The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 6 of 6

CHAPTER IX
THE TOILET

The condemned cell of Bicêtre was situated at the end of a gloomy passage, into which a trifling portion of light and air was admitted by means of small gratings let into the lower part of the wall. The cell itself would have been wholly dark but for a kind of wicket, let into the upper part of the door, which opened into the corridor before mentioned.

In this wretched dungeon, whose crumbling ceiling, damp, mouldy walls, and stone-paved floor struck a death-chill like that of the grave, were confined the Widow Martial, and her daughter Calabash.

The harsh, angular features of the widow stood out amidst the imperfect light of the place, cold, pale, and immovable as those of a marble statue. Deprived of the use of her hands, which were fastened beneath her black dress by the strait-waistcoat of the prison, formed of coarse gray cloth and tightly secured behind her, she requested her cap might be taken off, complaining of an oppression and burning sensation in her head; this done, a mass of long, grizzled hair fell over her shoulders.

Seated at the side of her bed, she gazed earnestly and fixedly at her daughter, who was separated from her by the width of the dungeon, and, wearing like her mother the customary strait-waistcoat, was partly reclining and partly supporting herself against the wall, her head bent forward on her breast, her eye dull and motionless, and her breathing quick and irregular. From time to time a convulsive tremor rattled her lower jaw, while her features, spite of their livid hue, remained comparatively calm and tranquil.

Within the cell, and immediately beneath the wicket of the entrance door, was seated an old, gray-headed soldier, whose rough, sunburnt features betokened his having felt the scorch of many climes, and borne his part in numerous campaigns. His duty was to keep constant watch over the condemned prisoners.

"How piercing cold it is here!" exclaimed Calabash; "yet my eyes burn in my head, and I have a burning, quenchless thirst!" Then addressing the bald-headed veteran, she said, "Water! Pray give me a drink of water!"

The old soldier filled a cup of water from a pitcher placed near him, and held it to her lips. Eagerly swallowing the draught, she bowed her head in token of thankfulness, and the soldier proceeded to offer the same beverage to the mother.

"Would you not like to moisten your lips?" asked he, kindly.

With a rough, repulsive gesture, she intimated her disinclination, and the old man sat down again.

"What's o'clock?" inquired Calabash.

"Nearly half past four," replied the soldier.

"Only three hours!" replied Calabash, with a sinister and gloomy smile. "Three hours more! And then – " She could proceed no further.

The widow shrugged up her shoulders. Her daughter divined her meaning, and said, "Ah, mother, you have so much more courage than I have, – you never give way, you don't."

"Never!"

"I see it, and I know you too well to expect it. You look at this moment as calm and collected as if we were sitting sewing by our own fireside. Ah! those happy days are gone, – gone forever!"

"Folly! Why prate thus?"

"Nay, mother, I cannot bear to rest shut up with my own wretched thoughts! It relieves my heart to talk of bygone times, when I little expected to come to this."

"Mean, cowardly creature!"

"I know I am a coward, mother. I am afraid to die! Every one cannot boast of your resolution. I do not possess it. I have tried as much as I could to imitate you. I refused to listen to the priest because you did not like it. Still I may have been wrong in sending the holy man away; for," added the wretched creature, with a shudder, "who can tell what is after death? Mother, do you hear me? After, I say! And it only wants – "

"Exactly three hours, and you will know all about it!"

"How can you speak so indifferently on such a dreadful subject? Yet true enough; in three short hours, we who now sit talking to each other, who, if at liberty, should ail nothing, but be ready to enjoy life, must die. Oh, mother, can you not say one word to comfort me?"

"Be bold, girl, and die as you have lived, a true Martial!"

"You should not talk thus to your daughter," interposed the old soldier, with a serious air; "you would have acted more like a parent had you allowed her to listen to the priest when he came."

Again the widow contemptuously shrugged her shoulders, and, without deigning to notice the soldier further than by bestowing on him a look of withering contempt, she repeated to Calabash:

"Pluck up your courage, my girl, and let the world see that women have more courage than men, with their priests and cowardly nonsense!"

"General Leblond was one of the bravest officers of the regiment he belonged to. Well, this dauntless man fell at the siege of Saragossa, covered with wounds, and his last expiring act was to sign himself with the cross," said the veteran. "I served under him. I only tell you this to prove that to die with a prayer on our lips is no sign of cowardice!"

