The Barber of Paris Part 4

"I receive very few visitors in the evening except Chaudoreille, whom you know."

"Oh, yes; and he makes me laugh every time I see him, for he will give me lessons in music, and I believe at the present time I know much more about it than he does. You will never let me leave my room."

"Blanche, isn't it apparent to you that that is not convenient?"

"But when you are alone I should like much better to keep you company and chat to you, than to listen to Marguerite's stories, which often make me very timorous and prevent me from going to sleep."

"You know that I'm not very chatty; after a day's work I'm tired and I like to rest."

"And Marguerite said that you didn't go to bed until very late, that you kept the light burning a long time, and that she doesn't know if you sleep one hour every night."

The old servant coughed, but unsuccessfully, to make Blanche stop talking; but the latter, not thinking that she had done anything wrong in repeating all that, paid no attention to her and continued to speak.

Marguerite, in order to avoid her master's look, wiped and dusted with new ardor; but this time the voice of the barber made itself heard, and it was she whom he addressed.

"Marguerite, I said to you when you came into my house that I detested curious, indiscreet people,--servants who spy on their master. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur," said the old servant, continuing to rub the top of the table.

"How do you know, then, whether I sleep late, whether I keep the light burning a long time, whether I am awake at night?--you who should be in your room at nine o'clock every evening and go to bed immediately."

"Monsieur, I beg your pardon; but at times, when the wind blows or the thunder growls, it's impossible for me to sleep; then, monsieur, I get up to pray to my patron saint, or cross my shovel and tongs, or to place a branch of boxwood on my bed. You know boxwood conjures the storm; and if they had taken some of it formerly to the a.r.s.enal, on the Billi Tower, it would not have been entirely destroyed by lightning in the year 1537 or '38--I don't know which exactly."

"Hang it! leave your boxwood and the Billi Tower alone; answer the question I asked you."

"That's what I'm doing, monsieur; it's always the wind or the storm which makes me wakeful, and as my window faces yours (when I say faces, it's a story above), then I see your light sometimes, and it seems to me that monsieur is walking about in his room. I'm not very certain of it, for there are curtains, and the shade deceives one sometimes."

"As I wish to prevent you from having the trouble of making sure that I am asleep, this evening you will change your room, and you will sleep in that which is above my apartments."

"What, monsieur! in that room where n.o.body ever goes? I do not believe that it has been inhabited since I came here, and I fear--"

"That's enough; see that you obey; and take care not to spy again on my actions, or I shall be forced to send you away from the house."

"Mercy! how ashamed I am at having made you scold Marguerite!" said Blanche, again approaching the barber. "If she said that, my friend, it was because of the interest she takes in your health. You know well that she is very much attached to you; but since it makes you angry, I promise you it shall not occur again. Come, that's the last of it; you won't say any more to her about it--will you?"

Blanche's voice was so sweet, so touching, that Touquet lost his air of severity and very nearly smiled as he answered,--

"Yes, that's the last of it; let us there leave it. As to you, Blanche, continue to be good, docile."

"And you will let me go out a little--will you not? You will allow me to go to walk in the Pre-aux-Clercs or on the Place Royale?"

"We shall see; we shall see a little later. To amuse yourself, vary your employments."

"That's what I do, my dear; I often leave my needle to spin some thread; or, better still, I take my tapestry work. Oh, you shall see; I'm making something very pretty."

"I know your talent--your taste. You have a sitar; you can amuse yourself by playing on it. Chaudoreille has given you some lessons."

"Yes; now I can play as well as he can, for I believe he's not very practised on it, although he says he's a great musician. But all that hardly ever amuses me; I should like much better to sit at the window which looks on the street, but you won't let me open it."

"No, Blanche; too many people are pa.s.sing in this neighborhood; you would be seen, ogled, insulted, by the bachelors, the pages, who take pleasure in annoying people."

"Well, I won't open my window. However, if you were willing I could put a mask on my face; then they could not see me."

"They would notice you none the less; besides, Blanche, only the court ladies are permitted to wear masks. I repeat to you, avoid the glances of these impertinent louts who run the streets, ogling at all the windows. You are not yet sixteen years old. In some years I shall leave Paris; I shall sell this house, and I shall retire into the country; there you can enjoy more liberty, and there you will taste pleasures which are worth more than any this city could offer you.--But someone is coming into the shop; go, Blanche, upstairs to your room."

