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Mysteries of Paris, V3 by Eugene Sue

E >> Eugene Sue >> Mysteries of Paris, V3




* * * * *

"We are going to pass into the court of the idiots, and then we shall reach
the building where we shall find Morel," said the doctor, on leaving the
court where the Schoolmaster was.




CHAPTER XXVI.

MOREL, THE DIAMOND-CUTTER.


Notwithstanding the sadness with which the sight of the lunatics had
inspired her, Madame George could not but stop for a moment before a railed
court, where the incurable idiots were confined. Poor beings! who often
have not even the instinct of the beast, and whose origin is almost always
unknown--unknown to all as well as to themselves. Thus they pass through
life, absolute strangers to the affections, to thoughts, experiencing only
the most limited animal wants. If madness does not reveal itself at once to
a superficial observer by a single inspection of the physiognomy of the
lunatic, it is but too easy to recognize the physical character of
idiotism. Dr. Herbin had no occasion to direct the attention of Madame
George, to the expression of savage brutishness, stupid insensibility, or
imbecile amazement, which gave to the features of the unfortunate wretches
an expression at once hideous and painful to behold. Almost all were
clothed in long dirty frocks, ragged and torn; for, in spite of all
possible care, these beings, absolutely deprived of instinct and reason,
cannot be prevented from tearing and soiling their vestments, crawling and
rolling like beasts in the mire of the courts, where they remain during the
day. Some of them, crouched in the most obscure corners of a shed which
sheltered them, gathered in a heap, like animals in their dens, uttered a
kind of hollow and continual rattling noise. Others, leaning against the
wall immovable, looked fixedly at the sun. An old man, of monstrous
obesity, seated on a wooden chair, devoured his pittance with animal
voracity, casting on either side oblique angry glances. Some walked
rapidly, describing a circle, limiting themselves to a very small space.
This strange exercise would last for entire hours. Seated on the ground,
others swayed their bodies continually backward and forward, only
interrupting this movement of vertiginous monotony by shouts of
laughter--the guttural, harsh laugh of idiocy. Others, in fine, were almost
in a state of annihilation, only opening their eyes at the moment of
repast, remaining inert, inactive, deaf, dumb, blind--not a cry, not a
gesture announcing their vitality. The complete absence of verbal or
intellectual communication is one of the most gloomy characteristics of a
company of idiots, Lunatics, notwithstanding the incoherency of their words
and thoughts, at least speak, know each other, and seek each other; but
among idiots there reigns a stupid indifference, an isolated savageness.
Never do they pronounce an articulate word. Sometimes is heard among them
savage laughter, or groans and cries which resemble nothing human. Scarcely
can a few among them recognize their keepers; and yet, let us repeat it
with admiration, with reverence to the Creator, these unfortunate
creatures, who seem no longer to belong to our species, and not even to the
animal species, by the complete annihilation of their intellectual
faculties; these incurable beings, who partake more of the mollusca than
animated life, and who often thus pass through all the stages of a long
existence, are surrounded by tender cares, of which we have no idea.
Doubtless it is well to respect the principle of human dignity, even in
these unhappy beings who have only the exterior of men; but let us always
repeat, one should also think of the dignity of those who, endowed with all
their faculties, filled with zeal and activity, and the living strength of
the nation; to give them consciousness of this dignity by encouraging them,
and reward them when it is manifested by the love of industry, by
resignation, by probity; not to say, in fine, with semi-orthodox
selfishness, "Let us punish here below, God will recompense above."

"Poor people!" said Madame George, following the doctor, after having cast
a last look into the court of the idiots; "how sad it is to think there is
no remedy for their woes!"

"Alas! none, madame!" answered the doctor; "above all, when they have
reached this age; for, now, thanks to the progress of the science, idiot
children receive a kind of education which develops, at least, the atom of
imperfect intelligence with which they are sometimes endowed. We have a
school here, directed with as much perseverance as enlightened patience,
which already offers the most satisfactory results; by a very ingenious
method, the mental and physical capacities are exercised at the same time;
and many have been taught the alphabet, figures, and to distinguish colors;
they have also succeeded in teaching them to sing in chorus; and I assure
you, madame, that there is a kind of strange charm, at once sad and
touching, in hearing these plaintive, wondering voices raised toward heaven
in a chant, of which almost all the words, although in French, are to them
unknown. But here we are at the building where we shall find Morel. I have
recommended that he should be left alone this morning, that the effect
which I hope to produce upon him may have greater power."

"And what is his madness, sir?" whispered Madame George to the doctor, so
as not to be heard by Louise.

"He imagines that if he does not earn thirteen hundred francs in his day's
work, to pay a debt contracted with a notary named Jacques Ferrand, Louise
will die on the scaffold for the crime of infanticide."

"Oh! sir, that notary was a monster!" cried Madame George, informed of the
hatred of this man against Germain. "Louise Morel and her father are not
his only victims; he has persecuted my son with undying animosity."

"Louise Morel has told me all, madame," answered the doctor. "God's mercy!
this wretch has ceased to live! but be pleased to wait for a moment, with
these good people; I am going to see how poor Morel is." Then, addressing
the daughter of the lapidary, "I beg you, Louise, pay great attention! the
moment I cry, _Come!_ appear at once, but alone; when I say a second time,
_Come!_ the others will also enter."

"Oh! sir, my courage fails me," said Louise, drying her tears. "Poor
father! if this trial should be useless!"

"I hope it will save him; for a long time I have been preparing for it.
Come, compose yourself, and remember my instructions."

And the doctor, leaving the persons who accompanied him, entered into a
room of which the grated windows opened on a garden.

Thanks to repose, the salutary rules and comforts with which he was
surrounded, the features of Morel were no longer pale, ghastly, and
wrinkled by an unhealthy meagerness; his full face, slightly colored,
announced the return of health; but a melancholy smile, a certain fixed
expression, indicated that his reason was not yet completely
re-established.

When the doctor entered, Morel, seated and bent over a table, imitated the
exercise of his trade of a lapidary, saying, "Thirteen hundred
francs--thirteen hundred francs, or Louise to the scaffold--thirteen
hundred francs; let us work--work--work."

This aberration, of which the attacks were becoming less and less frequent,
had always been the primordial symptom of his madness. The physician, at
first vexed to find Morel at this moment under the influence of his
monomania, soon hoped to make it serve his project; he took from his pocket
a purse containing sixty-five golden louis, which he had placed there for
the purpose, poured the gold into his hand, and said suddenly to Morel,
who, profoundly absorbed by his ideal occupation, had not perceived the
arrival of the doctor:

"My good Morel! you have worked enough; you have earned the thirteen
hundred francs which you need to save Louise--here they are." And the
doctor threw on the table his handful of gold.

"Louise saved!" cried the lapidary, clutching the gold eagerly. "I will run
to the notary;" and, rising precipitately, he rushed to the door.

"Come!" cried the doctor, with a lively anxiety, for the instantaneous cure
of the lapidary might depend upon this first impression.

Hardly had he said "Come," than Louise appeared at the door, at the moment
that her father reached it. Morel, stupefied, recoiled two steps, and
dropped the gold which he had held. For some moments, he looked at Louise
with profound amazement, not yet recognizing her. He seemed, however, to be
endeavoring to collect his thoughts; then, approaching her by degrees, he
looked at her with an uneasy and timid curiosity. Louise, trembling with
emotion, with difficulty restrained her tears, while the doctor,
recommending her, by a sign, to remain silent, watched attentively the
smallest movements of the lapidary's countenance. He, leaning toward his
daughter, began to turn pale; he passed both his hands over his forehead,
covered with sweat; then, taking a step toward her, he wished to speak, but
his voice died upon his lips, his paleness increased, and he looked around
him with surprise, as if he were just awaking from a dream.

"Well, well," whispered the doctor to Louise, "it is a good sign; when I
say 'Come,' throw yourself into his arms, calling him father."

The lapidary placed his hands on his chest, looking at himself (if we may
so express it) from head to foot, as if to convince himself of his
identity. His features expressed a sad uncertainty: instead of fixing his
eyes on his daughter, he seemed as if he wished to hide himself from her
sight. Then he said, in a low and broken voice, "No! no! a dream--where am
I? impossible--a dream--it is not she." Then, seeing the gold scattered on
the floor, "And this gold--I do not remember--am I awake? My head turns--I
dare not look--I am ashamed: it is not Louise."

"Come!" said the doctor, in a loud voice. "Father, recognize me! I am
Louise, your daughter!" cried she, bursting into tears, and throwing
herself into his arms; at the same moment, Madame Morel, Rigolette, Madame
George, Germain, and the Pipelets entered the apartment.

"Oh! heavens!" said Morel, whom Louise loaded with caresses, "where am I?
what do they want with me? what has taken place? I cannot believe." Then,
after a pause, he took suddenly the head of Louise between his two hands,
looked at her fixedly, and cried, after some moments of increasing emotion,
"Louise!"

"He is saved," said the doctor.

"My husband! my poor Morel!" cried the wife of the lapidary, running to
join Louise.

"My wife!" said Morel; "my wife and child!"

"And I also, M. Morel," said Rigolette; "all your friends are collected
around you."

"All your friends! do you see, M. Morel?" added Germain.

"Miss Rigolette! M. Germain!" said the lapidary, recognizing each personage
with new astonishment.

"And your old friends of the lodge, too!" said Anastasia, approaching in
her turn, with Alfred; "here are the Pipelets--the old Pipelets--friends
till death! Daddy Morel, here is a great day."

"M. Pipelet and his wife! so many people around me! it seems to me so long
since! And, but, it is Louise, is it not?" cried he with emotion, pressing
his daughter to his heart. "It is you, Louise? very sure?"

"My poor father, yes; it is I; it is my mother: here are all your
friends--you shall leave us no more--we shall be happy now--very happy."

"Very happy. But wait until I recollect--all happy; it seems to me,
however, that they came to conduct you to prison, Louise."

"Yes, my father; but I have been acquitted--you see it--I am here--near to
you."

"Wait still--wait--my memory returns." Then he said, with affright, "And
the notary?"

"Dead."

"Dead--he! then I believe you; we can be happy; but where am I? how am I
here? for how long a time, and why? I do not exactly recollect."

"You have been so sick, sir," said the doctor, "that you have been brought
here, into the country; you have had a fever--very violent--delirium."

"Yes, yes I recollect; the last thing--before my illness--I was talking to
my daughter, and who--who then? Oh! a very generous man, M. Rudolph,
prevented my arrest. Since then I recollect nothing."

"Your disease was attended by a loss of memory," said the doctor. "The
sight of your daughter, of your wife, of your friends, has restored it to
you."

"And at whose house am I, then?"

"At a friend of M. Rudolph's," Germain hastened to say: "the change of air,
it was thought, would be useful to you."

"Very well," whispered the doctor; and, addressing the superintendent,
added, "Order the cab round to the garden door, so that he shall not be
obliged to pass through the courts to go out at the main entrance."

Thus, as often happens in cases of madness, Morel had no recollection or
consciousness of the alienation of mind with which he had been attacked.
What remains to be told? Some moments afterward, leaning on his wife and
daughter, and accompanied by a medical student, who, as a matter of
precaution, was to accompany them to Paris, Morel got into the carriage,
and left Bicetre, without suspecting that he had been confined there as a
lunatic.

"You think this man is completely cured?" said Madame George to the doctor,
who was conducting her to the principal entrance of Bicetre.

"I think so, madame, and I have expressly left him under the happy
influence of this family meeting. I should have feared to separate them. I
shall go and see him every day until his cure is perfectly established;
for, not only does he interest me very much, but he was particularly
recommended to me, on his first entrance here, by the charge d'affaires of
the Grand Duchy of Gerolstein."

