The cobbler of Nîmes — Story, Setting & Ideas

the peasant youth stared open-mouthed, fright showing plainly in his eyes; the soldier looked down with brutal indifference; the old fishwife showed satisfaction, her wolf mouth was slightly opened by a grin that displayed three long yellow teeth--all she possessed; a red handkerchief was tied around her head and from below it hung her long gray locks. Her short petticoat and bodice revealed a withered, lean form, and her fingers were like talons. She feasted her eyes on the dead face, and then she squinted across the body at the man who stood like a statue opposite. He was young, with a sad, dark countenance and was poorly, even shabbily dressed. But it was none of these things that the old crone noted, it was the expression of grief and horror that seemed frozen on his features. He did not see her, he did not see the others passing by him--with more than one curious glance; he seemed like a man in a trance, deaf, blind, dumb, but yet gazing fixedly at the inanimate figure on the bier. It was the corpse of a young woman, who had been handsome; the features were still so, and her long black hair fell about her shoulders like a mourning pall.

“_Dieu!_” said the fishwife, licking her lips, “what a white throat she had; ’twould have been a pity to hang her. See, there is a mark there on her arm where ’twas bound! Is she not pretty, Bossu?”

The hunchback had approached the corpse, and at this appeal he nodded his head.

“_Diable!_” ejaculated the soldier turning on the old crone, “’tis heresy to call a damned person pretty, Mère Tigrane.”

Mère Tigrane leered at him with horrible intelligence.

“No one is to think a heretic pretty but the dragoons, eh?” she said grinning. “_Dame!_ we know what you think, monsieur.”

The man laughed brutally, and she edged up to him, whispering in his ear, her narrow eyes on the silent visitor opposite. The dragoon looked over too at her words, and broke out with an oath.

“You are a witch, Mère Tigrane,” he said uneasily; “let me alone!”

Again she whispered, but laughed this time, showing her yellow teeth.

Meanwhile the showman had been fortunate and a dozen new-comers crowded into the tent, pressing the others aside. This afforded an opportunity for the hunchback to approach the young man, who had remained by the bier as if chained to the ground. Le Bossu touched his arm, at first lightly, but finding himself unheeded, he jerked the other’s sleeve. The stranger started and stared at him as if he had just awakened from sleep.

“A word with you, friend,” said the hunchback, softly.

The man hesitated, started, paused and cast another long look at the dead face, and then followed the cripple through the group at the door, out into the sunshine and uproar of the market-place. They were not unobserved by Mère Tigrane, but she made no effort to follow them; she was watching the new arrivals as they approached the corpse. As she saw their faces of curiosity and horror, she laughed.

“_Mère de Dieu!_” she said, “’tis worth a half-crown after all--and I paid Adolphe in false coin too, _pauvre garçon_!”

In the market-place, the stranger had halted with the hunchbacked cobbler.

“What do you want?” he demanded of le Bossu; “I do not know you.”

“You were in danger,” replied the hunchback, quietly, “and you are in trouble; the _bon Dieu_ knows that I also am in trouble.”

The little man’s tone, his deformity, his kind eyes appealed to the other.

“We should be friends,” he said grimly. “_Dieu!_ I am indeed in trouble.”

The hunchback made a sign to him to be cautious, the crowd hemmed them in, the monkey chattered, the bear danced, Mademoiselle Héloïse was singing a savory song from Paris. The whole square was white with the sunshine; above, the sky was deeply blue.

“Follow me, friend,” said le Bossu again, and commenced to thread his way through the crowd.