by Stendhal
After finishing her letter, Elena went over to the old soldier, whom she found asleep; she slipped his dagger away from him without his being aware of it, and then she awakened him.
“I have finished,” she said to him; “I am worried that our enemies might take over the underground passage. Hurry, and take my letter from the table there, and be sure to give it to Giulio yourself, do you understand me? And also, give him my handkerchief, here; tell him that I love him no more right now than I have always loved him, always, you hear me?”
Ugone stood up but did not leave.
“Go! Go!”
“Signora, have you truly thought it through? Signor Giulio loves you so much!”
“Yes, me, too, I love him, too; take the letter and give it to him yourself.”
“Well then! May God bless you for a good woman!”
Ugone left, but then he quickly turned around and returned; he found Elena dead; the dagger was in her heart.
ITALIAN STORIES
THE JEW
To the Curious,
Having nothing to read, I shall write. It is the same kind of pleasure, but the intensity is greater.—The stove is giving me a great deal of trouble. My feet are cold, and my head aches.
—Trieste, January 14—15, 1831
“I was a much better looking man in those days… .”
“‘But you still look remarkably good.’
“Oh, but what a difference! I am forty-five, and then I was only thirty; it was in 1814. I had a fine physique and a rare beauty. But I was a Jew, and despised by you Christians, and even by other Jews, because I had been poor for so long.”
“‘It is the worst of wrongs to despise someone for—’
“Don’t spout polite phrases at me. I feel disposed to talk this evening, and I am the type who is sincere when he does talk. Our ship is moving along well, the breeze is charming, and tomorrow morning we shall be in Venice… . But let me come back to the story about the curse we were speaking about, and my journey in France; I loved money mightily in 1814: it’s the only real passion I have ever felt.
“I spent all day in the streets of Venice, carrying a little coffer with little gold gems on it; but inside a secret drawer, I had cotton stockings, handkerchiefs, and other contraband English merchandise. One of my uncles, just after my father’s death and burial, informed the three of us that we had only five francs apiece; this good uncle gave me a napoleon (twenty francs). During the night, my mother made off with twenty-one francs; all I had left were four francs. I stole a violin case that a neighbor had hidden in a garret; I went and bought eight red cloth handkerchiefs. They cost me ten sous, and I sold them for eleven. The first day, I sold out my entire stock four times. I hawked my handkerchiefs to the sailors by the arsenal. The merchant, surprised by my initiative, asked me why I didn’t buy a dozen handkerchiefs at a time; his shop was a good half league from the arsenal. I admitted that I had only four francs to my name and that my mother had stolen twenty-one francs from me… . He gave me a great kick in the behind and threw me out of his shop.
“The next morning at eight, I nevertheless returned to his place; I had already sold the eight handkerchiefs I had bought from him the previous evening. Because it was hot, I lay down in the shade of the procurators’ palazzos. I had survived, I had had some Chio wine, and I had saved five sous from my commerce of the preceding day… . And this is the kind of life I lived from 1800 to 1814. I felt as if I had been blessed by God.”
At this, the Jew’s face took on a tender expression.
“My little business prospered, to the point where I often doubled my capital in a single day. Often, I would get on a gondola and go off to sell stockings to sailors on their ships. But whenever I would manage to accumulate a little savings, my mother or my sister would find some pretext for reconciling with me and for going on to rob me. Once, they took me to a goldsmith’s shop, picked up some earrings and a necklace, and went out as if they would come right back—but then ran off, leaving me behind as a pledge. The goldsmith asked me for fifty francs; I began to cry, explaining that I had only fourteen francs on me. I told him where I kept my coffer, and he sent off for it; but while I was wasting all this time with the goldsmith, my mother had also made off with the coffer… . The goldsmith gave me a royal beating.
“When he tired of hitting me, I explained to him that, if he was willing to let me keep my fourteen francs and if he would furnish me with a little drawer into which I could fashion a hidden compartment, I would promise to pay him ten sous a day: and I never failed. The goldsmith eventually entrusted me with earrings worth almost twenty francs, but he never allowed me to make more than five sous profit from each piece.
“In 1805, my capital amounted to 1,000 francs. It occurred to me that our law commands us to marry, and I thought about carrying out this duty. I had the bad luck of falling in love with a girl of my race called Stella. She had two brothers, one of whom was a quartermaster for French troops, and the other worked for the paymaster. On many nights, they would all come outside in front of the apartment they shared on the ground floor near Saint Paolo. I came across her weeping there one night. I took her for a prostitute; she seemed pretty to me; I offered to pay her with six sous’ worth of Chio wine. Her weeping redoubled; I told her she was a fool, and I moved on.
“But she had been really very pretty! The next night, at the same time, at about ten at night, having finished my sales at San Marco, I returned to the same place I had met her the night before; she wasn’t there. Three days later, I was luckier; I talked to her at length; she repulsed me with horror.
“I thought, ‘She must have seen me going by carrying my coffer with its gold gems; she wants me to make her a present of one of my necklaces, and by God, that’s exactly what I shall never do!’ I resolved that I would not come down her street again; but despite that resolve and almost without admitting it to myself, I gave up drinking wine, and every day I took the money I would have spent on it and set it aside. I was even mad enough to keep the funds set aside and not to invest them in my business. In those days, monsieur, my funds tripled every week.