Germain and his mother exchanged glances.

"I thank you, sir," said Madame George, "for the kindness with which you
have allowed me to visit this fine establishment; and I congratulate myself
at having witnessed a touching scene, which your knowledge and skill had
foreseen and predicted."

"And I, madame, doubly congratulate myself upon the success which has
restored so excellent a man to the arms of his family."

Some moments afterward, Madame George, Rigolette and Germain had left
Bicetre, as well as the Pipelets.

Just as Dr. Herbin returned to the courts, he met one of the superior
officers of the house, who said to him, "Ah! my dear M. Herbin, you cannot
imagine what a scene I have just witnessed. For an observer like you it
would have been an inexhaustible source of--"

"How then? What scene?"

"You know that we have here two women who are condemned to death--the
mother and daughter--who are to be executed to-morrow?"

"Doubtless."

"Never in my life have I seen hardihood and unconcern like this mother's:
she is an infernal woman."

"Is it not Widow Martial, who showed so much unblushing assurance at her
trial?"

"The same."

"And what has she done more?"

"She demanded to be confined in the same cell with her daughter until the
moment of her execution. They have granted her request. Her daughter, much
less hardened than she is, appears to be softened as the fatal moment
approaches, while the diabolical assurance of the widow augments still
more, if such a thing were possible. Just now the venerable chaplain of the
prison entered their cell to offer them the consolations of religion. The
daughter was about to accept them, when her mother, without losing for a
moment her usual coolness, attacked both her and the almoner with such
frightful remarks that the venerable priest was obliged to leave the
dungeon, after having in vain endeavored to address some holy words to this
unmanageable woman."

"Upon the eve of mounting the scaffold! Such hardihood is truly infernal,"
said the doctor.

"Would not one say that this was one of the families pursued by a fatality?
The father died upon the scaffold; one son is in the galleys; another, also
condemned to death, has lately escaped. The eldest son, and two younger
children only, have escaped this frightful contagion. However, this woman
has sent for the eldest son, the sole honest man of this detestable race,
to come to-morrow morning to receive her last wishes! What an interview!"

"Are you not curious to be present?"

"Frankly, no. You know my opinion concerning punishment by death, and I
have no need of such a spectacle to confirm this opinion. If this horrible
woman carries her unwavering firmness and assurance to the scaffold, what a
sight for the people! what a deplorable example!"

"There is something singular in this double execution--the day has been
fixed."

"How?"

"To-day is Mid-Lent."

"Well?"

"To-morrow the execution takes place at seven o'clock. Now the crowd of
maskers, who will pass the night at the balls, will necessarily meet the
mournful procession on their return to Paris; without speaking of the place
of execution, the Barriere Saint Jacques, where will be heard, in the
distance, the music at the surrounding taverns; for, to celebrate the last
day of the carnival, they dance in the wine-shops until ten or eleven in
the morning."

The next morning the sun rose clear and glorious. At four o'clock several
pickets of infantry and cavalry surrounded and guarded the approaches of
Bicetre. We will conduct the reader to the cell where we will find the
widow and her daughter Calabash.




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TOILET.


At Bicetre, a gloomy corridor, lighted at intervals by grated windows, or
kind of air-holes just above the level of the courtyard, leads to the
condemned cell. This dungeon received its light only from a large wicket in
the upper part of the door, which opened into the dark passage spoken of
above. In this cell, with its damp and moldy walls, its floor paved with
stones as cold as those of the sepulcher, were confined Widow Martial and
her daughter Calabash. The sharp face of the convict's widow, stern and
immovable, stood out in bold relief, like a marble mask, from the midst of
the obscurity which existed in the dungeon.

Deprived of the use of her hands, for under her black dress she wore a
strait-jacket, she asked that her cap might be taken off, complaining of
great heat in the head. Her gray hair fell disheveled upon her shoulders.
Seated on the edge of the bed, her feet on the ground, she looked fixedly
on her daughter, Calabash, who was separated from her by the width of the
dungeon. She, half reclining, and also wearing a strait-jacket had her back
against the wall. Her head was hanging on her breast, her eyes fixed, her
respiration broken. Save a slight convulsive movement, which from time to
time agitated her under jaw, her features appeared calm, but of livid
paleness. At the further end of the dungeon, near the door, under the open
wicket, a veteran with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, with a rough and
swarthy face, a bald head, and long gray mustachios, is seated on a chair.
He ought never to lose sight of the condemned.

"It is very cold here! and yet my eyes burn; and then I am thirsty--always
thirsty," said Calabash, at the end of a few moments. "Some water, if you
please, sir."

The old soldier rose and took from a bench a tin pail of water, filled a
tumbler, and gave her a drink.

After having drunk greedily, she said, "thank you, sir."

"Will you drink?" asked the soldier of the widow, who shook her head in the
negative.

"What o'clock is it, sir?" said Calabash.

"It will soon be half-past four."

"In three hours!" resumed Calabash, with a sardonic and sinister smile,
alluding to the time of her execution, "in three hours--" She dared not
finish.

The widow shrugged her shoulders. Her daughter comprehended her thoughts,
and replied, "You have more courage than I, mother, do you never falter--"

"Never."

"I know it well--I see it clearly. Your face is as tranquil as if you were
seated by the fire of our kitchen, sewing. Oh! those good days are so far
off--so far----"

"Parrot!"

"It is true; instead of resting there and thinking, without saying
anything, I would rather talk--I would rather----"

"Shake off your thoughts, coward!"

"Even if it should be so, mother, every one has not your courage. I have
done all I could to imitate you. I have not listened to the priest, because
you did not wish it. And yet I may have been wrong--for, in fine," added
the condemned girl, shuddering, "_hereafter_--who knows? and _hereafter_
will be very soon."

"In three hours."

"How coldly you say that, mother! And yet it is true; we are here, both of
us, not sick, not wishing to die, and yet in three hours----"

"In three hours you will have died like a true Martial. You will have seen
black, that's all; be bold, daughter."

"It is not right for you to talk to your daughter in that way," said the
old soldier, in a slow and grave tone; "you would have done much better to
have allowed her to speak with the ordinary."

The widow shrugged her shoulders with savage contempt, and, without turning
her head, she continued: "Courage, daughter; we will show them that women
have more firmness than these men, with their priests--the cowards!"

"Commandant Leblon was the bravest of the third regiment of Chasseurs; I
saw him covered with wounds in the breach of Saragossa, and he died making
the sign of the cross," said the veteran.

"You were his chaplain, then?" demanded the widow, with a savage burst of
laughter.

"I was his soldier," answered the veteran, mildly. "It was only to let you
know that one can pray when about to die, without being a coward."

Calabash looked attentively at this man with the bronzed visage, a perfect
type of the soldier of the Empire; a deep scar furrowed his left cheek, and
was lost in his large mustache. The simple words of this veteran, whose
features, wounds, and red ribbon announced calm and tried bravery,
profoundly struck the widow's daughter.

She had refused the consolation of the priest, more from shame and fear of
her mother, than from callousness. In her restless and dying thoughts, she
compared the impious jesting of her mother with the piety of the soldier.
Strong in this testimony, she thought she could listen without cowardice to
those religious instincts which even intrepid men had obeyed.

"In truth," said she, with anguish, "why did I not wish to hear the priest?
there is no weakness in that. Besides, it would keep off my thoughts, and
then, hereafter, who knows?"

"Again!" said the widow, in a tone of withering scorn. "Time is wanting--it
is a pity--you would be religious. The arrival of your brother Martial will
finish your conversion. But he will not come; the honest man, the good
son."

Just as the widow pronounced these last words the door of the prison
opened.

"Already!" cried Calabash with a convulsive start. "Oh! they have put the
clock ahead! They have deceived us!"

