Read Les Dieux ont soif. English Page 18


  XVIII

  The _citoyenne_ Gamelin was devoted to old Brotteaux, and taking himaltogether, thought him the best and greatest man she had ever known.She had not bidden him good-bye when he was arrested, because she wouldnot have dared to defy the powers that be and because in her lowlyestate she looked upon cowardice as a duty. But she had received a blowshe could not recover from.

  She could not eat and lamented she had lost her appetite just when shehad at last the means to satisfy it. She still admired her son; but shedurst not let her mind dwell on the appalling duties he was engaged uponand congratulated herself she was only an ignorant woman who had no callto judge his conduct.

  The poor mother had found a rosary at the bottom of a trunk; she hardlyknew how to use it, but often fumbled the beads in her tremblingfingers. She had lived to grow old without any overt exercise of herreligion, but she had always been a pious woman, and she would pray toGod all day long, in the chimney corner, to save her boy and that good,kind Monsieur Brotteaux. Elodie often came to see her; they durst notlook each other in the eyes, and sitting side by side they would talk atrandom of indifferent matters.

  One day in Pluviose, when the snow, falling in heavy flakes, darkenedthe sky and deadened the noises of the city, the _citoyenne_ Gamelin,who was alone in the lodging heard a knock at the door. She startedviolently; for months now the slightest noise had set her trembling. Sheopened the door. A young man of eighteen or twenty walked in, his hat onhis head. He was dressed in a bottle-green box-coat, the triple collarof which covered his bust and descended to the waist. He wore top-bootsof an English cut. His chestnut hair fell in ringlets about hisshoulders. He stepped into the middle of the studio, as if wishful thatall the light admitted by the snow-encumbered skylight might fall onhim, and stood there some moments without moving or speaking.

  At last, in answer to the _citoyenne_ Gamelin's look of amazement:

  "Don't you know your daughter?"

  The old dame clasped her hands:

  "Julie!... It is you.... Good God! is it possible?..."

  "Why, yes, it is I. Kiss me, mother."

  The _citoyenne_ Gamelin pressed her daughter to her bosom, and dropped atear on the collar of the box-coat. Then she began again in an anxiousvoice:

  "You, in Paris!..."

  "Ah! mother, but why did I not come alone! For myself, they will neverknow me in this dress."

  It was a fact the box-coat sufficiently disguised her shape, and she didnot look very different from a great many very young men, who, like her,wore their hair long and parted in two masses on the forehead. Herfeatures, which were delicately cut and charming, but burnt by the sun,drawn with fatigue, worn with anxiety, had a bold, masculineexpression. She was slim, with long straight limbs and an easycarriage; only the clear treble of her voice could have betrayed hersex.

  Her mother asked her if she was hungry. She said she would be glad ofsomething to eat, and when bread, wine and ham had been set before her,she fell to, one elbow on the table, with a pretty gluttony, like Ceresin the hut of the old woman Baubo.

  Then, the glass still at her lips:

  "Mother," she asked, "do you know when my brother will be back? I havecome to speak to him."

  The good woman looked at her daughter in embarrassment and said nothing.

  "I must see him. My husband was arrested this morning and taken to theLuxembourg."

  By this name of "husband" she designated Fortune de Chassagne, a_ci-devant_ noble and officer in Bouille's regiment. He had first lovedher when she was a work-girl at a milliner's in the Rue des Lombards,and had carried her away with him to England, whither he had fled afterthe 10th August. He was her lover; but she thought it more becoming tospeak of him as her husband before her mother. Indeed, she told herselfthat the hardships they had shared had surely united them in a wedlockconsecrated by suffering.

  More than once they had spent the night side by side on a bench in oneof the London parks and gathered up scraps of broken bread under thetable in the taverns in Piccadilly.

  Her mother could find no answer and gazed at her mournfully.

  "Don't you hear what I say, mother? Time presses, I must see Evaristeat once; he, and he only, can save Fortune's life."

  "Julie," answered her mother at last, "it is better you should not speakto your brother."

  "Why, what do you mean, mother?"

  "I mean what I say, it is better you do not speak to your brother aboutMonsieur de Chassagne."

  "But, mother, I must!"

  "My child, Evariste can never forgive Monsieur de Chassagne for histreatment of you. You know how angrily he used to speak of him, whatnames he called him."

  "Yes, he called him seducer," said Julie with a little hissing laugh,shrugging her shoulders.

  "My child, it was a mortal blow to his pride. Evariste has vowed neveragain to mention Monsieur de Chassagne's name, and for two years now hehas not breathed one word of him or of you. But his feelings have notaltered; you know him, he can never forgive you."

  "But, mother, as Fortune has married me ... in London...."

  The poor mother threw up her eyes and hands:

  "Fortune is an aristocrat, an _emigre_, and that is cause enough to makeEvariste treat him as an enemy."

  "Mother, give me a direct answer. Do you mean that if I ask him to go tothe Public Prosecutor and the Committee of General Security and take thenecessary steps to save Fortune's life, do you mean that he will notconsent?... But, mother, he would be a monster if he refused!"

  "My child, your brother is an honest man and a good son. But do not askhim, oh! do not ask him to intercede for Monsieur de Chassagne....Listen to me, Julie. He does not confide his thoughts to me and, nodoubt, I should not be competent to understand them ... but he is ajuror; he has principles; he acts as his conscience dictates. Do not askhim anything, Julie."

  "Ah! I see you know him now. You know that he is cold, callous, that heis a bad man, that ambition and vainglory are his only guides. And youalways loved him better than me. When we lived together, all three ofus, you set him up as my pattern to copy. His staid demeanour and gravespeech impressed you; you thought he possessed all the virtues. And me,me you always blamed, you gave me all the vices, because I was frank andfree, and because I climbed trees. You could never endure me. You lovednobody but him. There, I hate him, your model Evariste; he is ahypocrite."

  "Hush, Julie! I have been a good mother to you as well as to him. I hadyou taught a trade. It has been no fault of mine that you are not anhonest woman and did not marry in your station. I loved you tenderly andI love you still. I forgive you and I love you. But do not speak ill ofEvariste. He is a good son. He has always taken care of me. When youleft me, my child, when you abandoned your trade and forsook your shop,to go and live with Monsieur de Chassagne, what would have become of mewithout him? I should have died of hunger and wretchedness."

  "Do not talk so, mother; you know very well we would have cherished youwith all affection, Fortune and I, if you had not turned your face fromus, at Evariste's instigation. Never tell me! he is incapable of akindly action. It was to make me odious in your eyes that he made apretence of caring for you. He! love you?... Is he capable of lovinganyone? He has neither heart nor head. He has no talent, not a scrap. Topaint, a man must have a softer, tenderer nature than his."

  She threw a glance round the canvases in the studio, which she found tobe no better and no worse than when she left her home.

  "There you see his soul! he has put it in his pictures, cold and sombreas it is. His Orestes, his Orestes with the dull eye and cruel mouth,and looking as if he had been impaled, is himself all over.... But,mother, cannot you understand at all? I cannot leave Fortune in prison.You know these Jacobins, these patriots, all Evariste's crew. They willkill him. Mother, little mother, darling mother, I cannot have them killhim. I love him! I love him! He has been so good to me, and we have beenso unhappy together. Look, this box-coat is one of his coats. I hadnever a shift left. A friend of Fortu
ne's lent me a jacket and I got apost with an eating-house keeper at Dover, while he worked at abarber's. We knew quite well that to return to France was to risk ourlives; but we were asked if we would go to Paris to carry out animportant mission.... We agreed,--we would have accepted a mission tohell! Our travelling expenses were paid and we were given a letter ofexchange on a Paris banker. We found the offices closed; the banker isin prison and going to be guillotined. We had not a brass farthing. Allthe individuals with whom we were in correspondence and to whom we couldappeal are fled or imprisoned. Not a door to knock at. We slept in astable in the Rue de la Femme-sans-tete. A charitable bootblack, whoslept on the same straw with us there, lent my lover one of his boxes, abrush and a pot of blacking three quarters empty. For a fortnightFortune made his living and mine by blacking shoes in the Place deGreve.

  "But on Monday a Member of the Commune put his foot on the box to havehis boots polished. He had been a butcher once, a man Fortune had beforenow given a kick behind to for selling meat of short weight. WhenFortune raised his head to ask for his two sous, the rascal recognizedhim, called him aristocrat, and threatened to have him arrested. A crowdcollected, made up of honest folks and a few blackguards, who began toshout "_Death to the emigre!_" and called for the gendarmes. At thatmoment I came up with Fortune's bowl of soup. I saw him taken off to theSection and shut up in the church of Saint-Jean. I tried to kiss him,but they hustled me away. I spent the night like a dog on the churchsteps.... They took him away this morning...."

  Julie could not finish, her sobs choked her.

  She threw her hat on the floor and fell on her knees at her mother'sfeet.

  "They took him away this morning to the Luxembourg prison. Mother,mother, help me to save him; have pity on your child!"

  Drowned in her tears, she threw open her box-coat and, the better toprove herself a woman and a wife, bared her bosom; seizing her mother'shands, she held them close over her throbbing breasts.

  "My darling, my daughter, Julie, my Julie!" sobbed the widowGamelin,--and pressed her streaming cheeks to the girl's.

  For some moments they clung together without a word. The poor motherwas racking her brains for some way of helping her daughter, and Juliewas watching the kind look in those tearful eyes.

  "Perhaps," thought Evariste's mother, "perhaps, if I speak to him, hewill be melted. He is good, he is tender-hearted. If politics had nothardened him, if he had not been influenced by the Jacobins, he wouldnever have had these cruel feelings, that terrify me because I cannotunderstand them."

