The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

Although the profoundest silence reigned around, seven out of the eight unfortunate dwellers in this attic were awake; and each, from the grandmother to the youngest child, watched the sleeping lapidary with intense emotion, as their only hope, their only resource, and, in their childlike selfishness, they murmured at seeing him thus inactive and relinquishing that labour which they well knew was all they had to depend on; but with different feelings of regret and uneasiness did the lookers-on observe the slumber of the toil-worn man. The mother trembled for her children's meal; the children thought but of themselves; while the idiot neither thought of nor cared for any one. All at once she sat upright in her wretched bed, crossed her long, bony arms, yellow and dry as box-wood, on her shrivelled bosom, and kept watching the candle with twinkling eyes; then, rising slowly and stealthily, she crept along, trailing after her her old ragged coverlet, which clung around her as though it had been her winding-sheet. She was above the middle height, and her hair being so closely shaven made her head appear disproportionately small; a sort of spasmodic movement kept up a constant trembling in her thick, pendulous under-lip, while her whole countenance offered the hideous model of ferocious stupidity. Slowly and cautiously the idiot approached the lapidary's work-table, like a child about to commit some forbidden act. When she reached the candle, she held her two trembling hands over the flame; and such was their skeleton-like condition, that the flickering light shone through them, imparting a pale, livid hue to her features. From her pallet Madeleine Morel watched every movement of the old woman, who, still warming herself over the candle, stooped her head, and with a silly kind of delight watched the sparkling of the diamonds and rubies, which lay glittering on the table. Wholly absorbed in the wondrous contemplation of such bright and beautiful things, the idiot allowed her hands to fall into the flame of the candle, nor did she seem to recollect where they were till the sense of burning recalled her attention, when she manifested her pain and anger by a harsh, screaming cry.

At this sound Morel started, and quickly raised his head. He was about forty years of age, with an open, intelligent, and mild expression of countenance, but yet wearing the sad, dejected look of one who had been the sport of misery and misfortune till they had planted furrows in his cheeks and crushed and broken his spirit. A gray beard of many weeks' growth covered the lower part of his face, which was deeply marked by the smallpox; premature wrinkles furrowed his already bald forehead; while his red and inflamed eyelids showed the overtaxed and sleepless days and nights of toil he so courageously endured. A circumstance, but too common with such of the working class as are doomed by their occupation to remain nearly all day in one position, had warped his figure, and, acting upon a naturally feeble constitution, had produced a contraction of his whole frame. Continually obliged to stoop over his work-table and to lean to the left, in order to keep his grindstone going, the lapidary, in a manner petrified, ossified in the attitude he was frequently obliged to preserve from twelve to fifteen hours a day, had acquired an habitual stoop of the shoulders, and was completely drawn on one side. So his left arm, incessantly exercised by the difficult management of the grindstone, had acquired a considerable muscular development; whilst the right arm, always inert and leaning on the table, the better to present the faces of the diamonds to the action of the grindstone, had wasted to the most extreme attenuation; his wasted limbs, almost paralysed by complete want of exercise, could scarcely support the weary, worn-out body, as though all strength, substance, and vitality had concentrated themselves in the only part called into play when toiling for the subsistence of, with himself, eight human creatures.

And often would poor Morel touchingly observe: "It is not for myself that I care to eat, but to give strength to the arm which turns the mill."

Awaking with a sudden start, the lapidary found himself directly opposite to the poor idiot.

"What ails you? what is the matter, mother?" said Morel; and then added, in a lower tone, for fear of awaking the family, whom he hoped and believed were asleep, "Go back to bed, mother; Madeleine and the children are asleep!"

"No, father," cried the eldest of the little girls, "I am awake; I am trying to warm poor little Adèle."

"And I am too hungry to go to sleep," added one of the boys; "it was not my turn to-night to have supper with Mlle. Rigolette."

"Poor things!" said Morel, sorrowfully; "I thought you were asleep – at least – "

"I was afraid of awaking you, Morel," said the wife, "or I should have begged of you to give me a drink of water; I am devoured with thirst! My feverish fit has come on again!"

