Ten Tales
F >>
Francois Coppee >> Ten Tales
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7
[Illustration]
The scholars, so well clothed and shod for the winter, passed heedlessly
before the unknown child. One of them, even, the son of one of the
principal men in the village, looked at the waif with an expression in
which could be seen all the scorn of the rich for the poor, the well-fed
for the hungry.
But little Wolff, coming the last out of the church, stopped, full of
compassion, before the beautiful sleeping infant.
"Alas!" said the orphan to himself, "it is too bad: this poor little one
going barefoot in such bad weather. But what is worse than all, he has
not to-night even a boot or a wooden shoe to leave before him while he
sleeps, so that the Christ-child could put something there to comfort
him in his misery."
And, carried away by the goodness of his heart, little Wolff took off
the wooden shoe from his right foot, and laid it in front of the
sleeping child; and then, as best he could, limping along on his poor
blistered foot and dragging his sock through the snow, he went back to
his aunt's.
"Look at the worthless fellow!" cried his aunt, full of anger at his
return without one of his shoes. "What have you done with your wooden
shoe, little wretch?"
Little Wolff did not know how to deceive, and although he was shaking
with terror at seeing the gray hairs bristle up on the nose of the angry
woman, he tried to stammer out some account of his adventure.
But the old woman burst into a frightful peal of laughter.
"Ah, monsieur takes off his shoes for beggars! Ah, monsieur gives away
his wooden shoe to a barefoot! That is something new for example! Ah,
well, since that is so, I am going to put the wooden shoe which you have
left in the chimney, and I promise you the Christ-child will leave there
to-night something to whip you with in the morning. And you shall pass
the day to-morrow on dry bread and water. We will see if next time you
give away your shoes to the first vagabond that comes."
And the wicked woman, after having given the poor boy a couple of slaps,
made him climb up to his bed in the attic. Grieved to the heart, the
child went to bed in the dark, and soon went to sleep on his pillow
steeped with tears.
But on the morrow morning, when the old woman, awakened by the cold and
shaken by her cough, went down stairs--oh, wonderful sight!--she saw the
great chimney full of beautiful playthings, and sacks of magnificent
candies, and all sorts of good things; and before all these splendid
things the right shoe, that her nephew had given to the little waif,
stood by the side of the left shoe, that she herself had put there that
very night, and where she meant to put a birch-rod.
And as little Wolff, running down to learn the meaning of his aunt's
exclamation, stood in artless ecstasy before all these splendid
Christmas presents, suddenly there were loud cries of laughter
out-of-doors. The old woman and the little boy went out to know what it
all meant, and saw all the neighbors gathered around the public
fountain. What had happened? Oh, something very amusing and very
extraordinary. The children of all the rich people of the village, those
whose parents had wished to surprise them by the most beautiful gifts,
had found only rods in their shoes.
Then the orphan and the old woman, thinking of all the beautiful things
that were in their chimney, were full of amazement. But presently they
saw the cure coming with wonder in his face. Above the seat, placed
near the door of the church, at the same place where in the evening a
child, clad in a white robe, and with feet bare notwithstanding the
cold, had rested his sleeping head, the priest had just seen a circle of
gold incrusted with precious stones.
And they all crossed themselves devoutly, comprehending that the
beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter's tools, was
Jesus of Nazareth in person, become for an hour such as he was when he
worked in his parents' house, and they bowed themselves before that
miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and
charity of a child.
[Illustration]
THE FOSTER SISTER.
[Illustration: THE FOSTER SISTER]
I.
Sitting in her office at the end of the shop, shut off from it by glass
windows, pretty Madame Bayard, in a black gown and with her hair in
sober braids, was writing steadily in an enormous ledger with leather
corners, while her husband, following his morning custom, stopped at the
door to scold his workmen, who had not finished unloading a dray from
the Northern Railway, which blocked the road, and carried to the
druggist of the Rue Vieille du Temple a dozen casks of glucose.
[Illustration]
"I have bad news to tell you," said Madame Bayard, sticking her pen in a
cup of leaden shot, when her husband had entered the glass cage. "Poor
Voisin is dead."
"The nurse of Leon? Poor woman! And her little daughter?"
"That is the saddest part, my dear. A relative of poor Voisin writes me
that they are too poor to take charge of the child, and she must be sent
to an orphan asylum."
"Oh, those peasants!"
The druggist was silent for a moment, rubbing his thick blond beard;
then suddenly looking at his wife with kindly eyes:
"Say, Mimi, the child is the foster sister of our Leon. Suppose we give
her a home?"
"I should think so," was the quiet reply of the pretty wife.
"Well done," cried Bayard, as, caring little if he were seen by his
clerks and store-boys, he leaned towards his wife and kissed her
forehead, "well done! you're a good woman, Mimi. We will take little
Norine with us, and bring her up with Leon. That won't ruin us, eh?
Besides, I have just made a good stroke in quinine. We will go after the
child Sunday to Argenteuil, sha'n't we?"
"We will make that our Sunday excursion."
II.
Good people, these Bayards; an honor to the drug trade. Their marriage
had united two houses which had been for a long time rivals; for Bayard
was the son of _The Silver Pill_, founded by his great-great-grandfather
in 1756 in the Rue Vieille du Temple, and had espoused the daughter of
the _Offering to Esculapius_, of the Rue des Lombards, an establishment
which dated from the First Empire, as was shown by the sign, copied from
the celebrated painting of Guerin. Honest people, excellent people--and
there are many more, like them, whatever folks may say, among the older
Paris houses, conservators of old traditions; going to the second tier,
on Sunday, at the opera comique, and ignorant of false weights and
measures. It was the cure of Blancs-Manteaux who had managed that
marriage with his confrere of Saint-Merry. The first had ministered at
the death-bed of the elder Bayard, and was dismayed to see a young man
of twenty-five all alone in a house so gloomy as that of _The Silver
Pill_, justly famed for its ipecac; and the second was anxious to
establish Mademoiselle Simonin, to whom he had administered her first
communion, and whose father was one of his most important parishioners,
old Simonin of the _Offering to Esculapius_, celebrated for its camphor.
The negotiations were successful; camphor and ipecac, two excellent
specialties, were united in the holy bonds of matrimony, there was a
dinner and ball at the Grand Vefour, and now for ten years, tranquilly
working every day, summer and winter, in her glass cage, Madame Bayard,
with her pale brown face and her plaited hair, had smitten the hearts of
all the young clerks of the quarter Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie.
And yet for a long time there had been a disappointment in that happy
household, a cloud in that bright sky. An heir was wanted, and it was
five years before little Leon came into the world. One can imagine with
what joy he was received. Now one day they might write over the door of
_The Silver Pill_ these words, "Bayard & Son." But as the infant arrived
at the time of a boom in isinglass, Madame Bayard, whose presence in the
shop was indispensable, could not think of nursing him. She even gave up
the idea of taking a nurse in the house, fearing for the new-born the
close air of that corner of old Paris, and contented herself with taking
every Sunday with her husband a little excursion to Argenteuil to see
her son with his nurse Voisin, who was overwhelmed with coffee, sugar,
soap, and other dainties. At the end of eighteen months Mother Voisin
brought back the baby in a magnificent state, and for two years a
child's nurse, chosen with great care, had taken the child out for his
airings in the square of the Tour Saint-Jacques, and had exhibited for
the admiration of her companion-nurses, the pouting lips, the high
color, and the dimpled back of the future druggist.
And now these good Bayards, learning of the death of Mother Voisin,
could not bear the thought that the little girl who had been nourished
at the same breast with their boy should be abandoned to public charity,
so they went to Argenteuil for Norine.
Poor little one! Since the fifteen days that her mother slept in the
cemetery she had been taken charge of by a cousin who kept a
billiard-saloon; and though she was not yet five years old, she had been
put to work washing the beer-glasses.
[Illustration]
The Bayards found her charming, with great eyes as blue as the summer
sun, and her thick blond tresses escaping from her ugly black bonnet.
Leon, who had been brought with his nurse, embraced his foster sister;
and the cousin, who that very morning had boxed the orphan's ears for
negligence in sweeping out the hall, appeared before the Parisians to be
as much touched as if parting with Norine was a heart-breaking affair.
The order for an ample breakfast restored his serenity.
It was a beautiful Sunday in June, and they were in the country--"an
occasion which should be improved," declared Bayard, "by taking the air;
shouldn't it, Mimi?"
