hand, and a little statuette in the other.
He looked first at Gabrielle and then at Madame Plomb, with his large
eyes full of bewilderment.
The leaden lady smiled.
'Is this the M. Nicholas of whom you so often speak?' she asked.
Gabrielle became crimson. Nicholas at the same moment radiated joy and
nodded to the girl.
'This is the M. Nicholas Deschwanden who can tell you all about his
land of mountains and lakes,' she said.
'That is capital,' exclaimed the lady. 'Sit down, young man, and tell
me all about Switzerland.'
'Ah! good madame, how could I tell you all in one breath? Switzerland
would take a lifetime to describe. And again, what description can
adequately express its glories?'
'You have snowy mountains there,' said madame.
'Snowy mountains!' echoed Nicholas, his eyes lighting up. 'Oh! if you
could but see them, standing half way up the sky, with their bases
lost in blue shadows, and the evening glow--the Alpenglüth, we call
it--upon their heads. Madame, since I have been in Paris, I have met
some philosophers who deny all those things which I have been taught to
believe. I have heard them pronounce Heaven and Paradise to be a fable;
but no one looking at our Alps of an evening could doubt in Heaven and
Paradise; they are a Revelation,--a witness of a better life and a
better country. I am clumsy to express myself, but I feel it there,'
and he laid his hand on his heart. 'Ah! good madame, it is a wonderful
sight to behold the golden crimson light fade off the snow, and then
there steals over the icy peaks a greyness like death, a ghastly chill
that lasts for a few moments, as though they knew that they were not
eternal.'
'And the lakes,' said Madame Berthier. 'I remember one as blue as
heaven, with white water-lilies on it.'
'Was it a pond in France?' asked Nicholas, looking at Gabrielle.
'No. I have been among mountains and lakes.'
'Have you been in Switzerland?' asked Nicholas, eagerly.
'I do not know. I remember when I was a little child that I was in a
beautiful land; but whether it was Switzerland or not I cannot tell.'
'We have such lakes,' said Nicholas; 'little heavens lying among the
rough mountains, like still souls, such as that of Gabrielle, amongst
the wild spirits surrounding them. There are water-lilies on our
Sarnen See. But that is not equal to the lake of the Four Cantons,
shaped like a cross, and the Catholic cantons cling around it lovingly.'
'Are you not all Catholics in Switzerland?' asked Madame Berthier.
'No,' answered the young man, sadly. 'Some of the cantons are
Protestant. Oh, madame, is not that sad? and in those parts you cannot
travel without tears. Love, faith, religion, are dead. Above the Lake
of Thun, on the edge of a precipice, is a little cave in which lived a
thousand years ago a blessed hermit.'
'Not Bruder Klaus, surely,' said Gabrielle.
'Bruder Klaus! no. It was the blessed Beatus. He was a British
missionary, and he converted all that portion of Switzerland. I have
visited his cave. From the mouth you can look over the beautiful lake
to the snowy heads of the Jung-Frau, the Mönch, and the Eiger. Oh! the
scene is so lovely. But no pilgrims visit the cave; the people around
have forgotten their benefactor along with the faith he taught them. It
is sad. I wept in that cave, and prayed for the re-conversion of those
cantons which had fallen into heresy.'
His bright, honest face became clouded with sorrow.
Madame Berthier looked at it, smiled, and changed the subject.
'What is that little statuette in your hand?'
The lad coloured, and extended it to her.
'If you please, madame, I bought it for Mademoiselle André. It seemed
to me so long since she left our house, and yet it is only three days,
and I was sure that she wanted something, but I could not exactly
tell what. I thought about it all day. I felt a voice within me say,
"Gabrielle has need of something, you must take it to her." I felt
impelled to come here, but I did not know for what purpose. At last
it flashed across my mind that she must desire a little image of the
Blessed Virgin for her devotions.'
'In other words,' said the lady, 'you felt miserable without Gabrielle,
and hunted about for an excuse to come here?'
Nicholas stared at her. This was a new light in which to view his
sensations. There might be some truth in it, he admitted to himself,
and then his eyes fell.
