Читать книгу Mlle. Fouchette - Charles Theodore Murray - Страница 15

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"Get along, you little beast!"

Madame Podvin accompanied her admonition with a vigorous blow from her heavy hand.

"Out, I say!"

Thump.

"You lazy caniche!"

Thump.

"You get no breakfast here this morning!"

Thump.

"Out with you!"

Thump.

In the mean time the unhappy object of these objurgations and blows had been rapidly propelled towards the open door, and was with a final thump knocked into the street.

A stray dog? Oh, no; a dog is never abused in this way in Paris. It would probably cause a riot.

It was only a wee bit of a child—dirty, clothed in rags, with tangled blonde hair that had never, apparently, seen a comb, and whose little bare feet and thin ankles were incrusted with the dried filth of the gutters.

Being only a child, the few neighbors who were abroad at that early hour merely grinned at her as she picked herself up and limped away without a cry or a word.

"She's a tough one," muttered a witness.

"She's got to be mighty tough to stand the Podvin," responded another.

In the rapidly increasing distance the child seemed to justify these remarks; for she began to step out nimbly towards the town of Charenton without wasting time over her grievances.

"All the same, I'm hungry," she said to herself, "and the streets of Charenton will be mighty poor picking half an hour hence."

She paused presently to examine a pile of garbage in front of a house. But the dogs had been there before her—there was nothing to eat there.

These piles of garbage awaited the tour of the carts; they began to appear at an early hour in the morning, and within an hour had been picked over by rag-pickers, dogs, and vagrants until absolutely nothing was left that could be by any possibility utilized by these early investigators. Here and there two or three dogs contested the spoils of a promising pile, to separate with watchful amity to gnaw individual bones.

As it was a principal highway from the Porte de Charenton to the town, the piles of refuse had been pretty thoroughly overhauled by the dogs and human scum that infested the barrier.

Finally, the girl stopped as a stout woman appeared at a grille with a paper of kitchen refuse which she was about to throw into the street.

They looked at each other steadily—the child with eager, hungry eyes; the woman with resentment.

"There is nothing here for you," rasped the latter, retaining her hold upon the folded parcel as she advanced to the curb and glanced up and down the street.

The child, who had unconsciously carried her rag-picker's hook, stood waiting in the middle of the road.

"Don't you hear me?" repeated the woman, threateningly. "Be off with you!"

"It is a public road," said the little one.

"You beggar——"

"I haven't asked you for anything, madame," interrupted the child, with quivering voice—"I'd die before asking you for anything—but I have as much right to the road as you."

There was a flash of defiance in the small blue eyes now.

Two street dogs came up on a run. The woman threw down her parcel to them and, retreating, slammed the iron gate after her.

With a wicked swing of her hook the child drove the dogs away and hastily inspected the garbage. A piece of stale crust and some half-decayed fruit rewarded her. A gristled end of beef she threw to the dogs, that watched her wistfully a few yards away.

"Voilà! I divide fair, messieurs," said she, skilfully munching the sound spots out of the fruit and casting the rest on the ground.

"One would have thought madame was about to spread a banquet," she muttered.

She sauntered away, stopping to break the crust with a piece of loose paving, with a sharp eye out for other windfalls.

A young girl saw her from a garden, and shyly peeped through the high wrought-iron fence at the little savage.

Though the latter never stopped a second in her process of mastication, she eyed the other quite as curiously—something as she might have regarded a strange but beautiful animal through the bars of its cage.

In experience and practical knowledge of life the respective ages of these two might have been reversed; the child of the street been sixteen instead of twelve.

Undersized, thin, sallow, and sunburned—bareheaded, barefooted, dirty, and ragged—she formed a striking contrast to the rosy-cheeked, plump, full-lipped, and well-dressed young woman within.

The extraordinary sound of crunching very naturally attracted the first attention of the elder.

"What in the world is that which you are eating, child?" she asked.

"Bread, ma'm'selle."

"Bread! Why, it's covered with dirt!"

"Yes, ma'm'selle."

