Le Cocu Part 8

"Oh! these men! these women!"

IV

A PAIR OF LOVERS

I lived on Rue Meslay, in a large house where there were apartments for all sorts of persons, even for those who had no money; and where, consequently, the man who pa.s.sed the night working to earn his living used the same staircase as the man who pa.s.sed the night amusing himself; the only difference was that the former went up higher. But even under the eaves there are pleasures and love and some very charming faces. The man who knows how to find them is not afraid to go up rather high.

I knew that there were at the top of my house--that is to say, of the house where I lived--some small, unplastered rooms, with cracks in the walls and loose doors and windows, where the chimneys smoked, where one froze in winter, where the rats and mice came every night to visit the occupants, and which, none the less, the landlord let for the highest price that he could obtain; however, he would not accept everybody as a tenant, but insisted upon having none but quiet people. I had never been up to inspect those little rooms. It was not for lack of inclination, however, for I had met several times on my staircase a very pretty girl, who, as I knew, occupied one of the most modest apartments on the fifth floor. She had not the aspect of a common working girl, nor had she the wide-awake air of a grisette, and yet she was almost that, for she worked for her living. She made wreaths, so the concierge told me, and mended linen when people chose to give her any to mend. But she seemed so young that she inspired little confidence in the people to whom she went to ask for work; and yet one may be quite as honest at sixteen years as at forty. Honesty is in the blood; when one must look to time and experience for it, it is never built on a very solid foundation.

Little Marguerite had not been able to obtain a room in the house without difficulty. The landlord considered her too young and did not want to let a room to her; he was surprised that she should have quarters of her own so early. But the girl had a certain air of candor which disarmed the landlord's sternness; she swore that she was very quiet, that she made no noise and never stayed out late; and he let a room to her for a hundred and thirty francs a year. It was necessary to make many wreaths to earn that amount.

Despite her innocent air, Mademoiselle Marguerite had a lover; but when a girl has but one, when she receives only him and goes out only with him, she is justified in saying that she is quiet, and even honest.

Honesty does not consist solely in innocence. I once had a maid who was absolutely virtuous, and who stole my cravats.

I knew nothing of all these details when I first met the girl on the stairway. When I saw those small features that indicated that she was barely fifteen, those great light-blue eyes, that tiny mouth, that tiny figure--for, except her eyes, everything about Mademoiselle Marguerite seemed to be tiny--I made eyes at her, that is to say, I looked hard at her, and tried to make her look at me; but she paid no attention to my ogling and ran quickly down the stairs. Another time I ventured upon a few words, a compliment or two, but she did not reply; after that I ceased to ogle her or to speak to her, for I am not obstinate, and according to my belief, in order to please a woman one must please her at the outset.

Once, however, Mademoiselle Marguerite had rung at my door; when I found that she had come to pay me a visit, I did not know just what to think; but the girl, whose eyes were swollen with tears and who was sobbing pitifully, gave no thought to the impropriety of what she was doing. She came to ask me if I had seen her cat, which had disappeared that morning. On learning that I had not seen her poor Moquette, she darted away like an arrow, paying no heed to the consoling words which I attempted to offer her.

Thereupon I said to myself: "That is a virtuous girl; for I consider it virtuous to be faithful to her lover." I talked a little about her with my concierge, and what I learned confirmed me in my opinion.

"Yes, she is very quiet," said the concierge, "except when she is running after her cat, which she plays with as if she was only five years old. But after all, she is very young still. And she has a friend who is almost as young as she is. He's a very nice fellow, too. But they're as poor as Job! A room with nothing in it but a bed, and such a bed! four pieces of wood, which fall apart as soon as you touch 'em, a little sideboard that ain't worth more than fifteen sous, four chairs, a wash bowl and a little three-franc mirror; how can anyone get along with that? That's what Mademoiselle Marguerite calls her household! But still she pays her rent, and there's nothing to say."

"Her lover is a workman, I suppose, an apprentice?"

"No indeed! he's a dandy, a gentleman, in fact; but he seems to think that she's well enough off as she is, or else he can't do any better; and I give you my word that the girl eats potatoes oftener than anything else. But as long as she can see her Ernest and play with her cat, she's as happy as a queen."

Since I had known all this, I had regarded the girl with a friendly interest simply. Some time after, that interest became still greater. I overheard involuntarily a conversation between Mademoiselle Marguerite and an old count who lived on the same landing with me. Monsieur le comte was an old rake; there was nothing extraordinary in that; we are all rakes more or less. He, too, used to ogle our young neighbor, and one day, when I was about to go out, my door happened to be ajar, and the following dialogue reached my ears:

"Listen, listen, my pretty little minx; I have a couple of words to say to you."

"What are they, monsieur?"

"In the first place, that you are a sweetheart."

"Oh! if that's all, it is----"

"Listen, my dear love, I wish to make you happy."

"Happy? Why, I am very happy, monsieur."

"A girl can't be happy when she lives under the eaves, in a wretched, poorly-furnished chamber. I will give you a pretty apartment and money to buy whatever you want."

"What's that, monsieur? What do you take me for?"

"Come, come, Mademoiselle Marguerite, don't play the prude; when a girl has a lover, when she lives with a young man, she should not be so severe."

"Because I have a lover, monsieur, is that any reason why I should listen to such things?"

"Your little popinjay of a lover gives you nothing, and will drop you the first thing you know; whereas I will agree to give you an allowance, and, if you behave yourself, I----"

"I beg you to say no more, monsieur, and never speak to me again; if you do, I will tell Ernest that you called him a popinjay, and how you have been talking to me. Ah! he will teach you a lesson."

"What's that? You insolent, impertinent little hussy!"

"Bah! you old fool!"

And with that, the girl ran quickly upstairs. Monsieur le comte returned to his room grumbling, and I said to myself:

"She must really love her Ernest, since she prefers poverty with him to comfort with another;" and I was almost ashamed of having made some few sweet speeches to her, for, without being constant oneself, one may well do homage to constancy.

I was curious to see her lover; but probably he came early in the morning and went away late, or not at all. One day, however, I met him; and I was surprised to find that I knew him; I had met him several times in society. He was a young man of excellent family, not more than twenty years old; he was a comely youth, but he had a mania for writing for the stage, and had not as yet succeeded in having any of his plays produced, except a few unimportant things at some of the boulevard theatres. His parents did not approve of his taste for the drama, and desired to force him to enter the government service; but he always found a way to delay until the place was filled; and his parents, who were not at all satisfied with him, gave him very little pocket money. Poor fellow! I understood why his little mistress had potatoes oftener than quail.

I knew him only by his family name; I did not know that his name was Ernest. When we met on the stairs, he smiled and we bowed. I did not try to stop him, he always went up so rapidly. I understood that he was more anxious to be up there with her than to talk with me.

It was a long time since I had met Marguerite and her young lover. On returning from Giraud's party, I noticed much commotion in my concierge's lodge; the husband and wife were both up, although it was after midnight, and one of them was ordinarily in bed by eleven o'clock.

An old cook who lived in the house was also in their lodge; they were talking earnestly and I overheard these words:

"She is very ill; the midwife shook her head, and that's a very bad sign."

"Who is very ill?" I asked, as I took my candle.

"Why, monsieur, it's little Marguerite; she has had a miscarriage."

"What! was that poor child enceinte?"

"You don't mean to say that you haven't noticed it, monsieur? She was four and a half months gone."

"Is not Monsieur Ernest with her?"

"Oh! he is like a madman. He has just gone home; it's only a few steps away. He took our little nephew with him, so as to bring something back with him probably; for there ain't anything at all upstairs."

At that moment there was a loud knocking at the gate. Someone opened it and Ernest came into the courtyard with a mattress on his head; the young man had not hesitated to endanger his fine clothes by doing the work of a porter; when it is a question of helping the woman one loves, such things are not considered. Moreover, at midnight, the streets are not crowded.

The little nephew came behind, bringing an armchair covered with Utrecht velvet; I saw that young Ernest, without the knowledge of his parents, had despoiled his own chamber in order to provide his young friend with a little furniture.

"It is high time that you came back, monsieur," said the concierge, with that alarming manner which heightens the effect of bad news.

"Mademoiselle Marguerite is very sick; there's complications. In fact, she is losing all her blood, and you know it can't go on long that way."

The young man uttered a cry of dismay, and throwing the mattress to the ground, ran up the stairs four at a time, without stopping to listen to anything more. I remained in front of the concierges' lodge, both of them being too old and too lazy to offer to carry up the mattress; as for the little nephew, it was all that he could do to climb up with the chair, and the cook was there solely to gossip. I soon made up my mind: I took the mattress on my shoulders and I went up with it to the fifth floor.

I reached the door of little Marguerite's bedroom. It was not locked, and yet I dared not go in. I knew that the girl was so poor; and one should be especially careful when dealing with poor people. Perhaps she and her lover would be offended to think that I had ventured to come up.

And yet, since she was so ill----

While I was hesitating, standing at the door with the mattress on my shoulders, I heard a shrill voice say: