The illustrious wine shop of "Eve's Apple" was situated in theUniversity, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue de laBatonnier. It was a very spacious and very low hail on the ground floor,with a vaulted ceiling whose central spring rested upon a huge pillar ofwood painted yellow; tables everywhere, shining pewter jugs hanging onthe walls, always a large number of drinkers, a plenty of wenches, awindow on the street, a vine at the door, and over the door a flaringpiece of sheet-iron, painted with an apple and a woman, rusted bythe rain and turning with the wind on an iron pin. This species ofweather-vane which looked upon the pavement was the signboard.
Night was falling; the square was dark; the wine-shop, full of candles,flamed afar like a forge in the gloom; the noise of glasses andfeasting, of oaths and quarrels, which escaped through the broken panes,was audible. Through the mist which the warmth of the room spread overthe window in front, a hundred confused figures could be seen swarming,and from time to time a burst of noisy laughter broke forth from it.The passers-by who were going about their business, slipped past thistumultuous window without glancing at it. Only at intervals did somelittle ragged boy raise himself on tiptoe as far as the ledge, and hurlinto the drinking-shop, that ancient, jeering hoot, with which drunkenmen were then pursued: "Aux Houls, saouls, saouls, saouls!"
Nevertheless, one man paced imperturbably back and forth in front of thetavern, gazing at it incessantly, and going no further from it than apikernan from his sentry-box. He was enveloped in a mantle to his verynose. This mantle he had just purchased of the old-clothes man, in thevicinity of the "Eve's Apple," no doubt to protect himself from the coldof the March evening, possibly also, to conceal his costume. From timeto time he paused in front of the dim window with its leaden lattice,listened, looked, and stamped his foot.
At length the door of the dram-shop opened. This was what he appeared tobe waiting for. Two boon companions came forth. The ray of light whichescaped from the door crimsoned for a moment their jovial faces.
The man in the mantle went and stationed himself on the watch under aporch on the other side of the street.
"_Corne et tonnerre_!" said one of the comrades. "Seven o'clock is onthe point of striking. 'Tis the hour of my appointed meeting."
"I tell you," repeated his companion, with a thick tongue, "that I don'tlive in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, _indignus qui inter mala verbahabitat_. I have a lodging in the Rue Jean-Pain-Mollet, _in vicoJohannis Pain-Mollet_. You are more horned than a unicorn if you assertthe contrary. Every one knows that he who once mounts astride a bearis never after afraid; but you have a nose turned to dainties likeSaint-Jacques of the hospital."
"Jehan, my friend, you are drunk," said the other.
The other replied staggering, "It pleases you to say so, Phoebus; but ithath been proved that Plato had the profile of a hound."
The reader has, no doubt, already recognized our two brave friends, thecaptain and the scholar. It appears that the man who was lying inwait for them had also recognized them, for he slowly followed all thezigzags that the scholar caused the captain to make, who being a morehardened drinker had retained all his self-possession. By listening tothem attentively, the man in the mantle could catch in its entirety thefollowing interesting conversation,--
"_Corbacque_! Do try to walk straight, master bachelor; you know that Imust leave you. Here it is seven o'clock. I have an appointment with awoman."
"Leave me then! I see stars and lances of fire. You are like the Chateaude Dampmartin, which is bursting with laughter."
"By the warts of my grandmother, Jehan, you are raving with too muchrabidness. By the way, Jehan, have you any money left?"
"Monsieur Rector, there is no mistake; the little butcher's shop, _parvaboucheria_."
"Jehau! my friend Jehan! You know that I made an appointment with thatlittle girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can only take herto the Falourdel's, the old crone of the bridge, and that I must payfor a chamber. The old witch with a white moustache would not trust me.Jehan! for pity's sake! Have we drunk up the whole of the cure's purse?Have you not a single parisis left?"
"The consciousness of having spent the other hours well is a just andsavory condiment for the table."
"Belly and guts! a truce to your whimsical nonsense! Tell me, Jehan ofthe devil! have you any money left? Give it to me, _bedieu_! or I willsearch you, were you as leprous as Job, and as scabby as Caesar!"
"Monsieur, the Rue Galiache is a street which hath at one end the Rue dela Verrerie, and at the other the Rue de la Tixeranderie."
"Well, yes! my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue Galiache isgood, very good. But in the name of heaven collect your wits. I musthave a sou parisis, and the appointment is for seven o'clock."
"Silence for the rondo, and attention to the refrain,--
"_Quand les rats mangeront les cas, Le roi sera seigneur d'Arras; Quand la mer, qui est grande et le(e Sera a la Saint-Jean gele(e, On verra, par-dessus la glace, Sortir ceux d'Arras de leur place_*."
* When the rats eat the cats, the king will be lord of Arras;when the sea which is great and wide, is frozen over at St. John's tide,men will see across the ice, those who dwell in Arras quit their place.
"Well, scholar of Antichrist, may you be strangled with the entrails ofyour mother!" exclaimed Phoebus, and he gave the drunken scholar a roughpush; the latter slipped against the wall, and slid flabbily to thepavement of Philip Augustus. A remnant of fraternal pity, which neverabandons the heart of a drinker, prompted Phoebus to roll Jehan with hisfoot upon one of those pillows of the poor, which Providence keeps inreadiness at the corner of all the street posts of Paris, and whichthe rich blight with the name of "a rubbish-heap." The captain adjustedJehan's head upon an inclined plane of cabbage-stumps, and on the veryinstant, the scholar fell to snoring in a magnificent bass. Meanwhile,all malice was not extinguished in the captain's heart. "So much theworse if the devil's cart picks you up on its passage!" he said to thepoor, sleeping clerk; and he strode off.
The man in the mantle, who had not ceased to follow him, halted for amoment before the prostrate scholar, as though agitated by indecision;then, uttering a profound sigh, he also strode off in pursuit of thecaptain.
We, like them, will leave Jehan to slumber beneath the open sky, andwill follow them also, if it pleases the reader.
On emerging into the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arcs, Captain Phoebus perceivedthat some one was following him. On glancing sideways by chance, heperceived a sort of shadow crawling after him along the walls. Hehalted, it halted; he resumed his march, it resumed its march. Thisdisturbed him not overmuch. "Ah, bah!" he said to himself, "I have not asou."
He paused in front of the College d'Autun. It was at this college thathe had sketched out what he called his studies, and, through a scholar'steasing habit which still lingered in him, he never passed the facadewithout inflicting on the statue of Cardinal Pierre Bertrand, sculpturedto the right of the portal, the affront of which Priapus complains sobitterly in the satire of Horace, _Olim truncus eram ficulnus_. Hehad done this with so much unrelenting animosity that the inscription,_Eduensis episcopus_, had become almost effaced. Therefore, he haltedbefore the statue according to his wont. The street was utterlydeserted. At the moment when he was coolly retying his shoulder knots,with his nose in the air, he saw the shadow approaching him with slowsteps, so slow that he had ample time to observe that this shadow worea cloak and a hat. On arriving near him, it halted and remained moremotionless than the statue of Cardinal Bertrand. Meanwhile, it rivetedupon Phoebus two intent eyes, full of that vague light which issues inthe night time from the pupils of a cat.
The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for ahighwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, thispetrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strangestories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris,and they recurred confusedly to his memory. He re
mained for severalminutes in stupefaction, and finally broke the silence with a forcedlaugh.
"Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce upon methe effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son of a ruinedfamily, my dear fellow. Try your hand near by here. In the chapel ofthis college there is some wood of the true cross set in silver."
The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descendedupon the arm of Phoebus with the grip of an eagle's talon; at the sametime the shadow spoke,--
"Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers!"
"What, the devil!" said Phoebus, "you know my name!"
"I know not your name alone," continued the man in the mantle, with hissepulchral voice. "You have a rendezvous this evening."
"Yes," replied Phoebus in amazement.
"At seven o'clock."
"In a quarter of an hour."
"At la Falourdel's."
"Precisely."
"The lewd hag of the Pont Saint-Michel."
"Of Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster saith."
"Impious wretch!" muttered the spectre. "With a woman?"
"_Confiteor_,--I confess--."
"Who is called--?"
"La Smeralda," said Phoebus, gayly. All his heedlessness had graduallyreturned.
At this name, the shadow's grasp shook the arm of Phoebus in a fury.
"Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers, thou liest!"
Any one who could have beheld at that moment the captain's inflamedcountenance, his leap backwards, so violent that he disengaged himselffrom the grip which held him, the proud air with which he clapped hishand on his swordhilt, and, in the presence of this wrath the gloomyimmobility of the man in the cloak,--any one who could have beheld thiswould have been frightened. There was in it a touch of the combat of DonJuan and the statue.
"Christ and Satan!" exclaimed the captain. "That is a word which rarelystrikes the ear of a Chateaupers! Thou wilt not dare repeat it."
"Thou liest!" said the shadow coldly.
The captain gnashed his teeth. Surly monk, phantom, superstitions,--hehad forgotten all at that moment. He no longer beheld anything but aman, and an insult.
