Mysteries of Paris — Volume 02

by Eugène Sue

CHAPTER XXXIV.

DOES NOT A MEETING LIKE THIS MAKE AMENDS?

Before we acquaint the reader with the continuation of the drama which passed on the boats, we will go back a little. A few moments after Fleur-de-Marie had left Saint Lazare with Mrs. Seraphin, La Louve had also quitted the prison.

Thanks to the recommendation of Madame Armand and of the director, who wished to recompense her for her good action toward Mont Saint Jean, she had been also pardoned and dismissed. A complete change had taken place in this creature, heretofore so headstrong, vile, and corrupted.

Keeping constantly in mind the description made by Fleur-de-Marie of a peaceful and solitary life, La Louve held in disgust her past crimes.

Confiding in the aid which Fleur-de-Marie had promised her in the name of her unknown benefactor, La Louve determined to make this laudable proposition to her lover, not without the bitter fear of a refusal, for the Goualeuse, in leading her to blush for the past, had also given her a consciousness of her position toward Martial.

Once free, La Louve only thought of seeing him. She had received no news from him for many days. In the hope of meeting him on Ravageurs' Island, she decided to wait there if she did not find him; she got into a cab, and was rapidly driven to the Bridge of Asnieres, which she crossed about fifteen minutes before Mrs. Seraphin and Fleur-de-Marie, coming on foot, had arrived on the shore near the plaster-kiln.

As Martial did not come to take La Louve in his boat to the island, she applied to the old fisherman named Ferot, who lived near the bridge.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, a cab stopped at the entrance of a little street of Asnieres village. La Louve gave five francs to the coachman. Jumped to the ground, and ran hastily to the abode of Ferot.

Having thrown off her prison dress, she wore a robe of dark green merino, a red shawl, imitation cashmere, and a lace cap trimmed with ribbons: her thick crispy hair was scarcely smoothed. In her impatience to see Martial, she had dressed herself with more haste than care. On reaching the house of the fisherman, she found him seated at the door mending his nets.

As soon as she saw him, she cried out, "Your boat, Ferot—quick, quick."

"Ah! is it you? Good-day, good-day. You have not been here for a long time."

"Yes, but your boat—quick—to the island."

"Ah, well! fate will have it so; my good girl, it is impossible to-day."

"How?"

"My boy has taken my boat to go with the others to a rowing match at Saint Ouen. There is not a single boat left on the whole shore from this to the docks."

"Zounds!" cried La Louve, stamping and clinching her fists; "it happens so expressly for me!"

"It's true, on my word. I am very sorry I cannot convey you to the island, for, without doubt, he must be worse."

"Worse! Who?"

"Martial."

"Martial?" cried La Louve, seizing Ferot by the collar; "is Martial sick?"

"Did you not know it?"

"Martial?"

"Yes, certainly; but you will tear my blouse; do be quiet."

"He is sick. Since when?"

"Two or three days ago."

"It is false; he would have written to me."

"Ah, well, yes! he is too sick to write."

"Too sick to write! And he is on the island; you are sure of that?"

"Don't get me into a scrape; this is the story: this morning I said to the widow, 'For two days past I have not seen Martial, his boat is there. Is he in the city?' Thereupon the widow looked at me with her wicked eyes: 'He is sick on the island; and so sick that he will never come off again.' I said to myself, 'How can that be? Three days ago—' Well," said Ferot, interrupting himself, "where are you going to— where the devil is she running to now?"

Believing the life of Martial menaced by the inhabitants of the island, La Louve, overcome with alarm, and transported with rage, listened no longer to the fisherman, but ran along the Seine.

Some topographical details are indispensable to understand the following scene.

The island approached nearer the left side of the river than the right shore, from whence Fleur-de-Marie and Mrs. Seraphin had embarked. La Louve was on the left side. Without being very steep, the hills on the island concealed, all its length, the view of one shore from the other. Thus, La Louve had not seen the embarkation of La Goualeusea, and the Martial family, of course, could not see her as she ran along the shore on the opposite side.

We recall to the reader that the country-house belonging to Doctor Griffon, where the Count de Saint Remy temporarily dwelt, was built on the hillside, near the shore where La Louve was wandering, half-distracted.

She passed, without seeing them, near two persons, who, struck with her haggard look, turned to follow her at a distance. These two persons were the Count de Saint Remy and Doctor Griffon.

The first impulse of La Louve, on learning the peril of her lover, had been to run impetuously toward the place where she knew he was in danger. But as she approached the island, she thought of the difficulty of getting there. As the old fisherman had told her, she could not count on any strange boat, and no one from the Martial family would come for her.