“Once I had saved twelve francs, which was the price of my ordinary gold necklaces, I went down Stella’s street several times. At last, I encountered her; she rejected my gallant proposals with horror. But I was the best-looking young man in Venice. In our conversation, I told her that I had given up drinking wine for three months and had used the savings to pay for one of my necklaces, and I could offer it to her now. She did not reply, but she asked my advice about some trouble that had come to her since she had first seen me.
“Her brothers had conspired to clip some gold pieces they had managed to procure. (They plunged the pieces into a bath of aqua fortis.) The quartermaster had been put in prison, and the one who worked for the paymaster, for fear of drawing suspicions onto himself, didn’t want to do anything to help. Stella did not ask me to go to the citadel; and I never spoke that word either, but I asked her to wait for me the following evening… .”
I said, “But we aren’t getting any closer to your telling me about that curse you were under in France.”
The Jew replied, “You’re right; but if you are not willing to let me finish the tale of my marriage, which will not take long, I promise, I will stop altogether; I don’t know why, but today I feel like talking about Stella.
“With a lot of effort, I arranged her brothers’ escape. They granted me their sister’s hand and brought their father to town, a poor Jew from Innsbruck. I had rented an apartment, with the rent, fortunately, paid in advance; I moved some furniture in. My father-in-law went to all his relatives in Venice announcing the marriage of his daughter… . Finally, but not until after an entire year of our taking care of him, on the eve of the wedding, he made off with more than 600 francs that he had gathered from his relatives. We had gone—he, his daughter, and I—to Murano to have a salad; that was where he disappeared. Meanwhile, my two brothers-in-law stole all the furniture I
had brought into my apartment, which unfortunately had not been entirely paid for.
“My credit was ruined; my brothers-in-law, who had always been seen with me for the past year, went and told the furniture merchants that I was in Chiazza, where I sold everything off, and that from there I sent for more merchandise… . In a word, by dint of all these tricks, they had stolen more than 200 francs. I saw that I had to flee Venice; I got Stella a position as a children’s maid with the goldsmith who had trusted me with the necklaces to sell.
“The next day, first thing in the morning, having settled all my affairs, I gave twenty francs to Stella, keeping only six for myself, and I fled. I have never been so ruined, and in addition I was considered a thief. Fortunately, I had an idea when I arrived in Padua: I would write to the merchants in Venice, the ones to whom my brothers-in-law had sold the merchandise. I knew that the next day there would be a warrant for my arrest and that the gendarmes of the kingdom of Italy were no small threat.
“A celebrated lawyer in Padua had gone blind; he had need of a servant to lead him about; but his illness had given him so foul a temper that his servants never lasted more than a month. ‘I’ll bet,’ I said to myself, ‘that he won’t be able to chase me off.’ I entered into his service, and the next day, when no one had come to see him and he was bored, I told him my whole life story.
“‘If you don’t save me,’ I told him, ‘I’ll be arrested one of these days.’
“He exclaimed, ‘Arrest one of my servants! I know how to prevent that kind of thing.’
‘And so, monsieur, I grew in his favor. He went to bed early; in time, I got permission to go out and do a bit of business in the Padua cafés, between eight o’clock, when he went to bed, and two in the morning, when the rich people left the cafés.
“In eighteen months, I accumulated 200 francs. I submitted my resignation; he replied that he had left me considerable capital in his will, but he would not allow me to leave. I asked myself, ‘But why, then, did you let me go out and do business?’ I ran off; I paid my debts in Venice, which greatly enhanced my reputation; I married Stella; I taught her the business; and now, she knows more about it than I do.”
The people who had gathered to listen said, “Your wife, then, is Madame Filippo.”
“Yes, messieurs—and now, we are coming to the tale of my journeys and then, finally, of the curse.
“I had capital of more than one hundred louis. Now, let me tell you a story about another reconciliation with my mother, who robbed me yet again and then had my sister rob me. I had left Venice, having seen perfectly well that as long as I stayed there, I would continue to be duped by my family; I set myself up in Zara, where I made out wonderfully.
“A Croatian captain to whom I had furnished some uniforms for his company said to me one day:
“‘Filippo, how would you like to make a fortune? We’re leaving for France. Listen: I’m a friend of Baron Bradal, the colonel of the regiment, though I must not appear to be so. Come along with us as our mess officer. You’ll make a lot of money, but the job is only a pretext: I’ve pretended to quarrel with the colonel, but he has put me in charge of all the regiment’s supplies. I need someone intelligent to help, and you’ll be my man.’
“Well, what do you expect, messieurs? I no longer loved my wife.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “That poor Stella, to whom you had been so faithful?”
“The fact is, messieurs, that by now the only thing I loved was money. And oh, how I loved it!”
Everyone began to laugh at that, at the passion the Jew had put into that exclamation.
“I was appointed mess officer; I left Zara.