'Oh, madame,' said he, 'you should see our beautiful lake of the Four
Cantons. There is not a promontory that does not end in a little white
chapel with a red roof, containing a sacred figure; there is not a rock
jutting out of the water which has not its tiny shrine upon it. Oh!
it is so pretty, so religious, so happy! I remember one just opposite
the arm of the lake that points towards the south, it stands almost
on the blue water, a white sunny speck, and when you row up to it you
find it to be an arcaded niche, enshrining a statue of S. Nicolas von
der Flue, the hermit, in his brown serge habit, staff in hand, with
his sad, pale, earnest face looking out towards the hazy ridge, on the
flank of which he dwelt so many years in prayer and fasting. And as you
near the next prong of rock thrust out of the waves, you see a bower of
hazels, in which snuggles another tiny chapel, open only to the water,
overhung by a bush of flowering elder, with braids of crimson wild rose
wavering against the white walls, and blue salvia and pink willow-herb
clustering about the sides; whilst before the statue of the Blessed
Virgin bearing her Child, that it contains, the sparkling ripples
incessantly bow and whisper their litanies.'
'How beautiful!' exclaimed Madame Berthier; 'I must ask my father
whether it was Switzerland that I remember.'
'Your father!' repeated Nicholas, looking blank; 'what can you mean,
madame? do you not know----?'
'Know what?'
Nicholas looked at Gabrielle, and signed that he wished to say
something to her in private.
'What do you mean?' again asked Madame Berthier.
'May I say a few words to Gabrielle first, outside the door?'
'By all means,' answered the poor lady, laughing.
The girl hesitated, but Nicholas winked and nodded to her, and
contrived to express by cabalistic signs the importance of the
communication he desired to make.
This did not reassure Gabrielle, who hung back more reluctantly than
before; but her mistress insisted on her following Nicholas, and the
young man, taking her arm, drew her into the passage.
'What is it, Nicholas?' she asked; 'I wish you would not be so
mysterious. You quite frighten me.'
'Do not be angry, my dear friend,' he replied, 'it is about that poor
unhappy lady I want to speak to you. I expected to find you alone here.'
'Then why did you come?' asked Gabrielle.
'I did not know that there was a prospect of finding you alone when
I started,' pursued Nicholas; 'but I heard that M. Foulon was dead.
Dreadful! it is reported that he poisoned himself, but that may be
only a report and worthless. As I came here, I passed the funeral
procession.'
'But, Nicholas, my mistress knows nothing of this.'
'How strange! She is his daughter. Has she not been told that her
father is dead?'
'No. She did not know of his illness.'
'That is wonderful,' said the young man. 'But possibly the family were
not aware that she had left the Bastille.'
'They must surely have known that.'
'Anyhow,' continued Nicholas, 'I saw the funeral on its way through the
Rue S. Honoré to the church of S. Rocque. The cortège is splendid, and
is passing through all the most important streets. Several carriages
follow the hearse. No expense seems to have been spared.'
'Are you sure of this, Nicholas?'
'Perfectly,' answered the young man; 'I went myself to the mansion
in the Rue du Temple, where the entrance-doorway was converted into
a _chapelle ardente_, hung with black and adorned with the armorial
bearings of the deceased.'
'What is to be done?' exclaimed Gabrielle.
'I think you ought to tell madame. I was dismayed when I entered and
found her here. I cannot understand it. I will wait whilst you inform
her. I will remain outside. Go in, Gabrielle.'
'I dare not.'
'Why not?' asked madame from within. 'I have heard all. You foolish
children; you should speak lower. I am quick of hearing. My father
dead! My father being buried! Well! I will attend his funeral, though
not invited. Perhaps Berthier is there, and has kept the secret from
me. Alas! I do not love my father, but I am sorry that he is dead.
Come, my children, let us go to the church; I must see him once more.'
She threw her bonnet and veil upon her head and prepared to sally forth.
'You see I am always in mourning,--always ready for a death. The cat
cannot come. He is in too gay a costume. He must be put in trappings of
woe when we return.'
On her way to S. Rocque, the poor woman became very excited, having
convinced herself that Berthier had purposely kept her in ignorance
of her father's death, and she turned first to Gabrielle and then to
Nicholas to denounce him. By the time she had reached the railing
before the flight of steps leading to the church, she had worked
herself into a fit of madness.