Breathless, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, she stopped opposite a point of the island which, forming a curve at this place, was nearest to the mainland. Through the leafless branches of the willows and poplars, La Louve could see the roof of the house, where, perhaps, Martial was dying. At this sight, uttering a fearful groan, she tore off her shawl and cap, and slipping down her robe, keeping on her petticoat, she threw herself into the river, and waded until she lost her footing, when she began to swim vigorously toward the island.

It was the climax of savage energy.

At each stroke, the thick and long hair of La Louve, untied by the violence of her movements, shook about her head like a shaggy mane of copper color.

Suddenly, from the other side of the island, resounded a cry of distress, of terrible, desperate agony. La Louve shuddered, and stopped short. Then, treading water, with one hand she pushed back her thick hair, and listened. A new cry was heard, but more feeble, more supplicating, convulsive, expiring and all relapsed into a profound silence. "My Martial!" cried La Louve, swimming again with all her strength. She thought she had recognized the voice of Martial.

The count and doctor had not been able to follow La Louve quick enough to prevent what she accomplished. They arrived opposite to the island at the moment that the two fearful screams were heard, and stopped, as much alarmed as La Louve. Seeing her struggle intrepidly against the current, they cried, "The poor thing will be drowned!" These fears were vain; she swam like an otter; still a few more strokes, and she reached the land. She was getting out of the water by the assistance of the poles, which, as we have said, formed a breakwater at the end of the island, when she perceived the body of a young girl, dressed as a peasant, sustained by her clothes, floating down the current.

To grasp with one hand the poles, and with the other to seize hold of the girl by her dress, such was the movement of La Louve, as rapid as thought. Then she drew her so violently toward her and within the stakes, that, for a moment, she disappeared under the water, which was of no great depth at this place.

Endued with no common strength and address, La Louve raised up La Goualeuse (for it was she), whom she had not yet recognized, took her up in her robust arms, as one would have taken a child, made some steps in the water, and, finally, laid her on the green bank of the island.

"Courage, courage!" cried M. de Saint Remy to her, as a witness, as well as Dr. Griffon, of this bold act. "We are going to cross the bridge, and will come to your aid in a boat." La Louve did not hear these words. Let us repeat, that from the right shore of the Seine, where Nicholas, Calabash, and their mother remained after the consummation of their horrible crime, nothing could be seen of the other side, owing to the height of the island. Fleur-de-Marie, suddenly drawn within the row of piles by La Louve, having plunged for a moment, and not reappearing to the sight of her murderers, they believed their victim drowned and ingulfed.

Some few moments afterward, the current brought down another body, in an eddy, which La Louve did not perceive. It was the corpse of the notary's housekeeper. Dead—quite dead—this one.

Nicholas and Calabash had as much interest as Jacques Ferrand to get rid of this witness, the accomplice of their new crime; so when the boat with the hole sunk with Fleur-de-Marie, Nicholas, springing into the boat of his sister, nearly upset it, and seizing a favorable moment, threw the housekeeper into the river, and dispatched her with the boat-hook.

Out of breath and exhausted, La Louve, kneeling on the ground alongside of Fleur-de-Marie, recruited her strength, and examined the features of her whom she had rescued from death. Let her surprise be imagined when she recognized her companion of the prison, who had exercised upon her destiny an influence so rapid, so ameliorating. In her surprise, for a moment she forgot Martial.

"La Goualeuse!" cried she.

With bended body, leaning on her hands and knees, her hair disheveled, her clothes dripping with water, she contemplated the unhappy child, extended, almost expiring on the ground. Pale, inanimate, her eyes half open and without expression, her beautiful flaxen hair falling flat over her forehead, her blue lips, her small hands, already stiff and icy—one would have thought her dead. "La Goualeuse!" repeated La Louve, "what chance! I who came to tell my Martial the good and evil she had done me with her words and promises; the resolution that I had taken. Poor little thing! I find her here dead. But, no, no," cried La Louve, approaching still nearer to Fleur-de-Marie, and feeling an almost imperceptible breath escape from her mouth; "No! she breathes still! I have saved her from death! that has never happened to me before, to save any one. Ah! that does me good; it makes me warm. Yes, but my Martial I must save also. Perhaps, at this moment, he is expiring; his mother and brother are capable of killing him. Yet I cannot leave this poor little thing here. I will carry her to the widow's; she must take care of her, and show me Martial, or I will break everything—I will kill everybody! Oh! neither mother, brother, nor sister do I care for, when I know my Martial is there!"

