FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
The old prisoner still haunted his cell in the ruined Bastille, which he
had barricaded with loose stones, and made so difficult of access, that
no one but himself and Marguerite was likely to find it out. His
irregular habits and frequent wanderings had ceased to excite much
interest in his home. It was always understood that Marguerite could
find him when she desired, and Madame Gosner was by far too busy working
out the downfall of her enemies to give much heed to the childish old
man, who could not be made to remember what she had been to him.
Marguerite guarded her father’s secret well. When he was missing from
home, she alone knew where to find him, and a sweet companionship grew
up between the father and child in the ruins of his former prison. The
gentle pity of a truly feminine nature drew her to those gaunt ruins
almost every nightfall, for she knew that among them would be found that
patient and gentle sufferer, who felt more real companionship with the
tiny animal, which had been the sole comfort of his unjust imprisonment,
than the tumultuous life of the streets had afforded him. The desolate
loneliness of those heaped up stones was a safe place for the young
girl, as it proved a secret shelter for the man, and both felt a
mournful pleasure in meeting where they could be entirely alone.
Perhaps some stray gleam of insanity had crept out of those dark years
of solitude into the brain of the old prisoner—but it was of a kind so
dreamy and gentle that a poet would have called it inspiration. He loved
the little animal that had loved him with childlike idolatry, and the
sweet face of that young girl was like that of an angel to him, for she
alone had the power to link his present dreamy state with a heavenly
remembrance of his young life in Germany.
True, he could not even yet recognize her as his own child, because that
pretty creature had banished out of his life, but he loved to hear her
call him father, and gave her the name of Therese, which, from first to
last, was obstinately withheld from his wife.
One night, while the moon was at its full, Marguerite crossed the
shattered draw-bridge of the old Bastille, and found her way down among
the disjointed stones in which the old prisoner’s cell had been. He was
there sitting in a patch of moonlight, that lay like a silver flag
across the entrance, talking softly to his little favorite, who was
creeping up his garments and clinging to his beard, or sheltering itself
under his hand, flitting hither and thither like a wingless bird.
The old man started up wildly, and uttered a faint cry as Marguerite
broke up the silver of the moonlight.
“Don’t be afraid, father, it is only Marguerite,” said the girl, in
gentle haste to reassure the trembling man.
“Oh, yes! I—I thought it was the other,” he said, “some one from the
great city. Would you think it? They follow me—they suspect.”
“Suspect what, my father?”
“That I find shelter somewhere—for I do not sleep in their beds; I
cannot live among such noises. So they follow me, and spy upon me, and
think I go among the enemies of the people. I, who have no life out of
this place; no friend but this little creature and you—and you, my
Therese.”
Marguerite sat down by the old prisoner, and took his hand in hers.
“I, dear father, am better than a friend, your own dear child. Did I not
come to you in the prison when every door was locked? Did I not persuade
poor old Doudel and I bribe the governor with my flowers? Do you
remember how I crept in under the good keeper’s arm when your eyes shone
on me through the darkness, and sat down by your side on the cold floor?
He wanted me to stay outside; but your dear, old face looked down on me
so pitiful, and I would not go. Have you forgotten it, my father?”
“Forgotten it, sweet one! How could I forget? When God sends his angels
to spirits in torment, do they forget? My eyes were used to darkness,
and your face dazzled them, dazzled my soul! Did you know it, I thought
at first that my wife had come. She was so like you, the same golden
hair, the same eyes. I could not speak from the joy that seized upon
me.”
“I remember—I remember! You lifted your hand—how long and white it was.
You laid it on my head, and looked down into my eyes so sadly with such
pitiful love that I began to cry. Then I remembered you stooped down,
your beard swept into my lap, and your face touched mine—you were
gathering up my tears with your lips.”
The old prisoner nodded his head and smiled.
“Yes, yes, I remember—I remember.”
“Doudel got impatient, sat down his lantern, and attempted to lift me
from the floor; but I would not go. You remember that?”
“Yes, yes! You clung to me, and wanted to stay there in the dark. Then I
thought of the angels that visited Peter in prison, and wondered if they
were lovely, like you.”
