Jack (12 page)

Poor Mβdou! The irony of destiny pursued him even after death, for Moronval hesitated whether the interment should be that of a royal prince or of a servant. On one side there were reasons of economy; on the other, vanity and policy had a word to say. After much indecision, Moronval decided to strike a great blow, thinking that, perhaps, as he had not profited much by the prince living, he might gain something from him dead. So a pompous funeral was arranged. All the daily papers published a biography of the little king of Dahomey. It was a short one, to be sure, but lengthened by a panegyric of the Moronval Institute, and of its principal. The discipline of the establishment was commended; its hygienic regulations, the peculiar skill of its medical adviser,—nothing had been forgotten, and the unanimity of the eulogiums was something quite touching.

One day in May, therefore, Paris, which, notwithstanding its innumerable occupations and its feverish excitements, has always one eye open to all that goes on,—Paris saw on its principal boulevards a singular procession. Four black boys walked by the side of a bier. Behind, a taller lad, a tone lighter in complexion, wearing a fez,—our friend Said,—carried on a velvet cushion an order or two, some royal insignia fantastic in character. Then came Moronval, with Jack and the other schoolboys. The professors followed with the habituιs of the house, the literary men whom we met at the soiree. How shabby were these last! How many worn-out coats and worn-out hearts were there! How many disappointed hopes and unattainable ambitions! All these slowly marched on, embarrassed by the full light of day to which they were unaccustomed; and this melancholy escort precisely suited the little deposed king. Were not all of these persons pretendents, too, to some imaginary kingdom to which they would never succeed? Where but in Paris could such a funeral be seen? A king of Dahomey escorted to the grave by a procession of Bohemians!

To increase the dreariness of the scene, a fine cold rain began to fall, as if fate pursued the little prince, who so hated cold weather, even to the very grave. Yes, to the grave; for when the coffin had been lowered, Moronval pronounced a discourse so insincere and hard that it would not have warmed you, my poor Mβdou! Moronval spoke of the virtues and estimable qualities of the defunct, of the model sovereign he would one day have made had he lived. To those who had been familiar with that pitiful little face, who had seen the child abased by servitude, Moronval’s discourse was at once heart-breaking and absurd.

CHAPTER VIII.~~JACK’S DEPARTURE.

The only sincere grief for the negro boy was felt by little Jack. The death of his comrade had impressed him to an extraordinary degree, and the lonely deathbed he had witnessed haunted him for days. Jack knew too that now he must bear alone all Moronval’s whims and caprices, for the other pupils all had some one who came occasionally to see them, and who would report any brutalities of which they were the victims. Jack’s mother never wrote to him nowadays, and no one at the Institute knew even where she was. Ah! had he but been able to ascertain, how quickly would the child have gone to her, and told her all his sorrows. Jack thought of all this as they returned from the cemetery. Labassandre and Dr. Hirsch were in front of him, talking to each other.

“She is in Paris,” said Labassandre, “for I saw her yesterday.”

Jack listened eagerly.

“And was he with her?”

She—he. These designations were certainly somewhat vague, and yet Jack knew of whom they were speaking. Could his mother be in Paris and yet not have hastened to him? All the way back to the Institute he was meditating his escape.

Moronval, surrounded by his professors and friends, walked at the head of the procession, and turned occasionally to look back upon them with a rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys, whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked. They would increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again. Jack contrived to linger more and more among the last.

“Come!” cried Moronval.

“Come, come!” repeated Said.

At the entrance of the Champs Elysιes Saοd turned for the last time, gesticulating violently to hasten the little group. Suddenly the Egyptian’s arms fell at his side in amazement, for Jack was missing!