And immediately getting up, La Louve carried Fleur-de-Marie in her arms. With this light burden she ran toward the house, not doubting but that the widow and her daughter, notwithstanding their wickedness, would lend their assistance to Fleur-de-Marie.

When she reached the highest part of the island, whence could be seen both shores of the Seine, Nicholas, his mother, and Calabash, were far off, going in all haste to Bras-Rouge's tavern.

At this moment also, a man, who, concealed in the plaster-kiln, had invisibly assisted at this horrible tragedy, disappeared, believing, with the murderers, that the crime was executed. This man was Jacques Ferrand. One of Nicholas's boats was tied to a pile near the place where La Goualeuse and old Seraphin had embarked. Hardly had Jacques Ferrand left the plaster-kiln to return to Paris, than M. de Saint Remy and Dr. Griffon hastily crossed the Bridge of Asnieres, running toward the island, thinking to reach it by Nicholas's boat, which they had seen from afar.

To her great surprise, on arriving at the house of the Ravageurs, La Louve found the door closed. Placing the still inanimate body of Fleur-de-Marie under the arbor, she drew near the house. She knew the window of Martial's chamber. What was her surprise, to see the shutters covered with iron plates, and fastened with bars of the same material!

Suspecting partly the truth, La Louve uttered a hoarse, resounding cry and began to call with all her strength, "Martial! my love!"

No one answered. Alarmed at this silence, La Louve began to walk around the building like a savage beast who scents his mate, and seeks, with roaring, the entrance of the den where he is confined.

From time to time she cried, "My man—are you there, my man?" In her rage she shook the bars of the kitchen window—she knocked against the wall—she kicked against the door.

All at once a hollow sound answered from the interior of the house. La
Louve shuddered—listened. The noise ceased.

"My man has heard me! I must enter, even if I have to gnaw the door with my teeth!" And again she uttered her savage cries.

Several blows, feebly struck on the inside of the window shutters of
Martial's room, answered to her shouts.

"He is there!" cried she, stopping suddenly under her lover's window, "he is there! If needs must, I will tear off the iron shutters with my nails, but I will open them."

So saying, she saw a large ladder placed behind one of the blinds of the lower rooms; in drawing this blind violently toward her, La Louve caused the key to fall which the widow had concealed on the window bench. "If it unlocks," said La Louve, trying the key in the lock, "I can go up to his chamber. It opens," cried she, with joy; "my friend is saved!"

Once in the kitchen, she was struck by the cries of the children, who shut up in the cellar and hearing an extraordinary noise, called for help.

The widow, believing no one would come to the island or house during her absence, had contented herself with locking Francois and Amandine in the cellar, leaving the key in the lock.

Set at liberty by La Louve, the brother and sister rushed precipitately from the cellar, crying, "Oh, La Louve, save brother Martial! they wish to kill him; two days he has been walled up in his room."

"They have not wounded him?"

"No, no; we believe not."

"I arrive in time!" cried La Louve, rushing to the staircase: then suddenly stopping, she said, "And La Goualeuse! whom I forgot. Amandine, some fire at once; you and your brother, bring here, near the chimney-place, a poor girl who was drowning. I saved her. She is under the arbor. Francois, a pair of pincers, a hatchet, an iron bar, so that I can break down the door of my Martial!"

"Here is an ax to split wood, but it is too heavy for you," said the young boy.

"Too heavy!" sneered La Louve, and she lifted with ease the iron mace, which, under any other circumstances, she could hardly have raised from the ground. Then, mounting the stairs four at a time, she repeated to the children, "Run and bring in the girl, and place her near the fire." In two bounds, La Louve was at the bottom of the corridor, at Martial's door. "Courage, my friend—here is your Louve!" cried she, and raising the ax with both hands, with a furious blow she shook the door.

"It is nailed on the outside. Draw out the nails," cried Martial, in a feeble voice.

Throwing herself on her knees in the corridor, with the aid of the pincers and of her nails, which she tore, and her fingers, which she cut, La Louve succeeded in drawing out the spikes which fastened the door. At length the door was opened. Martial, pale, his hands covered with blood, fell almost lifeless into the arms of his darling.

"At length I see you! I hold you! I have you!" cried La Louve, receiving Martial in her arms with joy and savage energy; then sustaining him, almost carrying him, she led him to a seat placed in the corridor.

