The Wandering Jew — Complete
Grivois was giving to the coachman in a low voice the direction to St.
Mary's Convent, and was adding other instructions, when suddenly the pug
dog, who had growled savagely when the sisters took their seats in
the coach, began to bark with fury. The cause of this anger was clear
enough; Spoil-sport, until now unperceived, had with one bound entered
the carriage.
The pug, exasperated by this boldness, forgetting his ordinary prudence,
and excited to the utmost by rage and ugliness of temper, sprang at his
muzzle, and bit him so cruelly, that, in his turn, the brave Siberian
dog, maddened by the pain, threw himself upon the teaser, seized him
by the throat, and fairly strangled him with two grips of his powerful
jaws--as appeared by one stifled groan of the pug, previously half
suffocated with fat.
All this took place in less time than is occupied by the description.
Rose and Blanche had hardly opportunity to exclaim twice: "Here, Spoil
sport! down!"
"Oh, good gracious!" said Mrs. Grivois, turning round at the noise.
"There again is that monster of a dog--he will certainly hurt my love.
Send him away, young ladies--make him get down--it is impossible to take
him with us."
Ignorant of the degree of Spoil-sport's criminality, for his paltry foe
was stretched lifeless under a seat, the young girls yet felt that it
would be improper to take the dog with them, and they therefore said to
him in an angry tone, at the same time slightly touching him with their
feet: "Get down, Spoil-sport! go away!"
The faithful animal hesitated at first to obey this order. Sad and
supplicatingly looked he at the orphans, and with an air of mild
reproach, as if blaming them for sending away their only defender. But,
upon the stern repetition of the command, he got down from the coach,
with his tail between his legs, feeling perhaps that he had been
somewhat over-hasty with regard to the pug.
Mrs. Grivois, who was in a great hurry to leave that quarter of the
town, seated herself with precipitation in the carriage; the coachman
closed the door, and mounted his box; and then the coach started at a
rapid rate, whilst Mrs. Grivois prudently let down the blinds, for fear
of meeting Dagobert by the way.
Having taken these indispensable precautions, she was able to turn her
attention to her pet, whom she loved with all that deep, exaggerated
affection, which people of a bad disposition sometimes entertain for
animals, as if then concentrated and lavished upon them all those
feelings in which they are deficient with regard to their fellow
creatures. In a word. Mrs. Grivois was passionately attached to this
peevish, cowardly, spiteful dog, partly perhaps from a secret sympathy
with his vices. This attachment had lasted for six years, and only
seemed to increase as My Lord advanced in age.
We have laid some stress on this apparently puerile detail, because the
most trifling causes have often disastrous effects, and because we wish
the reader to understand what must have been the despair, fury, and
exasperation of this woman, when she discovered the death of her dog--a
despair, a fury, and an exasperation, of which the orphans might yet
feel the cruel consequences.
The hackney-coach had proceeded rapidly for some seconds, when Mrs.
Grivois, who was seated with her back to the horses, called My Lord. The
dog had very good reasons for not replying.
"Well, you sulky beauty!" said Mrs. Grivois, soothingly; "you have taken
offence, have you? It was not my fault if that great ugly dog came into
the coach, was it, young ladies? Come and kiss your mistress, and let us
make peace, old obstinate!"
The same obstinate silence continued on the part of the canine noble.
Rose and Blanche began to look anxiously at each other, for they knew
that Spoil-sport was somewhat rough in his ways, though they were far
from suspecting what had really happened. But Mrs. Grivois, rather
surprised than uneasy at her pug-log's insensibility to her affectionate
appeals, and believing him to be sullenly crouching beneath the seat,
stooped clown to take him up, and feeling one of his paws, drew it
impatiently towards her whilst she said to him in a half-jesting, half
angry tone: "Come, naughty fellow! you will give a pretty notion of your
temper to these young ladies."
So saying, she took up the dog, much astonished at his unresisting
torpor; but what was her fright, when, having placed him upon her lap,
she saw that he was quite motionless.
"An apoplexy!" cried she. "The dear creature ate too much--I was always
afraid of it."
Turning round hastily, she exclaimed: "Stop, coachman! stop!" without
reflecting that the coachman could not hear her. Then raising the cur's
head, still thinking that he was only in a fit, she perceived with
horror the bloody holes imprinted by five or six sharp fangs, which left
no doubt of the cause of his deplorable end.
Her first impulse was one of grief and despair. "Dead!" she exclaimed;
"dead! and already cold! Oh, goodness!" And this woman burst into tears.
The tears of the wicked are ominous. For a bad man to weep, he must
have suffered much; and, with him, the reaction of suffering, instead of
softening the soul, inflames it to a dangerous anger.
Thus, after yielding to that first painful emotion, the mistress of My
Lord felt herself transported with rage and hate--yes, hate--violent
hate for the young girls, who had been the involuntary cause of the
dog's death. Her countenance so plainly betrayed her resentment, that
Blanche and Rose were frightened at the expression of her face, which
had now grown purple with fury, as with agitated voice and wrathful
glance she exclaimed: "It was your dog that killed him!"
"Oh, madame!" said Rose; "we had nothing to do with it."
"It was your dog that bit Spoil-sport first," added Blanche, in a
plaintive voice.
