Le Juif errant. English

  CHAPTER XLIX. THE TRYSTING-PLACE OF THE WOLVES.

  It was a Sunday morning the very day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville hadreceived Rodin's letter with regard to Mother Bunch's disappearance.Two men were talking to together, seated at a table in one of the publichouses in the little village of Villiers, situated at no great distancefrom Hardy's factory. The village was for the most part inhabitedby quarrymen and stonecutters, employed in working the neighboringquarries. Nothing can be ruder and more laborious, and at the same timeless adequately paid, than the work of this class of people. Therefore,as Agricola had told Mother Bunch, they drew painful comparisonsbetween their condition, almost always miserable, and the comfort andcomparative ease enjoyed by M. Hardy's workmen, thanks to his generousand intelligent management, and to the principles of associationand community which he had put in practice amongst them. Misery andignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excitedto anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels. For a longtime, the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen had been naturally envied, butnot with a jealousy amounting to hatred. As soon, however, as the secretenemies of the manufacturer, uniting with his rival Baron Tripeaud,had an interest in changing this peaceful state of things--it changedaccordingly.

  With diabolical skill and perseverance they succeeded in kindling themost evil passions. By means of chosen emissaries, they applied to thosequarrymen and stonecutters of the neighborhood, whose bad conduct hadaggravated their misery. Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, andenergy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majorityof their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, buteasily intimidated by violence. These turbulent leaders, previouslyembittered by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated ideaof the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen, and excited to a jealous hatredof them. They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe,a member of the Jesuits, who had come expressly from Paris to preachduring Lent against M. Hardy, acted powerfully on the minds of thewomen, who filled the church, whilst their husbands were hauntingthe taverns. Profiting by the growing fear, which the approach of theCholera then inspired, the preacher struck with terror these weak andcredulous imaginations by pointing to M. Hardy's factory as a centreof corruption and damnation, capable of drawing down the vengeance ofHeaven, and bringing the fatal scourge upon the country. Thus the men,already inflamed with envy, were still more excited by the incessanturgency of their wives, who, maddened by the abbe's sermons, pouredtheir curses on that band of atheists, who might bring down so manymisfortunes upon them and their children. Some bad characters, belongingto the factory of Baron Tripeaud, and paid by him (for it was a greatinterest the honorable manufacturer had in the ruin of M. Hardy), cameto augment the general irritation, and to complete it by raising oneof those alarming union-questions, which in our day have unfortunatelycaused so much bloodshed. Many of M. Hardy's workmen, before theyentered his employ, had belonged to a society or union, called theDevourers; while many of the stonecutters in the neighboring quarriesbelonged to a society called the Wolves. Now, for a long time, animplacable rivalry had existed between the Wolves and Devourers, andbrought about many sanguinary struggles, which are the more to bedeplored, as, in some respects, the idea of these unions is excellent,being founded on the fruitful and mighty principle of association.But unfortunately, instead of embracing all trades in one fraternalcommunion, these unions break up the working-class into distinct andhostile societies, whose rivalry often leads to bloody collisions.(27)For the last week, the Wolves, excited by so many differentimportunities, burned to discover an occasion or a pretext to cometo blows with the Devourers; but the latter, not frequenting thepublic-houses, and hardly leaving the factory during the week, hadhitherto rendered such a meeting impossible, and the Wolves had beenforced to wait for the Sunday with ferocious impatience.

  Moreover, a great number of the quarrymen and stonecutters, beingpeaceable and hard-working people, had refused, though Wolves themselvesto join this hostile manifestation against the Devourers of M. Hardy'sfactory; the leaders had been obliged to recruit their forces from thevagabonds and idlers of the barriers, whom the attraction of tumult anddisorder had easily enlisted under the flag of the warlike Wolves. Suchthen was the dull fermentation, which agitated the little village ofVilliers, whilst the two men of whom we have spoken were at table in thepublic-house.

  These men had asked for a private room, that they might be alone. One ofthem was still young, and pretty well dressed. But the disorder in hisclothes, his loose cravat, his shirt spotted with wine, his dishevelledhair, his look of fatigue, his marble complexion, his bloodshot eyes,announced that a night of debauch had preceded this morning; whilsthis abrupt and heavy gesture, his hoarse voice, his look, sometimesbrilliant, and sometimes stupid, proved that to the last fumes of theintoxication of the night before, were joined the first attacks of anew state of drunkenness. The companion of this man said to him, as hetouched his glass with his own: "Your health, my boy!"

  "Yours!" answered the young man; "though you look to me like the devil."

  "I!--the devil?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "How did you come to know me?"

  "Do you repent that you ever knew me?"

  "Who told you that I was a prisoner at Sainte-Pelagie?"

  "Didn't I take you out of prison?"

  "Why did you take me out?"

  "Because I have a good heart."

  "You are very fond of me, perhaps--just as the butcher likes the ox thathe drives to the slaughter-house."

  "Are you mad?"

  "A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without amotive."

  "I have a motive."

  "What is it? what do you want to do with me?"

  "A jolly companion that will spend his money like a man, and pass everynight like the last. Good wine, good cheer, pretty girls, and gay songs.Is that such a bad trade?"

  After he had remained a moment without answering, the young man repliedwith a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attachthis condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tellher that I would never see her again! Why did you exact this letter fromme?"

  "A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"

  "Always."

  "You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I sawher get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of SaintePelagie."

  "Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given mysoul to the devil. You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only,instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me. Poor Bacchanal-Queen! Andwhy did you do it? Thousand thunders! Will you tell me!"

  "A man as much attached to his mistress as you are is no longer a man.He wants energy, when the occasion requires."

  "What occasion?"

  "Let us drink!"

  "You make me drink too much brandy."

  "Bah! look at me!"

  "That's what frightens me. It seems something devilish. A bottle ofbrandy does not even make you wink. You must have a stomach of iron anda head of marble."

  "I have long travelled in Russia. There we drink to roast ourselves."

  "And here to only warm. So--let's drink--but wine."

  "Nonsense! wine is fit for children. Brandy for men like us!"

  "Well, then, brandy; but it burns, and sets the head on fire, and thenwe see all the flames of hell!"

  "That's how I like to see you, hang it!"

  "But when you told me that I was too much attached to my mistress, andthat I should want energy when the occasion required, of what occasiondid you speak?"

  "Let us drink!"

  "Stop a moment, comrade. I am no more of a fool than others. Your halfwords have taught me something.

  "Well, what?"

  "You know that I have been a workman, that I have many companions, andthat, being a good fellow, I am much liked amongst them. You want me fora catspaw, to catch other chestnuts?"


  "What then?"

  "You must be some getter-up of riots--some speculator in revolts."

  "What next?"

  "You are travelling for some anonymous society, that trades in musketshots."

  "Are you a coward?"

  "I burned powder in July, I can tell you--make no mistakes!"

  "You would not mind burning some again?"

  "Just as well that sort of fireworks as any other. Only I findrevolutions more agreeable than useful; all that I got from thebarricades of the three days was burnt breeches and a lost jacket. Allthe cause won by me, with its 'Forward! March!' says."

  "You know many of Hardy's workmen?"

  "Oh! that's why you have brought me down here?"

  "Yes--you will meet with many of the workmen from the factory."

  "Men from Hardy's take part in a row? No, no; they are too well off forthat. You have been sold."

  "You will see presently."

  "I tell you they are well off. What have they to complain of?"

  "What of their brethren--those who have not so good a master, and dieof hunger and misery, and call on them for assistance? Do you think theywill remain deaf to such a summons? Hardy is only an exception. Let thepeople but give a good pull all together, and the exception will becomethe rule, and all the world be happy."

  "What you say there is true, but it would be a devil of a pull thatwould make an honest man out of my old master, Baron Tripeaud, who mademe what I am--an out-and-out rip."

  "Hardy's workmen are coming; you are their comrade, and have no interestin deceiving them. They will believe you. Join with me in persuadingthem--"

  "To what?"

  "To leave this factory, in which they grow effeminate and selfish, andforget their brothers."

  "But if they leave the factory, how are they to live?"

  "We will provide for that--on the great day."

  "And what's to be done till then?"

  "What you have done last night--drink, laugh, sing, and, by way of work,exercise themselves privately in the use of arms.'

  "Who will bring these workmen here?"

  "Some one has already spoken to them. They have had printed papers,reproaching them with indifference to their brothers. Come, will yousupport me?"

  "I'll support you--the more readily as I cannot very well supportmyself. I only cared for Cephyse in the world; I know that I am on a badroad; you are pushing me on further; let the ball roll!--Whether wego to the devil one way or the other is not of much consequence. Let'sdrink."

  "Drink to our next night's fun; the last was only apprenticeship."

  "Of what then are you made? I looked at you, and never saw you eitherblush or smile, or change countenance. You are like a man of iron."

  "I am not a lad of fifteen. It would take something more to make melaugh. I shall laugh to-night."

  "I don't know if it's the brandy; but, devil take me, if you don'tfrighten me when you say you shall laugh tonight!"

  So saying, the young man rose, staggering; he began to be once moreintoxicated.

  There was a knock at the door. "Come in!" The host made his appearance.

  "What's the matter?"

  "There's a young man below, who calls himself Olivier. He asks for M.Morok."

  "That's right. Let him came up." The host went out.

  "It is one of our men, but he is alone," said Morok, whose savagecountenance expressed disappointment. "It astonishes me, for I expecteda good number. Do you know him?"

  "Olivier? Yes--a fair chap, I think."

  "We shall see him directly. Here he is." A young man, with an open,bold, intelligent countenance, at this moment entered the room.

  "What! old Sleepinbuff!" he exclaimed, at sight of Morok's companion.

  "Myself. I have not seen you for an age, Olivier."

  "Simple enough, my boy. We do not work at the same place."

  "But you are alone!" cried Morok; and pointing to Sleepinbuff, he added:"You may speak before him--he is one of us. But why are you alone?"

  "I come alone, but in the name of my comrades."

  "Oh!" said Morok, with a sigh of satisfaction, "they consent."

  "They refuse--just as I do!"

  "What, the devil! they refuse? Have they no more courage than women?"cried Morok, grinding his teeth with rage.

  "Hark ye," answered Olivier, coolly. "We have received your letters,and seen your agent. We have had proof that he is really connected withgreat societies, many members of which are known to us."

  "Well! why do you hesitate?"

  "First of all, nothing proves that these societies are ready to make amovement."

  "I tell you they are."

  "He--tells you--they are," said Sleepinbuff, stammering "and I (hic!)affirm it. Forward! March!"

  "That's not enough," replied Olivier. "Besides, we have reflected uponit. For a week the factory was divided. Even yesterday the discussionwas too warm to be pleasant. But this morning Father Simon called tohim; we explained ourselves fully before him, and he brought us all toone mind. We mean to wait, and if any disturbance breaks out, we shallsee."

  "Is that your final word?"

  "It is our last word."

  "Silence!" cried Sleepinbuff, suddenly, as he listened, balancinghimself on his tottering legs. "It is like the noise of a crowd not faroff." A dull sound was indeed audible, which became every moment moreand more distinct, and at length grew formidable.

  "What is that?" said Olivier, in surprise.

  "Now," replied Morok, smiling with a sinister air, "I remember the hosttold me there was a great ferment in the village against the factory. Ifyou and your other comrades had separated from Hardy's other workmen, asI hoped, these people who are beginning to howl would have been for you,instead of against you."

  "This was a trap, then, to set one half of M. Hardy's workmen againstthe other!" cried Olivier; "you hoped that we should make common causewith these people against the factory, and that--"

  The young man had not time to finish. A terrible outburst of shouts,howls, and hisses shook the tavern. At the same instant the door wasabruptly opened, and the host, pale and trembling, hurried into thechamber, exclaiming: "Gentlemen! do any of you work at M. Hardy'sfactory?"

  "I do," said Olivier.

  "Then you are lost. Here are the Wolves in a body, saying there areDevourers here from M. Hardy's, and offering them battle--unless theDevourers will give up the factory, and range themselves on their side."

  "It was a trap, there can be no doubt of it!" cried Olivier, looking atMorok and Sleepinbuff, with a threatening air; "if my mates had come, wewere all to be let in."

  "I lay a trap, Olivier?" stammered Jacques Rennepont. "Never!"

  "Battle to the Devourers! or let them join the Wolves!" cried the angrycrowd with one voice, as they appeared to invade the house.

  "Come!" exclaimed the host. Without giving Olivier time to answer, heseized him by the arm, and opening a window which led to a roof at novery great height from the ground, he said to him: "Make your escape bythis window, let yourself slide down, and gain the fields; it is time."

  As the young workman hesitated, the host added, with a look of terror:

  "Alone, against a couple of hundred, what can you do? A minute more, andyou are lost. Do you not hear them? They have entered the yard; they arecoming up."

  Indeed, at this moment, the groans, the hisses, and cheers redoubledin violence; the wooden staircase which led to the first story shookbeneath the quick steps of many persons, and the shout arose, loud andpiercing: "Battle to the Devourers!"

  "Fly, Olivier!" cried Sleepinbuff, almost sobered by the danger.

  Hardly had he pronounced the words when the door of the large room,which communicated with the small one in which they were, was burst openwith a frightful crash.

  "Here they are!" cried the host, clasping his hands in alarm. Then,running to Olivier, he pushed him, as it were, out of the window; for,with one foot on the sill, the workman still hesitate
d.

  The window once closed, the publican returned towards Morok the instantthe latter entered the large room, into which the leaders of the Wolveshad just forced an entry, whilst their companions were vociferating inthe yard and on the staircase. Eight or ten of these madmen, urged byothers to take part in these scenes of disorder, had rushed first intothe room, with countenances inflamed by wine and anger; most of themwere armed with long sticks. A blaster, of Herculean strength andstature, with an old red handkerchief about his head, its raggedends streaming over his shoulders, miserably dressed in a half-worngoat-skin, brandished an iron drilling-rod, and appeared to direct themovements. With bloodshot eyes, threatening and ferocious countenance,he advanced towards the small room, as if to drive back Morok, andexclaimed, in a voice of thunder:

  "Where are the Devourers?--the Wolves will eat 'em up!"

  The host hastened to open the door of the small room, saying: "There isno one here, my friends--no one. Look for yourselves."

  "It is true," said the quarryman, surprised, after peeping into theroom; "where are they, then? We were told there were a dozen of themhere. They should have marched with us against the factory, or there'd'a been a battle, and the Wolves would have tried their teeth!"

  "If they have not come," said another, "they will come. Let's wait."

  "Yes, yes; we will wait for them."

  "We will look close at each other."

  "If the Wolves want to see the Devourers," said Morok, "why not go andhowl round the factory of the miscreant atheists? At the first howl ofthe Wolves they will come out, and give you battle."

  "They will give you--battle," repeated Sleepinbuff, mechanically.

  "Unless the Wolves are afraid of the Devourers," added Morok.

  "Since you talk of fear, you shall go with us, and see who's afraid!"cried the formidable blaster, and in a thundering voice, he advancedtowards Morok.

  A number of voices joined in with, "Who says the Wolves are afraid ofthe Devourers?"

  "It would be the first time!"

  "Battle! battle! and make an end of it!"

  "We are tired of all this. Why should we be so miserable, and they sowell off?"

  "They have said that quarrymen are brutes, only fit to torn wheels in ashaft, like dogs to turn spits," cried an emissary of Baron Tripeaud's.

  "And that the Devourers would make themselves caps with wolf-skin,"added another.

  "Neither they nor their wives ever go to mass. They are pagans anddogs!" cried an emissary of the preaching abbe.

  "The men might keep their Sunday as they pleased; but their wives not togo to mass!--it is abominable.

  "And, therefore, the curate has said that their factory, because of itsabominations, might bring down the cholera to the country."

