The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 3 of 6

"How do I know! You come here, and first begin by insulting me."

"Insult you?"

"Yes, – you ask who'll have your bread. I first say —I. Mont Saint-Jean did not ask for it till afterwards, and yet you give her the preference. Enraged at that, I rushed at you with my uplifted knife – "

"And I said to you, 'Kill me, if you like, but do not let me linger long,' and that is all."

"That is all? Yes, that is all. And yet these words made me drop my knife, – made me – ask your pardon, – yes, pardon of you who insulted me. Is that natural? Why, when I recovered my senses, I was ashamed of myself. The evening you came here, when you were on your knees to say your prayers, – why, instead of making game of you, and setting all the dormitory on you, did I say, 'Let her alone; she prays, and has a right to pray?' Then the next day, why were I and all the others ashamed to dress ourselves before you?"

"I do not know, La Louve."

"Indeed!" replied the violent creature, with irony. "You don't know! Why, no doubt, it is because, as we have all of us said, jokingly, that you are of a different sort from us. You think so, don't you?"

"I have never said that I thought so."

"No, you have not said so; but you behave just as if it were so."

"I beg of you to listen to me."

"No, I have been already too foolish to listen to you – to look at you. Till now, I never envied any one. Well, two or three times I have been surprised at myself. Am I growing a fool or a coward? I have found myself envious of your face, so like the Holy Virgin's; of your gentle and mournful look. Yes, I have even been envious of your chestnut hair and your blue eyes. I, who detest fair women, because I am dark myself, wish to resemble you. I! La Louve! I! Why, it is but eight days since, and I would have marked any one who dared but say so. Yet it is not your lot that would tempt one, for you are as full of grief as a Magdalene. Is it natural, I say, eh?"

"How can I account to you for the impression I make upon you?"

"Oh, you know well enough what you do, though you look as if you were too delicate to be touched."

"What bad design can you suppose me capable of?"

"How can I tell? It is because I do not understand anything of all this that I mistrust you. Another thing, too: until now I have always been merry or passionate, and never thoughtful, but you – you have made me thoughtful. Yes, there are words which you utter, that, in spite of myself, have shaken my very heart, and made me think of all sorts of sad things."

"I am sorry, La Louve, if I ever made you sad; but I do not remember ever having said anything – "

"Oh," cried La Louve, interrupting her companion with angry impatience, "what you do is sometimes as affecting as what you say! You are so clever!"

"Do not be angry, La Louve, but explain what you mean."

"Yesterday, in the workroom, I noticed you, – you bent your head over the work you were sewing, and a large tear fell on your hand. You looked at it for a minute, and then you lifted your hand to your lips, as if to kiss and wipe it away. Is this true?"

"Yes," said La Goualeuse, blushing.

"There was nothing in this; but at the moment you looked so unhappy, so very miserable, that I felt my very heart turned, as it were, inside out. Tell me, do you find this amusing? Why, now, I have been as hard as flint on all occasions. No one ever saw me shed a tear, – and yet, only looking at your chit face, I felt my heart sink basely within me! Yes, for this is baseness, – pure cowardice; and the proof is, that for three days I have not dared to write to Martial, my lover, my conscience is so bad. Yes, being with you has enfeebled my mind, and this must be put an end to, – there's enough of it; this will else do me mischief, I am sure. I wish to remain as I am, and not become a joke and despised thing to myself."

"You are angry with me, La Louve?"

"Yes, you are a bad acquaintance for me; and if it continues, why, in a fortnight's time, instead of calling me the She-wolf, they would call me the Ewe! But no, thank ye, it sha'n't come to that yet, – Martial would kill me; and so, to make an end of this matter, I will break up all acquaintance with you; and that I may be quite separated from you, I shall ask to be put in another room. If they refuse me, I will do some piece of mischief to put me in wind again, and that I may be sent to the black-hole for the remainder of my time here. And this was what I had to say to you, Goualeuse."