The street was packed with spectators, who observed a sullen silence.
Foulon was intensely and implacably hated, and he had been given over
at the Palais Royal, by the popular orators, to the vengeance of the
Parisians. The starving people, who during the last few days had
suffered severely owing to an increasing deficiency of supplies, could
not forget that this man had been one of the greatest farmers of the
revenue, had made an enormous fortune out of the compact of famine, and
had throughout his life been callous to the distress of the poor. His
speech at Bernay, 'Wait till I am minister, then the people shall eat
hay, my horses eat it,' had been repeated in the capital.
If Foulon had appeared in the streets alive, surrounded by a troop of
soldiers, the exasperated mob would have burst through the iron ring
and have strangled the life out of him. Now he was dead, they respected
his body.
Madame Berthier, observing the crowd outside of the church, turned to
those nearest her, and asked,--
'Have you come to see my father buried? I am his daughter, and they
never told me of his death. But that was Berthier's doing.'
No one answered her except with scowls.
'Let me pass,' said she to the Suisse at the gate; 'do you know that my
father is being buried, and I was not told that he was ill or dead? Was
not that cruel? Not that I loved him much. How could I? He never loved
me. But I want to see him. Let me pass, good man.'
She was admitted, and mounted some of the steps. At that moment the
coffin was borne out of the door, over which black drapery strewn with
little silver flames had been suspended.
Her position in comparative isolation before the gloomy trappings and
the coffin and mutes on one side, and the mob of spectators on the
other, excited Madame Berthier's brain, and springing to the platform
on which the body of her father rested, she turned to the people and
addressed them, throwing up her veil at the same moment, and displaying
her hideous leaden face.
The vision produced a murmur of horror and disgust.
'Ah ha! good souls,' she screamed; 'pray for the unfortunate. Did you
love the dead? Answer me.'
There was no response for some moments. She repeated her question, and
then one man shouted: 'Does the corn love the wheel which turns on it
and crushes it? No, we hate him.'
A groan of rage and detestation was then the general reply.
'Well,' said Madame Berthier, 'I do not care for him. I did not love
him, and I do not love him now. He treated me very badly; he mocked me
for my leaden looks, and bade me buy love, as I could not win it with
my beauty. Will such jests make a child love her parents? Yet I do not
hate him; I keep all my hate for my husband. Do you know Berthier de
Sauvigny?'
The answer was a roar.
'He is my husband. Ah ha! you hate him, do you?'
'Hate him as we hate hell,' was bellowed.
'Do you hate him more than I do?'
'Ten times more.'
'No, that is impossible. You may kill him, you may bury him, and I will
dance over his grave. He shut me into the Bastille, and kept me there
a prisoner. Ah! poor father,' she cried, reverting to the coffin; 'ah!
you shall be prayed for after death, for you have much to answer for
that you committed in life.' She wheeled round to the mob, extended
her arms, and cried: 'You are good, you Parisians. When my father and
my husband shut me up in that terrible dungeon, you came and tore it
down and liberated me. Foulon has wronged you. But he has gone to his
account. Pray for the unfortunate!'
She raised her hands above her head, and began to dance with small
steps on the pavement-stone on which she stood, without leaving it. All
at once she burst into a peal of laughter and exclaimed: 'Do you know,
good Parisians, what I did to Berthier?'
Some of the officials of the church and those belonging to the
undertaker, advanced to remove her. But the crowd were in the humour to
listen to her and to observe her, and they shouted to them to touch the
lady at their peril.
'Do you know, good people, what I did?' she asked again. 'No, you
cannot guess. He came to visit me in my cell, and I cast my yellow
angel--my cat, into his face, and it tore him. I saw the streaks of
blood. Ah ha! I hate him.' She knit her hands; her eyes glared like
those of a tigress, she became rigid in every limb. 'Promise me, good
people, if you find him, you will kill him. Hang him to the lantern,
and make him blue like me. I have seen a dead man dangling from a
beam--and his face was like mine. Let Berthier become M. Plomb. Promise
me not to spare him--swear to me.'
The answer was thundered by several thousand voices--'We swear.'
