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The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

Год написания книги
2017
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"Good night, my lad! Let us hope both you and your father will enjoy a sound night's rest, and have no occasion to require any person's help. You had better return to your room now; your poor father may be wanting you."

"I will, sir. Good night, and thank you!"

"God preserve you both, my child!" And the old man returned to the kitchen.

Scarcely had he turned his back than the limping rascal made one of those supremely insulting and derisive gestures familiar to all the blackguards of Paris, consisting in slapping the nape of the neck repeatedly with the left hand, darting the right hand quite open continually out in a straight line. With the most consummate audacity, this dangerous child had just gleaned, under the mask of guileless tenderness and apprehension for his father, information most important for the furtherance of the schemes of the Chouette and Schoolmaster. He had ascertained during the last few minutes that the part of the building where he slept was only occupied by Madame Georges, Fleur-de-Marie, an old female servant, and one of the farm-labourers. Upon his return to the room he was to share with the blind man, Tortillard carefully avoided approaching him. The former, however, heard his step, and growled out:

"Where have you been, you vagabond?"

"What! you want to know, do you, old blind 'un?"

"Oh, I'll make you pay for all you have made me suffer this evening, you wretched urchin!" exclaimed the Schoolmaster, rising furiously, and groping about in every direction after Tortillard, feeling by the walls as a guide. "I'll strangle you when I catch you, you young fiend – you infernal viper!"

"Poor, dear father! How prettily he plays at blind-man's buff with his own little boy," said Tortillard, grinning, and enjoying the ease with which he escaped from the impotent attempts of the Schoolmaster to seize him, who, though impelled to the exertion by his overboiling rage, was soon compelled to cease, and, as had been the case before, to give up all hopes of inflicting the revenge he yearned to bestow on the impish son of Bras Rouge.

Thus compelled to submit to the impudent persecution of his juvenile tormentor, and await the propitious hour when all his injuries could safely be avenged, the brigand determined to reserve his powerless wrath for a fitting opportunity of paying off old scores, and, worn out in body by his futile violence, threw himself, swearing and cursing, on the bed.

"Dear father! – sweet father! – have you got the toothache that you swear so? Ah, if Monsieur le Curé heard you, what would he say to you? He would give you such penance! Oh, my!"

"That's right! – go on!" replied the ruffian, in a hollow and suppressed voice, after long enduring this entertaining vivacity on the part of the young gentleman. "Laugh at me! – mock me! – make sport of my calamity, cowardly scoundrel that you are! That is a fine, noble action, is it not? Just worthy of such a mean, ignoble, contemptible soul as dwells within that wretched, crooked body!"

"Oh, how fine we talk! How nice we preach about being generous, and all that, don't we?" cried Tortillard, bursting into peals of laughter. "I beg your pardon, dear father, but I can't possibly help thinking it so funny to hear you, whose fingers were regular fish-hooks, picking and stealing whatever came in their way; and, as for generosity, I beg you don't mention it, because, till you got your eyes poked out I don't suppose you ever thought of such a word!"

"But, at least, I never did you any harm. Why, then, torment me thus?"

"Because, in the first place, you said what I did not like to the Chouette; then you had a fancy for stopping and playing the fool among the clodhoppers here. Perhaps you mean to commence a course of asses' milk?"

"You impudent young beggar! If I had only had the opportunity of remaining at this farm – which I now wish sunk in the bottomless pit, or blasted with eternal lightning – you should not have played your tricks of devilish cruelty with me any longer!"

"You to remain here! that would be a farce! Who, then, would Madame la Chouette have for her bête de souffrance? Me, perhaps, thank ye! – don't you wish you may get it?"

"Miserable abortion!"

