The Wandering Jew — Complete
card-board boxes, the note for five hundred francs left by the side
of the two lines written to Mdlle. de Cardoville, all proved that her
obedience to Rodin's orders had borne fatal fruit, and that Mother Bunch
had quitted the house for ever. Finding the uselessness of her tardy
resolution, Florine resigned herself with a sigh to the necessity of
delivering the manuscript to Rodin. Then, forced by the fatality of her
miserable position to console herself for evil by evil, she considered
that the hunchback's departure would at least make her treachery less
dangerous.
Two days after these events, Adrienne received the following note from
Rodin, in answer to a letter she had written him, to inform him of the
work-girl's inexplicable departure:
"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY;--Obliged to set out this morning for the factory of
the excellent M. Hardy, whither I am called by an affair of importance,
it is impossible for me to pay you my humble respects. You ask me what I
think of the disappearance of this poor girl? I really do not know. The
future will, I doubt not, explain all to her advantage. Only, remember
what I told you at Dr. Baleinier's, with regard to a certain society and
its secret emissaries, with whom it has the art of surrounding those
it wishes to keep a watch on. I accuse no one; but let us only recall
facts. This poor girl accused me; and I am, as you know, the most
faithful of your servants. She possessed nothing; and yet five hundred
francs were found in her secretary. You loaded her with favors; and
she leaves your house without even explaining the cause of this
extraordinary flight. I draw no conclusion, my dear young lady; I am
always unwilling to condemn without evidence; but reflect upon all this,
and be on your guard, for you have perhaps escaped a great danger.
Be more circumspect and suspicious than ever; such at least is the
respectful advice of your most obedient, humble servant,
"Rodin."
CHAPTER XLIX. THE TRYSTING-PLACE OF THE WOLVES.
It was a Sunday morning the very day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville had
received Rodin's letter with regard to Mother Bunch's disappearance.
Two men were talking to together, seated at a table in one of the public
houses in the little village of Villiers, situated at no great distance
from Hardy's factory. The village was for the most part inhabited
by quarrymen and stonecutters, employed in working the neighboring
quarries. Nothing can be ruder and more laborious, and at the same time
less adequately paid, than the work of this class of people. Therefore,
as Agricola had told Mother Bunch, they drew painful comparisons
between their condition, almost always miserable, and the comfort and
comparative ease enjoyed by M. Hardy's workmen, thanks to his generous
and intelligent management, and to the principles of association
and community which he had put in practice amongst them. Misery and
ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited
to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels. For a long
time, the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen had been naturally envied, but
not with a jealousy amounting to hatred. As soon, however, as the secret
enemies of the manufacturer, uniting with his rival Baron Tripeaud,
had an interest in changing this peaceful state of things--it changed
accordingly.
With diabolical skill and perseverance they succeeded in kindling the
most evil passions. By means of chosen emissaries, they applied to those
quarrymen and stonecutters of the neighborhood, whose bad conduct had
aggravated their misery. Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, and
energy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majority
of their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, but
easily intimidated by violence. These turbulent leaders, previously
embittered by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated idea
of the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen, and excited to a jealous hatred
of them. They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe,
a member of the Jesuits, who had come expressly from Paris to preach
during Lent against M. Hardy, acted powerfully on the minds of the
women, who filled the church, whilst their husbands were haunting
the taverns. Profiting by the growing fear, which the approach of the
Cholera then inspired, the preacher struck with terror these weak and
credulous imaginations by pointing to M. Hardy's factory as a centre
of corruption and damnation, capable of drawing down the vengeance of
Heaven, and bringing the fatal scourge upon the country. Thus the men,
already inflamed with envy, were still more excited by the incessant
urgency of their wives, who, maddened by the abbe's sermons, poured
their curses on that band of atheists, who might bring down so many
misfortunes upon them and their children. Some bad characters, belonging
to the factory of Baron Tripeaud, and paid by him (for it was a great
interest the honorable manufacturer had in the ruin of M. Hardy), came
to augment the general irritation, and to complete it by raising one
of those alarming union-questions, which in our day have unfortunately
caused so much bloodshed. Many of M. Hardy's workmen, before they
entered his employ, had belonged to a society or union, called the
Devourers; while many of the stonecutters in the neighboring quarries
belonged to a society called the Wolves. Now, for a long time, an
implacable rivalry had existed between the Wolves and Devourers, and
brought about many sanguinary struggles, which are the more to be
deplored, 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 fraternal
communion, these unions break up the working-class into distinct and
hostile societies, whose rivalry often leads to bloody collisions.(27)
For the last week, the Wolves, excited by so many different
importunities, burned to discover an occasion or a pretext to come
to blows with the Devourers; but the latter, not frequenting the
public-houses, and hardly leaving the factory during the week, had
hitherto rendered such a meeting impossible, and the Wolves had been
forced to wait for the Sunday with ferocious impatience.
Moreover, a great number of the quarrymen and stonecutters, being
peaceable and hard-working people, had refused, though Wolves themselves
to join this hostile manifestation against the Devourers of M. Hardy's
factory; the leaders had been obliged to recruit their forces from the
vagabonds and idlers of the barriers, whom the attraction of tumult and
disorder had easily enlisted under the flag of the warlike Wolves. Such
then was the dull fermentation, which agitated the little village of
Villiers, whilst the two men of whom we have spoken were at table in the
public-house.
These men had asked for a private room, that they might be alone. One of
them was still young, and pretty well dressed. But the disorder in his
clothes, his loose cravat, his shirt spotted with wine, his dishevelled
hair, his look of fatigue, his marble complexion, his bloodshot eyes,
announced that a night of debauch had preceded this morning; whilst
his abrupt and heavy gesture, his hoarse voice, his look, sometimes
brilliant, and sometimes stupid, proved that to the last fumes of the
intoxication of the night before, were joined the first attacks of a
new state of drunkenness. The companion of this man said to him, as he
touched 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 that
he drives to the slaughter-house."
"Are you mad?"
"A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without a
motive."
"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 every
night 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 replied
with a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attach
this condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tell
her that I would never see her again! Why did you exact this letter from
me?"
"A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"
"Always."
"You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I saw
her get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte
Pelagie."
"Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given my
soul 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! And
why 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 of
brandy does not even make you wink. You must have a stomach of iron and
a 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 then
we 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, and
that I should want energy when the occasion required, of what occasion
did you speak?"
"Let us drink!"
"Stop a moment, comrade. I am no more of a fool than others. Your half
words have taught me something.
"Well, what?"
"You know that I have been a workman, that I have many companions, and
that, being a good fellow, I am much liked amongst them. You want me for
a 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 musket
shots."
"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 find
revolutions more agreeable than useful; all that I got from the
barricades of the three days was burnt breeches and a lost jacket. All
the 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 for
that. 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 die
of hunger and misery, and call on them for assistance? Do you think they
will remain deaf to such a summons? Hardy is only an exception. Let the
people but give a good pull all together, and the exception will become
the rule, and all the world be happy."
"What you say there is true, but it would be a devil of a pull that
would make an honest man out of my old master, Baron Tripeaud, who made
me what I am--an out-and-out rip."