DOES NOT A MEETING LIKE THIS MAKE AMENDS?
Before we acquaint the reader with the continuation of the drama which
passed on the boats, we will go back a little. A few moments after
Fleur-de-Marie had left Saint Lazare with Mrs. Seraphin, La Louve had
also quitted the prison.
Thanks to the recommendation of Madame Armand and of the director, who
wished to recompense her for her good action toward Mont Saint Jean,
she had been also pardoned and dismissed. A complete change had taken
place in this creature, heretofore so headstrong, vile, and corrupted.
Keeping constantly in mind the description made by Fleur-de-Marie of a
peaceful and solitary life, La Louve held in disgust her past crimes.
Confiding in the aid which Fleur-de-Marie had promised her in the name
of her unknown benefactor, La Louve determined to make this laudable
proposition to her lover, not without the bitter fear of a refusal,
for the Goualeuse, in leading her to blush for the past, had also
given her a consciousness of her position toward Martial.
Once free, La Louve only thought of seeing him. She had received no
news from him for many days. In the hope of meeting him on Ravageurs'
Island, she decided to wait there if she did not find him; she got
into a cab, and was rapidly driven to the Bridge of Asnieres, which
she crossed about fifteen minutes before Mrs. Seraphin and
Fleur-de-Marie, coming on foot, had arrived on the shore near the
plaster-kiln.
As Martial did not come to take La Louve in his boat to the island,
she applied to the old fisherman named Ferot, who lived near the
bridge.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, a cab stopped at the entrance of a
little street of Asnieres village. La Louve gave five francs to the
coachman. Jumped to the ground, and ran hastily to the abode of Ferot.
Having thrown off her prison dress, she wore a robe of dark green
merino, a red shawl, imitation cashmere, and a lace cap trimmed with
ribbons: her thick crispy hair was scarcely smoothed. In her
impatience to see Martial, she had dressed herself with more haste
than care. On reaching the house of the fisherman, she found him
seated at the door mending his nets.
As soon as she saw him, she cried out, "Your boat, Ferot--quick,
quick."
"Ah! is it you? Good-day, good-day. You have not been here for a long
time."
"Yes, but your boat--quick--to the island."
"Ah, well! fate will have it so; my good girl, it is impossible to-day."
"How?"
"My boy has taken my boat to go with the others to a rowing match at
Saint Ouen. There is not a single boat left on the whole shore from
this to the docks."
"Zounds!" cried La Louve, stamping and clinching her fists; "it
happens so expressly for me!"
"It's true, on my word. I am very sorry I cannot convey you to the
island, for, without doubt, he must be worse."
"Worse! Who?"
"Martial."
"Martial?" cried La Louve, seizing Ferot by the collar; "is Martial
sick?"
"Did you not know it?"
"Martial?"
"Yes, certainly; but you will tear my blouse; do be quiet."
"He is sick. Since when?"
"Two or three days ago."
"It is false; he would have written to me."
"Ah, well, yes! he is too sick to write."
"Too sick to write! And he is on the island; you are sure of that?"
"Don't get me into a scrape; this is the story: this morning I said to
the widow, 'For two days past I have not seen Martial, his boat is
there. Is he in the city?' Thereupon the widow looked at me with her
wicked eyes: 'He is sick on the island; and so sick that he will never
come off again.' I said to myself, 'How can that be? Three days ago--'
Well," said Ferot, interrupting himself, "where are you going to--
where the devil is she running to now?"
Believing the life of Martial menaced by the inhabitants of the
island, La Louve, overcome with alarm, and transported with rage,
listened no longer to the fisherman, but ran along the Seine.
Some topographical details are indispensable to understand the
following scene.
The island approached nearer the left side of the river than the right
shore, from whence Fleur-de-Marie and Mrs. Seraphin had embarked. La
Louve was on the left side. Without being very steep, the hills on the
island concealed, all its length, the view of one shore from the
other. Thus, La Louve had not seen the embarkation of La Goualeusea,
and the Martial family, of course, could not see her as she ran along
the shore on the opposite side.
We recall to the reader that the country-house belonging to Doctor
Griffon, where the Count de Saint Remy temporarily dwelt, was built on
the hillside, near the shore where La Louve was wandering,
half-distracted.
She passed, without seeing them, near two persons, who, struck with
her haggard look, turned to follow her at a distance. These two
persons were the Count de Saint Remy and Doctor Griffon.
The first impulse of La Louve, on learning the peril of her lover, had
been to run impetuously toward the place where she knew he was in
danger. But as she approached the island, she thought of the
difficulty of getting there. As the old fisherman had told her, she
could not count on any strange boat, and no one from the Martial
family would come for her.
Breathless, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, she stopped opposite
a point of the island which, forming a curve at this place, was
nearest to the mainland. Through the leafless branches of the willows
and poplars, La Louve could see the roof of the house, where, perhaps,
Martial was dying. At this sight, uttering a fearful groan, she tore
off her shawl and cap, and slipping down her robe, keeping on her
petticoat, she threw herself into the river, and waded until she lost
her footing, when she began to swim vigorously toward the island.
It was the climax of savage energy.
At each stroke, the thick and long hair of La Louve, untied by the
violence of her movements, shook about her head like a shaggy mane of
copper color.
Suddenly, from the other side of the island, resounded a cry of
distress, of terrible, desperate agony. La Louve shuddered, and
stopped short. Then, treading water, with one hand she pushed back her
thick hair, and listened. A new cry was heard, but more feeble, more
supplicating, convulsive, expiring and all relapsed into a profound
silence. "My Martial!" cried La Louve, swimming again with all her
strength. She thought she had recognized the voice of Martial.
The count and doctor had not been able to follow La Louve quick enough
to prevent what she accomplished. They arrived opposite to the island
at the moment that the two fearful screams were heard, and stopped, as
much alarmed as La Louve. Seeing her struggle intrepidly against the
current, they cried, "The poor thing will be drowned!" These fears
were vain; she swam like an otter; still a few more strokes, and she
reached the land. She was getting out of the water by the assistance
of the poles, which, as we have said, formed a breakwater at the end
of the island, when she perceived the body of a young girl, dressed as
a peasant, sustained by her clothes, floating down the current.
To grasp with one hand the poles, and with the other to seize hold of
the girl by her dress, such was the movement of La Louve, as rapid as
thought. Then she drew her so violently toward her and within the
stakes, that, for a moment, she disappeared under the water, which was
of no great depth at this place.
Endued with no common strength and address, La Louve raised up La
Goualeuse (for it was she), whom she had not yet recognized, took her
up in her robust arms, as one would have taken a child, made some
steps in the water, and, finally, laid her on the green bank of the
island.
"Courage, courage!" cried M. de Saint Remy to her, as a witness, as
well as Dr. Griffon, of this bold act. "We are going to cross the
bridge, and will come to your aid in a boat." La Louve did not hear
these words. Let us repeat, that from the right shore of the Seine,
where Nicholas, Calabash, and their mother remained after the
consummation of their horrible crime, nothing could be seen of the
other side, owing to the height of the island. Fleur-de-Marie,
suddenly drawn within the row of piles by La Louve, having plunged for
a moment, and not reappearing to the sight of her murderers, they
believed their victim drowned and ingulfed.
Some few moments afterward, the current brought down another body, in
an eddy, which La Louve did not perceive. It was the corpse of the
notary's housekeeper. Dead--quite dead--this one.
Nicholas and Calabash had as much interest as Jacques Ferrand to get
rid of this witness, the accomplice of their new crime; so when the
boat with the hole sunk with Fleur-de-Marie, Nicholas, springing into
the boat of his sister, nearly upset it, and seizing a favorable
moment, threw the housekeeper into the river, and dispatched her with
the boat-hook.
