International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850

Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, and Madame Pierre Lavalles stood just inside the doorway. Never had Monsieur Perron seen them before, as he saw them now. Like turtle-doves, with smiling eyes, and affectionate caress, they had lived in happy harmony during the seven months of their married life, and motherly dames, when they gave their daughters away, bade them prosper and be pleasant in their union, as they had been joyous in their love, pleasant and joyous, as neighbor Lavalles and his wife.

Now, Pierre stood red and angry, with his right arm extended, gesticulating toward his wife. Julie stood red and angry, with her left arm extended, gesticulating toward her husband. Eyes, that had only radiated smiles, flashed with fierce passion, as the turtle doves remained near the door, each endeavoring to anticipate the other in some address to the worthy notary. He, aghast and perplexed, waited for the denouement.

"Madame," said Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, "allow me to speak."

"Monsieur," said Madame Pierre Lavalles. "I insist—"

"But, Madame, it is my—"

"But, Monsieur, I say I will."

"And yet I will."

"But no—"

"Madame, I shall."

"Then be careful what you do; M. Perron, M. Lavalles is mad."

Then the lady, having thus emphatically declared herself, resigned the right of speech to her husband, who began to jerk out in disconnected phrases a statement of his case. Seven days ago he had annoyed his wife by some incautious word; she had annoyed him by an incautious answer; he had made matters worse by an aggravating retort; and she had widened the breach by a bitter reply. This little squall was succeeded by a cool calm, and that by a sullen silence, until some sudden friction kindled a new flame, and finally, after successive storms and lulls, there burst forth a furious conflagration, and in the violent collision of their anger, the seven-months' married pair vowed to separate, and with that resolve had visited M. Perron. Reconciliation they declared was beyond possibility, and they requested the notary at once to draw up the documents that should consign them to different homes, to subsist on a divided patrimony, in loveless and unhappy marriage. Each told a tale in turn, and the manner of relation added fuel to the anger of the other. The man and the woman seemed to have leaped out of their nature in the accession of their passion. Pity that a quarrel should ever dilate thus, from a cloud the size of a man's hand to a thunder-storm that covers heaven with its black and dismal canopy.

Neither would listen to reason. The duty of the notary was to prepare the process by which they were to be separated.

"Monsieur," he said, "I will arrange the affair for you; but you are acquainted with the laws of France in this respect!"

"I know nothing of the law," replied M. Pierre Lavalles.

"Madame," said the notary, "your wish shall be complied with. But you know what the law says on this head?"

"I never read a law book," sharply ejaculated Madame Pierre Lavalles.

"Then," resumed the notary, "the case is this. You must return to your house, and I will proceed to settle the proceedings with the Judicatory Court at Paris. They are very strict. You must furnish me with all the documents relative to property."

"I have them here," put in the husband, by way of parenthesis.

"And the whole affair including correspondence, preparations of instruments, &c., will be settled in less than three months."

"Three months?"

"Three months. Yes, in less than three months."

"Then I will live with a friend at the village, until it is finished," said Madame Lavalles, in a decided, peremptory tone, usual with ladies when they are a little ashamed of themselves, or any one else.

"Oh, very well, Madame,—oh, very well."

"Not at all well, Madame; not at all well, Monsieur," said the notary, with a solid, immovable voice. "You must live as usual. If you doubt my knowledge of the law, you will, by reading through these seven books, find that this fact is specified."

But the irritated couple were not disposed to undertake the somniferous task, and shortly left the house, as they had come, walking the same way, but at a distance of a yard or so one from another.

Two months and twenty-seven days had passed, when the notary issued from his house, and proceeded toward the house where Monsieur and Madame Lavalles dwelt. Since the fatal night I have described, he had not encountered them, and he now, with a bland face and confident head, approached the dwelling.

