_ CHAPTER XIII
When the police, supported by the Garde de Paris, had finally swept the boulevard clear of the mob, they found among the human debris two men locked in each other's grasp, insensible. The imprint on two throats showed with what desperate ferocity they had clung to each other. Indeed, their hands were scarcely yet relaxed from exhaustion. Their faces were black and their tongues protruded.
In the nearest pharmacy, where ambulances were being awaited by a dozen others, Jean Marot quickly revived under treatment. The case of Henri Lerouge, however, was more serious. He had received a severe cut in the head early in the row and the young surgeon in charge feared internal injuries. Artificial means were required to induce respiration. This was restored slowly and laboriously. At the first sign of life he murmured,--
"Andree! Sister! Ah! my poor little sister!"
Jean roused himself. The sounds of voices and wheels came to him indistinctly. Everything merged in these words,--
"Andree! Sister!"
Then again all was blank.
When he revived he was first of all conscious of a gentle feminine touch,--that subtle something which cools the fevered veins and softens the pangs of suffering, mind and body.
He felt it rather as if it were a dream, and kept his eyes closed for fear the dream would vanish. The hand softly bathed his head, which consciously lay in a woman's lap. He remembered but one hand--his mother's--that had soothed him thus, and the sweet souvenir provoked a deep sigh.
"Ah! mon Dieu!" murmured the voice of Mlle. Fouchette.
"L'hopital ou depot?" inquired the nearest agent.
"Depot," said the sous-brigadier.
"Oh! no! no!" exclaimed the girl, indignantly. "See, messieurs; he is wounded and weak, and----"
"One moment!"
A young surgeon knelt and applied his ear to the heaving breast, while the police agents whispered among each other.
Mlle. Fouchette caught the words, "It is La Savatiere," and smiled faintly, but was at once recalled to the situation by a pair of open eyes through which Jean Marot regarded her intently.
"So! It--it is only Mademoiselle Fouchette. I----"
He saw the cloud that rose upon her face and heard the gentle humility of her reply,--
"Yes, monsieur, it is only Fouchette. How do you find yourself, Monsieur Jean?"
She put a flask of brandy to his lips and saw him swallow a mouthful mechanically. Suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture and looked anxiously about.
"Where is he?"
"Who? Where is who, monsieur?"
"Lerouge. Why, he was here but now. Where is he?"
"Lerouge! That wretch!" cried the girl, with passion. "I could strangle him!"
"Oh! no, no, no!" he interposed. "It is a mistake. His sister, Fouchette----"
His glance was more than she could bear. She would have drawn him back to her as a mother protects a sick child, only a rough hand interposed.
"See! he raves, messieurs."
"Let him rave some more," said the sous-brigadier. "This is our affair. So it was Monsieur Lerouge, was it? Very good! Henri Lerouge, medical student, Quartier Latin, anarchist, turbulent fellow, rascal,--well cracked this time!"
Jean looked from the girl to the man and laid himself back in her arms without a word.
"Make a note," continued the police official,--"bad characters, both. This man goes to depot!"
"For shame!" cried Mlle. Fouchette.
"And hear this!" added the sous-brigadier in an angry voice,--"if this grisette of Rue St. Jacques gives you any of her guff run her in!"
"But--no, monsieur, that you will not! My business is here,--my authority above your authority,--and here I will remain!"
"Show it!" demanded the official.
She regarded him wrathfully.
"Very well, mademoiselle," said he, choking back his anger. "I know my duty and will not be interfered with by----"
"Gare a vous!" she interrupted, threateningly.
"Don't!" whispered Jean. "It is nothing. But tell me quickly,--has Lerouge gone to prison?"
"Hotel Dieu," she replied.
"Good! Go to his place, 7 Rue Dareau, you know,--tell her,--Mademoiselle Remy,--his sister, Fouchette----"
She bent lower over his head, hiding her face from his sight.
"Ah! what a fool I have been, Fouchette! Tell her gently--that he is injured--slightly, mind--and where he is. That's a good girl, Fouchette,--good girl that you are!"
He could not see her face for the hair that fell over the bowed head,--the living picture of the repentant Magdalen. But he felt her warm breath upon his cheek, and, was it a tear that splashed hotly on his neck?
But she merely pressed his hand for a reply and, disengaging her dress, darted from the place.
