When she begs you, with tears in her eyes, to spare these rags, which she has had so much trouble to collect, it is not for her, but for her child! This poor little cap, which you have made so much fun of, is laughable, perhaps; yet only to look at it makes me feel like weeping.
I avow it. Laugh at us both, Mont Saint Jean and me, if you will." The prisoners did not laugh. La Louve even looked sadly at the little cap she held in her hand. "Come, now!" continued Fleur-de-Marie, wiping her eyes with the back of her white and delicate hand; "I know you are not so hard. You torment Mont Saint Jean from want of employment, not from cruelty. But you forget that she has her child. Could she hold it in her arms that it should protect her, not only would you not strike her, for fear of hurting the poor innocent, but if it was cold, you would give to its mother all you could to cover it, eh, La Louve?"
"It is true: who would not pity a child?"
"It is very plain."
"If it was hungry you would take the bread out of your own mouth; would you not, La Louve?"
"Yes, and willingly. I am no worse than others."
"Nor we neither."
"A poor little innocent!"
"Who would have a heart to hurt it?"
"Must be a monster!"
"No hearts!"
"Wild beasts!"
"I told you truly," said Fleur-de-Marie. "That you were not cruel. You are kind; your error is not reflecting that Mont Saint Jean deserves as much compa.s.sion as though she had her child in her arms, that"s all."
"That"s all!" cried La Louve, with warmth; "no, that"s not all. You were right, La Goualeuse; we were cowards, and you were brave in daring to tell us so; and you are brave in not trembling after having told us. You see we were right in constantly insisting that _you were not one of us_--it must always come to that. It vexes me; but so it is. We were all wrong just now. You were pluckier than the whole gang of us!"
"That"s true; this little blonde must have had courage to tell us the truth right in our faces."
"After all, it is true, when we strike Mont Saint Jean, we do strike her child."
"I didn"t think of that."
"Nor I either."
"But La Goualeuse thinks of everything."
"And to strike a child is shameful!"
"There isn"t one of us capable of doing it."
"Nothing is more easily moved than popular pa.s.sion-nothing more abrupt and rapid than the return from evil to good and from good to evil." The few simple and touching words from Fleur-de-Marie had caused a sudden reaction in favor of Mont Saint Jean, who wept gently.
Suddenly La Louve, violent and hasty in everything, took the little cap she held in her hand, made a kind of purse of it, fumbled in her pocket, and drew out twenty sous, threw them into the cap, and cried, presenting it to her companions, "I give twenty sous toward buying baby-linen for Mont Saint Jean. We"ll cut it all out and sew it ourselves, so that the making-up sha"n"t cost a copper!"
"Yes, yes."
"That"s it! let us club together."
"I"m agreed!"
"Famous idea!"
"Poor woman!"
"She is as ugly as a monster; but she is a mother, like any one else."
"I give ten sous."
"I thirty."
"I twenty."
"I four sous; got no more."
"I have nothing; but I will sell my ration for tomorrow-who"ll buy?"
"I," said La Louve; "I put ten sous for you; but you"ll keep your ration, and Mont Saint Jean"s baby shall be togged out like a princess."
To express the surprise and joy of Mont Saint Jean would be impossible; her grotesque and ugly visage became almost touching.
Happiness and grat.i.tude beamed the Fleur-de-Marie was also very happy, although she had been obliged to say to La Louve, when she held the little cap toward her, "I have no money; but I will work as much as you like."
"Oh! my good little angel from Paradise," cried Mont Saint Jean, falling at the feet of La Goualeuse, and trying to take her hand to kiss it. "What is it I have done that you should be so charitable toward me, and all these _ladies_ also? Is it possible, my good angel? For my child--everything that I want! Who could have believed it? I shall go off my head, I am sure. Why, I was just now the scapegoat of every one! In a moment, because you said something in your dear little voice of a seraph, you turn them from evil to good; and now they love me, and I love them. They are so good! I was wrong to get angry. Wasn"t I a fool, and unjust, and ungrateful? All they have done to me was only for a laugh; they didn"t wish me any harm--it was for my good; for here is the proof. Why, now, if they were to kill me on the spot, I would not say a word."
"We have eighty-four francs and seven sous," said La Louve, having finished counting the money she had collected. "Who will be treasurer?
Mustn"t give it to Mont Saint Jean; she is too stupid."
"Let Goualeuse take charge of the money," they all cried unanimously.
"If you listen to me," said Fleur-de-Marie, "you will beg Madame Armand, the inspectress, to take charge of this sum, and make the necessary purchases; and then she will know the good action you have done, and, perhaps, will ask to have your time reduced. Well, La Louve," added she, taking her companion by the arm, "don"t you now feel happier than when you were casting to the winds, just now, the poor rags of Mont Saint Jean?"
La Louve at first did not answer. To the generous warmth which had for a moment animated her features had succeeded a kind of savage defiance.
Fleur-de-Marie looked at her with surprise, not understanding this sudden change.
"La Goualeuse, come; I want to talk to you," said La Louve, in a sullen manner; and leaving the other prisoners, she led Fleur-de-Marie near to the basin which was in the center of the court. La Louve and her companion seated themselves, isolated from the rest of their companions.
The winter"s sun shed its pale rays upon them, the blue sky was partially obscured by white and fleecy clouds; some birds, deceived by the mildness of the atmosphere, were warbling in the black branches of the large chestnut-trees in the court; two or three sparrows, bolder than the rest, came to drink and to bathe in a little brook which flowed from the fountain; the stone margin was covered with green moss, and here and there from the interstices rose some tufts of green herbs, which the frost had spared. This description of the prison basin may seem trifling, but Fleur-de-Marie lost not one of these details; with her eyes fixed sadly on the clouds as they broke the azure of the sky, or reflected the golden rays of the sun, she thought, with a sigh, of the magnificence of nature, which she much loved, admired poetically, and of which she was deprived.
"What do you wish to say to me?" asked La Goualeuse of her companion, who, seated alongside of her, remained somber and silent.
"It is necessary that we have a settlement," cried La Louve, harshly, "this can"t go on."
"I don"t understand you, La Louve."
"Just now, in the court, I said to myself, "I will not yield to La Goualeuse," and yet I have again given way to you." "But--"
"I tell you this can"t last so."
"What have you against me, La Louve?"