Summer Will Show (25 page)

Yet Minna, however capable of staring facts in the face and denying their existence (and Sophia could see that she was capable of great feats in that kind), could scarcely have been Frederick’s mistress and yet suppose that twenty-five pounds was all that stood between Mrs. Frederick Willoughby and indigence. Besides, she was a Jewess, one of a race who can divine gold even in the rock; she should be able to divine it in a bank too. Ridiculous, thought Sophia, still turning and twiddling the problem; ridiculous that one should feel obliged to break it gently to her that one is blessed with comfortable means. Of all people, she should digest such information most naturally; for she is a Jewess, with a proper esteem for money, and she is an artist, with no hoity-toity scruples about taking it. Most certainly, money must by some means or other be injected into Minna’s way of living; she could not be allowed to go on drinking bad wine and eating messes of sour cabbage spiced with carroway, paddling through the wet streets in broken slippers, and over her own parquet in dusters, ogling jellied eels as though they were quails, and fencing her heavy quaking shoulders against the cold with a wrap that should be at the cleaners.

Even allowing for dramatic instinct, a terrific virtuosity of rhetorical effect, Minna must be painfully poor. All the curiosity-shop trimmings of her apartment, the old masters and the embroideries, the Gothic beaker and the damascened andirons were gone — gone too, most probably, most regrettably, those superior duelling pistols. Natalia also was gone — a good riddance, maybe, but, since she had no replacer, a bad sign; and despite the curtain-fire of Sophia’s bonnet, and sealskin muff and pelerine, and well-funded demeanour, Madame Coton’s glance was superciliously inquisitive, and the man in the wine-shop far too affable.

And only some one, thought Sophia with a flash of intuition, only some one who has felt authentic destitution could throw away twenty-five good pounds as soon as look at it.

You must be fed, properly fed, clothed and warmed, she resolved, glancing under her eyelashes at Minna. Her mind almost added, cleaned; for poverty had laid a tarnish on that skin, turned its warm milk-coffee colour towards sallowness, dulled those jet-black locks to the black of a cheap coffin. In that glance love reabsorbed her, and the knot, turning suddenly in her exploring fingers, presented its aspect of how at all costs she must not let a Midas-touch strike stiff, strike cold and dead, the happiness which that exulting “I have beggared you, Sophia,” had brought to life. Poverty in some way warded their relationship, was the battered Aladdin’s lamp which had unlocked the undreamed-of riches.

So on the whole the best plan would be to pawn her diamonds, the ring on her hand, the brooch on the dressing-table in the Place Bellechasse. The money resulting from a visit to the Mont de Piété would be, in some mystical way, cleansed from the sin original of wealth; it would not offend Minna, or flaw the illusion of poverty on which, she supposed, everything depended; and it would be quite enough for her present purpose.

Pleased to have arranged everything so well, she stretched herself and turned with a smile to her companion.

“Tell me, Sophia. Have you ever stolen anything?”

“Never. Why?”

“Because at this moment you look exactly as though you had been robbing an orchard. Your expression is sly and self-satisfied. Would you thieve, Sophia?”

“Yes, I expect so.”

“So would I. When I was in the priest’s house I stole like an angel — cigars, money, his bandannas, the wine for the sacrament, everything I could lay hands on. If I had not discovered my talent for thieving I could never have kept my self-respect. But when I looked at the things I had stolen it re-established me.
Le vol, c’est la propriété
.”

“What did you do with the things you stole?”

“Oh, threw them away — except the wine and the cigars. Or put them back again when they were missed. It was the sensation I wanted, I could not hazard that by being found out.”

“And the priest?”

“Exorcised the house against the Poltergeist. He was a fat man, full of gas, he rumbled like a goat. He drew in coloured chalks, pictures of hell, and showed me a new one every day, saying that there was a special hell for the Jews. At night I was locked into a cupboard, and sometimes he would come in with a candle and another picture. Then he would pray, and weep, and enjoy himself. He drew like a schoolboy, his devils and his damned had hay-fork fingers and bodies like turnips, his chalks were the brightest colours, yellow, and purple ... ”

Caught by her voice, one of the children playing on the hillock approached, and stood listening open-mouthed. His playmate called to him, and finding that of no avail, came up, and tugged him by the arm. The first child shook his head. The second child stayed.