Out of breath and exhausted, La Louve, kneeling on the ground
alongside of Fleur-de-Marie, recruited her strength, and examined the
features of her whom she had rescued from death. Let her surprise be
imagined when she recognized her companion of the prison, who had
exercised upon her destiny an influence so rapid, so ameliorating. In
her surprise, for a moment she forgot Martial.
"La Goualeuse!" cried she.
With bended body, leaning on her hands and knees, her hair disheveled,
her clothes dripping with water, she contemplated the unhappy child,
extended, almost expiring on the ground. Pale, inanimate, her eyes
half open and without expression, her beautiful flaxen hair falling
flat over her forehead, her blue lips, her small hands, already stiff
and icy--one would have thought her dead. "La Goualeuse!" repeated La
Louve, "what chance! I who came to tell my Martial the good and evil
she had done me with her words and promises; the resolution that I had
taken. Poor little thing! I find her here dead. But, no, no," cried La
Louve, approaching still nearer to Fleur-de-Marie, and feeling an
almost imperceptible breath escape from her mouth; "No! she breathes
still! I have saved her from death! that has never happened to me
before, to save any one. Ah! that does me good; it makes me warm. Yes,
but my Martial I must save also. Perhaps, at this moment, he is
expiring; his mother and brother are capable of killing him. Yet I
cannot leave this poor little thing here. I will carry her to the
widow's; she must take care of her, and show me Martial, or I will
break everything--I will kill everybody! Oh! neither mother, brother,
nor sister do I care for, when I know my Martial is there!"
And immediately getting up, La Louve carried Fleur-de-Marie in her
arms. With this light burden she ran toward the house, not doubting
but that the widow and her daughter, notwithstanding their wickedness,
would lend their assistance to Fleur-de-Marie.
When she reached the highest part of the island, whence could be seen
both shores of the Seine, Nicholas, his mother, and Calabash, were far
off, going in all haste to Bras-Rouge's tavern.
At this moment also, a man, who, concealed in the plaster-kiln, had
invisibly assisted at this horrible tragedy, disappeared, believing,
with the murderers, that the crime was executed. This man was Jacques
Ferrand. One of Nicholas's boats was tied to a pile near the place
where La Goualeuse and old Seraphin had embarked. Hardly had Jacques
Ferrand left the plaster-kiln to return to Paris, than M. de Saint
Remy and Dr. Griffon hastily crossed the Bridge of Asnieres, running
toward the island, thinking to reach it by Nicholas's boat, which they
had seen from afar.
To her great surprise, on arriving at the house of the Ravageurs, La
Louve found the door closed. Placing the still inanimate body of
Fleur-de-Marie under the arbor, she drew near the house. She knew the
window of Martial's chamber. What was her surprise, to see the
shutters covered with iron plates, and fastened with bars of the same
material!
Suspecting partly the truth, La Louve uttered a hoarse, resounding cry
and began to call with all her strength, "Martial! my love!"
No one answered. Alarmed at this silence, La Louve began to walk
around the building like a savage beast who scents his mate, and
seeks, with roaring, the entrance of the den where he is confined.
From time to time she cried, "My man--are you there, my man?" In her
rage she shook the bars of the kitchen window--she knocked against the
wall--she kicked against the door.
All at once a hollow sound answered from the interior of the house. La
Louve shuddered--listened. The noise ceased.
"My man has heard me! I must enter, even if I have to gnaw the door
with my teeth!" And again she uttered her savage cries.
Several blows, feebly struck on the inside of the window shutters of
Martial's room, answered to her shouts.
"He is there!" cried she, stopping suddenly under her lover's window,
"he is there! If needs must, I will tear off the iron shutters with my
nails, but I will open them."
So saying, she saw a large ladder placed behind one of the blinds of
the lower rooms; in drawing this blind violently toward her, La Louve
caused the key to fall which the widow had concealed on the window
bench. "If it unlocks," said La Louve, trying the key in the lock, "I
can go up to his chamber. It opens," cried she, with joy; "my friend
is saved!"
