Eugène Sue

“ When the noise of Rodolph's body rolling down the steps had ceased, the Schoolmaster, who knew all the ways and windings of the underground vaults in the place, went down the stairs slowly, listening as he went.
"Fourline, be on your guard," cried the beldam, leaning over the opening of the trap; "draw your 'pinking iron.'"
The brigand disappeared without any reply. For a time nothing was heard, but at the end of a few moments the distant noise of a door shutting, which creaked on its rusty hinges, sounded harshly in the depths of the cavern; then all was again still as death. ”

“ The cry, the look, the blood that spouted out, made a fearful impression on the man. His knife fell from his hands; his features grew livid, contracted, and horrible, beneath the blood that covered them; his eyes expanded, his hair stiffened; and then retreating, with a gesture of horror, he cried, in a suffocating voice, "Oh, the sergeant! the sergeant!"
Rodolph hastened to him: "Recover yourself, my good fellow!"
"There! there! the sergeant!" repeated the Chourineur, retreating step by step, with his eyes fixed and haggard, and pointing with his finger as if at some invisible phantom. ”

“ Between the depth of misery, the degradation in which he had always existed, and the position in which Rodolph now placed him, there was an abyss so wide that the service he had rendered to Rodolph, important as it was, could not fill it up.
"Does what I give you, then, seem beyond your hopes?" inquired Rodolph.
"My lord," said the Chourineur, starting up suddenly, "you offer me this house and a great deal of money,—to tempt me; but I cannot take them; I never robbed in my life. It is, perhaps, to kill; but I have too often dreamed of the sergeant," added he, in a hoarse tone. ”

“ You, perhaps, M. Rodolph, understand me. In the morning, when I go to buy my milk from the milkwoman at the corner of Rue de la Vieille-Draperie, with the sous which the ogress gives me, and see her go away in her little cart drawn by her donkey, I do envy her so, and I say to myself, 'She is going into the country, to the pure air, to her home and her family;' and then I return alone into the garret of the ogress, where you cannot see plainly even at noonday."
"Well, child, be good—laugh at your troubles—be good," said the Chourineur.
"Good! mon Dieu! and how do you mean be good? ”

“ He asked you what you wanted: 'Your money or your life!' and you stabbed him with your poniard."
"So M. Murphy said when I first came to his aid," said the doctor.
"It's false! He lied!"
"Murphy never lies," said Rodolph, calmly. "Your crimes demand a striking reparation. You came into this garden forcibly; you stabbed a man that you might rob him; you have committed another murder; you ought to die on this spot; but pity, respect for your wife and son, they shall save you from the shame of a scaffold. It will be said that you were killed in a brawl with weapons in your hand. ”

“ Quick as lightning he made his way up the damp, slippery stairs; arrived at the top, he came in contact with a thick door; he tried in vain to open it,—its massy hinges resisted his most vigorous efforts to force them.
At this moment of despair and danger, his first thought was for Murphy. "If he be not on his guard, those monsters will murder him!" cried he. "It will be I who shall have caused his death,—my good, my faithful Murphy!" This cruel thought nerved the arm of Rodolph with fresh vigour, and again he bent his most powerful energy to endeavour to force the ponderous door. ”

“ Not she. Mother Burette is as great a brute in her way as her lover, M. Bras Rouge, is in his; for between you and I," added the porteress, with an uncommonly knowing wink of the eye and sagacious shake of the head, "there is something rather tender going on between these two."
"Really!" cried Rodolph.
"I think so,—I do, upon my life. And why not? Why, the folks in St. Martin are as loving as the rest of the world; are they not, my old pet?"
A melancholy shake of the head, which produced a corresponding motion in the huge black hat, was M. Pipelet's only answer. ”

“ Rodolph had listened attentively to the recital of Fleur-de-Marie, and now looked at the Chourineur with astonishment: the display of such feeling quite surprised him.
"What ails you, Chourineur?" he inquired.
"What ails me? Ails me? Why, have you no feeling? That devil's dam of a Chouette who so brutally used this girl! Are you as hard as your own fists?"
"Go on, my girl," said Rodolph to Fleur-de-Marie, without appearing to notice the Chourineur's appeal.
"I have told you how the Chouette ill-used me to make me cry. I was then sent on to the bridge with my barley-sugar. ”

“ Now—this very hour—your punishment shall be proportioned to your crimes. But," added Rodolph, with an accent of mournful pity, "the terrible judgment I am about to pronounce will, at least, leave the future open to your efforts for pardon and for peace. I should be guilty as you are were I, in punishing you, to seek only for vengeance, just as is my right to demand it; far from being unrelenting as death, your sentence shall bring forth good fruits for hereafter; far from destroying your soul, it shall help you to seek its salvation. ”

