Volume III Part 66 (1/2)

”Would not one say that this was one of the families pursued by a fatality?

The father died upon the scaffold; one son is in the galleys; another, also condemned to death, has lately escaped. The eldest son, and two younger children only, have escaped this frightful contagion. However, this woman has sent for the eldest son, the sole honest man of this detestable race, to come to-morrow morning to receive her last wishes! What an interview!”

”Are you not curious to be present?”

”Frankly, no. You know my opinion concerning punishment by death, and I have no need of such a spectacle to confirm this opinion. If this horrible woman carries her unwavering firmness and a.s.surance to the scaffold, what a sight for the people! what a deplorable example!”

”There is something singular in this double execution--the day has been fixed.”

”How?”

”To-day is Mid-Lent.”

”Well?”

”To-morrow the execution takes place at seven o'clock. Now the crowd of maskers, who will pa.s.s the night at the b.a.l.l.s, will necessarily meet the mournful procession on their return to Paris; without speaking of the place of execution, the Barriere Saint Jacques, where will be heard, in the distance, the music at the surrounding taverns; for, to celebrate the last day of the carnival, they dance in the wine-shops until ten or eleven in the morning.”

The next morning the sun rose clear and glorious. At four o'clock several pickets of infantry and cavalry surrounded and guarded the approaches of Bicetre. We will conduct the reader to the cell where we will find the widow and her daughter Calabash.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TOILET.

At Bicetre, a gloomy corridor, lighted at intervals by grated windows, or kind of air-holes just above the level of the courtyard, leads to the condemned cell. This dungeon received its light only from a large wicket in the upper part of the door, which opened into the dark pa.s.sage spoken of above. In this cell, with its damp and moldy walls, its floor paved with stones as cold as those of the sepulcher, were confined Widow Martial and her daughter Calabash. The sharp face of the convict's widow, stern and immovable, stood out in bold relief, like a marble mask, from the midst of the obscurity which existed in the dungeon.

Deprived of the use of her hands, for under her black dress she wore a strait-jacket, she asked that her cap might be taken off, complaining of great heat in the head. Her gray hair fell disheveled upon her shoulders.

Seated on the edge of the bed, her feet on the ground, she looked fixedly on her daughter, Calabash, who was separated from her by the width of the dungeon. She, half reclining, and also wearing a strait-jacket had her back against the wall. Her head was hanging on her breast, her eyes fixed, her respiration broken. Save a slight convulsive movement, which from time to time agitated her under jaw, her features appeared calm, but of livid paleness. At the further end of the dungeon, near the door, under the open wicket, a veteran with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, with a rough and swarthy face, a bald head, and long gray mustachios, is seated on a chair.

He ought never to lose sight of the condemned.

”It is very cold here! and yet my eyes burn; and then I am thirsty--always thirsty,” said Calabash, at the end of a few moments. ”Some water, if you please, sir.”

The old soldier rose and took from a bench a tin pail of water, filled a tumbler, and gave her a drink.

After having drunk greedily, she said, ”thank you, sir.”

”Will you drink?” asked the soldier of the widow, who shook her head in the negative.

”What o'clock is it, sir?” said Calabash.

”It will soon be half-past four.”

”In three hours!” resumed Calabash, with a sardonic and sinister smile, alluding to the time of her execution, ”in three hours--” She dared not finish.

The widow shrugged her shoulders. Her daughter comprehended her thoughts, and replied, ”You have more courage than I, mother, do you never falter--”

”Never.”

”I know it well--I see it clearly. Your face is as tranquil as if you were seated by the fire of our kitchen, sewing. Oh! those good days are so far off--so far----”