The Thirteen

elves the pleasure of a thief and a rascal while continuing honest men? But there is another side to it; we must resign ourselve

n guard beneath a window, make a thousand suppositions. But, after all, it is a chase, a hunt; a hunt in Paris, a hunt with all its chances, minus dogs and guns and the tally-ho! Nothing compares with it but the life of gamblers. But it needs a heart big with love and vengeance to ambu

engeance or the knowledge which would punish or reward such cares, such efforts, such wiles. But he had not yet reached that impatience which wrings our very entrails and makes us sweat; he roamed in hope, believing that Madame Jules would only refrain for a few days from revisiting the place where she knew she had been detected. He devoted the first days therefore, to a care

pes made by the rain on the gray background of the atmosphere (a species of chasing not unlike the capricious threads of spun glass), or the whirl of white water which the wind is driving like a luminous dust along the roofs, or the fitful disgorgements of the gutter-pipes, sparkling and foaming; in short, the thousand nothings to be admired and studied with delight by loungers, in spite of the porter's broom which pretends to be sweeping out the gateway. Then there's the talkative refugee, who complains and converses with the porter while he rests on his broom like a grenadier on his musket; or the pauper wayfarer, curled against the wall indifferent to the condition of his rags, long used, alas, to contact with the streets; or the learned pedestrian who studies, spells, and reads the posters on the walls without finishing them; or the smiling pedestrian who makes fun of others to whom some street fatality has happened, who laughs at the muddy women, and makes grimaces at those of either sex who are looking from the window

it boiled, it leaped, it murmured; it was black, white, blue, and green; it shrieked, it bubbled under the broom of the portress, a toothless old woman used to storms, who seemed to bless them as she swept into the street a mass of scraps an intelligent inventory of which would have revealed the lives and habits of every dweller in the house,-bits of printed cottons, tea-leaves, artificial flower-petals faded and worthless, vegetable

ed, cracked, veiny skins; their foreheads are covered with wrinkles, their hair scanty and dirty, like a wig thrown on a dust-heap. All are gay in their degradation, and degraded in their joys; all are marked with the stamp of debauchery, casting their silence as a reproach; their very attitude revealing fearful thoughts. Placed between crime and beggary they have no compunctions, and circle prudently around the scaffold without mounting it, innocent in the midst of crime, and vicious in their innocence. They often cause a laugh, but they always cause reflection. One represents to you civilization stunted, repressed; he comprehends everything, the honor o

Don Quixote; he was, apparently, scoffing but melancholy, full of disdain and philosophy, but half-crazy. He seemed to have no shirt. His beard was long. A rusty black cravat, much worn and ragged, exposed a protuberant neck deeply furrowed, with veins as thick as cords. A large brown circle like a bruise was strongly marked beneath his eyes, He seemed to be at least sixty years old. His hands were white and clean. His boots were trodden down at the heels, and full of holes. A pair of blue trousers, mended in various places, were covered with a species of fluff which made them offensive to the eye. Whether it was that his damp clothes exhaled a fetid odor, or that he had in his normal condition the "poor smell" which belongs to Parisian tenements, just a

ulincour presently saw no more of the man than the tail of his coat as it brushed the gate-post, but as he turned to leave his own place he noticed at his feet a letter which must have fallen from the unknown beggar

ed by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, made him fan

or him? Is it fr

raphy,-a letter to which it would be impossible to add anything, or to take anything away, unless it were the letter itself. But we have yielded to the necessity of punctuating it. In the original there were neither

y sacrifisis I impose

ot giving you anny

compells me to let y

beforehand that your

ur heart is deaf to f

But what matter? I mu

e gilty, and the hor

t me. Henry, you knew

d yet you plunged me

to my dispair and suf

that you loved me an

e. But now, what have

t was dear to me, all

, reputation,-all, I

eft me but shame, opr

rty. Nothing was want

our contempt and hatre

t my project requires

y commands it. I mu

arks upon my conduct,

n obliges me. Without

comfort me, can I liv

s, Henry, two days, I

rd. Oh, Henry! oh, my

me to forgive me for

u have driven me to i

heven not punish you

knees, for I feel no

of knowing you unha

l refuse all help from

all from your friendsh

ussis. I would be ba

e one favor to ask of

adame Meynardie's; be

two vissits did me a h

articlers about that

o; that word is wri

Alas! it is now, whe

my faculties abandon

r forever between us,

answer me, say you re

ve me. My eyes are wo

ask an interfew; I f

sake write me a line

to meet my trubbles.

y frend my heart has

rg

d

whether this Ida might not be some poor relation of Madame Jules, and that strange rendezvous, which he had witnessed by chance, the mere necessity of a charitable effort. But could that old pauper have seduced this Ida? There was something impossible in the very idea. Wandering in th

himself, and his heart beat fast

e lowered his head as he did so, obeying a sen

ting your foot i

nd found himself face to

Ferragus

t kno

sieur Ferrag

ch a name i

y good

woman, monsieur,

the baron, "I have a lett

, changing her tone, "that's another mat

doubtful air, hesitated, seemed to wish to leave the lodge and infor

monsieur. I suppose

e young officer ran lightly up the stairway, and rang loudly at the d

dressing-gown, white flannel trousers, his feet in embroidered slippers, and his face washed clean of stains. Mada

dame?" cried the office

der back with so sharp a thrust that Auguste fancied he

ant there? For five or six days you have been

eur Ferragus?"

monsi

I must return this paper which you dropped in the ga

ly. A fire burned on the hearth; and near it was a table with food upon it, which was served more sumptuously than agreed with the apparent conditions of the man and the poorness

you," said the mysterious man, turning away as

uste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,-Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jul

t as a national guard, and drills and smokes; suddenly, it abandons military manoeuvres and flings away cigars; it is commercial, care-worn, falls into bankruptcy, sells its furniture on the place de Chatelet, files its schedule; but a few days later, lo! it has arranged its affairs and is giving fetes and dances. One day it eats b

he wheels of carriages by the breastwork of planks which the law requires round all such buildings. There is something maritime in these masts, and ladders, and cordage, even in the shouts of the masons. About a dozen yards from the hotel Maulincour, one of these ephemeral barriers was erected before a house which was then being built of blocks of free-stone. The day after the event we have just related, at the moment when the Baron de Maulincour was p

an event for the whole neighborhood, the newspapers told of it. Monsieur de Maulincour, certain that he had not touched the boarding, complained; the case went to court. Inquiry being made, it was shown that a small boy, armed with a lath, had mounted guard and called to all foot-passengers to keep away. The

ce of the leather hood. Nevertheless, he was badly wounded in the side. For the second time in ten days he was carried home in a fainting condition to his terrified grandmother. This second accident gave him a feeling of distrust; he thought, though vaguely, of Ferragus and Madame Jules. To throw light on these suspicions he had the broken axle brought to his room and sent for his carriage-maker. Th

as malicious!" he said; "any one would swe

affair; but he felt himself warned. These two attempts at murder were

skulking in ambush, of trickery and treachery, declared in the name of Madame Jules. Wha

ased, he sent for an old woman long attached to the service of his grandmother, whose affection for himself was one of those semi-maternal sentiments which are the sublime of the commonplace. Without confiding in her wholly, he charged her to buy secretly and daily, in different localities, the food he needed; telling her to keep it under lock and key and

t about our own secret is nothing; but to be silent from the start, to forget a fact as Ali Pacha did for thirty years in order to be sure of a vengeance waited for for thirty years, is a fine study in a land where there are few men who can keep their own counsel for thirty days. Monsieur de Maulincour literally lived only through Madame Jules. He was perpetually absorbed in a sober

n; he was shrewd, dexterous, and very diplomatic. He listened to the baron, shook his head, and they both held counsel. The worthy vidame did not share his young friend's confidence when Auguste declared that in the t