“ On entering the tapis-franc, the Chourineur, laying one of his heavy hands on the shoulders of Rodolph, cried, "Hail the conqueror of the Chourineur! Yes, my boys, this springald has floored me; and if any young gentleman wishes to have his ribs smashed, or his 'nob in Chancery,' even including the Schoolmaster and the Skeleton, here is their man; I will answer for him, and back him!"
At these words, all present, from the ogress to the lowest ruffian of the tapis-franc, contemplated the victor of the Chourineur with respect and fear. ”

“ You, perhaps, distrust me; but you are wrong, and if you like I will tell you my history; but that is on condition that you teach me how to give those precious thumps which settled my business so quickly. What say you?"
"I agree, Chourineur; tell me your story, and Goualeuse will also tell hers."
"Very well," replied the Chourineur; "it is not weather to turn a mangy cur out-of-doors, and it will be an amusement. Do you agree, Goualeuse?"
"Oh, certainly; but my story is a very short one," said Fleur-de-Marie.
"And you will have to tell us your history, comrade Rodolph," added the Chourineur. ”

“ And I—I am the wretched cause of it!" cried Rodolph, in a tone of agony, raising his clasped hands towards heaven.
"My lord knows that his servant is incapable of a falsehood. I assert by my honour, that, although severely wounded, Murphy lives, and that his chance of recovery is all but certain."
"You say that but to prepare me for more disastrous tidings; he lies, doubtless, wounded past all hope; and he, my faithful friend, will die!"
"My lord—"
"Yes, you are seeking to deceive me till all is over. But I will see him,—I will judge for myself; the sight of a friend cannot be hurtful. ”

“ She wore a white crape dress, trimmed with the natural flowers of the camellia, intermixed with its own rich green leaves. Here and there a diamond sparkled among the waxy petals, as if a dewdrop fresh from its native skies had fallen there. A garland of the same flowers, equally ornamented with precious stones, was placed with infinite grace upon her fair and open brow.
The peculiar style of the Countess Sarah Macgregor's beauty served to set off the fair feminine loveliness of her companion. Though turned thirty-five years of age, Sarah looked much younger. ”

“ I congratulate you that Nature did not make you one of those monsters called artists."
"Artists, monsters!" returned Rodolph. "Tell me, pray, why you style them so."
Instead of replying, M. Pipelet elevated his clasped hands towards the ceiling, and allowed a heavy sound, between a grunt and a groan, to escape his overcharged breast.
"You must know, sir," said Madame Pipelet, in a low tone, to Rodolph, "that painters have embittered Alfred's life; they have worried my poor old dear almost out of his senses, and made him half stupefied, as you see him now." ”

“ In spite of the monotony of the landscape, Fleur-de-Marie was so delighted at seeing the fields, as she called them, that, forgetting the sad thoughts which the recollection of the Chouette had awakened in her, her lovely countenance grew radiant with delight. She leaned out of the window, clasping her hands, and crying:
"M. Rodolph, how happy I am! Grass! Fields! May I get out? It is so fine! I should so like to run in the meadows." ”

“ Musette! Ah, Musette, [Pg 111] Musette, I shall be always feeding you and patting you to make you know me."
"Now we will finish the inside of your apartment, Fleur-de-Marie. The curtains and furniture are green, like the blinds; and outside the window grow an enormous rose-tree and honeysuckle, which entirely cover this side of the farm, and so surround your casements that you have only to stretch out your hand to gather a large bunch of roses and honeysuckle wet with the early morning dew."
"Ah, M. Rodolph, what a good painter you are!" ”

“ Go, seek out some safe and solitary dwelling, where, by humble repentance, you may seek to propitiate an offended God! You are free! Go and repent; the Lord is merciful, and his ears are ever open to such as truly repent."
"Blind! quite blind!" repeated the Schoolmaster, mechanically grasping the pocketbook.
"Open the doors,—let him depart!" said Rodolph.
"Blind! blind!" repeated the bewildered and discomfited ruffian.
"You are free; you have the means of providing for yourself; begone!" ”

“ Fleur-de-Marie had followed the Chourineur into the tavern of the ogress, and he, responding to a nod given to him by the young scamp with the jaded aspect, said, "Ah, Barbillon! what, pulling away at the old stuff?"
"Yes; I would rather fast, and go barefoot any day, than be without my drops for my throttle, and the weed for my pipe," said the rapscallion, in a thick, low, hoarse voice, without moving from his seat, and puffing out volumes of tobacco-smoke. ”

“ Rodolph, in abandoning himself to ideas which were free from criminality, because they did not spring from the circle of fatal probabilities, resolved that when Providence should call to himself the Grand Duke, his father, he would devote himself to the life which César Polidori had painted to him under such brilliant and attractive colours, and to have as his prime minister one whose knowledge and understanding he admired, and whose blind complaisance he fully appreciated. ”

