Le Juif errant. English
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SISTER OF THE BACCHANAL QUEEN.
The person who now entered was a girl of about eighteen, short, and verymuch deformed. Though not exactly a hunchback, her spine was curved; herbreast was sunken, and her head deeply set in the shoulders. Her facewas regular, but long, thin, very pale, and pitted with the small pox;yet it expressed great sweetness and melancholy. Her blue eyes beamedwith kindness and intelligence. By a strange freak of nature, thehandsomest woman would have been proud of the magnificent hair twistedin a coarse net at the back of her head. She held an old basket in herhand. Though miserably clad, the care and neatness of her dress revealeda powerful struggle with her poverty. Notwithstanding the cold, shewore a scanty frock made of print of an indefinable color, spotted withwhite; but it had been so often washed, that its primitive design andcolor had long since disappeared. In her resigned, yet suffering face,might be read a long familiarity with every form of suffering, everydescription of taunting. From her birth, ridicule had ever pursued her.We have said that she was very deformed, and she was vulgarly called"Mother Bunch." Indeed it was so usual to give her this grotesque name,which every moment reminded her of her infirmity, that Frances andAgricola, though they felt as much compassion as other people showedcontempt for her, never called her, however, by any other name.
Mother Bunch, as we shall therefore call her in future, was born in thehouse in which Dagobert's wife had resided for more than twenty years;and she had, as it were, been brought up with Agricola and Gabriel.
There are wretches fatally doomed to misery. Mother Bunch had a verypretty sister, on whom Perrine Soliveau, their common mother, the widowof a ruined tradesman, had concentrated all her affection, while shetreated her deformed child with contempt and unkindness. The latterwould often come, weeping, to Frances, on this account, who tried toconsole her, and in the long evenings amused her by teaching her to readand sew. Accustomed to pity her by their mother's example, instead ofimitating other children, who always taunted and sometimes even beather, Agricola and Gabriel liked her, and used to protect and defend her.
She was about fifteen, and her sister Cephyse was about seventeen,when their mother died, leaving them both in utter poverty. Cephyse wasintelligent, active, clever, but different to her sister; she had thelively, alert, hoydenish character which requires air, exercise andpleasures--a good girl enough, but foolishly spoiled by her mother.Cephyse, listening at first to Frances's good advice, resigned herselfto her lot; and, having learnt to sew, worked like her sister, forabout a year. But, unable to endure any longer the bitter privations herinsignificant earnings, notwithstanding her incessant toil, exposedher to--privations which often bordered on starvation--Cephyse, young,pretty, of warm temperament, and surrounded by brilliant offers andseductions--brilliant, indeed, for her, since they offered food tosatisfy her hunger, shelter from the cold, and decent raiment, withoutbeing obliged to work fifteen hours a day in an obscure and unwholesomehovel--Cephyse listened to the vows of a young lawyer's clerk, whoforsook her soon after. She formed a connection with another clerk, whomshe (instructed by the examples set her), forsook in turn for a bagman,whom she afterwards cast off for other favorites. In a word, what withchanging and being forsaken, Cephyse, in the course of one or two years,was the idol of a set of grisettes, students and clerks; and acquiredsuch a reputation at the balls on the Hampstead Heaths of Paris, by herdecision of character, original turn of mind, and unwearied ardor in allkinds of pleasures, and especially her wild, noisy gayety, that she wastermed the Bacchanal Queen, and proved herself in every way worthy ofthis bewildering royalty.
From that time poor Mother Bunch only heard of her sister at rareintervals. She still mourned for her, and continued to toil hard togain her three-and-six a week. The unfortunate girl, having been taughtsewing by Frances, made coarse shirts for the common people and thearmy. For these she received half-a-crown a dozen. They had to behemmed, stitched, provided with collars and wristbands, buttons, andbutton holes; and at the most, when at work twelve and fifteen hours aday, she rarely succeeded in turning out more than fourteen or sixteenshirts a week--an excessive amount of toil that brought her in aboutthree shillings and fourpence a week. And the case of this poor girlwas neither accidental nor uncommon. And this, because the remunerationgiven for women's work is an example of revolting injustice and savagebarbarism. They are paid not half as much as men who are employed at theneedle: such as tailors, and makers of gloves, or waistcoats, etc.--nodoubt because women can work as well as men--because they are more weakand delicate--and because their need may be twofold as great when theybecome mothers.
