V Cramoisin Plots Against Nicole
Cramoisin, since the day of his humiliation before Geneviève, had vented his spite on Barabant, seeking thus his vengeance on Nicole. Several times, in measure as the trial of the Girondins neared its end and it became evident that their condemnation was inevitable, he had sounded Javogues on the score of Barabant, only to be repulsed with decided negatives. But each defeat, by feeding fuel to his hatred, only increased his determination. Convinced, at length, that nothing could be accomplished for the present through Javogues, he had recourse to la Mère Corniche, hoping to find in her an ally.
The shrewd little woman was not long in perceiving his intention. So having sufficiently enjoyed his timid skirmishes, she summoned him to her early one morning, after the distribution of bread, and said point-blank:
“Out with it. What do you want to say to me?”
The face of Cramoisin artfully showed surprise.
“Come, old fellow, let us understand each other. You hate Barabant, eh?”
“Barabant is a Girondin,” Cramoisin ventured, and then, deceived by her mood, he plunged on: “He is a Moderate, a contre-Révolutionnaire. He is against Robespierre and the Jacobins.”
“Not a bit,” la Mère Corniche interrupted, having now entrapped him. “He is a follower of the great Marat!”
“Who are you telling that to!” Cramoisin cried contemptuously.
“Hark, old fellow, no airs with me,” the concierge retorted sharply. “The Citoyen Barabant came here with a letter to Marat. I saw it. As for you, I know what you’re after, my fine patriot,—your eyes are on the girl!”
Cramoisin, now thoroughly alarmed, sought only to retreat.
“Never in the world,” he cried indignantly. “Come, mother, you mustn’t wrong a fellow-patriot. I bear no hatred to Barabant. I thought him a Girondin; he is always with that cursed Goursac. But if you say he’s not, I’m glad to hear it.”
“Oui dà, of course you are! You look it,” she retorted scornfully. “Come, get out of my way; leave me in peace, old hypocrite. You don’t fool me an instant. Be off!”
Cramoisin escaped to the cabaret; la Mère Corniche, mumbling to herself, settled back in her chair; as the distribution of bread ended, the lodgers issued forth with buckets, to get water from the Seine. Resolved to put Barabant on his guard, she had stopped him, when, to her delight, she perceived Cramoisin disappearing into the cabaret in such pitiful fright that she made a pretext and allowed Barabant to depart, resolved to prolong for a few days the agony of the terrified bully.
She began the round of inspection which, at the expense of her strength, she never failed to accomplish each morning. She passed through the empty rooms, scenting and prying, fumbling among papers and garments, viewing one room with a glance, ransacking another for the taint of aristocracy or the earmarks of a traitor.
Arrived on Barabant’s landing, she made a satisfied, careless survey of the room, entering to rest from her labors. On a chair, in a state of mending, was the blue redingote the young fellow had worn on his arrival. More from habit than from suspicion, she ran her fingers through the pockets, and drew out the paper they encountered. It was the envelop addressed to Jean Paul Marat.
She regarded it stupidly, contracting her brows, seeking an explanation, before, with a cry, she tore it open. A sheet, empty and white, slipped to the floor. La Mère Corniche, overcome by the evidence of the duplicity, fell back against the wall.
It was five minutes before she could realize how she had been duped. Then from the miser, and the devotee of Marat, a long howl of rage broke forth, and clutching the letter, she fell from the landing, rather than descended the stairs, gained her room, and abandoned herself to the transports of her rage.
A half-hour later she hobbled forth, white but controlled, to the entrance, where, perceiving Cramoisin, she cried with a furious gesture:
“Come here.”
At this angry summons the Terrorist would have slunk away had not la Mère Corniche cut off his escape, crying:
“Cramoisin, idiot, imbecile, come here!”
She seized him, trembling at her tone, and impelled him into the entrance, exclaiming:
“You hate Barabant? Answer me, you hate him!”
“I swear—” he began, when she cut him short: “Fool, I despise him! Do you hear me? I despise him!”
While Cramoisin remained, with gaping mouth, incapable of words, the old woman poured out her reviling. At last he asked, in amazement:
“What do you want of me?”
“I want your help to destroy him.”
“Then why didn’t you say so at first?”
Fearing to be forced into explanations, she abated her fury and more calmly demanded:
“You have a plan; what is it?”
“It’s true?” Cramoisin said, still unconvinced. “You’ll join me?”
“I swear it.”
“We can’t convince Javogues,” Cramoisin began, “unless we can make Nicole betray him.”
“But how?”
“Jealousy.”
“Jealousy? Is there cause? Do you know anything?”
“What is necessary we can invent.”
“She won’t believe it.”
“She’ll believe it when she hears it from three persons,” Cramoisin said, ruffling up his nose and sneering. “A woman’ll believe anything three persons tell her. With Boudgoust and Jambony, we are four.”
“Is that your plan?” she cried, in disappointment. “It’s stupid, impossible!”
Cramoisin continued to argue with her its merits; she accorded it a grunt, then a shake of the head, and finally said:
“Well, yes; it may do. We can try.”
“It’s agreed, then. We must excite her suspicions,—but nothing definite.”
“What, are you going to give me instructions!” la Mère Corniche cried irately. “As though I couldn’t handle a woman!”
“Touch hands, then; it’s agreed?”
“Yes.”
“You must speak the first word,” he said hurriedly. “It will be better.” Shutting off a reply, he departed, leaving the concierge scowling and angry.
“Oui dà, I’ll speak the first word, old schemer. He doesn’t want the woman to lay it to him, the toad!”
The next morning, as Nicole was leaving for the flower-market, la Mère Corniche called to her.
“Eh, Nicole, stop a moment.” The girl, who feared her, approached reluctantly.
“You’re going to the market?”
“Yes.”
“To-morrow is Sunday. I want to put some flowers on the tomb of Marat. See what is going cheap this morning and tell me.”
“Is that all?”
“You must stop from time to time to give me news,” continued la Mère Corniche, taking her hand.
“You know as much as I do.”
“You sell flowers every day?”
“Yes.”
“Your man doesn’t earn enough, then?”
“With the price of food where it is one can’t earn too much.”
“You are happy?” the old woman asked brusquely.
“Why do you ask that?” Nicole replied, resenting the question.
“There, don’t get angry. You may have friends you don’t know of.” She released her hand, adding: “If you suspect nothing, I’ll say no more.”
Penetrating readily the stratagem, Nicole laughed over the encounter, and, perceiving the bald attempt to rouse her jealousy, she dismissed the conversation contemptuously from her mind.
Toward midday, however, the insinuation returned, and forgetting her first attitude, she suffered a little at the very shadow of what her imagination could conjure up. She ended by again laughing at her simplicity, nor did her mind recur again to the thought during the day.
That evening, as she passed in front of the Prêtre Pendu, she encountered Cramoisin, who watched her from the corners of his eyes, rubbing his splayed thumb over his lip in such an ironical fashion that she stopped and demanded impatiently:
“Well, what is it? I seem to amuse you.”
“Eh, perhaps you do.”
“Come, what do you mean by such looks!”
Then rising, he looked her a moment in countenance, and replied:
“Nicole, they told me you were clever.”
“Well, what does that mean?”
“It means that you are either very stupid,” he said curtly, “or very blind.”
Nicole mounted the steps in perplexity, arresting her journey at every landing to ask herself anxiously what he could have meant. In her room she remained blankly at the window, forgetting the meal she had to prepare. Several times she passed her hand across her forehead, as though to rout the unquiet thoughts, but always returned to the same reverie. The church bell ringing five aroused her, and, ashamed to have yielded to such doubts, she said angrily:
“Come, I’m an idiot! I’ll tell the whole affair to Barabant when he returns and we will laugh at it together.”
Yet when he entered, her resolution forgotten, she rose quickly, and taking him by the arms, looked anxiously in his face.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “Why do you look at me so curiously?”
“I was afraid you would do something rash,” she said evasively. “What—what of the Girondins?”
“It is hopeless. To-morrow they may be condemned.” But only half satisfied, he returned to the question. “Was that all you wanted to know? You looked at me very queerly.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said quickly. “Ah, Barabant, I am so afraid that you will compromise yourself with them.”
“I must decide—and you would not have me a coward, Nicole?”
She defended her position, she repeated the old arguments, she tried to win him from the thought of sacrifice; but of what had happened during the day she said not a word.
“It is getting late,” she exclaimed finally. “I must get into line.”
“Let me take the whole night,” he pleaded; “you are tired.”
“No, no. Not at all.”
She hurried below, furious at herself for having betrayed to him her unrest, but when she remembered how instantly he had noticed the strangeness of her look, she could not help thinking that a little suspicious.
The next morning she prepared to meet the concierge with a new defiance, but la Mère Corniche did not even raise her head. Cramoisin, to her relief, was absent; only Boudgoust and Jambony were lounging in front of the cabaret. She cast a furtive glance in their direction; they were laughing boisterously.
“They are laughing at me,” she thought, all her doubts returning.
She passed a miserable morning, tortured by the fears that now seemed always to have been with her. Unable to bear the tumult within her breast, she determined to recount all to Barabant. If anything existed, she must know it definitely.
Unfortunately, the arrival of Dossonville, who joined them at lunch on the boulevards, prevented the confidence, and during the meal another suggestion added to her suffering. Barabant, in speaking of Dossonville’s interest in Louison, expressed his astonishment at the attraction, ending peremptorily:
“As for me,—she repels me.”
He had put considerable warmth into his criticism; that and the simple declaration of antagonism made havoc in the imagination of Nicole. She thought the opinion obviously unnecessary. She asked herself if he really were interested in Louison, whom she had always feared, would he not have said exactly what he had. But from logical inquiry she soon flew to conjecture and supposition, to weighing each word and action and seeking a hidden meaning. She thought no longer of confiding in Barabant, but held herself on her guard.
She was not convinced—she but half believed; yet she returned sadly. Her dream was over. Whatever might come, the first breath of jealousy had entered her heart, and, rightly or wrongly, she knew that her tranquillity had departed forever.