"Abortion! ah, yes, another reason why I say, as well as Aunt Chouette, there is nothing so funny as to see you in one of your unaccountable passions – you, who could kill me with one blow of your fist; it's more funny than if you were a poor, weak creature. How very funny you were at supper to-night! Dieu de Dieu! what a lark I had all to myself! Why, it was better than a play at the Gaîté. At every kick I gave you on the sly, your passion made all the blood fly in your face, and your white eyes became red all round; they only wanted a bit of blue in the middle to have been real tri-coloured. They would have made two fine cockades for the town-sergeant, wouldn't they?"

"Come, come, you like to laugh – you are merry: bah! it's natural at your age – it's natural – I'm not angry with you," said the Schoolmaster, in an air of affected carelessness, hoping to propitiate Tortillard; "but, instead of standing there, saying saucy things, it would be much better for you to remember what the Chouette told you; you say you are very fond of her. You should examine all over the place, and get the print of the locks. Didn't you hear them say they expected to have a large sum of money here on Monday? We will be amongst them then, and have our share. I should have been foolish to have stayed here; I should have had enough of these asses of country people at the end of a week, shouldn't I, boy?" asked the ruffian, to flatter Tortillard.

"If you had stayed here I should have been very much annoyed, 'pon my word and honour," replied Bras Rouge's son, in a mocking tone.

"Yes, yes, there's a good business to be done in this house; and, if there should be nothing to steal, yet I will return here with the Chouette, if only to have my revenge," said the miscreant, in a tone full of fury and malice, "for now I am sure it is my wife who excited that infernal Rodolph against me; he who, in blinding me, has put me at the mercy of all the world, of the Chouette, and a young blackguard like yourself. Well, if I cannot avenge myself on him, I will have vengeance against my wife, – yes, she shall pay me for all, even if I set fire to this accursed house and bury myself in its smouldering ruins. Yes, I will – I will have – "

"You will, you want to get hold of your wife, eh, old gentleman? She is within ten paces of you! that's vexing, ain't it? If I liked, I could lead you to the door of her room, that's what I could, for I know the room. I know it – I know it – I know it," added Tortillard, singing according to his custom.

"You know her room?" said the Schoolmaster, in an agony of fervent joy; "you know it?"

"I see you coming," said Tortillard; "come, play the pretty, and get on your hind legs like a dog when they throw him a dainty bone. Now, old Cupid!"

"You know my wife's chamber?" said the miscreant, turning to the side whence the sound of Tortillard's voice proceeded.

"Yes, I know it; and, what's still better, only one of the farm servants sleeps on the side of the house where we are. I know his door – the key is in it – click, one turn, and he's all safe and fast. Come, get up, old blind Cupid!"

"Who told you all this?" asked the blind scoundrel, rising involuntarily.

"Capital, Cupid! By the side of your wife's room sleeps an old cook – one more turn of the key, and click! we are masters of the house – masters of your wife, and the young girl with the gray mantle that you must catch hold of and carry off. Now, then, your paw, old Cupid; do the pretty to your master directly."

"You lie! you lie! how could you know all this?"

"Why, I'm lame in my leg, but not in my head. Before we left the kitchen I said to the old guzzling labourer that sometimes in the night you had convulsions, and I asked him where I could get assistance if you were attacked. He said if you were attacked I might call up the man servant and the cook; and he showed me where they slept; one down, the other up stairs in the first floor, close to your wife – your wife – your wife!"

And Tortillard repeated his monotonous song. After a lengthened silence the Schoolmaster said to him, in a calm voice, but with an air of desperate determination:

"Listen, boy. I have stayed long enough. Lately – yes, yes, I confess it – I had a hope which now makes my lot appear still more frightful; the prison, the bagne, the guillotine, are nothing – nothing to what I have endured since this morning; and I shall have the same to endure always. Lead me to my wife's room; I have my knife here; I will kill her. I shall be killed afterwards; but what of that? My hatred swells till it chokes me; I shall have revenge, and that will console me. What I now suffer is too much – too much! for me, too, before whom everybody trembled. Now, lad, if you knew what I endure, even you would pity me. Even now my brain appears ready to burst; my pulse beats as if my veins would burst; my head whirls – "

"A cold in your 'knowledge-box,' old chap – that's it; sneeze – that'll cure you," said Tortillard, with a loud grin; "what say you to a pinch of snuff, old brick?"

