The Story of The Little Mamsell | Page 3

great prison two or three times; I stayed outside because I was afraid, but Mamseli Manon went in and talked with the gaolers. What more she did I don't know; I waited outside and thought of my confirmation suit, for the little Mamseli wasn't very careful of it. She had had it three days and took it home with her, and I never knew where it was when she was in the shop with her ordinary clothes on. It was always dark when we went out, then she'd come for me and we'd start* I must say she always brought me some* thing, a drop of wine or a bit of cake. The evening of the fourth day when I was waiting for her at the gate of the prison, someone seized hold of my shoulder and said in German, 'Forward!' It was my Baron who stood before me all at once and was in a devil of a hurry to get away. 'Franz!' he said to me, 'be quick or I am lost!' 'Where is the little Mamsell?' I asked, 'and where is my confirmation suit?' Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me through the streets till I was out of breath. 'She will come,' he said half to himself, 'to-morrow the mistake will be cleared up, when I am out of the city. Her father will save her.' But though he was still pulling me along, I stopped short. 'Herr Baron,' I said, 'the little Mamsell has got on my best black suit, and the trousers were made out of the Herr Pastor's own, and I tell you if I don't get my suit that I was confirmed in, I'll go to the gentlemen of the head-chopping company and tell them you've broken out of prison, which they certainly won't like. For by rights all the aristocrats ought to go to the "Gartine," or whatever you call it, so that we can have "égalité" and liberty, and we poor fellows can amuse ourselves instead of having all the good times used up by the great gentlemen!' Then he looked at me as if he would like to kill me, but he couldn't do that, so he tried to talk me round with promises. Dear me! what didn't the man promise me! A bag full of money, and a pig every year, and every year a black suit, if I would only go quietly home with him. And he put on my finger on the spot a ring with a red stone that I had always fancied, so I went along quietly with him to his apartment that I had the key of. The Baron slept in my attic room, and I had to lie on the sofa in his best room to look as if I was trying to play the gentleman. The next day the Baron went out twice in a blue blouse with a cap on his head, and the second morning we both went on foot out of the city, in clothes that I wouldn't have liked to touch with a pair of tongs!"
Mahlmann stopped and rubbed his left knee. "What rheumatism I do have! And in the month of July! Well, well, it's always the way when you begin to get old; I suppose I must be about ninety. My grandfather's aunt, though, was more than a hundred and only died then from eating too much at a pig-killing!" He sighed and nodded. "We've all got to be put under ground some day, but it's queer just the same what a difference there is about dying. I'm old now, and that time when I went through Paris in the early morning with a rag-bag on my back, and my Baron with just such another one, was the first time in my life that I ever thought of death, and it isn't a thought for a boy. It was because the carts were passing us with the aristocrats who were going to have their heads chopped off. I'd seen those old carts often enough and naturally thought nothing of it, because it was a good thing that the fine Monsieurs and Madames were got rid off; but this time it startled me, for the little Mamsell was in one of the ramshackle old wagons too. And the strangest of all was she still had on my confirmation suit that made her look like a pretty boy. She had folded her hands and looked as if she was going to communion. There weren't many people in the street,' it was so early, and I was just about to open my mouth and cry out that Mamsell had on my black suit and I wanted her to give it back, when my Baron clapped