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MATED FROM THE MORGUE
_A TALE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE_
BY
JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA
AUTHOR OF
'LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,' 'AN
IRON-BOUND CITY,' 'ROMANTIC SPAIN,' 'MILITARY
MOSAICS,' ETC.
'La Ville de Paris a son grand mât tout de bronze, sculpté de
victoires, et pour vigie Napoléon.'--DE BALZAC.
LONDON
SPENCER BLACKETT
[Successor to J. & R. Maxwell]
MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.
1889
[_All rights reserved_]
APOLOGETIC.
This tale, such as it is, has one merit. It is a study of manners,
mainly made on the spot, not evolved from the shelves of the British
Museum. There is in it, at least, a crude attempt at photography, a
process in which sunlight and air have some part, and, therefore, liker
to nature than the adumbrations of the reading-room. The localities are
faithfully drawn, the persons are not dolls with stuffing of sawdust,
but human animals who might have lived--and, mayhap, did live. If the
volume does not kill an hour, the writer is murderer only in thought.
TO MY FRIEND,
COLONEL THE BARON CRAIGNISH,
EQUERRY TO
HIS HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA,
This Little Book,
IN TARDY THANK-OFFERING FOR THAT LARGE
LEG OF MUTTON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A HOUSELESS DOG 1
II. A CRUSH AT THE MORGUE 8
III. LE VRAI N'EST PAS TOUJOURS VRAISEMBLABLE 20
IV. THE SONG-BIRD'S NEST 30
V. NAPOLEONIC IDEAS 40
VI. THE OLD BONAPARTIST'S STORY 52
VII. FRIEZECOAT AT HOME 65
VIII. POPPING THE QUESTION 75
IX. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 85
X. 'LA JEUNE FRANCE' 96
XI. THE BONE OF CONTENTION 104
XII. ORANGE BLOSSOMS 121
XIII. THE HONEYMOON TRIP 128
XIV. VANITAS VANITATUM 139
XV. THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870 152
MATED FROM THE MORGUE.
CHAPTER I.
A HOUSELESS DOG.
The scene is Paris, the Imperial Paris, but not a quarter that is
fashionable, wealthy, or much frequented by the tourist. It is the wild,
slovenly, buoyant quarter of the Paris of the left bank, known as _le
Pays Latin_--the Land of Latin. The quarter of frolic and genius, of
vaulting ambition and limp money-bags, of generosity and meanness, of
truth and hypocrisy; the quarter which supplies the France of the future
with its mighty thinkers, the France of the passing with the forlorn
hopes of its revolutions, the world--and the _demi monde_ too--very
often with its most brilliant and erratic meteors.
The time is the spring of 1866. The chestnut-tree, called the Twentieth
of March, in the Champs Elysées, has shown its first blossoms. But the
weather is cold and damp in spite of these deceitful blossoms: the skies
weep, and chill winds blow sullenly along the Seine. It is just the
weather to make the blaze of a ruddy fire a cheerful sight, and the hiss
of the crackling logs a cheerful sound; but there is neither fire nor,
indeed, grate or stove wherein to put it, in the cabinet numbered 37, on
the fifth story of the Hôtel de Suez, in the Rue du Four, into which we
ask the reader to penetrate. A portmanteau, whose half-opened lid
betrays 'the poverty of the land,' lies in a corner, a shabby suit of
man's wearing apparel hangs carelessly on a chair, and a head, thickly
covered with hair, protrudes from the blankets in a little bed in a
recess, and out of the mouth in this head protrudes a Turkish pipe of
exaggerated length, and out of the same mouth at regular intervals
filters a slender thread of smoke. The lips contract and open again, and
no smoke comes. The head is elevated, the blankets thrown back, and the
shoulders and torso of the smoker appear rising gradually from the bed
till they are erect; the bowl of the Turkish pipe is regarded a moment
deprecatingly (as if the pipe could have been kept alight without
tobacco), and the lips move again, this time to soliloquy:
'Mr. Manus O'Hara, I have a great respect for your father's son: you
come of a fine proud spend-thrift old Irish family; but I tell you what,
my brilliant friend, if you don't replenish the exchequer I shall be
obliged to cut your society. You're not in a position to pay any more
visits to that interesting elderly female acquaintance of yours, your
aunt.[1] Realize your position, sir, I beg of you. You're in a most
confounded state of impecuniosity; you haven't a sou left, and I'm
afraid your pipe is finally extinguished. Then, that delightful lady in
the den of Cerberus below, who was one long smile when you and the
sack,[2] now that you are _en dèche_,[3] is an eternal snarl like a very
dog of Hades. When you had money you had a room on the first floor at
thirty francs a month; now that you are poor she stuffs you into a
garret on the fourth at thirty-five. Perdition catch it, Mr. O'Hara,
it's very expensive to be poor. Without cash or credit! Charming
position for a young man of genius! If you had a good suit of clothes
you might have a chance of getting into the _hôtel des haricots_,[4] but
with your present raiment there is no danger of your encouraging that
horrible temptation of ingenuous youth known as running into debt. It's
my private opinion you wouldn't get a box of matches on your solemn
oath, let alone your word, at the present crisis in your chequered
career. Good heavens! How cold it is! Without cash or credit. That's
the burden of the litany. Shall I pray? Bah! Who could pray with hunger
gnawing his vitals? Forty-two hours without food, and still without cash
or credit to procure a bite.'
The head was dipped suddenly and violently under the blankets.
A long pause.
The bed-covering billows as if stirred by some strong agitation of the
form beneath.
All is quiet again.
Now a stifled sound as of sobbing comes from under the blankets. They
are forcibly flung back, and a pale face, one feverish flush on each
cheek, emerges. The eyes flash with a sharp fitful light amid the
quick-darting big tears, and the breast heaves with convulsive sobs. At
length amid the sobs rise broken words:
'Too proud to beg, and not paid for working. Must I die, then? A hound
is fed; 'tis only man is let perish by his fellow-beings!'
Silence again; and suddenly and startlingly on the air to the silence
succeeds a mocking, hysterical laugh. The form springs from its
recumbent position on to the bare floor, and approaches a small mirror
fixed against the wall.
That laugh again.
'Ha, ha! Manus, my boy, die game!' and with the expression of this
advice, or rather intention, calm seems to come to the troubled spirit
of our poor friend. He takes his clothes off the chair and dresses
himself, keeping up a jeering comment of self-ridicule, as he puts on
each shabby article of attire.
'Ha! my pretty paper collar, I must turn you. You'll never die a
heretic. By Jove! paper collars were a great invention: they emancipate
the lord of creation from the thraldom of the washerwoman. Better to
face the free sky than to pine in this stuffy cell. Your toilette is
finished, Manus, my friend, and now to pass under the Caudine forks.'
The Caudine forks was the term he applied to the passage leading by the
_concierge's_ narrow office to the open street--a humiliating passage
enough, it is made, to any man of proud spirit and slim purse by the
voluble Parisian _concierge_, the warder of the entrance to the
lodging-house. The _concierge_ is a perennial fountain of gossip, the
demon of grasp personified, and is popularly supposed always to have a
daughter at the Conservatory of Music. Watching his opportunity,
crouched at the bottom of the dark stairs, O'Hara bolted at a mad rush
through the hall, and never ceased running until he had gained the
Boulevard St. Michel, after traversing the intervening Rue de l'Ecole de
Médecine.
He stopped a minute, laughed, tightened the belt which supported his
trousers, cried in a light voice, 'Blockade safely run!' and resumed his
way rapidly along the boulevard till he came to the quay, then turned
to the right, past Notre Dame, until he reached the Pont d'Archevêche,
whereat he stopped. The Morgue was near--gloomy receptacle of the
unclaimed dead, sent to their God before their time by crime,
starvation, or despair, or by some of the accidents which often-times
cut short the span of the happiest human life. He looked at it with a
desperate, desponding, forlorn look for a little time, and then broke
out as if in sequence of some train of thought:
'No; it's no use thinking of it. I couldn't do it. If it weren't for the
immortality of the soul, and that inconvenient religious training I've
got! Now if I were a Pagan, I could freely end my woes in that silent
river; but I'm a Christian, and must suffer them, and curse my kind.'
A mournful yet affectionate whine at his feet attracted his attention.
He looked down. A lank, ugly cur, of unassignable breed, but
unmistakably currish--a rank, unmitigated cur, with melancholy visage
and moist eyes--returned the look.
'Poor dog, you, too, have hunger in your face. The world has deserted
you!'
The dog whined again, and rubbed his thin sides familiarly and
confidently against the bottom of O'Hara's trousers.
'Alas! friend, I am like yourself--a wretched, friendless dog. Your
imploring looks are lost on me, though, Heaven knows, I would relieve
you if I could. _Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco._ Faith! the
gender is wrong there. My grammar is going with everything else. I
suppose I should have said _ignarus_.'
He faintly smiled at the notion.
'But I have nothing--absolutely nothing,' running his hand expressively
across his waistcoat-pockets. It stopped--his face lit up joyfully; then
fell. 'Blessed,' continued he, 'are those who expect nothing, for they
shall not be disappointed,' and slowly putting his hand into the pocket
he extracted, with difficulty, a silver piece of ten sous. He looked at
it steadily, almost incredulously, then at the dog. 'Come, my friend,'
he cried, 'companion in misfortune, you must share my luck.' And five
minutes afterwards O'Hara and his dumb acquaintance might be seen in the
nearest _crêmerie_, O'Hara munching a roll of bread and the houseless
dog greedily lapping a bowl of hot milk.
And both of them looked very happy dogs.