I do not believe that there is anything sweeter in the world than theideas which awake in a mother's heart at the sight of her child's tinyshoe; especially if it is a shoe for festivals, for Sunday, for baptism,the shoe embroidered to the very sole, a shoe in which the infant hasnot yet taken a step. That shoe has so much grace and daintiness, it isso impossible for it to walk, that it seems to the mother as though shesaw her child. She smiles upon it, she kisses it, she talks to it; sheasks herself whether there can actually be a foot so tiny; and if thechild be absent, the pretty shoe suffices to place the sweet and fragilecreature before her eyes. She thinks she sees it, she does see it,complete, living, joyous, with its delicate hands, its round head, itspure lips, its serene eyes whose white is blue. If it is in winter, itis yonder, crawling on the carpet, it is laboriously climbing upon anottoman, and the mother trembles lest it should approach the fire. If itis summer time, it crawls about the yard, in the garden, plucks up thegrass between the paving-stones, gazes innocently at the big dogs, thebig horses, without fear, plays with the shells, with the flowers, andmakes the gardener grumble because he finds sand in the flower-beds andearth in the paths. Everything laughs, and shines and plays around it,like it, even the breath of air and the ray of sun which vie with eachother in disporting among the silky ringlets of its hair. The shoe showsall this to the mother, and makes her heart melt as fire melts wax.
But when the child is lost, these thousand images of joy, of charms, oftenderness, which throng around the little shoe, become so manyhorrible things. The pretty broidered shoe is no longer anything but aninstrument of torture which eternally crushes the heart of the mother.It is always the same fibre which vibrates, the tenderest and mostsensitive; but instead of an angel caressing it, it is a demon who iswrenching at it.
One May morning, when the sun was rising on one of those dark blue skiesagainst which Garofolo loves to place his Descents from the Cross, therecluse of the Tour-Roland heard a sound of wheels, of horses and ironsin the Place de Greve. She was somewhat aroused by it, knotted her hairupon her ears in order to deafen herself, and resumed her contemplation,on her knees, of the inanimate object which she had adored for fifteenyears. This little shoe was the universe to her, as we have alreadysaid. Her thought was shut up in it, and was destined never more to quitit except at death. The sombre cave of the Tour-Roland alone knew howmany bitter imprecations, touching complaints, prayers and sobs she hadwafted to heaven in connection with that charming bauble of rose-coloredsatin. Never was more despair bestowed upon a prettier and more gracefulthing.
It seemed as though her grief were breaking forth more violently thanusual; and she could be heard outside lamenting in a loud and monotonousvoice which rent the heart.
"Oh my daughter!" she said, "my daughter, my poor, dear little child, soI shall never see thee more! It is over! It always seems to me that ithappened yesterday! My God! my God! it would have been better not togive her to me than to take her away so soon. Did you not know that ourchildren are part of ourselves, and that a mother who has lost her childno longer believes in God? Ah! wretch that I am to have gone out thatday! Lord! Lord! to have taken her from me thus; you could never havelooked at me with her, when I was joyously warming her at my fire, whenshe laughed as she suckled, when I made her tiny feet creep up my breastto my lips? Oh! if you had looked at that, my God, you would have takenpity on my joy; you would not have taken from me the only love whichlingered, in my heart! Was I then, Lord, so miserable a creature, thatyou could not look at me before condemning me?--Alas! Alas! here isthe shoe; where is the foot? where is the rest? Where is the child? Mydaughter! my daughter! what did they do with thee? Lord, give her backto me. My knees have been worn for fifteen years in praying to thee,my God! Is not that enough? Give her back to me one day, one hour,one minute; one minute, Lord! and then cast me to the demon for alleternity! Oh! if I only knew where the skirt of your garment trails, Iwould cling to it with both hands, and you would be obliged to give meback my child! Have you no pity on her pretty little shoe? Could youcondemn a poor mother to this torture for fifteen years? Good Virgin!good Virgin of heaven! my infant Jesus has been taken from me, has beenstolen from me; they devoured her on a heath, they drank her blood, theycracked her bones! Good Virgin, have pity upon me. My daughter, I wantmy daughter! What is it to me that she is in paradise? I do not wantyour angel, I want my child! I am a lioness, I want my whelp. Oh! I willwrithe on the earth, I will break the stones with my forehead, and Iwill damn myself, and I will curse you, Lord, if you keep my child fromme! you see plainly that my arms are all bitten, Lord! Has the good Godno mercy?--Oh! give me only salt and black bread, only let me have mydaughter to warm me like a sun! Alas! Lord my God. Alas! Lord my God,I am only a vile sinner; but my daughter made me pious. I was full ofreligion for the love of her, and I beheld you through her smile asthrough an opening into heaven. Oh! if I could only once, just oncemore, a single time, put this shoe on her pretty little pink foot, Iwould die blessing you, good Virgin. Ah! fifteen years! she will begrown up now!--Unhappy child! what! it is really true then I shall neversee her more, not even in heaven, for I shall not go there myself. Oh!what misery to think that here is her shoe, and that that is all!"
