APPEARANCES.
After she had again endeavored to cheer up the orphans, the sewing-girl descended the stairs, not without difficulty, for, in addition to the parcel, which was already heavy, she had fetched down from her own room the only blanket she possessed--thus leaving herself without protection from the cold of her icy garret.
The evening before, tortured with anxiety as to Agricola's fate, the girl had been unable to work; the miseries of expectation and hope delayed had prevented her from doing so; now another day would be lost, and yet it was necessary to live.Those overwhelming sorrows, which deprive the poor of the faculty of labor, are doubly dreaded; they paralyze the strength, and, with that forced cessation from toil, want and destitution are often added to grief.
But Mother Bunch, that complete incarnation of holiest duty, had yet strength enough to devote herself for the service of others.Some of the most frail and feeble creatures are endowed with extraordinary vigor of soul; it would seem as if, in these weak, infirm organizations, the spirit reigned absolutely over the body, and knew how to inspire it with a factitious energy.
Thus, for the last twenty-four hours, Mother Bunch had neither slept nor eaten; she had suffered from the cold, through the whole of a frosty night.In the morning she had endured great fatigue, in going, amid rain and snow, to the Rue de Babylone and back, twice crossing Paris and yet her strength was not exhausted--so immense is the power of the human heart!
She had just arrived at the corner of the Rue Saint Mery.Since the recent Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy, there were stationed in this populous quarter of the town a much larger number of police-officers than usual.Now the young sempstress, though bending beneath the weight of her parcel, had quickened her pace almost to a run, when, just as she passed in front of one of the police, two five-franc pieces fell on the ground behind her, thrown there by a stout woman in black, who followed her closely.
Immediately after the stout woman pointed out the two pieces to the policeman, and said something hastily to him with regard to Mother Bunch.
Then she withdrew at all speed in the direction of the Rue Brise-Miche.
The policeman, struck with what Mrs.Grivois had said to him ( for it was that person), picked up the money, and, running after the humpback, cried out to her: "Hi, there! young woman, I say--stop! stop!"
On this outcry, several persons turned round suddenly and, as always happens in those quarters of the town, a nucleus of five or six persons soon grew to a considerable crowd.
Not knowing that the policeman was calling to her, Mother Bunch only quickened her speed, wishing to get to the pawnbroker's as soon as possible, and trying to avoid touching any of the passers-by, so much did she dread the brutal and cruel railleries, to which her infirmity so often exposed her.
Suddenly, she heard many persons running after her, and at the same instant a hand was laid rudely on her shoulder.It was the policeman, followed by another officer, who had been drawn to the spot by the noise.
Mother Bunch turned round, struck with as much surprise as fear.
She found herself in the centre of a crowd, composed chiefly of that hideous scum, idle and in rags, insolent and malicious, besotted with ignorance, brutalized by want, and always loafing about the corners.
Workmen are scarcely ever met with in these mobs, for they are for the most part engaged in their daily labors.
"Come, can't you hear? you are deaf as Punch's dog," said the policeman, seizing Mother Bunch so rudely by the arm, that she let her parcel fall at her feet.
When the unfortunate girl, looking round in terror, saw herself exposed to all those insolent, mocking, malicious glances, when she beheld the cynical and coarse grimace on so many ignoble and filthy countenances, she trembled in all her limbs, and became fearfully pale.No doubt the policeman had spoken roughly to her; but how could he speak otherwise to a poor deformed girl, pale and trembling, with her features agitated by grief and fear--to a wretched creature, miserably clad, who wore in winter a thin cotton gown, soiled with mud, and wet with melted snow--for the poor sempstress had walked much and far that morning.So the policeman resumed, with great severity, following that supreme law of appearances which makes poverty always suspected: "Stop a bit, young woman! it seems you are in a mighty hurry, to let your money fall without picking it up."
"Was her blunt hid in her hump?" said the hoarse voice of a match-boy, a hideous and repulsive specimen of precocious depravity.
This sally was received with laughter, shouts, and hooting, which served to complete the sewing-girl's dismay and terror.She was hardly able to answer, in a feeble voice, as the policeman handed her the two pieces of silver: "This money, sir, is not mine."
"You lie," said the other officer, approaching; "a respectable lady saw it drop from your pocket."
"I assure you, sir, it is not so," answered Mother Bunch, trembling.
"I tell you that you lie," resumed the officer; "for the lady, struck with your guilty and frightened air, said to me: `Look at yonder little hunchback, running away with that large parcel, and letting her money fall without even stopping to pick it up--it is not natural.'"
"Bobby," resumed the match-vendor in his hoarse voice, "be on your guard!