Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “That’s true.”

  “To prevent this, every prisoner should consider every nose as his deadly enemy. Whether he informs against Peter or James, here or there, that’s nothing; fall on him tooth and nail. When we have made cold meat of four or five in the prisons, the others will think twice before they turn ‘snitch.’”

  “You’re right, Skeleton,” said Nicholas; “and let Germain be number one.”

  “And no mistake,” replied the prévôt; “but let us wait until the Gros-Boiteux arrives. When, for instance, he has proved to all the world that Germain is a nose the thing shall be settled out of hand; the calf shall bleat no more, we’ll stop his wind.”

  “And what shall we do with the turnkeys who watch us?” inquired the prisoner whom the Skeleton called Javatte.

  “I have my plan, which Pique-Vinaigre will aid.”

  “He! He’s a coward.”

  “And no stronger than a flea.”

  “I’m awake. Where is he?”

  “He had come out of the visiting-room, but went back again to see his lawyer.”

  “And is Germain still in the visiting-room?”

  “Yes, with the little wench who comes to see him.”

  “When he returns be on your guard. But we must wait for Pique-Vinaigre, without him we can do nothing.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “And Germain shall be done for?”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  “But with what? They have taken all our knives away.”

  “What do you think of these nippers, would you like to have your neck in their clutch?” asked the Skeleton, opening his long bony fingers, hard as iron.

  “You’ll choke him?”

  “Decidedly.”

  “But if they find out that it is you?”

  “Well, what if they do? Am I a calf with two heads, such as they show at the fair?”

  “No, that’s true; a man has but one throat, and yours—”

  “Is sentenced; my lawyer told me so yesterday. I was taken with my hand in the bag, and my knife in the weasand of the stiff’un. I’m a ‘return horse,’ too; so nothing can be more certain. I’ll drop my head into Charlot’s (the headsman’s) basket, and I shall see if it’s true that he does his customers, and puts sawdust into his basket instead of the bran which government allows us.”

  “True, the guillotine has a right to its bran. Now, I remember my father was robbed in the same way,” said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious grin.

  This horrid jest created immense laughter amongst the prisoners. This is fearful, but far from exaggeration; we give but a faint idea of these conversations, so common in prisons. The prisoners were all laughing joyously.

  “Thousand thunders!” cried the Skeleton. “I wish they who punish us would come and see how we bear it. If they will come to the Barrière St. Jacques the day of my benefit they will hear me address the audience in a neat and appropriate speech, and say to Charlot, in a gentlemanly tone, ‘Père Sampson, the cord if you please.’”

  To understand this horrid jest the English reader must know that the doors in France are usually opened by the porter, who sits in his room and pulls a cord to allow the person going out to have free egress; and the blade of the guillotine glides down the grooves of the machine, after a spring has been set in motion, by touching a cord that acts upon it.

  Fresh bursts of laughter hailed this jest.

  “And then Charlot opens the baker’s (the devil’s) door,” continued the Skeleton, still smoking his pipe.

  “Ah, bah! Is there a devil?”

  “You fool, I was only joking. There’s a sharp blade, and they put a head under it, and that’s all. And now that I know my road, and must stay at the abbey of Mont-à-Regret (guillotine), I would rather go there to-day than to-morrow,” said the Skeleton, with savage excitement. “I wish I was there now, — my blood comes into my mouth when I think what a crowd there’ll be to see me; there’ll be, at least, I should say, from four to five thousand who will push and squeeze to get good places, and they’ll hire seats and windows, as if for a grand procession. I hear ’em now crying, ‘Seats to let! Seats to let!’ And then there’ll be troops of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, and all for me, — for the Skeleton! That’s enough to rouse a man if he was as big a coward as Pique-Vinaigre, that would make you walk like a hero. All eyes on you, and that makes a fellow pluck up; then— ’tis but a moment — a fellow dies game, and that annoys the big-wigs and curs, and gives the knowing ones pluck to face the chopper.”

