第22章

She received an order, or rather an answer to a suggestion of her own, and hurried off to give the necessary directions. Adrienne was now left alone again with the body of her deceased grandmother. As soon as the excitement ceased, she began to feel languid, and she became sensible of her own bodily wants. Food of no sort had passed her lips in more than thirty hours, and her last meal had been a scanty breakfast of dry bread. As the faintness of hunger came over her, Adrienne felt for her purse with the intention of sending Nathalie to a neighboring baker's, when the truth flashed upon her, in its dreadful reality. She had not a liard. Her last sou had furnished the breakfast of the preceding day. Asickness like that of death came over her, when, casting her eyes around her in despair, they fell on the little table that usually held the nourishment prepared for her grandmother. A little arrowroot, and a light potage, that contained bread, still remained. Although it was all that seemed to separate the girl from death, she hesitated about using it.

There was an appearance of sacrilege, in her eyes, in the act of appropriating these things to herself. A moment's reflection, however, brought her to a truer state of mind, and then she felt it to be a duty to that dear parent herself, to renew her own strength, in order to discharge her duty to the dead. She ate, therefore, though it was with a species of holy reverence. Her strength was renewed, and she was enabled to relieve her soul by prayer.

{liard = half-farthing, the tiniest of coins}

"Mademoiselle will have the goodness to give me ten francs," said Desiree, on her return; "I have ordered every thing that is proper, but money is wanting to pay for some little articles that will soon come.""I have no money, Desiree--not even a sou.""No money, mademoiselle? In the name of heaven, how are we to bury your grandmother?""The handkerchief--"

Desiree shook her head, and saw that she must countermand most of the orders. Still she was human, and she was a female. She could not altogether desert one so helpless, in a moment of such extreme distress.

She reflected on the matter for a minute or two, and opened her mind.

"This handkerchief might sell for forty-five francs, mademoiselle," she said, "and I will pay that much for it myself, and will charge nothing for my services to-day. Your dear grandmother must have Christian burial, that is certain, and poor enough will that be which is had for two napoleons. What say you, mademoiselle--will you accept the forty five francs, or would you prefer seeing the marchande de mode?""I can see no one now, Desiree. Give me the money, and do honor to the remains of my dear, dear grandmother."Adrienne said this with her hands resting on her lap in quiescent despair.

Her eyes were hollow and vacant, her cheeks bloodless, her mind almost as helpless as that of an infant. Desiree laid down two napoleons, keeping the five francs to pay for some necessaries, and then she took me in her hands, as if to ascertain whether she had done too much. Satisfied on this head, I was carefully replaced in the basket, when the commissionaire went out again, on her errands, honorably disposed to be useful. Still she did not deem it necessary to conceal her employer's poverty, which was soon divulged to the porteress, and by her to the bourgeois.

{bourgeois = towns-people, neighbors}

Adrienne had now the means of purchasing food, but, ignorant how much might be demanded on behalf of the approaching ceremony, she religiously adhered to the use of dry bread. When Desiree returned in the evening, she told the poor girl that the convoi was arranged for the following morning, that she had ordered all in the most economical way, but that thirty-five francs were the lowest sou for which the funeral could be had. Adrienne counted out the money, and then found herself the mistress of just FOUR FRANCS TEN SOUS. When Desiree took her leave for the night, she placed me in her basket, and carried me to her own lodgings, in virtue of her purchase.

{convoi = funeral; lowest sou = cheapest price}

I was laid upon a table where I could look through an open window, up at the void of heaven. It was glittering with those bright stars which the astronomers tell us are suns of other systems, and the scene gradually drew me to reflections on that eternity which is before us. My feelings got to be gradually soothed, as I remembered the moment of time that all are required to endure injustice and wrongs on earth. Some such reflections are necessary to induce us to submit to the mysterious reign of Providence, whose decrees so often seem unequal, and whose designs are so inscrutable. By remembering what a speck is time, as compared with eternity, and that "God chasteneth those he loveth," the ills of life may be borne, even with joy.

The manner in which Desiree disposed of me, shall be related in another number.

{another number = in the Graham's Magazine periodical version, not divided into chapters, this paragraph closed the first of the four installments in which the story was printed; in later book versions it was changed to read "in the next chapter"}