"I will directly," said the lapidary; "only let me first get mother back to bed. Come! come! what are you meddling with those stones for? Let them alone, I say!" cried he to the old woman, whose whole attention seemed riveted upon a splendid ruby, the bright scintillations of which had so charmed the poor idiot that she was trying by every possible means to gain possession of it.

"There's a pretty thing! there, there!" replied the woman, pointing with vehement gestures to the prize she so ardently coveted.

"I shall be angry in a few minutes," exclaimed Morel, speaking in a loud voice to terrify his mother-in-law into submission, and gently pushing back the hand she advanced to seize her desired treasure.

"Oh, Morel! Morel!" murmured Madeleine, "I am parching, dying with thirst. How can you be so cruel as to refuse me a little water?"

"But how can I at present? I must not allow mother to meddle with these stones, – perhaps to lose me a diamond, as she did a year ago; and God alone knows the wretchedness and misery it cost us, – ay, may still occasion us. Ah, that unfortunate loss of the diamond, what have we not suffered by it!"

As the poor lapidary uttered these words, he passed his hand over his aching brow with a desponding air, and said to one of the children:

"Felix, give your mother something to drink. You are awake, and can attend to her."

"No, no," exclaimed Madeleine; "he will take cold. I will wait."

"Oh, mother," said the boy, rising, "never mind me. I shall be quite as warm up as I am in this paillasse."

"Come, will you let the things alone?" cried Morel, in a threatening tone, to the idiot woman, who kept bending over the precious stones and trying to seize them, spite of all his efforts to move her from the table.

"Mother," called out Felix, "what shall I do? The water in the pitcher is frozen quite hard."

"Then break the ice," murmured Madeleine.

"It is so thick, I can't," answered the boy.

"Morel!" exclaimed Madeleine, in a querulous and impatient tone, "since there is nothing but water for me to drink, let me at least have a draught of that! You are letting me die with thirst!"

"God of heaven grant me patience!" cried the unfortunate man. "How can I leave your mother to lose and destroy these stones? Pray let me manage her first."

But the lapidary found it no easy matter to get rid of the idiot, who, beginning to feel irritated at the constant opposition she met with, gave utterance to her displeasure in a sort of hideous growl.

"Call her, wife!" said Morel. "She will attend to you sometimes."

"Mother! mother!" called Madeleine, "go to bed, and be good, and then you shall have some of that nice coffee you are so fond of!"

"I want that! and that! There! there!" replied the idiot, making a desperate effort this time to possess herself of a heap of rubies she particularly coveted. Morel firmly, but gently, repulsed her, – all in vain; with pertinacious obstinacy the old woman kept struggling to break from his grasp, and snatch the bright gems, on which she kept her eyes fixed with eager fondness.

"You will never manage her," said Madeleine, "unless you frighten her with the whip; there is no other means of making her quiet."

"I am afraid not," returned Morel; "but, though she has no sense, it yet goes to my heart to be obliged to threaten an old woman, like her, with the whip."

Then, addressing the old woman, who was trying to bite him, and whom he was holding back with one hand, he said, in a loud and terrible voice: "Take care; you'll have the whip on your shoulders if you don't make haste to bed this very instant!"

These menaces were equally vain with his former efforts to subdue her. Morel then took a whip which lay beside his work-table, and, cracking it violently, said: "Get to bed with you directly! Get to bed!"

As the loud noise of the whip saluted the ear of the idiot, she hurried away from the lapidary's work-table, then, suddenly turning around, she uttered low, grumbling sounds between her clenched teeth; while she surveyed her son-in-law with looks of the deepest hatred.

"To bed! to bed, I say!" continued he, still advancing, and feigning to raise his whip with the intention of striking; while the idiot, holding her fist towards her son-in-law, retreated backwards to her wretched couch.

The lapidary, anxious to terminate this painful scene, that he might be at liberty to attend to his sick wife, kept still advancing towards the idiot woman, brandishing and cracking his whip, though without allowing it to touch the unhappy creature, repeatedly exclaiming, "To bed! to bed, – directly! Do you hear?"