  “That’s true, on Gospel!” added Barbillon, trying to imitate the fearful audacity of the Skeleton; “they think to make us funky when they set Charlot to work to get his shop open at our expense.”

  “Ah, bah!” said Nicholas, in his turn; “we laugh at Charlot and his shop; it is like the prison or the galleys, — we laugh at them, too; and so, that we may be all friends together, let’s be jolly as long as we can.”

  “The thing that would do us,” said the shrill-voiced prisoner, “would be to put us in solitary cells day and night. They do say they mean to do so at last.”

  “In solitary cells!” exclaimed the Skeleton, with repressed rage; “don’t talk of it! Solitary cell — alone! Hold your tongue! I would rather have my arms and legs cut off! Alone within four walls! Quite alone — without having our pals to laugh with! Oh, that will never be! I like the galleys a hundred times better than the central prison, because at the galleys, instead of being shut up, one is out-of-doors, sees the world, people going and coming, and has his jokes and fun. Well, I’d rather be done for at once than be put in a solitary cell, if only for a year. Yes, for at this moment I am sure to be guillotined — ain’t I? Well, if they said to me, ‘Would you rather have a year of solitary confinement?’ I should hold out my neck. A year all alone! Why, is it possible? What do they suppose a man thinks of when he is alone?”

  “Suppose you were carried there by main force?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t stay; I would make such use of my hands and feet that I should escape,” replied the Skeleton.

  “But if you couldn’t, — if you were unable to escape?”

  “Then I’d kill the first person who came near me, in order to have my head chopped off.”

  “But if, instead of sentencing such as us to death, they condemned us to be in solitary confinement for life?”

  The Skeleton appeared struck at this remark, and, after a moment’s silence, replied:

  “Why, then, I’ll tell you what I should do, — I should dash out my brains against the walls. I would starve rather than be in a solitary cell. What, all alone! all my life alone with myself, — and no chance of escape! I tell you it is impossible. Well, you know, there’s no man more reckless than I am — I’d kill a man for a dollar, and for nothing if my honour was concerned; they believe I have only killed two persons, but if the dead could tell tales there are five tongues could say what I have done.”

  The ruffian was boasting. The sanguinary declarations are still another trait of the hardened criminals. A governor of a prison said to us, “If the assassinations boasted of by these scoundrels were really committed, the population would be decimated.”

  “And I, too,” said Barbillon, desirous of bragging in his turn; “they think I only silenced the husband of the milk-woman in the Cité, but I did many others with tall Robert, who suffered last year.”

  “I was going to say,” continued the Skeleton, “that I fear neither fire nor devil. Well, if I were in a solitary cell, and certain I could not escape, — thunder! I believe I should be frightened!”

  “And so, if you had to begin your time over again as prig and throttler, and if, instead of central houses, galleys, and guillotine, there were only solitary cells, you would hesitate before such a chance?”

  “Ma foi! I believe I really should!” replied the Skeleton.

  And he said truly. It is impossible to describe the vast terror which such ruffians experien
ce at the very idea of being in solitary confinement. And is not this very terror an eloquent plea in favour of this punishment?

  An uproarious noise made by the prisoners in the yard interrupted the Skeleton’s council. Nicholas rose hastily, and went to the door of the room to discover the cause of this unusual tumult.

  “It is the Gros-Boiteux,” said Nicholas, returning.

  “The Gros-Boiteux!” exclaimed the prévôt. “And has Germain come down from the visiting-room?”

  “Not yet,” replied Barbillon.

  “Then let him make haste,” said the Skeleton, “and I’ll give him an order for a new coffin.”

  The Gros-Boiteux, whose arrival was so warmly hailed by the prisoners in the lions’ den, and whose information might be so fatal to Germain, was a man of middle stature; but, in spite of being fat and crippled, he was nimble and vigorous. His countenance, brutal like that of most of his companions, was of the bulldog character; his low forehead, his small yellow eyes, his flaccid cheeks, his heavy jaws, the lower being very projecting, and armed with long teeth, or, rather, broken fangs, which in places projected beyond his lips, made his resemblance to that animal the more striking. He wore a felt cap, and over his clothes a blue cloak with a fur collar.