And while pretty Madame Bayard, having pinned up her skirts, went out
with the children and the nurse to pick flowers in a neighboring field,
the druggist, who was less ambitious, treated the saloon-keeping cousin
to a glass of vermouth, seated at the billiard-table, which was covered
with dead flies. They breakfasted under a vineless arbor, which the hot
noonday sun riddled with its rays. But what of that? They were pleased
and contented all the same. Madame Bayard had hung her hat on the
lattice; and her husband, wearing a bargeman's straw helmet, which had
been lent to him by the saloon-keeper, cut up the duck in the best of
spirits. Little Leon and Norine, who had immediately become the best of
friends, emptied the salad-bowl of its cream-cheese. Then they all
romped in the grass, went boating on the stream, and, intoxicated with
the fresh country air, the indwellers of the city, coming from the close
Paris streets, pushed to its fullest extreme this idyl in the fashion of
Paul de Kock.
[Illustration]
For, yes; there was a moment, as they came back in the boat, in a
delicious sunset, when tinted clouds floated in a glowing sky, when
Madame Bayard--the serious Madame Bayard--whose frown turned to stone
the shop-boys of the druggist, sang the air called "To the Shores of
France," to the rhythmic fall of the oars, plied by her husband in his
shirt-sleeves. They dined in the arbor where they had breakfasted, but
the second repast was a shade less happy. The night-moths, which dashed
in to burn themselves at the candles, frightened the children; and
Madame Bayard was so tired that she could not even guess the simple
rebus on her dessert napkin.
Never mind; it has been a good day; and on their return in a first-class
carriage--this was not a time for petty economies--Madame Bayard, with
her head on her husband's shoulder, watching Leon and Norine, limp with
sleep on the lap of the nurse, half asleep herself, murmured to her
husband, in a happy voice:
"See, Ferdinand; we have done well to take the little one. She will be a
comrade for Leon. They will be like brother and sister."
III.
In fact, they did thus grow up together.
They were most kind-hearted people, these Bayards. They made no
difference between the humble orphan and their own dear boy, who would
one day in the firm of "Bayard & Son" work monopolies in rhubarb and
corners in castor-oil; indeed, they loved as their own child little
Norine, who was as intelligent as she was charming, as fair in mind as
she was delicate in body.
Now the nurse took the two children to the square of the Tour
Saint-Jacques when the weather was pleasant, and in the evening at the
family table there were two high-chairs side by side for the boy and his
foster sister.
In addition to which, the Bayards were not slow to perceive the good
influence which Norine had upon Leon. Quicker, of a more nervous
temperament, more easy of comprehension than the lymphatic boy, whose
wits were "wool-gathering," according to his father, she seemed to
communicate to him something of her own spirit and fire. "She jogs him
up," said Madame Bayard.
And since he had lived with his foster sister Leon had perceptibly grown
brighter and quicker. When they were of an age to learn to read, Leon,
who made but little progress, and stumbled along with one of those
alphabets with pictures where the letter E is by the side of an elephant
and the letter Z by the side of a zouave, was the despair of his mother.
But as soon as Norine, who in a very short time learned to spell and
read, came to the aid of the little man, he immediately made rapid
progress.
So things went on, until both children were sent to a school for little
children kept by a gentlewoman named Merlin, in the Rue de l'Homme
Arme. According to the fallacious circular which Mademoiselle Merlin
sent to the folks of the quarter, there was a garden--that is to say,
four broomsticks in a sandy court; and it was there, the first day
during recess, that the innocent Leon burst into cries of terror when he
saw the school-mistress, forced by some accident to interrupt her
knitting, stick one of her great knitting-needles in her capacious
head-dress. A "senior," who was more familiar with her head-dress,
explained the phenomenon in vain to Leon and Norine, for the boy, none
the less, preserved in the presence of Mademoiselle Merlin an impression
of superstitious terror.
[Illustration]
She would have paralyzed his infant faculties, and have prevented him in
the class from following the pointer of Mademoiselle Merlin, as she
sniffled through her sing-song lecture before the map of Europe, or the
table of weights and measures, if Norine had not been there to reassure
and encourage him. She was at once the first scholar in the school, and
became for slow and lazy Leon a sort of sisterly counsellor and
affectionate under-teacher. Towards four o'clock Madame Bayard had the
two children, whom the nurse had brought back to the store, placed near
her in the glass office; and Norine, opening a copy-book or a book,
explained to Leon the uncomprehended task or made him repeat the lesson
that he had not understood.
"The good God has rewarded us," Madame Bayard sometimes whispered to her
husband in the evening. "That little Norine is a treasure, and so good,
so industrious! Only to-day I listened to her helping Leon again. I
believe that without her he would never have learned the
multiplication-table."