  She took Julie's head in her two hands:

  "Listen, my child. I will speak to Evariste. I will sound him, get himto see you and hear your story. The sight of you might anger him; hisfirst impulse might be to turn against you.... And then, I know him;this costume would offend him; he is uncompromising in everything thattouches morals, that shocks the proprieties. _I_ was a bit startled tosee my Julie dressed as a man."

  "Oh! mother, the emigration and the fearful disorders of the kingdomhave made these disguises quite a common thing. They are adopted inorder to follow a trade, to escape recognition, to get a borrowedpassport or a certificate approved. In London I saw young Girey dressedas a girl,--and he made a very pretty girl; you must own, mother, _that_is a more scandalous disguise than mine."

  "My poor child, you have no need to justify yourself in my eyes, whetherin this or any other thing. I am your mother; for me you will always beblameless. I will speak to Evariste, I will say...."

  She broke off. She knew what her son was; she felt it in her heart, butshe would not believe it, she _would_ not know it.

  "He is kind-hearted. He will do it for my sake ... for your sake, hewill do what I ask him."

  The two women, weary to the death, fell silent. Julie sank asleep, herhead pillowed on the knees where she had rested as a child, while themother, the rosary between her hands, wept, like another _materdolorosa_, over the calamities she felt drawing stealthily nearer andnearer in the silence of this day of snow when everything was hushed,footsteps and carriage wheels and the very heaven itself.

  Suddenly, with a keenness of hearing sharpened by anxiety, she caughtthe sound of her son's steps on the stairs.

  "Evariste!" she cried. "Hide"--and she hurried the girl into thebedroom.

  "How are you to-day, mother dear?"

  Evariste hung up his hat on its peg, changed his blue coat for a workingjacket and sat down before his easel. For some days he had been workingat a sketch in charcoal of a Victory laying a wreath on the brow of adead soldier, who had died for the fatherland. Once the subject wouldhave called out all his enthusiasm, but the Tribunal consumed all hisdays and absorbed his whole soul, while his hand had lost its knack fromdisuse and had grown heavy and inert.

  He hummed over the _Ca ira_.

  "I hear you singing," said the _citoyenne_ Gamelin; "you arelight-hearted, Evariste?"

  "We have reason to be glad, mother; there is good news. La Vendee iscrushed, the Austrians beaten, the Army of the Rhine has forced thelines of Lautern and of Wissembourg. The day is at hand when theRepublic triumphant will show her clemency. Why must the conspirators'audacity increase the mightier the Republic waxes in strength, andtraitors plot to strike the fatherland a blow in the dark at the verymoment her lightnings overwhelm the enemies that assail her openly?"

  The _citoyenne_ Gamelin, as she sat knitting a stocking, was watchingher son's face over her spectacles.

  "Berzelius, your old model, has been to ask for the ten livres you owedhim; I paid him. Little Josephine has had a belly-ache from eating toomuch of the preserves the carpenter gave her. So I made her a drop ofherb tea.... Desmahis has been to see you; he was sorry he did not findyou in. He wanted to engrave a design by you. He thinks you have greattalent. He is a fine fellow; he looked at your sketches and admiredthem."

  "When peace is re-established and conspiracy suppressed," said thepainter, "I shall begin on my Orestes again. It is not my way to flattermyself; but that head is worthy of David's brush."

  He outlined with a majestic sweep the arm of his Victory.

  "She holds out palms," he said. "But it would be finer if her armsthemselves were palms."

  "Evariste!"

  "Mother?"

  "I have had news ... guess, of whom...."

  "I do not know."

  "Of Julie ... of your sister.... She is not happy."

  "It would be a scandal if she were."

  "Do not speak so, my son, she is your sister. Julie is not a bad woman;she had a good disposition, which misfortune has developed. She lovesyou. I can assure you, Evariste, that she only desires a hard-working,exemplary life and her fondest wish is to be reconciled to her friends.There is nothing to prevent your seeing her again. She has marriedFortune Chassagne."

  "She has written to you?"

  "No."

  "How, then, have you had news of her, mother?"

  "It was not by letter, Evariste; it was...."

  He sprang up and stopped her with a savage cry:

  "Not another word, mother! Do not tell me they have both returned toFrance.... As they are doomed to perish, at least let it not be at myhands. For their own sake, for yours, for mine, let me not know they arein Paris.... Do not force the knowledge on me; otherwise...."

  "What do you mean, my son? you would think, you would dare...?"

  "Mother, hear what I say; if I knew my sister Julie to be in that room..." (and he pointed at the closed door), "I should go instantly todenounce her to the Committee of Vigilance of the Section."

  The poor mother, her face as white as her coif, dropped her knittingfrom her trembling hands and sighed in a voice fainter than the faintestwhisper:

  "I would not believe it, but I see it now; my boy is a monster...."

  As pale as she, the froth gathering on his lips, Evariste fled from thehouse and ran to find at Elodie's side forgetfulness, sleep, thedelicious foretaste of extinction.