The Wandering Jew, Complete

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


"Oh, sister! to see you thus!" Unable to articulate another word, the
Bacchanal Queen threw herself on the other's neck, and burst into tears.
Then, in the midst of her sobs, she added: "Pardon! pardon!"

"What is the matter, my dear Cephyse?" said the young sewing-girl, deeply
moved, and gently disengaging herself from the embrace of her sister.
"Why do you ask my pardon?"

"Why?" resumed Cephyse, raising her countenance, bathed in tears, and
purple with shame; "is it not shameful of me to be dressed in all this
frippery, and throwing away so much money in follies, while you are thus
miserably clad, and in need of everything--perhaps dying of want, for I
have never seen your poor face look so pale and worn."

"Be at ease, dear sister! I am not ill. I was up rather late last night,
and that makes me a little pale--but pray do not cry--it grieves me."

The Bacchanal Queen had but just arrived, radiant in the midst of the
intoxicated crowd, and yet it was Mother Bunch who was now employed in
consoling her!

An incident occurred, which made the contrast still more striking. Joyous
cries were heard suddenly in the next apartment, and these words were
repeated with enthusiasm: "Long live the Bacchanal Queen!"

Mother Bunch trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, as she saw her
sister with her face buried in her hands, as if overwhelmed with shame.
"Cephyse," she said, "I entreat you not to grieve so. You will make me
regret the delight of this meeting, which is indeed happiness to me! It
is so long since I saw you! But tell me--what ails you?"

"You despise me perhaps--you are right," said the Bacchanal Queen, drying
her tears.

"Despise you? for what?"

"Because I lead the life I do, instead of having the courage to support
misery along with you."

The grief of Cephyse was so heart-breaking, that Mother Bunch, always
good and indulgent, wishing to console her, and raise her a little in her
own estimation, said to her tenderly: "In supporting it bravely for a
whole year, my good Cephyse, you have had more merit and courage than I
should have in bearing with it my whole life."

"Oh, sister! do not say that."

"In simple truth," returned Mother Bunch, "to what temptations is a
creature like me exposed? Do I not naturally seek solitude, even as you
seek a noisy life of pleasure? What wants have I? A very little
suffices."

"But you have not always that little?"

"No--but, weak and sickly as I seem, I can endure some privations better
than you could. Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which
leaves me very feeble--but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is
fury, is madness. Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you
suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched
garret, and we could not even earn our four francs a week--so that we had
nothing--absolutely nothing to eat--for our pride prevented us from
applying to the neighbors."

"You have preserved the right to that honest pride."

"And you as well! Did you not struggle as much as a human creature could?
But strength fails at last--I know you well, Cephyse--it was hunger that
conquered you; and the painful necessity of constant labor, which was yet
insufficient to supply our common wants."

"But you could endure those privations--you endure them still."

"Can you compare me with yourself? Look," said Mother Bunch, taking her
sister by the hand, and leading her to a mirror placed above a couch,
"look!--Dost think that God made you so beautiful, endowed you with such
quick and ardent blood, with so joyous, animated, grasping a nature and
with such taste and fondness for pleasure, that your youth might be spent
in a freezing garret, hid from the sun, nailed constantly to your chair,
clad almost in rags, and working without rest and without hope? No! for
He has given us other wants than those of eating and drinking. Even in
our humble condition, does not beauty require some little ornament? Does
not youth require some movement, pleasure, gayety? Do not all ages call
for relaxation and rest? Had you gained sufficient wages to satisfy
hunger, to have a day or so's amusement in the week, after working every
other day for twelve or fifteen hours, and to procure the neat and modest
dress which so charming a face might naturally claim--you would never
have asked for more, I am sure of it--you have told me as much a hundred
times. You have yielded, therefore, to an irresistible necessity, because
your wants are greater than mine."

"It is true," replied the Bacchanal Queen, with a pensive air; "if I
could but have gained eighteenpence a day, my life would have been quite
different; for, in the beginning, sister, I felt cruelly humiliated to
live at a man's expense."

"Yes, yes--it was inevitable, my dear Cephyse; I must pity, but cannot
blame you. You did not choose your destiny; but, like me, you have
submitted to it."

"Poor sister!" said Cephyse, embracing the speaker tenderly; "you can
encourage and console me in the midst of your own misfortunes, when I
ought to be pitying you."

