Pique-Vinaigre, aided by Nicholas and Barbillon, having arranged around the stove the four or five benches, said with emphasis,
"Here are orchestra stalls! honor to whom honor is due; in the first place the capitalist. Now let those who have paid seat themselves on the benches," added Pique-Vinaigre, gayly, firmly believing that Germain had, thanks to him, no more danger to apprehend. "And those who have not cashed up," he added, "will sit on the ground or stand up, as they choose."
Let us glance at the arrangements as now completed.
Pique-Vinaigre, standing near the stove, was getting ready to commence his story. Near him, Skeleton is also standing, ready to spring on Germain the moment the keeper should leave the hall. Some distance from Germain, Nicholas, Barbillon, Cardillac, and some other prisoners, among whom was seen the man in the blue cotton cap and gray blouse, occupied the back benches. The larger number of the prisoners grouped here and there, some seated on the ground, others standing, and leaning against the walls, composed the background of this picture, lighted, after the manner of Rembrandt, by the three lateral windows, which cast a vivid light and deep shade on these figures, so differently characterized and so strongly marked.
The keeper who, without knowing it, was, by his departure, to give the signal for the murder of Germain, stood near the half-opened door.
"All ready!" said Pique-Vinaigre to Skeleton.
"Silence in the band" answered the latter, half-turning round; then, addressing Pique-Vinaigre, "Now fire away! we listen." A profound silence reigned in the sitting-room.
CHAPTER X.
GRINGALET AND CUT-IN-HALF.
Before we commence the recital of Pique-Vinaigre, we will recall to our readers that, by a strange contrast, the majority of the prisoners, notwithstanding their cynical perversity, almost always preferred artless stories (we will not say puerile), in which the oppressed, by the laws of an inexorable fatality, is revenged on his tyrant, after trials and difficulties without number. The thought is far from us, to establish the slightest parallel between corrupted beings and the honest and poor masses; but is it not known with what frenzied applause the audience of minor theaters behold the deliverance of the victim, and with what curses they pursue the traitorous and the wicked? One ordinarily laughs at these rough evidences of sympathy for that which is good, weak, and persecuted; of aversion for that which is powerful, unjust, and cruel. It seems to us that to laugh at this is wrong. Nothing is more consoling than these feelings innately of the multitude. Is it not evident that these salutary instincts may become fixed principles in those unfortunate beings whom ignorance and poverty expose to the subversive attacks of evil? Why not have every hope of a people whose good moral sense is so invariably manifested? of a people who, in spite of the fascinations of art, will never permit a dramatic work to arrive at its denouement by the triumph of the wicked and the punishment of the just? This fact, scorned and laughed at though it be, appears to us of considerable importance on account of the tendencies which it proves, and which are even often found (we repeat it) among beings the most corrupt, when they are, so to speak, in repose, and sheltered from criminal temptations or necessities. In a word, since men hardened in crime still sometimes sympathize with the recital and expression of elevated sentiments, ought we not to believe that all men have more or less in them of the good, the well doing, the just, but that poverty and ignorance, in falsifying, in stifling these Divine instincts, are the first causes of human depravity?