It was a pretty place. Passing through the sunny vineyards where the spring was just calling out the leaves, and the young shoots in their tints of tender green were sprouting in the warmth of a pleasant day; the notary entered a garden. Here the flowers, in infant bloom, had prepared the earth for the coming season, for summer in her gay attire was tripping from the south, and as she passed, nature wove garlands to adorn her head, and wreathe about her arms. Early blossoms lent sweetness to the breath of the idle winds that loitered in this delightful spot, and the fair young primrose was sown over the parterres, with other flowers of spring, the most delicate and softly fragrant, that come out to live their hour in modesty and safety, while the earth affords them room, and before the bright and gaudy bloom of a riper season eclipses their beauty, bidding them, blushing, close their petals.

Early roses twined on either side the porch, and as the notary entered, nothing struck him more than the neat and cheerful appearance of the place. A demoiselle ushered him into a little parlor, where Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, and Madame Julie Lavalles, had just sat down to partake breakfast.

A small table was drawn up close to the open window, and vernal breezes found welcome in the chamber. A snowy cloth hung down to the well-polished floor, and tall white cups were placed upon it to rival it in purity and grace. Cakes of bread, such bread as is only had in France, with delicious butter, and rich brown foaming coffee frothed with cream, were spread before them, and a basket of fresh spring flowers, sparkling with dew and beautifully odorous, scented the whole chamber with a delicate perfume.

The husband and wife sat side by side, with pleasant looks, and so engaged in light and amiable conversation, that they hardly noticed the entrance of the notary. The storm had vanished and left no trace. Flushes of anger, flashes of spite, quick breathings, and disordered looks—all these had passed, and now smiles, and eyes lit only with kindness, and bosoms beating with calm content, and looks all full of love, were alone to be observed.

When M. Antoine Perron entered, they started; at length, and then recollecting his mission, blushed crimson, looked one at another, and then at the ground, awaiting his address.

"Monsieur, and Madame," said the notary, "according to your desires I come with all the documents necessary for your separation, and the division of your property. They only want your signature, and we will call in your servant to be witness."

"Stay," exclaimed Madame Julie, laughing at her husband, "Pierre, explain to M. Perron."

"Ah, Monsieur Perron," said Monsieur Antoine Lavalles, "we had forgotten that, and hoped you had also. Say not a word of it to any one."

"No, not a word," said Madame Julie. "We never quarreled but once since we married, and we never mean to quarrel again."

"Not unless you provoke it," said Monsieur Lavalles, audaciously. "But M. Perron, you will take breakfast with us?"

"You're a wicked wretch," said Madame Julie, tapping him on the cheek. "After breakfast, M. Perron, we will sign the papers."

"After breakfast," said M. Pierre Lavalles, "we will burn them."

"We shall see," said the notary. "Sign them or burn them. Madame Julie Lavalles, your coffee is charming."

After seven months' harmony, do not let seven days' quarrel destroy the happiness of home. Do not follow the directions of a person in a passion. Allow him to cool and consider his purpose.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

DUST; OR UGLINESS REDEEMED

On a murky morning in November, wind north-east, a poor old woman with a wooden leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the bitter breeze, along a stony zigzag road, full of deep and irregular cart-ruts. Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so was her wretched nose. A stick was in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and hobble her way along; and in her other hand, supported also beneath her withered arm, was a large rusty iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes filled up all the wrinkles in her face; and of these there were a prodigious number, for she was eighty-three years old. Her name was Peg Dotting.

About a quarter of a mile distant, having a long ditch and a broken-down fence as a foreground, there rose against the muddled-gray sky, a huge Dust-heap of a dirty black color, being, in fact, one of those immense mounds of cinders, ashes, and other emptyings from dust-holes and bins, which have conferred celebrity on certain suburban neighborhoods of a great city. Toward this dusky mountain old Peg Dotting was now making her way.

Advancing toward the Dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow, and just reclaimed from the mud by a thick layer of freshly-broken flints, there came at the same time Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung over his shoulder. The rags of his coat fluttered in the east-wind, which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat, and troubled his one eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature. He was ninety-seven years of age. As these two patriarchal laborers approached the great Dust-heap, a discordant voice hallooed to them from the top of a broken wall. It was meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from little Jem Clinker, a poor deformed lad, whose back had been broken when a child. His nose and chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful. He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a hob-nailed boot that covered a foot large enough for a plowman.

In addition to his first morning's salutation of his two aged friends, he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which he felt assured of their sympathy—

"Two white skins, and a tor'shell-un!"

It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the dead-cat department of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of three skins, in superior condition. had rewarded him for being first in the field.

He was enjoying a seat on the wall, in order to recover himself from the excitement of his good fortune.

At the base of the great Dust-heap the two old people now met their young friend—a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption—and they at once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and were already busy at their several occupations.

But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged—but in what a position! A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal—now by a sudden turn of law bereft of the last only, and finding that none of the rest, for which (having his fortune) he had been so much admired, enabled him to gain a livelihood. His title-deeds had been lost or stolen, and so he was bereft of everything he possessed. He had talents, and such as would have been profitably available had he known how to use them for his new purpose; but he did not; he was misdirected; he made fruitless efforts in his want of experience; and he was now starving. As he passed the great Dust-heap, he gave one vague, melancholy gaze that way, and then looked wistfully into the canal. And he continued to look into the canal as he slowly moved along, till he was out of sight.

A Dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The present one was very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large hill, and being in the vicinity of small suburb cottages, it rose above them like a great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and rank grass grew in knots on small parts which had remained for a long time undisturbed; crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on their spectacles and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often made predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might sometimes he seen following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs rooted around its base,—and now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some way up, attracted by the mixed odors of some hidden marrow-bone enveloped in a decayed cabbage-leaf—a rare event, both of these articles being unusual oversights of the Searchers below.

The principal ingredient of all these Dust-heaps is fine cinders and ashes; but as they are accumulated from the contents of all the dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many more as possible, the fresh arrivals in their original state present very heterogeneous materials. We cannot better describe them than by presenting a brief sketch of the different departments of the Searchers and Sorters, who are assembled below to busy themselves upon the mass of original matters which are shot out from the carts of the dustmen.

The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and servants' carelessness, are picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest and best of the cinders are also selected, by another party, who sell them to laundresses, or to braziers (for whose purposes coke would do as well;) and the next sort of cinders, called the breeze, because it is left after the wind has blown the finer cinders through an upright sieve, is sold to the brick-makers.

Two other departments, called the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware," are very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal matters—everything that will decompose. These are selected and bagged at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for plowed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are generally the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c., which are sold to make new roads.

The bones are selected with care, and sold to the soap-boiler. He boils out the fat and marrow first, for special use, and the bones are then crushed and sold for manure.

Of rags, the woollen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the white linen rags are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.

The "tin things" are collected and put into an oven with a grating at the bottom, so that the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs through into a receiver. This is sold separately; the detached pieces of tin are then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.

Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be molted up separately, or in the mixture of ores.

All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers, wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are sold to the old-glass shops.

As for any articles of jewelry, silver spoons, forks, thimbles, or other plate and valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first finder. Coins of gold and silver are often found, and many "coppers."

Meantime, everybody is hard at work near the base of the great Dust-heap. A certain number of cart-loads having been raked and searched for all the different things just described, the whole of it now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and the women sift it.

"When I was a young girl," said Peg Dotting—

"That's a long while ago, Peggy," interrupted one of the sifters: but Peg did not hear her.

"When I was quite a young thing," continued she, addressing old John Doubleyear, who threw up the dust into her sieve, "it was the fashion to wear pink roses in the shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally has just picked out of the dust; yes, and sometimes in the hair, too, on one side of the head, to set off the white powder and salve-stuff. I never wore one of these head-dresses myself—don't throw up the dust so high, John—but I lived only a few doors lower down from those as did. Don't throw up the dust so high, I tell 'ee—the wind takes it into my face."

"Ah! There! What's that?" suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running as fast as his poor withered legs would allow him toward a fresh heap, which had just been shot down on the wharf from a dustman's cart. He made a dive and a search—then another—then one deeper still. "I'm sure I saw it!" cried he, and again made a dash with both hands into a fresh place, and began to distribute the ashes and dust and rubbish on every side, to the great merriment of all the rest.

"What did you see, Jemmy?" asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate tone.

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, "only it was like a bit of something made of real gold!"

A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this somewhat vague declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two elegant epithets, expressive of their contempt of the notion that they could have overlooked a bit of anything valuable in the process of emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.

"Ah," said one of the sifters, "poor Jem's always a-fancying something or other good but it never comes."

"Didn't I find three cats this morning?" cried Jem, "two on 'em white 'uns! How you go on!"

"I meant something quite different from the like o' that," said the other; "I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have had, one time and another."

The wind having changed, and the day become bright, the party at work all seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company": the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first:

"I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago—they runn'd all over the floor, and over the bed, and one on 'em come'd and guv a squeak close into my ear—so I couldn't sleep comfortable. I wouldn't ha' minded a trifle of it, but this was too much of a good thing. So I got up before sunrise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come'd down this way! I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just a rising up behind the Dust-heap as I got in sight of it, and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the Dust-heap, he had dropped something. You may laugh—I say he dropped something. Well I can't say what it was, in course—a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him—a bit on him, I mean—quite as bright—just the same—only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and sparkling all on fire upon the Dust-heap. Thinks I—I was a younger man then by some years than I am now—I'll go and have a nearer look. Though you be a bit o' the sun, maybe you won't hurt a poor man. So I walked toward the Dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the sun went behind a cloud—and as he went out—like, so the young 'un he had dropped, went out arter him. And I had to climb up the heap for nothing, though I had marked the place vere it lay very percizely. But there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing 'cept a bit 'o broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that's my story. But if ever a man saw anything at all, I saw a bit o' the sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man of threescore and ten, which was my age at that time."

"Now, Peggy!" cried several voices, "tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit o' the moon."

"No," said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; "I'm no moon-raker. Not a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star the time I speak on."

"Well—go on, Peggy—go on."

"I don't know as I will," said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous, compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

"There was no moon, or stars, or comet, in the 'versal heavens, nor lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter's night from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea with her and Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn't let him, 'cause of his sore throat. Throat!—no it wasn't his throat as was rare sore—it was—no, it wasn't—yes, it was—it was his toe as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he'd be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn't go to church more regular, but he wouldn't listen; and so my words come'd true. But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn't let him by reason of his sore throat—toe, I mean—and as I went along, the night seemed to grow darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by day-time, it didn't matter for the darkness. Hows'ever, when I come'd near the bottom of the Dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark heap was so 'zackly the same as the night, you couldn't tell one from t'other. So, thinks I to myself—what was I thinking of at this moment?—for the life o' me I can't call it to mind; but that's neither here nor there, only for this—it was a something that led me to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And while I was a-hoping he might not he out a-roaring that night, what should I see rise out of one side of the Dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star, of a violet color. I stood as still, as stock-still as any I don't-know-what! There it lay, as beautiful as a new-born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By degrees I got courage to go a little nearer—and then a little nearer still—for, says I to myself, I'm a sinful woman, I know, but I have repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth and the backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy backsliding—but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before Heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps—a little furder—and a leetle furder more—un-til I come'd just up to the beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do what I arterwards did. But at last I did stoop down with both hands slowly—in case it might burn, or bite—and gathering up a good scoop of ashes as my hands went along. I took it up, and began a-carrying it home, all shining before me, and with a soft blue mist rising up round about it. Heaven forgive me! I was punished for meddling with what Providence had sent for some better purpose than to be carried borne by an old woman like me, whom it had pleased Heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and inconvenience of a wooden one. Well, I was punished; covetousness had its reward; for, presently, the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the candle, it had burned into the red shell of a lobsky's head, and its two black eyes poked up at me with a long stare—and I may say, a strong smell, too—enough to knock a poor body known."