The Wandering Jew, Complete

E >> Eugene Sue >> The Wandering Jew, Complete


"Be quiet, My Lord! here I am," said Mrs. Grivois; then addressing the
two sisters, she added: "Pray, get in, my dear young ladies."

Rose and Blanche got into the coach. Before she followed them, Mrs.
Grivois was giving to the coachman in a low voice the direction to St.
Mary's Convent, and was adding other instructions, when suddenly the pug
dog, who had growled savagely when the sisters took their seats in the
coach, began to bark with fury. The cause of this anger was clear enough;
Spoil-sport, until now unperceived, had with one bound entered the
carriage.

The pug, exasperated by this boldness, forgetting his ordinary prudence,
and excited to the utmost by rage and ugliness of temper, sprang at his
muzzle, and bit him so cruelly, that, in his turn, the brave Siberian
dog, maddened by the pain, threw himself upon the teaser, seized him by
the throat, and fairly strangled him with two grips of his powerful
jaws--as appeared by one stifled groan of the pug, previously half
suffocated with fat.

All this took place in less time than is occupied by the description.
Rose and Blanche had hardly opportunity to exclaim twice: "Here, Spoil
sport! down!"

"Oh, good gracious!" said Mrs. Grivois, turning round at the noise.
"There again is that monster of a dog--he will certainly hurt my love.
Send him away, young ladies--make him get down--it is impossible to take
him with us."

Ignorant of the degree of Spoil-sport's criminality, for his paltry foe
was stretched lifeless under a seat, the young girls yet felt that it
would be improper to take the dog with them, and they therefore said to
him in an angry tone, at the same time slightly touching him with their
feet: "Get down, Spoil-sport! go away!"

The faithful animal hesitated at first to obey this order. Sad and
supplicatingly looked he at the orphans, and with an air of mild
reproach, as if blaming them for sending away their only defender. But,
upon the stern repetition of the command, he got down from the coach,
with his tail between his legs, feeling perhaps that he had been somewhat
over-hasty with regard to the pug.

Mrs. Grivois, who was in a great hurry to leave that quarter of the town,
seated herself with precipitation in the carriage; the coachman closed
the door, and mounted his box; and then the coach started at a rapid
rate, whilst Mrs. Grivois prudently let down the blinds, for fear of
meeting Dagobert by the way.

Having taken these indispensable precautions, she was able to turn her
attention to her pet, whom she loved with all that deep, exaggerated
affection, which people of a bad disposition sometimes entertain for
animals, as if then concentrated and lavished upon them all those
feelings in which they are deficient with regard to their fellow
creatures. In a word. Mrs. Grivois was passionately attached to this
peevish, cowardly, spiteful dog, partly perhaps from a secret sympathy
with his vices. This attachment had lasted for six years, and only seemed
to increase as My Lord advanced in age.

We have laid some stress on this apparently puerile detail, because the
most trifling causes have often disastrous effects, and because we wish
the reader to understand what must have been the despair, fury, and
exasperation of this woman, when she discovered the death of her dog--a
despair, a fury, and an exasperation, of which the orphans might yet feel
the cruel consequences.

The hackney-coach had proceeded rapidly for some seconds, when Mrs.
Grivois, who was seated with her back to the horses, called My Lord. The
dog had very good reasons for not replying.

"Well, you sulky beauty!" said Mrs. Grivois, soothingly; "you have taken
offence, have you? It was not my fault if that great ugly dog came into
the coach, was it, young ladies? Come and kiss your mistress, and let us
make peace, old obstinate!"

The same obstinate silence continued on the part of the canine noble.
Rose and Blanche began to look anxiously at each other, for they knew
that Spoil-sport was somewhat rough in his ways, though they were far
from suspecting what had really happened. But Mrs. Grivois, rather
surprised than uneasy at her pug-log's insensibility to her affectionate
appeals, and believing him to be sullenly crouching beneath the seat,
stooped clown to take him up, and feeling one of his paws, drew it
impatiently towards her whilst she said to him in a half-jesting, half
angry tone: "Come, naughty fellow! you will give a pretty notion of your
temper to these young ladies."

So saying, she took up the dog, much astonished at his unresisting
torpor; but what was her fright, when, having placed him upon her lap,
she saw that he was quite motionless.

"An apoplexy!" cried she. "The dear creature ate too much--I was always
afraid of it."

Turning round hastily, she exclaimed: "Stop, coachman! stop!" without
reflecting that the coachman could not hear her. Then raising the cur's
head, still thinking that he was only in a fit, she perceived with horror
the bloody holes imprinted by five or six sharp fangs, which left no
doubt of the cause of his deplorable end.

Her first impulse was one of grief and despair. "Dead!" she exclaimed;
"dead! and already cold! Oh, goodness!" And this woman burst into tears.

The tears of the wicked are ominous. For a bad man to weep, he must have
suffered much; and, with him, the reaction of suffering, instead of
softening the soul, inflames it to a dangerous anger.

Thus, after yielding to that first painful emotion, the mistress of My
Lord felt herself transported with rage and hate--yes, hate--violent hate
for the young girls, who had been the involuntary cause of the dog's
death. Her countenance so plainly betrayed her resentment, that Blanche
and Rose were frightened at the expression of her face, which had now
grown purple with fury, as with agitated voice and wrathful glance she
exclaimed: "It was your dog that killed him!"

"Oh, madame!" said Rose; "we had nothing to do with it."

"It was your dog that bit Spoil-sport first," added Blanche, in a
plaintive voice.

The look of terror impressed on the features of the orphans recalled Mrs.
Grivois to herself. She saw the fatal consequences that might arise from
yielding imprudently to her anger. For the very sake of vengeance, she
had to restrain herself, in order not to awaken suspicion in the minds of
Marshal Simon's daughters. But not to appear to recover too soon from her
first impression, she continued for some minutes to cast irritated
glances at the young girls; then, little by little, her anger seemed to
give way to violent grief; she covered her face with her hands, heaved a
long sigh, and appeared to weep bitterly.

"Poor lady!" whispered Rose to Blanche. "How she weeps!--No doubt, she
loved her dog as much as we love Spoil-sport."

"Alas! yes," replied Blanche. "We also wept when our old Jovial was
killed."

After a few minutes, Mrs. Grivois raised her head, dried her eyes
definitively, and said in a gentle, and almost affectionate voice:
"Forgive me, young ladies! I was unable to repress the first movement of
irritation, or rather of deep sorrow--for I was tenderly attached to this
poor dog he has never left me for six years."

"We are very sorry for this misfortune, madame," resumed Rose; "and we
regret it the more, that it seems to be irreparable."

"I was just saying to my sister, that we can the better fancy your grief,
as we have had to mourn the death of our old horse, that carried us all
the way from Siberia."

"Well, my dear young ladies, let us think no more about it. It was my
fault; I should not have brought him with me; but he was always so
miserable, whenever I left him. You will make allowance for my weakness.
A good heart feels for animals as well as people; so I must trust to your
sensibility to excuse my hastiness."

"Do not think of it, madame; it is only your grief that afflicts us."

"I shall get over it, my dear young ladies--I shall get over it. The joy
of the meeting between you and your relation will help to console me. She
will be so happy. You are so charming! and then the singular circumstance
of your exact likeness to each other adds to the interest you inspire."

"You are too kind to us, madame."

"Oh, no--I am sure you resemble each other as much in disposition as in
face."

"That is quite natural, madame," said Rose, "for since our birth we have
never left each other a minute, whether by night or day. It would be
strange, if we were not like in character."

"Really, my dear young ladies! you have never left each other a minute?"

"Never, madame." The sisters joined hands with an expressive smile.

"Then, how unhappy you would be, and how much to be pitied, if ever you
were separated."

"Oh, madame! it is impossible," said Blanche, smiling.

"How impossible?"

"Who would have the heart to separate us?"

"No doubt, my dear young ladies, it would be very cruel."

"Oh, madame," resumed Blanche, "even very wicked people would not think
of separating us."

"So much the better, my dear young ladies--pray, why?"

"Because it would cause us too much grief."

"Because it would kill us."

"Poor little dears!"

"Three months ago, we were shut up in prison. Well when the governor of
the prison saw us, though he looked a very stern man, he could not help
saying: 'It would be killing these children to separate them;' and so we
remained together, and were as happy as one can be in prison."

"It shows your excellent heart, and also that of the persons who knew how
to appreciate it."

The carriage stopped, and they heard the coachman call out "Any one at
the gate there?"

"Oh! here we are at your relation's," said Mrs. Grivois. Two wings of a
gate flew open, and the carriage rolled over the gravel of a court-yard.

Mrs. Grivois having drawn up one of the blinds, they found themselves in
a vast court, across the centre of which ran a high wall, with a kind of
porch upon columns, under which was a little door. Behind this wall, they
could see the upper part of a very large building in freestone. Compared
with the house in the Rue Brise-Miche, this building appeared a palace;
so Blanche said to Mrs. Grivois, with an expression of artless
admiration: "Dear me, madame, what a fine residence!"

"That is nothing," replied Madame Grivois; "wait till you see the
interior, which is much finer."

When the coachman opened the door of the carriage, what was the rage of
Mrs. Grivois, and the surprise of the girls, to see Spoil-sport, who had
been clever enough to follow the coach. Pricking up his ears, and wagging
his tail, he seemed to have forgotten his late offences, and to expect to
be praised for his intelligent fidelity.

"What!" cried Mrs. Grivois, whose sorrows were renewed at the sight; "has
that abominable dog followed the coach?"

"A famous dog, mum," answered the coachman "he never once left the heels
of my horses. He must have been trained to it. He's a powerful beast, and
two men couldn't scare him. Look at the throat of him now!"

The mistress of the deceased pug, enraged at the somewhat unseasonable
praises bestowed upon the Siberian, said to the orphans, "I will announce
your arrival, wait for me an instant in the coach."

So saying, she went with a rapid step towards the porch, and rang the
bell. A woman, clad in a monastic garb, appeared at the door, and bowed
respectfully to Mrs. Grivois, who addressed her in these few words, "I
have brought you the two young girls; the orders of Abbe d'Aigrigny and
the princess are, that they be instantly separated, and kept apart in
solitary cells--you understand, sister--and subjected to the rule for
impenitents."

"I will go and inform the superior, and it will be done," said the
portress, with another bend.

"Now, will you come, my dear young ladies?" resumed Mrs. Grivois,
addressing the two girls, who had secretly bestowed a few caresses upon
Spoil sport, so deeply were they touched by his instinctive attachment;
"you will be introduced to your relation, and I will return and fetch you
in half an hour. Coachman keep that dog back."

Rose and Blanche, in getting out of the coach, were so much occupied with
Spoil-sport, that they did not perceive the portress, who was half hidden
behind the little door. Neither did they remark, that the person who was
to introduce them was dressed as a nun, till, taking them by the hand,
she had led them across the threshold, when the door was immediately
closed behind them.

As soon as Mrs. Grivois had seen the orphans safe into the convent, she
told the coachman to leave the court-yard, and wait for her at the outer
gate. The coachman obeyed; but Spoil-sport, who had seen Rose and Blanche
enter by the little door, ran to it, and remained there.

Mrs. Grivois then called the porter of the main entrance, a tall,
vigorous fellow and said to him: "Here are ten francs for you, Nicholas,
if you will beat out the brains of that great dog, who is crouching under
the porch."

Nicholas shook his head, as he observed Spoil-sport's size and strength.
"Devil take me, madame!" said he; "'tis not so easy to tackle a dog of
that build."

"I will give you twenty francs; only kill him before me."

"One ought to have a gun, and I have only an iron hammer."

"That will do; you can knock him down at a blow."

"Well, madame--I will try--but I have my doubts." And Nicholas went to
fetch his mallet.

"Oh! if I had the strength!" said Mrs. Grivois.

The porter returned with his weapon, and advanced slowly and
treacherously towards Spoil-sport, who was still crouching beneath the
porch. "Here, old fellow! here, my good dog!" said Nicholas striking his
left hand on his thigh, and keeping his right behind him, with the
crowbar grasped in it.

Spoil-sport rose, examined Nicholas attentively, and no doubt perceiving
by his manner that the porter meditated some evil design, bounded away
from him, outflanked the enemy, saw clearly what was intended, and kept
himself at a respectful distance.

"He smells a rat," said Nicholas; "the rascal's on his guard. He will not
let me come near him. It's no go."

"You are an awkward fellow," said Mrs. Grivois in a passion, as she threw
a five-franc piece to Nicholas: "at all events, drive him away."

"That will be easier than to kill him, madame," said the porter. Indeed,
finding himself pursued, and conscious probably that it would be useless
to attempt an open resistance, Spoil-sport fled from the court-yard into
the street; but once there, he felt himself, as it were, upon neutral
ground, and notwithstanding all the threats of Nicholas, refused to
withdraw an inch further than just sufficient to keep out of reach of the
sledge-hammer. So that when Mrs. Grivois, pale with rage, again stepped
into her hackney-coach, in which were My Lord's lifeless remains, she saw
with the utmost vexation that Spoil-sport was lying at a few steps from
the gate, which Nicholas had just closed, having given up the chase in
despair.

