against the gloomy impression which the dwelling itself made. Old
illustrated papers were pasted up round the walls, the bed was neat and
clean, and behind an old curtain in one corner, the family's little
wardrobe was hung up in the neatest order. Salvatore himself, with
skilful hand, had made the little girl's bed out of an old box, and in
the day one could sit upon it as if it were a sofa. The corner shelf
where the Madonna stood was adorned with bright-coloured paper flowers,
and there, too, the small treasures of the family lay spread out,--the
gilt brooch which Salvatore had presented to his wife when they were
married; the string of corals which her brother had brought from the
coral fishery in "Barbaria" (Algeria); the two gorgeous cups out of
which coffee was drunk on solemn occasions; and there, too, stood the
wonderful porcelain dog which Concetta had once received as a present
from a grand lady, and which was only taken down on Sundays to be
admired more closely.
I did not understand how the mother managed it; but the little girls
were always neat and tidy in their outgrown clothes, and their faces
shone, so washed and polished were they. The eldest child, Concetta, had
been at the free school for more than half a year; and it was the
mother's pride to make her read aloud to me out of her book. She herself
had never learned to read, and although I allowed myself to be told that
Salvatore read very well, neither he nor I had ever ventured to try his
capabilities. Now, since Petruccio could hardly ever get out of bed,
Concetta had been obliged to give up going to school, so that she might
stay at home with her sick brother whilst _la mamma_ was at her work
away in the eating-house. This place could not be given up, as not only
did she get ten sous a day for washing dishes, but sometimes she could
bring home scraps under her apron, which no one else could turn to
account, but out of which she managed to make a capital soup for
Petruccio.
Salvatore himself worked the whole day away in La Villette. He was
obliged to be at the stone-mason's yard at six o'clock every morning,
and it was much too far to go home during the mid-day rest. Sometimes it
happened that I was there when he came home in the evening after his
day's work, and then he looked very proudly at me when Petruccio
stretched out his arms towards him. He took his little son up so
carefully with his big horny hands, lifted him on his broad shoulders,
and tenderly leaned his sunburnt cheek against the sick little one's
waxen face. Petruccio sat quite quiet and silent on his father's arm;
sometimes he laid hold of his father's matted beard with his thin
fingers, and then Salvatore looked very happy. "_Vedete, Signor
dottore_," he then would say, "_n'e vero che sta meglio sta sera?_"[14]
He received his week's wages every Saturday, and then he always came
home triumphantly with a little toy for his son, and both father and
mother knelt down beside the bed to see how Petruccio liked it.
Petruccio, alas! liked scarcely anything. He took the toy in his hand,
but that was all. Petruccio's face was old and withered, and his solemn,
weary eyes were not the eyes of a child. I had never known him cry or
complain, but neither had I seen him smile except once when he was given
a great hairy horse--a horse which stretched out its tongue when one
turned it upside down. But it was not every day that a horse like that
could be got.
Petruccio was four years old, but he could not speak. He would lie hour
after hour quite quiet and silent, but he did not sleep: his great eyes
stood wide open, and it seemed as if he saw something far beyond the
narrow walls of the room--"_Sta sempre in pensiero_,"[15] said
Salvatore.
Petruccio was supposed to understand everything which was said around
him, and nothing of importance was undertaken in the little family
without first trying to discover Petruccio's opinion of the affair; and
if any one believed that they could read disapproval in the features of
the soulless little one, the whole question fell to the ground at once,
and it was afterwards found that Petruccio had almost always been right.
On Sundays Salvatore sat at home, and there were usually some other
holiday-dressed workmen visiting him, and in low-toned voices they sat
and argued about wages, about news from _il paese_, and sometimes
Salvatore treated them to a litre of wine, and they played a game, _alla
scopa_. Sometimes it was supposed that Petruccio wished to look on, and
then his little bed was moved to the bench where they sat; and sometimes
Petruccio wished to be alone, and then Salvatore and his guests moved
out into the passage. I had, however, remarked that Petruccio's wish to
be alone, and the consequent removal of the company to the passage,
usually happened when the wife was away: if she were at home she saw
plainly that Petruccio wished his father to stay indoors and not go out
with the others. And Petruccio was right enough there, too. Salvatore
was not very difficult to persuade if one of the guests wished to treat
him in his turn. Once out in the passage, it happened often enough that
he went off to the wine-shop too. And once there, it was not so easy for
Salvatore to get away again.
What was still more difficult was the coming home. His wife forgave him
certainly,--she had done it so many times before; but Salvatore knew
that Petruccio was inexorable, and the thicker the mist of intoxication
fell over him, the more crushed did he feel himself under Petruccio's
reproachful eye. No dissimulation helped here; Petruccio saw through it
at once. Petruccio could even see how much he had drunk, as Salvatore
himself confided to me one Sunday evening when I came upon him sitting
out in the passage, in the deepest repentance. Salvatore was, alas!
obviously uncertain in his speech that evening, and it did not need
Petruccio's perspicacity to see that he had drunk more than usual. I
asked him if he would not go in, but he wished to remain outside to get
_un poco d'aria_; he was, however, very anxious to know if Petruccio
were awake or not, and I promised to come out and tell him. I also
thought it was best he should sit out there till his head should clear
itself a little bit, though not so much for Petruccio's sake as to spare
his wife; and for that matter this was not the first time I had been
Salvatore's confidant in the like difficult situation. They who see the
lives of the poor near at hand cannot be very severe upon a working man
who, after he has toiled twelve hours a day the whole week, sometimes
gets a little wine into his head. It is a melancholy fact, but we must
judge it leniently; for we must not forget that here at least society
has hardly offered the poorer classes any other distraction.
I therefore advised my friend Salvatore to sit outside till I came back,
and I went in alone. Inside sat the wife with her child of sorrow in her
arms; and the even breathing of the little girls could be heard from the
box. Petruccio was supposed to know me very well, and even to be fond of
me--although he had never shown it in any way, nor, as far as I knew,
had any sort of feeling ever been mirrored in his face. The mother's
eye, so clear-sighted in everything, nevertheless did not see that there
was no soul in the child's vacant eye; the mother's ear, so sensible to
each breath of the little one, yet did not hear that the confused
sounds which sometimes came from his lips would never form themselves
into human speech. Petruccio had been ill from his birth, his body was
shrunken, and no thought lived under the child's wrinkled forehead.
Unhappily I could do nothing for him; all I could hope for was that the
ill-favoured little one should soon die. And it looked as if his release
were near. That Petruccio had been worse for some time both the mother
and I had understood; and this evening he was so feeble that he was not
able to hold his head up. Petruccio had refused all food since
yesterday, and Salvatore's wife, when I came in, was just trying to
persuade him, with all the sweet words which only a mother knows, to
swallow a little milk; but he would not. In vain the mother put the
spoon to his mouth and said that it was wonderfully good, in vain did
she appeal to my presence, "_Per fare piacere al Signor
dottore_,"--Petruccio would not. His forehead was puckered, and his
eyes had a look of painful anxiety, but no complaint came from his
tightly compressed lips.
Suddenly the mother gave a scream. Petruccio's face was distorted with
cramp, and a strong convulsion shook his whole little body. The attack
was soon over; and whilst Petruccio was being laid in his bed, I tried
to calm the mother as well as I could by telling her that children often
had convulsions which were of very little importance, and that there was
no further danger from this one now. I looked up and I saw Salvatore,
who stood leaning against the door-post. He had taken courage, and had
staggered to the door, and, unseen by us, he had witnessed that sight so
terrifying to unaccustomed eyes. He was pale as a corpse, and great
tears ran down the cheeks which had been so lately flushed with drink.
"_Castigo di Dio! Castigo di Dio!_"[16] muttered he with trembling
voice; and he fell on his knees by the door, as if he dared not approach
the feeble cripple who seemed to him like God's mighty avenger.
The unconscious little son had once more shown his father the right way;
Salvatore went no more to the wine-shop.
Petruccio grew worse and worse, and the mother no longer left his side.
