La Misère / Misery - by Louise Michel

It is today, it was yesterday, it will still be tomorrow, if you like, because misery is as old as society, and it will last as long as society does, unless order is finally brought to it.

It was in October, during one of those days whose greyness clings to the hearts of the poor, when Madame Brodard was walking down Avenue des Gobelins on her way to work. She was a leather dyer, a hard trade for a woman, and with that, as discouraging as could be. But one earns a little more than with sewing, and Madame Brodard had long been alone, raising her family.

She was a woman of thirty-five, though she seemed older. Looking at her closely, one could see that sorrow and great fatigue, more than time itself, had whitened her hair and carved wrinkles into her face. Her black eyes were very beautiful, her teeth very white. Her thin face bore a profound expression of resignation and kindness. A thin nose with mobile nostrils revealed in her a deep sensitivity, that is to say, a marked capacity for suffering.

Madame Brodard’s clothes, carefully mended and perfectly clean, testified to a certain valiant dignity amid poverty. The poor brave worker would even have managed to conceal her misery entirely, if she had been able to mend her own shoe. But the strength of a woman is not enough to repair that part of one’s clothing.

The dyer walked through the fog of the early morning, her feet numb, her head lowered, her expression pensive, walking like an old woman, her back bent.

She did not notice those who passed her on the narrow pavement; absorbed by painful thoughts, she was barely aware that she was walking at all.

People said she had intuition, the poor woman; it was discouragement beginning to take hold. And she had reason for it. Look, then, at what was happening on one side she was holding things together, on the other they were falling apart, in her situation. She had just spent four months in the hospital, and now that her son had become a real support, now that the family was finally beginning to have enough to eat, here was Angèle, one of her daughters, falling ill in her turn. She had worked so hard while her mother was away: at the washhouse, at home, at the workshop, everywhere. That little one troubled her greatly. My God! What had happened to her? A child who had never given her anything but joy; one who had always been happy at school and at the tannery.

And the mother listed in her mind all her daughter’s qualities.

She was so good at housekeeping! Quick and skilful as a fairy, in leather-dyeing — even Monsieur Rousseurand, the boss, could hardly believe it — courageous, pretty, cheerful like a little songbird. A little mother to her sisters, a ray of sunshine in the house, what more could one say?

Yes, that was how she had been until quite recently. Now it was completely different, even the opposite: Angèle was pale, sad, and mute. And the more she thought about it, Madame Brodard remembered that Angèle’s sadness did not date from her mother’s departure to the Pitié hospital. She had noticed something before, some time ago, but she had thought the child perhaps had the pale complexion of anaemia. Food had been scarce since the father left. But now, what could it all mean?

“Oh, if only I knew what was going on,” the poor mother said to herself. “There must be something more than an illness, more than this deep depression in my Angèle. If she were a mischievous or adventurous girl, I might suspect… but no, that is impossible, she knows no one. At the tannery there are only workers, her workmates. And it’s not those who would lead her astray… And yet, what an awful idea… No! No! She is too wise, too modest. But who knows? There are so many scoundrels who have nothing to do. One hears such stories of monsters harming children! Oh, if only it were true… My little one, my beautiful little one, my innocent child…”

Madame Brodard had reached Rue Censier, in front of her tannery. But she did not go in. She was shaken by the idea that had just come to her, by the suspicions she had formed.

“No,” said the poor mother, speaking aloud to herself as one does when overwhelmed, except that her only turmoil was grief, “no, I could not work with such doubt in my mind. This cannot go on; I must know, I must see what she says… What difference does it make if I lose an hour or two? It is my duty to look after my daughter! And if she has fallen ill… That would be my duty too, to hide it. Ah, God grant it is nothing!”

She tried to calm herself, and as she turned back on her steps, she wanted to believe she was mistaken, that living in misery had made her imagine something out of habit, a sort of instinctive fear. It was foolish, everything she had just suspected.

Madame Brodard walked up the avenue, turned into Rue de la Croulebarbe, and ran up the stairs four at a time. She was anxious.

The home was poor, the rooms narrow, the furniture old; but the order and cleanliness that governed everything made it pleasant to see.

Angèle was there. She showed no surprise at seeing her mother return. No doubt she too had her worries. She was a fifteen-year-old girl, very tall for her age. A blonde with fine features, a weary expression, a mottled face, bruised-looking eyes. She was preparing breakfast for her little sisters, rolling up their aprons on the end of the table. The mother saw that she had poured into Louise’s and Sophie’s cups all the milk that had been set aside for herself, and she gently scolded her.

Was that reasonable, after all, what Angèle was doing? Could one live on air alone? Had she had enough of life? Did she want to leave the entire burden to her mother? Really! This was the height of it! Should she not at least think of her little sisters who would soon be growing and needed to be wise?

Angèle let her mother speak, answering nothing. She wrapped herself tightly in an old red tartan shawl that made her look even paler. She seemed very tired.

“But what is the matter with you, child?” her mother asked.

The young girl suddenly turned very red and, lowering her long, thick eyelashes, replied that nothing was wrong, that she would be very happy if no one questioned her. She barely ate, because she had no appetite. It was simply frugality, she said. She was saving.

“Saving?” said the mother, shocked. “No! No, there is something else.”

“What then?” asked Angèle in a languid voice.

“It is not natural,” said Madame Brodard, “for a girl as open as you used to be to behave as you do now. Have I become so harsh that you cannot open your heart to me? I have not changed, I am still your mother. Speak to me with trust.

“Where does this sadness come from?”

“From nowhere.”

“From nowhere? Oh my little Angèle, that is impossible, seeing you like this. Is it smoke without fire? Is it possible my sweet little bird has turned into a sad little owl for no reason? Do you have a secret? Tell me.”

“No…”

“What! You insist you have nothing but an ordinary ailment?”

“Do you know what I think?” said Angèle with a look of dejection.

Bit by bit she became lifeless again, like a wax doll. Seeing Madame Brodard’s distressed expression, she added:

“I am a little sick, that is true; but do not worry, Mama, it will get better. I felt sorrow because the amnesty has not passed; that struck me hard, when I saw Papa would not be coming back yet. That poor father, I love him so much!”

And finding this excuse to cover her real pain, the poor girl burst into tears. The children stared, astonished, and without knowing why, ended up crying with her.

“Come,” said the mother with a sigh, “my heart is made up; tomorrow I will go to the visit.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Very well! I will go, if that can give you pleasure; there, are you happy now?”

She said this with a determined little air that almost reassured the mother. One so easily believes what one wishes to believe that Madame Brodard felt quite relieved. She had certainly been mistaken, she told herself. She was almost happy compared to what she had feared. She wanted to take her daughter in her arms, but Angèle stepped back, frightened.

Then the mother understood everything. A cold sweat ran down her back, across her temples. To keep herself from falling, she had to cling to her bed. She wanted to speak, but her throat, utterly dry, could not produce a sound. She remained there, legs trembling, face cold, hands clenched on the edge of the mattress.

Angèle, her face buried in her hands, was standing before her. She looked like a plaster statue representing Sorrow.

“Oh my God! my God!” said Madame Brodard at last, “my God! So that is what remains!… This is the reward for so many efforts to do good!”

She collapsed onto a chair. Not a drop of blood remained in her face. In place of the flames that usually shone in her eyes, there was now dead ash, her head thrown back, her face livid, her hands hanging.

The little ones, terrified, threw themselves on their mother, crying:

“Angèle! Angèle! Come see Mama! Come help her!”

Angèle came to her mother’s side and hid her head on her knees.

For a moment, nothing was heard but sobbing. Fortunately, children do not have time to sink too deeply into sorrow. Madame Brodard was the first to recover. She stood up again, lifted her daughter, took her into her arms, pressing her tightly against her heart, and said, covering her with kisses and tears:

“Console yourself, my child, be calm, let no one know your misfortune. Perhaps it is not irreparable. I will take the little ones to school as I go to the tannery. In the meantime lie down, rest; when I return you will tell me everything, and together we will decide what must be done. Do not worry about Auguste’s breakfast, I will bring it ready cooked.”

Angèle promised to do everything she had just been told, everything they wished to know. Indeed, she went to lie down. The mother was able to return quietly to her work.

Still trembling, the courageous woman went over to the table where her daughter had been ironing when she arrived, gave a final press to the aprons, and put them on the little girls. She looked around, found a basket, searched inside it, and saw that there was bread, apples, and two pieces of peeled cheese. It was the children’s lunch, which Angèle had carefully prepared with a mother’s care.

Then Madame Brodard moistened her eyes with fresh water, called the two little ones, and took them to school on her way to the tannery. Before leaving, Louise and Sophie ran to their sister, kissed her eyes, as if to hold back the tears that flowed from them.

Angèle held them a long time in her arms. She could not detach her lips from their faces.

At the moment Madame Brodard crossed the threshold, the young girl, suddenly finding new strength, rushed toward her mother, hands clasped, crying:

“Embrace me once more, embrace me! Forgive me!”

“But don’t upset yourself like this,” said the mother softly, stroking her with a look from her good eyes, all drowned in tears; “you know well that before everything, I am your mother. Trust me. When we are alone, we will talk. If you are guilty, I forgive you already; if you are not, oh then, my child, I will love you even more, if that is possible.”

She left, not without wiping once more the tears from Angèle’s lips. Left alone, the young girl ran to the window, opened it, and leaned out to see her mother and sisters.

Madame Brodard and her children were already forming a vague group in the fog. As they grew more distant, it seemed to Angèle that she saw only their shadows, like ghosts.

“Farewell, Mama! Farewell!” cried the poor girl when they disappeared at the corner of Rue Croulebarbe. “Farewell, Sophie! Farewell, my little Louise! It is over, I will see you no more!”

She had just taken a grave decision.

All trembling, Angèle let herself drop onto a chair, her eyes drowned in tears. She did not think to close the window, through which an icy fog entered that pierced her to the bone, though she did not feel it. In her poor, overwhelmed mind something had broken: beyond this point she saw nothing, felt nothing. It was only a matter of leaving or staying.

If she left — and she was determined — where would she go? If she stayed, what new miseries might fall upon her? Indeed, what seemed so simple, a terrible misfortune, might fall upon those she loved so dearly. No one must find her again at home. She could not answer the questions her mother would ask. No, what would become of her, alone in this vast world full of wickedness?