“Was it like that? But you were hungry, and I had only a crust of bread
and some figs to give you.”
“Yes, yes! Your tears and that look, they were food for the soul.”
“Do you remember how you ate the bread, while I sat on the floor and
peeled the figs for you? while kind old Doudel held the lantern and
looked on?”
The old prisoner nodded his head, and laughed just above his breath.
“It was against the rules, you know, and I had to beg and implore poor
Doudel to let me in, with my basket of flowers. How the tears ran down
your cheeks when I took them out. Wasn’t that a feast?”
The girl looked up as she spoke, and saw that great tears were coursing
each other down the old man’s face, and falling drop by drop upon his
hand, where they trembled and melted away like mist upon marble.
“Now I am making you sad,” she murmured.
The old man turned his face toward her, and a smile broke over it. This
was the second time within an hour that the gentle sadness of his
features had given way. It was like the breaking up of ice under swift
gleams of sunshine.
“Sad!” he repeated, “sad! In all the years lost to me, the sight of your
sweet face was the one joy. God sent it! God sent it, that I should be
kept human!”
“_He_ pitied you. When we went away his eyes were full of tears. I saw
it by the light he carried.”
“I think he did pity me, for he always spoke kindly, and never attempted
to hurt my little friend.”
“He was kind as a child, my father,” said Marguerite, weeping; “how I
loved him. They could not have known how I loved him, or his poor life
might have been spared.”
“Poor child! Poor child!” said the prisoner, smoothing her hair with his
white and withered hand. “If I could only comfort you; but I am old, and
so helpless: we are but children together, you and I; our little
marmousette is almost as strong. See how it sits upon my sleeve, with
its bright eyes watching us. It knows, it knows! Hush! Hush! there is a
footstep.”
Marguerite held her breath and listened, for in that weird place, so
laden with murderous traditions, the least sound brought apprehension
with it. There was, indeed, a noise of footsteps wandering among the
disjointed stones overhead.
“Hush!” whispered the prisoner; and Marguerite could see that his limbs
shook in the moonlight. “It may be that fierce woman. She who says that
I and my sorrows belong to France.”
“No, it is not the step of a woman,” answered Marguerite, under her
breath. “I—I think I know it.”
That moment a jagged fragment of stone came rushing down from the pile
of rocks which encompassed the place where they were sitting, and
crashed down upon the pavement, so close to the old man that a portion
of his coarse garments were torn and buried under it.
The girl thought that he was killed, and her wild shriek rang upward
like the cry of a wounded night-bird. Then she fell upon her knees, and
throwing one arm around the old man, drew her hand over his face,
shuddering with fear that it would be bathed in his blood. He was alive
and struggling to get up, for the strain on his garments had drawn him
prone upon the floor, and for a moment he was stunned. “Is he hurt? Has
it crushed him?” he demanded, turning his eyes upon Marguerite’s face
with a look of painful entreaty. “He was so little, poor thing! they
need not have hurled a mountain of rocks down to kill him.”
“I think not, I hope not,” answered the girl, eager to comfort him. “It
was creeping up to your shoulder just before the rock fell.”
The old man made a desperate effort to free himself, and tore at his
dress with vigor, wrenching it in tatters from under the stone; then he
rose to his hands and knees, and shook that portion of the loose robe or
cloak that fell over his bosom.
“It is not here! It is not here!” he cried out, in anguish.
“Not there; but look, look!”
Marguerite pointed to the rock on which the moonlight fell, and there
the little creature sat, alive and safe, with its bright eyes sparkling
like diamonds.
The old man reached out both his trembling hands, and the mouse crept
into them, shaking like a leaf.
“My poor friend! my dear little one! Will they never let us alone? Hush!
hush!”
The steps which had dislodged the stone were coming downward with quick,
sharp leaps. Marguerite’s cry had evidently made itself heard, and
startled the wanderer, whoever he was.
The old man gathered himself up, and retreated into the darkest corner
of his cell. Marguerite saw his terror. Placing one foot on the fragment
of rock, she leaped over it, and began to climb upward with such swift
excitement, that she absolutely seemed floating to the man, who paused
half-way down, and watched her with astonishment.