The old woman, now thoroughly conquered, and fully believing in the reality of the threats held out, began to howl most hideously; and crawling into her bed, like a dog to his kennel, she kept up a continued series of cries, screams, and yells, while the frightened children, believing their poor old grandmother had actually been beaten, began crying piteously, exclaiming, "Don't beat poor granny, father! Pray don't flog granny!"

It is wholly impossible to describe the fearful effect of these nocturnal horrors, in which were mingled, in one turmoil of sounds, the supplicating cries of the children, the furious yellings of the idiot, and the wailing complaints of the lapidary's sick wife.

To poor Morel such scenes as this were but too frequent. Still, upon the present occasion, his patience and courage seemed utterly to forsake him; and, throwing down the whip upon his work-table, he exclaimed, in bitter despair, "Oh, what a life! what a life!"

"Is it my fault if my mother is an idiot?" asked Madeleine, weeping.

"Is it mine, then?" replied Morel. "All I ask for is peace and quiet enough to allow me to work myself to death for you all. God knows I labour alike night and day! Yet I complain not. And, as long as my strength holds out, I will exert myself to the utmost; but it is quite impossible for me to attend to my business, and be at once a keeper to a mad woman and a nurse to sick people and young children. And Heaven is unjust to put it upon me, – yes, I say unjust! It is too much misery to heap on one man," added Morel, in a tone bordering on distraction. So saying, the heart-broken lapidary threw himself on his stool, and covered his face with his hands.

"Can I help the people at the hospital having refused to receive my mother, because she was not raving mad?" asked Madeleine, in a low, peevish, and complaining voice. "What can I do to alter it? What is the use of your grumbling to me about my mother? and, if you fret ever so much about what neither you nor I can alter, what good will that do?"

"None at all," rejoined the artisan, hastily brushing the large bitter drops despair had driven to his eyes; "none whatever, – you are right; but when everything goes against you, it is difficult to know what to do or say."

"Gracious Father!" cried Madeleine; "what an agony of thirst I am enduring! My lips are parched with the fever which is consuming me, and yet I shiver as though death were on me!"

"Wait one instant, and I will give you some drink!" So saying, Morel took the pitcher which stood beneath the roof, and, after having with difficulty broken the ice which covered the water, he filled a cup with the frozen liquid, and brought it to the bedside of his wife, who stretched forth her impatient hands to receive it; but, after a moment's reflection, he said, "No, no, I must not let you have it cold as this; in your present state of fever it would be dangerous."

"So much the better if it be dangerous! Quick, quick – give it me!" cried Madeleine, with bitterness; "it will the sooner end my misery, and free you from such an incumbrance as I am; then you will only have to look after mad folks and young children, – there will be no sick-nurse to take up your time."

"Why do you say such hard words to me, Madeleine?" asked Morel, mournfully; "you know I do not deserve them. Pray do not add to my vexations, for I have scarcely strength or reason enough left to go on with my work; my head feels as though something were amiss with it, and I fear much my brain will give way, – and then what would become of you all? 'Tis for you I speak; were there only myself, I should trouble very little about to-morrow, – thank Heaven, the river flows for every one!"

"Poor Morel!" said Madeleine, deeply affected. "I was very wrong to speak so angrily to you, and to say I knew you would be glad to get rid of me. Pray forgive me, for indeed I did not mean any harm; for, after all, what use am I either to you or the children? For the last sixteen months I have kept my bed! Gracious God! what I do suffer with thirst! For pity's sake, husband, give me something to moisten my burning lips!"

"You shall have it directly; I was trying to warm the cup between my hands."

"How good you are! and yet I could say such wicked things to you!"

"My poor wife, you are ill and in pain, and that makes you impatient; say anything you like to me, but pray never tell me again I wish to get rid of you!"

"But what good am I to any one? what good are our children? None whatever; on the contrary, they heap more toil upon you than you can bear."

"True; yet you see that my love for them and you has endued me with strength and resolution to work frequently twenty hours out of the twenty-four, till my body is bent and deformed by such incessant labour. Do you believe for one instant that I would thus toil and struggle on my own account? Oh, no! life has no such charms for me; and if I were the only sufferer, I would quickly put an end to it."

"And so would I," said Madeleine. "God knows, but for the children I should have said to you, long ago, 'Morel, we have had more than enough to weary us of our lives; there is nothing left but to finish our misery by the help of a pan of charcoal!' But then I recollected the poor, dear, helpless children, and my heart would not let me leave them, alone and unprotected, to starve by themselves."

"Well, then, you see, wife, that the children are, after all, of real good to us, since they prevent us giving way to despair, and serve as a motive for exerting ourselves," replied Morel, with ready ingenuity, yet perfect simplicity of tone and manner. "Now, then, take your drink, but only swallow a little at a time, for it is very cold still."

"Oh, thank you, Morel!" cried Madeleine, snatching the cup, and drinking it eagerly.

"Enough! enough! no more! you shall not have any more just now, Madeleine."

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Madeleine, giving back the cup, "how cold it seems now I have swallowed it, – it has brought back those dreadful shiverings!"

"Alas!" ejaculated Morel, "I told you so, – ah, now you are quite ill again!"

"I have not strength even to tremble, – I seem as though I were covered over with ice."

Morel took off his jacket, and laid it over his wife's feet, remaining quite naked down to his waist, – the unhappy man did not possess a shirt.

"But you will be frozen to death, Morel!"

"Never mind me; if I find it cold by and by, I will put my jacket on for a few minutes."

"Poor fellow!" sighed Madeleine. "Ah, as you say, Heaven is not just! What have we done to be so wretched, while so many others – "

"Every one has their troubles, – some more, some less, – the great as well as the small."

"Yes; but great people know nothing of the gnawings of hunger, or the bitter pinching of the cold. Why, when I look on those diamonds, and remember that the smallest amongst them would place us and the poor children in ease and comfort, my heart sickens, and I ask myself why it is some should have so much, and others nothing? And what good are these diamonds, after all, to their owners?"

"Why, if we were to go to the question of what half the luxuries of life are really good for, we might go a great way; for instance, what is the good of that grand gentleman Madame Pipelet calls the commandant having engaged and furnished the first floor of this house, when he seldom enters it? What use is it his having there good beds, and warm covering to them, since he never sleeps in them?"

"Very true; there is more furniture lying idle there than would supply two or three poor families like ours. And then Madame Pipelet lights a fire every day, to preserve the things from the damp. Only think of so much comfortable warmth being lost, while we and the children are almost frozen to death! But then, you will say, we are not articles of value; no, indeed, we are not. Oh, these rich folks, what hard hearts they have!"

"Not harder than other people's, Madeleine; but then, you see, they do not know what misery or want are. They are born rich and happy, they live and die so. How, then, do you expect they can ever think such poor distressed beings exist in a world which to them is all happiness? No! I tell you, they have no idea of such things as fellow creatures toiling beyond their strength for food, and perishing at last with hunger! How is it possible for them to imagine privations like ours? The greater their hunger, the greater enjoyment of their abundant meal. Is the weather severe, or the cold intense, they call it a fine frost, a healthful, bracing season. If they walk out, they return to a glowing, cheerful fire, which the cold only makes them relish the more; so that they can scarcely be expected to sympathise with such as are said to suffer from cold and hunger, when those two things rather add to than diminish their pleasure."

"Ah, poor folks are better than rich, since they can feel for each other, and are always ready and willing to assist each other as much as lies in their power. Look at that kind, good Mlle. Rigolette, who has so often sat up all night, either with me or the children, during our illness. Why, last night she took Jérome and Pierre into her room, to share her supper, and it was not much, either, she had for herself, – only a cup of milk and some bread; at her age, all young people have good appetites, and she must have deprived herself to give to the children."

"Poor girl! she is indeed most kind, – and why is she so? Because she knows what poverty is. As I said to you just now, if the rich only knew – "

"And then that nice-looking lady who came, seeming so frightened all the while, to ask us if we wanted anything. Well, now she knows that we do want everything, will she ever come again, think you?"

"I dare say she will; for, spite of her uneasy and terrified looks, she seemed very good and kind."

"Oh, yes; if a person be but rich, they are always right in your opinion. One might almost suppose that rich folks are made of different materials to poor creatures like us."

