Mysteries of Paris Volume III Part 18

"What a singular name!"

"He is so thin, or, rather, so fleshless, that it is no nickname; I tell you, he is frightful; and with all this, he is provost-marshal of his ward; he is by far the greatest villain of them all. He comes from the galleys, and he has again robbed and murdered; but his last murder is so horrible, that he knows very well he will be condemned to death to a certainty, but he laughs at it like fun."

"What a ruffian!"

"All the prisoners admire, and tremble before him. I put myself at once in his good graces, by giving him some cigars; he has taken me into his friends.h.i.+p, and teaches me slang. I make progress."

"Oh! oh! what a good lark! my general learning flas.h.!.+"

"I tell you I amuse myself like anything. These jockeys adore me; some of them are even familiar as relations. I am not proud, like a little gentleman, Germain, a barefoot, who has not the means to be separate, and yet pretends to play the disdainful with them."

"But he must have been delighted to find a man so much at home as you are, to talk with, if he is so highly disgusted with the others?"

"Bah! he did not seem to remark who I was; but had he remarked it, I should have been very guarded to respond to his advances. He is the b.u.t.t of the prison. They will play him, sooner or later, a bad turn, and I have not, of course, any desire to partake of the aversion of which he is the object."

"You are very right."

"That would spoil my recreation; for my promenade with the prisoners is a real promenade. Only these robbers have not a great opinion of me, mentally. You comprehend--my accusation of a simple abuse of confidence--it is a sad thing for such fellows. Thus they look upon me as no great shakes, as Arnal says."

"In fact, alongside of these matadores of crime, you are--"

"A lamb, my dear comrade. Since you are so obliging, do not forget my commissions."

"Do not be uneasy, my general."

"1st Alexandrine; 2d the fish, and the hamper of wine; 3d the old 1817 Cognac, the ground coffee, and the eiderdown coverlet."

"You shall have all. Anything more?"

"Yes, I forgot. Do you know where M. Badinot lives?"

"The broker? yes."

"Will you tell him that I reckon on his obliging disposition to find me a lawyer who is prepared for my cause--that I shall not regard a cool thousand?"

"I will see M. Badinot, be a.s.sured, general; this evening all your commissions shall be executed, and to-morrow you will receive what you have demanded. Adieu, and a good heart, general."

"Ta, ta!"

And the prisoner left on one side, and the visitor on the other.

Now compare the crime of Pique-Vinaigre, a robber, to the offense of Boulard, the bailliff. Compare the point of departure from virtue of the two, and the reasons, necessities, which have pushed them on to crime.

Compare, finally, the punishment that awaits them. Coming out of prison, inspiring everywhere fear and indifference, the liberated convict could not follow, in the residence appointed him, the trade he knew; he hoped to be able to work at an occupation dangerous to his life, but suitable for his strength; this resource failed him.

Then he breaks his terms of release, returns to Paris, contriving to conceal his former life and find some work. He arrives, exhausted with fatigue, dying with hunger; by chance he discovers that a sum of money is deposited in a neighboring house; he yields to temptation, he forces a window, opens a desk, steals one hundred francs, and flies. He is arrested, is a prisoner. He will be tried, condemned. For a second crime, fifteen or twenty years of hard labor and the pillory is what awaits him. He knows it.

This formidable punishment he deserves. Property is sacred. He who, at night, breaks open your doors to take your goods ought to undergo a severe penalty. In vain shall the culpable plead the want of work, poverty, his position so difficult and intolerable, the wants which this position, this condition of a liberated convict, imposes on him. So much the worse; there is but one law. Society, for its peace and safety, will and ought to be armed with boundless power, and without pity repress these audacious attacks upon others.