Once in the kitchen, she was struck by the cries of the children, who
shut up in the cellar and hearing an extraordinary noise, called for
help.
The widow, believing no one would come to the island or house during
her absence, had contented herself with locking Francois and Amandine
in the cellar, leaving the key in the lock.
Set at liberty by La Louve, the brother and sister rushed
precipitately from the cellar, crying, "Oh, La Louve, save brother
Martial! they wish to kill him; two days he has been walled up in his
room."
"They have not wounded him?"
"No, no; we believe not."
"I arrive in time!" cried La Louve, rushing to the staircase: then
suddenly stopping, she said, "And La Goualeuse! whom I forgot.
Amandine, some fire at once; you and your brother, bring here, near
the chimney-place, a poor girl who was drowning. I saved her. She is
under the arbor. Francois, a pair of pincers, a hatchet, an iron bar,
so that I can break down the door of my Martial!"
"Here is an ax to split wood, but it is too heavy for you," said the
young boy.
"Too heavy!" sneered La Louve, and she lifted with ease the iron mace,
which, under any other circumstances, she could hardly have raised
from the ground. Then, mounting the stairs four at a time, she
repeated to the children, "Run and bring in the girl, and place her
near the fire." In two bounds, La Louve was at the bottom of the
corridor, at Martial's door. "Courage, my friend--here is your Louve!"
cried she, and raising the ax with both hands, with a furious blow she
shook the door.
"It is nailed on the outside. Draw out the nails," cried Martial, in a
feeble voice.
Throwing herself on her knees in the corridor, with the aid of the
pincers and of her nails, which she tore, and her fingers, which she
cut, La Louve succeeded in drawing out the spikes which fastened the
door. At length the door was opened. Martial, pale, his hands covered
with blood, fell almost lifeless into the arms of his darling.
"At length I see you! I hold you! I have you!" cried La Louve,
receiving Martial in her arms with joy and savage energy; then
sustaining him, almost carrying him, she led him to a seat placed in
the corridor.
During some moments Martial remained weak and feeble, endeavoring to
recover from this violent shock, which had exhausted his failing
strength. La Louve saved her lover at the moment when, in a state of
despair, he felt himself about to die, less from the want of food than
from the deprivation of air, impossible to be renewed in a small room
without a chimney, without any aperture, and hermetically closed
through the atrocious foresight of Calabash, who had stopped up with
old linen even the smallest fissures of the door and window.
Palpitating with happiness and anguish, her eyes wet with tears, La
Louve, on her knees, watched the smallest movements of Martial. By
degrees he seemed to recover, as he breathed the pure and salubrious
air. After a slight shudder, he raised his weary head, uttered a long
sigh, and opened his eyes.
"Martial, it is I! your Louve; how do you feel?"
"Better," answered he, in a feeble voice.
"What will you have? water, vinegar?"
"No, no," cried Martial, less and less oppressed. "Air! oh, some air!
nothing but air!"
La Louve, at the risk of cutting her hand, broke the glass of a window
which she could not open without moving a heavy table.
"Now I breathe! I breathe! my head is relieved," said Martial, coming
quite to himself. Then, as if for the first time recalling to mind the
services she had rendered him, he cried, in a tone of ineffable
gratitude, "Without you, I should have died, my good Louve!"
"Well, well; how are you now?"
"Better and better."
"Are you hungry?"
"No, I am too weak. I suffered most from want of air; finally, I
suffocated! it was frightful!"
"And now?"
"I live again! I come out from the tomb; and I come out--thanks to
you."
"But your hands, your poor hands! these wounds? Who did this?--curse
them!"
"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time,
shut me in my chamber, and left me to die with hunger. I tried to
prevent them from nailing up my window--my sister cut my hands with
the hatchet!"
"The monsters! they wished to have it believed that you were dead from
some sickness; your mother had already spread the report that you were
in a dying state. Your mother, my man, your mother!"
"Hold! do not speak to me of her," said Martial, bitterly; then, for
the first time, remarking the wet clothes and strange attire of La
Louve, he cried, "What has happened to you?--your hair is streaming
with water. You are without your dress."
"What matters it? You are saved--saved!"
"But explain to me why you are wet."
"I knew you were in danger--I could find no boat."
"And you swam here?"
"Yes. But your hands; let me kiss them. You suffer--the monsters! And
I was not here!"
"Oh! my brave Louve," cried Martial, with enthusiasm; "brave among all
brave creatures."
"Did you not write here 'death to dastards'?"
And La Louve showed her arm, where these words were written in
indelible characters.
"Intrepid! But you feel the cold, you tremble."
"It is not the cold."
"Never mind. Go in there; take Calabash's cloak to wrap yourself in."
"But--"
"I wish it."
In a second, La Louve was enveloped in a plaid cloak, and returned.
"For me, to run the risk of drowning!" repeated Martial, looking at
her with pride.
"No risk! A poor girl was almost drowned. I saved her. On reaching the
island--"
"You saved her also--where is she?"
"Below with the children; they are taking care of her."
"And who is this young girl?"
"If you knew what a chance--what happy chance! She was one of my
chums in Saint Lazare--a very extraordinary girl, you be sure!"
"How is that?"
"Imagine that I loved her and hated her because--she at the same time
planted both death and happiness in my heart."
"She?"
"Yes; concerning you."
"Me?"
"Listen, Martial." Then, interrupting herself, she added, "No, no. I
shall never dare."
"What is it then?"
"I wished to ask something of you. I came to see you on this account;
for when I left Paris I did not know that you were in danger."
"Well, speak."
"I dare not."
"You dare not--after what you have just done for me!"
"Exactly; it would seem as if I asked a recompense."
"Asked a recompense! And do I not owe you one? Did you not take care
of me, night and day, during my sickness last year?"
"Are you not my Martial?"
"Then you should speak to me frankly, because I am your Martial, and
will be always."
"Always, Martial?"
"Always! true as I am called Martial. For me, there shall be no other
woman in the world but you, La Louve No matter what you have been--
that's my lookout. I love you--you love me; and I owe my life to you.
But since you have been in prison, I am no longer the same; much has
happened; I have reflected; and you shall no more be what you have
been."
"What do you mean to say?"
"I never wish to leave you again. Neither do I wish to leave Francois
and Amandine."
"Your little brother and sister?"
"Yes; from this day I must be to them a father--you comprehend. This
gives me duties to perform, and tames me. I am obliged to take charge
of them. They wished to make finished thieves of them; to save them, I
shall take them away."
"Where?"
"I don't know; but certainly far from Paris."
"And me?"
"You? I will take you also."
"Take me also?" cried La Louve, in a joyous delirium. She could not
believe in so much happiness. "I shall not leave you?"
"No, my brave Louve, never. You shall aid me to bring up these
children. I know you. On saying to you, I wish that my poor little
Amandine should be a virtuous girl, I know what you will be for her; a
good mother."
"Oh! thank you, Martial, thank you!"
"We will live as honest work-folks; be easy, we will find work; we
will toil like negroes. At least, these children shall not be gallows'
birds, like their father and mother. I shall not hear myself called
any more the son and brother of a _guillotine_; in fine, I shall
no more pass through the streets where I am known. But what is the
matter?"
"Martial, I am afraid I shall become crazy."
"Crazy?"
"Crazy with joy!"
"Why?"
"Because this is too much."
"What?"
"What you ask me. Oh! it is too much. Saving the Goualeuse, this has
brought me this happiness; it must be so."
"But once more, what is the matter?"
"What you have just said. Oh, Martial, Martial!"
"Well?"