Timidly taking her companion's hand, who looked at her with gloomy distrust, Fleur-de-Marie said:

"I am sure, La Louve, that you take an interest in me, not because you are cowardly, but because you are generous-hearted. Brave hearts are the only ones which sympathise in the misfortunes of others."

"There is neither generosity nor courage in it," said La Louve, coarsely; "it is downright cowardice. Besides, I don't choose to have it said that I sympathise with any one. It ain't true."

"Then I will not say so, La Louve; but since you have taken an interest in me, you will let me feel grateful to you, will you not?"

"Oh, if you like! This evening, I shall be in another room than yours, or alone in the dark hole, and I shall soon be out, thank God!"

"And where shall you go when you leave here?"

"Why, home, to be sure, to the Rue Pierre-Lescat. I have my furniture there."

"And Martial?" said La Goualeuse, who hoped to keep up the conversation with La Louve, by interesting her in what she most cared for; "shall you be glad to see him again?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" she replied, with a passionate air. "When I was taken up, he was just recovering from an illness, – a fever which he had from being always in the water. For seventeen days and seventeen nights I never left him for a moment, and I sold half my kit in order to pay the doctor, the drags and all. I may boast of that, and I do boast of it. If my man lives, it is I who saved him. Yesterday I burnt another candle for him. It is folly, – a mere whim, – but yet it is all one, and we have sometimes very good effects in burning candles for a person's recovery."

"And, Martial, where is he now? What is he doing?"

"He is still on an island, near the bridge, at Asnières."

"On an island?"

"Yes, he is settled there, with his family, in a lone house. He is always at loggerheads with the persons who protect the fishing; but when he is once in his boat, with his double-barrelled gun, why, they who approach him had better look out!" said La Louve, proudly.

"What, then, is his occupation?"

"He poaches in the night; and then, as he is as bold as a lion, when some coward wishes to get up a quarrel with another, why, he will lend his hand."

"Where did you first know Martial?"

"At Paris. He wished to be a locksmith, – a capital business, – always with red-hot iron and fire around you; dangerous you may suppose, but then that suited him. But he, like me, was badly disposed, and could not agree with his master; and then, too, they were always throwing his father and one of his brothers in his teeth. But that's nothing to you. The end of it was, that he returned to his mother, who is a very devil in sin and wickedness, and began to poach on the river. He cannot see me at Paris, and in the daytime I go to see him in his island, the Ile du Ravageur, near Asnières. It's very near; though if it were farther off, I would go all the same, even if I went on my hands and knees, or swam all the way, for I can swim like an otter."

"You must be very happy to go into the country," said La Goualeuse, with a sigh; "especially if you are as fond as I am of walking in the fields."

"I prefer walking in the woods and large forests with my man."

"In the forests! Oh, ain't you afraid?"

"Afraid! Oh, yes, afraid! I should think so! What can a she-wolf fear? The thicker and more lonely the forest, the better I should like it. A lone hut in which I should live with Martial as a poacher, to go with him at night to set the snares for the game, and then, if the keepers came to apprehend us, to fire at them, both of us, whilst my man and I were hid in underwood, – ah, that would indeed be happiness!"

"Then you have lived in the woods, La Louve?"

"Never."

"Who gave you these ideas, then?"

"Martial."

"How did he acquire them?"

"He was a poacher in the forest of Rambouillet; and it is not a year ago that he was supposed to have fired at a keeper who had fired at him, the vagabond! However, there was no proof of the fact, but Martial was obliged to leave that part of the country. Then he came to Paris to try and be a locksmith, and then I first saw him. As he was too wild to be on good terms with his master, he preferred returning to his relations at Asnières, and poach in the river; it is not so slavish. Still he always regrets the woods, and some day or other will return to them. From his talking to me of poaching and forests, he has crammed my head with these ideas, and I now think that is the life I was born for. But it is always so. What your man likes, you like. If Martial had been a thief, I should have been a thief. When one has a man, we like to be like him."