well-dressed Parisian woman, against whose glances he felt that he was
not proof. The soldier turned his eyes on the table, which was made of
walnut wood. There was no tablecloth, but the surface might have been
varnished, it was so well rubbed and polished. Eggs, butter, a rice
pudding, and
fragrant wild strawberries had been set out, and the poor
child had put flowers everywhere about the room;
evidently it was a
great day for her. At the sight of all this, the commandant could not
help looking enviously at the little house and the green sward about
it, and watched the
peasant girl with an air that expressed both his
doubts and his hopes. Then his eyes fell on Adrien, with whom La
Fosseuse was
deliberately busying herself, and handing him the eggs.
"Now, commandant," said Benassis, "you know the terms on which you are
receiving
hospitality. You must tell La Fosseuse 'something about the
army.' "
"But let the gentleman first have his breakfast in peace, and then,
after he has taken a cup of coffee----"
"By all means, I shall be very glad," answered the commandant; "but it
must be upon one condition: you will tell us the story of some
adventure in your past life, will you not, mademoiselle?"
"Why, nothing worth telling has ever happened to me, sir," she
answered, as her color rose. "Will you take a little more rice
pudding?" she added, as she saw that Adrien's plate was empty.
"If you please, mademoiselle."
"The
pudding is delicious," said Genestas.
"Then what will you say to her coffee and cream?" cried Benassis.
"I would rather hear our pretty
hostess talk."
"You did not put that
nicely, Genestas," said Benassis. He took La
Fosseuse's hand in his and pressed it as he went on: "Listen, my
child; there is a kind heart
hidden away beneath that officer's stern
exterior, and you can talk
freely before him. We do not want to press
you to talk, do not tell us anything unless you like: but if ever you
can be listened to and understood, poor little one, it will be by the
three who are with you now at this moment. Tell us all about your love
affairs in the old days, that will not admit us into any of the real
secrets of your heart."
"Here is Mariette with the coffee," she answered, "and as soon as you
are all served, I will tell about my 'love affairs' very willingly.
But M. le Commandant will not forget his promise?" she added,
challenging the officer with a shy glance.
"That would be impossible, mademoiselle," Genestas answered
respectfully.
"When I was sixteen years old," La Fosseuse began, "I had to beg my
bread on the
roadside in Savoy, though my health was very bad. I used
to sleep at Echelles, in a
manger full of straw. The innkeeper who
gave me shelter was kind, but his wife could not abide me, and was
always
saying hard things. I used to feel very
miserable; for though I
was a
beggar, I was not a
naughty child; I used to say my prayers
every night and morning, I never stole anything, and I did as Heaven
bade me in begging for my living, for there was nothing that I could
turn my hands to, and I was really unfit for work--quite
unable to
handle a hoe or to wind spools of cotton.
"Well, they drove me away from the inn at last; a dog was the cause of
it all. I had neither father nor mother nor friends. I had met with no
one, ever since I was born, whose eyes had any kindness in them for
me. Morin, the old woman who had brought me up, was dead. She had been
very good to me, but I cannot remember that she ever petted me much;
besides, she worked out in the fields like a man, poor thing; and if
she fondled me at times, she also used to rap my fingers with the
spoon if I ate the soup too fast out of the porringer we had between
us. Poor old woman, never a day passes but I remember her in my
prayers! If it might please God to let her live a happier life up
there than she did here below! And, above all things, if she might
only lie a little softer there, for she was always grumbling about the
pallet-bed that we both used to sleep upon. You could not possibly
imagine how it hurts one's soul to be repulsed by every one, to
receive nothing but hard words and looks that cut you to the heart,
just as if they were so many stabs of a knife. I have known poor old
people who were so used to these things that they did not mind them a
bit, but I was not born for that sort of life. A 'No' always made me
cry. Every evening I came back again more
unhappy than ever, and only
felt comforted when I had said my prayers. In all God's world, in
fact, there was not a soul to care for me, no one to whom I could pour
out my heart. My only friend was the blue sky. I have always been
happy when there was a cloudless sky above my head. I used to lie and
watch the weather from some nook among the crags when the wind had
swept the clouds away. At such times I used to dream that I was a
great lady. I used to gaze into the sky till I felt myself bathed in
the blue; I lived up there in thought, rising higher and higher yet,
till my troubles weighed on me no more, and there was nothing but
gladness left.
"But to return to my 'love affairs.' I must tell you that the
innkeeper's spaniel had a dear little puppy, just as
sensible as a
human being; he was quite white, with black spots on his paws, a
cherub of a puppy! I can see him yet. Poor little fellow, he was the
only creature who ever gave me a friendly look in those days; I kept
all my tidbits for him. He knew me, and came to look for me every
evening. How he used to spring up at me! And he would bite my feet, he
was not
ashamed of my
poverty; there was something so
grateful and so
kind in his eyes that it brought tears into mine to see it. 'That is
the one living creature that really cares for me!' I used to say. He
slept at my feet that winter. It hurt me so much to see him beaten,
that I broke him of the habit of going into houses, to steal bones,
and he was quite
contented with my crusts. When I was
unhappy, he used
to come and stand in front of me, and look into my eyes; it was just
as if he said, 'So you are sad, my poor Fosseuse?'
"If a traveler threw me some halfpence, he would pick them up out of
the dust and bring them to me, clever little spaniel that he was! I
was less
miserable so long as I had that friend. Every day I put away
a few halfpence, for I wanted to get fifteen francs together, so that
I might buy him of Pere Manseau. One day his wife saw that the dog was
fond of me, so she herself took a sudden
violent fancy to him. The
dog, mind you, could not bear her. Oh, animals know people by
instinct! If you really care for them, they find it out in a moment. I
had a gold coin, a twenty-franc piece, sewed into the band of my
skirt; so I spoke to M. Manseau: 'Dear sir, I meant to offer you my
year's savings for your dog; but now your wife has a mind to keep him,
although she cares very little about him, and rather than that, will
you sell him to me for twenty francs? Look, I have the money here.'
" 'No, no, little woman,' he said; 'put up your twenty francs. Heaven
forbid that I should take their money from the poor! Keep the dog; and
if my wife makes a fuss about it, you must go away.'
"His wife made a terrible to-do about the dog. Ah! mon Dieu! any one
might have thought the house was on fire! You never would guess the
notion that next came into her head. She saw that the little fellow
looked on me as his
mistress, and that she could only have him against
his will, so she had him poisoned; and my poor spaniel died in my
arms. . . . I cried over him as if he had been my child, and buried
him under a pine-tree. You do not know all that I laid in that grave.
As I sat there beside it, I told myself that henceforward I should
always be alone in the world; that I had nothing left to hope for;
that I should be again as I had been before, a poor
lonely girl; that
I should never more see a friendly light in any eyes. I stayed out
there all through the night, praying God to have pity on me. When I
went back to the highroad I saw a poor little child, about ten years
old, who had no hands.
" 'God has heard me,' I thought. I had prayed that night as I had
never prayed before. 'I will take care of the poor little one; we will
beg together, and I will be a mother to him. Two of us ought to do
better than one; perhaps I should have more courage for him than I
have for myself.'
"At first the little boy seemed to be quite happy, and, indeed, he
would have been hard to please if he had not been content. I did
everything that he wanted, and gave him the best of all that I had; I
was his slave in fact, and he tyrannized over me, but that was nicer
than being alone, I used to think! Pshaw! no sooner did the little
good-for-nothing know that I carried a twenty-franc piece sewed into
my skirtband than he cut the stitches, and stole my gold coin, the
price of my poor spaniel! I had meant to have masses said with
it. . . . A child without hands, too! Oh, it makes one shudder!
Somehow that theft took all the heart out of me. It seemed as if I was
to love nothing but it should come to some
wretched end.
"One day at Echelles, I watched a fine
carriage coming slowly up the
hillside. There was a young lady, as beautiful as the Virgin Mary, in
the
carriage, and a young man, who looked like the young lady. 'Just
look,' he said; 'there is a pretty girl!' and he flung a silver coin
to me.
"No one but you, M. Benassis, could understand how pleased I was with
the
compliment, the first that I had ever had: but, indeed, the
gentleman ought not to have thrown the money to me. I was in a
flutter; I knew of a short cut, a footpath among the rocks, and
started at once to run, so that I reached the
summit of the Echelles
long before the
carriage, which was coming up very slowly. I saw the
young man again; he was quite surprised to find me there; and as for
me, I was so pleased that my heart seemed to be throbbing in my
throat. Some kind of
instinct drew me towards him. After he had
recognized me, I went on my way again; I felt quite sure that he and
the young lady with him would leave the
carriage to see the waterfall
at Couz, and so they did. When they alighted, they saw me once more,
under the walnut-trees by the
wayside. They asked me many questions,
and seemed to take an interest in what I told them about myself. In
all my life I had never heard such pleasant voices as they had, that
handsome young man and his sister, for she was his sister, I am sure.
I thought about them for a whole year afterwards, and kept on hoping
that they would come back. I would have given two years of my life
only to see that traveler again, he looked so nice. Until I knew M.
Benassis these were the greatest events of my life. Although my
mistress turned me away for
trying on that
horrid ball-dress of hers,
I was sorry for her, and I have
forgiven her, for candidly, if you
will give me leave to say so, I thought myself the better woman of the
two,
countess though she was."
"Well," said Genestas, after a moment's pause, "you see that
Providence has kept a friendly eye on you, you are in
clover here."
At these words La Fosseuse looked at Benassis with eyes full of
gratitude.
"Would that I was rich!" came from Genestas. The officer's exclamation
was followed by
profound silence.
"You owe me a story," said La Fosseuse at last, in coaxing tones.
"I will tell it at once," answered Genestas. "On the evening before
the battle of Friedland," he went on, after a moment, "I had been sent
with a
despatch to General Davoust's quarters, and I was on the way
back to my own, when at a turn in the road I found myself face to face
with the Emperor. Napoleon gave me a look.
" 'You are Captain Genestas, are you not?' he said.
" 'Yes, your Majesty.'
" 'You were out in Egypt?'
" 'Yes, your Majesty.'
" 'You had better not keep to the road you are on,' he said; 'turn to
the left, you will reach your division sooner that way.'
"That was what the Emperor said, but you would never imagine how
kindly he said it; and he had so many irons in the fire just then, for
he was riding about surveying the position of the field. I am telling
you this story to show you what a memory he had, and so that you may
know that he knew my face. I took the oath in 1815. But for that
mistake, perhaps I might have been a
colonel to-day; I never meant to
betray the Bourbons, France must be defended, and that was all I
thought about. I was a Major in the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard;
and although my wound still gave me trouble, I swung a sabre in the
battle of Waterloo. When it was all over, and Napoleon returned to
Paris, I went too; then when he reached Rochefort, I followed him
against his orders; it was some sort of comfort to watch over him and
to see that no
mishapbefell him on the way. So when he was walking