Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper post, and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in the profound sleep of intoxication.
"So," said Loubinsky, "you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals."
"And partly one of us," replied the Medecin des Pauvres. "You remember poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to meet? Yonder he lies."
"Don"t talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by that vieux gredin, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!"
Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. "So much the worse for you, if you did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!" Therewith he turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick.
"Armand--Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?"
Armand turned, rose with an effort from the rec.u.mbent to the sitting posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the Medecin des Pauvres.
"I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat," said Armand, wildly, "the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de Mauleon and Jean Lebeau."
"Ah! there is something in dreams," said the surgeon. "Once in a thousand times a dream comes true."
CHAPTER V.
The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to feed and warm--there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy, and had not the heart now to dismiss to the "certainty of famine. True, one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land before the commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained.
They supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations accorded by the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which she was attached. From the ladies a.s.sociated with her she could readily have obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real state of dest.i.tution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent among the respectable cla.s.ses, which Isaura shared, that concealed distress lest alms should be proffered.
The dest.i.tution of the household had been carefully concealed from the parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at the hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for a place by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only ashes, on the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had become the subst.i.tute for bread.
Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,--purposely absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to their support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still more from the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in absenting himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and pressure, both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at that absence so far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she silently asked her conscience whether she were not now absolved from a promise won from her only by an a.s.surance that she had power to influence for good the life that now voluntarily separated itself from her own. As she had never loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference his conduct manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it as a sign that the annulment of their betrothal would be as welcome to him as to herself. And if so, she could restore to him the sort of compa.s.sionate friendship she had learned to cherish in the hour of his illness and repentance. She had resolved to seize the first opportunity he afforded to her of speaking to him with frank and truthful plainness.
But, meanwhile, her gentle nature recoiled from the confession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself for the rupture of their engagement.
Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance, her husband entered with an expression of face new to him--the look of a man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta did not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, "Pardon, dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it is not our hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we could. Now it speaks for itself; "la fame e una bretta festin.""
"Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!" cried Madame Rameau, bursting into tears. "So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring such want on you! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!"
"Do not degrade us, my wife," said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity, "by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs and a half a-day to a pere de famille, and on that pay we all can at least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the battle on the next sortie."
"It shall not be so," exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding her arm round her husband"s neck. "I loved my son better than thee once--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than peril thy life, my Jacques! Madame," she continued, turning to the Venosta, "thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union between thy young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a mother is so selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I thought that only through marriage with one so pure, so n.o.ble, so holy, Gustave could be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so heartless to his parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be redeemed. I brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her from it. I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it.
I know how miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her sublime devotion to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the real state of her heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would the union do! Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!"
"Stay, Madame!" exclaimed the Venosta, her excitable nature much affected by this honest outburst of feeling. "It is true that I did oppose, so far as I could, my poor Piccola"s engagement with M. Gustave.
But I dare not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let us be just! M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming indifference and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps he may be again dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard; perhaps--" she paused, but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid, and, clasping her hands, cried out in anguish, "Perhaps dead!--and we have wronged him! Oh, Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how discover our boy? Who can tell us where to search? at the hospital--or in the cemeteries?" At the last word she dropped into a seat, and her whole frame shook with her sobs.
Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said:
"No, m"amie, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I know where he is to be found."
"You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!"
"Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night of the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans, and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame when they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself.
I did. I heard him speak--heard him denounce Christianity as the instrument of tyrants."
"Ah!" cried the two women, with a simultaneous shudder.
"When the a.s.sembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union on which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved by what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once what he called "his career as an orator," and appear no more at such execrable clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such other causes of grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife, of a sin that I hoped thy son had repented and would not repeat? And Gustave kept his word. He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least spoken, at the Red clubs since that evening."
"Thank heaven so far," murmured Madame Rameau.
"So far, yes; but hear more. A little time after I thus met him he changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving as a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by that pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie."
Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and she repeated, "Mademoiselle Julie! Santa Maria! who is she?"
"Oh!" said M. Rameau, with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true Parisian sangfroid as to such matters of morality, "a trifle not worth considering. Of course, a good-looking garcon like Gustave must have his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily, amongst those of Gustave was one with a violent-tempered girl who persecuted him when he left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to the dignity of his fiancee. But I found that was not the true motive, or at least the only one, for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor wife. Thou hast heard of these terrible journals which the decheance has let loose upon us. Our unhappy boy is the princ.i.p.al writer of one of the worst of them, under the name of "Diderot le Jeune.""
"What!" cried the Venosta. "That monster! The good Abbe Vertpre was telling us of the writings with that name attached to them. The Abbe himself is denounced by name as one of those meddling priests who are to be constrained to serve as soldiers or pointed out to the vengeance of the canaille. Isaura"s fiancee a blasphemer!"
"Hush, hush!" said Madame Rameau, rising, very pale but self-collected.
"How do you know this, Jacques?"
"From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard first of it yesterday from one of the young reprobates with whom he used to be familiar, and who even complimented me on the rising fame of my son, and praised the eloquence of his article that day. But I would not believe him. I bought the journal--here it is; saw the name and address of the printer--went this morning to the office--was there told that "Diderot le Jeune" was within revising the press--stationed myself by the street door, and when Gustave came out I seized his arm, and asked him to say Yes or No if he was the author of this infamous article,--this, which I now hold in my hand. He owned the authorship with pride; talked wildly of the great man he was--of the great things he was to do; said that, in hitherto concealing his true name, he had done all he could to defer to the bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee; and that if genius, like fire, would find its way out, he could not help it; that a time was rapidly coming when his opinions would be uppermost; that since October the Communists were gaining ascendancy, and only waited the end of the siege to put down the present Government, and with it all hypocrisies and shams, religious or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insulting!
but he had been drinking--that made him incautious: and he continued to walk by my side towards his own lodging, on reaching which he ironically invited me to enter, saying, "I should meet there men who would soon argue me out of my obsolete notions." You may go to him, wife, now, if you please. I will not, nor will I take from him a crust of bread. I came hither, determined to tell the young lady all this, if I found her at home. I should be a dishonoured man if I suffered her to be cheated into misery.
"There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that journal, show it to Mademoiselle; and report to her all I have said."
M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men, had, in talking, worked himself up into positive fury.
His wife, calmer but more deeply affected, made a piteous sign to the Venosta not to say more; and without other salutation or adieu took her husband"s arm, and led him from the house.
CHAPTER VI.
Obtaining from her husband Gustave"s address, Madame Rameau hastened to her son"s apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in which he lodged was in a different quarter from that in which Isaura had visited him. Then, the street selected was still in the centre of the beau monde--now, it was within the precincts of that section of the many-faced capital in which the beau monde was held in detestation or scorn; still the house had certain pretensions, boasting a courtyard and a porter"s lodge. Madame Rameau, instructed to mount au second, found the door ajar, and, entering, perceived on the table of the little salon the remains of a feast which, however untempting it might have been in happier times, contrasted strongly with the meagre fare of which Gustave"s parents had deemed themselves fortunate to partake at the board of his betrothed; remnants of those viands which offered to the inquisitive epicure an experiment in food much too costly for the popular stomach--dainty morsels of elephant, hippopotamus, and wolf, interspersed with half-emptied bottles of varied and high-priced wines. Pa.s.sing these evidences of unseasonable extravagance with a mute sentiment of anger and disgust, Madame Rameau penetrated into a small cabinet, the door of which was also ajar, and saw her son stretched on his bed half dressed, breathing heavily in the sleep which follows intoxication. She did not attempt to disturb him. She placed herself quietly by his side, gazing mournfully on the face which she had once so proudly contemplated, now haggard and faded,--still strangely beautiful, though it was the beauty of ruin.
From time to time he stirred uneasily, and muttered broken words, in which fragments of his own delicately-worded verse were incoherently mixed up with ribald slang, addressed to imaginary companions. In his dreams he was evidently living over again his late revel, with episodical diversions into the poet-world, of which he was rather a vagrant nomad than a settled cultivator. Then she would silently bathe his feverish temples with the perfumed water she found on his dressing-table. And so she watched till, in the middle of the night, he woke up, and recovered the possession of his reason with a quickness that surprised Madame Rameau. He was, indeed, one of those men in whom excess of drink, when slept off, is succeeded by extreme mildness, the effect of nervous exhaustion, and by a dejected repentance, which, to his mother, seemed a propitious lucidity of the moral sense.
Certainly on seeing her he threw himself on her breast, and began to shed tears. Madame Rameau had not the heart to reproach him sternly. But by gentle degrees she made him comprehend the pain he had given to his father, and the dest.i.tution in which he had deserted his parents and his affianced. In his present mood Gustave was deeply affected by these representations. He excused himself feebly by dwelling on the excitement of the times, the preoccupation of his mind, the example of his companions; but with his excuses he mingled pa.s.sionate expressions of remorse, and before daybreak mother and son were completely reconciled.
Then he fell into a tranquil sleep; and Madame Rameau, quite worn out, slept also in the chair beside him, her arm around his neck. He awoke before she did at a late hour in the morning; and stealing from her arm, went to his escritoire, and took forth what money he found there, half of which he poured into her lap, kissing her till she awoke.
"Mother," he said, "henceforth I will work for thee and my father. Take this trifle now; the rest I reserve for Isaura."
"Joy! I have found my boy again. But Isaura, I fear that she will not take thy money, and all thought of her must also be abandoned."
Gustave had already turned to his looking-gla.s.s, and was arranging with care his dark ringlets: his personal vanity--his remorse appeased by this pecuniary oblation--had revived.
"No," he said gaily, "I don"t think I shall abandon her; and it is not likely, when she sees and hears me, that she can wish to abandon me! Now let us breakfast, and then I will go at once to her."
In the mean while, Isaura, on her return to her apartment at the wintry nightfall, found a cart stationed at the door, and the Venosta on the threshold, superintending the removal of various articles of furniture--indeed, all such articles as were not absolutely required.