can read hearts. What we might reasonably ask of them is to search for the causes of an act. But the police and the government are both eminently unfitted for that; they lack, essentially, the personal in

nemies were convinced of his repentance, and would so make tacit peace with him. But if he did not take that course, then the vidame advised him to stay in th

until we can be sure of taking

ley-slave, alert as a thief, sly as a woman, but now fallen into the decadence of genius for want of practice since the new constitution of Parisian society, which has reformed even the valets of comedy. This Scapin emeritus was attached to his master as to a superior being; but the shrewd old vidame added a good round sum yearly to the wages of his former provost of gallantry, whi

ivery, when called into counsel. "Monsieur should eat, drin

breakfasting with his grandmother and the vidame, Justin entered to make his report. As soon as the dowager

s moved from the rue des Vieux-Augustins, and now roosts rue Joquelet, where Madame Jules Desmarets goes frequently to see him; sometimes her husband, on his way to the Bourse, drives her as far as the rue Vivienne, or she drives her husband to the Bourse. Monsieur le vidame knows about these things too well to want me to tell him if it is the husband who takes the wife, or the wife who takes the husband; but Madame Jules is so pretty, I'd bet on her. All that I have told you is positive. Bourignard often plays at number 129. Saving your presence, monsieur, he's a rogue who loves women, and he has his little wa

n the matter without my orders, but keep a close watch h

when they were alone, "go back to you

d to Gratien Bourignard. I will have him b

ent to a ball given by Madame la Duchesse de Berry at the Elysee-Bourbon. There, certainly, no danger could lurk for him; and

in the matter of prudery. By one of those inexplicable fatalities, Auguste now uttered a harmless jest which Madame de Serizy took amiss, and her brother resented it. The discussion took place in the corner of a room, in a low voice. In good society, adversaries never raise their voices. The next day the faubourg Saint-Ge

ny sentiments of the highest honor, he felt it was impossible to believe him the instrument of Ferragus, chief o

I was to blame, and I offer him whatever excuses he may desire, and publicly if he wishes it; because when the matter concerns a woman, nothing, I th

his way of ending the affair, and then the ba

e of these gentlemen, your word as a gentleman that you have no ot

a question you ha

. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, in spite of the great distance determined by the seconds, which seemed to make the death of either party problematical,

," said the baron, "to be ave

, who believed him to be a dead man, smi

that were unworthy of a man of honor. He had, it said, placed an old woman at the stand of hackney-coaches in the rue de Menars; an old spy, who pretended to sell water from her cask to the coachmen, but who was really there to watch the actions of Madame Jules Desmarets. He had spied upon the daily life of a most inoffensive man, in order to detect his secrets,-secrets on which depended the lives of three persons. He had brought upon himself a relentless struggle, in which, although he ha

ight to do so! Ought a man ever to spy upon a woman whom he loved?-in short, she poured out a torrent of those excellent reasons which prove nothing; and they put

d in conclusion, "I shall kill my enem

ut this mysterious person who was bold enough to swear the death of an officer of the Guards, in defiance of the law and the police. The chief pushed up his green spectacles in amazement, blew his nose several times, and offered snuff to the vidame, who, to save his dignity, pre

irteen years the police had been endeavoring to recapture him, knowing that he had boldly returned to Paris; but so far this convict had escaped the most active search, although he was known to be mixed up in many nefarious deeds. However, the man, whose life was full of very curious incidents, would certainly be captured now in one or other of his several domiciles and delivered up to justice. The bureaucrat ended his report by sa

rrest, which was certainly of enough importance to have furnished an article, Monsieur de Mau

have the honor to ann

uneasiness touching t

Bourignard, otherwis

gings, rue Joquelet N

s to the identity of

est by the facts. T

was despatched by us

, and the chief of th

rifications to obtai

er of the persons who

idavits of those who

t illness, among othe

of the Bonne-Nouvell

he died a Christian

any sort

ieur le baro

old woman kissed her grandson leaving a tear upon his cheek, and went away to thank God in praye

ter show yourself at the ball you were sp