  The Gros-Boiteux was accompanied into the prison by a man about thirty years of age, whose tanned and freckled face appeared less dissolute than that of the other prisoners, although he affected to appear as dogged as his companion. From time to time his features became overcast, and he smiled bitterly. The Gros-Boiteux soon found himself amongst his boon companions and acquaintances, and he could scarcely reply to the congratulations and kind words which came to him from all sides.

  “What, is it you, old boy? All right! Now we shall have some fun.”

  “You haven’t hurried yourself.”

  “Still I have done all I could to see my friends again as soon as possible, and it was no fault of mine if the stone jug didn’t claim me sooner.”

  “Don’t doubt you, old boy! And a man doesn’t pick out a gaol as his favourite residence; but once trapped he does his best to be jolly.”

  “And so we shall be, for Pique-Vinaigre is here.”

  “Is he? What, one of the old customers of Melun? Why, that’s capital! For he’ll help us to pass the time with his stories, and his customers will not fail him, for there are more recruits coming in.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Why, just now at the entrance, whilst I came in, I saw two fresh chaps brought in; one I didn’t know, but the other, who wore a blue cotton cap and a gray blouse, I have seen before somewhere. He is a powerful-looking man, and I think I have met him at the Ogress’s of the White Rabbit.”

  “I say, Gros-Boiteux, don’t you remember at Melun I bet you a wager that in less than a year you would be nabbed again?”

  “To be sure I do, and you’ve won. But what are you here for?”

  “Oh, I was caught on the prigging lay — à la Americaine.”

  “Ah, always in the same line.”

  “Yes, I continue in my usual small way. The rig is common, but there are always ‘culls’; and but for the stupidity of a pal I should not be here. However, once caught twice warned; and when I begin again I will be more careful, — I have my plan.”

  “Ah, here’s Cardillac!” said the Boiteux, going to a little man wretchedly dressed, with ill-looking aspect, full of craft and malignity, and with features partaking of the wolf and fox. “Ah, old chap, how are you?”

  “Ah, old limper,” replied the prisoner nicknamed Cardillac to the Gros-Boiteux; “they said every day, ‘He’s coming — he’s not coming!’ But you are like the pretty girls, you do as you like.”

  “Yes, to be sure.”

  “Well,” replied Cardillac, “is it for something spicy that you are here now?”

  “Yes, my dear fellow, I had done one or two good things, but the last was a failure; it was an out-and-out-go, and may still be done. Unfortunately, Frank and I overshot the mark.”

  And the Gros-Boiteux pointed to his companion, towards whom all eyes now turned.

  “Ah, so it is — it’s Frank!” said Cardillac; “I didn’t know him again because of his beard. What, Franky! Why, I thought you’d turned honest, and was, at least, mayor of your village.”

  “I was an ass, and I’ve suffered for it,” said Frank, quickly; “but every sin has its repentance. I was good once, and now I’m a prig for the rest of my days. Let ’em look out when I get out.”

  “What happened to you, Frank?”

  “What happens to every free convict who is donkey enough to think he can turn honest. Fate is just! When I left Melun I’d saved nine hundred and odd francs.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” said the Gros-Boiteux, “all his misfortunes have come from his keeping his savings, instead of spending ’em jolly when he left the ‘jug.’ You see what repentance leads to!”

  “They sent me, en surveillance, to Etampes,” replied Frank; “being a locksmith by trade, I went to a master in my line and said to him, ‘I am a freed convict, I know no one likes to employ such, but here are nine hundred francs of my savings, give me work, my money will be your guarantee, for I want to work and be honest.’”

  “What a joke!”

  “Well, you’ll see how it answered. I offered my savings as a guarantee to the master locksmith that he might give me work. ‘I’m not a banker to take money on interest,’ says he to me, ‘and I don’t want any freed convicts in my shop. I go to work in houses to open doors where keys are lost, I have a confidential business, and if it were known that I employed a freed convict amongst my workmen I should lose my customers. Good day, my man.’”

