“Enter, sir,” she said.
“Enter, my benefactor,” repeated Jondrette, rising hastily.
M. Leblanc made his appearance.
He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable.
He laid four louis on the table.
“Monsieur Fabantou,” said he, “this is for your rent and your most pressing necessities.
We will attend to the rest hereafter.”
“May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor!” said Jondrette. And rapidly approaching his wife:—
“Dismiss the carriage!”
She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes and offering M. Leblanc a chair.
An instant later she returned and whispered in his ear:—
“‘Tis done.”
The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not now hear its departure.
Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself.
Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc.
Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes of the Salpetriere covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil, Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf, in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and pistol in hand.
However, Marius experienced only an emotion of horror, but no fear.
He clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt reassured.
“I shall be able to stop that wretch whenever I please,” he thought.
He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out their arm.
Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter between Jondrette and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was interested in learning.
CHAPTER XIX—OCCUPYING ONE’S SELF WITH OBSCURE DEPTHS
Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the pallets, which were empty.
“How is the poor little wounded girl?” he inquired.
“Bad,” replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, “very bad, my worthy sir.
Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to have her hurt dressed.
You will see them presently; they will be back immediately.”
“Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better,” went on M. Leblanc, casting his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat.
“She is dying,” said Jondrette. “But what do you expect, sir!
She has so much courage, that woman has!
She’s not a woman, she’s an ox.”
The Jondrette, touched by his compliment, deprecated it with the affected airs of a flattered monster.
“You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette!”
“Jondrette!” said M. Leblanc, “I thought your name was Fabantou?”
“Fabantou, alias Jondrette!” replied the husband hurriedly. “An artistic sobriquet!”
And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of voice:—
“Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I!
What would there be left for us if we had not that?
We are so wretched, my respectable sir!
We have arms, but there is no work!
We have the will, no work!
I don’t know how the government arranges that, but, on my word of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.30 I don’t wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, things would be different.
Here, for instance, I wanted to have my girls taught the trade of paper-box makers.
You will say to me:
‘What! a trade?’
Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A bread-winner!
What a fall, my benefactor!
What a degradation, when one has been what we have been!
Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity!
One thing only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing to part with, for I must live!