Germinie Lacerteux Part 10

"Oh! she won't steal 'em----"

"The deuce she won't!"

"Well! if she does, it won't be from anyone but her mistress. Do you suppose her mademoiselle would have her pinched for that? She'll turn her off, and that'll be the end of it. We'll advise her to try the air in another quarter--off she goes!--and we sha'n't see her again. But it would be too stupid for her to steal. She'll arrange it somehow, she'll hunt round and turn things over. I don't know how, not I! but that's her affair, you understand. This is the time for her to show her talents. By the way, perhaps you don't know, they say her old woman's sick. If the dear lady should happen to step out and leave her all the stuff, as the story goes in the quarter--why, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have played see-saw with her, eh, mamma? We must put on gloves, you see, mamma, when we're dealing with people who may have four or five thousand a year come tumbling into their ap.r.o.ns."

"Oh! my G.o.d! what are you talking about? But after the way I treated her--oh! no, she'll never come back here."

"Well! I tell you I'll bring her back--and to-night at the latest," said Jupillon, rising, and rolling a cigarette between his fingers. "No excuses, you know," he said to his mother, "they won't do any good--and be cold to her. Act as if you received her only on my account, because you are weak. No one knows what may happen, we must always keep an anchor to windward."

x.x.x

Jupillon was walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of Germinie's house when she came out.

"Good-evening, Germinie," he said, behind her.

She turned as if she had been struck, and, without answering his greeting, instinctively moved on a few steps as if to fly from him.

"Germinie!"

Jupillon said nothing more than that; he did not follow her, he did not move. She came back to him like a trained beast when his rope is taken off.

"What is it?" said she. "Do you want more money? or do you want to tell me some of your mother's foolish remarks?"

"No, but I am going away," said Jupillon, with a serious face. "I am drafted--and I am going away."

"You are going away?" said she. She seemed as if her mind was not awake.

"Look here, Germinie," Jupillon continued. "I have made you unhappy. I haven't been very kind to you, I know. My cousin's been a little to blame. What do you want?"

"You're going away?" rejoined Germinie, taking his arm. "Don't lie to me--are you going away?"

"I tell you, yes--and it's true. I'm only waiting for marching orders.

You have to pay more than two thousand francs for a subst.i.tute this year. They say there's going to be a war: however, there's a chance."

As he spoke he was leading Germinie down the street.

"Where are you taking me?" said she.

"To mother's, of course--so that you two can make up and put an end to all this nonsense."

"After what she said to me? Never!"

And Germinie pushed Jupillon's arm away.

"Well, if that's the way it is, good-bye."

And Jupillon raised his cap.

"Shall I write to you from the regiment?"

Germinie was silent, hesitating, for a moment. Then she said, abruptly: "Come on!" and, motioning to Jupillon to walk beside her, she turned back up the street.

And so they walked along, side by side, without a word. They reached a paved road that stretched out as far as the eye could see, between two lines of lanterns, between two rows of gnarled trees that held aloft handfuls of bare branches and cast their slender, motionless shadows on high blank walls. There, in the keen air, chilled by the evaporation of the snow, they walked on and on for a long time, burying themselves in the vague, infinite, unfamiliar depths of a street that follows the same wall, the same trees, the same lanterns, and leads on to the same darkness beyond. The damp, heavy air that they breathed smelt of sugar and tallow and carrion. From time to time a vivid flash pa.s.sed before their eyes: it was the lantern of a butcher's cart that shone upon slaughtered cattle and huge pieces of bleeding meat thrown upon the back of a white horse; the light upon the flesh, amid the darkness, resembled a purple conflagration, a furnace of blood.

"Well! have you reflected?" said Jupillon. "This little Avenue Trudaine isn't a very cheerful place, do you know?"

"Come on," Germinie replied.

And, without another word, she set out again at the same fierce, jerky gait, agitated by all the tumult raging in her heart. Her thoughts were expressed in her gestures. Her feet went astray, madness attacked her hands. At times her shadow, seen from behind, reminded one of a woman from La Salpetriere. Two or three pa.s.sers-by stopped for a moment and looked after her; then, remembering that they were in Paris, pa.s.sed on.

Suddenly she stopped, and with the gesture of one who has made a desperate resolution, she said: "Ah! my G.o.d! another pin in the cushion!--Let us go!"

And she took Jupillon's arm.

"Oh! I know very well," said Jupillon, when they were near the creamery, "my mother wasn't fair to you. You see, the woman has been too virtuous all her life. She don't know, she don't understand. And then, d'ye see, I'll tell you the whole secret: she loves me so much she's jealous of any woman who loves me. So go in, do!"

And he pushed her into the arms of Madame Jupillon, who kissed her, mumbled a few words of regret, and made haste to weep in order to relieve her own embarra.s.sment and make the scene more affecting.

Throughout the evening Germinie sat with her eyes fixed on Jupillon, almost terrifying him with her expression.

"Come, come," he said, as he walked home with her, "don't be so down in the mouth as all this. We must have a little philosophy in this world.

Well! here I am a soldier--that's all! To be sure they don't all come back. But then--look here! I propose that we enjoy ourselves for the fortnight that's left, because it will be so much gained--and if I don't come back--Well, at all events, I shall leave you a pleasant memory of me."

Germinie made no reply.

x.x.xI

For a whole week Germinie did not set foot in the shop again.

The Jupillons, when she did not return, began to despair. At last, one evening about half past ten, she pushed the door open, entered the shop without a word of greeting, walked up to the little table where the mother and son were sitting half asleep, and placed upon it, beneath her hand which was closed like a claw, an old piece of cloth that gave forth a ringing sound.

"There it is!" said she.

And, letting go the corners of the cloth, she emptied its contents on the table: forth came greasy bank-notes, patched on the back, fastened together with pins, old tarnished louis d'or, black hundred-sou pieces, forty-sou pieces, ten-sou pieces, the money of the poor, the money of toil, money from Christmas-boxes, money soiled by dirty hands, worn out in leather purses, rubbed smooth in the cash drawer filled with sous--money with a flavor of perspiration.

For a moment she gazed at the display as if to a.s.sure her own eyes; then she said to Madame Jupillon in a sad voice, the voice of her sacrifice:

"There it is--There's the two thousand three hundred francs for him to buy a subst.i.tute."

"Oh! my dear Germinie!" said the stout woman, almost suffocated by emotion; and she threw herself upon Germinie's neck, who submitted to be embraced. "Oh! you must take something with us--a cup of coffee--"