And striking loudly on the back of his left hand, which was clenched, as if he were tapping on the lid of a snuff-box, he sang:

"J'ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière;
J'ai du bon tabac, tu n'en auras pas."

"Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! they will drive me mad!" cried the brigand, becoming really almost demented by a sort of nervous excitement arising from bloodthirsty revenge and implacable hatred, which in vain sought to satiate itself. The exuberant strength of this monster could only be equalled by the impossibility of satisfying his deadly desires. Let us imagine a hungry, furious, maddened wolf, teased during a whole day by a child through the bars of his den, and scenting within two paces of him a victim who would at once satisfy his hunger and his rage. At the last taunt of Tortillard the brigand almost lost his senses; unable to reach his victim, he desired in his frenzy to shed his own blood, for his blood was stifling him. One moment he resolved to kill himself, and, had he had a loaded pistol in his hand, he would not have hesitated; he fumbled in his pocket, and drew out a clasp-knife, opened it, and raised it to strike; but, quick as were his movements, reflection, fear, and vital instinct were still more rapid, – the murderer lacked courage, – his arm fell on his knees. Tortillard had watched all his actions with an attentive eye, and, when he saw the finale of this pseudo-tragedy, he continued, mockingly, —

"How, boys, a duel? Ah, pluck the chickens!"

The Schoolmaster, fearing that he should lose his senses if he gave way to an ineffectual burst of fury, turned a deaf ear to this fresh insult of Tortillard, who so impertinently commented on the cowardice of an assassin who recoiled from suicide. Despairing of escape from what he termed, by a sort of avenging fatality, the cruelty of his cursed child, the ruffian sought to try what could be done by assailing the avarice of the son of Bras Rouge.

"Ah," said he to him, in a tone almost supplicatory, "lead me to the door of my wife's room, and take anything you like that's in her room and run away with it! leave me to myself. You may cry out 'murder' if you like; they will apprehend me – kill me on the spot – I care not, I shall die avenged, if I have not the courage to end my existence myself. Oh, lead me there – lead me there; depend on it she has gold, jewels, anything, and you may take all, all for yourself, for your own, do you mind? – your own; only lead me to the door where she is."

"Yes, I mind well enough; you want me to lead you to her door, then to her bed, and then to tell you when to strike, then to guide your hand – eh! that's it, ain't it? You want to make me a handle to your knife, old monster!" replied Tortillard, with an expression of contempt, anger, and horror, which, for the first time in his life gave an appearance of seriousness to his weasel face, usually all impertinence and insolence; "I'll be killed first, I tell you, sooner than I'll lead you to where your wife is!"

"You refuse?"

The son of Bras Rouge made no reply. He approached with bare feet and without being heard by the Schoolmaster, who, seated on the bed, still held his large knife in his hand, and then, in a moment, with marvellous quickness and dexterity, Tortillard snatched from him his weapon, and with one jump skipped to the further end of the chamber.

"My knife! my knife!" cried the brigand, extending his arms.

"No; for then you might to-morrow morning ask to speak with your wife and try to kill her, since, as you say, you have had enough of life, and are such a coward that you don't dare kill yourself."

"How he defends my wife against me!" said the bandit, whose intellect became obscure. "This little wretch is a devil! Where am I? Why does he try to save her?"

"Because I like it," said Tortillard, whose face resumed its usual appearance of sly impudence.

"Ah, is that it?" murmured the Schoolmaster, whose mind was wandering; "well, then, I'll fire the house! we'll all burn – all! I prefer that furnace to the other. The candle! the candle!"

"Ah! ah! ah!" exclaimed Tortillard, bursting out again into loud laughter. "If your own candle – your 'peepers' – had not been snuffed out, and for ever, you would have known that ours had been extinguished an hour ago." And Tortillard sang:

"Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n'ai plus de feu."

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