"That is fine talk," muttered Tison, as she went up the staircase, "but she has no children, while I have a daughter, a dear, good daughter. She is not with me, but with my mother in Normandy, because she can be taken better care of there than here. It is better for the good child that she has not gone through these evil days full of blood and grief with us. But I am always thinking of her, and when one of these two children here looks up to me so gravely with great, open eyes, it always makes me think of my Solonge. She has exactly such large, innocent eyes, and that touches my heart so that I cannot be harsh with the children. They, of course, are not at all to blame for having such bad, miserable parents, who have treated the people shamefully, and made them poor and wretched. No, they have had nothing to do with it, and I cannot be severe with the children, for I am always thinking of my little Solonge! I will provoke the Austrian woman as much as I can, but not the children--no, not the children!"
Meanwhile, Mistress Simon had taken her place upon the chair near the open door in the porter's lodge, and sat there with her cold, immovable face staring into empty space with her great coal-black, glistening eyes, while her hands were busily flying, ****** the polished knitting-needles click against each other.
She was still sitting there, when at last her husband came down the stairs to open the outer door of the Temple, conduct his friends past the inner court, and to bring back the two officials who were to keep guard during the night.
They passed the knitter with a friendly salutation and a bit of pleasantry--Toulan stopping a moment to ask the woman after her welfare, and to say a few smooth words to her about her courage and her great force of character.
She listened quietly, let him go on with his talk, and when he had ended, slowly raised her great eyes from her knitting to him.
"You are a traitor," she said, with coldness, and without any agitation. "Yes, you are a traitor, and you, too, will have your turn at the guillotine!"
Toulan paled a little, but collected himself immediately, took leave of the knitter with a smile, and hastened after the officials, who were waiting for him at the open door--the two who were to hold the watch during the night having already entered.
Simon closed the door after them, exchanged a few words with them, and then went into his lodge to join his rigid better half.
"This has been a pleasant afternoon, and it is a great pity that it is gone, for I have had a very good time. We have played cards, sung, smoked, and Toulan has made jokes and told stories, and made much fun. I always wonder where he gets so many fine stories, and he tells them so well that I could hear him day and night. Now that he is gone, it seems tedious and dull enough here. Well, we must comfort ourselves that to-morrow will come by and by."
"What do you mean by that?" asked his wife, sternly.
"What sort of a day do you expect to-morrow to be?"
"A pleasant day, my dear Heloise, for Citizen Toulan will have the watch again. I begged him so long, that he at last promised to exchange with Citizen Pelletan, whose turn regularly comes to-morrow. Pelletan is not well, and it would be very hard for him to sit up there all day, and, besides, he would be dreadfully stupid.
It is a great deal pleasanter to have Toulan here with his jokes and jolly stories, and so I begged him to come and take Pelletan's place. He is going to accommodate me and come."
His wife did not answer a word, but broke out in a burst of shrill, mocking laughter, and with her angry black eyes she scrutinized her husband's red, bloated face, as though she were reading him through and through.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked, angrily. "I would like to be beyond hearing when you give way in that style. What are you laughing at?"
"Because I wonder at you, you Jack," she answered sharply. "Because you are determined to make an ass of yourself, and let dust be thrown in your eyes, and put yourself at the disposal of every one who soaps you over with smooth words."
"Come," said Simon, "none of that coarseness! and if you--"
"Hist!" she answered, commandingly. "I will show you at once that I have told you the truth, and that you are ****** an ass of yourself, or at least that you are on the point of doing so. Now, listen."
The knitter laid her work aside, and had a long conversation in a whisper with her husband. When it ended, Simon stood up wearing a dark look, and walked slowly backward and forward in the little room. Then he stopped and shook his fist threateningly at the room above. "She shall pay for this," he muttered--" by God in heaven! she shall pay for this. She is a good-for-nothing seducer! Even in prison she does not leave off coquetting, and flirting, and turning the heads of the men! It is disgraceful, thoroughly disgraceful, and she shall pay for it! I will soon find means to have my revenge on her!"
During the whole evening Mistress Tison did not leave her place behind the glass door for a moment, and at each stolen glance which the queen cast thither she always encountered the malicious, glaring eyes of the keeper, directed at her with an impudent coolness.
At last came the hour of going to bed--the hour to which the queen looked impatiently forward. At night she was at least alone and unguarded. After the death of the king, it had been found superfluous to trouble the officials with the wearisome night-watches, and they were satisfied, after darkness had set in and the candles were lighted, with locking the three doors which led to the inner rooms.
Did Marie Antoinette weep and moan at night, did she talk with her sister, did she walk disconsolately up and down her room?--the republic granted her the privilege. She could, during the night at least, have a few hours of ******* and of solitude.
But during the night Marie Antoinette did not weep or moan; this night her thoughts were not directed to the sad past, but to the future; for the first ray of hope which had fallen upon her path for a long time now encountered her.