"Ah! this is well!" he stammered, in a voice stifled with rage. Hedrew his sword, then stammering, for anger as well as fear makes aman tremble: "Here! On the spot! Come on! Swords! Swords! Blood on thepavement!"
But the other never stirred. When he beheld his adversary on guard andready to parry,--
"Captain Phoebus," he said, and his tone vibrated with bitterness, "youforget your appointment."
The rages of men like Phoebus are milk-soups, whose ebullition is calmedby a drop of cold water. This simple remark caused the sword whichglittered in the captain's hand to be lowered.
"Captain," pursued the man, "to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, a monthhence, ten years hence, you will find me ready to cut your throat; butgo first to your rendezvous."
"In sooth," said Phoebus, as though seeking to capitulate with himself,"these are two charming things to be encountered in a rendezvous,--asword and a wench; but I do not see why I should miss the one for thesake of the other, when I can have both."
He replaced his sword in its scabbard.
"Go to your rendezvous," said the man.
"Monsieur," replied Phoebus with some embarrassment, "many thanks foryour courtesy. In fact, there will be ample time to-morrow for us tochop up father Adam's doublet into slashes and buttonholes. I am obligedto you for allowing me to pass one more agreeable quarter of an hour.I certainly did hope to put you in the gutter, and still arrive in timefor the fair one, especially as it has a better appearance to make thewomen wait a little in such cases. But you strike me as having the airof a gallant man, and it is safer to defer our affair until to-morrow.So I will betake myself to my rendezvous; it is for seven o'clock, asyou know." Here Phoebus scratched his ear. "Ah. _Corne Dieu_! I hadforgotten! I haven't a sou to discharge the price of the garret, and theold crone will insist on being paid in advance. She distrusts me."
"Here is the wherewithal to pay."
Phoebus felt the stranger's cold hand slip into his a large piece ofmoney. He could not refrain from taking the money and pressing the hand.
"_Vrai Dieu_!" he exclaimed, "you are a good fellow!"
"One condition," said the man. "Prove to me that I have been wrong andthat you were speaking the truth. Hide me in some corner whence I cansee whether this woman is really the one whose name you uttered."
"Oh!" replied Phoebus, "'tis all one to me. We will take, theSainte-Marthe chamber; you can look at your ease from the kennel hardby."
"Come then," said the shadow.
"At your service," said the captain, "I know not whether you areMesser Diavolus in person; but let us be good friends for this evening;to-morrow I will repay you all my debts, both of purse and sword."
They set out again at a rapid pace. At the expiration of a few minutes,the sound of the river announced to them that they were on the PontSaint-Michel, then loaded with houses.
"I will first show you the way," said Phoebus to his companion, "Iwill then go in search of the fair one who is awaiting me near thePetit-Chatelet."
His companion made no reply; he had not uttered a word since they hadbeen walking side by side. Phoebus halted before a low door, and knockedroughly; a light made its appearance through the cracks of the door.
"Who is there?" cried a toothless voice.
"_Corps-Dieu! Tete-Dieu! Ventre-Dieu_!" replied the captain.
The door opened instantly, and allowed the new-corners to see an oldwoman and an old lamp, both of which trembled. The old woman was bentdouble, clad in tatters, with a shaking head, pierced with two smalleyes, and coiffed with a dish clout; wrinkled everywhere, on hands andface and neck; her lips retreated under her gums, and about her mouthshe had tufts of white hairs which gave her the whiskered look of a cat.
The interior of the den was no less dilapitated than she; there werechalk walls, blackened beams in the ceiling, a dismantled chimney-piece,spiders' webs in all the corners, in the middle a staggering herd oftables and lame stools, a dirty child among the ashes, and at the back astaircase, or rather, a wooden ladder, which ended in a trap door in theceiling.
On entering this lair, Phoebus's mysterious companion raised his mantleto his very eyes. Meanwhile, the captain, swearing like a Saracen,hastened to "make the sun shine in a crown" as saith our admirableRegnier.
"The Sainte-Marthe chamber," said he.
The old woman addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown in adrawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle had given toPhoebus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed and ragged littleboy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly approached the drawer,abstracted the crown, and put in its place a dry leaf which he hadplucked from a fagot.
The old crone made a sign to the two gentlemen, as she called them, tofollow her, and mounted the ladder in advance of them. On arriving atthe upper story, she set her lamp on a coffer, and, Phoebus, like afrequent visitor of the house, opened a door which opened on a darkhole. "Enter here, my dear fellow," he said to his companion. The man inthe mantle obeyed without a word in reply, the door closed upon him; heheard Phoebus bolt it, and a moment later descend the stairs again withthe aged hag. The light had disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER.