BABET VISITS THE COBBLER
The little hunchback, Charlot, sat patiently at his cobbler’s bench
making a pair of shoes. The sun was not shining in his window; it shone
on the house across the court, and there was only a reflected glare
to brighten the shop at the sign of Two Shoes. His door was open, and
from where he sat he could see the two children opposite, playing on
the threshold of their home. They were not handsome children, and were
clad in patched and faded garments, yet the shoemaker looked over
at them often as he plied his needle. He heard the voice of their
mother singing as she did her work; he saw the father come home for
his dinner, the two little ones greeting him with noisy affection. A
humble picture of family life, scarcely worth recording, yet every
day le Bossu watched it with interest and a dull pain. His hearth was
desolate, but not so desolate as his heart. Charlot cut a strip of
fine kid and stitched it, but his eyes dwelt sadly on the house across
the court. He went in and out his own door daily, but no one ever
greeted him; no loving voice spoke kind words of sympathy when his
trouble was upon him; no friendly hand performed the little every-day
services for him. There was silence always,--silence and loneliness.
The hunchback thought of it and of his life. He could remember no great
blessings or joys in it. His parents were humble, and he was the one
misshapen child in a large family. From his birth he had been unwelcome
in the world. A neglected infant, he fell from the bed to the floor,
and from that time began to grow crooked and sickly. His mother’s death
robbed him of his only friend, and he struggled through painful years
of neglect and suffering to manhood--but what a manhood! he said to
himself; not even his own brethren cared for him. The brothers and
sisters went out into the world, and Charlot would have been left in
miserable poverty but for a kind cobbler who taught him his trade, and
thus enabled the cripple to earn his own living.
That meagre story of pain and sorrow was Charlot’s history, and now
he stitched away patiently on his shoes and made no complaint. No one
thought of him as a man endowed with all a man’s feelings and passions.
The little hunchbacked shoemaker of St. Antoine was not disliked by
his neighbors; he was welcome to gather up the crumbs of joy that fell
from the happier man’s table, to look on at feasts and weddings; he was
even wanted at funerals--for he had a strangely touching way of showing
his sympathy; but _Dieu!_ he was a thing apart, _le bossu_, a little
deformity. No one thought of the soul caged within that wretched shape,
and looking out on all it desired of the fulness of life, hungering for
a crumb of joy, and debarred forever and ever.
“Ah, _mon Dieu!_” Charlot said sometimes, “why didst thou give me the
soul of a man, and a body that is only a mark for pity or scorn?”
A question that could be answered only when the long and painful
journey should be over and the poor, misshapen body laid to rest. Who
can say in what beautiful form such a spirit may be clad when the River
of Death is crossed?
All these thoughts were in the shoemaker’s mind as he turned a little
shoe in his hand. It was of white satin and he was making a rosette of
pink ribbon, shaping it like a rose and fastening it on the toe. He
fondled his work and held it off at arm’s length, admiring it. Another
pair of shoes for Mademoiselle de St. Cyr, but this time they would
come as a surprise. Next Thursday was Rosaline’s birthday, and the
cobbler had been long fashioning these shoes as a present. He had never
dared offer her a gift before, but now he owed them so many kindnesses,
they had done so much to help him, that he felt he might offer this
humble return on mademoiselle’s birthday. That pair of little white
satin shoes stood for much joy in le Bossu’s dreary life; to plan them,
to make them, to buy the ribbon for the rosettes, had furnished him
with so many separate diversions. In the blankness of his existence
there was one sacred spot, the château of St. Cyr; in his sad days, the
figure of Rosaline stood before him like an angel. There was a great
gulf between these two, the beautiful girl and the humble cobbler, and
he knelt down on the farther side and worshipped her, as he would
worship a saint in heaven. And she knew it not. To her, he was little
Charlot, poor Charlot, and her voice softened when she spoke to him;
her manner was more kind too than to others; she could afford to be
goodness itself to the hunchbacked cobbler, and she never dreamed that
she held his life in the hollow of her hand. Great was the gulf indeed,
and she stood a long way off with the merciful sympathy of the angel
that she seemed to him to be. He understood it all well enough and
looked up to worship, happy to fashion a shoe that pleased her and to
see the light in her blue eyes when she thanked him.
So it was that he sat stitching mademoiselle’s little shoe and looking
across at the children on his neighbor’s step; they had finished their
dinner now, and the father had gone back to his work. Le Bossu’s drawn
face was pale to-day, and there was pathos in his brown eyes. He waxed
his thread and drew it back and forth and once or twice he sighed.
There was no sound in his house but the ticking of his clock, but over
the way there were the voices of children, the goodwife’s song, the
clatter of dishes. Charlot had finished one slipper and put it away,
and was taking up the other when some one entered the court. His work
would be done in good season, the cobbler thought with satisfaction,
and he was cutting the pink ribbon when he looked up and saw Babet,
the cook and housekeeper at St. Cyr. Le Bossu tucked the slipper out
of sight and greeted his visitor. She entered with a quick, firm step,
bearing herself like a grenadier, and dusted the stool with the end of
her shawl before she sat down.