“After forty-eight days’ march, we came to Simplon. The 500 francs that I had taken with me in leaving Zara had grown to 1,500, and moreover I had acquired a very nice covered wagon and two horses. But my miseries began at Simplon: I almost died spending twenty-two nights sleeping outside in the cold.”
“Ah!” I said, “so you had to bivouac.”
“Every day I made fifty or sixty francs; but every night, in that intense cold, I was under threat of dying. At long last, the army crossed over that terrifying mountain; we came to Lausanne, and there, I connected with Monsieur Perrin. Ah, what a man! He was a brandy merchant. Myself, I knew how to sell in six different languages, but he knew how to buy. Yes, an excellent man! But a little too violent. If a Cossack didn’t want to pay for his drinks and he found himself alone in the shop, Monsieur Perrin would beat the man bloody.
“I would say to him, ‘But Monsieur Perrin, my friend, we’re making one hundred francs a day; what do we care if some drunk cheats us out of two or three francs?’
“He would reply, ‘What can I do? It’s stronger than I am: I don’t like Cossacks.’
“‘You’re going to get us killed. My friend, how is it we’re still in business?’
“The French food suppliers didn’t dare come back to the camp, because they never got paid; we made huge profits; on our arrival in Lyon, we had 14,000 francs in our chest. There, out of pity for the poor French merchants, I did some smuggling. There was a great deal of tobacco outside the Saint Clair Gate; they came and begged me to get it into the city; I told them to be patient and wait two days until the colonel, my friend, took up his post as commandant. Then, during the following five days, I loaded my wagon with tobacco. At the gate, the French watchmen grumbled but didn’t dare stop me. On the fifth day, one of them, who was drunk, struck me; I whipped my horse and tried to drive on, but the others, seeing me being thrashed, prevented me. I was bleeding, and I asked that they take me to the commandant of the neighboring guards; he was a member of the regiment but did not want to seem to recognize me, and sent me to prison. I said to myself, ‘My wagon will be emptied and the poor merchants will be sacrificed.’ On the way to the prison, I slipped two great ecus to my escort in order to be taken to see my colonel. In front of the soldiers, he treated me very harshly, adding a threat to have me hanged.
“But once we were alone, he said to me, ‘Courage! Tomorrow I’ll put another captain in charge of the Saint Clair Gate, and instead of one wagon, take two through.’ But I didn’t want to. I gave him 200 sequins as his share. ‘What?’ he said to me. ‘You’ve given me all this trouble for this?’
“I replied, ‘We have to take some pity on the poor merchants.’
“Our business—that of Monsieur Perrin and me—went on admirably all the way to Dijon. But there, monsieur, in a single night we lost more than 12,000 francs. The day’s sales had been splendid: there had been a great military parade, and we were the sole suppliers; our net gain had been more than 1,000 francs. And that same day, at midnight, some miserable Croat wanted to get away without paying. Monsieur Perrin, seeing he was alone, leaped upon him, showering him with blows and leaving him bloody. I told him, ‘Monsieur Perrin, you’re crazy; this man drank a total of 6 francs’ worth, true, but if you’ve left him with enough strength to complain about it, we’re going to have a real uproar over this.’ Monsieur Perrin had tossed the Croat outside the door of our shop, apparently dead but in fact only knocked out; he began to cry out; soldiers from the nearby bivouacs heard him; they came to find him lying in front of our door, covered in blood; Monsieur Perrin tried to defend himself and got himself slashed eight times with a saber.
“I said to the soldiers: ‘I’m not the guilty one; he is; bring me to the colonel of the Croat regiment.’
“‘We’re not going to wake up the colonel for you,’ said one of the soldiers. Try as I might to beg them not to, soon three or four thousand soldiers were ransacking our shop. The officers, who were at the rear of the crowd, could not penetrate far enough in to assert their authority. I thought Monsieur Perrin was dead; and as for myself, I was in a pitiable state. Ultimately, monsieur, they pillaged more than 12,000 francs’ worth of wine and brandy from us.
“At dawn, I succeeded in escaping; my colonel had provided four men to carry off Monsieur Perrin in case he was still l
iving. I found him among a group of soldiers and brought him to a surgeon. I told him, ‘We have to separate now, my friend; you’re going to get me killed.’ He reproached me bitterly for having abandoned him and for having told his assailants that he alone was the guilty one. But as I saw it, that was the only way to stop the looting.
“But Monsieur Perrin kept on insisting so strongly that in the end we started up a second business; we paid soldiers to guard our tavern. In two months, we had each made 12,000 francs; unfortunately, in a duel, Monsieur Perrin killed one of the soldiers who had been working as a guard for us since we started up our second business. ‘You’re going to get me killed,’ I said to him again, and this time I did quit poor Monsieur Perrin. A bit later, I can tell you the story of how he came to die.
“I came to Lyon, where I bought watches and diamonds at a very good price, for I was good at dealing with all sorts of merchandise. You could set me down in any country with just fifty francs in my pocket, and at the end of six months I would have both survived and tripled my capital.
“I concealed my diamonds in a secret compartment I had built into my wagon. The regiment had left for Valence and Avignon, and I followed after three days in Lyon.