Threading her way rapidly among the arriving and departing vans and ambulances, the scattered remnants of the mob and the swarms of shifting police agents, Mlle. Fouchette finally reached a street open to traffic.
It was only at rare intervals that she indulged herself in a cab. This was one of the times. Hailing the first-comer, she jumped in and called out to the fat cabby, "Place Monge."
He drove thoughtfully as far as the next corner and then inquired over his shoulder where Place Monge was. She stood up behind him and fairly screamed in his ear,--
"Square Monge, espece de melon! Quartier Latin!"
The bony horse started up at the sound of her voice as from the lash. Evidently, Mlle. Fouchette was not in good temper. She had no relish for the work of good-will cut out for her. She was disgusted at the weakness of man. If she had been driver at that moment she would have run down a few of them en route. Still, her cocher did his best.
At Place du Parvis Notre Dame she called out to him to stop. Getting out, she bade him wait near by, and started down along the quai in front of the Prefecture de Police. The man seemed suspicious and kept a sharp eye on his fare. Just as he was about to follow the girl he saw her start back, as if she had changed her mind.
She began to walk very rapidly towards him, looking neither to the right nor to the left. A man in a soft hat who had just left the Prefecture crossed the street in the opposite direction and, curiously enough, though there was an empty desert of space in the vicinity, the two jostled each other almost rudely and exchanged angry words.
After which the girl retook her place in the fiacre and said "Allons!" in a subdued tone that strongly contrasted with her former acerbity.
"Sure!" said the cabby to himself,--"she's drunk." And he looked forward to the near future rather gloomily.
His suspicion seemed more than justified when she again said Place Monge instead of Square Monge, the former being nearly half a mile farther. He almost collapsed when she finally got down and not only handed him the legal fare without dispute but double the usual pourboire.
"Toujours de meme ces femmes-la!" he growled, philosophically. Which meant that women were pretty much alike,--you never could tell what one of them would do.
Mlle. Fouchette, quite indifferent at any time to the private judgment of the cab-driving world, now silently and swiftly pursued the uneven tenor of her thoughts, not yet manifest. She hurried along the sombre walls of the giant caserne de la garde on the Rue Ortolan, plunged across the crowded Rue Mouffetard, and entered the picturesque little wine-shop on the corner.
It was a low, grim, two-story affair in time-worn stone, the door and windows heavily grilled in the elaborate and artistic wrought-iron work of the middle ages. A heavy oaken door supplemented the big barred gate and added to the ancient prison-like appearance of the place. Against the grilles of the Rue Mouffetard hung specimens of the filthy illustrated Paris papers, either the pictures or text of which would debar them from any respectable English-speaking community. Over the door opening into the Rue du Pot de Fer and below a lamp of that exquisite iron-work which is now one of the lost arts was displayed a small bush, intimating that, in spite of the strong improbability, good wine was to be had inside.
While a casual glance showed that the rooms above could not be high enough of ceiling for an ordinary individual to stand upright, the flowers in the little square recessed and grilled windows showed that this upper portion was inhabited. It was connected with the wine-shop below by a narrow and very much worn stone staircase, which ascended "a tire-bouchon," or corkscrew fashion, like the steep steps of a light-house.
As to the general reputation of the neighborhood, Mlle. Fouchette knew it to be "assez mauvaise,"--tolerably bad,--though it was not this knowledge that induced her to complete her journey on foot.
Her entrance caused a subdued but perceptible flutter among the occupants of the resort. These were, at the moment, four respectable-looking men in blouses, an old gentleman in the last stage of genteel rustiness, and a couple of camelots in the second stage of drunkenness,--that of undying friendship. The four, who appeared to be worthy tradesmen of the neighborhood, occupied a far table in the small and time-begrimed room, where they played at cards for small stakes; the rusty old gentleman sat alone with a half-emptied beer-glass and an evening newspaper before him; the street-hawkers were standing at the zinc, which in Paris represents our American bar, discussing the events of the day in the hoarse-lunged, insolent tone of their class.
Presiding over the establishment was--yes, it was Madame Podvin. Somewhat stouter, redder of face, more piggy of eye, with more decided whiskers, but still Madame Podvin.
She busied herself behind the zinc washing glasses, occasionally glancing at the men in the corner, smiling upon the inebriated camelots, and now and then casting a suspicious eye upon the quiet old gentleman behind his beer.