"So much the better--if the watch of the executioner is too fast--your
follies will not dishonor me."

"Madame," said the prison warder, with that kind of commiseration which
forebodes death, "your son is here; will you see him?"

"Yes," answered the widow, without turning her head.

"Enter, sir," said the warder. Martial entered.

The veteran remained in the dungeon, the door of which was left open as a
matter of precaution. Through the gloom of the corridor, half lighted by
the increasing day and by a lamp, several soldiers were seen sitting or
standing. Martial was as pale as his mother; his countenance expressed deep
and profound anguish, his knees trembled under him. In spite of the crimes
of this woman, in spite of the aversion that she had always shown for him,
he had thought it a duty to obey her last wishes. As soon as he entered the
dungeon, the widow cast on him a searching look, and said to him in a
hollow and angry voice, as if to awaken in her son a feeling of revenge,
"You see what they are going to do with your mother and your sister!"

"Ay! mother, it is frightful; but I warned you of it, alas!--I told you."

The widow bit her pale lips with rage; her son did not comprehend her; she
resumed: "They are going to kill us, as they killed your father."

"Alas! I can do nothing--it is finished. Now, what would you have me do?
Why did you not listen to me--you and sister? You would not have been
here."

"Oh! it is so," answered the widow, with her habitual and savage irony;
"you find it all right, do you?"

"Mother!"

"Now you are satisfied; you can say, without a lie, that your mother is
dead; you shall no longer blush for her."

"If I were a bad son," answered Martial, quickly, shocked at the unjust
harshness of his mother, "I should not be here."

"You came from curiosity."

"I come to obey you."

"Oh! if I had listened to you, Martial, instead of listening to my mother,
I should not be here," cried Calabash, in a heart-rending voice, and
yielding at length to her anguish and terror, which, until now (through the
influence of her mother), she had restrained. "It is your fault: I curse
you, my mother!"

"She repents--she curses me! you must be delighted now!" said the widow to
her son, with a burst of diabolical laughter.

Without replying to her, Martial approached Calabash, whose agony
continued, and said to her, with compassion, "Poor sister! it is too late
now."

Alex Ross: Winner of the Guardian first book award
Stuart Evers: They made a real difference to Britain's literary culture, and it would be a terrible shame if they got forgotten in the age of Amazon

Congratulations to Alex Ross, winner of the Guardian first book award
One of only seven copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard handwritten by JK Rowling is unveiled at the New York Public Library as the mass market edition goes on sale around the world

The arcane first book that's also a bestseller

Congratulations to Alex Ross, the deserving winner of the 2008 Guardian first book award. There's been a massed chorus of appreciation for this work already, so I shan't add much, except to say that what I particular enjoy about it is the connections it makes between musics and musicians. I'm the sort of person who goes to a lot of concerts, plays the violin, has some kind of grasp of how the history of music works – but frankly, it's all a bit fragmented and vague, since I have never studied the history of music properly and I can't really do the textbook musicological stuff. As I was reading Ross's book, it dawned on me that most of my knowledge of 20th-century music was based on reading the occasional Grove essay – and mostly, reading programme notes. What Ross's book does brilliantly is knit all these odd and isolated bits of knowledge together, so that everything starts to synthesise rather wonderfully, and you get to know what Sibelius thought of Stravinsky, say (not much – "stillborn affectations" was the phrase employed); or that Alban Berg was lionised by George Gershwin; or that David Bowie referenced Philip Glass and vice versa. That, and then the material is set against its historical and political background, such that this is a book for history-lovers as much as music-lovers.

By the way, there's a pungent criticism of the new-music scene by Hans Eisler in 1928, as quoted by Ross. How much have things changed, I wonder?

"The big music festivals have become downright stock exchanges, where the value of the works is assessed and contracts for the coming season are settled. Yet all this noise is carried out in the vacuum of a bell glass, so to speak, so that not a sound can be heard outside. An empty officiousness celebrates orgies of inbreeding, while there is a complete lack of interest or participation of a public of any kind."

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