Pierrette

by Honoré de Balzac

Pierrette’s inward commotion was like Brigaut’s. She slipped the note into the pocket of her apron. The hectic spots upon her cheekbones turned to a cherry-scarlet. These two children went through, all unknown to themselves, many more emotions than go to the make-up of a dozen ordinary loves. This moment in the market-place left in their souls a well-spring of passionate feeling. Sylvie, who did not recognize the Breton accent, took no notice of Brigaut, and Pierrette went home safely with her treasure.

The letters of these two poor children were fated to serve as documents in a terrible judicial inquiry; otherwise, without the fatal circumstances that occasioned that inquiry, they would never have been heard of. Here is the one which Pierrette read that night in her chamber:—

My dear Pierrette,—At midnight, when everybody is asleep but me,
who am watching you, I will come every night under your window.
Let down a string long enough to reach me; it will not make any
noise; you must fasten to the end of it whatever you write to me.
I will tie my letter in the same way. I hear they have taught
you to read and write,—those wicked relations who were to do you
good, and have done you so much harm. You, Pierrette, the daughter
of a colonel who died for France, reduced by those monsters to be
their servant! That is where all your pretty color and health have
gone. My Pierrette, what has become of her? what have they done
with her. I see plainly you are not the same, not happy. Oh!
Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany. I can earn enough now to
give you what you need; for you yourself can earn three francs a
day and I can earn four or five; and thirty sous is all I want to
live on. Ah! Pierrette, how I have prayed the good God for you
ever since I came here! I have asked him to give me all your
sufferings, and you all pleasures. Why do you stay with them? why
do they keep you? Your grandmother is more to you than they. They
are vipers; they have taken your gaiety away from you. You do not
even walk as you once did in Brittany. Let us go back. I am here
to serve you, to do your will; tell me what you wish. If you need
money I have a hundred and fifty francs; I can send them up by the
string, though I would like to kiss your dear hands and lay the
money in them. Ah, dear Pierrette, it is a long time now that the
blue sky has been overcast for me. I have not had two hours’
happiness since I put you into that diligence of evil. And when I
saw you the other morning, looking like a shadow, I could not
reach you; that hag of a cousin came between us. But at least we
can have the consolation of praying to God together every Sunday
in church; perhaps he will hear us all the more when we pray
together.
Not good-by, my dear, Pierrette, but to-night.

This letter so affected Pierrette that she sat for more than an hour reading and re-reading and gazing at it. Then she remembered with anguish that she had nothing to write with. She summoned courage to make the difficult journey from her garret to the dining-room, where she obtained pen, paper, and ink, and returned safely without waking her terrible cousin. A few minutes before midnight she had finished the following letter:—

My Friend,—Oh! yes, my friend; for there is no one but you,
Jacques, and my grandmother to love me. God forgive me, but you
are the only two persons whom I love, both alike, neither more nor
less. I was too little to know my dear mamma; but you, Jacques,
and my grandmother, and my grandfather,—God grant him heaven, for
he suffered much from his ruin, which was mine,—but you two who
are left, I love you both, unhappy as I am. Indeed, to know how
much I love you, you will have to know how much I suffer; but I
don’t wish that, it would grieve you too much. They speak to me
as we would not speak to a dog; they treat me like the worst of
girls; and yet I do examine myself before God, and I cannot find
that I do wrong by them. Before you sang to me the marriage song I
saw the mercy of God in my sufferings; for I had prayed to him to
take me from the world, and I felt so ill I said to myself, “God
hears me!” But, Jacques, now you are here, I want to live and go
back to Brittany, to my grandmamma who loves me, though they say
she stole eight thousand francs of mine. Jacques, is that so? If
they are mine could you get them! But it is not true, for if my
grandmother had eight thousand francs she would not live at
Saint-Jacques.
I don’t want to trouble her last days, my kind, good grandmamma,
with the knowledge of my troubles; she might die of it. Ah! if she
knew they made her grandchild scrub the pots and pans,—she who
used to say to me, when I wanted to help her after her troubles,
“Don’t touch that, my darling; leave it—leave it—you will spoil
your pretty fingers.” Ah! my hands are never clean now. Sometimes
I can hardly carry the basket home from market, it cuts my arm.
Still I don’t think my cousins mean to be cruel; but it is their
way always to scold, and it seems that I have no right to leave
them. My cousin Rogron is my guardian. One day when I wanted to
run away because I could not bear it, and told them so, my cousin
Sylvie said the gendarmes would go after me, for the law was my
master. Oh! I know now that cousins cannot take the place of
father or mother, any more than the saints can take the place of
God.
My poor Jacques, what do you suppose I could do with your money?
Keep it for our journey. Oh! how I think of you and Pen-Hoel, and
the big pong,—that’s where we had our only happy days. I shall
have no more, for I feel I am going from bad to worse. I am very
ill, Jacques. I have dreadful pains in my head, and in my bones,
and back, which kill me, and I have no appetite except for horrid
things,—roots and leaves and such things. Sometimes I cry, when I
am all alone, for they won’t let me do anything I like if they
know it, not even cry. I have to hide to offer my tears to Him to
whom we owe the mercies which we call afflictions. It must have
been He who gave you the blessed thought to come and sing the
marriage song beneath my window. Ah! Jacques, my cousin heard you,
and she said I had a lover. If you wish to be my lover, love me
well. I promise to love you always, as I did in the past, and to
be
Your faithful servant,
Pierrette Lorrain.
You will love me always, won’t you?

She had brought a crust of bread from the kitchen, in which she now made a hole for the letter, and fastened it like a weight to her string. At midnight, having opened her window with extreme caution, she lowered the letter with the crust, which made no noise against either the wall of the house or the blinds. Presently she felt the string pulled by Brigaut, who broke it and then crept softly away. When he reached the middle of the square she could see him indistinctly by the starlight; but he saw her quite clearly in the zone of light thrown by the candle. The two children stood thus for over an hour, Pierrette making him signs to go, he starting, she remaining, he coming back to his post, and Pierrette again signing that he must leave her. This was repeated till the child closed her window, went to bed, and blew out the candle. Once in bed she fell asleep, happy in heart though suffering in body,—she had Brigaut’s letter under her pillow. She slept as the persecuted sleep,—a slumber bright with angels; that slumber full of heavenly arabesques, in atmospheres of gold and lapis-lazuli, perceived and given to us by Raffaelle.

The moral nature had such empire over that frail physical nature that on the morrow Pierrette rose light and joyous as a lark, as radiant and as gay. Such a change could not escape the vigilant eye of her cousin Sylvie, who, this time, instead of scolding her, set about watching her with the scrutiny of a magpie. “What reason is there for such happiness?” was a thought of jealousy, not of tyranny. If the colonel had not been in Sylvie’s mind she would have said to Pierrette as formerly, “Pierrette, you are very noise, and very regardless of what you have often been told.” But now the old maid resolved to spy upon her as only old maids can spy. The day was still and gloomy, like the weather that precedes a storm.

“You don’t appear to be ill now, mademoiselle,” said Sylvie at dinner. “Didn’t I tell you she put it all on to annoy us?” she cried, addressing her brother, and not waiting for Pierrette’s answer.

“On the contrary, cousin, I have a sort of fever—”

“Fever! what fever? You are as gay as a lark. Perhaps you have seen some one again?”