And it was scarcely a month after she lost her place that Salvatore's
accident happened: he fell from a scaffolding and broke his leg. He was
taken to the Lariboisiere Hospital; and the company for whom he worked
paid fifty centimes a day to his family, which they were not obliged to
do,--so that Salvatore's wife had to be very grateful for it. Every
Thursday--the visiting day at the hospital--she was with him for an
hour; and I too saw him now and then. The days went on, and with
Petruccio's mother want increased more and more. The porcelain dog
stood alone now on the Madonna's shelf; and it was not long before the
holiday clothes went the same way as the treasures--to the pawnshop.
Petruccio needed broth and milk every day, and he had them. The little
girls too had enough, I believe, to satisfy them more or less; but what
the mother herself lived upon I do not know.
I had already tried many times to take Petruccio to the children's
hospital, where he would have been much better off, but as usual all my
powers of eloquence could not achieve this: the poor, as is well known,
will hardly ever be separated from their sick children. The lower middle
class and the town artisans have learnt to understand the value of the
hospital, but the really poor mother, whose culture is very low, will
not leave the side of her sick child: the exceptions to this rule are
extremely rare.
And so came the 15th, the dreaded day when the quarter's rent must be
paid, when the working man drags his mattress to the pawn-shop, and the
wife draws off her ring, which in her class means much more than in
ours; the day full of terror, when numberless suppliants stand with
lowered heads before their landlord, and when hundreds of families do
not know where they will sleep the next night.
I happened to pass by there on that very evening, and at the door stood
Salvatore's little girl crying all to herself. I asked her why she
cried, but that she did not know; at last, however, I learned that she
cried because "_la mamma piange tanto_."[17] Inside the yard I ran
against my friend Archangelo Fusco, the street-sweeper, who lived next
door to the Salvatores. He was occupied in dragging his bed out into the
yard, and I did not need to wait for his explanation to understand that
he had been evicted.[18] I asked him where he was going to move to, and
he hoped to sleep that night at the Refuge in the Rue Tocqueville, and
afterwards he must find out some other place. Inside sat Salvatore's
wife crying by Petruccio's bed, and on the table stood a bundle
containing the clothes of the family. The Salvatore family had not been
able to pay their rent, and the Salvatore family had been evicted. The
landlord had been there that afternoon, and had said that the room was
let from the morning of the next day. I asked her where she thought of
going, and she said she did not know.
I had often heard the dreaded landlord talked of; the year before I had
witnessed the same sorrowful scene, when he had turned out into the
street a couple of unhappy families and laid hands upon the little they
possessed. I had never seen him personally, but I thought it might be
useful in my study of human nature to make his acquaintance. Archangelo
Fusco offered to take me to him, and we set forth slowly. On the way my
companion informed me that the landlord was "_molto ricco_"; besides the
whole court he owned a large house in the vicinity, and this did not
surprise me in the least, because I had long known that he secretly
carried on that most lucrative of all professions--money-lending to the
poor. Archangelo Fusco considered that he on his side had nothing to
gain by a meeting with the landlord, and after he had told me that
besides the rent he also owed him ten francs, we agreed that he should
only accompany me to the entrance.
A shabbily-dressed old man, with a bloated, disagreeable face opened the
door carefully, and after he had looked me over, admitted me into the
room. I mentioned my errand, and asked him to allow Salvatore to settle
his rent in a few days' time. I told him that Salvatore himself lay in
the hospital, that the child was dying, and that his severity towards
these poor people was inhuman cruelty. He asked who I was, and I
answered that I was a friend of the family. He looked at me, and with an
ugly laugh he said that I could best show that by at once paying their
rent. I felt the blood rushing to my head, I hope and believe it was
only with anger, for one never ought to blush because one is not rich. I
listened for a couple of minutes whilst he abused my poor destitute
Italians with the coarsest words; he said that they were a dirty
thieving pack, who did not deserve to be treated like human beings; that
Salvatore drank up his wages; that the street-sweeper had stolen ten
francs from him; and that they all of them well deserved the misery in
which they lived.
I asked if he needed this money just now, and from his answer I
understood that here no prayers would avail. He was rich; he owned over
50,000 francs in money, he said, and he had begun with nothing of his
own. It is a melancholy fact that the man who has risen from destitution
to riches is usually cruel to the poor: one would hope and believe the
contrary, but this is unhappily the case.