Madame Podvin had retired from the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers upon the retirement of Monsieur Podvin from public life by the State, and had found this congenial city resort vacant by reason of death,--the proprietor having been stabbed by one of his friendly customers over the question of pay for a drink of four sous.
Upon the entrance of Mlle. Fouchette Madame Podvin tapped the zinc sharply with the glass as if to knock something out of it, then greeted the new-comer effusively.
The four men hastily gathered up their stakes and began talking about the weather; the subdued camelots sipped their absinthe in silence; the old gentleman fell to reading his paper with renewed interest.
"Bonjour, madame," said Mlle. Fouchette, smilingly ignoring the private signal, though inwardly vexed.
"Mademoiselle Fouchette! Ah! how charming of you!" exclaimed Madame Podvin, hastily wiping her hands and coming around the open end of the bar to embrace her visitor.
Beneath the most elaborate politeness the Parisian conceals the bitterest hatred. French politeness is mostly superficial at best,--it often scarcely hides a cynicism that stings without words, a satire that bites to the verge of insult. The more Frenchwomen dislike each other the more formal and overpowering their compliments--if they do not come to blows.
"Thank you very much, madame," Mlle. Fouchette replied, as Madame Podvin kissed her cheeks. "Ah! you are always so gay and delightful, madame!"
"And how lovely you have grown to be!" exclaimed the Podvin, with a good show of enthusiasm, holding the girl off at arm's length for inspection. "It seems impossible that you should have come out of a rag-heap! And your sweet disposition----"
Madame Podvin elevated her hands in sheer despair of being able to describe it.
"It must go well with you, madame, you are always so amiable and cheerful," retorted Mlle. Fouchette.
"But you are more lovely every day you grow older," said Madame Podvin.
"Ah! Madame does not grow older!"
"Fouchette, cherie, I'm sure you must belong to a good family, you are so naturally winning and well-bred. The clothes you had on when I found you----"
"Madame?"
"I gave them away--for twenty--yes, it was twenty francs--they were not worth as many sous--to a gentleman----"
Madame Podvin stopped at the sight of Mlle. Fouchette's face; but, uncertain whether the subject pained, interested, or irritated the latter, she continued,----
"It was shortly after you left. He was very curious,--one of these government spies, you know, Fouchette----"
"Madame, I would see Mademoiselle Madeleine," interrupted the other.
Madame Podvin frowned.
"Not sick, I hope," added Fouchette.
"Oh! no; only----"
"Drinking?"
"Like a fish!"
"Poor Madeleine!"
"She's a beast!" cried Madame Podvin.
Madame Podvin sold vile liquor but despised the fools who drank it, and in this she was not singular.
"Is she----" Mlle. Fouchette raised her eyes heavenward inquiringly.
"No,--she's in the street. Ever since she got out of the hospital she has been going from bad to worse every day. And she owes me two weeks' lodging. If she doesn't pay up soon I'll----"
Whatever the Podvin intended to do with Madeleine she left it unsaid, for the latter stood in the doorway.
Great, indeed, was the change which had come over this unfortunate girl. Stout to repulsiveness, shabby of attire, fiery of face, unsteady of pose, with one bright beautiful eye burning with the supernatural fire of absinthe, the other sealed in internal darkness.
"Oh! Madeleine----" began Mlle. Fouchette, painfully impressed and hesitating.
"What! No! Fouchette? Mon ange!"
The drunken woman staggered forward to embrace her friend.
"Why, Madeleine----"
"Hold! And first tell me your bad news. You know you always bring me bad news, deary. You hunt me up when you have bad news. Come, now!"
"La, la, la, la!" trilled Mlle. Fouchette, passing her arm around the other's thick waist to gain time.
"Come! mon ange,--we'll have a drink anyhow. Mere! some absinthe,--we have thirst."
"No, no; not now, Madeleine."
"Not a drop here!" said Madame Podvin, seeing that Mlle. Fouchette was not disposed to pay.
"Not now," interposed the latter,--"a little later. I want a word or two with you, Madeleine, first. Just two minutes!"
The one brilliant orb regarded the girl intently, as if it would dive into her soul; but the habitual good-nature yielded.
"Very well. Come then, cherie,--a l'imperiale!"
And, indeed, the narrow, spiral stair more closely resembled that which leads to the imperiale of the Paris omnibus than anything found in the modern house.
