Pale and trembling, he now followed Polycarpe to the low, black, sinister-looking building then situated close by St. Michael's bridge, on the right bank of the Seine. [Footnote 131] Many persons were going in and out of the horrible place, some seeking missing friends; others, and the greater number, urged on by a depraved curiosity and love of excitement.
[Footnote 131: It has since been pulled down, and rebuilt more handsomely behind the cathedral of Notre Dame.]
The two boys entered; Polycarpe noisily, and with an air of busy importance that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances; Marcel sick and faint with anxiety and fear; and awful indeed was the interior of that house of death. At one end of the stone-floored room in which they found themselves was an iron grating, behind which, on marble slabs, were laid out the perfectly naked forms of the unknown dead, victims of accident or of violence. The bloated body of a drowned man, whose starting eyes first caught the scared glance of the shuddering child, made him start with horror and surprise. He had often thought, from all he had heard, that the sights to be seen in the Morgue must be dreadful, but the reality surpassed all his imaginings. He closed his eyes, but opened them an instant after to take a look at the corpse of a woman, whose blood-clotted hair and battered features showed but too plainly that the wretched creature had been the victim of some foul crime.
"'Tis she!" cried Polycarpe. But Marcel could bear no more; the child's nerves and heart had been tried to the uttermost, and he fell insensible on the cold, damp floor. Polycarpe and two or three bystanders dragged him out of the building, and, getting some water from the river, soon brought him to again, but very shaky and weak.
Polycarpe Poquet was a regular scamp, an idle beggar, a street-thief; nevertheless very gently and lovingly did he help his friend on his legs again, and very softly did he speak to him as they walked slowly away from that horrible place. "Come in here, old fellow," said he, when they arrived before the door on the second landing. "Mother wants to see you," he added, as he perceived that Marcel hesitated.
Madame Poquet and Loulou were both at home; for the charwoman was just then at liberty, her last mistress having been mean enough to lock up the charcoal and bread and butter, and various other useful items in housekeeping, and as Madame Poquet said to her neighbors, "After that evident want of confidence, she felt herself obliged to leave, especially as the wages were so low that without the perquisites the place was worth nothing!" She was a good-natured woman, notwithstanding her dishonesty, and received poor Marcel in a kind, motherly manner that contributed much to soothe and console him. "Now, you see, Marcel," said she, "you need not feel so bad; you shall come and live with us; there's room for four, and so there's room for five. I'm sure I always wanted to have you, for Madame Vautrin was not good to you—you know that she wasn't—everybody knows that she wasn't. Now, come, don't cry so; it shows that you've a good heart, but it is not reasonable, and I can't bear to hear you. I never could bear to hear any one cry. Come, courage, courage!" And the old thieving charwoman kissed the weeping boy tenderly, and then wiped her own overflowing eyes. He threw his arms around her neck and sobbed aloud, and the motherly old soul sobbed with him. "Come now," said she presently, and she placed him as she spoke on a chair by the table, "here's some good hot coffee and milk, and a piece of nice fresh bread. I got it ready for you half an hour ago. There, you and Polycarpe sit down and take your breakfast; that'll do you good, and comfort you."
And certainly the good meal did much to calm him, though perhaps the sympathy of Madame Poquet and her children did more.
And so it was settled; the landlord sold the few miserable sticks of furniture belonging to Pelagie Vautrin for the arrears of rent, and Marcel became one of the Poquet family.
As for the battered corpse lying on the marble slab in the Morgue, it was never reclaimed, but was hurriedly buried in the pauper grave that the state provides for the unknown dead. Yet it was a long time before the orphan whom Pelagie Vautrin had so cruelly ill-treated ceased to think of her, or shudder as he remembered her terrible death. It was an end, however, as we know, to be expected for one cursed with so wicked a temper and of such dissolute habits. Drunkenness, quarrels, blows, and death! It is a natural sequence!
Poor Marcel gained by the change; at least, his life was not so hard a one as it had been. He was no longer obliged to bring home a certain quantity of rags and old iron every day; he had no regular task set him. But Monsieur and Madame Poquet nevertheless fully expected him to pick up his own living and something more, in the same way as did their son Polycarpe.