“The priest’s housekeeper was a very old woman called Rosa. She had a long plait of grey hair, and into it she twined leaves of mountain ash and elder, as charms to keep away the wood-spirits. She had charms in her pockets, charms round her neck, charms sewn into her slippers to prevent her falling into the well. In one eye she had a cataract, that eye seemed to me to be made of snow, dirty snow pressed into a pellet and beginning to thaw.”

One after another the children left their play and came nearer, the bolder shoving forward the timid. Two women went by, and Sophia heard the one say to the other, “Look, the pretty dears! How children love a fairy-story.”

“She was pious and cruel, that old woman. Before she thrashed me she made the sign of the cross over my back. But I got even with her. One day ... ”

The story was animated and indecent. The children pressed closer, giggling, nudging each other in delight. Passers-by stopped. Arrested by curiosity, they stayed for entertainment, and at the end of the anecdote the shrill titters of the children were reinforced by several adult guffaws.

“Yes, I avenged myself. But even victory is a poor thing when one is alone, with one’s back to the wall. Good God, how unhappy I was! How endless the winters were, how agonising the nights when I lay shivering, thinking the night as long as a winter. And I no older than these children here,” she said, turning to Sophia, her voice lowering its lights, trailing under a weight of woe. “No, I should have gone under, I should have died of misery if it had not been for Corporal Lecoq. A little old fellow, Sophia, limping with a quick step, holding himself upright, his chin always well-shaved, his moustaches curled like ram’s horns, his eyes bulging wrathfully from his scarred face. The ice had scarcely melted when he came to the village, limping through the slush, beating a quick-step on his drum, his two dogs following him, wearing coats of red velvet trimmed with gold braid, tarnished but splendid. Outside the church he came to a stop. He unfolded a piece of carpet and laid it down on the slush, and immediately the two dogs sat up to attention. He beat a flourish on his drum and cried out, with a loud voice, with a strange accent, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, good people all, you shall see something worth seeing. These are my two celebrated dogs, Bastien and Bastienne. And before your delighted eyes they will dance the minuet, as it is danced in all the politest courts of Europe.’

“He drummed out the rhythm of a minuet,
Tra, la-la-la-la, Tra, la
, and the dogs stood up and danced, their haunches trembling, their front paws dangling with affectation from the cuffs of their red velvet coats. At the end of the dance they dropped on their four legs, became dogs again, running round him and barking with excitement, rousing every watchdog in the village. At the noise of the drumming every one ran out, the women and children, the men from the tavern. They chattered and screamed, and said that it was witchcraft; and the village idiot, a woman of fifty with the face of an infant, declared that just so was the minuet danced in the courts of Europe. I only dared not go near. But I hung over the paling of the priest’s yard, knocking my hatchet against the wood so that Rosa might think I was still at work. Corporal Lecoq said, ‘I see a young lady yonder who has a fine ear for music. Bastien, go and make your bow to the young lady,’ and he pointed with his finger, and the dog ran to the priest’s palings, rose on its hind-legs and made me a bow. Alas, it did me no good! There was an uproar of voices, saying that I was a Jewess, a scapegrace, a good-for-nothing; and Rosa took hold of my arm and sent me whirling into the house.

“Outside the drumming went on, marches and mazourkas, and the villagers laughed and exclaimed. And then I heard the quick-step, the dogs barking, his voice hallooing to them, friendly and imperious; and they were gone.

“For ever, so I thought. Music, red velvet, a dog that bowed, a human being that spoke me kindly — such things were not likely to come my way again. But a few evenings later I felt something touch my leg, and turning, there was the dog Bastien, standing beside me, striking me gently with his paw. ‘Good evening,’ said a voice, soft and rough like the touch of moss. Corporal Lecoq was leaning on the palings, his curling moustaches silhouetted against the sky. ‘Is the priest in?’ said he. ‘I want to make my confession.’

