He was sorry and troubled, and angered against his wife, who had cast the stone of worldly desire into the limpid, calm waters of this young child's thoughts.
He was unspeakably saddened by the vision of her, coming northward over the sandy roads of Provence, with so much hope and fancy in her heart, only to drop sick with hunger upon the stones of Paris—Paris, so fair a mistress to the rich, so hard a stepmother to the poor. Gilbert, and Hégésippe Moreau, and Meryon, and how many others, had traversed that path before her, only to perish in the hospital or the garret, mad or famished, clutching at the bough of laurel, obtaining only the hemlock of death!
'So I determined to leave St. Dalmas,' she continued, 'and walk all the way to Grasse when the March weather came. On the roads I assure you I did quite well. People were very kind whilst I was in my own country, as it were. At the bastides and the cottages they let me sleep well and gave me food, and let me do work in return. I know how to do many things that are of use on the farms, but of no use at all in Paris. So little by little I did get to Grasse, and there one of the women who knew my Brigasque friends gave me welcome, because some of them had given me a letter to her asking her to be kind. But I shall weary you; I will try to tell the rest shortly. I could have stayed on at Grasse as long as I would, but I wanted to get to Paris; above all, now that my grandfather was dead, there was nothing to keep me in my own country; no one wanted me or sought for me. They had paid me a little for what I did in the Brigasque country, and I saved up all of it, and when I had enough to pay for the railway to take me there (it is very dear indeed), I bade them farewell and took the train to Paris. I had never travelled by land before, only on the dear sea. It is horrible to have all that fire in that great iron pot swinging one to and fro, while it yells and bellows through the heat and the air that is not like air at all but only so much smoke. How Fénelon would have hated it; it would have seemed to him like hell! Why do men travel in such a way when there are the tree-shadowed roads and the rivers? I had taken my passage (do they call it so?) straightway to Paris, and there were many changes and many pauses and great confusion, and the noise and the heat and the strangeness made me feel unwell. I had never felt ill before, that I remember. It was a very great many hours, even days I think, before we reached Paris; it was night, and it was raining; nothing was at all like what I had pictured it. There were crowds and crowds of people, but no one noticed me. I felt lonely, and I missed the sea and the sweet fresh smell that is anywhere where the country is. Here the air felt so thick and so greasy, and the rain had no pleasantness in it; it was not clean and fragrant, as it is when it scours over the fields or patters through the orange-leaves at home. As I came out of the station a young man looked into my face and was insolent. I struck him a blow on his cheek with all my might; I hurt him; the people wanted to seize me, but I was quicker than they, and I ran, and ran, and ran until I outstripped them, and then I was in a narrow, dark street, and sat down on a doorstep and wondered where I ought to go. I had only three gold pieces with me in a belt round my waist, and I knew they would not last long. I had spent almost as much as that for the train and in food at the places the train waited at; the food was very dear and very bad, even the bread.
'Some women went by and spoke to me, but I did not like their words, and I answered nothing, but got up and looked about me for a place to sleep in. I was wet through, for it rained a great deal. I saw a little place which seemed like a restaurant, and I went in and asked if I could have a room there. They gave me one, a very little one, and not clean, and I went to bed without eating, being afraid to spend the little I had.
'When I got up in the morning and went to pay for my chamber and supper, I found that I had no money at all. My belt was gone. I suppose I had been so sound asleep that I never heard them come into my room and take it. I always think it was the woman of the house who stole it, because I had shown her the napoleons. She raved and abused me when I told her my money had been stolen, and said her house had always been honest. She denied that she had ever seen the belt, and swore that I should pay for all I had or go to prison. I told her that it was she was the thief, not I. I threw her my little gold cross to pay her, and went out of her house into the streets. I think she was a wicked woman.'
'Wicked, indeed,' said Othmar, whilst he thought, 'it is heaven's mercy that she did not do worse to you.'
He, by whom all the hideous vice of the great city was known, all its grasping greed, its hunger for gold, its remorseless seizure of all ignorance, and innocence, and pleasant rural things, and virgin beauty of the body and the mind, knew that by a miracle scarce less than that which in legend bears the royal saint of Alsace unharmed through the flames had this child escaped pollution in the heart of Paris. Corruption had been all around her, and the morass of iniquity upon every side; her own sex were for ever on the watch for such as she, to sell their youth into the slavery of the brothel, and she had known no more the peril which she ran than the wild dove does when its flying shadow passes over the trap hung below it in the oak-boughs.
'I asked in a great many places for such work as I knew how to do, but nobody wanted any of it done. There seemed such numbers of people everywhere clutching at every little bit of work. Many laughed at me: I saw my clothes were different to what they wore in Paris, and my accent was different too to theirs. But they were cruel to laugh. I went to the theatres and tried to see the directors, but no one of them would even see me. All these days I lived on the little money I had gained by selling my great cloak: it was such warm weather I did not want it. I had made acquaintance with a good woman who was very poor herself, but she told me what to do and where to go, and let me sleep in her one little attic; she had three children, quite little ones, and she worked in a match factory. She lives in a little passage up at Montmartre. Of course I had to make her think I ate all I wanted out of doors or she would have robbed herself for me, poor though she was. I had a friend in her, but when I had been with her three weeks, there was a noisy mob which assembled near, and screamed for bread, and broke open the bakers' shops and stole the loaves. She was coming home from the factory, and was arrested as one of the rioters, though I am sure she had been merely passing down the street, and the little children had no one but me for a little while. I did what I could for them until their grandmother came up from some village outside the barrier and took them away, and I missed them very much.
'I would rather not talk about the days that came after that dreadful morning,' she pursued, the wavering colour fading wholly from her face, for the recollection of them was unbearable to her. 'It is only three months ago since I came to Paris, but it seems as if it were years. I saw and heard things that I could never tell anyone, they were so horrible. I sold all I had of clothes, it was very little. I lived as I could, I was very hungry all the time, but I did not mind that so much as I minded the squalor, the noise, the crowds, the filthy smells, the horrible language. I tried to get work, but I could not. I went to the theatre doors, but the porters would not let me in. I did not know what to do; even my linen was sold. I sold even my shoes, and people give you so little when they know that you want much. I could not get any work of any kind. I was of use on my island, but not here; and the men jeered at me and were rude—and—and—there is nothing more to tell that I know. I could make no money at all, and so of late I could get no food, and the night I fell down on the bridge I was faint and very unhappy, for they had turned me out of the woman's room because she did not come back, and I had no money to pay for keeping it. But that is enough about me. I met you on the bridge. You know the rest. I had not eaten anything all the day, I suppose that was why I fainted. I never fainted in my life before. It is only three months since I left Grasse, but it seems so many years—so many years! Is this the world indeed that the Comtesse Othmar spoke of? Surely it cannot be—it is cruel, it is hideous, it is hateful—if I could only see the sea or the country once more! You have been very good to me. I pray you to help me to gain my own living somehow, only not in this city—pray not here! I am stifled in it. I want the air. Pray help me!'