“Well, Charlot,” she said, opening a bundle that she had brought, “here
are my boots, and the left one pinches me and the right is too large. I
tell you, man, that you never make two shoes alike.”
The cobbler smiled. “Your feet are not alike; that is the trouble,
Babet,” he retorted; “the left one is larger than the right.”
“Tush!” ejaculated the woman in disgust, “do you take me for a fool?
I’ve set my right foot forward all my life, little man, and yet you say
the left is larger.”
“You have worn the flesh off your right, thrusting it forward, Babet,”
replied the cobbler; “’tis the way with some noses--they are ground
off, being thrust into other people’s business.”
“Humph!” said Babet, “’tis not so with mine. Can you fix the shoe so I
can wear it?”
The shoemaker knelt down and patiently tried on Babet’s boots, while
she found fault first with one and then with the other. It was evident
that she was in no very good humor. A different customer was this from
mademoiselle, and Charlot’s thoughts were not set on pleasing her. His
guest had left him to go to St. Cyr and had ostensibly become steward
there; but the hunchback was not deceived. He had long suspected that
the women of the château were of the new religion, and now he was
secretly convinced of it, and in d’Aguesseau he saw a grave danger
for them. Charlot was a sincere Romanist too, and his conscience was
troubled, but his heart was full of sympathy for misery; he had himself
been miserable all his life. In spite of Babet’s bickering, therefore,
he found an opportunity to broach the subject nearest his heart.
“Does the new steward suit Madame de St. Cyr?” he asked, as he finally
took off the offending boots and put back the old ones on Babet’s large
feet.
“The new steward indeed!” said she, with a sniff; “a precious
steward!--I have no use for fine gentlemen without money! What did you
send him to us for?”
“I send him?” exclaimed the cobbler, in mild surprise. “Mademoiselle
asked him to come to see her grandmother.”
Babet tossed her head. “’Twas all your fault,” she said emphatically.
“I’ve nothing to say against M. d’Aguesseau himself, but what need have
we for a steward? And what does he do at once, this fine gentleman?”
Charlot had seldom seen his friend so out of humor before, and he
regarded her in amazement.
“What has he done?” he inquired.
“Fallen in love with Mademoiselle Rosaline,” retorted Babet, bluntly;
“and what use is there in that? I tell you, Charlot, I am jealous for
mademoiselle; I have no patience with these young fools--they all do
it, from M. de Baudri down.”
The hunchback laid down the shoes, the pain in his patient eyes, and
the lines deepening around his mouth.
“M. d’Aguesseau is a gentleman,” he said slowly. “I know who he is.
Does--does mademoiselle--find him pleasing?”
This was too much for Babet; she drew a long breath and stared at the
offender with eyes of scorn.
“Mademoiselle Rosaline!” she said; “Mademoiselle Rosaline pleased with
him! _Ciel!_ why, you fool, she must marry a duke or a prince. But what
is the use of having a young gentleman hopelessly in love with her and
willing to play at being steward to be near her?”
Charlot sighed; he was resting his chin on his hand and looking
thoughtfully out into the court.
“I am sorry,” he said, “if it annoys mademoiselle.”
“Annoys her!” repeated the indignant woman. “If it did--but it doesn’t,
bless her innocent heart; she does not even suspect it yet. But I see
it plain enough. He’s a fine man too, and I might be sorry for him,
but what business has he at St. Cyr?”
With this, Babet arose and adjusting her little white shawl on her
broad shoulders, she smoothed the folds of her black petticoat, and
giving Charlot some more arbitrary directions about her boots, stalked
out. She crossed the court and trudged away toward the gate of Nîmes
with a feeling of satisfaction. She had relieved her mind, and she
believed that she had disarmed the hunchback’s suspicions. Babet knew
that Charlot thought her a Huguenot, and she took many different ways
of deceiving him. She thought now that she had given a reason for M.
d’Aguesseau’s stay at St. Cyr. It was a truthful statement, but she
had made it to excuse the presence there of a stranger. No one knew of
her intentions; Babet always acted on her own impulses and she fancied
herself a wise woman. Her jealousy for mademoiselle was so genuine that
she did not have to feign her anger; no one was good enough for her
darling.
She left the hunchback in a thoughtful mood. He did not immediately
resume his work; he sat staring out at the door, but he saw nothing.
A vision rose indeed before his mind of a tall, straight figure, a
handsome, strong face, the voice and manners of a station far above his
own in life. The little cobbler sighed painfully, his lips tightened,
he felt as if some one had thrust a dagger in his heart.
He was still sitting there, staring into space, when a large figure
darkened his doorway and a stout man wearing the habit of a priest
entered his shop.