My intention when I went there was to endeavour with diplomatic cunning
to effect a kind of arrangement, but alas! I was not the man for that. I
lost my temper altogether and went further than I had intended to do, as
usual. At first he answered me scornfully and with coarse insults, but
he soon grew silent, and I ended by talking alone I should say for
nearly an hour's time. It would serve no purpose to relate what I said
to him; there are occasions when it is legitimate to show one's anger in
action, but it is always stupid to show it in words. I said to him,
however, that this money which had been squeezed out of the poor was
the wages of sin; that his debt to all these poor human beings was far
greater than theirs to him. I pointed to the crucifix which hung against
the wall, and I said that if any divine justice was to be found on this
earth, vengeance could not fail to reach him, and that no prayers could
buy his deliverance from the punishment which awaited him, for his life
was stained with the greatest of all sins--namely cruelty towards the
poor. "And take care, old blood-sucker!" I shouted out at last with
threatening voice; "You owe your money to the poor, but you owe yourself
to the devil, and the hour is near when he will demand his own again!" I
checked myself, startled, for the man sank down in his chair as if
touched by an unseen hand, and pale as death, he stared at me with a
terror which I felt communicated itself to me. The curse I had just
called down rang still in my ears with a strange uncanny sound, which I
did not recognise; and it seemed to me as if there were some one else
in the room besides us two.
I was so agitated that I have no recollection of how I came away. When I
got home it was already late, but I did not sleep a wink all night; and
even to this day I think with wonder of the waking dream which that
night filled me with an inconceivable emotion. I dreamt that I had
condemned a man to death.
When I got there in the forenoon the blow had already fallen upon me. I
_knew_ what had happened although no human being had told me. All the
inhabitants of the yard were assembled before the door in eager talk.
"_Sapete Signor dottore?_"[19] they called out as soon as they saw me.
"Yes, I know," answered I, and hurried to Salvatore's. I bent down over
Petruccio and pretended to examine his chest; but breathless I listened
to every word that the wife said to me.
The landlord had come down there late yesterday evening, she said. The
little girl had run away and hidden herself when he came into the room;
but Concetta had remained behind her mother's chair, and when he asked
why they were so afraid of him, Concetta had answered because he was so
cruel to mamma. He had sat there upon the bench a long time without
saying a word, but he did not look angry, Salvatore's wife thought. At
last he said to her she need not be anxious about the rent; she could
wait to pay it till next time. And when he left he laid a five-franc
piece upon the table to buy something for Petruccio. Outside the door he
had met Archangelo Fusco with his bed on a hand-cart, preparing to take
himself off, and he had told the street-sweeper too that he could remain
in his lodging. He had asked Archangelo Fusco about me, and Archangelo
Fusco, who judged me with friendship's all-forgiving forbearance, had
said nothing unkind about me. He had then gone on his way, and
according to what was discovered by the police investigations he had,
contrary to his habit, passed the evening in the wine-shop close by, and
the porter had thought he looked drunk when he came home. As he lived
quite alone, and for fear of thieves or from avarice, attended to his
housekeeping himself, no one knew what had happened; but lights were
burning in the house the whole night, and when he did not come down in
the morning, and his door was fastened inside, they had begun to suspect
foul play and sent for the police. He was still warm when they cut him
down; but the doctor whom the police sent for said that he had already
been dead a couple of hours. They had not been able to discover the
smallest reason for his hanging himself. All that was known was that he
had been visited in the evening by a strange gentleman who had stayed
with him more than an hour, and the neighbours had heard a violent
dispute going on inside. No one in the house had seen the strange
gentleman before, and no one knew who he was.
* * * * *
The Roussel Yard belongs now to the dead man's brother; and to my joy
the new landlord's first action was to have the rooms in it repaired, so
that now they look more habitable. He also lowered the rents.
The Salvatores moved thence when Petruccio died; but the place is still
full of Italians. I go there now and then; and in spite of all the talk
about the Paris doctors' _jalousie de metier_, I have never yet met any
one who tried to supplant me in this practice.
[Footnote 14: "Is it not true that he is better to-night?"]
[Footnote 15: "He lies always buried in thought."]
[Footnote 16: "The punishment of God."]
[Footnote 17: "Mamma cries so."]
[Footnote 18: The landlord can take everything in such cases except the
bed and the clothes.]
[Footnote 19: "Do you know, doctor?"]
BLACKCOCK-SHOOTING
The passion for the chase is man's passion for pursuing, and if possible
killing, animals living in liberty. The passion for the chase is the
expression of the same impulse of the stronger to overthrow the weaker
which goes through the whole animal series. The wild beast's lust for
murder has been tamed to unconscious instinct, and thousand years of
culture lie between our wild ancestors who slew each other with stone
axes for a piece of raw fish, and the sportsman of our day. But it is
only the method which has been refined, the principle is the same.
The passion for killing is an animal instinct, and as such, impossible
to eradicate. But it behoves man, conscious of his high rank, to
struggle against this vice of his wild childhood, this phantom from the
grave in which sleep the progenitors of his race.
I cannot give you here in detail my proposals for new game laws--the
matter is not yet quite ripe--but I am very willing to explain the
fundamental principle on which they rest. I maintain that the very great
start which mankind has gained through the law of natural selection has
made the struggle between the man and the animal _too unequal to be
fair_; I maintain that killing animals is an unmanly and an ignoble
occupation.
Yes, but as regards wild beasts, wolves, foxes, etc., you don't really
mean to stand up for them? Of course I do! First of all it has never
been proved that the wild animals attacked man the first. And in the
hopeless, defensive warfare in which the animals with vanishing strength
struggle against mankind, all my sympathies are unhesitatingly given to
the weaker. Yes, it is quite true that now and then they take a hen or
a sheep from us; but what is that in comparison with all we take from
them, from woods and fields which were meant to be their larder as well
as ours? And do not talk too much about the ferocity of the wolf, you
men, who have the heart treacherously to put out poisoned food for the
starving animal! Perhaps you have not seen this way of killing wolves,
but I have. I have seen the victim's agony written in the snow; seen how
he has walked a little way and then begun to totter; has fallen, and
with ebbing strength tried to get up again; in mad delirium has rolled
in the snow whilst the poison was burning his bowels, and then at last
has lain down to die. And I have watched the trapper when he joyfully
came to seize his prey.
Do not talk too much about the cunning of the fox, you men who have
invented the spring-traps which cut into his leg when he tries to take
the lying bait which you have set out for him. In England you have not
seen this way of catching foxes, but I have. I have seen the prisoner
struggling with his last strength to get free, with the blood flowing
from his wounded leg, cut to the bone by the sharp iron; I have heard
the animal's moan far off in the night, and I have seen the footmarks in
the snow of his comrades, who have anxiously roamed around.
"But this is horrible! how is it possible that such a thing can be
allowed?"
"Yes, you are right; it is horrible; but this is the death which awaits
many foxes both in Russia and Scandinavia, and in Germany too."
"In England it would be considered a crime to kill a fox in that way."
"Yes, I know well that England is the country for lovers of animals.
What a fine graceful animal is the fox----"
"Only think what would become of the noblest of all sports, that of
fox-hunting----"
Fox-hunting! and you call that a noble sport? I will tell you what
fox-hunting is--no, I think I will not tell you. I will only say that
were I a fox, I think I would rather try to cross the Channel and become
a continental fox than to be hunted to death by your hounds and your
spurred horses. And the spur which urges you on, what is that? The love
of galloping away on a fiery horse in wild chase over hedge and
ditch--ah! I understand that joy well! But why must you have an animal
flying in terror for its life before you? Why not leave the pursuers and
the pursued to themselves if the latter is doomed to die and has to die?
Why do you wish to witness his desperate struggle for life against his
manifold stronger enemy? And why, if everything be all right, do you
often enough feel something akin to satisfaction if by chance the fox
escapes? I only ask, I dare not answer--I dare not for fear of my
Editor. And I think we had better drop this subject altogether; it is
too dangerous a one to discuss before an English public.