  "True? he said that in his sermon."

  "Our wives heard it."

  "Yes, yes; down with the Devourers, who want to bring the cholera on thecountry!"

  "Hooray, for a fight!" cried the crowd in chorus.

  "To the factory, my brave Wolves!" cried Morok, with the voice of aStentor; "on to the factory!"

  "Yes! to the factory! to the factory!" repeated the crowd, with furiousstamping; for, little by little, all who could force their way into theroom, or up the stairs, had there collected together.

  These furious cries recalling Jacques for a moment to his senses, hewhispered to Morok: "It is slaughter you would provoke? I wash my handsof it."

  "We shall have time to let them know at the factory. We can give thesefellows the slip on the road," answered Morok. Then he cried aloud,addressing the host, who was terrified at this disorder: "Brandy!--letus drink to the health of the brave Wolves! I will stand treat." Hethrew some money to the host, who disappeared, and soon returned withseveral bottles of brandy, and some glasses.

  "What! glasses?" cried Morok. "Do jolly companions, like we are, drinkout of glasses?" So saying, he forced out one of the corks, raised theneck of the bottle to his lips, and, having drunk a deep draught, passedit to the gigantic quarryman.

  "That's the thing!" said the latter. "Here's in honor of thetreat!--None but a sneak will refuse, for this stuff will sharpen theWolves' teeth!"

  "Here's to your health, mates!" said Morok, distributing the bottles.

  "There will be blood at the end of all this," muttered Sleepinbuff, who,in spite of his intoxication, perceived all the danger of these fatalincitements. Indeed, a large portion of the crowd was already quittingthe yard of the public-house, and advancing rapidly towards M. Hardy'sfactory.

  Those of the workmen and inhabitants of the village, who had not chosento take any part in this movement of hostility (they were the majority),did not make their appearance, as this threatening troop passed alongthe principal street; but a good number of women, excited to fanaticismby the sermons of the abbe, encouraged the warlike assemblage withtheir cries. At the head of the troop advanced the gigantic blaster,brandishing his formidable bar, followed by a motley mass, armed withsticks and stones. Their heads still warmed by their recent libationsof brandy, they had now attained a frightful state of frenzy. Theircountenances were ferocious, inflamed, terrible. This unchaining ofthe worst passions seemed to forbode the most deplorable consequences.Holding each other arm-in-arm, and walking four or five together, theWolves gave vent to their excitement in war-songs, which closed with thefollowing verse:

  "Forward! full of assurance! Let us try our vigorous arms! They havewearied out our prudence; Let us show we've no alarms. Sprung from amonarch glorious,(28) To-day we'll not grow pale, Whether we win thefight, or fail, Whether we die, or are victorious! Children of Solomon,mighty king, All your efforts together bring, Till in triumph we shallsing!"

  Morok and Jacques had disappeared whilst the tumultuous troop wereleaving the tavern to hasten to the factory.

  (27) Let it be noted, to the working-man's credit, that such outrageousscenes become more and more rare as he is enlightened to the fullconsciousness of his worth. Such better tendencies are to be attributedto the just influence of an excellent tract on trades' union writtenby M. Agricole Perdignier, and published in 1841, Paris. This author, ajoiner, founded at his own expense an establishment in the Faubourg St.Antoine, where some forty or fifty of his trade lodged, and were given,after the day's work, a course of geometry, etc., applied to woodcarving. We went to one of the lectures, and found as much clearnessin the professor as attention and intelligence in the audience. At ten,after reading selections, all the lodgers retire, forced by their scantywages to sleep, perhaps, four in a room. M. Perdignier informed us thatstudy and instruction were such powerful ameliorators, that, duringsix years, he had only one of his lodgers to expel. "In a few days,"he remarked, "the bad eggs find out, this is no place for them to addlesound ones!" We are happy to hear, reader, public homage to a learnedand upright man, devoted to his fellow-workmen.

  (28) The Wolves (among others) ascribe the institution of their companyto King Solomon. See the curious work by M. Agricole Perdignier, fromwhich the war-song is extracted.