At first the child did not run, he was sagacious enough to avoid any look of haste. He affected, on the contrary, a lounging air. But as he drew nearer the Boulevard Haussmann, a mad desire to run took possession of him, and his little feet, in spite of himself, went faster and faster. Would the house be closed? And if Labassandre were mistaken, and his mother not in Paris, what would become of him? The alternative of a return to the academy never occurred to him. Indeed, if he had thought of it, the remembrance of the heavy blows and heartfelt sobs that he had heard all one afternoon would have filled him with terror.

“She is there,” cried the child, in a transport of joy, as he saw all the windows of the house open, and the door also as it was always when his mother was about going out. He hastened on, lest the carriage should take her away before he could arrive. But as he entered the vestibule, he was struck by something extraordinary in its appearance. It was full of people all busily talking. Furniture was being carried away: sofas and chairs, covered for a boudoir in such faint and delicate hues that in the broad light of day they looked faded. A mirror, framed in silver, and ornamented with cupids, was leaning against one of the stone pillars; a jardiniθre without flowers, and curtains that bad been taken down and thrown over a chair, were near by. Several women richly dressed were talking together of the merits of a crystal chandelier.

Jack, in great astonishment, made his way through the crowd, and could hardly recognize the well-known rooms, such was their disorder. The visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he heard the hammer of the auctioneer, and a voice that said,—

“A child’s bed, carved and gilded, with curtains!”

And Jack saw his own bed, where he had slept so long, handled by rough men. He wished to exclaim,

“The bed is mine—my very own—I will not have it touched;” but a certain feeling of shame withheld him, and he went from room to room looking for his mother, when suddenly his arm was seized.

“What! Master Jack, are you no longer at the school?”

It was Constant, his mother’s maid—Constant, in her Sunday dress, wearing pink ribbons, and with an air of great importance.

“Where is mamma?” asked the child, in a low voice, a voice that was so pitiful and troubled that the woman’s heart was touched.

“Your mother is not here, my poor child,” she said.

“But where is she? And what are all these people doing?”

“They have come for the auction. But come with me to the kitchen, Master Jack, we can talk better there.”

There was quite a party in the kitchen,—the old cook, Augustin, and several servants in the neighborhood. They were drinking champagne around the same table where Jack’s future had been one evening decided. The child’s arrival made quite a sensation. He was caressed by them all, for the servants were really attached to his kind-hearted mother. As he was afraid that they would take him back to the Institute, Jack took good care not to say that he had run away, and merely spoke of an imaginary permission he had received to enable him to visit his mother.

“She is not here, Master Jack,” said Constant, “and I really do not know whether I ought—” Then, interrupting herself, Constant exclaimed, “O! it is too bad. I cannot keep this child from his mother!”

Then she informed little Jack that madame was at Etiolles.

The child repeated the name over and over again to himself. “Is it far from here?” he asked.

“Eight good leagues,” answered Augustin.

But the cook disputed this point; and then followed an animated discussion as to the route to be taken to reach Etiolles. Jack listened eagerly, for he had already decided to attempt the journey alone and on foot.

“Madame lives in a pretty little cottage just at the edge of a wood,” said Constant.

Jack understood by this time which side of Paris he should go out. This and the name of the village were the two distinct ideas he had. The distance did not frighten him. “I can walk all night,” he said to himself, “even if my legs are little.” Then he spoke aloud. “I must go now,” he said, “I must go back to school.” One question, however, burned on his lips. Was Argenton at Etiolles? Should he find this powerful barrier between his mother and himself? He dared not ask Constant, however. Without understanding the truth precisely, he yet felt very keenly that this. Was not the best side of his mother’s life, and he avoided all mention of it.

The servants said “good-bye,” the coachman shook hands with him, and then the boy found himself in the vestibule among a bustling crowd. He did not linger in this chaos, for the house had no longer any interest for him, but hurried into the street, eager to start on the journey that would end by placing him with his mother.

Bercy! Yes, Bercy was the name of the village the cook had mentioned as the first after leaving Paris. The way was not difficult to find, although it was a good distance off, but the fear of being caught by Moronval spurred him on. An inquisitive look from a policeman startled him, a shadow on the wall, or a hurried step behind, made his heart beat, and over and above the noise and confusion of the streets he seemed to hear the cry of “Stop him! Stop him!” At last he climbed over the bank and began to run on the narrow path by the water’s edge. The day was coming to an end. The river was very high and yellow from recent rains, the water rolled heavily against the arches of the bridge, and the wind curled it in little waves, the tops of which were just touched by the level rays of the setting sun. Women passed him bearing baskets of wet linen, fishermen drew in their lines, and a whole river-side population, sailors and bargemen, with their rounded shoulders and woollen hoods, hurried past him. With these there was still another class, rough and ferocious of aspect, who were quite capable of pulling you out of the Seine for fifteen francs, and of throwing you in again for a hundred sous. Occasionally one of these men would turn to look at this slender schoolboy who seemed in such a hurry.

The appearance of the shore was continually changing. In one place it was black, and long planks were laid to boats laden with charcoal. Farther on, similar boats were crowded with fruit, and a delicious odor of fresh orchards was wafted on the air. Suddenly there was a look of a great harbor; steamboats were loading at the wharves; a few rods more, and a group of old trees bathed their distorted roots in a limpid stream, and one could easily fancy one’s self twenty leagues from Paris, and in an earlier century.

But night was close at hand.

The arches of the bridges vanished in darkness; the bank was deserted, and illuminated only by that vague light which comes from even the very darkest body of water.

But still the child toiled on, and at last found himself on a long wharf, covered with warehouses and piled with merchandise. He had reached Bercy, but it was night, and he was filled with terror lest he should be stopped at the gate; but the little fugitive was hardly noticed. He passed the barrier without hindrance, and soon found himself in a long, narrow street, solitary and dimly lighted. While the child was in the life and motion of the city, he was terrified only by one thought, and that was that Moronval would find him. Now he was still afraid, but his fear was of another character—born of silence and solitude.

Yet the place where he now found himself was not the country. The street was bordered with houses on both sides, but as the child slowly toiled on, these buildings became farther and farther apart, and considerably lower in height. Although barely eight o’clock, this road was almost deserted. Occasional pedestrians walked noiselessly over the damp ground, while the dismal howling of a dog added to the cheerlessness of the scene. Jack was troubled. Each step that he took led him further from Paris, its light and its noise. He reached the last wineshop. A broad circle of light barred the road, and seemed to the child the limits of the inhabited world.

After he had passed that shop, he must go on in the dark. Should he go into the shop and ask his way? He looked in. The proprietor was seated at his desk; around a small table sat two men and a woman, drinking and talking. When Jack lifted the latch, they looked up; the three had hideous faces—such faces as he had seen at the police stations the day they were looking for Mβdou. The woman, above all, was frightful.

“What does he want?” said one of the men.

The other rose; but little Jack with one bound leaped the stream of light from the open door, hearing behind him a volley of abuse. The darkness now seemed to the child a refuge, and he ran on quickly until he found himself in the open country. Before him stretched field after field; a few small, scattered houses, white cubes, alone varied the monotony of the scene. Below was Paris, known by its long line of reddish vapor, like the reflection of a blacksmith’s forge. The child stood still. It was the first time that he had ever been alone out of doors at night. He had neither eaten nor drank all day, and was now suffering from intense thirst. He was also beginning to understand what he had undertaken.

Had he strength enough to reach his mother?

He finally decided to lie down in a furrow in the bank on the side of the road, and sleep there until daybreak. But as he went toward the spot he had selected, he heard heavy breathing, and saw that a man was stretched out there, his rags making a confused mass of dark shadow against the white stones.

Jack stood petrified, his heart in his mouth, unable to take a step forward or back. At this instant the sleeping figure began to move, and to talk, still without waking. The child thought of the woman in the wineshop, and feared that this creature was she, or some other equally repulsive.