"Madame, Madame Vautrin!" cried M. Poquet, as he rushed into the room, followed by his wife and a number of the neighbors, "what is the matter here? Pray, be calm. You've beaten that child too much! Now, stop, or I'll go for the police." And the strong man seized the furious woman in his arms, while his wife and one or two other women got hold of Marcel and carried him down-stairs, covered with blood and bruises, to the Poquets' room.
Covered with blood and bruises! Such was this wretched child's reward for the first act of probity he had as yet found an opportunity of performing!
Be gentle, then, in your judgment of his future errings. O children of happier fortunes! ye who are encouraged in every generous thought and honest deed by the tender caresses of a mother and the approving smiles of a father, remember that he was an ignorant, homeless orphan, whose first good impulses were beaten out of him, or stifled by the vicious influences which surrounded him.
Monsieur and Madame Poquet were—it is a pity to be obliged to say it of such a kind-hearted couple—no better than they should be, rather, indeed, far worse. M. Poquet called himself a cobbler, but few, very few were the boots or shoes that could show trace of his handiwork. Talking politics in the cabaret [Footnote 115] at the corner, with idlers like himself, seemed to be his principal occupation; but there were rumors afloat that, at night, when honest men were sleeping peacefully in their beds, he and his companions were dodging the police, and trying to find the money they would not work for. Certain it is he generally had a forty-sous piece in his pocket, and few people knew how he got it.
[Footnote 115: Wine-shop.]
Madame Poquet earned or rather thieved her living as a femme de ménage [Footnote 116] and a very good living she made too; for, not satisfied with stuffing herself as full as she could of victuals at her employer's house, she regularly brought back every evening in a great basket, that was continually suspended at her arm, such a supply of cheese, charcoal, sugar, garlic, bread, cigars, cold meat, and such like, that there was not a better furnished cupboard nor better fed children than hers in the neighborhood.
[Footnote 116: Charwoman.]
These children consisted of a boy and a girl—Polycarpe and Loulou—cunning, ready-witted, unprincipled, and idle. Never had they heard a word of truth; their only teaching since they came into the world had been to lie and steal, but like their parents they were naturally merry and good-tempered; they had never been ill-treated, as children generally are among the vicious poor, and they were well-disposed to be generous with their pilfered plenty.
Such were the people who had rescued the orphan from Pelagie Vautrin's murderous hands, and who now washed away the blood from several cuts on his head, and applied such remedies to his poor bruised limbs as they were acquainted with. And Madame Poquet had a kind, motherly way with her that comforted poor Marcel wonderfully, and Polycarpe and Loulou showed much sympathy; and at last he was put into bed (a dirty one, it is true, but warm) with Polycarpe; and the boy fell asleep happier, notwithstanding his aches and pains, than he had been for many a year of his short life.