The Siberian dog, sure of finding his way back to the Rue Brise-Miche,
had determined, with the sagacity peculiar to his race, to wait for the
orphans on the spot where he then was.

Thus were the two sisters confined in St. Mary's Convent, which, as we
have already said, was next door to the lunatic asylum in which Adrienne
de Cardoville was immured.

We now conduct the reader to the dwelling of Dagobert's wife, who was
waiting with dreadful anxiety for the return of her husband, knowing that
he would call her to account for the disappearance of Marshal Simon's
daughters.




CHAPTER LII.

THE INFLUENCE OF A CONFESSOR.

Hardly had the orphans quitted Dagobert's wife, when the poor woman,
kneeling down, began to pray with fervor. Her tears, long restrained, now
flowed abundantly; notwithstanding her sincere conviction that she had
performed a religious duty in delivering up the girl's she waited with
extreme fear her husband's return. Though blinded by her pious zeal, she
could not hide from herself, that Dagobert would have good reason to be
angry; and then this poor mother had also, under these untoward
circumstances, to tell him of Agricola's arrest.

Every noise upon the stairs made Frances start with trembling anxiety;
after which, she would resume her fervent prayers, supplicating strength
to support this new and arduous trial. At length, she heard a step upon
the landing-place below, and, feeling sure this time that it was
Dagobert, she hastily seated herself, dried her tears, and taking a sack
of coarse cloth upon her lap, appeared to be occupied with sewing--though
her aged hands trembled so much, that she could hardly hold the needle.

After some minutes the door opened, and Dagobert appeared. The soldier's
rough countenance was stern and sad; as he entered, he flung his hat
violently upon the table, so full of painful thought, that he did not at
first perceive the absence of the orphans.

"Poor girl!" cried he. "It is really terrible!"

"Didst see Mother Bunch? didst claim her?" said Frances hastily,
forgetting for a moment her own fears.

"Yes, I have seen her--but in what a state--twas enough to break one's
heart. I claimed her, and pretty loud too, I can tell you; but they said
to me, that the commissary must first come to our place in order--" here
Dagobert paused, threw a glance of surprise round the room, and exclaimed
abruptly: "Where are the children?"

Frances felt herself seized with an icy shudder. "My dear," she began in
a feeble voice--but she was unable to continue.

"Where are Rose and Blanche! Answer me then! And Spoil-sport, who is not
here either!"

"Do not be angry."

"Come," said Dagobert, abruptly, "I see you have let them go out with a
neighbor--why not have accompanied them yourself, or let them wait for
me, if they wished to take a walk; which is natural enough, this room
being so dull. But I am astonished that they should have gone out before
they had news of good Mother Bunch--they have such kind hearts. But how
pale you are?" added the soldier looking nearer at Frances; "what is the
matter, my poor wife? Are you ill?"

Dagobert took Frances's hand affectionately in his own but the latter,
painfully agitated by these words, pronounced with touching goodness,
bowed her head and wept as she kissed her husband's hand. The soldier,
growing more and more uneasy as he felt the scalding tears of his wife,
exclaimed: "You weep, you do not answer--tell me, then, the cause of your
grief, poor wife! Is it because I spoke a little loud, in asking you how
you could let the dear children go out with a neighbor? Remember their
dying mother entrusted them to my care--'tis sacred, you see--and with
them, I am like an old hen after her chickens," added he, laughing to
enliven Frances.

"Yes, you are right in loving them!"

"Come, then--becalm--you know me of old. With my great, hoarse voice, I
am not so bad a fellow at bottom. As you can trust to this neighbor,
there is no great harm done; but, in future, my good Frances, do not take
any step with regard to the children without consulting me. They asked, I
suppose, to go out for a little stroll with Spoil-sport?"

"No, my dear!"

"No! Who is this neighbor, to whom you have entrusted them? Where has she
taken them? What time will she bring them back?"

"I do not know," murmured Frances, in a failing voice.

"You do not know!" cried Dagobert, with indignation; but restraining
himself, he added, in a tone of friendly reproach: "You do not know? You
cannot even fix an hour, or, better still, not entrust them to any one?
The children must have been very anxious to go out. They knew that I
should return at any moment, so why not wait for me--eh, Frances? I ask
you, why did they not wait for me? Answer me, will you!--Zounds! you
would make a saint swear!" cried Dagobert, stamping his foot; "answer me,
I say!"