"I believe you, Mimi," responded Bayard. "I have observed it. Things go
on marvellously well with us, and we will portion her and marry her,
shall we not, when she comes to a suitable age?"
IV.
Age comes--ah, how fast age comes! And behold! now in the glass cage of
the shop there is a slender and beautiful young girl sitting at the side
of Madame Bayard, who already shows some silver threads in her black
bands. It is Norine now who writes in the great ledger with leather
corners, while her adopted mother plies her needles on some embroidery.
Seven o'clock! Time that they came home, and the shop must be closed
against the November wind which is twisting and turning the flames of
the gas-jets.
Look at them now: Bayard grown stout, portly, and covered with trinkets,
while Leon, who has just entered the first class in pharmacy, has
actually become a fine-looking young fellow.
"Good-day, Mimi; good-day, Norine! Let us go right in to dinner. I will
tell you all the news while we are eating the soup," said the druggist.
They went up to the dining-room, and while Madame Bayard, sitting under
a barometer in the shape of a lyre, served the thick soup, Bayard,
tucking his napkin in his vest and regarding his wife with a knowing
look, said,
"You know it is all right."
"The Forgets agree?"
"Exactly; and Leon will espouse Hortense in six months, and our
daughter-in-law will come and live with us. Yes, Norine, you have known
nothing about it, because one does not speak of such things before young
girls; but for more than a year Leon has been in love with Hortense
Forget, and has been teasing us to arrange the marriage--not such a
difficult thing after all, since it only required a word. Leon is a good
catch. The only difficulty was that we wanted to keep our son with us.
At last it is all arranged, and your foster brother will have the wife
he wants. I hope you are pleased."
"Very much pleased," replied Norine.
Oh, deaf and blind! They never heard the voice of Norine when she
replied to them--that low, pathetic tone, which is the echo of a broken
heart. Nor did they see how pale she became, and that her head, suddenly
grown heavy, swayed from side to side as if Norine were about to faint.
They saw nothing, comprehended nothing; and for a long time they had
seen and comprehended nothing. Yet they dearly loved this Norine, who
was the grace, the charm of the house. They dreamed, these good people,
of marrying her one of these days to their head-clerk, a widower of
prudent and economical habits, and "all that is necessary to make a
woman happy." Leon loved her, too, with all his heart; but as a dear,
good sister. Nor did the great spoiled boy suspect that Norine loved
him, and suffered from her love--aye, to death itself. No; even that
evening, when they had unconsciously inflicted upon her the worst of
torture, they never suspected the truth; and they would sleep
peacefully, indulging in beautiful dreams of the future, at the very
hour when, shut in her chamber--the chamber separated by such a thin
partition from that of her adopted parents--Norine would fall upon her
bed, fainting with grief, and bury her head in her pillow to stifle her
sobs.
V.
The ball is finished; and in the empty rooms the candles, burned to the
very end, have broken some of the sconces and the fragments lie upon the
waxed floors.
The Bayards have insisted that the wedding should be celebrated at their
house; but by the aid of many flowers (it is midsummer) they have given
a holiday appearance to the apartment in the Rue Vieille du Temple where
they have triumphantly installed their daughter-in-law.
At last it is finished; the young couple have retired to their nuptial
chamber, where Madame Bayard has gone for a moment with them. Coming out
she found Norine still in the little salon, helping the servants
extinguish the lights. She embraced the young girl tenderly, saying,
"Go to bed, my child. You must be very tired." And she added, with a
smile, "Well, it will be your turn before long."
And Norine was at last alone in the room, now so gloomy, and lighted
only by her single candle resting on the piano.
Heavens! how heavy was the odor of the flowers, and how her head ached.
Ah, that horrible day! What torment she had endured since the moment
when she knelt, impressed into service as a lady's-maid, with pins in
her lips, at the feet of her rival Hortense, and arranged her white
satin train, to the hour when Leon, holding his wife by the waist, drew
her towards her, Norine, and the lips of the young couple met almost
upon her very forehead!
[Illustration]
Oh, the odor of the flowers is insupportable, and she is so giddy and
faint.
She fell upon a sofa, unnerved by a frightful headache, her head thrown
back, clasping her forehead with her two hands, but with open eyes
staring always at the door--the door of that chamber which was shut upon
the young couple, closed upon the mystery which was breaking her heart.
A sort of delirium overwhelmed her. How the heavy perfume of those
flowers overpowered her, and how a thousand memories assailed her at
once. She was a child again in the saloon at Argenteuil, and the kind
Parisians came and caressed her. She was embraced by the dear little boy
wearing a white plume in his hat. Rapid pictures flashed upon her soul.
The _pension_ of the Rue de l'Homme Arme, and Mademoiselle Merlin, with
her knitting-needle stuck in her head-dress, pointed with the end of her
stick to the table of weights and measures. The drug-store on Sundays,
all dark, the shutters closed, and she playing catch with Leon among the
barrels and sacks.
Good God! was she losing her head? She could not help humming that
waltz, during which Leon once held her in his arms. She was stifled. Oh,
the flowers! She must go out, or at least open a window. But she could
not rise; her strength had deserted her. Could she die thus? Two iron
fingers seemed to be pressing her temples. Oh, the roses and the
orange-flowers--those orange-flowers above all!
At last she made a great effort. She rose upright and pale--pale as her
white robe. But suddenly her strength left her, and falling first upon
her knees, and then with her head and shoulders upon the wood floor,
poor Norine lay stretched at the threshold of the bridal chamber, killed
by disappointed love and by the flowers.
[Illustration]
MY FRIEND MEURTRIER.
[Illustration: MY FRIEND MEURTIER]
I.
I was at one time employed in a government office. Every day from ten
o'clock until four I became a voluntary prisoner in a depressing office,
adorned with yellow pasteboard boxes, and filled with the musty odor of
old papers. There I lunched on Italian cheese and apples which I roasted
at the grate. I read the morning papers, even to the advertisements; I
rhymed verses, and I attended to the affairs of state to the extent of
drawing at the end of each month a salary which barely kept me from
starving.
I recall to-day one of my companions in captivity at that epoch.
He was called Achille Meurtrier, and certainly his fierce look and tall
form seemed to warrant that name. He was a great big fellow, about forty
years old, not too much chest or shoulders, but who increased his
apparent size by wearing felt hats with wide brims, ample and short
coats, large plaid trousers, and neckties of a sanguine red under
rolling collars. He wore a full beard, long hair, and was very proud of
his hairy hands.
The chief boast of Meurtrier, otherwise the best and most amiable of
companions, was to trifle with an athletic constitution, to possess the
biceps of a prize-fighter, and, as he said himself, not to know his own
strength. He never made a gesture, even in the exercise of his peaceful
profession, that did not have for its object to convince the spectators
of his prodigious vigor. Did he have to take from its case a half-empty
pasteboard box, he advanced towards the shelf with the heavy step of a
street porter, grasped the box solidly with a tight hand, and carried it
with a stiff arm as far as the next table, with a shrugging of shoulders
and frowning of brow worthy of Milo of Crotona. He carried this manner
so far that he never used less apparent effort even to lift the lightest
objects, and one day when he held in his right hand a basket of old
papers I saw him extend his left arm horizontally as if to make a
counterpoise to the tremendous weight.
I ought to say that this robust creature inspired me with a profound
respect, for I was then, even more than to-day, physically weak and
delicate, and in consequence filled with admiration for that energetic
physique which I lacked.
The conversations of Meurtrier were not of a nature to diminish the
admiration with which he inspired me.
In the summer, above all, on Monday mornings, when we had returned to
the office after our Sunday holiday, he had an inexhaustible fund of
stories concerning his adventures and feats of strength. After taking
off his felt-hat, his coat, and his vest, and wiping the perspiration
from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, to indicate his sanguine
and ardent temperament, he would thrust his hands deep in the pockets of
his trousers, and, standing near me in an attitude of perpendicular
solidity, begin a monologue something as follows:
"What a Sunday, my boy! Positively no fatigue can lay me up. Think of
it: yesterday was the regatta at Joinville-le-Pont; at six o'clock in
the morning the rendezvous at Bercy, at The Mariners, for the crew of
the _Marsouin_; the sun is up; a glass of white wine and we jump into
our rowing suits, seize an oar and give way--one-two, one-two--as far as
Joinville; then overboard for a swim before breakfast--strip to swimming
drawers, a jump overboard, and look out for squalls. After my bath I
have the appetite of a tiger. Good! I seize the boat by one hand and I
call out, 'Charpentier, pass me a small ham.' Three motions in one time
and I have finished it to the bone. 'Charpentier, pass me the
brandy-flask.' Three swallows and it is empty."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7