The young girl kissed the barber and quickly regained the pa.s.sage, from which a staircase led to her chamber. She sighed lightly as she entered it, and said to herself, while glancing around her,--

"Always here! Always to see the same things! No one to speak to except Marguerite! She is very good, she loves me very much; but sometimes her stories are very wearisome to me. Well, then, if I must--" and Blanche took up a piece of tapestry which she was making and sang, while working, one of the three airs which her music master had taught her.

Soon the door of the room opened; Marguerite had followed the young girl, but did not arrive as soon as she, because her legs had not the vivacity of sixteen years. The old nurse pouted, for Blanche was the cause of her having to change her room, which was no small matter to Marguerite. Blanche perceived it; she ran in front of the old woman, made her sit down, and took her hands, while saying to her with a calming smile,--

"Are you vexed with me, nurse? You must have seen that I said all that without thinking that there was anything wrong in it."

Who could resist Blanche's smile? The old woman was much more sensitive to such sweet manners because people rarely used them with her; and that is why sometimes an old man loses his reason when a pretty girl casts a tender glance at him, because for a long time he has not been in the habit of receiving such glances.

"Who could remain angry with you?" said Marguerite, pressing Blanche's hand; "but for all that, it's very disagreeable to change rooms--to move at my age."

"I will help you, dear nurse; I will carry everything."

"Oh, it's not that; it's on the same landing; it's not far to carry things. But the room I've lived in for eight years, ever since I came here, was, thanks to my prayers and precautions, protected from the visits of all evil spirits. There I could defy all attempts of sorcerers and magicians; and all that I did there I shall have to do over again in the new room where I am to sleep."

"Do you believe, then, Marguerite, that sorcerers will come to visit you if you don't take all your precautions?"

"And why not, mademoiselle? Don't those people get in wherever they can penetrate? There are a great number of them in Paris. They carry away the corpses off the gibbets of Montfaucon; they commit a thousand horrors to make their sorceries successful. It is now nearly fifty years ago (it was my mother who told me that story) that a lackey, ruined by play, sold himself to the devil for ten crowns. The demon transformed himself into a serpent and took possession of the lackey, introducing himself into the latter's body by the mouth; and from that time on the unlucky man made horrible grimaces, because the devil was in his body.

Some years later a watchman was carried off by a sorcerer."

"Ah, dear nurse, you are going to tell me some more of those stories which will make me timorous at night."

"I don't tell you these to make you tremble, but to prove to you that it's necessary to be on one's guard against magicians, and not to be like those incredulous people who doubt everything when we have so many examples of the power of magic. I'll not do more than cite to you the Marechale d'Ancre and Urbain Grandier, who lodged some devils in the bodies of some pious Ursulines at Loudun; that is too frightful. But I will only tell you what happened to a magician called Cesar Perditor; that dates seventeen years back, or thereabouts. You see, my dear child, that's not very ancient."

"But, dear nurse, aren't you going to begin your moving?" said Blanche, who did not seem very eager to hear Marguerite's story.

"We've plenty of time," answered the old servant as she drew her chair close to Blanche's, delighted to relate a story about sorcerers, although that would make her tremble also. Marguerite commenced immediately:--

"This Cesar was, said they, very well versed in his magic art, and produced at his will both hail and thunder. He had a familiar spirit, and a dog that carried his letters and brought back the answers to him.

At a quarter of a league distant from this city, on the Gentilly side, he lived in a cave, in which he caused the devil and all his infernal court to appear. Ah, my poor child; they say that at a great distance from the cave a frightful noise might be heard every night. He made love philters, and wax images, by means of which he caused the persons they represented to languish and die.

"One day--no, it must have been one night--an old man came to the cave, who appeared to be suffering and in great distress. A great lord, a libertine, a worthless fellow, had stolen away his daughter, his only child; the old man in his despair, unable to obtain justice, went to the magician to procure the means of revenging himself upon the man who had outraged him."

"Nurse, it seems to me your master is calling you," said Blanche, interrupting Marguerite.

"No, no; he did not call me. Except at meal times, what need has M.

Touquet of me? But as we were saying, the old man went to seek a magician, and the latter promised him help; in fact, they heard more noise than usual in the cave that night,--so much that the lieutenant of police sent some people there, and Cesar was taken and led to the Bastile, where soon after the devil strangled him."

"And the old man, nurse?"

"He never returned to his dwelling; without doubt the devil carried him away also, or else the great n.o.bleman, having learned that he had gone to the magician's house. But n.o.body knows anything further about it.

Still, that will prove to you, my dear, how dangerous it is to have anything to do with those people."

"Dear nurse, this little talisman which you gave me, that I wear,--is not that the work of a sorcerer?"