Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “‘“Has kissed and has prattled with fifty fair maids, And changed them as oft, do you see;”

  and there is no law against that. As to this unfortunate girl, after all, it is her own fault! Why did she not repulse him? Then she would not have committed a crime, — a monstrous crime! which really puts all society to the blush.’ And the hatter or the furrier would be right, — perfectly right. What is there to criminate this gentleman? Of what complicity, direct or indirect, moral or material, can he be charged? This lucky rogue has seduced a pretty girl, and he it is who has brought her there; he does not deny it; where is the law that prevents or punishes him? Society merely says: There are gay young fellows abroad, — let the pretty girls beware! But if a poor wretch, through want or stupidity, constraint, or ignorance of the laws which he cannot read, buys knowingly a rag which has been stolen, he will be sent to the galleys for twenty years as a receiver, if such be the punishment for the theft itself. This is logical, powerful reasoning,— ‘Without receivers there would be no thieves, without thieves there would be no receivers.’ No, no more pity, then — even less pity — for him who excites to the evil than he who perpetrates it. Let the smallest degree of complicity be visited with terrible punishment! Good; there is in that a serious and fertile thought, high and moral. We should bow before Society which had dictated such a law; but we remember that this Society, so inexorable towards the smallest complicity of crime against things, is so framed that a simple and ingenuous man, who should try to prove that there is at least moral similarity, material complicity, between the fickle seducer and the seduced and forsaken girl, would be laughed at as a visionary. And if this simple man were to assert that without a father there would, in all probability, not be offspring, Society would exclaim against the atrocity, — the folly! And it would be right, — quite right; for, after all, this gay youth who might say these fine things to the jury, however little he might like tragic emotions, might yet go tranquilly to see his mistress executed, — executed for child-murder, a crime to which he was an accessory; nay more, the author, in consequence of his shameless abandonment! Does not this charming protection, granted to the male portion of society for certain gay doings suggested by the god of Love, show plainly that France still sacrifices to the Graces, and is still the most gallant nation in the world?”

  CHAPTER III.

  JACQUES FERRAND.

  AT THE PERIOD when the events were passing which we are now relating, at one end of the Rue du Sentier a long old wall extended, covered with a coat of whitewash, and the top garnished with a row of broken flint-glass bottles; this wall, bounding on one side the garden of Jacques Ferrand, the notary, terminated with a corps de logis facing the street, only one story high, with garrets. Two large escutcheons of gilt copper, emblems of the notarial residence, flanked the worm-eaten porte cochère, of which the primitive colour was no longer to be distinguished under the mud which covered it. This entrance led to an open passage; on the right was the lodge of an old porter, almost deaf, who was to the body of tailors what M. Pipelet was to the body of boot-makers; on the left a stable, used as a cellar, washhouse, woodhouse, and the establishment of a rising colony of rabbits belonging to the porter, who was dissipating the sorrows of a recent widowhood by bringing up these domestic animals. Beside the lodge was the opening of a twisting staircase, narrow and dark, leading to the office, as was announced to the clients by a hand painted black, whose forefinger was directed towards these words, also painted in black upon the wall, “The Office on the first floor.”

  On one side of a large paved court, overgrown with grass, were empty stables; on the other side, a rusty iron gate, which shut in the garden; at the bottom the pavilion, inhabited only by the notary. A flight of eight or ten steps of disjointed stones, which were moss-grown and time-worn, led to this square pavilion, consisting of a kitchen and other underground offices, a ground floor, a first floor, and the top rooms, in one of which Louise had slept. The pavilion also appeared in a state of great dilapidation. There were deep chinks in the walls; the window-frames and outside blinds, once painted gray, had become almost black by time; the six windows on the first floor, looking out into the courtyard, had no curtains; a sort of greasy and opaque deposit covered the glass; on the ground floor there were visible through the window-panes more transparent, faded yellow cotton curtains, with red bindings.

  On the garden side the pavilion had only four windows. The garden, overgrown with parasitical plants, seemed wholly neglected. There was no flower border, not a bush; a clump of elms; five or six large green trees; some acacias and elder-trees; a yellowish grass-plat, half destroyed by moss and the scorch of the sun; muddy paths, choked up with weeds; at the bottom, a sort of half cellar; for horizon, the high, naked, gray walls of the adjacent houses, having here and there skylights barred like prison windows, — such was the miserable appearance of the garden and dwelling of the notary.

  To this appearance, or rather reality, M. Ferrand attached great importance. In the eyes of the vulgar, carelessness about comfort almost always passes for disinterestedness; dirt, for austerity. Comparing the vast financial luxury of some notaries, or the costly toilets of their wives, to the dull abode of M. Ferrand, so opposed to elegance, expense, or splendour, clients felt a sort of respect for, or rather blind confidence in, a man who, according to his large practice and the fortune attributed to him, could say, like many of his professional brethren, my carriage, my evening party, my country-house, my box at the opera, etc. But, far from this, Jacques Ferrand lived with rigid economy; and thus deposits, investments, powers of attorney, in fact, all matters of trust and business requiring the most scrupulous and recognised integrity, accumulated in his hands.

  Living thus meanly as he did, the notary lived in the way he liked. He detested the world, show, dearly purchased pleasures; and, even had it been otherwise, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his dearest inclinations to the appearances which he found it so profitable to assume.

  A word or two on the character of the man. He was one of the children of the large family of misers. Misers are generally exhibited in a ridiculous and whimsical light; the worst do not go beyond egotism or harshness. The greater portion increase their fortune by continually investing; some (they are but few) lend at thirty per cent.; the most decided hardly venture any risk with their means; but it is almost an unheard-of thing for a miser to proceed to crime, even murder, in the acquisition of fresh wealth.

  That is easily accounted for; avarice is especially a negative passion. The miser, in his incessant calculations, thinks more of becoming richer by not disbursing; in tightening around him, more and more, the limits of strict necessity, than he does of enriching himself at the cost of another; he is especially the martyr to preservation. Weak, timid, cunning, distrustful, and, above all, prudent and circumspect, never offensive, indifferent to the ills of his neighbour, — the miser at least never alludes to these ills, — he is, before all and above all, the man of certainty and surety; or, rather, he is only a miser because he believes only in the substantial, the hard gold which he has locked up in his chest. Speculations and loans, on even undoubted security, tempt him but little, for, how improbable soever it may be, they always offer a chance of loss, and he prefers rather to lose the interest of his money than expose his capital. A man so timorous will, therefore, seldom have the savage energy of the wretch who risks the galleys or his neck to lay hands on the wealth of another.

  Risk is a word erased from the vocabulary of the miser. It is in this sense that Jacques Ferrand was, let us say, a very singular exception, perhaps a new variety of the genus Miser; for Jacques Ferrand did risk, and a great deal. He relied on his craft, which was excessive; on his hypocrisy, which was unbounded; on his intellect, which was elastic and fertile; on his boldness, which was devilish, in assuring him impunity for his crimes, and they were already numerous.

  Jacques Ferrand was a twofold exception. Usually these adventurous, energetic spirits, which
do not recoil before any crime that will procure gold, are beset by turbulent passions — gaming, dissipation, gluttony, or other pleasures. Jacques Ferrand knew none of these violent and stormy desires; cunning and patient as a forger, cruel and resolute as an assassin, he was as sober and regular as Harpagon. One passion alone was active within him, and this we have seen too fatally exhibited in his early conduct to Louise. The loan of thirteen hundred francs to Morel at high interest was, in Ferrand’s hands, a snare — a means of oppression and a source of profit. Sure of the lapidary’s honesty, he was certain of being repaid in full some day or other. Still Louise’s beauty must have made a deep impression on him to have made him lay out of a sum of money so advantageously placed.