"Stop, wife!" said Morel, gently; "you are getting on too fast. I did not say that; on the contrary, I agree that rich people have as many faults as poor ones; all I mean is, that, unfortunately, they are not aware of the wretchedness of one-half of the world. Agents in plenty are employed to hunt out poor wretches who have committed any crime, but there are no paid agents to find out half-starving families and honest artisans, worn-out with toil and privations, who, driven to the last extremity of distress, are, for want of a little timely succour, led into sore temptation. It is quite right to punish evil-doers; it would, perhaps, be better still to prevent ill deeds. A man may have striven hard to remain honest for fifty years; but want, misery, and utter destitution put bad thoughts in his head, and one rascal more is let loose on the world; whilst there are many who, if they had but known of his distressed condition – However, it is no use talking of that, – the world is as it is: I am poor and wretched, and therefore I speak as I do; were I rich, my talk would be of fêtes, and happy days, and worldly engagements – And how do you find yourself now, wife?"

"Much the same; I seem to have lost all feeling in my limbs. But how you shiver! Here, take your jacket, and pray put it on. Blow out that candle, which is burning uselessly, – see, it is nearly day!"

And, true enough, a faint, glimmering light began to struggle through the snow with which the skylight was encumbered, and cast a dismal ray on the interior of this deplorable human abode, rendering its squalidness still more apparent; the shade of night had at least concealed a part of its horrors.

"I shall wait now for the daylight before I go back to work," said the lapidary, seating himself beside his wife's paillasse, and leaning his forehead upon his two hands.

After a short interval of silence, Madeleine said:

"When is Madame Mathieu to come for the stones you are at work upon?"

"This morning. I have only the side of one false diamond to polish."

"A false diamond! How is that? – you who only make up real stones, whatever the people in the house may believe."

"Don't you know? But I forgot, you were asleep the other day when Madame Mathieu came about them. Well, then, she brought me ten false diamonds – Rhine crystals – to cut exactly to the same size and form as the like number of real diamonds she also brought. There, those are them mixed with the rubies on my table. I think I never saw more splendid stones, or of purer water, than those ten diamonds, which must, at least, be worth 60,000 francs."

"And why did she wish them imitated?"

"Because a great lady to whom they belonged – a duchess, I think she said – had given directions to M. Baudoin, the jeweller, to dispose of her set of diamonds, and to make her one of false stones to replace it. Madame Mathieu, who matches stones for M. Baudoin, explained this to me, when she gave me the real diamonds, in order that I might be quite sure to cut the false ones to precisely the same size and form. Madame Mathieu gave a similar job to four other lapidaries, for there are from forty to fifty stones to cut; and I could not do them all, as they were required by this morning, because M. Baudoin must have time to set the false gems. Madame Mathieu says that grand ladies, very frequently unknown to anybody but the jeweller, sell their valuable diamonds, and replace them with Rhenish crystals."

"Why, don't you see, the mock stones look every bit as well as the real stones? Yet great ladies, who only use such things as ornaments, would never think of sacrificing one of their diamonds to relieve the distress of such unfortunate beings as we are."

"Come, come, wife! Be more reasonable than this; sorrow makes you unjust. Who do you think knows that such people as Morel and his family are in existence, still less that they are in want?"

"Oh, what a man you are, Morel! I really believe, if any one were to cut you in pieces, that, while they were doing it, you would try to say, 'Thank you!'"

Morel compassionately shrugged his shoulders.

"And how much will Madame Mathieu owe you this morning?" asked Madeleine.

"Nothing; because you know I have already had an advance of 120 francs."

"Nothing! Why, our last sou went the day before yesterday. We have not a single farthing belonging to us!"

"Alas, no!" cried Morel, with a dejected air.

"Well, then, what are we to do?"

"I know not."

"The baker refuses to let us have anything more on credit, – will he?"

"No; and I was obliged yesterday to beg Madame Pipelet to lend me part of a loaf."

"Can we borrow anything more of Mother Burette?"

"She has already every article belonging to us in pledge. What have we to offer her to lend more money on, – our children?" asked Morel, with a smile of bitterness.