The courage of Frances was fast failing. These pressing and reiterated
questions, which might end by the discovery of the truth, made her endure
a thousand slow and poignant tortures. She preferred coming at once to
the point, and determined to bear the full weight of her husband's anger,
like a humble and resigned victim, obstinately faithful to the promise
she had sworn to her confessor.

Not having the strength to rise, she bowed her head, allowed her arms to
fall on either side of the chair, and said to her husband in a tone of
the deepest despondency: "Do with me what you will--but do not ask what
is become of the children--I cannot answer you."

If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the soldier, he would not have
been more violently, more deeply moved; he became deadly pale; his bald
forehead was covered with cold sweat; with fixed and staring look, he
remained for some moments motionless, mute, and petrified. Then, as if
roused with a start from this momentary torpor, and filled with a
terrific energy, he seized his wife by the shoulders, lifted her like a
feather, placed her on her feet before him, and, leaning over her,
exclaimed in a tone of mingled fury and despair: "The children!"

"Mercy! mercy!" gasped Frances, in a faint voice.

"Where are the children?" repeated Dagobert, as he shook with his
powerful hands that poor frail body, and added in a voice of thunder:
"Will you answer? the children!"

"Kill me, or forgive me, I cannot answer you," replied the unhappy woman,
with that inflexible, yet mild obstinacy, peculiar to timid characters,
when they act from convictions of doing right.

"Wretch!" cried the soldier; wild with rage, grief, despair, he lifted up
his wife as if he would have dashed her upon the floor--but he was too
brave a man to commit such cowardly cruelty, and, after that first burst
of involuntary fury, he let her go.

Overpowered, Frances sank upon her knees, clasped her hands, and, by the
faint motion of her lips, it was clear that she was praying. Dagobert had
then a moment of stunning giddiness; his thoughts wandered; what had just
happened was so sudden, so incomprehensible that it required some minutes
to convince himself that his wife (that angel of goodness, whose life had
been one course of heroic self-devotion, and who knew what the daughters
of Marshal Simon were to him) should say to him: "Do not ask me about
them--I cannot answer you."

The firmest, the strongest mind would have been shaken by this
inexplicable fact. But, when the soldier had a little recovered himself,
he began to look coolly at the circumstances, and reasoned thus sensibly
with himself: "My wife alone can explain to me this inconceivable
mystery--I do not mean either to beat or kill her--let us try every
possibly method, therefore, to induce her to speak, and above all, let me
try to control myself."

He took a chair, handed another to his wife, who was still on her knees,
and said to her: "Sit down." With an air of the utmost dejection, Frances
obeyed.

"Listen to me, wife," resumed Dagobert in a broken voice, interrupted by
involuntary starts, which betrayed the boiling impatience he could hardly
restrain. "Understand me--this cannot pass over in this manner--you know.
I will never use violence towards you--just now, I gave way to a first
moment of hastiness--I am sorry for it. Be sure, I shall not do so again:
but, after all, I must know what has become of these children. Their
mother entrusted them to my care, and I did not bring them all the way
from Siberia, for you to say to me: 'Do not ask me--I cannot tell you
what I have done with them.' There is no reason in that. Suppose Marshal
Simon were to arrive, and say to me, 'Dagobert, my children?' what answer
am I to give him? See, I am calm--judge for yourself--I am calm--but just
put yourself in my place, and tell me--what answer am I to give to the
marshal? Well--what say you! Will you speak!"

"Alas! my dear--"

"It is of no use crying alas!" said the soldier wiping his forehead, on
which the veins were swollen as if they would burst; "what am I to answer
to the marshal?"

"Accuse me to him--I will bear it all--I will say--"

"What will you say?"

"That, on going out, you entrusted the two girls to me, and that not
finding them on return you asked be about them--and that my answer was,
that I could not tell you what had become of them."

"And you think the marshal will be satisfied with such reasons?" cried
Dagobert, clinching his fists convulsively upon his knees.

"Unfortunately, I can give no other--either to him or you--no--not if I
were to die for it."

Dagobert bounded from his chair at this answer, which was given with
hopeless resignation. His patience was exhausted; but determined not to
yield to new bursts of anger, or to spend his breath in useless menaces,
he abruptly opened one of the windows, and exposed his burning forehead
to the cool air. A little calmer, he walked up and down for a few
moments, and then returned to seat himself beside his wife. She, with her
eyes bathed in tears, fixed her gaze upon the crucifix, thinking that she
also had to bear a heavy cross.

Dagobert resumed: "By the manner in which you speak, I see that no
accident has happened, which might endanger the health of the children."