Calabash eyed the bronzed features of the speaker with deep attention. The scarred and weather-beaten countenance of the old man told of a life passed in scenes of danger and of death, encountered with calm bravery. To hear those wrinkled lips urging the necessity of prayer, and associating religion with the memory of the good and valiant, made the miserable, vacillating culprit think that, after all, there could be no cowardice in recommending one's soul to the God who gave it, and breathing a repentant supplication for the past.

"Alas, alas!" cried she. "Why did I not attend to what the priest had to say to me? It could not have done me any harm, and it might have given me courage to face that dreadful afterwards, that makes death so terrible."

"What! Again?" exclaimed the widow, with bitter contempt. "'Tis a pity time does not permit of your becoming a nun! The arrival of your brother Martial will complete your conversion; but that honest man and excellent son will think it sinful to come and receive the last wishes of his dying mother!"

As the widow uttered these last words, the huge lock of the prison was heard to turn with a loud sound, and then the door to open.

"So soon!" shrieked Calabash, with a convulsive bound. "Surely the time here is wrong, – it cannot be the hour we were told! Oh, mother! Mother! Must we die at least two hours before we expected?"

"So much the better if the executioner's watch deceives me! It will put an end to your whining folly, which disgraces the name you bear!"

"Madame," said an officer of the prison, gently opening the door, "your son is here, – will you see him?"

"Yes," replied the widow, without turning her head.

Martial entered the cell, the door of which was left open that those without in the corridor might be within hearing, if summoned by the old soldier, who still remained with the prisoners.

Through the gloom of the corridor, lighted only by the faint beams of the early morning, and the dubious twinkling of a single lamp, several soldiers and gaolers might be seen, the former standing in due military order, the later sitting on benches.

Martial looked as pale and ghastly as his mother, while his features betrayed the mental agony he suffered at witnessing so afflicting a sight. Still, spite of all it cost him, as well as the recollection of his mother's crimes and openly expressed aversion for himself, he had felt it imperatively his duty to come and receive her last commands. No sooner was he in the dungeon than the widow, fixing on him a sharp, penetrating look, said, in a tone of concentrated wrath and bitterness, with a view to rouse all the evil passions of her son's mind:

"Well, you see what the good people are going to do with your mother and sister!"

"Ah, mother, how dreadful! Alas, alas! Have I not warned you that such would be the end – "

Interrupting him, while her lips became blanched with rage, the widow exclaimed:

"Enough! 'Tis sufficient that your mother and sister are about to be murdered, as your father was!"

"Merciful God!" cried Martial. "And to think that I have no power to prevent it! 'Tis past all human interference. What would you have me do? Alas! Had you or my sister attended to what I said, you would not now have been here."

"Oh, no doubt!" returned the widow, with her usual tone of savage irony. "To you the spectacle of mine and your sister's sufferings is a matter of delight to your proud heart; you can now tell the world without a lie that your mother is dead, – you will have to blush for her no more!"

"Had I been wanting in my duty as a son," answered Martial, indignant at the unjust sarcasms of his mother, "I should not now be here."

"You came but from curiosity! Own the truth if you dare!"

"No, mother! You desired to see me, and I obeyed your wish."

"Ah, Martial," cried Calabash, unable longer to struggle against the agonising terror she endured, "had I but listened to your advice, instead of being led by my mother, I should not be here!" Then losing all further control of herself, she exclaimed, "'Tis all your fault, accursed mother! Your bad example and evil counsel have brought me to what I am!"

"Do you hear her?" said the widow, bursting into a fiendish laugh. "Come, this will repay you for the trouble of paying us a last visit! Your excellent sister has turned pious, repents of her own sins, and curses her mother!"

Without making any reply to this unnatural speech, Martial approached Calabash, whose dying agonies seemed to have commenced, and, regarding her with deep compassion, said:

"My poor sister! Alas, it is now too late to recall the past!"

"It is never too late to turn coward, it seems!" cried the widow, with savage excitement. "Oh, what a race you are! Happily Nicholas has escaped; François and Amandine will slip through your fingers; they have already imbibed vice enough, and want and misery will finish them!"

"Oh, Martial," groaned forth Calabash, "for the love of God, take care of those two poor children, lest they come to such an end as mother's and mine!"