The space above was divided in four, the first part being the small antechamber, dimly lighted from the roof, which they now entered. Through a door to the right they were in a room one-third of which was already occupied by an iron camp-bed. The rest of the furniture consisted of a little iron washstand, a chair, and some sort of a box covered with very much soiled chintz that was once pretty. Above this latter article of furniture was a small shelf, on which were coquettishly arranged a folding mirror and other cheap articles of toilet. A few fans of the cheap Japanesque variety were pinned here and there in painful regularity. A cheap holiday skirt and other feminine belongings hung on the wall over the cot. In the small, square, recessed window opening on Rue Mouffetard were pots of flowering plants that gave an air of refinement and comfort to a place otherwise cheerless and miserable.
And over all of this poverty and wretchedness hung a blackened ceiling so low that the feather of Mlle. Fouchette swept it,--so low and dark and heavy and lugubrious that it seemed to threaten momentarily to crush out what little human life and happiness remained there.
Madeleine silently motioned her visitor to the chair and threw herself on the creaking bed. She waited, suspiciously.
"The riots, you know, Madeleine," began Mlle. Fouchette.
"Dame! There is always rioting. One hears, but one doesn't mind."
"Unless one has friends, Madeleine----"
The maimed and half-drunken woman tried to straighten up.
"Well? Out with it, Fouchette. If one has friends in the row----"
"Why, then we feel an interest in our friends, n'est-ce pas?"
"It is about Lerouge!"
"Yes, Madeleine, I want----"
"Is he hurt?"
"Yes,--badly,--and is at the Hotel Dieu. I want his address. He has moved from 7 Rue Dareau since the police--since----"
"You want his address for the police," said the girl.
"Oh! no! no! not for that, dear!"
"Not for that; then what for? Tell me why you want it."
This was exactly what Mlle. Fouchette evidently did not desire to do. Madeleine saw it, and added firmly,--
"Tell me first, then--well, then I'll see."
"I will, then," rejoined the other, savagely.
"Speak!"
"I wish to notify his sister."
Madeleine looked at the speaker fixedly, as if still waiting for her to begin; stupidly, for her poor muddled brain refused to comprehend.
Mlle. Fouchette continued,--
"I say I wish to go to his place," she said, with great deliberation, "and notify his sister that her brother is injured and is lying at Hotel Dieu. I promised. It is important. Believing you knew the address I have come to you. You will help me, for his sister's sake,--for his sake, Madeleine? You know his sister lives with him----"
"You--you said his sister----"
But the voice choked. The words came huskily, like a death-rattle in her throat.
"Yes, sister," began again Mlle. Fouchette. But she was almost afraid now. The aspect of her listener's face was enough to touch even a harder heart than possessed this not too tender bearer of ill news.
However, Madeleine would have heard nothing more. She gazed vacantly at the opposite wall, a knee between her hands, and swaying slightly to and fro. Her face, bloated with drink, had become almost pale, and was the picture of long-settled grief. It was as if she were in fresh mourning for the long ago.
Presently a solitary tear from the unseen and unseeing eye stole out of its dark retreat and rolled slowly and reluctantly down upon the cheek and stopped and dried there.
Mlle. Fouchette saw it as the weather observer sees the moisture on the glass and speculated on the character of the coming storm.
She was disappointed. For instead of an explosion Madeleine suddenly rose and began fumbling among the garments on the wall without a word. She selected the best from her humble wardrobe and laid the pieces out one by one on the bed, then began rapidly to divest herself of what she wore.
When interrogated by the wondering Fouchette she never replied. Indeed, she no longer appeared to notice that her visitor was there. She bathed her face, and washed her hands, and scrubbed her white teeth, and carefully rearranged her hair. All of this with a calmness and precision of a perfectly sober woman,--as she now undoubtedly was. She then resumed her hat.
"How!" exclaimed Mlle. Fouchette, noting this quiet preparation with growing astonishment,--"not going out?"
"Yes," replied the girl.
"But, dear, you have not yet given me the address."
"It is unnecessary."
"But, Madeleine!"
"It is unnecessary, Fouchette. I will go and see his--his sister and lead her to him."
"But, deary!"
"And I will go alone," she added, looking at the other for the first time.
Unmindful of the wheedling voice of remonstrance, without another word, and leaving her door wide open and Mlle. Fouchette to follow or not at her pleasure, the miserable girl gained the street and swiftly sped away through the falling shadows of the night. _