"Be satisfied!" said Mother Bunch; "God is just and good. If He has
denied me many advantages, He has given me my joys, as you have yours."

"Joys?"

"Yes, and great ones--without which life would be too burdensome, and I
should not have the courage to go through with it."

"I understand you," said Cephyse, with emotion; "you still know how to
devote yourself for others, and that lightens your own sorrows."

"I do what I can, but, alas! it is very little; yet when I succeed,"
added Mother Bunch, with a faint smile, "I am as proud and happy as a
poor little ant, who, after a great deal of trouble, has brought a big
straw to the common nest. But do not let us talk any more of me."

"Yes, but I must, even at the risk of making you angry," resumed the
Bacchanal Queen, timidly; "I have something to propose to you which you
once before refused. Jacques Rennepont has still, I think, some money
left--we are spending it in follies--now and then giving a little to poor
people we may happen to meet--I beg of you, let me come to your
assistance--I see in your poor face, you cannot conceal it from me, that
you are wearing yourself out with toil."

"Thanks, my dear Cephyse, I know your good heart; but I am not in want of
anything. The little I gain is sufficient for me."

"You refuse me," said the Bacchanal Queen, sadly, "because you know that
my claim to this money is not honorable--be it so--I respect your
scruples. But you will not refuse a service from Jacques; he has been a
workman, like ourselves, and comrades should help each other. Accept it I
beseech you, or I shall think you despise me."

"And I shall think you despise me, if you insist any more upon it, my
dear Cephyse," said Mother Bunch, in a tone at once so mild and firm that
the Bacchanal Queen saw that all persuasion would be in vain. She hung
her head sorrowfully, and a tear again trickled down her cheek.

"My refusal grieves you," said the other, taking her hand; "I am truly
sorry--but reflect--and you will understand me."

"You are right," said the Bacchanal Queen, bitterly, after a moment's
silence; "you cannot accept assistance from my lover--it was an insult to
propose it to you. There are positions in life so humiliating, that they
soil even the good one wishes to do."

"Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you--you know it well."

"Oh! believe me," replied the Bacchanal Queen, "gay and giddy as I am, I
have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest
joy. Happily, such moments are rare."

"And what do you think of, then?"

"Why, that the life I lead is hardly the thing; then resolve to ask
Jacques for a small sum of money, just enough to subsist on for a year,
and form the plan of joining you, and gradually getting to work again."

"The idea is a good one; why not act upon it?"

"Because, when about to execute this project, I examined myself
sincerely, and my courage failed. I feel that I could never resume the
habit of labor, and renounce this mode of life, sometimes rich, as to
day, sometimes precarious,--but at least free and full of leisure, joyous
and without care, and at worst a thousand times preferable to living upon
four francs a week. Not that interest has guided me. Many times have I
refused to exchange a lover, who had little or nothing, for a rich man,
that I did not like. Nor have I ever asked anything for myself. Jacques
has spent perhaps ten thousand francs the last three or four months, yet
we only occupy two half-furnished rooms, because we always live out of
doors, like the birds: fortunately, when I first loved him, he had
nothing at all, and I had just sold some jewels that had been given me,
for a hundred francs, and put this sum in the lottery. As mad people and
fools are always lucky, I gained a prize of four thousand francs. Jacques
was as gay, and light-headed, and full of fun as myself, so we said: 'We
love each other very much, and, as long as this money lasts, we will keep
up the racket; when we have no more, one of two things will
happen--either we shall be tired of one another, and so part--or else we
shall love each other still, and then, to remain together, we shall try
and get work again; and, if we cannot do so, and yet will not part--a
bushel of charcoal will do our business!'"

"Good heaven!" cried Mother Bunch, turning pale.

"Be satisfied! we have not come to that. We had still something left,
when a kind of agent, who had paid court to me, but who was so ugly that
I could not bear him for all his riches, knowing that I was living with
Jacques asked me to--But why should I trouble you with all these details?
In one word, he lent Jacques money, on some sort of a doubtful claim he
had, as was thought, to inherit some property. It is with this money that
we are amusing ourselves--as long as its lasts."

"But, my dear Cephyse, instead of spending this money so foolishly, why
not put it out to interest, and marry Jacques, since you love him?"

"Oh! in the first place," replied the Bacchanal Queen, laughing, as her
gay and thoughtless character resumed its ascendancy, "to put money out
to interest gives one no pleasure. All the amusement one has is to look
at a little bit of paper, which one gets in exchange for the nice little
pieces of gold, with which one can purchase a thousand pleasures. As for
marrying, I certainly like Jacques better than I ever liked any one; but
it seems to me, that, if we were married, all our happiness would
end--for while he is only my lover, he cannot reproach me with what has
passed--but, as my husband, he would be stare to upbraid me, sooner or
later, and if my conduct deserves blame, I prefer giving it to myself,
because I shall do it more tenderly."

"Mad girl that you are! But this money will not last forever. What is to
be done next?"

"Afterwards!--Oh! that's all in the moon. To-morrow seems to me as if it
would not come for a hundred years. If we were always saying: 'We must
die one day or the other'--would life be worth having?"

The conversation between Cephyse and her sister was here again
interrupted by a terrible uproar, above which sounded the sharp, shrill
noise of Ninny Moulin's rattle. To this tumult succeeded a chorus of
barbarous cries, in the midst of which were distinguishable these words,
which shook the very windows: "The Queen! the Bacchanal Queen!"

Mother Bunch started at this sudden noise.

"It is only my court, who are getting impatient," said Cephyse--and this
time she could laugh.

"Heavens!" cried the sewing-girl, in alarm; "if they were to come here in
search of you?"

"No, no--never fear."

"But listen! do you not hear those steps? they are coming along the
passage--they are approaching. Pray, sister, let me go out alone, without
being seen by all these people."

That moment the door was opened, and Cephyse, ran towards it. She saw in
the passage a deputation headed by Ninny Moulin, who was armed with his
formidable rattle, and followed by Rose-Pompon and Sleepinbuff.

"The Bacchanal Queen! or I poison myself with a glass of water;" cried
Ninny Moulin.

"The Bacchanal Queen! or I publish my banns of marriage with Ninny
Moulin!" cried little Rose-Pompon, with a determined air.

"The Bacchanal Queen! or the court will rise in arms, and carry her off
by force!" said another voice.

"Yes, yes--let us carry her off!" repeated a formidable chorus.

"Jacques, enter alone!" said the Bacchanal Queen, notwithstanding these
pressing summonses; then, addressing her court in a majestic tone, she
added: "In ten minutes, I shall be at your service--and then for a--of a
time!"

"Long live the Bacchanal Queen," cried Dumoulin, shaking his rattle as he
retired, followed by the deputation, whilst Sleepinbuff entered the room
alone.

"Jacques," said Cephyse, "this is my good sister."

"Enchanted to see you," said Jacques, cordially; "the more so as you will
give me some news of my friend Agricola. Since I began to play the rich
man, we have not seen each other, but I like him as much as ever, and
think him a good and worthy fellow. You live in the same house. How is
he?"

"Alas, sir! he and his family have had many misfortunes. He is in
prison."

"In prison!" cried Cephyse.

"Agricola in prison! what for?" said Sleepinbuff.

"For a trifling political offence. We had hoped to get him out on bail."

"Certainly; for five hundred francs it could be done," said Sleepinbuff.

"Unfortunately, we have not been able; the person upon whom we relied--"

The Bacchanal Queen interrupted the speaker by saying to her lover: "Do
you hear, Jacques? Agricola in prison, for want of five hundred francs!"

"To be sure! I hear and understand all about it. No need of your winking.
Poor fellow! he was the support of his mother."

"Alas! yes, sir--and it is the more distressing, as his father has but
just returned from Russia, and his mother--"

"Here," said Sleepinbuff, interrupting, and giving Mother Bunch a purse;
"take this--all the expenses here have been paid beforehand--this is what
remains of my last bag. You will find here some twenty-five or thirty
Napoleons, and I cannot make a better use of them than to serve a comrade
in distress. Give them to Agricola's father; he will take the necessary
steps, and to-morrow Agricola will be at his forge, where I had much
rather he should be than myself."

"Jacques, give me a kiss!" said the Bacchanal Queen.

"Now, and afterwards, and again and again!" said Jacques, joyously
embracing the queen.