The unhappy woman flung herself upon that shoe; her consolation and herdespair for so many years, and her vitals were rent with sobs as on thefirst day; because, for a mother who has lost her child, it is alwaysthe first day. That grief never grows old. The mourning garments maygrow white and threadbare, the heart remains dark.
At that moment, the fresh and joyous cries of children passed in frontof the cell. Every time that children crossed her vision or struckher ear, the poor mother flung herself into the darkest corner of hersepulchre, and one would have said, that she sought to plunge her headinto the stone in order not to hear them. This time, on the contrary,she drew herself upright with a start, and listened eagerly. One of thelittle boys had just said,--
"They are going to hang a gypsy to-day."
With the abrupt leap of that spider which we have seen fling itself upona fly at the trembling of its web, she rushed to her air-hole, whichopened as the reader knows, on the Place de Greve. A ladder had, infact, been raised up against the permanent gibbet, and the hangman'sassistant was busying himself with adjusting the chains which had beenrusted by the rain. There were some people standing about.
The laughing group of children was already far away. The sacked nunsought with her eyes some passer-by whom she might question. All atonce, beside her cell, she perceived a priest making a pretext ofreading the public breviary, but who was much less occupied with the"lectern of latticed iron," than with the gallows, toward which he casta fierce and gloomy glance from time to time. She recognized monsieurthe archdeacon of Josas, a holy man.
"Father," she inquired, "whom are they about to hang yonder?"
The priest looked at her and made no reply; she repeated her question.Then he said,--
"I know not."
"Some children said that it was a gypsy," went on the recluse.
"I believe so," said the priest.
Then Paquette la Chantefleurie burst into hyena-like laughter.
"Sister," said the archdeacon, "do you then hate the gypsies heartily?"
"Do I hate them!" exclaimed the recluse, "they are vampires, stealersof children! They devoured my little daughter, my child, my only child!I have no longer any heart, they devoured it!"
She was frightful. The priest looked at her coldly.
"There is one in particular whom I hate, and whom I have cursed," sheresumed; "it is a young one, of the age which my daughter would be ifher mother had not eaten my daughter. Every time that that young viperpasses in front of my cell, she sets my blood in a ferment."
"Well, sister, rejoice," said the priest, icy as a sepulchral statue;"that is the one whom you are about to see die."
His head fell upon his bosom and he moved slowly away.
The recluse writhed her arms with joy.
 
; "I predicted it for her, that she would ascend thither! Thanks, priest!"she cried.
And she began to pace up and down with long strides before the gratingof her window, her hair dishevelled, her eyes flashing, with hershoulder striking against the wall, with the wild air of a female wolfin a cage, who has long been famished, and who feels the hour for herrepast drawing near.
CHAPTER VI. THREE HUMAN HEARTS DIFFERENTLY CONSTRUCTED.