"My sister!" exclaimed Cephyse--such was the name of the Baccha.n.a.l Queen--"My sister!"--and with one bound, light as a ballet-dancer, she sprang from her movable throne (which fortunately just happened to be stopping), and, rushing up to the hunchback, embraced her affectionately.
All this had pa.s.sed so rapidly, that the companions of the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, still stupefied by the boldness of her perilous leap, knew not how to account for it; whilst the masks who surrounded Mother Bunch drew back in surprise, and the latter, absorbed in the delight of embracing her sister, whose caresses she returned, did not even think of the singular contrast between them, which was sure to soon excite the astonishment and hilarity of the crowd.
Cephyse was the first to think of this, and wishing to save her sister at least one humiliation, she turned towards the carriage, and said: "Rose Pompon, throw me down my cloak; and, Ninny Moulin, open the door directly!"
Having received the cloak, the Baccha.n.a.l Queen hastily wrapped it round her sister, before the latter could speak or move. Then, taking her by the hand, she said to her: "Come! come!"
"I!" cried Mother Bunch, in alarm. "Do not think of it!"
"I must speak with you. I will get a private room, where we shall be alone. So make haste, dear little sister! Do not resist before all these people--but come!"
The fear of becoming a public sight decided Mother Bunch, who, confused moreover with the adventure, trembling and frightened, followed her sister almost mechanically, and was dragged by her into the carriage, of which Ninny Moulin had just opened the door. And so, with the cloak of the Baccha.n.a.l Queen covering Mother Bunch"s poor garments and deformed figure, the crowd had nothing to laugh at, and only wondered what this meeting could mean, while the coaches pursued their way to the eating house in the Place du Chatelet.
CHAPTER II. THE CONTRAST.
Some minutes after the meeting of Mother Bunch with the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, the two sisters were alone together in a small room in the tavern.
"Let me kiss you again," said Cephyse to the young sempstress; "at least now we are alone, you will not be afraid?"
In the effort of the Baccha.n.a.l Queen to clasp Mother Bunch in her arms, the cloak fell from the form of the latter. At sight of those miserable garments, which she had hardly had time to observe on the Place du Chatelet, in the midst of the crowd, Cephyse clasped her hands, and could not repress an exclamation of painful surprise. Then, approaching her sister, that she might contemplate her more closely, she took her thin, icy palms between her own plump hands, and examined for some minutes, with increasing grief, the suffering, pale, unhappy creature, ground down by watching and privations, and half-clothed in a poor, patched cotton gown.
"Oh, sister! to see you thus!" Unable to articulate another word, the Baccha.n.a.l Queen threw herself on the other"s neck, and burst into tears.
Then, in the midst of her sobs, she added: "Pardon! pardon!"
"What is the matter, my dear Cephyse?" said the young sewing-girl, deeply moved, and gently disengaging herself from the embrace of her sister. "Why do you ask my pardon?"
"Why?" resumed Cephyse, raising her countenance, bathed in tears, and purple with shame; "is it not shameful of me to be dressed in all this frippery, and throwing away so much money in follies, while you are thus miserably clad, and in need of everything--perhaps dying of want, for I have never seen your poor face look so pale and worn."
"Be at ease, dear sister! I am not ill. I was up rather late last night, and that makes me a little pale--but pray do not cry--it grieves me."
The Baccha.n.a.l Queen had but just arrived, radiant in the midst of the intoxicated crowd, and yet it was Mother Bunch who was now employed in consoling her!
An incident occurred, which made the contrast still more striking.
Joyous cries were heard suddenly in the next apartment, and these words were repeated with enthusiasm: "Long live the Baccha.n.a.l Queen!"
Mother Bunch trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, as she saw her sister with her face buried in her hands, as if overwhelmed with shame.
"Cephyse," she said, "I entreat you not to grieve so. You will make me regret the delight of this meeting, which is indeed happiness to me! It is so long since I saw you! But tell me--what ails you?"
"You despise me perhaps--you are right," said the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, drying her tears.
"Despise you? for what?"
"Because I lead the life I do, instead of having the courage to support misery along with you."
The grief of Cephyse was so heart-breaking, that Mother Bunch, always good and indulgent, wishing to console her, and raise her a little in her own estimation, said to her tenderly: "In supporting it bravely for a whole year, my good Cephyse, you have had more merit and courage than I should have in bearing with it my whole life."
"Oh, sister! do not say that."
"In simple truth," returned Mother Bunch, "to what temptations is a creature like me exposed? Do I not naturally seek solitude, even as you seek a noisy life of pleasure? What wants have I? A very little suffices."
"But you have not always that little?"
"No--but, weak and sickly as I seem, I can endure some privations better than you could. Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which leaves me very feeble--but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is fury, is madness. Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched garret, and we could not even earn our four francs a week--so that we had nothing--absolutely nothing to eat--for our pride prevented us from applying to the neighbors."
"You have preserved the right to that honest pride."
"And you as well! Did you not struggle as much as a human creature could? But strength fails at last--I know you well, Cephyse--it was hunger that conquered you; and the painful necessity of constant labor, which was yet insufficient to supply our common wants."
"But you could endure those privations--you endure them still."
"Can you compare me with yourself? Look," said Mother Bunch, taking her sister by the hand, and leading her to a mirror placed above a couch, "look!--Dost think that G.o.d made you so beautiful, endowed you with such quick and ardent blood, with so joyous, animated, grasping a nature and with such taste and fondness for pleasure, that your youth might be spent in a freezing garret, hid from the sun, nailed constantly to your chair, clad almost in rags, and working without rest and without hope?
No! for He has given us other wants than those of eating and drinking.
Even in our humble condition, does not beauty require some little ornament? Does not youth require some movement, pleasure, gayety? Do not all ages call for relaxation and rest? Had you gained sufficient wages to satisfy hunger, to have a day or so"s amus.e.m.e.nt in the week, after working every other day for twelve or fifteen hours, and to procure the neat and modest dress which so charming a face might naturally claim--you would never have asked for more, I am sure of it--you have told me as much a hundred times. You have yielded, therefore, to an irresistible necessity, because your wants are greater than mine."
"It is true," replied the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, with a pensive air; "if I could but have gained eighteenpence a day, my life would have been quite different; for, in the beginning, sister, I felt cruelly humiliated to live at a man"s expense."
"Yes, yes--it was inevitable, my dear Cephyse; I must pity, but cannot blame you. You did not choose your destiny; but, like me, you have submitted to it."
"Poor sister!" said Cephyse, embracing the speaker tenderly; "you can encourage and console me in the midst of your own misfortunes, when I ought to be pitying you."
"Be satisfied!" said Mother Bunch; "G.o.d is just and good. If He has denied me many advantages, He has given me my joys, as you have yours."
"Joys?"
"Yes, and great ones--without which life would be too burdensome, and I should not have the courage to go through with it."
"I understand you," said Cephyse, with emotion; "you still know how to devote yourself for others, and that lightens your own sorrows."
"I do what I can, but, alas! it is very little; yet when I succeed,"
added Mother Bunch, with a faint smile, "I am as proud and happy as a poor little ant, who, after a great deal of trouble, has brought a big straw to the common nest. But do not let us talk any more of me."
"Yes, but I must, even at the risk of making you angry," resumed the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, timidly; "I have something to propose to you which you once before refused. Jacques Rennepont has still, I think, some money left--we are spending it in follies--now and then giving a little to poor people we may happen to meet--I beg of you, let me come to your a.s.sistance--I see in your poor face, you cannot conceal it from me, that you are wearing yourself out with toil."
"Thanks, my dear Cephyse, I know your good heart; but I am not in want of anything. The little I gain is sufficient for me."
"You refuse me," said the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, sadly, "because you know that my claim to this money is not honorable--be it so--I respect your scruples. But you will not refuse a service from Jacques; he has been a workman, like ourselves, and comrades should help each other. Accept it I beseech you, or I shall think you despise me."
"And I shall think you despise me, if you insist any more upon it, my dear Cephyse," said Mother Bunch, in a tone at once so mild and firm that the Baccha.n.a.l Queen saw that all persuasion would be in vain. She hung her head sorrowfully, and a tear again trickled down her cheek.
"My refusal grieves you," said the other, taking her hand; "I am truly sorry--but reflect--and you will understand me."
"You are right," said the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, bitterly, after a moment"s silence; "you cannot accept a.s.sistance from my lover--it was an insult to propose it to you. There are positions in life so humiliating, that they soil even the good one wishes to do."
"Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you--you know it well."