"It is so thick, I can"t," answered the boy.
"Morel!" exclaimed Madeleine, in a querulous and impatient tone, "since there is nothing but water for me to drink, let me at least have a draught of that! You are letting me die with thirst!"
"G.o.d of heaven grant me patience!" cried the unfortunate man. "How can I leave your mother to lose and destroy these stones? Pray let me manage her first."
But the lapidary found it no easy matter to get rid of the idiot, who, beginning to feel irritated at the constant opposition she met with, gave utterance to her displeasure in a sort of hideous growl.
"Call her, wife!" said Morel. "She will attend to you sometimes."
"Mother! mother!" called Madeleine, "go to bed, and be good, and then you shall have some of that nice coffee you are so fond of!"
"I want that! and that! There! there!" replied the idiot, making a desperate effort this time to possess herself of a heap of rubies she particularly coveted. Morel firmly, but gently, repulsed her,--all in vain; with pertinacious obstinacy the old woman kept struggling to break from his grasp, and s.n.a.t.c.h the bright gems, on which she kept her eyes fixed with eager fondness.
"You will never manage her," said Madeleine, "unless you frighten her with the whip; there is no other means of making her quiet."
"I am afraid not," returned Morel; "but, though she has no sense, it yet goes to my heart to be obliged to threaten an old woman, like her, with the whip."
Then, addressing the old woman, who was trying to bite him, and whom he was holding back with one hand, he said, in a loud and terrible voice: "Take care; you"ll have the whip on your shoulders if you don"t make haste to bed this very instant!"
These menaces were equally vain with his former efforts to subdue her.
Morel then took a whip which lay beside his work-table, and, cracking it violently, said: "Get to bed with you directly! Get to bed!"
As the loud noise of the whip saluted the ear of the idiot, she hurried away from the lapidary"s work-table, then, suddenly turning around, she uttered low, grumbling sounds between her clenched teeth; while she surveyed her son-in-law with looks of the deepest hatred.
"To bed! to bed, I say!" continued he, still advancing, and feigning to raise his whip with the intention of striking; while the idiot, holding her fist towards her son-in-law, retreated backwards to her wretched couch.
The lapidary, anxious to terminate this painful scene, that he might be at liberty to attend to his sick wife, kept still advancing towards the idiot woman, brandishing and cracking his whip, though without allowing it to touch the unhappy creature, repeatedly exclaiming, "To bed! to bed,--directly! Do you hear?"
The old woman, now thoroughly conquered, and fully believing in the reality of the threats held out, began to howl most hideously; and crawling into her bed, like a dog to his kennel, she kept up a continued series of cries, screams, and yells, while the frightened children, believing their poor old grandmother had actually been beaten, began crying piteously, exclaiming, "Don"t beat poor granny, father! Pray don"t flog granny!"
It is wholly impossible to describe the fearful effect of these nocturnal horrors, in which were mingled, in one turmoil of sounds, the supplicating cries of the children, the furious yellings of the idiot, and the wailing complaints of the lapidary"s sick wife.
To poor Morel such scenes as this were but too frequent. Still, upon the present occasion, his patience and courage seemed utterly to forsake him; and, throwing down the whip upon his work-table, he exclaimed, in bitter despair, "Oh, what a life! what a life!"
"Is it my fault if my mother is an idiot?" asked Madeleine, weeping.
"Is it mine, then?" replied Morel. "All I ask for is peace and quiet enough to allow me to work myself to death for you all. G.o.d knows I labour alike night and day! Yet I complain not. And, as long as my strength holds out, I will exert myself to the utmost; but it is quite impossible for me to attend to my business, and be at once a keeper to a mad woman and a nurse to sick people and young children. And Heaven is unjust to put it upon me,--yes, I say unjust! It is too much misery to heap on one man," added Morel, in a tone bordering on distraction. So saying, the heart-broken lapidary threw himself on his stool, and covered his face with his hands.
"Can I help the people at the hospital having refused to receive my mother, because she was not raving mad?" asked Madeleine, in a low, peevish, and complaining voice. "What can I do to alter it? What is the use of your grumbling to me about my mother? and, if you fret ever so much about what neither you nor I can alter, what good will that do?"
"None at all," rejoined the artisan, hastily brushing the large bitter drops despair had driven to his eyes; "none whatever,--you are right; but when everything goes against you, it is difficult to know what to do or say."
"Gracious Father!" cried Madeleine; "what an agony of thirst I am enduring! My lips are parched with the fever which is consuming me, and yet I shiver as though death were on me!"
"Wait one instant, and I will give you some drink!" So saying, Morel took the pitcher which stood beneath the roof, and, after having with difficulty broken the ice which covered the water, he filled a cup with the frozen liquid, and brought it to the bedside of his wife, who stretched forth her impatient hands to receive it; but, after a moment"s reflection, he said, "No, no, I must not let you have it cold as this; in your present state of fever it would be dangerous."
"So much the better if it be dangerous! Quick, quick--give it me!" cried Madeleine, with bitterness; "it will the sooner end my misery, and free you from such an inc.u.mbrance as I am; then you will only have to look after mad folks and young children,--there will be no sick-nurse to take up your time."
"Why do you say such hard words to me, Madeleine?" asked Morel, mournfully; "you know I do not deserve them. Pray do not add to my vexations, for I have scarcely strength or reason enough left to go on with my work; my head feels as though something were amiss with it, and I fear much my brain will give way,--and then what would become of you all? "Tis for you I speak; were there only myself, I should trouble very little about to-morrow,--thank Heaven, the river flows for every one!"
"Poor Morel!" said Madeleine, deeply affected. "I was very wrong to speak so angrily to you, and to say I knew you would be glad to get rid of me. Pray forgive me, for indeed I did not mean any harm; for, after all, what use am I either to you or the children? For the last sixteen months I have kept my bed! Gracious G.o.d! what I do suffer with thirst!
For pity"s sake, husband, give me something to moisten my burning lips!"
"You shall have it directly; I was trying to warm the cup between my hands."
"How good you are! and yet I could say such wicked things to you!"
"My poor wife, you are ill and in pain, and that makes you impatient; say anything you like to me, but pray never tell me again I wish to get rid of you!"
"But what good am I to any one? what good are our children? None whatever; on the contrary, they heap more toil upon you than you can bear."
"True; yet you see that my love for them and you has endued me with strength and resolution to work frequently twenty hours out of the twenty-four, till my body is bent and deformed by such incessant labour.
Do you believe for one instant that I would thus toil and struggle on my own account? Oh, no! life has no such charms for me; and if I were the only sufferer, I would quickly put an end to it."
"And so would I," said Madeleine. "G.o.d knows, but for the children I should have said to you, long ago, "Morel, we have had more than enough to weary us of our lives; there is nothing left but to finish our misery by the help of a pan of charcoal!" But then I recollected the poor, dear, helpless children, and my heart would not let me leave them, alone and unprotected, to starve by themselves."
"Well, then, you see, wife, that the children are, after all, of real good to us, since they prevent us giving way to despair, and serve as a motive for exerting ourselves," replied Morel, with ready ingenuity, yet perfect simplicity of tone and manner. "Now, then, take your drink, but only swallow a little at a time, for it is very cold still."
"Oh, thank you, Morel!" cried Madeleine, s.n.a.t.c.hing the cup, and drinking it eagerly.
"Enough! enough! no more! you shall not have any more just now, Madeleine."
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Madeleine, giving back the cup, "how cold it seems now I have swallowed it,--it has brought back those dreadful shiverings!"
"Alas!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Morel, "I told you so,--ah, now you are quite ill again!"
"I have not strength even to tremble,--I seem as though I were covered over with ice."
Morel took off his jacket, and laid it over his wife"s feet, remaining quite naked down to his waist,--the unhappy man did not possess a shirt.
"But you will be frozen to death, Morel!"
"Never mind me; if I find it cold by and by, I will put my jacket on for a few minutes."
"Poor fellow!" sighed Madeleine. "Ah, as you say, Heaven is not just!
What have we done to be so wretched, while so many others--"
"Every one has their troubles,--some more, some less,--the great as well as the small."
"Yes; but great people know nothing of the gnawings of hunger, or the bitter pinching of the cold. Why, when I look on those diamonds, and remember that the smallest amongst them would place us and the poor children in ease and comfort, my heart sickens, and I ask myself why it is some should have so much, and others nothing? And what good are these diamonds, after all, to their owners?"
"Why, if we were to go to the question of what half the luxuries of life are really good for, we might go a great way; for instance, what is the good of that grand gentleman Madame Pipelet calls the commandant having engaged and furnished the first floor of this house, when he seldom enters it? What use is it his having there good beds, and warm covering to them, since he never sleeps in them?"
"Very true; there is more furniture lying idle there than would supply two or three poor families like ours. And then Madame Pipelet lights a fire every day, to preserve the things from the damp. Only think of so much comfortable warmth being lost, while we and the children are almost frozen to death! But then, you will say, we are not articles of value; no, indeed, we are not. Oh, these rich folks, what hard hearts they have!"
"Not harder than other people"s, Madeleine; but then, you see, they do not know what misery or want are. They are born rich and happy, they live and die so. How, then, do you expect they can ever think such poor distressed beings exist in a world which to them is all happiness? No! I tell you, they have no idea of such things as fellow creatures toiling beyond their strength for food, and perishing at last with hunger! How is it possible for them to imagine privations like ours? The greater their hunger, the greater enjoyment of their abundant meal. Is the weather severe, or the cold intense, they call it a fine frost, a healthful, bracing season. If they walk out, they return to a glowing, cheerful fire, which the cold only makes them relish the more; so that they can scarcely be expected to sympathise with such as are said to suffer from cold and hunger, when those two things rather add to than diminish their pleasure."
"Ah, poor folks are better than rich, since they can feel for each other, and are always ready and willing to a.s.sist each other as much as lies in their power. Look at that kind, good Mlle. Rigolette, who has so often sat up all night, either with me or the children, during our illness. Why, last night she took Jerome and Pierre into her room, to share her supper, and it was not much, either, she had for herself,--only a cup of milk and some bread; at her age, all young people have good appet.i.tes, and she must have deprived herself to give to the children."