Mother Bunch hesitated for a moment; but reflecting that, after all, this
sum of money, which was about to be spent in follies, would restore life
and happiness to the family of Agricola, and that hereafter these very
five hundred francs, when returned to Jacques, might be of the greatest
use to him, she resolved to accept this offer. She took the purse, and
with tearful eyes, said to him: "I will not refuse your kindness M.
Jacques; you are so good and generous, Agricola's father will thus at
least have one consolation, in the midst of heavy sorrows. Thanks! many
thanks!"

"There is no need to thank me; money was made for others as well as
ourselves."

Here, without, the noise recommenced more furiously than ever, and Ninny
Moulin's rattle sent forth the most doleful sounds.

"Cephyse," said Sleepinbuff, "they will break everything to pieces, if
you do not return to them, and I have nothing left to pay for the damage.
Excuse us," added he, laughing, "but you see that royalty has its
duties."

Cephyse deeply moved, extended her arms to Mother Bunch, who threw
herself into them, shedding sweet tears.

"And now," said she, to her sister, "when shall I see you again?"

"Soon--though nothing grieves me more than to see you in want, out of
which I am not allowed to help you."

"You will come, then, to see me? It is a promise?"

"I promise you in her name," said Jacques; "we will pay a visit to you
and your neighbor Agricola."

"Return to the company, Cephyse, and amuse yourself with a light heart,
for M. Jacques has made a whole family happy."

So saying, and after Sleepinbuff had ascertained that she could go down
without being seen by his noisy and joyous companions, Mother Bunch
quietly withdrew, eager to carry one piece of good news at least to
Dagobert; but intending, first of all, to go to the Rue de Babylone, to
the garden-house formerly occupied by Adrienne de Cardoville. We shall
explain hereafter the cause of this determination.

As the girl quitted the eating-house, three men plainly and comfortably
dressed, were watching before it, and talking in a low voice. Soon after,
they were joined by a fourth person, who rapidly descended the stairs of
the tavern.

"Well?" said the three first, with anxiety.

"He is there."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Are there two Sleepers-in-buff on earth?" replied the other. "I have
just seen him; he is togged out like one of the swell mob. They will be
at table for three hours at least."

"Then wait for me, you others. Keep as quiet as possible. I will go and
fetch the captain, and the game is bagged." So saying, one of the three
men walked off quickly, and disappeared in a street leading from the
square.

At this same instant the Bacchanal Queen entered the banqueting-room,
accompanied by Jacques, and was received with the most frenzied
acclamations from all sides.

"Now then," cried Cephyse, with a sort of feverish excitement, as if she
wished to stun herself; "now then, friends--noise and tumult, hurricane
and tempest, thunder and earthquake--as much as you please!" Then,
holding out her glass to Ninny Moulin, she added: "Pour out! pour out!"

"Long live the Queen!" cried they all, with one voice.




CHAPTER III.

THE CAROUSE.

The Bacchanal Queen, having Sleepinbuff and Rose-Pompon opposite her, and
Ninny Moulin on her right hand, presided at the repast, called a
reveille-matin (wake-morning), generously offered by Jacques to his
companions in pleasure.

Both young men and girls seemed to have forgotten the fatigues of a ball,
begun at eleven o'clock in the evening, and finished at six in the
morning; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and
indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian
ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less
chatter than clatter of plates and glasses.

The Bacchanal Queen's countenance was less gay, but much more animated
than usual; her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes announced a feverish
excitement; she wished to drown reflection, cost what it might. Her
conversation with her sister often recurred to her, and she tried to
escape from such sad remembrances.

Jacques regarded Cephyse from time to time with passionate adoration;
for, thanks to the singular conformity of character, mind, and taste
between him and the Bacchanal Queen, their attachment had deeper and
stronger roots than generally belong to ephemeral connections founded
upon pleasure. Cephyse and Jacques were themselves not aware of all the
power of a passion which till now had been surrounded only by joys and
festivities, and not yet been tried by any untoward event.

Little Rose-Pompon, left a widow a few days before by a student, who, in
order to end the carnival in style, had gone into the country to raise
supplies from his family, under one of those fabulous pretences which
tradition carefully preserves in colleges of law and medicine--Rose
Pompon, we repeat, an example of rare fidelity, determined not to
compromise herself, had taken for a chaperon the inoffensive Ninny
Moulin.

