At length Gervaise, the most curious of the three, and consequently the least sensitive, tried to make the recluse speak:
"Sister! Sister Gudule!"
She repeated this call three times, raising her voice each time. The recluse did not move; not a word, not a glance, not a sigh, not a sign of life.
Oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, more caressing voice,--"Sister!"said she, "Sister Sainte-Gudule!"
The same silence; the same immobility.
"A singular woman!" exclaimed Gervaise, "and one not to be moved by a catapult!""Perchance she is deaf," said Oudarde.
"Perhaps she is blind," added Gervaise.
"Dead, perchance," returned Mahiette.
It is certain that if the soul had not already quitted this inert, sluggish, lethargic body, it had at least retreated and concealed itself in depths whither the perceptions of the exterior organs no longer penetrated.
"Then we must leave the cake on the window," said Oudarde;"some scamp will take it. What shall we do to rouse her?"Eustache, who, up to that moment had been diverted by a little carriage drawn by a large dog, which had just passed, suddenly perceived that his three conductresses were gazing at something through the window, and, curiosity taking possession of him in his turn, he climbed upon a stone post, elevated himself on tiptoe, and applied his fat, red face to the opening, shouting, "Mother, let me see too!"At the sound of this clear, fresh, ringing child's voice, the recluse trembled; she turned her head with the sharp, abrupt movement of a steel spring, her long, fleshless hands cast aside the hair from her brow, and she fixed upon the child, bitter, astonished, desperate eyes. This glance was but a lightning flash.
"Oh my God!" she suddenly exclaimed, hiding her head on her knees, and it seemed as though her hoarse voice tore her chest as it passed from it, "do not show me those of others!""Good day, madam," said the child, gravely.
Nevertheless, this shock had, so to speak, awakened the recluse. A long shiver traversed her frame from head to foot; her teeth chattered; she half raised her head and said, pressing her elbows against her hips, and clasping her feet in her hands as though to warm them,--"Oh, how cold it is!"
"Poor woman!" said Oudarde, with great compassion, "would you like a little fire?"She shook her head in token of refusal.
"Well," resumed Oudarde, presenting her with a flagon;"here is some hippocras which will warm you; drink it."Again she shook her head, looked at Oudarde fixedly and replied, "Water."Oudarde persisted,--"No, sister, that is no beverage for January. You must drink a little hippocras and eat this leavened cake of maize, which we have baked for you."She refused the cake which Mahiette offered to her, and said, "Black bread.""Come," said Gervaise, seized in her turn with an impulse of charity, and unfastening her woolen cloak, "here is a cloak which is a little warmer than yours."She refused the cloak as she had refused the flagon and the cake, and replied, "A sack.""But," resumed the good Oudarde, "you must have perceived to some extent, that yesterday was a festival.""I do perceive it," said the recluse; "'tis two days now since I have had any water in my crock."She added, after a silence, "'Tis a festival, I am forgotten.
People do well. Why should the world think of me, when Ido not think of it? Cold charcoal makes cold ashes."And as though fatigued with having said so much, she dropped her head on her knees again. The simple and charitable Oudarde, who fancied that she understood from her last words that she was complaining of the cold, replied innocently, "Then you would like a little fire?""Fire!" said the sacked nun, with a strange accent; "and will you also make a little for the poor little one who has been beneath the sod for these fifteen years?"Every limb was trembling, her voice quivered, her eyes flashed, she had raised herself upon her knees; suddenly she extended her thin, white hand towards the child, who was regarding her with a look of astonishment. "Take away that child!" she cried. "The Egyptian woman is about to pass by."Then she fell face downward on the earth, and her forehead struck the stone, with the sound of one stone against another stone. The three women thought her dead. A moment later, however, she moved, and they beheld her drag herself, on her knees and elbows, to the corner where the little shoe was.
Then they dared not look; they no longer saw her; but they heard a thousand kisses and a thousand sighs, mingled with heartrending cries, and dull blows like those of a head in contact with a wall. Then, after one of these blows, so violent that all three of them staggered, they heard no more.
"Can she have killed herself?" said Gervaise, venturing to pass her head through the air-hole. "Sister! Sister Gudule!""Sister Gudule!" repeated Oudarde.
"Ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!" resumed Gervaise;"is she dead? Gudule! Gudule!"
Mahiette, choked to such a point that she could not speak, made an effort. "Wait," said she. Then bending towards the window, "Paquette!" she said, "Paquette le Chantefleurie!"A child who innocently blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a bomb, and makes it explode in his face, is no more terrified than was Mahiette at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into the cell of Sister Gudule.
The recluse trembled all over, rose erect on her bare feet, and leaped at the window with eyes so glaring that Mahiette and Oudarde, and the other woman and the child recoiled even to the parapet of the quay.
Meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluse appeared pressed to the grating of the air-hole. "Oh! oh!" she cried, with an appalling laugh; "'tis the Egyptian who is calling me!"At that moment, a scene which was passing at the pillory caught her wild eye. Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her two skeleton arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice which resembled a death-rattle, "So 'tis thou once more, daughter of Egypt! 'Tis thou who callest me, stealer of children! Well! Be thou accursed! accursed! accursed! accursed!"