"He may watch over them as much as he likes," cried the widow, with settled hatred in her looks, "vice and destitution will have greater effect than his words, and some of these days they will avenge their father, mother, and sister!"

"Your horrible expectations, mother, will never be fulfilled," replied the indignant Martial; "neither my young brother, sister, nor self have anything to fear from want. La Louve saved the life of the young girl Nicholas tried to drown, and the relations of the young person offered us either a large sum of money or a smaller sum and some land at Algiers; we preferred the latter, and to-morrow we quit Europe, with the children, for ever."

"Is that absolutely true?" asked the widow of Martial, in a tone of angry surprise.

"Mother, when did I ever tell you a falsehood?"

"You are doing so now to try and put me into a passion!"

"What, displeased to learn that your children are provided for?"

"Yes, to find that my young wolves are to be turned into lambs, and to hear that the blood of father, mother, and sister have no prospect of being avenged!"

"Do not talk so – at a moment like this!"

"I have murdered, and am murdered in my turn, – the account is even, at any rate."

"Mother, mother, let me beseech you to repent ere you die!"

Again a peal of fiendish laughter burst from the pallid lips of the condemned woman.

"For thirty years," cried she, "have I lived in crime; would you have me believe that thirty years' guilt is to be repented of in three days, with the mind disturbed and distracted by the near approach of death? No, no, three days cannot effect such wonders; and I tell you, when my head falls its last expression will be rage and hatred!"

"Brother, brother," ejaculated Calabash, whose brain began to wander, "help, help! Take me from hence," moaned she in an expiring voice; "they are coming to fetch me – to kill me! Oh, hide me, dear brother, hide me, and I will love you ever more!"

"Will you hold your tongue?" cried the widow, exasperated at the weakness betrayed by her daughter. "Will you be silent? Oh, you base, you disgraceful creature! And to think that I should be obliged to call myself your parent!"

"Mother," exclaimed Martial, nearly distracted by this horrid scene, "will you tell me why you sent for me?"

"Because I thought to give you heart and hatred; but he who has not the one cannot entertain the other. Go, coward, go!"

At this moment a loud sound of many footsteps was heard in the corridor; the old soldier looked at his watch.

A rich ray of the golden brightness, which marked the rising of that day's sun, found its way through the loopholes in the walls, and shed a flood of light into the very midst of the wretched cell, rendered now completely illumined by means of the opening of the door at the opposite end of the passage to that in which the condemned cell was situated. In the midst of this blaze of day appeared two gaolers, each bearing a chair; an officer also made his appearance, saying to the widow in a voice of sympathy:

"Madame, the hour has arrived."

The mother arose on the instant, erect and immovable, while Calabash uttered the most piercing cries. Then four more persons entered the cell; four of the number, who were very shabbily dressed, bore in their hands packets of fine but very strong cord. The taller man of the party was dressed in black, with a large cravat; he handed a paper to the officer. This individual was the executioner, and the paper a receipt signifying his having received two females for the purpose of guillotining them. The man then took sole charge of these unhappy creatures, and, from that moment, was responsible for them.

To the wild terror and despair which had first seized Calabash, now succeeded a kind of stupefaction; and so nearly insensible was she that the assistant executioners were compelled to seat her on her bed, and to support her when there; her firmly closed jaws scarcely enabled her to utter a sound, but her hollow eyes rolled vacantly in their sockets, her chin fell listlessly on her breast, and, but for the support of the two men, she would have fallen forwards a lifeless, senseless mass.

After having bestowed a last embrace on his wretched sister, Martial stood petrified with terror, unable to speak or move, and as though perfectly spellbound by the horrible scene before him.

The cool audacity of the widow did not for an instant forsake her; with head erect, and firm, collected manner, she assisted in taking off the strait-waistcoat she had worn, and which had hitherto fettered her movements; this removed, she appeared in an old black stuff dress.

"Where shall I place myself?" asked she, in a clear, steady voice.

"Be good enough to sit down upon one of those chairs," said the executioner, pointing to the seats arranged at the entrance of the dungeon.

With unfaltering step, the widow prepared to follow the directions given her, but as she passed her daughter she said, in a voice that betokened some little emotion:

"Kiss me, my child!"

