All these thoughts and many more crowded in upon le Bossu as he toiled along the road, and it seemed to him that Satan walked beside him. When a bodily infirmity as great as his is laid upon a man, there come hours of supreme temptation, when human nature revolts and the starved heart cries out in agony and will not be satisfied. Must one man suffer so, and yet rejoice to see others happy? A soul is strong indeed that rises out of such misery clean.
The little cobbler struggled on, and presently the lights of Nîmes shone in his face and he entered the gate and passed along the Rue St. Antoine to his shop. Babet had been there three times that day to find him, and had gone back at last to St. Cyr without news, and found M. d’Aguesseau there, talking with old madame. Unconscious that he had disappointed such a visitor, Charlot unlocked his door and entered, feeling his way until he could light a candle. There had been another visitor at his door too, though he knew it not, an old woman with a red handkerchief around her head, and with a wide, red mouth. But the cobbler was ignorant of all these things and went about as usual. He had tasted nothing since midday, but he had no appetite and he went up the ladder to his room and lighted a taper before the shrine there. After that he threw himself on the bed, dressed as he was, and all night he wrestled with a temptation that beset him, with a new-born hatred of the man whom he had befriended in the market-place. If he had left M. d’Aguesseau in that tent with the body of the damned person, how different the end might have been! Ah, the desolate soul and the desolate hearth, the misery and the poverty! Dame de Dieu! some men possessed the earth and the fulness thereof, and others starved!
Morning found Charlot stirring the fire in the kitchen; the commonplace world possessed him again; he was no longer an individual, only one of many, the little cobbler of Nîmes. He made his coffee and he ate his black bread, and then he went to his bench and worked patiently, finishing a pair of high military riding-boots. They were of fine leather, and he fastened burnished buckles on the high insteps. They were elaborate, and he had put some fine labor upon them, and he looked at them now with a recognition of their perfections; no one made better shoes than the hunchback.
It was twelve o’clock when he rose and put the boots into his green bag, and gathering up his measure and some tools, set out once more. The streets were full and the cobbler made his way slowly through the throng. One or two spoke to him, others noticed him less than the mule that stood waiting for a reverend father outside the Garden of the Récollets. Le Bossu took little heed of it all; his face was drawn and haggard, and the hump seemed larger than ever. He walked on until he passed in front of the inn of the Golden Cup and came to a house a few yards beyond it. Here he knocked and was admitted by a man-servant who wore the uniform of a dragoon. The house had a long, narrow hall, and at the end of this was a flight of stairs, and up these le Bossu was conducted to the second story. Here the soldier opened a door to the right, and the cobbler entered a large room, lighted by three windows, where M. de Baudri sat eating his breakfast. Charlot made his salutation, and putting his bag in the corner, patiently waited the pleasure of his patron. De Baudri noticed him as little as he would have noticed a rat or a mouse, and finished his meal before he even glanced in his direction. Finally, however, he pushed back his chair and called the shoemaker.
“Viens donc, Petit Bossu,� he said, “are the boots finished?�
Charlot took them out of his bag without a word, and displayed them.
“Sacristi! if I had four legs I should come to you for boots,� M. de Baudri remarked, inspecting them. “Diable! those buckles are too small.�
“The latest from Paris, monsieur,� le Bossu replied; “his Majesty has a pair of the same size and design.�
M. de Baudri’s face relaxed, and he thrust out one foot.
“Try them, Bossu,� he said; “and see that they are good,� he added with a smile, “for I expect to wear them at my wedding.