Chapter I.27
Maxence had not spoken to Mlle. Lucienne for nearly a month. He tried to persuade himself that she despised him because he was poor. He kept watching for her, for he could not help it; but as much as possible he avoided her.
"I shall be miserable," he thought, "the day when she does not come home; and yet it would be the very best thing that could happen for me."
Nevertheless, he spent all his time trying to find some explanations for the conduct of this strange girl, who, beneath her woolen dress, had the haughty manners of a great lady. Then he delighted to imagine between her and himself some of those subjects of confidence, some of those facilities which chance never fails to supply to attentive passion, or some event which would enable him to emerge from his obscurity, and to acquire some rights by virtue of some great service rendered.
But never had he dared to hope for an occasion as propitious as the one he had just seized. And yet, after he had returned to his room, he hardly dared to congratulate himself upon the promptitude of his decision. He knew too well Mlle. Lucienne's excessive pride and sensitive nature.
"I should not be surprised if she were angry with me for what I've done," he thought.
The evening being quite chilly, he had lighted a few sticks; and, sitting by the fireside, he was waiting, his mind filled with vague hopes. It seemed to him that his neighbor could not absolve herself from coming to thank him; and he was listening intently to all the noises of the house, starting at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and at the slamming of doors. Ten times, at least, he went out on tiptoe to lean out of the window on the landing, to make sure that there was no light in Mlle. Lucienne's room. At eleven o'clock she had not yet come home; and he was deliberating whether he would not start out in quest of information, when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in!" he cried, in a voice choked with emotion. Mlle. Lucienne came in. She was somewhat paler than usual, but calm and perfectly self-possessed. Having bowed without the slightest shade of embarrassment, she laid upon the mantel- piece the thirty five-franc-notes which Maxence had thrown down to the Fortins; and, in her most natural tone, "Here are your hundred and fifty francs, sir," she uttered. "I am more grateful than I can express for your prompt kindness in lending them to me; but I did not need them."
Maxence had risen from his seat, and was making every effort to control his own feelings.
"Still," he began, "after what I heard--"
"Yes," she interrupted, "Mme. Fortin and her husband were trying to frighten me. But they were losing their time. When, after the Commune, I settled with them the manner in which I would discharge my debt towards them, having a just estimate of their worth, I made them write out and sign our agreement. Being in the right, I could resist them, and was resisting them when you threw them those hundred and fifty francs. Having laid hands upon them, they had the pretension to keep them. That's what I could not suffer. Not being able to recover them by main force, I went at once to the commissary of police. He was luckily at his office. He is an honest man, who already, once before, helped me out of a scrape. He listened to me kindly, and was moved by my explanations. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, he put on his overcoat, and came with me to see our landlord. After compelling them to return me your money, he signified to them to observe strictly our agreement, under penalty of incurring his utmost severity."
Maxence was wonderstruck.
"How could you dare?" he said.
"Wasn't I in the right?"
"Oh, a thousand times yes! Still--"
"What? Should my right be less respected because I am but a woman? And, because I have no one to protect me, am I outside the law, and condemned in advance to suffer the iniquitous fancies of every scoundrel? No, thank Heaven! Henceforth I shall feel easy. People like the Fortins, who live off I know not what shameful traffic, have too much to fear from the police to dare to molest me further."
The resentment of the insult could be read in her great black eyes; and a bitter disgust contracted her lips.
"Besides," she added, "the commissary had no need of my explanations to understand what abject inspirations the Fortins were following. The wretches had in their pocket the wages of their infamy. In refusing me my key, in throwing me out in the street at ten o'clock at night, they hoped to drive me to seek the assistance of the base coward who paid their odious treason. And we know the price which men demand for the slightest service they render to a woman."
Maxence turned pale. The idea flashed upon his mind that it was to him, perhaps, that these last words were addressed.
"Ah, I swear it!" he exclaimed, "it is without after-thought that I tried to help you. You do not owe me any thanks even."
