"There, it is over now," said Poucette; "that is all. He does not know the minuet perfectly yet: next week, perhaps, we shall try it for the Jour de l'An."
"Well done!" I exclaimed, and clapped my hands. "He is a famous dog; and you—you dance beautifully."
Mouton came to be patted and made much of; and his mistress now announced her intention of going home at once. Finding it useless to try and induce her to stay, I offered to go with her myself, and see her safely through the still crowded streets; but this she firmly declined.
"No, not to-night," she said. "You may come to-morrow, if you will be so kind, but not to-night. You have been very good, monsieur; I am not ungrateful. You may come to-morrow; Rue——, No.——, quite close to Notre Dame." She took my hand, raised it to her lips, courtesied, and was gone.
I followed her down stairs, and watched the little figure hurrying along with a firm step, upright as a dart, the light from the gas-lamps falling now and then on the spangles of her dress, and making them twinkle for an instant; and the dark outline of Mouton following closely behind her, under the shadow of the houses. Presently they crossed the street, and disappeared in the distance; and I turned and walked up stairs to my cosey well-lighted room, to think over the strange life of a street dancing-girl.
After this, I made inquiries about Poucette in the part of the town where she lived, and visited the man Emile and his wife often. Here I found the cripple boy Jean, to whom Poucette clung with a tenacity of affection that was touching to witness. He had had a fall as an infant, so his mother said, and never had walked; but his fingers were skilful in making toys, baskets, and small rush-mats, which Poucette sold during her daily rounds. To him she devoted her affections, her life, with a steady ardor not often met with at her age. Toward others, she was always grave, distant, often haughty and bitter in her expressions of anger, but to him never. However tired she might return home after dancing or selling his wares on the boulevard, she never showed him that she was so; if he wished to go out, she drew him in a rude wooden sledge to the gardens of the Luxembourg; and the two would sit there by the hour together on Sundays, criticising the passers-by as they walked about in their gay dresses. At night, if the invalid was restless or in pain, Poucette sat beside him, sometimes till day dawned, with a sympathizing cheerful face, ready to attend upon every want. There she shone; but take away Jean out of her world, and Poucette stood forth a vixen. Madame Emile, who was herself somewhat of a shrew, vowed that if it were not that she and Jean were so bound up together, and nothing could separate them, she must have sent away Poucette long ago. "No one could endure her temper, monsieur," she would declare to me; and when she began upon this subject, madame waxed eloquent. "She is a girl such as there is not besides in Paris. For Jean, she will give up dress, company, the theatre, everything; but except for him, she would not go one step out of her way to be made an empress. It is not natural that. After she first came here, we had a great deal of trouble with her, and Emile beat her well; but then she would run away in a rage, and come back again during the night, for fear Jean should want something. Now we are more used to her, and we let her have her own way pretty much."
Jean I could get nothing out of except a "Bonjour, monsieur" at entering and on leaving his house. He sat silently plaiting his mats or carving toys with his long fingers, looking as if he neither heard nor understood what we were talking about; but he carefully repeated all the conversation afterward to his friend Poucette, for she told me so often when we were together. She used to come and see me at my rooms, when it was wet, or business was slack; and I succeeded in finding a customer for her wares in a toy-merchant, who promised to take all Jean's work at a reasonable price, and was liberal toward the two children. Poucette was thus able to give up her public dancing, and stay more at home; and the toyman's daughter taught her dainty embroidery, in which her skilful fingers soon excelled. She tamed down wonderfully that winter, and even made some efforts to learn reading, as I suggested to her what a source of pleasure it would be to Jean, whose thirst for hearing stories related was intense, if he could read them for himself. But she was very slow at this; the letters proved a heavy task to learn, and when we came to spelling, I often despaired; still she toiled on, and when I left Paris in May, she could read a very little.
Six months passed, and again I turned my steps to my old winter-quarters. The summer and autumn had been spent by me partly in England, partly in Switzerland. My protege was unable to write, and I had heard nothing of her since I left Paris. I had not returned there longer than a week, when I set off into the cité, to discover again my little pupil. It was much the same sort of a day as that on which we had first met; cold, dank, misty rain kept falling, and streets were wet and sloppy. The part of the town where Poucette lived was wretchedly poor, dingy, and dirty-looking, especially in such weather as I now visited it, and the reputed haunt of thieves and evil-doers of various kinds. I picked my way along narrow ill-paved streets, with the gutters in the middle, and at last I reached her old abode. There was no one stirring about; but the door was ajar. I pushed it open, and walked in. The dwelling had once been some nobleman's hotel in bygone days, and its rooms were large and lofty, and at present each inhabited by different poor families. Emile's was on the ground floor—a long room, formerly used either as a guard-room or for playing billiards in. It had one large window, opening in the center, and crossed outside with thick iron bars, which partially excluded the light. I was confused on entering from the outer air, and at first could only perceive that the room was filled with a crowd of people, of various ages and sexes, but all of the lowest order, some sitting, some standing. A woman came forth to meet me, whom I recognized as Madame Emile, sobbing and holding her apron to her eyes. "Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she whispered, as she looked at me and clasped her hands piteously; "the poor Poucette, how hard it is! Monsieur, you are welcome; but this is a sorrowful time; she is much hurt." She led me gently through the various groups, all sorrowfully silent, toward a low pallet, at the head of the room, where, crushed, bleeding, and now insensible from pain, lay the form of poor Poucette. "What is this?" I asked in a whisper. "How did it happen?"