Well, Mother Bunch fagged on, with three-and-four a week. That is tosay, toiling hard for twelve or fifteen hours every day; she succeededin keeping herself alive, in spite of exposure to hunger, cold, andpoverty--so numerous were her privations. Privations? No! The wordprivation expresses but weakly that constant and terrible want of allthat is necessary to preserve the existence God gives; namely, wholesomeair and shelter, sufficient and nourishing food and warm clothing.Mortification would be a better word to describe that total want of allthat is essentially vital, which a justly organized state of societyought--yes--ought necessarily to bestow on every active, honestworkman and workwoman, since civilization has dispossessed them of allterritorial right, and left them no other patrimony than their hands.
The savage does not enjoy the advantage of civilization; but he has, atleast, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fish of thesea, and the fruits of the earth, to feed him, and his native woods forshelter and for fuel. The civilized man, disinherited of these gifts,considering the rights of property as sacred, may, in return for hishard daily labor, which enriches his country, demand wages that willenable him to live in the enjoyment of health: nothing more, andnothing less. For is it living, to drag along on the extreme edge whichseparates life from the grave, and even there continually struggleagainst cold, hunger, and disease? And to show how far the mortificationwhich society imposes thus inexorably on its millions of honest,industrious laborers (by its careless disregard of all the questionswhich concern the just remuneration of labor), may extend, we willdescribe how this poor girl contrived to live on three shillings andsixpence a week.
Society, perhaps, may then feel its obligation to so many unfortunatewretches for supporting, with resignation, the horrible existence whichleaves them just sufficient life to feel the worst pangs of humanity.Yes: to live at such a price is virtue! Yes, society thus organized,whether it tolerates or imposes so much misery, loses all right toblame the poor wretches who sell themselves not through debauchery, butbecause they are cold and famishing. This poor girl spent her wages asfollows:
Six pounds of bread, second quality........0 8 1/2 Four pails of water................0 2 Lard or dripping (butter being out of the question)0 5 Coarse salt....................0 0 3/4 A bushel of charcoal...............0 4 A quart of dried vegetables............0 3 Three quarts of potatoes..............0 2 Dips........................0 3 1/4 Thread and needles.................0 2 1/2 ______ 2 7
To save charcoal, Mother Bunch prepared soup only two or three times aweek at most, on a stove that stood on the landing of the fourth story.On other days she ate it cold. There remained nine or ten pence a weekfor clothes and lodging. By rare good fortune, her situation was in onerespect an exception to the lot of many others. Agricola, that hemight not wound her delicacy, had come to a secret arrangement with thehousekeeper, and hired a garret for her, just large enough to hold asmall bed, a chair, and a table; for which the sempstress had to payfive shillings a year. But Agricola, in fulfilment of his agreement withthe porter, paid the balance, to make up the actual rent of thegarret, which was twelve and sixpence. The poor girl had thus abouteighteenpence a month left for her other expenses. But many workwomen,whose position is less fortunate than hers, since they have neitherhome n
or family, buy a piece of bread and some other food to keep themthrough the day; and at night patronize the "twopenny rope," one withanother, in a wretched room containing five or six beds, some of whichare always engaged by men, as male lodgers are by far the most abundant.Yes; and in spite of the disgust that a poor and virtuous girl must feelat this arrangement, she must submit to it; for a lodging-house keepercannot have separate rooms for females. To furnish a room, howevermeanly, the poor workwoman must possess three or four shillings in readymoney. But how save this sum, out of weekly earnings of a couple offlorins, which are scarcely sufficient to keep her from starving, andare still less sufficient to clothe her? No! no! The poor wretch mustresign herself to this repugnant cohabitation; and so, gradually, theinstinct of modesty becomes weakened; the natural sentiment of chastity,that saved her from the "gay life," becomes extinct; vice appears to bethe only means of improving her intolerable condition; she yields;and the first "man made of money," who can afford a governess for hischildren, cries out against the depravity of the lower orders! Andyet, painful as the condition of the working woman is, it is relativelyfortunate. Should work fail her for one day, two days, what then? Shouldsickness come--sickness almost always occasioned by unwholesome food,want of fresh air, necessary attention, and good rest; sickness, oftenso enervating as to render work impossible; though not so dangerousas to procure the sufferer a bed in an hospital--what becomes of thehapless wretches then? The mind hesitates, and shrinks from dwelling onsuch gloomy pictures.
This inadequacy of wages, one terrible source only of so many evils, andoften of so many vices, is general, especially among women; and, againthis is not private wretchedness, but the wretchedness which afflictswhole classes, the type of which we endeavor to develop in Mother Bunch.It exhibits the moral and physical condition of thousands of humancreatures in Paris, obliged to subsist on a scanty four shillings aweek. This poor workwoman, then, notwithstanding the advantages sheunknowingly enjoyed through Agricola's generosity, lived very miserably;and her health, already shattered, was now wholly undermined by theseconstant hardships. Yet, with extreme delicacy, though ignorant ofthe little sacrifice already made for her by Agricola, Mother Bunchpretended she earned more than she really did, in order to avoid offersof service which it would have pained her to accept, because she knewthe limited means of Frances and her son, and because it would havewounded her natural delicacy, rendered still more sensitive by so manysorrows and humiliations.
But, singular as it may appear, this deformed body contained a lovingand generous soul--a mind cultivated even to poetry; and let us add,that this was owing to the example of Agricola Baudoin, with whom shehad been brought up, and who had naturally the gift. This poor girl wasthe first confidant to whom our young mechanic imparted his literaryessays; and when he told her of the charm and extreme relief he foundin poetic reverie, after a day of hard toil, the workwoman, gifted withstrong natural intelligence, felt, in her turn, how great a resourcethis would be to her in her lonely and despised condition.
One day, to Agricola's great surprise, who had just read some verses toher, the sewing-girl, with smiles and blushes, timidly communicated tohim also a poetic composition. Her verses wanted rhythm and harmony,perhaps; but they were simple and affecting, as a non-envenomedcomplaint entrusted to a friendly hearer. From that day Agricola and sheheld frequent consultations; they gave each other mutual encouragement:but with this exception, no one else knew anything of the girl'spoetical essays, whose mild timidity made her often pass for a person ofweak intellect. This soul must have been great and beautiful, for in allher unlettered strains there was not a word of murmuring respecting herhard lot: her note was sad, but gentle--desponding, but resigned; itwas especially the language of deep tenderness--of mournful sympathy--ofangelic charity for all poor creatures consigned, like her, to bearthe double burden of poverty and deformity. Yet she often expresseda sincere free-spoken admiration of beauty, free from all envy orbitterness; she admired beauty as she admired the sun. But, alas! manywere the verses of hers that Agricola had never seen, and which he wasnever to see.
The young mechanic, though not strictly handsome, had an open masculineface; was as courageous as kind; possessed a noble, glowing, generousheart, a superior mind, and a frank, pleasing gayety of spirits. Theyoung girl, brought up with him, loved him as an unfortunate creaturecan love, who, dreading cruel ridicule, is obliged to hide her affectionin the depths of her heart, and adopt reserve and deep dissimulation.She did not seek to combat her love; to what purpose should she doso? No one would ever know it. Her well known sisterly affection forAgricola explained the interest she took in all that concerned him; sothat no one was surprised at the extreme grief of the young workwoman,when, in 1830, Agricola, after fighting intrepidly for the people'sflag, was brought bleeding home to his mother. Dagobert's son, deceived,like others, on this point, had never suspected, and was destined neverto suspect, this love for him.
Such was the poorly-clad girl who entered the room in which Frances waspreparing her son's supper.
"Is it you, my poor love," said she; "I have not seen you since morning:have you been ill? Come and kiss me."
The young girl kissed Agricola's mother, and replied: "I was very busyabout some work, mother; I did not wish to lose a moment; I have onlyjust finished it. I am going down to fetch some charcoal--do you wantanything while I'm out?"
"No, no, my child, thank you. But I am very uneasy. It is half-pasteight, and Agricola is not come home." Then she added, after a sigh: "Hekills himself with work for me. Ah, I am very unhappy, my girl; my sightis quite going. In a quarter of an hour after I begin working, I cannotsee at all--not even to sew sacks. The idea of being a burden to my sondrives me distracted."
"Oh, don't, ma'am, if Agricola heard you say that--"
"I know the poor boy thinks of nothing but me, and that augments myvexation. Only I think that rather than leave me, he gives up theadvantages that his fellow-workmen enjoy at Hardy's, his good and worthymaster--instead of living in this dull garret, where it is scarcelylight at noon, he would enjoy, like the other workmen, at very littleexpense, a good light room, warm in winter, airy in summer, with a viewof the garden. And he is so fond of trees! not to mention that thisplace is so far from his work, that it is quite a toil to him to get toit."
"Oh, when he embraces you he forgets his fatigue, Mrs. Baudoin," saidMother Bunch; "besides, he knows how you cling to the house in which hewas born. M. Hardy offered to settle you at Plessy with Agricola, in thebuilding put up for the workmen."
"Yes, my child; but then I must give up church. I can't do that."
"But--be easy, I hear him," said the hunchback, blushing.
A sonorous, joyous voice was heard singing on the stairs.
"At least, I'll not let him see that I have been crying," said the goodmother, drying her tears. "This is the only moment of rest and ease fromtoil he has--I must not make it sad to him."