And, in the wisdom of her fifteen years, but with that maturity that unhappiness gives, little Angèle searched, through a thousand heartbreaks, through all the darkness of her conscience, all the difficulties of her situation, for what she ought to do.

If she left, she might die of misery. And… she would not be alone… Well then, what did it matter? Was it not better that it be she who disappeared? “If I stay,” the young girl told herself, “who knows if the pleas of my mother will not tear the secret of my shame? Come, courage, it must be!”

Angèle stood up, took from a drawer a school notebook, tore out a page, and began to write the following letter:

“Dear Mama,

“I do not know if I am guilty for leaving you, but I believed I was doing well in freeing you from me.

“You have guessed what I am, and I nearly died of it; yet instead of beating me, as another mother might have done, it is you who consoles me! Oh Mama! Mama! There is no one under the sky as good as you.

“My soul is torn at causing you still more sorrow; at the thought of leaving you all, it feels as if my heart is bleeding; but it must be.

“One day, Mama, one day, when you know everything, you will see that I did the right thing — at least I believe so, for I have no one to advise me; only in order to decide, I remembered the words of my father, when we saw him, Auguste and I, in his prison, remember, Mama? We were with you at Satory. He said to us, placing his hand upon our heads:

In life, once one knows one’s duty, one must do it; the rest is nothing. Remember, my children, even death must not frighten us when duty is at stake.

“We were too young then to understand, but since that time, by thinking about it, I have ended by knowing what it meant.

“So I act according to what I feel, according to what I believe to be right, thinking to do well. If I am mistaken, forgive me. I beg you, Mama, do not search for the man who wronged me, it would be one more misfortune; we have enough already. But above all, may my father never know anything of this. Ah, the poor man, he would be too unhappy! If he returns, you will tell him that I am dead! The little ones will comfort him, he will think I never ceased to be innocent.

“Farewell, Auguste, farewell my good brother, watch over our sisters, may they stay at school as long as possible. It would be excellent if, one day, they escape the kind of situations that have brought ruin to our home.

“I embrace you all from the bottom of my heart; I shall never cease to love you more than I love myself.

“Your daughter, your sister who is so grieved to leave you,

“Angèle Brodard”

Angèle folded the letter, still damp with the tears she had shed upon it, wrote the address as though she were going to take it to the post, and placed it in plain view on the table.

Then she took from one of the beds in the room a small bundle, opened it, and spread out the contents. It was baby linen, made of pieces and scraps. There was not much, but it was at least what was indispensable for a newborn.

Angèle checked to see if anything was missing, packed again the small bundle into which she had slipped two old chemises of hers, a few handkerchiefs, a threadbare shawl, a pair of stockings — all this clean — and set it beside the letter. She swept the room a little, dusted it, looked over an old pair of her mother’s wooden clogs, put them back in order, and washed her hands. After making sure nothing remained undone, she wrapped herself again in her tartan shawl, took up the bundle, and sat down, as if to gather herself, before leaving perhaps forever the shelter where her short life had been spent.

Angèle, as we can see, had a prudent and orderly nature, a true little housekeeper in the making. In another environment, she would have become one of those model women who are the pride of the petite bourgeoisie. In circumstances favourable to her development, her beauty, the qualities of her heart and spirit, her good sense, could have made her one of those harmonious beings in whom all faculties are in accord, whose bodily form seems a reflection of the soul.

We shall now see where modern fatality, that is to say misery, led this child of the people, whom nature had marked out to become a type of perfection.

II
THE CHILD OF THE PAVEMENT

It is night. A humid and cold October night. In the shadow of the outer boulevard, the lanterns of the Elysée-Montmartre swing in the wind and cast uncertain light upon a group of women talking at the end of the pavement.

There are three of them: one, already aged by the life she leads, is dressed in a light-blue dress whose faded tint gives yellowish tones to her made-up face. Then there is the great Olympe, with her velvety eyes, painted underneath with a bistre shade, her hollow cheeks, her thin nose, her prominent cheekbones, and her large gracious mouth from which several teeth are missing.

She is the queen of light dances. With her tiny foot, she has dazzled an entire generation of cheap dance-hall frequenters. She is with Amélie, a little maid-of-all-work who has just left her position and placed herself under the protection of Monsieur Nicolas, an artist who, while waiting for better days, earns his living… with crowd control barriers.

Monsieur Nicolas is also somewhat of a journalist; he writes, or so he claims, in very respectable and virtuous papers, which obliges him to go to mass on Sundays and to follow the sermons of fashionable preachers. In reality, Monsieur Nicolas belongs to the police… This individual fears all the less being recognised because his secret talents are exercised in the shadow of altars.

He casts his eyes on Amélie, a brunette whose cheeks still bear the apple-red tan of the village; she is clever, that little peasant girl; she has understood half of his plans and ambitions. The two of them already form a fine pair and will inevitably render services on the Rue de Jérusalem (The Paris Police Headquarters) that will be returned to them one day. The couple will go its way; meanwhile, they walk the pavement.

Olympe and Amélie had been chatting together… Now they are listening to little Angèle, who is the whole topic of their conversation.

Olympe is explaining to her friend that this child is not as small as she looks. She is actually the eldest of Madame Brodard’s daughters, a very brave woman who has struggled bitterly to earn her poor living ever since her husband was sent to the penal colonies, because they had seen him, wearing the cap of a Communard, salute a pile of corpses that, on 26 May 1871, was dragged from the Lobau barracks, leaving trails of blood on the cobblestones.

Olympe had continued to live on the same landing as Madame Brodard. They had been friends back when the seamstress worked honestly in leather and was dying of hunger. How had this Olympe found little Angèle that evening at a public dance from which she had dragged her, at that hour, straight to her mother’s home?

“But come here under the gaslight, so that I can see you better. Come, speak,” said the tall girl.

“Oh! If you only knew, Miss Olympe!” said the little one, hiding her face in her hands, “if only you knew…”

“Well then, what is it? Is there something I can do? Is your mother ill? Has one of your little sisters died? Has Auguste lost his position with honest Monsieur Rousseurand?”

She emphasised the word “honest” with an irony that altered her expression. And since the girl still did not answer, she continued impatiently:

“But speak, speak then!”

“No,” said Angèle, drawing her little shawl around herself again, disturbed by the movement she had just made, “no, no, everyone is well; but it is… oh! wait… wait… I am dying!” And suddenly she began crying out, collapsing onto the pavement.

Amélie, trying to lift her, bent down and took the girl in her arms, but Angèle struggled.

“She is giving birth,” exclaimed the little maid, who seemed experienced in such matters.

Olympe rushed toward the unfortunate child; Amélie screamed for help; passers-by stopped. It became a real crowd, which attracted the city guards.

Angèle writhed in the last convulsions of childbirth, her cries mingling with the storm of orchestral notes sweeping dancers along in a wild gallop.

For a moment, the orchestra fell silent. They were looking for Olympe and Amélie. They were known for doing danses de caractère that could make municipal guards blush (if municipal guards could blush).

“Well then, little cats,” shouted Nicolas from the threshold of the Elysée, “what are you doing?”

The gathering drew him in; he pushed through the crowd and saw the three women huddled together on the pavement.

A hoarse cry, strident like a saw that in its back-and-forth meets a nail — a cry of a beast — rose above the noise of the brass instruments beginning to jingle again.

Little Angèle had just added another link to the chain of misery: she had brought a daughter into the world!

Stretched out at the threshold of the Elysée, inert and as if dead, Angèle heard nothing more. The infant wailed.

However low a woman may fall, pity always remains in her heart. It is one of the good sentiments that survive amid all forms of degradation.

“She must be stupid,” said Amélie, trying to warm in her own hands the freezing hands of the woman who had just given birth, “I almost gave her a slap, for she annoyed me with her crying!”

The orange sellers, street vendors, and small factory boys from the barrier-districts were shouting that one must not leave the poor woman lying there.

Olympe crouched down, held the infant, and covered it with the folds of her dress.

People grew gentle; a circle formed around the suffering girl; dancers and dance girls exclaimed; city guards went in search of a stretcher.

Some medical students offered their services, and the operation of delivering the mother was carried out by the light of the gas lamps.

The woman who had just given birth was no longer conscious of herself. A peace officer finally arrived. He had Angèle and her child transported to La Bourbe hospital.

Olympe and Amélie went to visit the young mother and wanted to be the godmothers of the child, whom they baptised Elisa.

“She belongs to us,” said the poor women; “if Angèle were to die, we would adopt her.”

III

RETURN TO THE HOME

Angèle did not die; like the others, she had to leave after nine days, although she was still very ill. That is the rule; they had not prepared anything for Angèle — she had to accept it, that was all. If any harm came of it, the administration was not concerned. Besides, all had been done properly: the mother had been informed that morning of the time her daughter would be discharged from La Bourbe.

Madame Brodard, impatient to see her child again, was in front of the hospice door long before the appointed hour. The weather had grown milder; it was one of those beautiful autumn days, like St. Martin’s summer, which lights up the pale sky to warm the poor and cheer a little the consumptives who take the air. Boulevard de Port-Royal, with its long rows of bare trees stretched endlessly along grey ribbons of asphalt, was not unpleasant to look at.

It was lunchtime; workers were coming and going, some chatting and laughing, others serious and pensive. Among them were tanners. The sight stirred the poor mother. She thought of her husband. She remembered the time when, like all the women of her station, she had had a good man, courageous, skilled in his trade, wearing himself out at work to give his family everything they needed.

Those were the days when children were still small and cost little, when one could save a few coins and keep some hope alive. Those were the days when one was not alone, when one was respected in the neighbourhood. That was when no one dared look down on the Brodards… And now…

Noon struck. The mother felt her heart beating violently. She was going to see her Angèle again. A man came to sit on the bench across from La Bourbe. That distressed Madame Brodard horribly. “He will be witness to everything, truly!”

The heavy door opened, and a staggering Angèle appeared. She looked so pale that she seemed like a shadow in the doorway. Her mother rushed to her, took her in her arms, pressing her tightly, covering her thin cheeks with kisses and weeping like a Magdalene.

Angèle, knowing her mother was waiting and fearing reproaches, whispered: “Oh God! if only that were what it was — having such a mother!”

Madame Brodard supported her daughter as far as the omnibus that was to take them back to the Gobelins district.

In the carriage, Angèle, hidden under a shawl her mother had brought hid as much as she could. The open air, the broad daylight of the street, made her shame burn even more. Madame Brodard held the child on her knees; she kissed her several times, giving in turn to the poor little girl the baptism of tears she herself had received so many times from her own mother.

Madame Brodard told herself she was now a grandmother, a grandmother at thirty-five. And, considering the circumstances, she did not feel too young for it. For truly, it is mainly the toil one endures, the sorrows one carries, the misery one drags behind oneself, that make one grow old.

These were her thoughts. Madeleine Brodard, as she waited, looked at her little girl, feeling indeed that she loved her in spite of everything. Poor child, she had come into the world through the wrong door. But whose fault was that?…

At Angèle’s arrival, little Louise and Sophie rushed toward her crying and clapping their hands:

“There she is! There she is!”

“It’s true, it’s true! She has brought us a sister! — Let us see! Let us see!”

“Where did you buy her?”

“How much did she cost you?”

The questions flowed endlessly amid cries and demonstrations of joy.

“Why did you stay away so long?”

They kissed Angèle, and both pushed each other aside, trying to get a better look at little Elisa.

The boy, his face contracted, watched the scene in silence. Angèle, who had just lain down on her mother’s bed, called softly: “Auguste! Auguste!” And she held out her wax-pale hands to him.

Auguste walked toward her slowly. He was a handsome sixteen-year-old boy, thin, nervous, with a thoughtful face, deep eyes. He was not the laughing lad who blows his mischievous spirit in firecrackers at bourgeois noses. Auguste was one of those premature children in whom misery ripens fruit before its time. Since the age of eight he had worked in Monsieur Rousseurand’s tannery.

There was man in him, and unhappy manhood already on the brow of that adolescent.

Auguste had had no childhood. He laboured without rest, all day; in the evening he went to school. On Sundays he worked at home with his mother and Angèle, when Angèle was there. When she had gone away, he did not know why — the poor boy cried until the tears left his eyes raw. It went so far that the foreman punished him one day for forgetting to close some taps on the basins, saying he would throw him out at the door. “It spoils the gloss of the skins.” The boss did not listen. But Auguste kept silent.

As for the boss! He struck him on the back, that wretched counter-master. Monsieur Rousseurand? But he was kind, he himself said so… Far from dismissing Auguste, he had increased his pay by five sous per day, and if that pitiful tragedy of Angèle had not struck him, the boy would now have been earning his three francs a day. Before long he would have been earning two, nothing more. For a man who spent his life dipping his fingers in vats of dyeing urine, was that not pretty, two sous an hour, one franc forty a day? Such was the opinion of Monsieur Rousseurand, and he made it known to her without softening his words toward the little fugitive.

“Are you angry with me? Do you hate me?” Angèle asked her brother. “Tell me, are you angry? Do you despise me?”

“I pity you.”

“Then you forgive me?”

“I forgive you.”

He said it as if he had been the father of the young girl. He continued:

“Yes, I forgive you — on the condition that you tell me everything.”

“What, everything?”

“Eh but! how wretched he must be…”

Angèle shivered. She looked at her brother with a beseeching expression, with such terror that he felt shaken to the marrow.

“No! no!” she said, “you must not know… That would be another thing altogether if you knew… Ah! we have been so unhappy, ever since Father has been there! But if someone could suspect… No! no! impossible; I will never say anything. No. Never! Never!”

She wept so much that the bed was soaked.

“But leave her alone,” said the mother, “you know how stubborn she is; it is because I wanted to force her to open her heart that she ran away. She will say nothing, and maybe it is better that way. It is enough that you take care of your own matters in your turn.”

Auguste did not answer. He thought: “One day or another, I will find out… and I will kill the man if he refuses to make amends. I am the father here, and Father from over there will be content if he sees that I act as he would have acted.”

The next day and following days, Auguste returned to the charge. Angèle remained impenetrable. She kept her secret.

The little one grew and thrived wonderfully. Mother and child became a heavy burden for the poor household, but no one complained — quite the opposite.

“Things will be better later,” said the mother. “Monsieur Rousseurand, my God! what a good man he is!” Monsieur Rousseurand had been told about Angèle; he was considering taking her back at 20 centimes an hour. True! She was lucky to deserve it. “Little Lisa would look after her,” said the mother. “She would become a tanner’s master. He thought of everything, that father of workers.”

Madame Brodard was very moved when speaking about him, so much so that when Angèle became angry with her mother, thinking that on that point she did not want to listen, Madame Brodard said: “No! no! she must have been cut into pieces for that, she will not return to the tannery.”

“She is lazy, Mother, she does not get up early! If she worked, we would make ends meet together; instead, we are deep in debt because she refuses to take work as before. In the past she was not like this. My God! my God! how she has changed!”

Angèle was a passive nature, apparently, but with firm edges. She endured reproaches, scoldings, insults; then, when she had had enough, she resolved to leave. But where? That she did not know. She no longer wanted to be a burden; she wanted Auguste to leave her in peace, with his tiresome curiosity. Oh my God! if he said nothing, he undoubtedly had his reasons. That boy was only a year older than she, and for that alone he acted like a man, tiring her endlessly.

THE SUSPICIONS

One morning, Auguste was summoned to the boss’s office. It was a room matching the rest of the factory: everything in it was foul, slimy, and repulsive to sight as well as smell.

Monsieur Rousseurand, tall, fat, and solid, had passed fifty. He had a somewhat gentle appearance, small shrewd eyes, drooping eyelids. His lips were thin, his forehead broad, his cheeks full and shiny. His nose was fleshy, the nose of a bon vivant. The lower part of his face, adorned with a thick grizzled beard, was massive and betrayed appetites of more than one kind.

Among his workers, Monsieur Rousseurand, formerly a labourer himself, wore a white smock, heavy wooden clogs, and a coarse canvas apron — in short, the full uniform of his trade.

That good Rousseurand, he was not at all proud, despite the millions he had managed to save from other people’s labour.

Monsieur Rousseurand was reading a letter written as follows:

Brest, 25 March 18…

“My dear boss,

“The day after tomorrow, I shall be in Paris. May I count on work? I know you have been very good to my wife and children, and I thank you for it. If you intend to take me back, you will see that you have not obliged an ungrateful man. Before embracing mine, I would like to bring them this joy: here I am, I have assured work, you will let nothing be lacking. Therefore, before going home, I shall stop by your place to receive your answer.

“Give my regards to the mistress for me.
“I embrace your little girl who is the same age as my Angèle; she must be quite grown by now.
“I salute you with all respect,
“Jacques Brodard.”

P.S. — Do not say anything to my wife, nor to my comrades, nor to anyone; it is a surprise I want to give them.”

Monsieur Rousseurand examined the calendar open on his desk, then the letter. It was a day late. He wrote at the bottom: To be refused, and slipped it into his pocket.

Then, turning toward Auguste, he said with a paternal air:

“Well then, my boy, how are things at home?”

“Just as usual… not too well. I still earn so little,” replied Auguste.

“And you have many mouths to feed.”

“That’s true.”

“The family has grown?”

Auguste said nothing. He twisted his cap in his hands. He felt uneasy.

Monsieur Rousseurand observed him.

“Is that all you had to tell me, boss?” the apprentice finally asked.

“One moment, you’re on time, but as far as I’m concerned, stay here. I wanted to tell you…”

“What?”

Monsieur Rousseurand seemed embarrassed.

“I wanted to tell you,” he continued, “that, having been your father’s comrade, I would have liked to do something for him; but business is bad, work isn’t going well and…”

Auguste interrupted him:

“Dear boss,” he said, with one of those bursts of feeling so easily stirred in good natures, “ah, dear boss, you’ve already done plenty for us.”

Monsieur Rousseurand looked the apprentice straight in the eyes, as if he had not been entirely sure of Auguste’s sincerity. But the boy’s face expressed so much gratitude that the master tanner felt genuinely touched.

“You are a good lad,” he said. “Too bad not all the members of your family resemble you.”

“What do you mean?” asked Auguste, trembling in his voice.

“I mean nothing except that Angèle must get back to work. Things aren’t going well for me, and I told her so. Whatever happens, there will always be work for her here. You have one more burden on you, I know that.”

Auguste’s face turned crimson. This insistence on recalling Angèle’s shame cut into the young boy.

“Come now,” said the boss kindly, “no need to blush. It isn’t your fault if she went astray. All you can do is keep her from starting again, and for that, there is nothing like work.”

Auguste agreed. Work meant redemption; work meant protection.

“You’re right! She must be put back to work. I’ll go fetch her. I’ll bring her to you right away.”

A flash passed through Monsieur Rousseurand’s eyes. A rush of blood rose to his face.

“Goodness, how hot it is in here,” he said. “That steam engine fills the whole factory with fumes.”

As he was wiping his forehead, Auguste looked around in surprise. There was not the slightest trace of steam. It was the month of March, and the air was still very cold.

Auguste could not help finding it strange. When the boss lowered the handkerchief with which he seemed to have tried to hide his expression from the apprentice, and when he saw the two eyes of the young boy fixed intently on his own, he appeared very irritated. This sort of inspection — which was nothing more than surprise — suddenly wiped away Monsieur Rousseurand’s good humour.

“‘In fact,’ he said gruffly, ‘whether she comes or not, it is all the same to me, you understand? And I am quite capable of looking after my workers without needing to concern myself with that little runaway. But really! one has too much heart, and that is not good in our trade.’”

And as Auguste, increasingly astonished, continued to stare at Monsieur Rousseurand, the latter asked with a voice that had nothing paternal about it:

“Well then! what are you doing here? Do you think I have nothing better to do than concern myself with a little runaway whom you have all guarded so poorly?”

Madame Brodard was at the washhouse, the little sisters were at school, and Angèle alone at home was rocking Liza on her knees when Auguste returned from the tannery. The beautiful blond hair of the young mother streamed over her shoulders and coiled along her bodice. She was combing herself when the little one grew thirsty and began to cry.

She looked adorable with her long eyelashes lowered over the child, her lips half-opened with a sweet smile, her small Greek nose, her broad dreamy forehead, the perfect oval of her Raphael-like face. In her rosy whiteness, her complexion had an extraordinary glow. With her small naked child, her knees raised to give her daughter the breast, she resembled the very type of motherhood dreamed of by painters and sculptors.

Auguste remained struck by Angèle’s beauty, by her candid air. Once again, she filled his heart as she had when they were very young and he loved her so dearly. No! no! this charming creature was not what people believed, of course. There was doom in her misfortune. And Auguste grew indignant thinking that so many despised her. As for Monsieur Rousseurand, he spoke of her shamelessly…

Auguste would have given one of his hands so that what existed had never happened. But facts are inexorable. And anger swelled in the apprentice’s chest. Oh! if he had held the man who had dishonoured Angèle… he would have been capable of strangling him alive, punishing him even if he was the boss!… the boss, a sort of Hercules.

This thought made a blush rise to Auguste’s face. He felt ashamed for having thought so. A man who worshipped work and honoured a beautiful woman… Come now, it was completely foolish, and wicked to suspect him. And yet he had given that strange look all the same, the boss, when he had hoped she would return. And then this current repulsion Angèle felt for the man… Come now, it was becoming clear! And yet there was no escaping it — the boss’s face had looked rather odd.

“But what is it?” asked Angèle. “What are you looking at me like that for, rolling your eyes?”

Auguste was about to defend her; he was about to burst out:

“Listen,” he said, “I am coming from Monsieur Rousseurand; he wants to see you.”

“Ah!”

“He is a good man, an old friend of Father’s.”

“An old friend of Father’s? He’s the one who told you that? An old friend of Father’s, that scoundrel?”

“You are unjust, Angèle; the boss may dislike priests a little, that’s true, but deep down he is a good man, and he wants to help us.”

Angèle gave a smile that spoke volumes.

Auguste continued:

“He wants you to come back, and you must return. You see well that with five francs a day, we cannot live with seven people. There are seven of us now; think about it. The boss said that for you he would make sacrifices.”

Angèle remained silent. She bent over little Lize and began kissing her feverishly.

“You’re not answering?” asked Auguste.

“I’ve already answered Mama. I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Monsieur Rousseurand is the kindest of men. What do you have against him?”

“Nothing!”

“Then why?”

“The smell of the tannery makes me sick.”

“What? But we were born in the tannery. Angèle, my little sister, you’re not telling the real reason.”

“Maybe. Leave me alone. You don’t need to act clever. You know that once I’ve made up my mind, when I say no, it’s no.”

“You should have said so, then…”

Struck by this sharp retort, Angèle turned very pale. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears that soon slipped through her long dark-gold lashes and streamed down her cheeks.

“Forgive me! oh forgive me!” cried Auguste, ready to cry himself. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m a brute.”

“No,” said Angèle, “you don’t know anything, but you do your duty. As for me, I’m doing mine by refusing to… to leave my little one to go work outside.”

“So it isn’t because of Monsieur Rousseurand?”

“What an idea!”

“You consider him an honest man or a scoundrel?”

“Oh! why are we even worrying about him?” asked Angèle, her trembling lips faltering. “Why?…”

She did not finish. Auguste was already in the next room, stirring something that sounded like scrap metal.

The mother, carrying a bundle of wet laundry on her shoulder, was coming in at that moment. She saw her son slip under his blouse something long he had taken from his father’s tools. She thought it was simply a file that some comrade had slipped to him without paying attention. Auguste’s feet were wet. His wooden clogs drank water like sponges. He threw them aside and tried on an old pair of leather shoes that had belonged to his father. They fit almost perfectly: Auguste felt like a man. He went out.

Madame Brodard went up to the attic to hang the washing and spent two hours there finding something to make a little petticoat for Liza.

“What an unlucky child! She’s growing like a cabbage. She’s so pink, so white…”

The little one already knew her grandmother; she smiled at her with a knowing little air… She had to be loved, fed, and one had to wear oneself out for her. Ah! misery! Only the rosary grain was missing.

When she came back downstairs, Madame Brodard was very surprised not to see Angèle and the baby. Louise and Sophie had put the soup on the fire. Auguste was not there either, and the hour was late. The mother remembered that her son had not helped her carry down the washing. This detail troubled her.

She went out to look for her children.

On the stairs she met the concierge, who told her that Angèle had gone by crying, with a bundle and her little girl in her arms. She had seen Auguste too. “He looked terribly upset. He was as pale as a turnip. You’d think he had just done something bad!”

The most horrible forebodings shook the poor woman. A sharp internal pain seized her heart. Distraught, she plunged into the dark streets to search for her children.

THE MURDER

Auguste had gone back to the tannery, but he had not worked. He had wandered everywhere trying to find the boss.

The boss was at home, that is to say, in one of the splendid houses he had built for himself on the Boulevard de Port-Royal.

As for Monsieur Rousseurand — it was impossible to understand — this man owned an entire block of new houses; and there were still people who dared deny the power of thrift, when the tanner, who had begun without a penny, now owned a whole street.

People told incredible stories about the house he lived in with his family. If one were to believe the old watchman who sometimes went there on errands for the mistress, nothing but gold and velvet could be seen in Madame Rousseurand’s rooms.

The boss never received his workers at home. Auguste had to wait in front of the handsome garden grille, at the back of which one could see a charming Louis XV pavilion.

While Auguste, under hail and wind, was anxiously pacing the asphalt like an impatient young dog, the master tanner, wrapped in a pale-blue satin dressing gown, trimmed with pearl-grey silk, with crimson satin lining, his feet in warm silk slippers embroidered by his wife, was reclining in a large armchair. He was no longer the actor-boss posing before his workers in a foul-smelling workshop, wearing common clothes; he was now the capitalist luxuriating in all the refinements of wealth.

Monsieur Rousseurand listened with an air of mild amusement to the pleasant remarks being made by a beautiful young woman, sternly dressed in black. She was Mademoiselle de Méria, the governess of Valérie, little Rousseurand. A charming adolescent of Angèle’s age — as Brodard had mentioned in the letter addressed to his employer.

In the large fireplace of the drawing-room, a bright fire crackled — the kind that would have delighted Madame Rousseurand’s eyes. She too sat in an immense armchair, but she seemed as though dreaming; she vaguely followed the movement of the flames and appeared almost a stranger to the conversation unfolding before her.

Valérie sat across from her mother, on a footstool, tending the logs and amusing herself by making sparks fly with a pair of silver-handled tongs.

She was already quite pretty, this little Mlle Rousseurand, with her large dark eyes, her chestnut hair tinged with auburn, her brownish but fresh complexion like the roses of spring. And just as her father adored her, she possessed all ambitions. Nothing was too costly when it came to his daughter.

The room where these four people were gathered was vast, brightly lit by tall windows and luxuriously furnished. Several paintings by masters, glowing in golden frames, adorned the walls covered in red velvet. From the ceiling — a work of art painted in fresco by Stephane Baron — hung a gilded bronze chandelier lit with gas tapers. The thick high-quality carpets represented Indian landscapes matching the ceiling’s design. The windows were draped in Kashmir fabrics. The piano, furniture, consoles, and table were of carved wood inlaid with golden arabesques. It was modern luxury in all its refinement, in all the elegance of art applied to industry.

Large bouquets of fresh flowers bloomed in Sèvres vases, set upon gilded bronze jardinières, spreading their soft perfumes throughout the warm atmosphere of the salon. Several Venetian mirrors reflected and multiplied all the riches of this Eden.

It was clear someone had guided Monsieur and Madame Rousseurand in their choice of furnishings.

Suddenly, Valérie stopped poking the logs, and turning to her father, exclaimed:

“But you are too kind — surely not, how will we have our own carriage?”

“For you three, of course,” replied Monsieur Rousseurand, glancing at the governess, who lowered her eyes.

“No, no, you are too generous. A carriage with a large plumed coachman?”

“Yes.”

“With two black horses?”

“Black or grey, whichever you prefer.”

“Will the carriage be open?”

“Open or closed, depending on the weather.”

“And Mlle de Méria, Mama, and I will be able to go wherever we like — to the Bois de Boulogne, to Vincennes, to Clamart, everywhere?”

“Everywhere.”

“— I must kiss you.”

And the little girl threw herself into her father’s arms, who placed a chaste kiss on her forehead.

Madame Rousseurand had not moved, had not said a word.

“— What colour do you want your horses, Mama?” the child asked her.

“— What horses?” said the tanner’s wife, as if waking from a dream.

“— Why, Mama,” replied Valérie, “the horses Papa is buying for you, for me, and for Mlle de Méria.”

Madame Rousseurand gave a bitter smile:

“— Horses for me? I don’t need any,” she said. “But it’s possible that Mlle de Méria may need them — she is used to luxury.”

“— Is this a joke, Madam?” asked the governess with a tone both smooth and possibly ironic.

“— My God, how unpleasant this is!” interrupted the child. “You are never in agreement, Mademoiselle and you. So, dear Mama, tell us then — what colour do you want your horses?”

“— My horses?”

Madame Rousseurand stood up and declared firmly that there were plenty of omnibuses in Paris for her. She belonged to the people, she was proud of it, and she had no need of a carriage — especially one with her husband riding at its side like a sword.

The tanner shrugged his shoulders. The governess and he exchanged a glance. Monsieur Rousseurand caught that glance. His eyes widened, his mouth opened. But it was only a flash; his face returned to its usual placidness. He even smiled — the smile of one who has just acquired a painful certainty.

Madame Rousseurand, Agathe Monier, was the daughter of the former owner of the tannery that now belonged to her husband.

Monsieur Monier, an old-fashioned master — or rather one from a time to come — if the future of industry belonged to a man alone, then that man was certainly Monsieur Monier, a good man in every sense of the word, who had never sought exaggerated profits. He asked of his situation only honest comfort, giving up excess gains to those who earned them.

He had given his daughter a strong education, as much to make of her a good head clerk as to satisfy in her a need of her own nature, for he himself had never understood anything of that and had suffered from it his whole life.

By giving his daughter to the most intelligent and most advanced of his workers, Monsieur Monier had followed the suggestions of his conscience.

Étienne Rousseurand — handsome, young, robust — representing both physical strength and intelligence, could not fail to please Mlle Monier, a tender and sensitive woman who always needed affection and support. Marriage was meant to change her life.

Like her father, Agathe was goodness itself. Her spirit, open by education to the great currents of human thought, had allowed itself to be captivated by Étienne’s theories. In marrying him she believed she was marrying a reformer but she quickly realised she had married an ambitious hypocrite; she soon saw that she had married a dissembling schemer.

Then began, between the two spouses — who each despised the other — a silent, persistent struggle, a mute hell.

Husband and wife, following absolutely opposite lines of conduct, soon found themselves at the two extreme ends of morality. Monsieur Rousseurand sought only to increase, by every possible means, his already immense fortune. Madame Rousseurand saw in this fortune nothing but a sheer cliff: its expansion could only separate her increasingly from the man she had chosen to guide him toward good and to help him achieve it.

Monsieur Rousseurand felt well enough that between him and her there was something cold, resembling contempt, and he resented his wife for having held on to the principles by which he had first gained her confidence and won her love.

Monsieur Rousseurand, by that natural tendency in each of us not to imagine others differently built than ourselves, believed that his wife’s apparent disinterestedness, her simplicity, were a kind of calculated façade whose purpose he did not understand. For Agathe, despite her husband, had kept control of their accounts and managed them with meticulous precision. She could see everything, and he was obliged to tread carefully, for as they were married under the dotal regime, their holdings were joint property, so that a large part of what they owned belonged legally to Agathe. The land Monsieur Monier had bought at one franc a square metre was now worth twenty-five times as much. And there was enough of it to build a small town along the banks of the Bièvre.

Thus Monsieur and Madame Rousseurand formed the most ill-matched household possible. But tied together by the strongest of chains, the unbearable chain of marriage, they were forced to live together, for in the eyes of the law, they had no grounds for separation.

One thing alone brought them closer: interest in their daughter. But even here, though united in purpose, they differed essentially in means. For a long time, Monsieur Rousseurand had left his wife to raise Valérie alone, and Agathe — deceived as a wife, but not as a mother — had poured all her affections into her child. She had become passionately devoted to the education of this child. She had every right to expect the best results, when Monsieur Rousseurand had the idea to hire a governess: Mlle de Méria, a young lady of the fashionable world, who would soon, of course, exert a harmful influence on Valérie’s mind.

The conversation resumed.

“— So,” said little Valérie to her mother, “you don’t want Papa to buy us a carriage?”

“— No.”

“— Why not?”

“— Because I want,” said Madame Rousseurand, emphasising the word, “I want your father to honour the workers’ demands and grant them the wage increase they are asking for. We must sign the new rate; that will cost more than a carriage, but it will please them far more.”

Without giving her husband time to reply, Madame Rousseurand took her daughter by the hand and went out, to attend to some of the domestic tasks she had reserved for herself.

Left alone with the governess, Monsieur Rousseurand said to her:

“You see, dear Mademoiselle de Méria, my wife has no idea how to rise with our fortune. She is a sentimental bourgeois woman, a dreamer who understands nothing of the realities of life. Oh, if only I had been understood and supported…”

She looked at him in a singular manner.

“And if you had been supported?” she asked.

“I would be deputy by now; these times favour it… A woman…”

He stopped short, as if frightened by his own words, then, seeming to make a deliberate choice, he added timidly, emphasising each word:

“A woman of your intelligence, who would have walked beside me toward the same goal — that woman would have reached the highest rank.”

“That is possible.”

“Do not doubt it. The democratic state is, above all, the fusion of social elements. Revolutions make what was hidden rise to the surface…”

“The scum?…”

“No, the daring…”

“And it is your wife who prevents you from aspiring to the highest rank? Such a… timid woman!”

Monsieur Rousseurand blushed. He was understood — and surpassed — by Mlle de Méria.

When the servant came to announce dinner, the tanner was plunged into a troubled reverie, though not without charm.

Auguste was still waiting.

It was the month of March; the winter had been harsh. It was still very cold, a thawing cold that seeped to the bone. Auguste was pacing back and forth, pale and shivering, one hand under his blouse.

At three o’clock, Monsieur Rousseurand, dressed in fine city clothes, a cane in hand, well wrapped up, a heavy gold watch chain stretched across his waistcoat beneath a bundle of trinkets, his eye and cheek flushed from the excellent meal he had just eaten, suddenly found himself face to face with Auguste.

He seemed surprised to see, in the street, someone who ought to have been in his workshop. He asked brusquely:

“What are you doing here? Why are you loitering here?”

“I was waiting for you, sir,” said the apprentice.

“For me?”

“Yes, for you.”

“Well then, what is the meaning of this tone, this attitude?” demanded the tanner. “Could you not remove your cap when speaking to me?”

Saying this, Monsieur Rousseurand knocked Auguste’s cap off with the tip of his cane. The boy picked it up, jammed it back down over his eyes, and said in a firm voice:

“I have been waiting for you for several hours; I have something very important to ask you.”

“I have no time to listen to you.”

“— I must go.

— This is too much… such insistence! You are going to make me miss the opening of our employers’ assembly. Let me pass or I’ll…”

He made a threatening gesture. Auguste seized him by the arm.

“— Oh! You will hear me,” said he. “I don’t care about all the bosses — a bunch of rogues. This is about my sister.”

“— Your sister?”

“— Yes, my sister. Are you surprised that a boy like me should come to demand an account from you?”

“— Demand an account? Do you think I have anything to answer to people of your sort?

— Ah!

— Is it about that little street brat you dare speak to me about here?

— Indeed! I am bold, am I not? You care nothing about Angèle’s misery? Yet I have a few words to say to you about it.

— Come to my office tomorrow.”

Indignation was blazing in the boy’s eyes when the tanner stepped back as if to leave. He sensed something ridiculous and unpleasant brewing. Auguste held him back by the arm.

“— You will hear me,” he said. “You must — not tomorrow, but right now.”

“— Very well,” said the tanner, more uneasy than he wished to appear. “If you have something important to tell me right away, come to my garden.”

And pushing the apprentice, he went in with him through the small gate.

“— You are a hypocrite — a coward! You abused my sister!” cried Auguste.

“— What? What are you talking about?” said Rousseurand, suddenly flushing dark red. “What are you saying, miserable brat? Do you want to speak out loud like that?”

“— I say that you are a scoundrel, and you will give me satisfaction, unless you want me to treat you like a dog!”

Monsieur Rousseurand had not expected this conclusion; one did not take him by surprise like that. At first he looked troubled, but a glance cast at the lad reassured him.

What? This ragamuffin, this barefoot beggar, this bit of earth, dared to attack him — a settled, respected man, considered important enough that deputies, senators paid him visits; a man who, if he wished, could present himself in the provinces and be elected to the Chamber; a man decorated by the emperor for exceptional service? No, this was too much.

“— Listen,” he said to Auguste, “you are the son of a comrade, I do not want to ruin you; I will not have you arrested for attempted blackmail. But neither you nor your family will ever receive a cent more from the Rousseurand household; and do not begin again, or I will call a city sergeant.”

He seemed to hesitate. He spoke half to himself:

“— No! no! I am too good, and people take advantage of me. This will teach me.”

“— So you deny it?” asked Angèle’s brother.

“— Would you prefer that I confess and offer you money to keep you quiet, to leave me in peace? In fact, if you are in a hurry,” he added, as though eager to finish, “let’s settle this. Come now, how much for me to be rid of you and your whole lot forever? Well? Quickly: how much?”

The tanner searched his wallet, took out a paper, and held it toward Auguste.

It was a banknote.

The little Brodard took the note, tore it, and threw the pieces in Rousseurand’s face. Instinctively, the latter made a movement to pick them up. He did not have time.

As quick as lightning, the apprentice unbuttoned the lowest button of his waistcoat where he had hidden a small tool under his blouse, and, springing upon his employer, he struck him on the head with such a violent blow that the giant fell like an ox being slaughtered. He let out a terrible cry. Blood blinded him.

Auguste fled.

⸻

A GIRL’S ROOM

Angèle knew life only by one or two of its faces. She ignored the rest. But at the sisters’ school, she had been taught that Providence watches over people of good will. She believed in that housemaid of the good Lord.

Strengthened by her maternal love and her desire to be virtuous, Angèle told herself that she would surely find a way to live honestly and to raise her daughter without anyone’s help. She had her reasons for leaving her mother’s house. She would leave — that was all. If it had to be, it was her duty, and the sooner the better; later she would have time to unravel all life’s mysteries.

So, one day, after a thousand heartaches, she ran away with Lisette in her arms. She headed toward Montmartre.

When she had asked her friends Olympe and Amélie what they did for a living, the bold girls had answered that they were employed chiefly at the pale dances of the Elysée.

Angèle saw nothing unnatural in that. This little girl-mother did not yet know much of anything. Until her accident, she had lived amid work and privations that turned in the same circle of misery, like a blind dog chasing its tail.

Angèle searched a long time before finding Olympe and Amélie. The concierge did not know where they lived; to see them, she had to wait for the hour of the dance. Finally they arrived. Angèle told them her sorrow, at least in part. For in the depth of her soul, there was a closed-off corner.

The two advisers were unanimous:

“— Leave it to us; we will find you a furnished room.”

“— But,” said Olympe, thinking of a formality, “they won’t want to rent her one: she isn’t on the books.”

“— Oh well! they’ll register her, it’s simple.”

“— But she isn’t of age.”

“— So that’s it! Is the police going to demand your birth certificate right now?”

“A record? But that’s easy — just say good morning to Nicolas. He will arrange everything for you, and perhaps even get you into the fauteuil if that suits you, that child. It’s understood, isn’t it? You will join the sacred battalion and have your name written in the big register of Monsieur the prefect.”

“— What is this ‘register’?” asked Angèle.

Amélie was about to answer, but Olympe cut her off and explained everything minutely, without disguising anything, using words that made the little mother blush. She explained at length the obligations of being on the register. One was forced to present oneself every fortnight for a medical examination; for the slightest thing, one was sent to Saint-Lazare. The vice squad agents were the worst of the lot — those filthy swine to whom one had to grease the palm, unless one wanted very harsh treatment from them. And then there was the licence: one had to pay the government even more than any other profession. And yet there were seasons when business went badly.

Finally, there was this and that, and as a finishing touch, the vile diseases that took you to l’Oursine for months and months, during which bits of you were cut away, and you burned like butcher’s meat.

One could be arrested without knowing why, held in prison without having done anything wrong.

“That’s what it is,” finished the tall girl. “Put yourself on the register, if you want.”

Angèle rebelled:

“— Oh no! no! no!” Pressing little Liza tightly against her breast, she looked, with her large astonished eyes, at the flame of the gas lamps dancing in the thick shadow of the boulevard. “Oh! no, no! I don’t want that. I want to be honest!”

“— Then,” replied Amélie coldly, “you don’t need us any more, my girl. If you are applying for the rose, that’s not my affair.”

“— Everyone has her own idea,” said Olympe. “She’s young… full of illusions. She’ll come back. I wouldn’t give her three weeks to convince herself that a woman with a baby can’t live from her work in Paris. No! no! Haven’t we all gone through that ourselves? Ah! misfortune — is that not our first dream of virtue!…”

“— I was always sure she thought it was a joke,” said Amélie. Olympe seemed not to hear; she added, closing her eyes and pressing her brow, grown thin, as if she were seeing inward the images of what she was about to say:

“— So? Isn’t it true? You would like to find work that allows you to earn enough to feed yourself and the little one, to pay for a tiny garret room under the rooftops, to buy a few passable rags, from the stalls of the Temple market! Well? Isn’t that it?”

Angèle nodded yes.

Olympe burst out laughing in pity:

“— You’re not too disgusted, in the end.”

Angèle did not understand this. Everything annoyed her. She couldn’t see why she had hesitations, a tangle of ideas that only made her unhappier. She almost wished she had fallen under the feet of some brat — she wouldn’t name him, fearing she would wound Angèle by mentioning Nicolas, for example; this explains why a woman ends up styling herself…

Angèle, shivering under the night’s wind, but protected by her fluttering thin Indian-print dress, listened as if in a dream to all the desperate things her companions were telling her.

Vaguely, the poor girl saw well enough that difficulties lay ahead — but her maternal feeling strengthened her hope of doing right. It was impossible not to succeed when one had good intentions. She told Olympe this, who merely wished her good luck, while Amélie gave her the address of a place where she would become reasonable and practical — without jokes.

With that, they returned to the dance hall.

Angèle was about to leave when Olympe, who had remained thoughtful, suddenly had an idea. Deep down, she was good; the childish foolishness of her youth and the lot of the little mother touched her. Her remorse brought back old memories… alas! it had been so long — what a fool she had been in the days when she herself had had similar virtuous fantasies. She had truly succeeded only once! And besides, there was a world of difference between the past and the present, and perhaps things had changed! For in the respectable world, in the working world, she knew very little.

“— Listen,” Olympe said to Angèle, “I understand well that if your parents are in trouble, if they scold you, you cannot stay a burden on them. You want to try to live by working — it is foolishness, but that does not matter; go ahead and see for yourself. Here is my key, and here is my address: you can stay in my room for fifteen days. I will not put my feet there anyway. I must go to my little house in the country. Tomorrow, at the examination, I’ll get a free ticket for the Oursine department.”

Angèle shuddered. The other continued calmly, as though discussing something trivial:

“— You will put the white sheets on the bed. There are a couple of blankets in the chest of drawers. They are a little torn, but you will mend them. When one wants to be virtuous, one cannot start without learning to sew. Ha! ha! ha!”

“— Are you ill?” asked Angèle, quite concerned, for the mention of Oursine had greatly affected her — even before she knew what it was, Olympe had warned her how dreadful that establishment was.

“— Ill? With that big laugh? Not at all! On the contrary, I am touched by grace; I feel the need for a retreat, and my supervisor recommends it.”

The young mother had no place of her own to retreat to. Olympe added:

“— There is a nursery close by; you can take the little one there; it costs four or six sous a day. Here, take these five francs to get started.”

And how Angèle hesitated!

“— Take them! take them,” said Olympe. “I will be lodged, fed, laundered, washed, at the State’s expense! Take them, without scruples, and leave me a little to the care of Providence; you see I know what I am doing — as if I had nothing to do with life, it will bring me luck. Goodbye, here’s the polka of the Veaux! what a racket. I’m off! I kiss the little one, poor darling! You understand why!”

Angèle walked toward the rue des Poissonniers, where Olympe’s room was located. She had therefore a refuge where she could wait a few days; in her still childlike mind, she already saw herself mistress of a small household, playing in the evening, after her day’s work, with the dear little creature she carried, tired, in her arms. And she hurried her steps. Time would pass quickly if she were at home. At her age and in her situation, fifteen days is an eternity.

When she left her mother’s house, from which she no longer hoped to return, the poor girl had felt a faintness deep within her heart, as she said goodbye to those sad rooms in which her short life had flowed by. She was leaving behind so many dear beings.

Oh, how she had cried — poor Angèle — thinking that the little ones would not find Lisette upon their return. She cherished those little girls, those mischievous ones, with whom so many times she had played mother.

Now, she was a mother for real. Yes! she had already shed tears about that.

Thinking of all these things, Angèle walked on through the night, through the streets along the boulevard. The buildings seemed enormous in the obscurity barely lit by the few gas lamps.

She was very tired. She was hungry, for the little one had only nursed in the afternoon; Angèle had eaten nothing since then.

Finally, unable to go on, she reached Olympe’s lodging. It was located on the fourth floor of a small dilapidated house, with damp, greenish walls, oozing humidity, exhaling odours of vice that caught at the throat.

Angèle kept insisting inwardly that the poor but honest woman from the Mouffetard district lived there. She did not dare enter the concierge’s lodge, where the old porter slept in a large armchair. The light from a small oil lamp lit her yellow face, her hooked nose. From her open mouth protruded two or three long black teeth. A true figure of a witch, enough to freeze poor Angèle’s blood.

Angèle stood there, hesitant to wake the old crone. She knew well that Olympe’s room was on the top floor, but the stairway was like an oven. One risked breaking one’s neck.

A tenant fortunately came by to fetch his key from the lodge. Angèle slipped in behind him.

“— What do you want?” asked the old woman; “this is not a wet-nurse’s office. We do not lodge single women at night. Be off!”

Angèle explained that she came from her friend, Mlle Olympe, and that she had the key; that she would be grateful to the good lady if she could have a candle to light herself up the stairs. She was afraid of falling with the child, which would make noise and wake the tenants. She was an honest woman. She had come to work.

The old woman gave her a wicked smile. She grudgingly handed over the candle, muttering how sick she was of tricks like this — that big chatterbox Olympe did nothing but invent them, and that after picking up all the peeled bones of the neighbourhood dogs, she filled her room with rag-pickers at that hour; but soon old Grichon would put things in order. The room was still paid for fifteen days. Very well, after that she would trade her old shoes for whatever she could get, that big gossiping woman, with her trail of dogs, jealous cats, and beggars.

Angèle climbed painfully up to her attic. She recoiled in horror at the sight of the hovel she would have to inhabit. It was a large room lined with yellow paper torn in places. The furniture was new, but half-broken; everything was heaped with skirts, shirts, dirty stockings. On the table lay the remains of a meal, on a cloth stained with wine and coffee; combs, a boot, soap, a toothbrush in a chipped cup. It was disorder, filth, every form of repulsive ugliness.

Poor Angèle could hardly believe her eyes.

She had all the trouble in the world finding a place on an armchair to set the baby down.

She lit the fireplace, a candle that smoked out of the neck of an empty bottle, and set about searching for the sheets that Olympe had told her about. She found them in a drawer, mixed with shoes, ribbons, jars of pomade, boxes of makeup, piles of rags. There were holes in the sheets — real rags — but Angèle put them on the bed anyway; she preferred the holes to the stains.

To wrap Lisette, the young girl put her in the little bundle she had carried: diapers mended but still white, exhaling that smell of washed linen which moved her deeply. It was her mother’s, that poor mother who washed the diapers, who was so good — my God! So very good! And as she swaddled the little one, Angèle burst into tears, remembering all those she had abandoned.

When the baby fell asleep in Olympe’s bed, Angèle dropped onto an armchair and began to think.

She wondered what she was doing there, so far from all she loved. What was she doing in that suspicious place? What had she done to be forced to leave her mother’s home? Was it her fault that Monsieur Rousseurand, using the pretext of giving news of her father, had dragged her into an ambush? No, doubtless it was not her fault. Could she have known?… Oh! women of the people understand these things well enough; they would never let their daughters remain ignorant. What good is innocence if one cannot keep it?… Oh! if only she could have acted differently with Liza. My God! my God! if only she could have warned her against evil… But how could she warn her? Liza would not have believed her. Her father — what a monster — if the girl had spoken, if she had denounced the infamous man whose memory made her tremble, no one would have believed her. And he, like a filthy pig, would not have been ashamed to take her work away, the bread the family depended on.

“It’s dreadful,” thought Angèle, as two streams of tears ran down her cheeks. “Dreadful — but what can I do?” She was used to every sort of injustice. She did not rebel. She did not even know that Monsieur Rousseurand had committed a crime against her and that, because of this, he ought to have gone to the galleys. People of that importance seemed above all punishment. Were there laws only for the unfortunate? What had her father done, that they sent him six thousand leagues from France?… He had saluted corpses and worn a certain kepi. For that, four children and a woman had been plunged into the deepest misery, the blackest abandonment. If that was the justice of men, then truly it was proper justice. She had done well to keep the secret of her shame.

So thought Angèle, while the March wind blew outside, chasing above the rooftops the gray clouds crossing the moon. Snowmelt dripped from the gutters onto the pavement with the noise of a fountain, which Angèle listened to without meaning to.

She was so tired that she had not the strength to get into bed. Finally, seeing the light was about to go out, she was seized with fear and began to undress.

She had no more than her shoes left to remove when she heard footsteps. Anxious, she craned her neck to listen. She thought perhaps it was Auguste coming to fetch her. But no, it was not him. Someone was walking heavily. They stopped at her door… Good God! a key was turning in the lock! Angèle felt she was going to die.

The door opened. A man entered.

VII

A FANTASTIC HUNT

Olympe had forgotten that her room— the refuge she had so generously offered to Angèle — did not really belong to her alone, but also to her clientele.

Beneath her cheerful mask, Olympe hid a disgust for herself and, even more, a disgust for others. She performed mechanically the trade for which she paid her licence to the State. She was legal, and she obeyed the fatality which, more and more, pushed her toward degradation.

Unable to cry any longer, the girl of joy laughed at her shame and seemed almost to take pleasure in it. She paid no attention to the splashes. What did they matter? An ocean of filth had washed over her. Her room had become a marketplace.

Formerly, Olympe had only had temporary lovers, who came one after the other. Now, chance was her provider. Sometimes she had too many clients, sometimes not enough to live on. In her lucky days, she thought of nothing but spending; in her lean days, she went hungry and did not care. Everything was the same to her.