"I do not thank you any the less, though," she said gently, "and from the bottom of my heart."
"It was so little!"
"Intention alone makes the value of a service, neighbor. And, besides, do not say that a hundred and fifty francs are nothing to you: perhaps you do not earn much more each month."
"I confess it," he said, blushing a little.
"You see, then? No, it was not to you that my words were addressed, but to the man who has paid the Fortins. He was waiting on the Boulevard, the result of the manoeuvre, which, they thought, was about to place me at his mercy. He ran quickly to me when I went out, and followed me all the way to the office of the commissary of police, as he follows me everywhere for the past month, with his sickening gallantries and his degrading propositions."
The eye flashing with anger, "Ah, if I had known!" exclaimed Maxence. "If you had told me but a word!" She smiled at his vehemence.
"What would you have done?" she said. "You cannot impart intelligence to a fool, heart to a coward, or delicacy of feeling to a boor."
"I could have chastised the miserable insulter." She had a superb gesture of indifference.
"Bash!" she interrupted. "What are insults to me? I am so accustomed to them, that they no longer have any effect upon me. I am eighteen: I have neither family, relatives, friends, nor any one in the world who even knows my existence; and I live by my labor. Can't you see what must be the humiliations of each day? Since I was eight years old, I have been earning the bread I eat, the dress I wear, and the rent of the den where I sleep. Can you understand what I have endured, to what ignominies I have been exposed, what traps have been set for me, and how it has happened to me sometimes to owe my safety to mere physical force? And yet I do not complain, since through it all I have been able to retain the respect of myself, and to remain virtuous in spite of all."
She was laughing a laugh that had something wild in it.
And, as Maxence was looking at her with immense surprise, "That seems strange to you, doesn't it?" she resumed. "A girl of eighteen, without a sou, free as air, very pretty, and yet virtuous in the midst of Paris. Probably you don't believe it, or, if you do, you just think, 'What on earth does she make by it?'
"And really you are right; for, after all, who cares, and who thinks any the more of me, if I work sixteen hours a day to remain virtuous? But it's a fancy of my own; and don't imagine for a moment that I am deterred by any scruples, or by timidity, or ignorance. No, no! I believe in nothing. I fear nothing; and I know as much as the oldest libertines, the most vicious, and the most depraved. And I don't say that I have not been tempted sometimes, when, coming home from work, I'd see some of them coming out of the restaurants, splendidly dressed, on their lover's arm, and getting into carriages to go to the theatre. There were moments when I was cold and hungry, and when, not knowing where to sleep, I wandered all night through the streets like a lost dog. There were hours when I felt sick of all this misery, and when I said to myself, that, since it was my fate to end in the hospital, I might as well make the trip gayly. But what! I should have had to traffic my person, to sell myself!"
She shuddered, and in a hoarse voice, "I would rather die," she said.
It was difficult to reconcile words such as these with certain circumstances of Mlle. Lucienne's existence,--her rides around the lake, for instance, in that carriage that came for her two or three times a week; her ever renewed costumes, each time more eccentric and more showy. But Maxence was not thinking of that. What she told him he accepted as absolutely true and indisputable. And he felt penetrated with an almost religious admiration for this young and beautiful girl, possessed of so much vivid energy, who alone, through the hazards, the perils, and the temptations of Paris, had succeeded in protecting and defending herself.
"And yet," he said, "without suspecting it, you had a friend near you."
She shuddered; and a pale smile flitted upon her lips. She knew well enough what friendship means between a youth of twenty-five and a girl of eighteen.
"A friend!" she murmured.
Maxence guessed her thought; and, in all the sincerity of his soul, "Yes, a friend," he repeated, "a comrade, a brother." And thinking to touch her, and gain her confidence, "I could understand you," he added; "for I, too, have been very unhappy."
But he was singularly mistaken. She looked at him with an astonished air, and slowly, "You unhappy!" she uttered,--"you who have a family, relations, a mother who adores<