The look of terror impressed on the features of the orphans recalled
Mrs. Grivois to herself. She saw the fatal consequences that might arise
from yielding imprudently to her anger. For the very sake of vengeance,
she had to restrain herself, in order not to awaken suspicion in the
minds of Marshal Simon's daughters. But not to appear to recover too
soon from her first impression, she continued for some minutes to cast
irritated glances at the young girls; then, little by little, her anger
seemed to give way to violent grief; she covered her face with her
hands, heaved a long sigh, and appeared to weep bitterly.
"Poor lady!" whispered Rose to Blanche. "How she weeps!--No doubt, she
loved her dog as much as we love Spoil-sport."
"Alas! yes," replied Blanche. "We also wept when our old Jovial was
killed."
After a few minutes, Mrs. Grivois raised her head, dried her eyes
definitively, and said in a gentle, and almost affectionate voice:
"Forgive me, young ladies! I was unable to repress the first movement
of irritation, or rather of deep sorrow--for I was tenderly attached to
this poor dog he has never left me for six years."
"We are very sorry for this misfortune, madame," resumed Rose; "and we
regret it the more, that it seems to be irreparable."
"I was just saying to my sister, that we can the better fancy your
grief, as we have had to mourn the death of our old horse, that carried
us all the way from Siberia."
"Well, my dear young ladies, let us think no more about it. It was
my fault; I should not have brought him with me; but he was always so
miserable, whenever I left him. You will make allowance for my weakness.
A good heart feels for animals as well as people; so I must trust to
your sensibility to excuse my hastiness."
"Do not think of it, madame; it is only your grief that afflicts us."
"I shall get over it, my dear young ladies--I shall get over it. The joy
of the meeting between you and your relation will help to console
me. She will be so happy. You are so charming! and then the singular
circumstance of your exact likeness to each other adds to the interest
you inspire."
"You are too kind to us, madame."
"Oh, no--I am sure you resemble each other as much in disposition as in
face."
"That is quite natural, madame," said Rose, "for since our birth we have
never left each other a minute, whether by night or day. It would be
strange, if we were not like in character."
"Really, my dear young ladies! you have never left each other a minute?"
"Never, madame." The sisters joined hands with an expressive smile.
"Then, how unhappy you would be, and how much to be pitied, if ever you
were separated."
"Oh, madame! it is impossible," said Blanche, smiling.
"How impossible?"
"Who would have the heart to separate us?"
"No doubt, my dear young ladies, it would be very cruel."
"Oh, madame," resumed Blanche, "even very wicked people would not think
of separating us."
"So much the better, my dear young ladies--pray, why?"
"Because it would cause us too much grief."
"Because it would kill us."
"Poor little dears!"
"Three months ago, we were shut up in prison. Well when the governor of
the prison saw us, though he looked a very stern man, he could not help
saying: 'It would be killing these children to separate them;' and so we
remained together, and were as happy as one can be in prison."
"It shows your excellent heart, and also that of the persons who knew
how to appreciate it."
The carriage stopped, and they heard the coachman call out "Any one at
the gate there?"
"Oh! here we are at your relation's," said Mrs. Grivois. Two wings of a
gate flew open, and the carriage rolled over the gravel of a court-yard.
Mrs. Grivois having drawn up one of the blinds, they found themselves in
a vast court, across the centre of which ran a high wall, with a kind
of porch upon columns, under which was a little door. Behind this wall,
they could see the upper part of a very large building in freestone.
Compared with the house in the Rue Brise-Miche, this building appeared
a palace; so Blanche said to Mrs. Grivois, with an expression of artless
admiration: "Dear me, madame, what a fine residence!"
"That is nothing," replied Madame Grivois; "wait till you see the
interior, which is much finer."
When the coachman opened the door of the carriage, what was the rage of
Mrs. Grivois, and the surprise of the girls, to see Spoil-sport, who
had been clever enough to follow the coach. Pricking up his ears, and
wagging his tail, he seemed to have forgotten his late offences, and to
expect to be praised for his intelligent fidelity.
"What!" cried Mrs. Grivois, whose sorrows were renewed at the sight;
"has that abominable dog followed the coach?"
"A famous dog, mum," answered the coachman "he never once left the heels
of my horses. He must have been trained to it. He's a powerful beast,
and two men couldn't scare him. Look at the throat of him now!"
The mistress of the deceased pug, enraged at the somewhat unseasonable
praises bestowed upon the Siberian, said to the orphans, "I will
announce your arrival, wait for me an instant in the coach."
So saying, she went with a rapid step towards the porch, and rang the
bell. A woman, clad in a monastic garb, appeared at the door, and bowed
respectfully to Mrs. Grivois, who addressed her in these few words, "I
have brought you the two young girls; the orders of Abbe d'Aigrigny and
the princess are, that they be instantly separated, and kept apart in
solitary cells--you understand, sister--and subjected to the rule for
impenitents."
"I will go and inform the superior, and it will be done," said the
portress, with another bend.
"Now, will you come, my dear young ladies?" resumed Mrs. Grivois,
addressing the two girls, who had secretly bestowed a few caresses upon
Spoil sport, so deeply were they touched by his instinctive attachment;