Among the old regulars, a few had a master key. When one of the “faithful” was inside the temple of this goddess of the pavement, Olympe would push an inner bolt that Angèle had not noticed.

The poor child was half-dead with terror. The man had the effect on her of one of those ogres her mother used to frighten her with when she was little. In the half-darkness of the room, she saw him as a colossal monster. She imagined she was dreaming — a terrible dream — and, like a bird fascinated by a snake, she waited, her eyes wide open, while the man spoke to her. The room began to fill with a nauseating smell of wine. The man was heading toward the bed. Angèle fell to her knees, hands clasped.

“— Mama! Mama!” she cried, as if her mother could hear her.

“— It’s me,” said a voice full of the watery gurgling sound that comes from drunkards’ throats. “Why are you calling your mama? Do you want her to hold the candle for you?…”

“Olympe, my girl, one should at least have a conscience… that would be decent. No! no! don’t talk to me about any mother’s eye, I don’t like that… Decency first of all.”

He advanced toward the bed.

Angèle ran to the child. She took her in her arms. The drunkard had nearly fallen on top of her. He had sprawled onto the mattresses without even thinking of removing his filthy clothes.

Angèle darted toward the window, the child pressed tightly against her chest.

The man growled a few words she did not understand.

Suddenly he sat up, looked around in a dazed stupor, caught sight of Angèle, and began his pursuit.

Stumbling, he tried to grab hold of the mantelpiece, and knocked over the bottle in which the candle was burning.

The room filled with shadow, and the floor with shards of glass.

Then there began, in the darkness, a horrifying chase, where hunter and prey overturned everything, trampled everything, smashed everything, without anyone in the house being moved. Angèle, suffocating with terror, could not scream; and had she cried for help, who among that disturbed household would have cared?

The drunkard swore he would smash the ceiling. But he could not catch the child; he could not see her.

Suddenly, as if the miseries of the earth had allies in heaven, the moon framed its round face in the tiny skylight and illuminated the scene with a cold white light like the eye of a judge.

The drunkard could see Angèle now.

Sometimes he managed to seize her and cling to her like a bird of prey, sometimes she freed herself, pummelling his face with blows, biting the hand that tried to grip her.

At one moment, little Liza, crushed in the struggle, let out piercing cries; but no one heard her. How could one imagine that a child’s flesh was being torn, that she was being dragged into a bacchanal? When they were in full frenzy, Olympe and her guests had already made every imaginable noise — how could anyone tell the difference?

The young mother had only one arm with which to defend herself. She screamed, calling God for help. But God was as deaf as the hotel’s tenants, and the pursuit went on.

The beast and the hunter passed, one after another, through the light, only to disappear again into the shadow.

Finally, weakened by the drink that dulled his brain, and exhausted to the point that his limbs gave way, the drunkard roared and collapsed onto the floor, where he remained.

He lay motionless, like a lifeless mass. Caught in the deep sleep of drunkenness, he began to snore.

The night had grown deep again; the moon had finished its role in the scene; the sky was lowering its curtain of clouds.

VIII
AMONG THE STREET SWEEPERS

It was not yet day. The gas lamps still burned in the languid shadow of the morning. All the shopfronts — those eyes of the street — were shuttered, and the houses seemed asleep along the Boulevard Montparnasse. From time to time, like a dreaming mastiff, the paving stones growled and creaked beneath the wheels of some heavy cart, which soon faded again into silence.

A team of sweepers, their necks wrapped in cotton kerchiefs or old woolen scarves pulled up to their eyes, emerged from the upper end of the Rue de Rennes. Men and women lined up slowly in the mist, and the brooms began to stroke the asphalt with a monotonous rhythm.

Without speaking, the men and women of this crew went about their task with mechanical gestures that made them resemble Chinese shadow figures, when suddenly the noise of a shutter being thrown open and a burst of light onto the pavement wrenched from the morning crowd a Ha! of satisfaction.

“Thunder of God!” cried one of the shadows — the tallest of the group. “Thunder of God, I thought the old witch would never open her den this morning. That wind cut straight through to the bones.”

“All the easier,” said a woman’s voice, “that our skin is not as thick as yours, doctor.”

Without answering, the shadow slung his broom over his shoulder; the others imitated him, and they all went into Mother Marion’s. The good old widow stood behind her counter like a constitutional queen, in her solemn majesty, while her prime minister, Piarou — a fellow from her village — poured a round of wine for the humble civil servants of the street-cleaning service.

They drank their measure at the zinc counter. Warmed stomachs loosened tongues. They chatted a little.

“It was enough to kill a man with worms,” someone said, “doing such a brutes’ trade! Wasn’t it sheer horror to be on your feet in the cold while all the animals of creation were still asleep? True, it was a dog’s life. But at least you earned enough to eat! Enough to keep warm! Enough to buy galoshes! But no, when they came to get you, you had to drag your old wreck of a body so they wouldn’t dock your pay. And thunder of God, Paris streets have enough filth to sweep — not even counting what we never get around to sweeping.”

After the first round, the Alsatians and a few women left; the others stayed behind. There was no hurry; for the three francs fifty that the city gave them, no one needed to strain themselves. They always did just enough.

“And we complain!” said the tall shadow philosophically — the one they called ‘doctor’, a half-ragged fellow who had once felt ashamed beside the beggars of Callot. “We complain, when women, who do just as much as we do, earn half as much, even though their clothes, their food, their lodging cost no less than ours! What do you say to that, Father Henri?”

“I say it is one more injustice, one more outrage. But what do you want, my poor Léon — it is what it is. We can’t help it; one must submit to one’s fate when one cannot change it.”

“Hé! Hé! does Father Léon know something!”

The two men left the bar to rejoin the work crew.
Father Henri, an old man with a long white beard, had grown silent. He seemed pensive. Léon asked him:

“You seem troubled this morning; are you ill?”

“No,” replied Father Henri curtly.

“Worried?”

“Somewhat!”

“Why?”

“It’s serious.”

“Well, perhaps the two of us together can sort it out; you know I am your friend, and when it’s not about me, I give good advice.”

“I know you are a good man, and you have a brave heart under your rags.”

“Thank you! But we will talk about me another time. Tell me first what troubles you.”

“Well then, if you want to know, I’ll tell you. Come with me to Mother Morion’s.”

The two sweepers returned to the tavern, asked for a small glass of anything, and sat down as if to savour it.

“Imagine,” said Father Henri, “my nephew Jacques Brodard arrives this morning from Calédonie.”

“There is nothing more natural,” Léon interrupted. “He went there; he is coming back; the misfortune is surely not there?”

“No. The trouble is that, during his absence, things have happened… His wife grew bored of waiting for him…”

Léon, the old man softened by severity, when a man of his age and good sense feels the world crumble around him, did not want to insult him nor make this into a joke.

“You are right, Father Henri,” he said gravely. “It is true. If I didn’t laugh at all, I would have to weep — and you understand, laughter is a habit. Let us return to your troubles. Madame Brodard?…”

“Mme Brodard is the bravest woman I know, but, you understand, alone with four children to raise, she cannot do everything: earn a living, watch over them, and… little Angèle… while her mother was ill…”

“I understand.”

“This is going to be a surprise! And he, who wanted to make it one, wrote to me that he would arrive like a bomb, without warning.”

“It’s foolish…”

“Oh yes! it is foolish. Only sentimental people make surprises. You don’t spring them at home; he will fall on them like a slate tile, that’s what! And then, that is not all. I went there last night, the mother seemed lost, alone with her two little ones, haggard, dishevelled, I couldn’t get a word out of her. Something extraordinary is going on. The two eldest, Angèle and Auguste, were not there.”

“Good heavens!”

“I ask her where they are, she tells me they are coming back, that she was a little unwell, that I shouldn’t worry about her son, that Angèle and Auguste would not be long, that I must go to bed, and so on and so forth, saying I am old, that Mr. Rousserand was a clique leader, that he got what he deserved, in short a whole lot of incoherent things, as you see.”

“Indeed.”

“I know Madeleine, my niece is called Magdeleine — she must have inherited her mother’s nature. To let herself sink into such a state, it takes a woman used to hardship, to the misfortunes of every kind. I fear that my poor nephew walking in there will find the bouquet of her wretched life waiting for him. I know him: he is a man who looks rough, a fellow who could hold a weight of forty pounds at arm’s length, but deep down, he is a man, sensitive. I am certain that when the moment comes, he will get flustered, make a whole scene, break down in tears at merely the thought of holding his wife and children in his arms again. How am I to tell him…?”

“Listen, father Henri, in your place, I would first prepare him for the worst misfortunes. He will be expecting anything, then I would tell him the truth, which will seem a trifle to him. Because really, after all, what is it? A young girl who has gone astray. Well then, with a bit of logic, one sides with her.”

“Do you think so?”

“Of course, but it must be done logically. If I were a father, I would tell myself: whether my daughter gets lost sooner or later, no matter. The essential thing would be that she not perish entirely; but since it is clear that, as long as things stand as they do, in a republic “where there is no social question”, a poor woman who wants to remain honest can only stop herself from dying of hunger by killing herself little by little, every day — well then, I would be glad for her to begin today that which will make her live tomorrow.”

“Unhappy man, you don’t know what family honour is!”

“I have the honour of having different ideas from yours.”

“And that my nephew.”

“You don’t know poor Brodard, he has never studied what you call logic; it will hit him hard.”

“Well, he will come around.”

“Well then,” said the old man sadly, “I see clearly that you are no better equipped to give me good advice than the poorest of our comrades, who know nothing at all and have never read a single book in their lives.”

Father Henri added, shaking his old white head:

“What good is it to have studied, if one is no better off than others in matters of life? Doesn’t it make things any clearer?”

“You’re right, it is not of much use.”

“To you, at least, it has not even provided a way to live. Your science! It is like our revolutions; it promises everything and gives nothing.”

“Because up to now science, like our revolutions, has served only personal ambition; but the real revolution will make science the servant of all, and things will change their face upon the earth. You will see, you will see. Knowledge is power! The world moves forward; nothing can stop it; progress obeys its immutable laws. All the efforts of the rascals who govern humanity will not keep it much longer in darkness, in the cold of individual selfishness. Love will regenerate the human soul, order will replace the oligarchy of interests. And happiness — the supreme goal of life — and virtue — the supreme means of happiness — will be the sovereigns of our universe.”

Léon had stood up; he waved his thin arms and strode with great steps into the workshop. His eyes sparkled in his pale face, deep in their sockets.

“He is mad,” said old mother Marion, hearing the inspired man’s shouts as they tore her from her drowsiness, “Hh is mad, there is his dizzy spell returning.”

Those words reminded the vagabond of himself and brought him back from his visions. He threw on the counter the single ten-sou coin he owned, pulled up his worn red scarf, caught up his broom as though he were taking a sceptre, and went to rejoin his team. He had forgotten Father Henri.

The train was about to arrive. Father Henri made his way towards the station.

IX
THE RETURN OF A DEPORTEE

The cruel necessity of helping his wife and children had wounded the pride of Jacques Brodard, and, on the advice of his friends, he had agreed to sign over his authority and since, after all, the authority had enjoyed playing the comedy of clemency, reducing his sentence as a federate and leaving him only the stain of a pardon.

The tanner was a man in the full strength of his age. Deportation had made him thinner, the Caledonian sun had burned his skin, but misfortune — that touchstone of human worth — had only strengthened his character and not broken his courage. When the sharp notes of the station whistle announced the arrival of the train, the returned deportee appeared like a burst of light. His heart beat with such force that he had to press a hand to his chest to contain it. He was back in his beloved great city, in that beautiful Paris he loved so deeply; he was going to see again all those he adored: his wife, his son Auguste, his dear little Angèle, and the two young ones he had left in their cradle. How tall they would be now! What cries of joy would greet him!

A small package in hand, Jacques Brodard headed toward the exit door and looked for Father Henri.

Poor old man! Brodard had changed so much that the old man had trouble recognising him. The two men embraced tightly. Though overwhelmed by emotion, not knowing what to say, neither spoke at first.

Uncle and nephew then entered a wine merchant’s shop, where they downed a large glass of strong blue wine that the traveller sorely needed to warm himself. Then they set out again toward the rue Croulebarbe.

Talking as they went, they followed the line of the great boulevards, the exterior ones. Father Henri, struggling to keep up with Jacques’s impatient stride and to answer all his questions, at last, not knowing exactly what to say or what to keep silent about, decided to speak about himself.

“Well then,” he said, “I’m no longer at Mr. X.’s refinery, where I had hoped to die working.”

“Has Mr. X. had some bad business dealings?” asked Jacques.

“Not at all,” replied Father Henri. “He has withdrawn from business with more than 30 million. He owns a whole neighbourhood that he bought up when I did not have a penny, after working sixty years for him!”

“And what do you do now?”

“I sweep the streets, my friend, a job like any other, but far too hard for a man my age.”

“I thought Mr. X. had promised pensions to his old workers.”

“Yes, it’s true, and I had hoped to get one after earning it, after sixty years of service in the same factory, but promises, in the mouths of the bourgeois…! The municipal council, excellent judge that it is, passed his recommendation; the justice of the bourgeoisie erased this man’s name, who, in a moment of spite when he failed to get himself elected deputy, closed his factory and threw his workers onto the street without reason, out of revenge — on innocents — the refusal they had made to endorse his candidacy. Sixty years of work! A broom for reward, and the street for retirement!”

“Ah! My poor uncle! That is the justice of the bourgeois, their honesty,” said Brodard, gripping tightly the hands of the old worker. And that scoundrel X. has made no effort to at least get you into a home for old men?

“Into a home for old men? Good heavens! If you go there, to get into any hospice at all, you must at least be protected by the confessor of the president of the republic. For a vacant bed, there are thirty thousand requests. Do you know that?”

“Always and everywhere the same result after a life of labour and hardship, said Jacques, very saddened. Fortunately, now that I am back, I will be the one to care for you in your old age. Ah! come now, I haven’t lost the habit of working, and I’ll get to the bottom of this. You will come live with us; that will bring us good fortune. It had always been Magdeleine’s wish for you to come live with us — didn’t she speak to you about it?”

“Yes, when my poor girl died. But then… I was still strong, and I was too heartbroken to come and display my grief in front of your children. One must spare the little ones sorrow.”

The poor old man searched his mind for a way to warn his nephew about Angèle’s misfortune, but he found nothing; words would not come to instruct the father of such a story.

Jacques Brodard suspected nothing; he was already making plans for the future, saying that what he was bringing back this time was for his children, for his wife. He had brought a large chest full of curious things, boxes he had made himself from island woods, and little trinkets that would delight the children. Then, even before going home, he would stop by to see that great joker Rousserand, to whom he had given, in his letter, a nickname of patron as big as his arm, a comrade to him, a bit of a boaster but not a bad fellow deep down.

“But don’t you know that Rousserand is dead or nearly so, and that you don’t need to go to his place this morning, said old Henri.”

Jacques seemed disappointed; that death caused him real grief. And yet he could do nothing about it. He widened his strides, eager to see his own people. The poor old man had trouble keeping up.

Suddenly, Jacques, unable to contain himself, dashed off running down the Avenue des Gobelins. No, he could no longer wait; he felt as though he had wings on his feet.

“Stop! stop! Jacques, cried the old man, stop! I have something to tell you. My God! my God! You move like the wind, stop!”

Jacques Brodard stopped and waited for his uncle. It was broad daylight now, and the tanner could make out a deep anguish in the face of the old road sweeper.

“Oh! said Jacques, placing his hand on his uncle’s forehead, you are about to tell me bad news! Good heavens, I was so joyful. Come, speak quickly, do not prolong this. I need to see all of mine, do I not?”

Poor Henri did not know what to say, his tongue thickened, he stammered something the other could not understand.

“But speak, then! said Jacques, trying to appear calm. What is it you’re hiding from me, that I must not see? Come now, I am a man — for heaven’s sake, what are you waiting for?”

“It’s about Angèle,” said the old man in a strangled voice.

“About Angèle?” exclaimed Jacques. “About Angèle? My little Angèle?”

“Yes.”

“She is dead?…”

“No!”

“Sick?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

Old Henri lowered his head without replying. Jacques racked his brains and, finding nothing, began to reassure himself. The poor old man was rambling, obviously. If Angèle was neither dead nor ill, then everything must be fine. The very idea that his child might be dishonoured could not even occur to him. In his memory she still shone with all the innocent grace of her ten years. He saw her before him with her big blue eyes, surprised and deep, her curly hair, her innocent smile. What nonsense was the old man trying to tell him with these alarming warnings?

“Listen,” said the sweeper, “let’s stop a moment, I can’t go on. It’s a long and hard burden for me, but I have to tell you.”

Jacques began to tremble. He saw that the old man was speaking seriously and that he was not mad. Yet for all his searching and torturing his mind, he found nothing that could justify his uncle’s sinister preamble. They stopped.

The old man murmured, in a low voice:

“Angèle has… a child.”

Jacques shuddered and collapsed on one of the benches along the avenue; he remained there as if thunderstruck.

Drops of cold sweat moistened his temples, all his blood rushed to his heart, then drained away, leaving him icy cold. He remained there, motionless.

“Angèle… a child…”

Those words, spoken in a hollow voice, rang in his ears like sharp points of steel, piercing his brain like needles.

“Angèle… a child!”

It was impossible. And he had travelled six thousand five hundred leagues to come and hear that. But what could the child have done to deserve such misfortune?

“Old man,” he demanded desperately, “what are you saying? What has happened? Tell me!”

“She fell… into dishonour.”

“My Angèle? Impossible!”

“She told me nothing. The little one didn’t want to speak.”

“Not even to her mother?”

“Not even to her mother.”

“Ah! I will find out myself.”

“It must be one of those depraved rich men who need their fresh young flesh—and it is we who must supply it to them!…” He threw his head back, clenched his fists, and threatened heaven, crying out: “Misery! Misery upon him!”

He got up, trembling, and walked toward his home, now determined to confront the old man’s terrible revelation.

“Oh my daughter! my daughter!” he whispered in a broken voice. Streams of tears flowed down his cheeks, wetting his long beard. Passers-by turned to look at this man whose whole being revealed the agony of a betrayed father. But he, blinded by grief, saw nothing, heard nothing.

“At fifteen! At fifteen years old, and she is already ruined!” said the poor returning exile.

And he thought, with heartbreaking tenderness, that he would no longer give her up. He would hide her in his breast, he would raise her again through love, and he would feed her with the work of his own hands.

Before entering the rue Croulebarbe, Jacques cast a long look around, recognising all the houses. Nothing had changed except himself. That alone gave him a strange impression. In the great upheavals that make everything collapse within a man, one is always astonished that things around him remain so stable.

Fresh, joyful voices of children rose above the walls of a boys’ boarding school. That arrested Jacques. It was there, in the old days, that his little Auguste had gone to school. Dear child! at least he would see him again as he had hoped. If Magdeleine’s letters were to be believed, he would now be a young man. Yes, a courageous and serious young man, an educated worker like those needed to help change the world.

Uncle and nephew approached the lodging occupied by Madame Brodard, in a house without a concierge. They passed two policemen patrolling back and forth, their great boots cracking on the pavement. The officers stepped aside to let the workers pass before following them.

Upon reaching the threshold of his house, Jacques felt a nervous tremor seize him. He could hardly climb the stairs. At last he saw his door; he saw the shadow of the two corridors between which it stood; he saw the little tin plate he himself had painted with his name in red letters. His wife, his children were there, inside, in that great silence that troubled him. His heart beat fit to burst. He reached for the latch. At that very moment, two large hands fell upon his shoulders.

Jacques spun around. Two policemen were standing before him. The others followed behind. One of the men who had seized him asked, with the cold tranquility of a force sure of itself:

“Are you Jacques Brodard?”

“Yes,” replied the tanner, who felt as though he were walking in a dream.

The policeman produced his warrant and pronounced the sacramental words which may be spoken over a free man, a thing as often belonging to vengeance as to justice:

“In the name of the law, I arrest you.”

STILL IN OLYMPE’S ROOM

Angèle, as one remembers, exhausted from her struggle with the drunkard, had collapsed there too, half-dead with terror in a corner of the hovel. The shadow thickened around the young mother.

Oh, Angèle thought, if only it were the eternal shadow! How good it would be to remain forever asleep with her little Lize in her arms.

Poor Lize, it was said, understood her mother’s anguish. She was still trembling, but she no longer cried.