But as the sound of her mother's voice reached her ear, Calabash seemed suddenly to wake up from her lethargy, she raised her head, and, with a wild and almost frenzied cry, exclaimed:

"Away! Leave me! And if there be a hell, may it receive you!"

"My child," repeated the widow, "let us embrace for the last time!"

"Do not approach me!" cried the distracted girl, violently repulsing her mother; "you have been my ruin in this world and the next!"

"Then forgive me, ere I die!"

"Never, never!" exclaimed Calabash; and then, totally exhausted by the effort she had made, she sank back in the arms of the assistants.

A cloud passed over the hitherto stern features of the widow, and a moisture was momentarily visible on her glowing eyeballs. At this instant she encountered the pitying looks of her son. After a trifling hesitation, during which she seemed to be undergoing some powerful internal conflict, she said:

"And you?"

Sobbing violently, Martial threw himself into his mother's arms.

"Enough!" said the widow, conquering her emotion, and withdrawing herself from the close embrace of her son; "I am keeping this gentleman waiting," pointing to the executioner; then, hurrying towards a chair, she resolutely seated herself, and the gleam of maternal sensibility she had exhibited was for ever extinguished.

"Do not stay here," said the old soldier, approaching Martial with an air of kindness. "Come this way," continued he, leading him, while Martial, stupefied by horror, followed him mechanically.

The almost expiring Calabash having been supported to a chair by the two assistants, one sustained her all but inanimate form, while the other tied her hands behind with fine but excessively strong whipcord, knotted into the most inextricable meshes, while with a cord of the same description he secured her feet, allowing her just so much liberty as would enable her to proceed slowly to her last destination. The widow having borne a similar pinioning with the most imperturbable composure, the executioner, drawing from his pocket a pair of huge scissors, said to her with considerable civility:

"Be good enough to stoop your head, madame."

Yielding immediate obedience to the request, the widow said:

"We have been good customers to you; you have had my husband in your hands, and now you have his wife and daughter!"

Without making any reply, the executioner began to cut the long gray hairs of the prisoner very close, especially at the nape of the neck.

"This makes the third time in my life," continued the widow, with a dismal smile, "that I have had my head dressed by a professor: when I took my first communion the white veil was arranged; then on my marriage, when the orange-flowers were placed there; and upon the present occasion; upon my word, I hardly know which became me most. You cannot guess what I am thinking of?" resumed the widow, addressing the executioner, after having again contemplated her daughter.

But the man made her no sort of answer, and no sound was heard but that of the scissors, and the sort of convulsive and hysterical sob that occasionally escaped from Calabash.

At this moment a venerable priest approached the governor, and addressed him in a low, earnest voice, the import of which was to express his desire to make another effort to rescue the souls of the condemned.

"I was thinking that at five years old my daughter, whose head you are going to cut off, was the prettiest child I ever saw, with her fair hair and red cheeks. Who that saw her then would have said that – " She was silent for a moment, and then said, with a burst of indescribable laughter, "What a farce is destiny!"

At this moment the last of her hair was cut off.

"I have done, madame," said the executioner, politely.

"Many thanks; and I recommend my son Nicholas to you," said the widow; "you will cut off his hair some day." A turnkey came in and said a few words to her in a low tone. "No, – I have already said no!" she answered, angrily.

The priest hearing these words, and seeing any further interference useless, immediately withdrew.

"Madame, we are all ready to go. Will you take anything?" inquired the executioner, civilly.

"No, I thank you; this evening I shall take a mouthful of earth." And after this remark the widow rose firmly. Her hands were tied behind her back, and a rope was also attached to each ankle, allowing her sufficient liberty to walk. Although her step was firm and resolute, the executioner and his assistant offered to support her; but she turned to them disdainfully, and said, "Do not touch me, I have a steady eye and a firm foot, and they will hear on the scaffold whether or not I have a good voice." Calabash was carried away in a dying state.

After having traversed the long corridor, the funereal cortège ascended a stone staircase, which led to an exterior court, where was a picquet of gens-d'armes, a hackney-coach, and a long, narrow carriage with a yellow body, drawn by three post-horses, who were neighing loudly.

"We shall not be full inside," said the widow, as she took her seat.

The two vehicles, preceded and followed by the picquet of gens-d'armes, then quitted the outer gate of Bicêtre, and went quickly towards the Boulevard St. Jacques.