Redoubled exertion of the sound young teeth.

"Why do you eat that?"

"Hungry, ma'm'selle."

"Heavens!"

Continuous crunching, while the child knocks the remaining crust against the wall to get the sand out of it, the dirt of the paving-stone.

"What's your name?"

"Fouchette."

"Fouchette? Fouchette what?"

"Nothing, ma'm'selle—just Fouchette."

"Where do you live, Fouchette? Do throw that dirty bread away, child!"

"Say, now, ma'm'selle, do you see anything green in my eye?"

The young woman seriously inspects the blue eye that is rolled up at her and shakes her head.

"N-no; I don't see anything."

"Very well," said Fouchette, continuing her attack on the slowly dissolving crust.

"Throw it away, I tell you!—I'll run and get you some—that's a good child!"

Fouchette stopped suddenly and remained immobile, regarding her interlocutor sharply.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Certainly."

The child looked at what remained of the crust, hesitated, sighed, then dropped it on the ground. The young woman hastily re-entered the house and presently reappeared with a huge sandwich with meat on a liberal scale.

"Oh, how good you are, ma'm'selle!" cried Fouchette.

Her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure—her young mouth watered as the sandwich was passed between the railing.

"What is that—why, there is blood on your neck, Fouchette!"

The child felt her neck with her hand and brought it away.

"So it is," said she, sinking her teeth into the sandwich.

"Here—come closer—turn this way. It's running down now. How did you hurt yourself?"

"Dame! It is nothing, ma'm'selle."

"Nothing! You are just black and blue!"

"Mostly black," said Fouchette. The world looked ever so much brighter.

"You've been fighting," suggested the young woman, tentatively.

"No, ma'm'selle."

"Then somebody struck you."

"Quite right, ma'm'selle."

This was delivered with such an air of nonchalance that the young lady smiled.

"You speak as if it were a common occurrence," she observed.

"It is," said Fouchette, with a desperate swallow—"Podvin."

"Po-Podvin?"

"Yes, ma'm'selle."

"Person you live with?"

Fouchette nodded—she had her mouth full.

"They beat you?"

"Most every day."

"Why?"

"Er—exercise, mostly, I think."

The half-sly, half-humorous squint of the left blue eye set the sympathetic young woman laughing in spite of herself. The remarkable precocity of these petites misérables of the slums was new to her.

"But you had father and mother——"

"I don't know, ma'm'selle—at least they never showed up."

"But, my child, you must have started——"

"I started in a rag-heap, ma'm'selle. There's where the Podvin found me."

"In a rag-heap!"

"Yes, ma'm'selle—so they say."

"But don't you remember anything at all before that?"

"Precious little. Only this: that I came a long ways off, walking, and riding in market carts, and walking some more—and then the Podvin found me—near here—and here I am. That's all."

"What does Podvin do for a living?"

"Drinks."

"Ah! And madame?"

"Hammers me."

"And you?"

"Rags."

"Now, Fouchette, which is 'the' Podvin?"

"Madame, of course!"

The young woman laughed merrily, and Fouchette gave forth a singular, low, unmusical tinkle. She was astonished that the young lady should put such a question, then amused as she thought of Mother Podvin playing second to anybody.

"What a lively little girl you are, Fouchette!" said her questioner, pleasantly.

"It's the fleas, ma'm'selle."

"W-wh-what?"

"I sleep with Tartar."

"Who's Tartar, and what——"

"He's the dog, ma'm'selle."

"Heavens!"

"Oh, he's the best of the family, ma'm'selle, very sure!" protested Fouchette, naïvely.

"No doubt of it, poor child!"

"Only for him I'd freeze in winter; and sometimes he divides his dinner with me—as well as his fleas—when he is not too hungry, you know. This amuses the Podvin so that sometimes, when we have company, she will not give me any dinner, so I'll have to beg of Tartar. And we have lots of fun, and I dance——"

"You dance after that? Why——"

"Oh, I love to dance, ma'm'selle. I can——"

Fouchette elevated her dirty little bare foot against the railing above her head by way of illustration; while, half shocked, half laughing, the other hastily exclaimed—

"Là, là, là! Put it down, Fouchette! Put it down!"

A restless glance up and down the road and back towards the house seemed to relieve the young woman materially; she laughed now with delightful abandon.

"So Tartar and you are good friends in spite of the—the——"

"The fleas—yes, ma'm'selle. He loves me and me alone. Nobody dares come near him when we sleep—or eat—and I love him dearly. Did you ever love anybody, ma'm'selle?"

This artless question appeared to take the young woman by surprise; for she grew confused and quite red, and finally told little Fouchette to "run along, now, and don't be silly."

"Not with fleas—oh, no; I didn't mean that!" cried the child, conscious of having made a faux pas, but not clear.

But the young woman was already flying through the flower-garden, and quickly disappeared around the corner of the house without once looking back.

Fouchette then let go of her breath and heaved a deep sigh as she turned away.

It was the only occasion within her childish recollection when one of her own sex had spoken to her in kindness. Now and then she had dreamed of such a thing as having occurred in the long ago—in some other world, perhaps—this was real, tangible, perceptible to the eye and ear.

"Sweet words

Are like the voices of returning birds,

Filling the soul with summer."

For the moment the starved soul of the child was filled with summer softness, as she slowly returned along the route she had recently come, thinking of the beautiful young lady and the sensuous odor of the flowers which had penetrated to the innermost recesses of her being.

As she neared the barriers, however, and was gradually recalled to the harsh realities of her daily environment, these fleeting dreams had disappeared with the rest, leaving the old, fixed feelings of hopelessness and sullen combativeness. With this revival came the pain from the still recent blows of the morning, temporarily forgotten.

The barriers at Paris have long been the popular haunts of poverty and crime—though their moral conditions have been greatly modified by the multitude of tramways that afford the poor of Paris more extended outings. The barriers run along the line of fortifications and form the "octroi," or tax limit of the city. These big iron gates of the barriers intercept every road entering Paris and are manned by customs officials, who inspect all incoming vehicles and packages for dutiable goods.

Within the barriers is Paris—beyond is the rest of the world. Inside are the police agents—outside are the gendarmes.

Cheap shows, gypsy camps, merry-go-rounds, and all sorts of games hover about the barriers, where no special tax is exacted and where the regulations with reference to public order are somewhat lax. They attract noisy and unruly crowds on Sundays and holidays. A once popular song ran:

"Pour rigoler montons,

Montons à la barrière."

Which means, that to have a good time let us go up to the barrier.

These resorts are infested by the human vermin that prey on the ignorant—thieves, pickpockets, robbers, and cutthroats of every description. This very wood of Vincennes near at hand, now the glory of picnickers, was for centuries the home and stronghold of the robber and professional assassin. And it is a rash man at this day who would voluntarily risk his purse and life by being found alone in the neighborhood after nightfall.

Fouchette's territory lay chiefly in the streets and suburbs of Charenton. To cover it she was compelled to get out before daylight. If she had good luck and brought in anything valuable she got an extra allowance of soup, sometimes with a scrap of meat, to be invariably divided between her and Tartar, or a small glass of red wine; if her find was poor her fare was reduced, and instead of food she often received blows.

These blows, however, were never administered in the sight of the dog, Tartar—only once, when the savage animal resented this treatment of his side partner by burying his teeth in Mother Podvin's arm.

Little Fouchette remembered this friendly intervention by bringing home any choice bits of meat found in the house garbage during her morning tour. Mother Podvin remembered it by thereafter thumping Fouchette out of sight of her canine friend and protector. The infuriated woman would have slaughtered the offending spaniel on the spot, only Tartar was of infinite service to her husband in his business. She dared not, so she took it out on Fouchette.

