The Wandering Jew — Complete
quarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was
the Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained
firm as a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand that
was still free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise),
he endeavored with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who,
leaning his head forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast
of his adversary.
"The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,"
said the quarryman.
"You are no true Wolf," answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; "the
true Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one."
"True or false, I will break your teeth."
"And I your paw," said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg
of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and,
with the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head,
succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.
The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled
the quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, he
threw himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the
ground, falling himself upon him.
At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of
the Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: "Help,
Agricola!--they are killing my child!"
"Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when you
will," said Agricola, panting for breath.
"No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot," answered the quarryman,
seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his
knees upon his chest.
"Help!--they are killing my child!" cried Angela's mother, in a voice of
despair.
"Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!"' said Agricola, making the most violent
efforts to escape.
"I am too hungry," answered the quarryman.
Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola
redoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized
by the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a
vigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. He
relaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he
mechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as
soon as Agricola was delivered.
"Father, you have saved me!" cried the smith, springing up. "If only I
am in time to rescue Angela!"
"Run!--never mind me!" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the
house.
Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said,
to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in the
midst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend
the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been
carried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had
seen Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated
Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.
Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded
in forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and
rushed into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he
reached it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with
both hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was
trying to scratch and disfigure her.
To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with
irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch
her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement
as rapid as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost
instantly; but at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close
upon Agricola, were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith
lifted the fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room,
Ciboule and her band were driven from that part of the house.
After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,
who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the
weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the
pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed
by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged
themselves on the side of the Devourers.
"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one of
the most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting
roughly and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who must
unite to drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and
pillage."
"Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began by
breaking your windows."
"The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash their
hands of him. We shall soon settle his account."
"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other."(35)
This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a
small portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all
together, Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number,
opposed themselves to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new
excesses. Some of these wretches, still further excited by the little
man with the ferret's face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud,
now rushed in a mass towards the workshops of M. Hardy. Then began
a lamentable devastation. These people, seized with the mania of
destruction, broke without remorse machines of the greatest value, and
most delicate construction; half manufactured articles were pitilessly
destroyed; a savage emulation seemed to inspire these barbarians,
and those workshops, so lately the model of order and well-regulated
economy, were soon nothing but a wreck; the courts were strewed with
fragments of all kinds of wares, which were thrown from the windows with
ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of laughter. Then, still thanks to
the incitements of the little man with the ferret's face, the books
of M. Hardy, archives of commercial industry, so indispensable to the
trader, were scattered to the wind, torn, trampled under foot, in a sort
of infernal dance, composed of all that was most impure in this assembly
of low, filthy, and ragged men and women, who held each other by the
hand, and whirled round and round with horrible clamor. Strange and
painful contrasts! At the height of the stunning noise of these horrid
deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene of imposing and mournful calm
was taking place in the chamber of Marshal Simon's father, the door of
which was guarded by a few devoted men. The old workman was stretched
on his bed, with a bandage across his blood stained white hair. His
countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed, his look fixed and
glazed.
Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,
watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the
part of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on
the failing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were
kneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in
tears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for
the hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert
himself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features
painfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in this
chamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by
Father Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,
and full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, to
interrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences in
life. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor being
close to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being
widely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the
first call for medical assistance.
Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken
his eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"
"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."
"He is saved!" said the marshal.
"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor,
gravely: "the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the
feet, but I know not what will be the issue of the crisis."
"Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old man
slightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened his
eyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.
"Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and
hope.
"Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice. "Your
hand--give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.
"Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old
man in his own.
Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father,
covered his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives!
kind heaven, he lives! he is saved!"
At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between
the rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying
man.
"That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."
"It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitate
his father.
"Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not long
to live."
"Father--"
"Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."
"Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhaps
work a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a
priest--"
"A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in his
arms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."
"You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"
"Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually
grew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. I
think, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a
moment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road
unworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this
last hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty to
perform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of
neglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--"
Here the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the last
sentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that Marshal
Simon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--my
son!"
Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all was
over. At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible
shouts were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!" The conflagration had
broken out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into
which had glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the same
time, the roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the
arrival of a detachment of troops from town.
During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading
through the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows
keenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across the
fields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances
with slow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to return
home on foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the
fever in his blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He had
not been deceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he
might have found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception
which had just been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could have