Yes, this wretch, ignorant and stupid, this corrupted and despised convict, has merited his fate. But what shall he then deserve who, intelligent, rich, educated, surrounded by the esteem of all, clothed with an official character, will steal--not to eat, but to satisfy some fanciful caprice, or to try the chance of stock-jobbing? Will steal, not a hundred francs, but a hundred thousand francs--a million? Will steal, not at night, at the peril of his life, but tranquilly, quite at his ease, in the sight of all? Will steal, not from an unknown who has placed his money under the safeguard of a lock, but from a client, who has placed from necessity his money under the safeguard of the public officer, whom the law points out--imposes on his confidence? What terrible punishment will be deserve, then, who, instead of stealing a small sum almost from necessity, will steal wholesale a considerable amount? Would it not be a crying injustice not to apply to him a similar punishment to that bestowed on the poor villain pushed to extremities by misery, to theft by want? Get along! says the law. How!

apply to a man well brought up the same punishment as to a vagabond? For shame! To compare an offense of good society with a vulgar burglary? Fie!

Thus, for the public defaulting officer: two months imprisonment. For the liberated prisoner: twenty years hard labor, and the pillory. What can be added to these facts? They speak for themselves.

What sad and serious reflections they give birth to. Faithful to his promise, the old warder had called for Germain. When Boulard re-entered the prison, the door opened, Germain entered, and Rigolette was no longer separated from her poor lover but by a slight wire railing.

CHAPTER VI.

FRANCOIS GERMAIN.

Germain's features were wanting in regularity, but a more interesting face could scarcely be seen; his bearing was exalted; his figure graceful; his dress plain, but neat (gray trousers and a black frock-coat closely b.u.t.toned), showed none of that slovenly carelessness so peculiar to prisoners; his white hands bore witness of a care for his person which had still more increased the aversion of the other prisoners; for moral perversity is almost always joined to personal filthiness. His brown hair, naturally curled, which he wore long and parted on the side, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the times, hung around his pale and dejected face; his eyes, of a beautiful blue, announced frankness and kindness; his smiles, at once sad and sweet, expressed benevolence and habitual melancholy; for, although very young, this unfortunate youth had experienced many trials.

In a word, nothing could be more touching than his appearance, suffering, affecting, resigned; as also nothing more honest, more loyal, than the heart of this young man. The cause even of his arrest (despoiling it of the calumnious aggravations due to the hatred of Jacques Ferrand) proved the kind-heartedness of Germain, and accused him only of a moment's thoughtlessness or imprudence; culpable, doubtless, but pardonable, when one reflects that he was able to replace in the desk of the notary the sum taken to save Morel the lapidary. Germain blushed slightly when, through the grating, he perceived the fresh and charming face of Rigolette. She, according to her custom, wished to appear gay, to encourage and cheer his spirits; but she ill-concealed the sorrow and emotion that she had always felt since he had been imprisoned. Seated on a bench on the other side of the railing, she held on her lap her basket.

The old warder, instead of remaining in the pa.s.sage, went and seated himself near a stove at the extremity of the room. In a few moments he fell asleep. Germain and Rigolette could talk at their ease.

"Come, M. Germain," said the grisette, approaching her face as close as she could to the grating, the better to examine the features of her friend, "let me see if I am satisfied with your face. Is it less sorrowful? Hum!

hum! so, so; take care; you will make me angry."

"How kind you are to come again to-day!"

"Again! what! that is a reproach."

"Ought I not, in truth, reproach you for doing so much for me--for me, who can do nothing but thank you?"

"An error, sir; for I am also as happy from my visits as you are. So I must, in my turn, thank you. Ah! ah! there is where I have caught you, Master Unjust. I have half a mind to punish you for your wicked ideas, by not giving you what I have brought."

"Another kindness! how you spoil me!--oh! thank you. Pardon me if I repeat so often this word, which you dislike!--but you leave me nothing else to say."

"In the first place, you do not know what I have brought."

"What is that to me?"

"Well, you are polite!"

"Whatever it may be, does it not come from you? Your touching kindness, does it not fill me with grat.i.tude, and----"

Germain could not finish, but cast down his eyes.

"And with what?" asked Rigolette, blus.h.i.+ng.

"And with--and with devotion," stammered Germain.

"Why not add respect at once, like at the end of a letter," said Rigolette impatiently. "You deceive me; it was not that which you intended to say.

You stopped short."

"I a.s.sure you----"