Monsieur Podvin's business was not confined wholly to drinking, though it was perhaps natural that Fouchette should have reached that conclusion, since she had seen him in no other occupation. Monsieur Podvin, like many others of the mysterious inhabitants of the barriers, worked nights. Not regularly, but as occasion invited him or necessity drove him. On such occasions Tartar was brought forth from the cellar, where he reposed peacefully by the side of his little protégée, and accompanied his master. As Tartar was held in strict confinement during the day, he was invariably delighted when the call of duty gave him this outing. And as he returned at all sorts of hours in the early morning, his frail partner and bedfellow never felt that it was necessary to sit up for him. Nevertheless, Fouchette was quite nervous, and sometimes sleepless, down there among the wine-bottles in the dark, on her pallet of straw, when she awoke to find her hairy protector missing; though, usually, she knew of his absence only by his return, when he licked her face affectionately before curling down closely as possible by her side.

Now, Monsieur Podvin's business, ostensibly, was that of keeping a low cabaret labelled "Rendez-Vous pour Cochers." It might have been more appropriately called a rendezvous for thieves, though this seems rather hypercritical when one knows the cabbies of the barriers. But the cabaret was really run by Madame Podvin, which robs monsieur of the moral responsibilities.

As a matter of fact, Monsieur Podvin was a mighty hunter, like Nimrod and Philippe Augustus, and other distinguished predecessors. His field of operations was the wood of Vincennes, where Philippe was wont to follow the chase some hundreds of years ago, and wherein a long line of royal chasseurs have subsequently amused themselves.

With the simple statement that they were all hunters and robbers, from Augustus to Podvin, inclusive, the resemblance ends; for the nobles and their followers followed the stag and wild boar, whereas Monsieur Podvin was a hunter of men.

At first blush the latter would appear to be higher game and a more dangerous amusement. Not at all. For the men thus run down by Monsieur Podvin and his faithful dog, Tartar, were little above the beasts from self-indulgence at any time, and were wholly devoid of even the lowest animal instincts when captured. They were the victims of their own bestiality before they became the victims of Podvin.

Every gala-day in the popular wood of Vincennes left a certain amount of human flotsam and jetsam lying around under the trees and in the dark shadows, helpless from a combination of wood alcohol and water treated with coloring matter and called "wine." It was Monsieur Podvin's business to hunt these unfortunates up and to relieve them of any valuables of which they might be possessed, and which they had no use for for the time being. It was quite as inspiriting and ennobling as going over a battlefield and robbing the dead, and about as safe for the operators. The intelligence of Tartar and his indefatigable industry lent an additional zest to the hunt and made it at once easy and remunerative. Tartar pointed and flushed the prey; all his master had to do was to go through the victims, who were usually too helpless to object. If, as was sometimes the case, one so far forgot himself as to do so, the sight of a gleaming knife-blade generally reconciled the victim to the peaceful surrender of his property. On special occasions Monsieur Podvin was assisted by a patron of the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers; but he usually worked alone, being of a covetous nature and unwilling to share profits. When accompanied, it was with the understanding that the booty was to be divided into equal shares, Tartar counting as an individual and coming in on equal terms, and one share on account of Fouchette—all of which went to Monsieur Podvin.

For, without any knowledge or reward, Fouchette was made to do the most dangerous part of the business—which lay in the disposal of the proceeds of the chase. It was innocently carried by her in her rag-basket to the receiver inside the barriers.

Where adults would have been suspected and probably searched, first by the customs officers and then by the police, Fouchette went unchallenged. Her towering basket, under which bent the frail little half-starved figure, marked her scarcely more conspicuously than her ready wit and cheerful though coarse retorts to would-be sympathizers. Her load was delivered to those who examined its contents out of her sight. The price went back by another carrier—a patron of the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers. "La petite chiffonnière" was widely known in the small world of the Porte de Charenton.

As for Fouchette—well, she has already, in her laconic way, given about all that she knew of her earlier history. Picked up in a rag-heap by a chiffonnière of the barrier, she had succeeded to a brutal life that had in five years reduced her to the physical level of the spaniel, Tartar. In fact, her position was really inferior, since the dog was never beaten and had always plenty to eat.

Instead of killing her, as would have been the fate of one of the lower animals subjected to the same treatment, all this had seemed to toughen the child—to render her physically and morally as hard as nails.

It would be too much or too little—according to the point of view—to assume that Fouchette was patient under her yoke and that she went about her tasks with the docility of a well-trained animal. On the contrary, she not only rebelled in spirit, but she often resisted with all her feeble strength, fighting, feet, hands, and teeth, with feline ferocity. Having been brought to the level of brutes, she had become a brute in instinct, in her sensibility to kindness, her pig-headedness, resentment of injury, and dogged resistance.

On her ninth birthday—which, however, was unknown—Monsieur Podvin, over his fourth bottle, offered to put her up against the dog of his convive of the moment, so much was he impressed with Fouchette's fighting talent. Fouchette, who was serving the wine, was not unmindful of the implied compliment. She glanced at the animal and then at its owner with a bitter smile that in her catlike jaws seemed almost a snarl—

"I'd much rather fight le Cochon," said she.

"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the man, who was a dirty ruffian of two hundred pounds, mostly alcohol, and who enjoyed the fitting sobriquet of "le Cochon," from his appearance and characteristic grunt.

"Voilà!" cried Monsieur Podvin; "that's Fouchette!"

"Pardieu! but what a little scorcher!" exclaimed the ruffian, rather admiringly.

"The dog is honest and decent," said the child, turning her steely blue eyes on the man.

"Fouchette!"

The peremptory voice was that of "the" Podvin behind the zinc. Such plain talk—any talk at all about "honesty" and "decency"—at the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers was interdicted. And had the girl noted the look which followed her retreating figure she might have gone abroad the next morning with less confidence.

From that time on these two, ruffian and child, snapped at each other whenever they came in contact—which, as the man was an habitué of the place, and occasional assistant of Monsieur Podvin in his business of scouring the wood of Vincennes for booty, was pretty nearly every day. For in addition to her labors as a rag-picker Fouchette was compelled to wait upon customers in the wine-shop and run errands and perform pretty much all the work of housekeeping for the Podvins. Her foraging expeditions merely filled in the time when customers were not expected.

Strange as it may appear, Fouchette liked this extra hour or so abroad better than any other duty of the day—it was freedom and independence. With her high pannier strapped to her slender back and iron hook in hand she roamed about the streets of Charenton, sometimes crossing over through ancient Conflans and coming home by the Marne and Seine. There were only footpads, low-browed rascals, thieves, and belated robbers about at this hour, before the trams began to make their trips to and from Paris, but these people never disturbed the petite chiffonnière, save to sometimes exchange the foul witticisms of the slums, in which contests the ready tongue and extensive vocabulary of little Fouchette invariably left a track of good-humor. They knew she hadn't a sou, and, besides, was one of their class.

Fouchette was a shining example of what environment can make of any human being, taken sufficiently young and having no vacation.

Up to this particular morning Fouchette had accepted her position in life philosophically as a necessary condition, and with no more consideration of the high and mighty of this world than the high and mighty had for her. Slowly and by insensible degrees, since she was too young to mark the phenomena in any case, she had been forged and hammered into a living piece of moral obliquity—and yet the very first contact with an innocent mind and kindly sympathy awoke in her childish breast a subtle consciousness that something was wrong.

She fell asleep later, worn out with toil and sore from bruises, her thin arm flung across Tartar's neck, to dream of a plump young face, a pair of big, dark, soulful eyes that searched and found her heart. The noise of the revelling robbers above her faded into one sweet, deep, mellow voice that was music to her ears. And the powerful odors that impregnated the atmosphere of the cellar and rendered it foul to suffocation—dampness and dog and dregs of wine, and garlic and decaying vegetables—became the languorous breath of June flowers.

Ah! the beautiful young lady! The beautiful flowers!

Their perfume seemed to choke her, like the deadly tuberoses piled upon a coffin.

She tried to cry out, but her mouth was crowded full of something, and she awoke to find herself in the brutal hands of some one in the darkness. She kicked and scratched and struggled in vain, to be quickly vanquished by a brutish blow.

Tartar! Tartar!

Oh, if Tartar were only there!

When she came to herself she was conscious of being carried in her own basket on the back of one who stepped heavily and somewhat uncertainly along the road.

She was doubled up like a half-shut jack-knife, her feet and head uppermost, and had great difficulty in breathing by reason of her cramped position and the ill-smelling rags with which she was covered. Besides which, she felt sick from the cruel blow in her stomach.

Yet her senses were keenly alert.

She was well aware who had her; for the man gave out his characteristic grunt with every misstep, and there was no one else in the world likely to do her serious physical injury.

She knew that it was still dark, both from the way the man walked and from the cool dampness of the atmosphere with which she was familiar.

Yes, it was le Cochon.

She knew him for an escaped convict, for a murderer as well as a robber, and that he would slit a throat for twenty sous if there were fair promise of immunity.

She felt instinctively that she was lost.

All at once the man stopped, went on, paused again.

Then she heard other footsteps. They grew louder. They were evidently approaching. They were the heavy, hob-nailed shoes of some laborer on his way to work.

Her heart stood still for a few moments as she listened, then beat wildly with renewed hope.

If she could only cry out; but the rag that filled her mouth made giving the alarm impossible.

Finally, after some hesitation, her abductor moved on as if to meet the coming footsteps, slowly, and leaning far over now and then, in apparent attempt to counterfeit the occupation of a rag-picker. And at such moments the child felt that she was standing on the back of her neck.

The heavy tramp of the stranger grew nearer—was upon them.

"Bonjour!" called out a cheerful, manly voice.

"Bonjour, monsieur!" replied le Cochon, humbly.

"You are abroad early this morning."

"It is necessary, if an honest chiffonnier would live these times."

"Possible. Good luck to you."

"Thanks, monsieur."

The steps had never paused and were quickly growing fainter down the road, while the young heart within the basket grew fainter and fainter with the fading sounds.

This temporary hope thus crushed was more cruel than her former despair.

Her bearer uttered a low volley of horrible imprecations directed towards the unknown.

He stopped suddenly, and, unstrapping the basket from his shoulders, placed it on the ground.

Fouchette smelled the morning vapors of the river; discerned now the distinct gurgle of the flood.

As the robber took the rags from the basket and pulled her roughly forth, the full significance of her perilous situation rushed upon her. She trembled so that she could scarcely stand—would have toppled over the edge of the quai but for the strong arm of le Cochon, who restrained her.

"Not yet, petite," said he.

And he began to strap the basket upon her young shoulders.

"Pardieu! we must regard conventionalities," he added, with devilish malignity.

It was early gray of morning, and a mist hung over the dark waters of the Seine. No attempt had been made to obstruct her vision, which, long habituated to the hour, took in the road, the stone quai, the boats moored not far away, the human monster at her side, all at a single sweeping glance.

Her feet and arms were bound, the gag was still in her mouth—there was no escape, no succor.

There was the river; there was le Cochon.

Nothing more.

What more, indeed, was necessary to complete the picture?

Death.

Nothing was easier. No conclusion more mathematically certain.

With his knife between his teeth the assassin hastily adjusted the straps under her arms. It was but the work of half a minute from the time he had stopped, though to the terror-stricken child it seemed an age of torment.

The rags were packed tightly down in the bottom of the basket.

"It'll do for a sinker," said the man.

Then he cut the thongs that held her arms, severed the ligament that bound her feet, and with one hand removed the cloth from her mouth, while with the other he suddenly pushed his victim over the edge of the stone quai.

"Voilà!"

Short as was the opportunity, Fouchette gave one terrified shriek as she went over the brink—a shriek that pierced the river mists and reverberated from the stone walls and parapets and went ringing up and down the surface of the swiftly swirling stream.

Again, as she reappeared, battling with the murky waters with desperate stroke and splash, her childish voice rose—

"Tartar! Tartar!"

And yet again, choking with the flood—

"Tar—Tar—tar!"

It was the last thought—the last appeal—this despairing cry for the only one on earth she loved—the only being on earth who loved her.