Part 80 (1/2)
Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper post, and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in the profound sleep of intoxication.
”So,” said Loubinsky, ”you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals.”
”And partly one of us,” replied the Medecin des Pauvres. ”You remember poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to meet? Yonder he lies.”
”Don't talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by that vieux gredin, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!”
Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. ”So much the worse for you, if you did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!” Therewith he turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick.
”Armand--Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?”
Armand turned, rose with an effort from the rec.u.mbent to the sitting posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the Medecin des Pauvres.
”I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat,” said Armand, wildly, ”the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de Mauleon and Jean Lebeau.”
”Ah! there is something in dreams,” said the surgeon. ”Once in a thousand times a dream comes true.”
CHAPTER V.
The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to feed and warm--there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy, and had not the heart now to dismiss to the 'certainty of famine. True, one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land before the commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained.
They supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations accorded by the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which she was attached. From the ladies a.s.sociated with her she could readily have obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real state of dest.i.tution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent among the respectable cla.s.ses, which Isaura shared, that concealed distress lest alms should be proffered.
The dest.i.tution of the household had been carefully concealed from the parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at the hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for a place by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only ashes, on the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had become the subst.i.tute for bread.
Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,--purposely absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to their support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still more from the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in absenting himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and pressure, both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at that absence so far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she silently asked her conscience whether she were not now absolved from a promise won from her only by an a.s.surance that she had power to influence for good the life that now voluntarily separated itself from her own. As she had never loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference his conduct manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it as a sign that the annulment of their betrothal would be as welcome to him as to herself. And if so, she could restore to him the sort of compa.s.sionate friends.h.i.+p she had learned to cherish in the hour of his illness and repentance. She had resolved to seize the first opportunity he afforded to her of speaking to him with frank and truthful plainness.
But, meanwhile, her gentle nature recoiled from the confession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself for the rupture of their engagement.
Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance, her husband entered with an expression of face new to him--the look of a man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta did not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, ”Pardon, dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it is not our hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we could. Now it speaks for itself; 'la fame e una bretta festin.'”
”Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!” cried Madame Rameau, bursting into tears. ”So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring such want on you! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!”
”Do not degrade us, my wife,” said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity, ”by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs and a half a-day to a pere de famille, and on that pay we all can at least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the battle on the next sortie.”
”It shall not be so,” exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding her arm round her husband's neck. ”I loved my son better than thee once--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than peril thy life, my Jacques! Madame,” she continued, turning to the Venosta, ”thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union between thy young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a mother is so selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I thought that only through marriage with one so pure, so n.o.ble, so holy, Gustave could be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so heartless to his parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be redeemed. I brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her from it. I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it.
I know how miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her sublime devotion to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the real state of her heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would the union do! Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!”
”Stay, Madame!” exclaimed the Venosta, her excitable nature much affected by this honest outburst of feeling. ”It is true that I did oppose, so far as I could, my poor Piccola's engagement with M. Gustave.
But I dare not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let us be just! M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming indifference and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps he may be again dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard; perhaps--” she paused, but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid, and, clasping her hands, cried out in anguish, ”Perhaps dead!--and we have wronged him! Oh, Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how discover our boy? Who can tell us where to search? at the hospital--or in the cemeteries?” At the last word she dropped into a seat, and her whole frame shook with her sobs.
Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said:
”No, m'amie, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I know where he is to be found.”
”You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!”
”Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night of the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans, and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame when they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself.