“A terrible story indeed,” said Oudarde, “and one that would make a Burgundian weep!”
“I am no longer surprised,” added Gervaise, “that the fear of the gipsies haunts you so.”
“And you had all the more reason,” continued Oudarde, “to run away with your Eustache just now, because these are also Polish gipsies.”
“Not at all,” said Gervaise; “they say they came from Spain and Catalonia.”
“Catalonia? That may be,” replied Oudarde; “Polonia, Catalonia, Valonia,—those places are all one to me; I always mix them up. There’s one thing sure; they are gipsies.”
“And their teeth are certainly long enough to eat little children. And I should not be a bit surprised if Smeralda ate a little too, for all her dainty airs. Her white goat plays too many clever tricks to be all right.”
Mahiette walked on in silence. She was absorbed in that sort of reverie which seems to be the continuation of a painful story, and which does not cease until it has imparted its own emotion, throb by throb, to the innermost fibers of the heart. Gervaise, however, addressed her: “And did no one ever know what became of Chantefleurie?” Mahiette made no answer. Gervaise repeated the question, shaking her arm and calling her by name as she did so. Mahiette seemed to wake from her dream.
“What became of Chantefleurie?” she said, mechanically repeating the words whose sound was still fresh in her ear; then, making an effort to fix her attention upon the meaning of the words, she said quickly, “Oh, no one ever knew.”
She added, after a pause:—
“Some said they saw her leave Rheims at dusk by the Porte Fléchembault; others, at daybreak, by the old Porte Basée. A poor man found her gold cross hanging to the stone cross in the fairgrounds. It was that trinket which caused her ruin in ‘61. It was a gift from the handsome Vicomte de Cormontreuil, her first lover. Paquette never would part with it, however poor she might be. She clung to it like her own life. So when this cross was found, we all thought that she was dead. Still, there were people at Cabaret-les-Vautes who said they saw her pass by on the road to Paris, walking barefoot over the stones. But in that case she must have left town by the Porte de Vesle, and all these stories don’t agree; or, rather, I believe she did actually leave by the Porte de Vesle, but that she left this world.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Gervaise.
“The Vesle,” replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, “is the river.”
“Poor Chantefleurie!” said Oudarde, with a shudder; “drowned!”
“Drowned!” returned Mahiette; “and who could have told good father Guybertaut, when he floated down the river beneath the Pont de Tinquex, singing in his boat, that his dear little Paquette would one day pass under that same bridge, but without boat or song?”
“And the little shoe?” asked Gervaise.
“It disappeared with the mother,” replied Mahiette.
“Poor little shoe!” said Oudarde.
Oudarde, a fat and tender-hearted woman, would have been quite content to sigh in company with Mahiette; but Gervaise, who was more curious, had not come to the end of her questions.
“And the monster?” she suddenly said to Mahiette.
“What monster?” asked the latter.
“The little gipsy monster left by the witches in Chantefleurie’s room in exchange for her daughter. What did you do with it? I really hope you drowned it too.”
“Not a bit of it,” replied Mahiette.
“What! You burned it then? After all, that was better. A sorcerer’s child!”
“Nor that either, Gervaise. My lord the archbishop took an interest in the gipsy child; he exorcised it, blessed it, carefully took the devil out of the boy’s body, and sent him to Paris to be exposed upon the wooden bed at Notre-Dame, as a foundling.”
“These bishops,” grumbled Gervaise, “never do anything like other people, just because they are so learned. Just think, Oudarde, of putting the devil among the foundlings! For that little monster is sure to have been the devil. Well, Mahiette, what did they do with him in Paris! I’m sure no charitable person would take him.”
“I don’t know,” replied the native of Rheims; “it was just at that very time that my husband bought the clerk’s office at Beru, two leagues away from town, and we thought no more about the matter; particularly as near Beru there are the two hills of Cernay, which quite hide the spires of the Rheims cathedral.”