CHAPTER VI.
FRANcOIS AND AMANDINE.
Francois and Amandine slept in a room immediately over the kitchen, and at the end of a pa.s.sage which communicated with several other apartments that were used as "company rooms" for the guests who frequented the cabaret. After having eaten their frugal supper, instead of putting out their lantern, as the widow had ordered them, the two children watched, leaving their door ajar, for their brother Martial"s pa.s.sing on his way to his own chamber.
Placed on a crippled stool, the lantern shed its dull beams through the transparent horn. Walls of plaster, with here and there brown deal boards, a flock-bed for Francois, a little old child"s bed, much too short, for Amandine, a pile of broken chairs and dismembered benches, mementoes of the turbulent visitors to the cabaret of the Isle du Ravageur,--such was the interior of this dog-hole.
Amandine, seated at the edge of the bed, was trying how to dress her head _en marmotte_, with the stolen silk handkerchief, the gift of her brother Nicholas. Francois was on his knees, holding up a piece of broken gla.s.s to his sister, who, with her head half turned, was employed in spreading out the large rosette which she had made in tying the two ends of the kerchief together. Wonder-struck at this head-dress, Francois for an instant neglected to present the bit of gla.s.s in such a way that her face could be reflected in it.
"Lift the looking-gla.s.s higher," said Amandine; "I can"t see myself at all now! There, that"s it,--that"ll do! Hold it so a minute! Now I"ve done it! Well, look! How have I done my head?"
"Oh, capitally,--excellently! What a handsome rosette! You"ll make me just such a one for my cravat, won"t you?"
"Yes, directly. But let me walk up and down a little. You can go before me--backwards--holding the gla.s.s up, just in that way. There--so! I can then see myself as I walk."
Francois then went through this difficult manoeuvre to the great satisfaction of Amandine, who strutted up and down in all her pride and dignity, under the large bow of her head attire.
Very simple and unsophisticated under any other circ.u.mstances, this coquetry became guilt when displayed in reference to the produce of a robbery of which Francois and Amandine were not ignorant. Another proof of the frightful facility with which children, however well disposed, become corrupted almost imperceptibly when they are continually immersed in a criminal atmosphere.
Then, the sole mentor of these unfortunate children, their brother Martial, was by no means irreproachable himself, as we have already said. Incapable, it is true, of a theft or a murder, still he led a vagabond and ill-regulated life. Undoubtedly his mind revolted at the crimes of his family. He loved these two children very fondly, and protected them from ill-treatment, endeavouring to withdraw them from the pernicious influences of the family; but not taking his stand on the foundations of rigorous and sound morality, his advice was but an ineffective safeguard to these children. They refused to commit certain bad actions, not from honest sentiments, but in order to obey Martial, whom they loved, and to disobey their mother, whom they dreaded and hated.
As to ideas of right and wrong, they had none, familiarised as they were with the infamous examples which they had every day under their eyes; for, as we have said, this country cabaret, haunted by the refuse of the lowest order, was the theatre of most disgraceful orgies and most disgusting debaucheries; and Martial, opposed as he was to thefts and murders, appeared perfectly indifferent to these infamous saturnalia.
It may be supposed, therefore, that the instincts of morality in these children were doubtful and precarious, especially those of Francois, who had reached that dangerous time of life when the mind pauses, and, oscillating between good and evil, might be in a moment lost or saved.
"How well you look in that handkerchief, sister!" said Francois; "it is very pretty. When we go to play on the sh.o.r.e by the chalk-burner"s lime-kiln you must dress yourself in this manner, to make the children jealous who pelt us with stones and call us little guillotines. And I shall put on my nice red cravat, and we will say to them, "Never mind, you haven"t such pretty silk handkerchiefs as we have!""
"But, I say, Francois," said Amandine, after a moment"s reflection, "if they knew that the handkerchiefs we wear were stolen, they would call us little thieves."
"Well, and what should we care if they did call us little thieves?"
"Why, not at all, if it were not true. But now--"
"Since Nicholas gave us these handkerchiefs, we didn"t steal them!"
"No; but he took them out of a barge; and Brother Martial says no one ought to steal."
"But, as Nicholas states, that is no affair of ours."
"Do you think so, Francois?"
"Of course I do."
"Still, it seems to me that I would rather the person who really owns them had given them to us. What do you say, Francois?"
"Oh, it"s all one to me! They were given to us, and so they"re ours."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Why, yes--yes; make yourself easy about that."
"So much the better, then, for we are not doing what Brother Martial forbids, and we have such nice handkerchiefs!"
"But, Amandine, if he had known the other day that Calabash had made you take the plaid handkerchief from the peddler"s pack whilst his back was turned?"
"Oh, Francois, don"t talk about it; I have been so very sorry. But I was really forced to do it, for my sister pinched me until the blood came, and looked at me so--oh, in such a way! And yet my heart failed me twice, and I thought I never could do it. The peddler didn"t find it out; yet, if they had caught me, Francois, I should have been sent to prison."
"But you weren"t caught; so it"s just the same as if you had not stolen."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes."
"And in prison how unhappy we must be."
"On the contrary--"
"How do you mean on the contrary?"
"Why, you know the fat cripple who lodges at Father Micou"s, the man who buys all Nicholas"s things, and keeps a lodging-house in the Pa.s.sage de la Bra.s.serie?"
"A fat cripple?"
"Why, yes, who came here the end of last autumn from Father Micou, with a man who had monkeys and two women."
"Ah, yes, a stout, lame man, who spent such a deal of money."
"I believe you; he paid for everybody. Don"t you recollect the rows on the water when I pulled them, and the man with the monkeys brought his organ, that they might have music in the boat?"
"Yes; and in the evening the beautiful fireworks they let off, Francois?"
"And the fat cripple was not stingy, either. He gave me ten sous for myself. He drank nothing but our best wine, and they had chickens at every meal. He spent full eighty francs."
"So much as that, Francois?"
"Oh, yes!"
"How rich he must be!"
"Not at all. What he spent was money he had gained in prison, from which he had just come."
"Gained all that money in prison?"
"Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs beside, and that, when that was all gone, he should try another good "job;" and if he were taken, he didn"t care, because he should go back to his jolly "pals in the Stone Jug," as he said."
"Then he wasn"t afraid of prison, Francois?"