During some moments Martial remained weak and feeble, endeavoring to recover from this violent shock, which had exhausted his failing strength. La Louve saved her lover at the moment when, in a state of despair, he felt himself about to die, less from the want of food than from the deprivation of air, impossible to be renewed in a small room without a chimney, without any aperture, and hermetically closed through the atrocious foresight of Calabash, who had stopped up with old linen even the smallest fissures of the door and window.

Palpitating with happiness and anguish, her eyes wet with tears, La Louve, on her knees, watched the smallest movements of Martial. By degrees he seemed to recover, as he breathed the pure and salubrious air. After a slight shudder, he raised his weary head, uttered a long sigh, and opened his eyes.

"Martial, it is I! your Louve; how do you feel?"

"Better," answered he, in a feeble voice.

"What will you have? water, vinegar?"

"No, no," cried Martial, less and less oppressed. "Air! oh, some air! nothing but air!"

La Louve, at the risk of cutting her hand, broke the glass of a window which she could not open without moving a heavy table.

"Now I breathe! I breathe! my head is relieved," said Martial, coming quite to himself. Then, as if for the first time recalling to mind the services she had rendered him, he cried, in a tone of ineffable gratitude, "Without you, I should have died, my good Louve!"

"Well, well; how are you now?"

"Better and better."

"Are you hungry?"

"No, I am too weak. I suffered most from want of air; finally, I suffocated! it was frightful!"

"And now?"

"I live again! I come out from the tomb; and I come out—thanks to you."

"But your hands, your poor hands! these wounds? Who did this?—curse them!"

"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time, shut me in my chamber, and left me to die with hunger. I tried to prevent them from nailing up my window—my sister cut my hands with the hatchet!"

"The monsters! they wished to have it believed that you were dead from some sickness; your mother had already spread the report that you were in a dying state. Your mother, my man, your mother!"

"Hold! do not speak to me of her," said Martial, bitterly; then, for the first time, remarking the wet clothes and strange attire of La Louve, he cried, "What has happened to you?—your hair is streaming with water. You are without your dress."

"What matters it? You are saved—saved!"

"But explain to me why you are wet."

"I knew you were in danger—I could find no boat."

"And you swam here?"

"Yes. But your hands; let me kiss them. You suffer—the monsters! And
I was not here!"

"Oh! my brave Louve," cried Martial, with enthusiasm; "brave among all brave creatures."

"Did you not write here 'death to dastards'?"

And La Louve showed her arm, where these words were written in indelible characters.

"Intrepid! But you feel the cold, you tremble."

"It is not the cold."

"Never mind. Go in there; take Calabash's cloak to wrap yourself in."

"But—"

"I wish it."

In a second, La Louve was enveloped in a plaid cloak, and returned.

"For me, to run the risk of drowning!" repeated Martial, looking at her with pride.

"No risk! A poor girl was almost drowned. I saved her. On reaching the island—"

"You saved her also—where is she?"

"Below with the children; they are taking care of her."

"And who is this young girl?"

"If you knew what a chance—what happy chance! She was one of my chums in Saint Lazare—a very extraordinary girl, you be sure!"

"How is that?"

"Imagine that I loved her and hated her because—she at the same time planted both death and happiness in my heart."

"She?"

"Yes; concerning you."

"Me?"

"Listen, Martial." Then, interrupting herself, she added, "No, no. I shall never dare."

"What is it then?"

"I wished to ask something of you. I came to see you on this account; for when I left Paris I did not know that you were in danger."

"Well, speak."

"I dare not."

"You dare not—after what you have just done for me!"

"Exactly; it would seem as if I asked a recompense."

"Asked a recompense! And do I not owe you one? Did you not take care of me, night and day, during my sickness last year?"

"Are you not my Martial?"

"Then you should speak to me frankly, because I am your Martial, and will be always."

"Always, Martial?"

"Always! true as I am called Martial. For me, there shall be no other woman in the world but you, La Louve No matter what you have been— that's my lookout. I love you—you love me; and I owe my life to you. But since you have been in prison, I am no longer the same; much has happened; I have reflected; and you shall no more be what you have been."

"What do you mean to say?"

"I never wish to leave you again. Neither do I wish to leave Francois and Amandine."

"Your little brother and sister?"

"Yes; from this day I must be to them a father—you comprehend. This gives me duties to perform, and tames me. I am obliged to take charge of them. They wished to make finished thieves of them; to save them, I shall take them away."

"Where?"

"I don't know; but certainly far from Paris."

"And me?"

"You? I will take you also."

"Take me also?" cried La Louve, in a joyous delirium. She could not believe in so much happiness. "I shall not leave you?"

"No, my brave Louve, never. You shall aid me to bring up these children. I know you. On saying to you, I wish that my poor little Amandine should be a virtuous girl, I know what you will be for her; a good mother."

"Oh! thank you, Martial, thank you!"

"We will live as honest work-folks; be easy, we will find work; we will toil like negroes. At least, these children shall not be gallows' birds, like their father and mother. I shall not hear myself called any more the son and brother of a guillotine; in fine, I shall no more pass through the streets where I am known. But what is the matter?"

"Martial, I am afraid I shall become crazy."

"Crazy?"

"Crazy with joy!"

"Why?"

"Because this is too much."

"What?"

"What you ask me. Oh! it is too much. Saving the Goualeuse, this has brought me this happiness; it must be so."

"But once more, what is the matter?"

"What you have just said. Oh, Martial, Martial!"

"Well?"

"I came to ask you!"

"To leave Paris?"

"Yes," answered she, quickly; "to go with you in the woods, where we would have a nice little house, children whom I should love; oh! how I should love them! how your Louve would love the children of her Martial; or, rather, if you wished it," said La Louve, trembling, "I would call you my husband; for we shall not have the place unless you consent to this," she hastened to add, quickly.

Martial, in his turn, looked at La Louve with astonishment, not in the least understanding her words. "Of what place do you speak?"

"A gamekeeper's."

"That I shall have?—and who will give it to me?"

"The protectors of the girl whom I have saved."

"Who is she, then?"

I don't know; I can't understand anything; but in my life I have never seen, never heard anything like her; she is like a fairy to read what one has in the heart. When I told her how much I loved you, instantly, on that account, she became interested, not by using hard words (you know how I would have stood that), but by speaking to me of a very laborious, hard life, tranquilly passed with you according to your taste, in the midst of the forest; only, according to her idea, instead of being a poacher you were a gamekeeper, and I your wife; and then our children were to run to meet you when you returned at night from your rounds, with dogs, your gun on your shoulder; and then we should sup at the door of the cabin, in the cool of the evening, under the large trees; and then we would retire to rest so happy, so peaceful. What shall I say? in spite of myself I listened; it was like a charm. If you knew—she spoke so well, so well—that—all that she said, I thought I could see; I dreamed wide awake!"

"Oh! yes; it would be a happy life," said Martial, sighing in his turn; "without being altogether black at heart, poor Francois has associated too much with Calabash and Nicholas; so that the good air of the woods will be much better for him than the air of the city. Amandine could help you in the house; I would be a good keeper, as I was a famous poacher. I should have you for a manager, my brave Louve; and then, as you say, with children, what should we need? When once one is accustomed to the forest, one is quite at home; a hundred years would pass as one day; but, see now, I am a fool. Hold! you should not have spoken to me of this life; it only causes regrets, that's all."

"I let you go on, because you say exactly what I did to La Goualeuse."

"How?"

"Yes, in listening to these fairy tales, I said to her, 'What a pity that these castles in the air, La Goualeuse, are not the truth!' Do you know what she answered, Martial?" said La Louve, her eyes sparkling with joy.

"No."

"'Let Martial marry you; promise both of you to live an honest life, and this place, which causes you so much envy, I am almost sure to obtain for you on leaving the prison,' was her answer."

"A gamekeeper's place for me?"

"Yes, for you."

"But you are right-it is a dream. If it only were needful that I should marry you to obtain this place, my brave Louve, it should be done to-morrow, if I had the means; for, from to-day you are my wife— my true wife."

"Martial, I your real wife?"

"My real, my sole wife, and I wish you to call me your husband—it is just the same as if the mayor had joined us."

"Oh! La Goualeuse was right; it makes one so proud to say, 'My husband!' Martial—you shall see your Louve keeping house, at work! you shall see."

"But this place—do you believe?"

"Poor little Goualeuse, if she is deceived it is others' faults; for she appeared to believe what she told me. Besides, just now, on leaving the prison, the inspectress told me that the protectors of La Goualeuse, people of high rank, had taken her from the prison this very day: that proves that she has benefactors, and that she can do what she has promised."

"Oh!" cried Martial, suddenly, rising from his seat, "I do not know what we are thinking about."

"What is it?"

"This girl is below, dying, perhaps; and instead of helping her, we are here."

"Be satisfied; Francois and Amandine are with her; they would have called us if there had been any danger. But you are right; let us go to her; you must see her, she to whom, perhaps, we shall owe our happiness." And Martial, leaning on the arm of La Louve, descended the stairs.

Before they enter the kitchen, we will relate what passed since
Fleur-de-Marie had been confided to the care of the children.