  Except this weakness, Jacques Ferrand loved gold only. He loved gold for gold’s sake; not for the enjoyments it procured, — he was a stoic; not for the enjoyments it might procure, — he was not sufficiently poetical to enjoy speculatively, like some misers. With regard to what belonged to himself, he loved possession for possession’s sake; with regard to what belonged to others, if it concerned a large deposit, for instance, liberally confided to his probity only, he experienced in returning this deposit the same agony, the same despair, as the goldsmith, Cardillac, did in separating himself from a casket of jewels which his own exquisite taste had fashioned into a chef-d’œuvre of art. With the notary, his character for extreme probity was his chef-d’œuvre of art; a deposit was to him a jewel, which he could not surrender but with poignant regrets. What care, what cunning, what stratagems, what skill, in a word, what art, did he use to attract this sum into his own strong box, still maintaining that extreme character for honour, which was beset with the most precious marks of confidence, like the pearls and diamonds in the golden diadems of Cardillac. The more this celebrated goldsmith approached perfection, they say, the more value did he attach to his ornaments, always considering the last as his chef-d’œuvre, and being utterly distressed at giving it up. The more Jacques Ferrand grew perfect in crime, the more he clung to the open and constant marks of confidence which were showered upon him, always considering his last deceit as his chef-d’œuvre.

  We shall see in the sequel of this history that, by the aid of certain means really prodigious in plan and carrying out, he contrived to appropriate to himself, with impunity, several very considerable sums. His secret and mysterious life gave him incessant and terrible emotions, such as gaming gives to the gambler. Against all other men’s fortunes Jacques Ferrand staked his hypocrisy, his boldness, his head; and he played on velvet, as it is called, far out of the reach of human justice, which he vulgarly and energetically characterised as a chimney which might fall on one’s head; for him to lose was only not to gain; and, moreover, he was so criminally gifted that, in his bitter irony, he saw a continued gain in boundless esteem, the unlimited confidence which he inspired, not only in a multitude of rich clients, but also in the smaller tradespeople and workmen of his district. A great many of these placed their money with him, saying, “He is not charitable, it is true; he is a devotee, and that’s a pity; but he is much safer than the government or the savings-banks.” In spite of his uncommon ability, this man had committed two of those mistakes from which the most skilful rogues do not always escape; forced by circumstances, it is true, he had associated with himself two accomplices. This immense fault, as he called it, had been in part repaired; neither of his two associates could destroy him without destroying themselves, and neither would have reaped from denunciation any other profit but of drawing down justice on themselves as well as on the notary; on this score he was quite easy. Besides, he was not at the end of his crimes, and the disadvantages of accompliceship were balanced by the criminal aid which at times he still obtained.

  A few words as to the personal appearance of M. Ferrand, and we will introduce the reader into the notary’s study, where we shall encounter some of the principal personages in this recital.

  M. Ferrand was fifty years of age, but did not appear forty; he was of middle height, with broad and stooping shoulders, powerful, thickset, strong-limbed, red-haired, and naturally as hirsute as a bear. His hair was flat on his temples, his forehead bald, his eyebrows scarcely perceptible; his bilious complexion was almost concealed by innumerable red spots, and, when strong emotion agitated him, his yellow and murky countenance was injected with blood, and became a livid red. His face was as flat as a death’s head, as is vulgarly said; his nose thick and flat; his lips so thin, so imperceptible, that his mouth seemed incised in his face, and, when he smiled with his villainous and revolting air, his teeth seemed as though supplied by black and rotten fangs. His pallid face had an expression at once austere and devout, impassible and inflexible, cold and reflective; whilst his small, black, animated, peering, and restless eyes were lost behind large green spectacles.

  Jacques Ferrand saw admirably well; but, sheltered by his glasses, he had an immense advantage; he could observe without being observed; and well he knew how often a glance is unwittingly full of meaning. In spite of his imperturbable audacity, he had met twice or thrice in his life certain potent and magnetic looks, before which his own had compulsorily been lowered; and in some important circumstances it is fatal to lower the eyes before the man who interrogates, accuses, or judges you. The large spectacles of M. Ferrand were thus a kind of covert retrenchment, whence he could reconnoitre and observe every movement of the enemy; and all the world was the notary’s enemy, because all the world was, more or less, his dupe; and accusers are but enlightened or disgusted dupes. He affected a negligence in his dress almost amounting to dirtiness, or rather, he was naturally so; his chin shaven only every two or three days, his grimy and wrinkled head, his broad nails encircled in black, his unpleasant odour, his threadbare coat, his greasy hat, his coarse neckcloth, his black-worsted stockings, his clumsy shoes, all curiously betokened his worthiness with his clients, by giving him an air of disregard of the world, and an air of practical philosophy, which delighted them.