“ I really should, for it reminds me of my boyish days, if it was only when I had Montfauçon for a slaughter-house and broken-down horses for cattle. It is droll, but if I had the means, a butcher's is the trade in which I should set up, for I like it. To go on a good nag to buy cattle at fairs,—to return home to one's own fireside, to warm yourself if cold, or dry yourself if wet,—to find your housekeeper, or a good, jolly, plump wife, cheerful and pleasant, with a parcel of children to feel in your pockets to see if you have brought them home anything! ”

“ It is, my friend, when the objects deserve it; and thus nothing is more worthy of compassion and respect than a woman like Madame Georges, who, brought up by a pious and good mother in the strict observance of all her duties, has never failed,—never! and has, moreover, courageously borne herself in the midst of the most severe trials. But is it not to honour God in the most acceptable way, to raise from the dust one of those beings of the finest mould, whom he has been pleased to endow richly? Does not she deserve compassion and respect,—yes, respect,—who, unhappy girl! ”

“ Sarah promised to keep Seyton fully informed, day by day, of the progress of events, so important to both of them; and, that they might correspond more surely and secretly, they agreed upon a cipher, of which Polidori also held the key. This precaution alone proves that Sarah had other matters to tell her brother of besides her love for Rodolph. In truth, this selfish, cold, ambitious woman had not felt the ice of her heart melt even by the beams of the passionate love which had been breathed to her. ”

“ Oh, if I were a man, how I should like to be a husbandman, to go out in the fields, and drive one's own plough; and then when you look to see the blue skies, and the green shiny leaves of the neighbouring forests,—such a day as to-day, for instance, when you feel half inclined to weep, without knowing why, and begin singing old and melancholy songs, like 'Geneviève de Brabant.' Do you know 'Geneviève de Brabant,' M. Rodolph? ”

“ The clear and white complexion of Fleur-de-Marie, generally rather pale, was now heightened by the brightest colour. Her large blue eyes sparkled brightly, her vermilion lips, partly opened to recover her breath, displayed two rows of liquid pearls; her bosom throbbed under her worn-out little orange shawl, and she placed one of her hands upon her heart, as if to restrain its quickened pulsation, whilst with the other hand she proffered to Rodolph the bouquet of field flowers which she had just gathered. ”

“ A gambler, a spendthrift, and profligate, addicted to the lowest vices that can disgrace a human being, he quickly dissipated, not only his own fortune, but that of his wife also. Even the estate to which Madame Georges Duresnel had retired was involved in the general ruin occasioned by her worthless husband's passion for play, and his dissolute mode of life; and the unfortunate woman would have been left without a shelter for herself or infant son but for the kind affection of her relation, the Marquise d'Harville, whom she loved with the tenderness of a sister. ”

“ After a moment's silence, Rodolph again renewed the conversation, and, kindly taking the hand of La Goualeuse, said, "Fleur-de-Marie, tell me honestly, have you ever known what it is to love?"
"Never, M. Rodolph."
"And how do you account for this?"
"You saw the kind of persons who frequented the tapis-franc. And then, to love, the object should be good and virtuous—"
"Why do you think so?"
"Oh, because one's lover, or husband, would be all in all to us, and we should seek no greater happiness than devoting our life to him. ”

“ And the old beldam offered her bloated lips to Fleur-de-Marie. The poor girl, overcoming her disgust, bent her forehead to the ogress, but Rodolph, giving a sudden push with his elbow, shoved the hag back on her seat, took Fleur-de-Marie's arm, and left the tapis-franc, amidst the loud maledictions of Mother Ponisse.
"Mind, M. Rodolph," said Goualeuse; "the ogress will, perhaps, throw something at you,—she is very spiteful." ”

“ Look at me: why, all my troubles and misfortunes have happened because I did not save my money more carefully. If once a person can get a hundred francs beforehand, he need never fear falling into any one's power; generally, a difficulty about money puts very evil thoughts into our head."
"All that is very wise and very sensible, my frugal little friend; but a hundred francs!—that is a large sum; how could a man like myself ever amass so much?"
"Why, M. Rodolph, it is really very easy, if you will but consider a little. First of all, I think you said you could earn five francs a day?" ”

“ Then the defender of La Goualeuse, suddenly altering his mode of attack, rained on the head and face of the bandit a shower of blows with his closed fist, as hard and heavy as if stricken by a steel gauntlet. These blows, worthy of the admiration of Jem Belcher, Dutch Sam, Tom Cribb, or any other celebrated English pugilist, were so entirely different from the system of the savate, that the Chourineur dropped like an ox on the pavement, exclaiming, as he fell, "I'm floored!" ”