The Wandering Jew, Book VIII.. - Eugene Sue (trending books to read TXT) 📗

the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend

the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been

carried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had seen

Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated

Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.

Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in

forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed

into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached

it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both

hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was

trying to scratch and disfigure her.

 

To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with

irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch

her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid

as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but

at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola,

were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the

fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and

her band were driven from that part of the house.

 

After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,

who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the

weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the

pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed

by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged

themselves on the side of the Devourers.

 

"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one of the

most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly

and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to

drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage."

 

"Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began by

breaking your windows."

 

"The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash their

hands of him. We shall soon settle his account."

 

"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other."[35]

 

This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a small

portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all together,

Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number, opposed themselves

to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new excesses. Some of

these wretches, still further excited by the little man with the ferret's

face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud, now rushed in a mass towards

the workshops of M. Hardy. Then began a lamentable devastation. These

people, seized with the mania of destruction, broke without remorse

machines of the greatest value, and most delicate construction; half

manufactured articles were pitilessly destroyed; a savage emulation

seemed to inspire these barbarians, and those workshops, so lately the

model of order and well-regulated economy, were soon nothing but a wreck;

the courts were strewed with fragments of all kinds of wares, which were

thrown from the windows with ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of

laughter. Then, still thanks to the incitements of the little man with

the ferret's face, the books of M. Hardy, archives of commercial

industry, so indispensable to the trader, were scattered to the wind,

torn, trampled under foot, in a sort of infernal dance, composed of all

that was most impure in this assembly of low, filthy, and ragged men and

women, who held each other by the hand, and whirled round and round with

horrible clamor. Strange and painful contrasts! At the height of the

stunning noise of these horrid deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene

of imposing and mournful calm was taking place in the chamber of Marshal

Simon's father, the door of which was guarded by a few devoted men. The

old workman was stretched on his bed, with a bandage across his blood

stained white hair. His countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed,

his look fixed and glazed.

 

Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,

watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the part

of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on the

failing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were

kneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in

tears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for the

hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert

himself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features

painfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in this

chamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by

Father Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,

and full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, to

interrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences in

life. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor being

close to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being

widely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the first

call for medical assistance.

 

Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken

his eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"

 

"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."

 

"He is saved!" said the marshal.

 

"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor, gravely:

"the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the feet, but I

know not what will be the issue of the crisis."

 

"Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old man

slightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened his

eyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.

 

"Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and

hope.

 

"Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice. "Your

hand--give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.

 

"Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old man

in his own.

 

Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father, covered

his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives! kind

heaven, he lives! he is saved!"

 

At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between

the rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying

man.

 

"That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."

 

"It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitate

his father.

 

"Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not long

to live."

 

"Father--"

 

"Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."

 

"Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhaps

work a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a

priest--"

 

"A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in his

arms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."

 

"You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"

 

"Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually

grew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. I

think, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a

moment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road

unworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this

last hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty to

perform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of

neglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--"

 

Here the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the last

sentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that Marshal

Simon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--my

son!"

 

Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all was over.

At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible shouts

were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!" The conflagration had broken

out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into which

had glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the same time, the

roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the arrival of a

detachment of troops from town.

 

During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading

through the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows

keenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across the

fields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances with

slow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to return home on

foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the fever in his

blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He had not been

deceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he might have

found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception which had

just been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could have no doubt of

Margaret was gone to America. Her mother had exacted from her, in

expiation of her fault, that she should not even write to him one word of

farewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her duty as a wife.

Margaret had obeyed.

 

Besides, she had often said to him: "Between my mother and you, I should

not hesitate."

 

She had not hesitated. There was therefore no hope, not the slightest;

even if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enough of

her blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relations

between them were broken off forever. It is well. He will no longer

reckon upon this heart--his last refuge. The two roots of his life have

been torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at the

same moment. What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thy

tender mother used to call thee? What remains to console thee for the

loss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed? Oh!

there remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created after the

image of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing, where,

thanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense. These worthy

artisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, will not fail

thee. That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thy shelter in

the midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacred convictions! The

calm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sight of the unequalled

happiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor, suffering soul, which

now seems to live only for suffering. Come! you will soon reach the top

of the hill, from which you can see afar, in the plain below, that

paradise of workmen, of which you are the presiding divinity.

 

Hardy had reached the summit of the hill. At that moment the

conflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubled

fury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached. A bright

streak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminated the

distant horizon. M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous, almost

idiotic stupor. Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up in the thick

of a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, and streamed

towards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all the country, even

to M. Hardy's feet. The violence of the north wind, driving the flames in

waves before it, soon brought to the ears of M. Hardy the hurried

clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.

 

[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone

have made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paint the evils

arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to ascribe

a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the other to

the Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a club of united

stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen, whose

situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors,

conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most

wearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four

months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those

which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves, in order

to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course of

linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that given

by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters. Several working

stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last

exhibition.