This latter, having doffed his helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled
by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head.
By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained
upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees
over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown.
Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, pointed it out to the
company, and exclaimed with a loud burst of laughter: "Take care, Ninny
Moulin! the tide of the wine is coming in."

"When it rises above his head he will be drowned," added the Bacchanal
Queen.

"Oh, Queen! don't disturb me; I am meditating, answered Dumoulin, who was
getting tipsy. He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet,
a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses,
because of their small size.

"Meditating," echoed Rose-Pompon, "Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be
attentive!"

"He is meditating; he must be ill then!"

"What is he meditating? an illegal dance?"

"A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?"

"Yes, I am meditating," returned Dumoulin, gravely; "I am meditating upon
wine, generally and in particular--wine, of which the immortal
Bossuet"--Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was
drunk--"of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good
liquor): 'In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor'--when
one has any brains," added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.

"Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!" said Rose-Pompon.

"As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the
wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white. Sometimes I incline to one
side, sometimes to the other--and sometimes to both at once."

"That is going to the bottom of the question," said Sleepinbuff.

"And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles," added the Bacchanal
Queen.

"As your majesty is pleased to observe; and already, by dint of
reflection and research, I have made a great discovery--namely, that, if
the wine at the marriage of Cana was red--"

"It couldn't 'a' been white," said Rose-Pompon, judiciously.

"And if I had arrived at the conviction that it was neither white nor
red?" asked Dumoulin, with a magisterial air.

"That could only be when you had drunk till all was blue," observed
Sleepinbuff.

"The partner of the Queen says well. One may be too athirst for science;
but never mind! From all my studies on this question, to which I have
devoted my life--I shall await the end of my respectable career with the
sense of having emptied tuns with a historical--theological--and
archeological tone!"

It is impossible to describe the jovial grimace and tone with which
Dumoulin pronounced and accentuated these last words, which provoked a
general laugh.

"Archieolopically?" said Rose-Pompon. "What sawnee is that? Has he a
tail? does he live in the water?"

"Never mind," observed the Bacchanal Queen; "these are words of wise men
and conjurers; they are like horsehair bustles--they serve for filling
out--that's all. I like better to drink; so fill the glasses, Ninny
Moulin; some champagne, Rose-Pompon; here's to the health of your
Philemon and his speedy return!"

"And to the success of his plant upon his stupid and stingy family!"
added Rose-Pompon.

The toast was received with unanimous applause.

"With the permission of her majesty and her court," said Dumoulin, "I
propose a toast to the success of a project which greatly interests me,
and has some resemblance to Philemon's jockeying. I fancy that the toast
will bring me luck."

"Let's have it, by all means!"

"Well, then--success to my marriage!" said Dumoulin, rising.

These words provoked an explosion of shouts, applause, and laughter.
Ninny Moulin shouted, applauded, laughed even louder than the rest,
opening wide his enormous mouth, and adding to the stunning noise the
harsh springing of his rattle, which he had taken up from under his
chair.

When the storm had somewhat subsided, the Bacchanal Queen rose and said:
"I drink to the health of the future Madame Ninny Moulin."

"Oh, Queen! your courtesy touches me so sensibly that I must allow you to
read in the depths of my heart the name of my future spouse," exclaimed
Dumoulin. "She is called Madame Honoree-Modeste-Messaline-Angele de la
Sainte-Colombe, widow."

"Bravo! bravo!"

"She is sixty years old, and has more thousands of francs-a-year than she
has hair in her gray moustache or wrinkles on her face; she is so
superbly fat that one of her gowns would serve as a tent for this
honorable company. I hope to present my future spouse to you on Shrove
Tuesday, in the costume of a shepherdess that has just devoured her
flock. Some of them wish to convert her--but I have undertaken to divert
her, which she will like better. You must help me to plunge her headlong
into all sorts of skylarking jollity."

"We will plunge her into anything you please."

"She shall dance like sixty!" said Rose-Pompon, humming a popular tune.

"She will overawe the police."

"We can say to them: 'Respect this lady; your mother will perhaps be as
old some day!'"

Suddenly, the Bacchanal Queen rose; her countenance wore a singular
expression of bitter and sardonic delight. In one hand she held a glass
full to the brim. "I hear the Cholera is approaching in his seven-league
boots," she cried. "I drink luck to the Cholera!" And she emptied the
bumper.