After having seen celestial brightness, ill-disposed persons fall back into the darkness of their habitual life; the recollections of sweet emotions which have for a moment surprised them are gradually effaced.
Still they sometimes seek vaguely to recall them, even as we try to murmur out the songs with which our happy infancy was cradled. Thanks to the good action with which she had inspired them, the companions of La Goualeuse had tasted of the pa.s.sing sweetness of these feelings, in which even La Louve had partic.i.p.ated; but this latter, for reasons we shall describe hereafter, remained a shorter time than the other prisoners under this benevolent feeling. If we are surprised to hear and see Fleur-de-Marie, hitherto so pa.s.sively, so painfully resigned, act and speak with courage and authority, it was because the n.o.ble precepts she had imbibed during her residence at the farm at Bouqueval had rapidly developed the rare qualities of her admirable disposition.
Fleur-de-Marie understood that it is not sufficient to bewail the irreparable past, and that it is only in doing or inspiring good that a reinstatement can be hoped for.
We have said that La Louve was sitting on a wooden bench, beside La Goualeuse. The close proximity of these two young girls offered a singular contrast.
The pale rays of a winter sun were shed over them; the pure sky was speckled in places with small, white, and fleecy clouds; some birds, enlivened by the warmth of the temperature, were warbling in the black branches of the large chestnut-trees in the yard; two or three sparrows, more bold than their fellows, came and drank in a small rivulet formed by the overflow of the basin; the green moss covered the stones of the fountain, and between their joints, here and there, were tufts of gra.s.s and some small creepers, spared by the frost. This description of a prison-basin may seem puerile; but Fleur-de-Marie did not lose one of the details, but with her eyes fixed mournfully on the little verdant corner, and on this limpid water in which the moving whiteness of the clouds over the azure of the heavens was reflected, in which the golden rays of a lovely sun broke with beautiful l.u.s.tre, she thought with a sigh of the magnificence of the Nature which she loved, which she admired so poetically, and of which she was still deprived.
"What did you wish to say to me?" asked La Goualeuse of her companion, who, seated beside her, was gloomy and silent.
"We must have an explanation," said La Louve, sternly; "things cannot go on as they are."
"I do not understand you, La Louve."
"Just now, in the yard, referring to Mont Saint-Jean, I said to myself, "I won"t give way any more to La Goualeuse," and yet I do give way now."
"But--"
"But I tell you it cannot continue so."
"In what have I offended you, La Louve?"
"Why, I am not the same person I was when you came here; no, I have neither courage, strength, nor boldness."
Then suddenly checking herself, La Louve pulled up the sleeve of her gown, and showing La Goualeuse her white arm, powerful, and covered with black down, she showed her, on the upper part of it, an indelible tattooing, representing a blue dagger half plunged in a red heart; over this emblem were these words:
MORT AUX LaCHES!
MARTIAL P. L. V. (_pour la vie_.) (DEATH TO COWARDS!
MARTIAL FOR LIFE!)
"Do you see that?" asked La Louve.
"Yes; and it is so shocking, it quite frightens me," said La Goualeuse, turning away her head.
"When Martial, my lover, wrote, with a red-hot needle, these words on my arm, "Death to Cowards!" he thought me brave; if he knew my behaviour for the last three days, he would stick his knife in my body, as this dagger is driven into this heart,--and he would be right, for he wrote here, "Death to Cowards!" and I am a coward."
"What have you done that is cowardly?"
"Everything."
"Do you regret the good resolution you made just now?"
"Yes."
"I cannot believe you."
"I say I do regret it,--for it is another proof of what you can do with all of us. Didn"t you understand what Mont Saint-Jean meant when she went on her knees to thank you?"
"What did she say?"
"She said, speaking of you, that with nothing you turned us from evil to good. I could have throttled her when she said it, for, to our shame, it was true. Yes, in no time you change us from black to white. We listen to you,--give way to our first feelings, and are your dupes, as we were just now."
"My dupe! for having generously succoured this poor woman?"
"Oh, it has nothing to do with all that," exclaimed La Louve, with rage.
"I have never till now stooped my head before a breathing soul. La Louve is my name, and I am well named: more than one woman bears my marks, and more than one man, too; and it shall never be said that a little chit like you can place me beneath her feet."
"Me! and in what way?"
"How do I know! You come here, and first begin by insulting me."
"Insult you?"
"Yes,--you ask who"ll have your bread. I first say--_I._ Mont Saint-Jean did not ask for it till afterwards, and yet you give her the preference.
Enraged at that, I rushed at you with my uplifted knife--"
"And I said to you, "Kill me, if you like, but do not let me linger long," and that is all."
"That is all? Yes, that is all. And yet these words made me drop my knife,--made me--ask your pardon,--yes, pardon of you who insulted me.
Is that natural? Why, when I recovered my senses, I was ashamed of myself. The evening you came here, when you were on your knees to say your prayers,--why, instead of making game of you, and setting all the dormitory on you, did I say, "Let her alone; she prays, and has a right to pray?" Then the next day, why were I and all the others ashamed to dress ourselves before you?"
"I do not know, La Louve."
"Indeed!" replied the violent creature, with irony. "You don"t know!
Why, no doubt, it is because, as we have all of us said, jokingly, that you are of a different sort from us. You think so, don"t you?"
"I have never said that I thought so."
"No, you have not said so; but you behave just as if it were so."
"I beg of you to listen to me."
"No, I have been already too foolish to listen to you--to look at you.
Till now, I never envied any one. Well, two or three times I have been surprised at myself. Am I growing a fool or a coward? I have found myself envious of your face, so like the Holy Virgin"s; of your gentle and mournful look. Yes, I have even been envious of your chestnut hair and your blue eyes. I, who detest fair women, because I am dark myself, wish to resemble you. I! La Louve! I! Why, it is but eight days since, and I would have marked any one who dared but say so. Yet it is not your lot that would tempt one, for you are as full of grief as a Magdalene.
Is it natural, I say, eh?"
"How can I account to you for the impression I make upon you?"
"Oh, you know well enough what you do, though you look as if you were too delicate to be touched."
"What bad design can you suppose me capable of?"
"How can I tell? It is because I do not understand anything of all this that I mistrust you. Another thing, too: until now I have always been merry or pa.s.sionate, and never thoughtful, but you--you have made me thoughtful. Yes, there are words which you utter, that, in spite of myself, have shaken my very heart, and made me think of all sorts of sad things."
"I am sorry, La Louve, if I ever made you sad; but I do not remember ever having said anything--"
"Oh," cried La Louve, interrupting her companion with angry impatience, "what you do is sometimes as affecting as what you say! You are so clever!"