"I came to ask you!"
"To leave Paris?"
"Yes," answered she, quickly; "to go with you in the woods, where we
would have a nice little house, children whom I should love; oh! how I
should love them! how your Louve would love the children of her
Martial; or, rather, if you wished it," said La Louve, trembling, "I
would call you my husband; for we shall not have the place unless you
consent to this," she hastened to add, quickly.
Martial, in his turn, looked at La Louve with astonishment, not in the
least understanding her words. "Of what place do you speak?"
"A gamekeeper's."
"That I shall have?--and who will give it to me?"
"The protectors of the girl whom I have saved."
"Who is she, then?"
I don't know; I can't understand anything; but in my life I have never
seen, never heard anything like her; she is like a fairy to read what
one has in the heart. When I told her how much I loved you, instantly,
on that account, she became interested, not by using hard words (you
know how I would have stood that), but by speaking to me of a very
laborious, hard life, tranquilly passed with you according to your
taste, in the midst of the forest; only, according to her idea,
instead of being a poacher you were a gamekeeper, and I your wife; and
then our children were to run to meet you when you returned at night
from your rounds, with dogs, your gun on your shoulder; and then we
should sup at the door of the cabin, in the cool of the evening, under
the large trees; and then we would retire to rest so happy, so
peaceful. What shall I say? in spite of myself I listened; it was like
a charm. If you knew--she spoke so well, so well--that--all that she
said, I thought I could see; I dreamed wide awake!"
"Oh! yes; it would be a happy life," said Martial, sighing in his
turn; "without being altogether black at heart, poor Francois has
associated too much with Calabash and Nicholas; so that the good air
of the woods will be much better for him than the air of the city.
Amandine could help you in the house; I would be a good keeper, as I
was a famous poacher. I should have you for a manager, my brave Louve;
and then, as you say, with children, what should we need? When once
one is accustomed to the forest, one is quite at home; a hundred years
would pass as one day; but, see now, I am a fool. Hold! you should not
have spoken to me of this life; it only causes regrets, that's all."
"I let you go on, because you say exactly what I did to La Goualeuse."
"How?"
"Yes, in listening to these fairy tales, I said to her, 'What a pity
that these castles in the air, La Goualeuse, are not the truth!' Do
you know what she answered, Martial?" said La Louve, her eyes
sparkling with joy.
"No."
"'Let Martial marry you; promise both of you to live an honest life,
and this place, which causes you so much envy, I am almost sure to
obtain for you on leaving the prison,' was her answer."
"A gamekeeper's place for me?"
"Yes, for you."
"But you are right-it is a dream. If it only were needful that I
should marry you to obtain this place, my brave Louve, it should be
done to-morrow, if I had the means; for, from to-day you are my wife--
my true wife."
"Martial, I your real wife?"
"My real, my sole wife, and I wish you to call me your husband--it is
just the same as if the mayor had joined us."
"Oh! La Goualeuse was right; it makes one so proud to say, 'My
husband!' Martial--you shall see your Louve keeping house, at work!
you shall see."
"But this place--do you believe?"
"Poor little Goualeuse, if she is deceived it is others' faults; for
she appeared to believe what she told me. Besides, just now, on
leaving the prison, the inspectress told me that the protectors of La
Goualeuse, people of high rank, had taken her from the prison this
very day: that proves that she has benefactors, and that she can do
what she has promised."
"Oh!" cried Martial, suddenly, rising from his seat, "I do not know
what we are thinking about."
"What is it?"
"This girl is below, dying, perhaps; and instead of helping her, we
are here."
"Be satisfied; Francois and Amandine are with her; they would have
called us if there had been any danger. But you are right; let us go
to her; you must see her, she to whom, perhaps, we shall owe our
happiness." And Martial, leaning on the arm of La Louve, descended the
stairs.
Before they enter the kitchen, we will relate what passed since
Fleur-de-Marie had been confided to the care of the children.