Complete Works of Emile Zola (49 page)

She had taken Blanche’s hand, and stood erect before the murmuring people, who drew closer together so as not to allow the two young girls to get through them. Fine awaited with pale and trembling lips. And, as she encouraged the little lady with a glance, she perceived that she would soon be a mother. She turned quite pale and advanced towards the women.

“Let me pass,” she continued, with greater violence. “Do you not see the poor girl’s condition, and that you will kill her child?”

She thrust back an old hag who was protesting, and all the others gave way.

Fine’s words had suddenly made them silent and compassionate. Both girls were then able to retire.

Blanche, crimson with shame, nestled in fear against her companion and feverishly hastened her footsteps.

In order to avoid the Rue du Pont Moreau, which was then swarming with people and full of noise, the flower-girl took the little Rue St. John. On reaching the Cours, she conducted Mademoiselle de Cazalis to her residence, the door of which was open. She had not uttered a single word all the way.

Blanche obliged her to enter the hall, and there, half closing the door, she said to her in an affected tone of voice:

“Oh! Mademoiselle, how grateful I am to you for your assistance. Those wicked women would have killed me.”

“Don’t thank me,” answered Fine sharply, “I went there, like the others, to insult and beat you.”

“You!”

“Yes, I hate you, I wish you had died in your cradle.”

Blanche looked at the flower-girl with astonishment. She had drawn herself up, her aristocratic instincts were getting the better of her, and her lips were curling slightly with disdain.

The two young girls were facing each other, one in all her slim gracefulness, the other in all her energetic beauty. They contemplated each other in silence, feeling the rivalry of their race and heart thundering within them.

“You are beautiful and wealthy,” continued Fine bitterly. “Why did you come and rob me of my sweetheart, when later on you could only feel contempt and anger for him? You should have sought out someone in your own sphere; you would have found a youth as pale and cowardly as yourself who would have satisfied your little girlish feeling of love. Look here, do not take our men, or if you do we will tear your pink faces.”

“I do not understand,” stammered Blanche, who was becoming afraid again.

“You don’t understand? Listen: I was in love with Philippe. He came and bought roses of me of a morning and my heart used to beat fit to break, when I handed him my nosegays. I now know where those flowers went to. One day they told me he had run away with you. I wept, then I thought that you would love him fondly and he would be happy. And now you have had him put in prison. Look here, do not let us speak of that, or I shall get angry and beat you.”

She stopped palpitating, then continued, approaching nearer to Blanche and burning her icy cold cheeks with her hot breath:

“You don’t know then how we love, we poor girls? We love with all our body, with all our courage. When we run away with a man, we don’t say afterwards that he took advantage of our weakness. We clasp him in our arms with all our might to defend him. Ah! if Philippe had loved me! But I am an unhappy girl, a poor creature, an ugly — “

And Fine began to sob and show herself as weak as Mademoiselle de Cazalis. The latter took her hand, and in a voice broken with tears answered:

“For pity’s sake do not accuse me. Will you be my friend? Shall I lay my heart bare to you? I suffer so much, if you only knew! I can do nothing. I obey my uncle, who subdues me in his grip of iron. I am a coward, I know it; but I have not the strength to be otherwise. And I love Philippe, the memory of him is always within me. He told me it would be: that my punishment, if ever I betrayed him, would be to love him eternally, to keep him without end in my breast. He is there, he is burning me, he will kill me. A short time ago, when they sentenced him, I felt something within me that made me start, and which tore my inside. I weep, look, I ask your pardon.” All Fine’s anger had gone. She was supporting Blanche, who was staggering.

“You are right,” continued the poor child, “I do not deserve pity. I have dealt a blow at the one I love and who will never love me more. Ah! for mercy’s sake, if he one day become your husband, speak to him of my tears, ask him to forgive me. What drives me mad is that I cannot tell him I worship him: he would laugh, he would not understand all my cowardice. No, do not speak to him of me. Let him forget me: I shall be alone to weep.”

There was a painful silence.

“And your child?” asked Fine.

“My child,” said Blanche bewildered, “I don’t know. My uncle will take it away from me.”

“Shall I act as a mother to it?”

The flower-girl uttered these words in a tender and grave voice. Mademoiselle clasped her in her arms in a passionate embrace.

“Oh! you are good,” she said. “You know how to love. Try to see me at Marseille when the hour arrives, I will trust in you.”

At this moment, the elderly relative returned, after having sought in vain for Blanche in the crowd. Fine promptly withdrew and reascended the Cours. As she reached the Place des Carmelites, she perceived Marius from afar conversing with Philippe’s lawyer.

The young man was in despair. He would never have believed that they could pass such a severe sentence on his brother. The five years’ imprisonment terrified him; but he was perhaps still more painfully overcome at the thought of the public exhibition on a square at Marseille. He recognised the deputy’s hand in this punishment.

M. de Cazalis had above all wished to deprive Philippe of the power of pleasing, to render him for ever unworthy of woman’s love.

The crowd surrounding Marius were clamouring about injustice, the public with one voice protesting against the enormity of the punishment, and while the young man was engaged in a heated discussion with the lawyer, losing his temper and showing symptoms of despair, he felt a soft hand on his arm. He turned sharply round and perceived Fine at his side, calm and smiling.

“Hope, and follow me,” she said to him in an undertone. “Your brother is saved.”

CHAPTER XII

WHICH SHOWS THAT A GAOLER’S HEART IS NOT ALWAYS MADE OF STONE

WHILE Marius was running over the town before the trial to no purpose, Fine had been labouring on her side at the work of deliverance. She had engaged in a regular campaign against the conscience of her uncle, the gaoler Revertégat.

She had taken up her quarters with him, and passed her days at the prison. She did her best from morning to night to make herself useful, to be beloved by her uncle, who lived alone like a growling bear, with his two young daughters. She attacked him in his paternal love, she was full of charming ways with the children, and spent all her savings in toys, sweets, and small articles of dress.

The little ones were not in the habit of being spoiled. They showed riotous tenderness for their big cousin, who danced them on her knees and distributed such nice, beautiful things amongst them. The father felt affected and thanked Fine effusively.

He experienced the young girl’s penetrating influence in spite of himself, and was ill-tempered when he had to leave her. She seemed to have brought the sweet perfume of her roses and violets with her. The lodge smelt nice since she was there, merry and light of foot; her bright petticoats appeared to bring light, air, and gaiety. All was smiling, now, in the dark room, and Revertégat remarked, with a broad grin, that spring had taken up its abode with him.

The worthy man forgot himself in the caressing effluvia of this spring; his heart softened and he lost the harshness and severity of his calling.

Fine was too smart a girl not to play her part with fondling prudence. She did not hasten events, she brought the gaoler little by little to feelings of compassion and kindness. Then she pitied Philippe before him, and obliged him to acknowledge that they were detaining him unjustly in prison.

When she held her uncle in her power, off his guard and disposed to be obedient to her wishes, she asked him if she could not visit the poor young man’s cell. He dared not say no, but conducted her there, allowed her to enter, and remained watching at the door.

Fine stood before Philippe like a silly thing. She gazed at him, confused and blushing, forgetting what she wanted to say to him. The young man recognised her, and hastened towards her with a movement full of tenderness and delight.

“You here, my dear child?” he exclaimed. “Ah! how kind of you to have come to see me. Will you allow me to kiss your hand?”

Philippe assuredly imagined himself in his little apartment in the Rue Sainte, and he was not perhaps far from dreaming of a fresh adventure. The flower-girl, surprised, almost wounded, withdrew her hand and gravely contemplated Blanche’s lover.

“You must be mad, Monsieur Philippe,” she answered. “You know very well that you are married now, for me. Let us speak of serious things.”

She lowered her voice and continued rapidly:

“The gaoler is my uncle, and I have been working at your deliverance for the past week. I wanted to see you to tell you that your friends have not forgotten you. So hope.”

Philippe, on hearing this good news, regretted his amorous welcome.

“Give me your hand,” he said, in an unsteady voice, “It is a friend who asks you for it, to clasp it as an old comrade. Do you forgive me?”

The flower-girl smiled without answering.

“I think,” she resumed, “that I shall soon be able to throw the gate wide open to you. On what day would you like to run away?”

“Run away! But I shall be acquitted. What is the use of running away? If I were to escape I should be acknowledging my guilt.”

Fine had not thought of this reasoning. To her mind Philippe was condemned beforehand; but, as a matter of fact, he was right, he must await the judgment. As she preserved silence, pensive and irresolute, Revertégat gave two gentle knocks at the door to beg her to leave the cell.

“Well!” she resumed, addressing the prisoner, “be ready all the same. If you are condemned, we will prepare your flight, your brother and me. Have faith.”

She withdrew, leaving Philippe almost in love. She had now time before her to win over her uncle. She continued the same tactics, bewitching the worthy man with her goodness of heart and gracefulness, and exciting his pity on his prisoner’s lot. In the end she even drew her two little cousins into the conspiracy, and they at a word would have left their father to follow her.

One evening, after having softened Revertégat’s heart by all the cajoling she was capable of, she ended by boldly asking him for Philippe’s liberty.

“Of course,” exclaimed the gaoler, “if it only depended on me, I would open the door to him immediately.”

“But it does only depend on you, uncle,” Fine innocently answered.

“Ah! so you think. But the next morning they would turn me adrift and send me starving with my two daughters.”

These words made the flower-girl look quite serious.

“But,” she resumed, after a moment, “if I gave you money! Supposing I loved this youth? supposing I were to implore you with joined hands, to give him back to me?”

“You, you!” exclaimed the astonished gaoler. He had risen, he gazed at his niece to see if she were not laughing at him. When he observed her grave and troubled manner he bent forward, vanquished, softened, consenting by a sign.

“Faith,” he added, “I’ll do what you like. You are too good and pretty a girl for me to refuse.”

Fine kissed him and spoke of something else. Henceforward she was sure of victory. On several occasions she returned to the conversation, accustoming Revertégat to the idea that he would allow Philippe to escape. She did not wish to throw her relative into poverty, and she offered him a first reward of fifteen thousand francs. This offer dazzled the gaoler, who from that moment belonged to her body and soul.

And that is how Fine had been able to say to Marius with her clever smile. “Follow me. Your brother is saved.”

She accompanied the young man to the prison. On the road she related to him all she had been doing, how she had little by little won over her uncle. Marius’ straight-forward nature set him first of all against the plan. Then he remembered the intrigues to which M. de Cazalis had had recourse and reflected that, after all, he was only making use of the same weapons as his adversaries, and his mind was at ease.

He thanked Fine most touchingly, and was at a loss to know what proof to give her of his gratitude. The young girl, happy beyond measure, hardly listened to his protestations of devotedness.

They could only see Revertégat in the evening. The gaoler from the very first words of the conversation, pointed out his two little girls who were playing in a corner of the lodge, and simply said to Marius:

“Monsieur, they are my excuse: I would not ask a sou, if I had not these children to feed.”

This was a painful scene for Marius. He abridged it as much as possible. He was aware that the gaoler was giving way both to self-sacrifice and interest, and if he could not despise him, he none the less felt ill at ease at concluding such a bargain with him.

All was settled in a few minutes. Marius announced that he would leave the following morning for Marseille and would bring back with him the fifteen thousand francs promised by Fine. He would get them from his banker: his mother had left a sum of fifty thousand francs, which was deposited with M. Bérard, whose house was one of the most important and best known of the city. The flower-girl was to remain at Aix and there await the young man’s return.

He set out full of hope, with the idea that his brother was already free, but as he stepped out of the diligence at Marseille he learned a terrible piece of news, which completely staggered him. The banker Bérard had just been made a bankrupt.

CHAPTER XIII

A BANKRUPTCY, AS THERE ARE MANY

MARIUS hastened to the banker Bérard. He could not believe the bad news, he possessed all the confidence of a straightforward mind. On the road he said to himself that the rumours that were afloat were perhaps, after all, only calumnies, and so he clung to false hopes. The loss of his fortune at this moment amounted to his brother’s discomfiture. It seemed to him that chance would not be so cruel the public must be mistaken, Bérard would hand him his money.