V
Of the immorality which may come of an empty stomach, and of how François became acquainted with a human crab.
This nomad life was sadly uncertain; but Toto was a sharp forager, and what with a sou begged here and there, and the hospitality of summer, for a while they were not ill contented. But at last François passed two days of such lean living as set his wits to work. There was clearly no help for it, and with a rueful face he entered the shop whence Toto had followed his uncertain fortunes.
The owner was a pleasant little woman who took honesty for granted. Yes, it was her dog; and how long he had been gone! Here was a great piece of twenty sous; and where did he find the poodle? François declared that he lived near by and knew the dog. He had found him in the Rue du Faubourg St. Lazare. And was it so far away as that? He must be tired, and for his honesty should be well fed. Thus, rich as never before, and with a full stomach, he left Toto tied up, and went out into the world again, lonely and sad.
Needless is it to describe his wanderings, or to relate how the lonely lad acquired the sharp ways of a gamin of the streets. For a while he begged or stole what food he required. Some four months later, a combination of motives led him into theft which was not mere foraging.
On a cold November day he was again in the crowded gardens and arcades of the Palais Royal. He was shabby enough by this time, and was sharply reminded by the cool nights of the need for shelter. By chance his eye lighted on the man who shammed blindness and had stolen his precious sous. The beggar was kneeling, cap in hand, with closed eyes, his head turned upward, entreating pity for his loss of sight. There were some sous in his cap. A François passed he made believe to add another sou, and as he did so deftly scooped up the greater part of the coins.
The blind man cried out; but the boy skipped aside, laughing, well aware that for the beggar to pursue him would be hardly advisable, as he might lose more than he could gain.
A few sous were of small account. They insured a meal, but not a lodging. As he was thus reflecting, he saw near by and presently beside him the gentleman who had so highly appreciated the return of his handkerchief. The coat pockets were large in those days, and the crowd was great. A little white corner of lace besought Master François, crying, “I am food and lodging for thee!” Whereupon it was done, and a lace handkerchief changed owners.
It cannot be said that these downward steps cost François any moral discomfort. He grinned as he thought of the beggar’s perplexity, and laughed outright as he felt how complete had been his own joy in the satisfaction of possession could he have made the owner of the kerchief understand that he had suffered not merely a theft, but the punishment of injustice.
François was now too well versed in the ways of the street-boy, too dirty and too ragged, to fear the Cité. Thither he went, and found a thieves’ shop, where he sold the handkerchief, and got ten francs for what was worth thirty.
The question of a place where he could be sure of a bed was his first consideration on coming into his fortune. In the long, warm summers of France one who was not particular could find numerous roosting-places, but in winter a more constant home was to be desired.
In the Cité François had occasionally lodged here and there when he could afford to pay, and had been turned out when he had no more sous. Now, being affluent, and therefore hard to please, he wandered until he came upon the lodging-house of an old woman in the Rue Perpignan. He knew of her as a dealer in thieves’ goods, and as ever ready to shelter the lucky—and, it was suspected, as willing to betray those who were persistently unfortunate.
What drew him to this woman’s house it were hard to tell. She was repulsive in appearance, but, strangely enough, was clean as to her person, dress, and abode. Asylum life had taught François to be cleanly. He declares in his memoirs that he was by habit neat, and that it was the absence of dirt which first tempted him into a relation which was so largely to affect his after life.
When he became one of this woman’s lodgers he took a step which was for him of moment. Now for the first time he was to be in the company of old and practised thieves; but he was not yet of an age to be troubled as to the future or to reflect upon the past. The horizon of youth is small.
He found plenty of masters to educate him in the evil business into which he had been driven by relentless fate. Never was pupil more ready. His hostess appreciated the cleverness of her new lodger, but it was long before he himself realized how strange was the aspect and how sinister the nature of this mother of evil.
Certain historical epochs create types of face. This was a period which manufactured many singular visages. None was more strange than that which Mme. Quatre Pattes carried on a body quite as remarkable. François speaks of her over and over in his memoirs, and dwells upon the peculiarities of her appearance. I recall well what he said to me, one evening, of this creature:
“You see, monsieur, I went to one den of thieves and another until I chanced upon the Crab. It is not to be described; for here in a little room was a witch, crumpled and deformed, sharply bent forward as to the back from the waist, and—ah, diablement thin! She was cleanly and even neat, and her room was a marvel, because over there in the Cité men were born and lived and died, and never saw a clean thing. And she was of a strangeness—consider, monsieur; imagine you a bald head, and a lean face below, very red, and the skin drawn so tight over the bones as to shine. Her eyes were little and of a dull gray; but they held you. Her lips were lean, and she kept them moving in a queer way as if chewing. I did laugh when first I saw her, but not often afterward.”
When he confided to this clean and horrible creature what he wanted, she made him welcome. She rattled the two sticks which her bent form made needful for support. She would house him cheaply; but he must be industrious—and to sell a lace handkerchief for ten francs—tonnerre! He needed caution. She would be a bonne maman to him—she, Quatre Pattes, “four paws”; the Crab, they called her, too, for short, and because of her red leanness and spite; but what was her real name he did not learn for many a day. At first her appearance excited in his mind no emotion except amazement and mirth. A terrible old crab it was when she showed her toothless gums and howled obscenities, while her sticks were used with strange agility. The quarter feared her. M. François had a fortune in his face, she said; and did he know the savate, the art to kick? There was a master next door. And again, what a face! With that face he might lie all day, and who would disbelieve him? Better to fetch her what he stole. She would see that no one cheated him but herself, and that would be ever so little. One must live. When she laughed, which was not often, François felt that a curse were more gay. There were devil-women in those days, as the mad world of Paris soon came to know; and the Crab, with her purple nose and crooked red claws, was of the worst.