'Will you curse him? See!' she ran to the church door and tore down
a long strip of crape powdered with silver flames, and threw it over
her like a cope--'See!' she cried, 'I will be your priestess, leading
your curses and your prayers. Curse for me, Berthier de Sauvigny!' She
lifted one arm. Her bonnet had fallen, and her ash-grey hair fell
wildly about her flame-strewn vestment, which she held about her with
her other hand. 'Curse him wherever he be. Cry out anathema!' She
mounted the bier, and stood before the coffin. 'Curse him waking, and
curse him sleeping.'
The people, falling in with her mad humour, or carried away by the
wildness of the scene and her actions, responded,--
'Anathema!'
'Curse him eating, and curse him drinking.'
'Anathema!'
'Curse him in his moments of laughter and mirth, and in his times of
sorrow and fears.'
'Anathema!'
'Curse him when he is flying from his enemies. Shut the way about him
with curses, that he cannot escape.'
'Anathema!'
'Blind his eyes, that he may not see clearly whither to flee.'
'Anathema!'
'Stop his ears to good advice, and open them only to that which is
evil, to the counsel of Ahitophel.'
'Anathema!'
'Curse his hands, that they may fail him in the last struggle for life.'
And the people roared 'Anathema!'
'Curse his feet, that they may fail him when he turns to fly.'
'Anathema!'
'And now,' she continued, lowering her arm and descending from the
bier, 'you are good, pray for the unfortunate.' She placed herself
before the coffin, faced it, and extending both her arms like a priest
at the beginning of the Credo, she cried, 'Pray for the dead, that his
sins may be blotted out, and his iniquities be forgiven, Miserere!' The
versatile crowd responded, falling on their knees:--
'Miserere!'
'Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon
him!'
'Miserere!'
'I must see his face,' said Madame Berthier, casting aside the black
crape and throwing the pall from the coffin. 'I must see my father once
more; and I must give him his last kiss. Open the coffin.'
Again the officers interposed; but the poor woman would listen to no
reason. 'Berthier in his malice would not tell me that my father was
dying, he did not announce to me his death, lest I should kiss him. Let
me take my last look, my last kiss. I insist. Have I not a right, do I
not draw my blood from his veins? Why am I not to see him?'
She was thrust aside by some of the undertaker's officials with some
violence; but the mad creature was as resolute as were they. She turned
to the people and appealed to them for help. 'They will not let me see
my father. They kept me from his bedside when he was ill; they held
from me the news that he was dead; and now they refuse me a last look,
and a last kiss. Help, good people! you, who set me at liberty when I
was locked up in the Bastille; you will not suffer these hirelings to
stand between a daughter and her father!'
The appeal was not made in vain; the Suisse at the gate was thrown
down, and the mob poured up the steps to the assistance of the poor
lady. In the meantime, an attempt was made to remove the coffin into
the church, but a sturdy butcher intercepted his body between it and
the door, and frustrated the attempt.
A ring was formed around Madame Berthier and the coffin, and it was
observed that several of the mourners immediately decamped with
precipitation.
On the coffin was a silver plate, inscribed with the name of Foulon,
and a list of the offices he had held, that of minister during the
eventful three days, not being omitted.
'Open the coffin for me, good people. You shall see my father. He is
not very terrible now.'
'A turnscrew,' was called from man to man; and presently one was
produced, and the coffin-lid was slowly and laboriously removed.
'Now,' said Madame Berthier, taking hold of the napkin spread over the
face of the deceased, 'I bid you all look with me on the countenance
of my poor father. He was a bad man, I allow, and a hard man upon the
poor, but then, he is dead now, and has gone to his account. You have
prayed God to have mercy on his soul; I am sure when you see his dead
face that you will be prepared to bury your resentment in his grave.
Behold!' she drew the napkin aside, looked on the face of the corpse,
started back, uttering a cry of dismay:--
'This is not my father! This is poor Adolphe!'
The crowd pressed forward and stared long at the dead man, satisfying
themselves of the deception. Not a word was spoken, not a murmur arose.
All pushed up to the corpse, gazed on it, and then looked into the eyes
of those around them.
'My father is still alive!' exclaimed madame. 'Praised be God.'
'Madame,' said a man into her ear, 'before the week is out he will be
dead.'