“Ah, thought I, you are no friend after all. You are another Catholic, another of those leagued against me. And when he and the priest came out of the church later, roaring with laughter, arm in arm, I hated them alike — no, I hated the corporal worse of the two, for of the priest I had never expected anything but ill. He came often, boasting himself a good Catholic, he and the priest used to sit together, telling stories and drinking sloe gin, and to Rosa he gave a miraculous plaster statue so that after that she fed his dogs when they came into the kitchen. But he never spoke to me, nor I to him, until one hot summer afternoon when I was ironing the church linen, alone for once. ‘Hot work?’ said he. For answer I spat on the surplice. ‘So you are still a Jewess?’ ‘Always a Jewess,’ said I. ‘Foolish child,’ said he. ‘
Paris vaut bien une messe
.’ And he told me the story of Henry IV, and how, if I would seem to yield a little, Rosa might allow me to talk with him, since he was such a good Catholic, and that he would tell me about Paris, and teach me to speak French. My tears fell on the linen, but I went on ironing, I gave no answer.

“Later again he brought Rosa the two red velvet coats, asking her to mend them. ‘I mend for your filthy animals?’ cried she. ‘Never! Give the coats to the Jewess. Dogs defile Jews, let her mend the coats.’ ‘I have mended the cassock,’ I said. ‘I will mend the dogs’ coats too.’

“There was this to be done, that to be done, holes darned, the gilt braid re-stitched, new linings; and he seemed to make a great fuss, and however I worked was not satisfied, I must do it over again to his liking, and at last he must oversee it all, since I worked so doltishly. That day he sat by me as I sewed, talking of Napoleon, whose soldier he had been, of the retreat from Moscow, and how he was left behind, frost-bitten, as good as dead. But he had been sheltered, and had picked up a living since, tramping from fair to fair with his dogs and his drum, or singing in taverns, or in choirs. For he had a great bass voice, Greek chants, or Roman, or Lutheran psalms were all alike to him. And he could shave too, and dress hair; for in his youth he had been apprenticed to a hair-dresser in Paris, leaving that profession to become a strolling actor. And then he talked to me of the theatre, of the lamps and the dresses, the tragedies of Voltaire and Grétry’s operas.

“‘I have finished the coats,’ said I.

“‘Rip them up,’ said he. ‘And then I will bring them again, and teach you a speech from a tragedy.’

“All that summer he came to the priest’s house. We had a language of signals; for I had a quick ear, he had only to tap out the rhythm of some tune we had agreed upon and I would know what he meant, and answer it, banging my hatchet on the wood, or clattering one dish against another at the sink. I stole comfits for his dogs, and cigars for him, I began to be a little happy, for I had a friend. One day he said to Rosa, ‘My dogs have fleas, come with me to the sheep-washing trough and hold them while I wash them.’ ‘Let the Jewess do that,’ said she, ‘and be defiled.’ I put on a sulky face and went with him.

“‘Now we will fall to work,’ he said, when we got to the sheep-washing trough. And on the grass he laid out soap, and a towel, and a comb, pomade in a china box, and a pair of curling-tongs. ‘What, do you curl the dog’s hair?’ said I. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘But I curl young ladies.’ And taking me by the scruff of the neck he pushed my head into the cool running water and lathered my hair, scolding at the lice, and the dirt, and the tangles. For a long while he soaped, and rinsed, and soaped and rinsed again, and I, forgetting my first fear, gave myself up to the pleasure of feeling myself so well handled, shivering with voluptuousness when he rubbed the nape of my neck, arching my head back against his strong hand. Then he rubbed it dry with a towel, combed it, and smeared on the pomade that smelled of violets. Last of all he kindled a little fire of sticks, heated the tongs, and curled my hair into ringlets.

“‘There,’ said he, standing back to look at me well. ‘Those ringlets are called
Anglaises
. And now for the finishing touch.’ Out of his pocket he pulled an artificial rose, frayed and crumpled, and stuck it behind my ear.

“When I looked in the sheep-trough, I did not know myself. He too seemed changed, singing a song in French, pretending to pluck the strings of a guitar which was not there. Then he picked up the soap, what was left of it, the towel, and the rest of his gear, and marched off, still singing, waving his arms and staggering. I guessed then that he was a little drunk.

“I, poor little fool, went dreaming back to the priest’s house with my ringlets and my false rose, and my odour of violets which surrounded me like a cloud. ‘Harlot!’ cried Rosa, ‘bedizened little infidel, stinking trumpery, you are not fit to be clean!’ And slobbering with rage she tore the rose out of my hair, and a handful of my hair with it, and began to daub my face with dirty pig’s lard from the frying-pan.”

“No!” exclaimed a solemn voice from the crowd. “That was too much, that was infamous.” “Old hag,” said another voice.