Wichita eagle., 1889-07-11

this morning and returned to the puild-
/ ing which 1 am helping to construct
| on the Boulevard Arego. Work is the
only relief for suffering, and climbed
to my place-the walls are already to
the fourth story-and began to lay the
| bricks. Suddenly a hand touched my
shoulder; I turned; it was Philippe,
working today through a caprice, and
the patron, under contract for certain
time, had accepted him-the first conner.
Il had not seen Philippe until this
| morning for long, long while, and I
had difficulty to recognize him. Burned
and withered away by eau de vie, with
gray hair and shaking hands, he was an
old man, a hideous and bloated ruin
"'And so, said to him, for my heart
was full, the lad has drawn bad num-
bert
'''A bad number, you say? he repeat
ed, il a rough voice and with wicked
look, and why bad number, pray? Are
you, too, as stupid as the rest-as mother
and son? Camille should serve his coun-
try as the others serve her, though
know very well what it Is that both Of
them wish; if was dead, you see.' and
he leered at me with hideous grin on
his bloated lips, if I was dead he
wouldn't go. But-and so much the
worse for them-Fm solid as posx still,
and Camille is not the son Of widowp
''The son Of a widow!
"Ah-h, NJ. le Cure, why did he say
those words before me-in that spot of
all others? I, whom he had outraged in
every way, whom he had made to suffer
SO much, and who still suffered so much
under the suffering he inflicted upon
others? Like flash a bad thought came
into my mind-a thought that stayed
with me all day long, as side by side I
worked with this mani That poor Cath
erine-what torture he would inf1ict
upon her when she had no longer a son
to protect her against a miserable drunk
ard, always ugly, always evil under the
lash Of iqnor, and capable of being
more.
-Four o'clock struck and I was still
thinking of this; then O'Clock, then
$50. The men had all descended; Phil
L ",
the very act of disappearing in his turn
he stopped an instant to look above him
and to say-God knows what possessed
him-to say with sheer that was simply
deviIish:
"'I have always sailors foot, you
see; Camille isn't near to being the son
of a widowp
m lie Cure, for a moment I was mad
with angerand revolt at the fate which
this man had drawn upon us all. had
only to stretch out hand to end every
ahing-oniY to seize the ladder to which
Philippe chung and to send i5 whirling
into space; had only to do this, say,
and NJ. le Cure-I did it!
''He was stone dead when they picked
him up. There wasno one to say it was
not an accident, and Camille-well, Ca
Mile is the son Of widow now and he
will not go! 1t is | who will so, who
will emigrate to America, for dare not
stay!
81 have told the truth to you and to
the good God, and / repent, but should /
stay and see Catherine in her black robe,
and SO happy and proud on the arm of
her son, her own at last, I know that I
should repent no ionger-that I should
cease to regret my bad action.
GAS for penance, NJ. Ie Cure, take
you this, a golden trinket bought for
Catherine when she should be my wife, |
and which have always treasured. Sell
it now, and divide the money among the
poor!'
Did Jacques rise up absolved of his sin
by the Able Faber? Who knows? But |
that which Is certain is this-the priest !
did not sell the golden tri1ket given him |
by the hand of a murderer under the /
seal and shadow of the confessional He |
turned the price of it, or as near it as he
could guess, into the Golfer of the church,
but he suspended it like an ex vote upon |
the altar of the chapel Of the Virgin, be-
fore which he daily prays for the soul of
the poor nlason.-Translated from the |
French of Francois Coppee by E. C.
Waggener for The New York Mercury.