  “Wasn’t that just what he deserved, Cardillac?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You simpleton!” said the Gros-Boiteux to Frank, with a paternal air; “instead of breaking your ban at once, and coming to Paris to melt your mopusses, so that you might not have a sou left, but be compelled to return to robbing. You see the end of your fine ideas.”

  “That’s what you are always saying,” said Frank, with impatience; “it is true I was wrong not to spend my ‘tin,’ for I have not even enjoyed it. Well, as there were only four locksmiths in Etampes, he whom I had first addressed had soon told all the others, and they said to me as had said their fellow tradesman, ‘No, thank ye.’ All sung the same song.”

  “Only see, now, what it all comes to! You must see that we are all marked for life.”

  “Well, then, I was on the idle of Etampes, and my money melted and melted,” continued Frank, “but no work came. I left Etampes, in spite of my surveillance, and came to Paris, where I found work immediately, for my employer did not know who or what I was, and it’s no boast to say I am a first-rate workman. Well, I put my seven hundred francs which I had remaining into an agent’s hands, who gave me a note for it; when that was due he did not pay me, so I took my note to a huissier, who brought an action against him, and recovered the money, which I left in his hands, saying to myself there’s something for a rainy day. Well, just then I met the Gros-Boiteux.”

  “True. Well, Frank was a locksmith and made keys, I had a job in which he could be of service, and I proposed it to him. I had the prints, and he had only to go to work, when, only imagine, he refused, — he meant to turn honest. So, says I, I’ll arrange about that, I’ll make him work, for his own interest. So I wrote a letter, without any signature, to his master, and another to his fellow workmen, to inform them that Frank was a liberated convict, — so the master turned him away. He went to another employer and worked there for a week, — same game again; and if he had gone to a dozen I’d have served him in the same way.”

  “And if I had suspected that it was you who had informed against me,” answered Frank, “I’d have given you a pleasant quarter of an hour to pass. Well, I was at length driven away from my last employer as a scamp only fit to be hanged. Work, then, — be respectable, — so that people may say, not ‘What
are you doing?’ but ‘What have you done?’ Once on the pavé I said, ‘Fortunately I have my savings to fall back upon.’ So I went to the huissier, but he had cut his stick, and spent my ‘tin’; and here was I without a feather to fly with, not even enough to pay for a week’s lodging. What a precious rage I was in! Well, at this moment comes the Gros-Boiteux, and he took advantage of my situation. I saw it was useless trying to be honest, and that once on the prig there’s no leaving it. But, old Gros, I owe you a turn.”

  “Come, Frank, no malice!” replied the Gros-Boiteux. “Well, he did his part like a man, and we entered upon the business, which promised royally; but, unfortunately, at the moment when we opened our mouths to swallow the dainty bit, the ‘traps’ were down upon us. Couldn’t be helped, you know, lad! If it wasn’t for that, why, our profession would be too good.”

  “Yet if that vagabond of a huissier had not robbed me I should not have been here,” said Frank, with concentrated rage.

  “Well, well,” continued the Gros-Boiteux, “do you mean to say that you were better off when you were breaking your back with work?”

  “I was free,” retorted Frank.

  “Yes, on Sundays and when you were out of work, but the rest of the week you were tied up like a dog, and never sure of employ. Why, you don’t know when you are well off.”

  “Will you teach me?” said Frank, bitterly.

  “Well, you’ve a right to be vexed, for it was shameful to miss such a good stroke; but it is still to be done in a month or two. The people will become reassured, and it is a rich, very rich house. I shall be sentenced for breaking my ban, and so cannot resume the job, but if I find an amateur I will hand it over to him a bargain. My woman has the prints, and there is nothing to do but make new keys, and with the information I can give it must succeed. Why, there must be, at least, 400l. to lay hands on, and that ought to console you, Frank.”

  Frank shook his head, crossed his hands over his chest, and made no reply.

  Cardillac took the Gros-Boiteux by the arms, led him into a corner of the yard, and said to him, after a moment’s silence: