Chapter 107. The Lions’ Den
One division of La Force, in which the most dangerous and desperateprisoners are confined, is called the court of Saint-Bernard. Theprisoners, in their expressive language, have named it the “Lions’ Den,”probably because the captives possess teeth which frequently gnaw thebars, and sometimes the keepers also. It is a prison within a prison;the walls are double the thickness of the rest. The gratings are everyday carefully examined by jailers, whose herculean proportions and coldpitiless expression prove them to have been chosen to reign over theirsubjects for their superior activity and intelligence.
The courtyard of this quarter is enclosed by enormous walls, over whichthe sun glances obliquely, when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf ofmoral and physical deformity. On this paved yard are to be seen,—pacingto and fro from morning till night, pale, careworn, and haggard, like somany shadows,—the men whom justice holds beneath the steel she issharpening. There, crouched against the side of the wall which attractsand retains the most heat, they may be seen sometimes talking to oneanother, but more frequently alone, watching the door, which sometimesopens to call forth one from the gloomy assemblage, or to throw inanother outcast from society.
The court of Saint-Bernard has its own particular apartment for thereception of guests; it is a long rectangle, divided by two uprightgratings placed at a distance of three feet from one another to preventa visitor from shaking hands with or passing anything to the prisoners.It is a wretched, damp, nay, even horrible spot, more especially when weconsider the agonizing conferences which have taken place between thoseiron bars. And yet, frightful though this spot may be, it is looked uponas a kind of paradise by the men whose days are numbered; it is so rarefor them to leave the Lions’ Den for any other place than the barrierSaint-Jacques, the galleys! or solitary confinement.
In the court which we have attempted to describe, and from which a dampvapor was rising, a young man with his hands in his pockets, who hadexcited much curiosity among the inhabitants of the “Den,” might be seenwalking. The cut of his clothes would have made him pass for an elegantman, if those clothes had not been torn to shreds; still they did notshow signs of wear, and the fine cloth, beneath the careful hands of theprisoner, soon recovered its gloss in the parts which were stillperfect, for the wearer tried his best to make it assume the appearanceof a new coat. He bestowed the same attention upon the cambric front ofa shirt, which had considerably changed in color since his entrance intothe prison, and he polished his varnished boots with the corner of ahandkerchief embroidered with initials surmounted by a coronet.
Some of the inmates of the “Lions’ Den” were watching the operations ofthe prisoner’s toilet with considerable interest.
“See, the prince is pluming himself,” said one of the thieves.
“He’s a fine looking fellow,” said another; “if he had only a comb andhair-grease, he’d take the shine off the gentlemen in white kids.”
“His coat looks almost new, and his boots shine like a nigger’s face.It’s pleasant to have such well-dressed comrades; but didn’t thosegendarmes behave shameful?—must ’a been jealous, to tear such clothes!”
“He looks like a big-bug,” said another; “dresses in fine style. And,then, to be here so young! Oh, what larks!”
Meanwhile the object of this hideous admiration approached the wicket,against which one of the keepers was leaning.
“Come, sir,” he said, “lend me twenty francs; you will soon be paid; yourun no risks with me. Remember, I have relations who possess moremillions than you have deniers. Come, I beseech you, lend me twentyfrancs, so that I may buy a dressing-gown; it is intolerable always tobe in a coat and boots! And what a coat, sir, for a prince of theCavalcanti!”
The keeper turned his back, and shrugged his shoulders; he did not evenlaugh at what would have caused anyone else to do so; he had heard somany utter the same things,—indeed, he heard nothing else.
“Come,” said Andrea, “you are a man void of compassion; I’ll have youturned out.”
This made the keeper turn around, and he burst into a loud laugh. Theprisoners then approached and formed a circle.
“I tell you that with that wretched sum,” continued Andrea, “I couldobtain a coat, and a room in which to receive the illustrious visitor Iam daily expecting.”
“Of course—of course,” said the prisoners;—“anyone can see he’s agentleman!”
“Well, then, lend him the twenty francs,” said the keeper, leaning onthe other shoulder; “surely you will not refuse a comrade!”
50151m
“I am no comrade of these people,” said the young man, proudly, “youhave no right to insult me thus.”
The thieves looked at one another with low murmurs, and a storm gatheredover the head of the aristocratic prisoner, raised less by his own wordsthan by the manner of the keeper. The latter, sure of quelling thetempest when the waves became too violent, allowed them to rise to acertain pitch that he might be revenged on the importunate Andrea, andbesides it would afford him some recreation during the long day.
The thieves had already approached Andrea, some screaming, “La savate—Lasavate!”26 a cruel operation, which consists in cuffing a comrade whomay have fallen into disgrace, not with an old shoe, but with an iron-heeled one. Others proposed the anguille, another kind of recreation, inwhich a handkerchief is filled with sand, pebbles, and two-sous pieces,when they have them, which the wretches beat like a flail over the headand shoulders of the unhappy sufferer.
“Let us horsewhip the fine gentleman!” said others.
But Andrea, turning towards them, winked his eyes, rolled his tonguearound his cheeks, and smacked his lips in a manner equivalent to ahundred words among the bandits when forced to be silent. It was aMasonic sign Caderousse had taught him. He was immediately recognized asone of them; the handkerchief was thrown down, and the iron-heeled shoereplaced on the foot of the wretch to whom it belonged.
Some voices were heard to say that the gentleman was right; that heintended to be civil, in his way, and that they would set the example ofliberty of conscience,—and the mob retired. The keeper was so stupefiedat this scene that he took Andrea by the hands and began examining hisperson, attributing the sudden submission of the inmates of the Lions’Den to something more substantial than mere fascination.
Andrea made no resistance, although he protested against it. Suddenly avoice was heard at the wicket.
“Benedetto!” exclaimed an inspector. The keeper relaxed his hold.
“I am called,” said Andrea.
“To the visitors’ room!” said the same voice.
“You see someone pays me a visit. Ah, my dear sir, you will see whethera Cavalcanti is to be treated like a common person!”
And Andrea, gliding through the court like a black shadow, rushed outthrough the wicket, leaving his comrades, and even the keeper, lost inwonder. Certainly a call to the visitors’ room had scarcely astonishedAndrea less than themselves, for the wily youth, instead of making useof his privilege of waiting to be claimed on his entry into La Force,had maintained a rigid silence.
50153m
“Everything,” he said, “proves me to be under the protection of somepowerful person,—this sudden fortune, the facility with which I haveovercome all obstacles, an unexpected family and an illustrious nameawarded to me, gold showered down upon me, and the most splendidalliances about to be entered into. An unhappy lapse of fortune and theabsence of my protector have cast me down, certainly, but not forever.The hand which has retreated for a while will be again stretched forthto save me at the very moment when I shall think myself sinking into theabyss. Why should I risk an imprudent step? It might alienate myprotector. He has two means of extricating me from this dilemma,—the oneby a mysterious escape, managed through bribery; the other by buying offmy judges with gold. I will say and do nothing until I am convinced thathe has quite abandoned me, and then——”
Andrea had formed a plan which w
as tolerably clever. The unfortunateyouth was intrepid in the attack, and rude in the defence. He had bornewith the public prison, and with privations of all sorts; still, bydegrees nature, or rather custom, had prevailed, and he suffered frombeing naked, dirty, and hungry. It was at this moment of discomfort thatthe inspector’s voice called him to the visiting-room. Andrea felt hisheart leap with joy. It was too soon for a visit from the examiningmagistrate, and too late for one from the director of the prison, or thedoctor; it must, then, be the visitor he hoped for. Behind the gratingof the room into which Andrea had been led, he saw, while his eyesdilated with surprise, the dark and intelligent face of M. Bertuccio,who was also gazing with sad astonishment upon the iron bars, the bolteddoors, and the shadow which moved behind the other grating.
“Ah,” said Andrea, deeply affected.
“Good morning, Benedetto,” said Bertuccio, with his deep, hollow voice.
“You—you?” said the young man, looking fearfully around him.
“Do you not recognize me, unhappy child?”
“Silence,—be silent!” said Andrea, who knew the delicate sense ofhearing possessed by the walls; “for Heaven’s sake, do not speak soloud!”
“You wish to speak with me alone, do you not?” said Bertuccio.
“Oh, yes.”
“That is well.”
And Bertuccio, feeling in his pocket, signed to a keeper whom he sawthrough the window of the wicket.
“Read?” he said.
“What is that?” asked Andrea.
“An order to conduct you to a room, and to leave you there to talk tome.”
“Oh,” cried Andrea, leaping with joy. Then he mentally added,—“Still myunknown protector! I am not forgotten. They wish for secrecy, since weare to converse in a private room. I understand, Bertuccio has been sentby my protector.”
The keeper spoke for a moment with an official, then opened the irongates and conducted Andrea to a room on the first floor. The room waswhitewashed, as is the custom in prisons, but it looked quite brilliantto a prisoner, though a stove, a bed, a chair, and a table formed thewhole of its sumptuous furniture. Bertuccio sat down upon the chair,Andrea threw himself upon the bed; the keeper retired.
“Now,” said the steward, “what have you to tell me?”
“And you?” said Andrea.
“You speak first.”
“Oh, no. You must have much to tell me, since you have come to seek me.”
50155m
“Well, be it so. You have continued your course of villany; you haverobbed—you have assassinated.”
“Well, I should say! If you had me taken to a private room only to tellme this, you might have saved yourself the trouble. I know all thesethings. But there are some with which, on the contrary, I am notacquainted. Let us talk of those, if you please. Who sent you?”
“Come, come, you are going on quickly, M. Benedetto!”
“Yes, and to the point. Let us dispense with useless words. Who sendsyou?”
“No one.”
“How did you know I was in prison?”
“I recognized you, some time since, as the insolent dandy who sogracefully mounted his horse in the Champs-Élysées.”
“Oh, the Champs-Élysées? Ah, yes; we burn, as they say at the game ofpincette. The Champs-Élysées? Come, let us talk a little about myfather.”
“Who, then, am I?”
“You, sir?—you are my adopted father. But it was not you, I presume, whoplaced at my disposal 100,000 francs, which I spent in four or fivemonths; it was not you who manufactured an Italian gentleman for myfather; it was not you who introduced me into the world, and had meinvited to a certain dinner at Auteuil, which I fancy I am eating atthis moment, in company with the most distinguished people inParis—amongst the rest with a certain procureur, whose acquaintance Idid very wrong not to cultivate, for he would have been very useful tome just now;—it was not you, in fact, who bailed me for one or twomillions, when the fatal discovery of my little secret took place. Come,speak, my worthy Corsican, speak!”
“What do you wish me to say?”
“I will help you. You were speaking of the Champs-Élysées just now,worthy foster-father.”
“Well?”
“Well, in the Champs-Élysées there resides a very rich gentleman.”
“At whose house you robbed and murdered, did you not?”
“I believe I did.”
“The Count of Monte Cristo?”
“’Tis you who have named him, as M. Racine says. Well, am I to rush intohis arms, and strain him to my heart, crying, ‘My father, my father!’like Monsieur Pixérécourt.”27
“Do not let us jest,” gravely replied Bertuccio, “and dare not to utterthat name again as you have pronounced it.”
“Bah,” said Andrea, a little overcome, by the solemnity of Bertuccio’smanner, “why not?”
“Because the person who bears it is too highly favored by Heaven to bethe father of such a wretch as you.”
“Oh, these are fine words.”
“And there will be fine doings, if you do not take care.”
“Menaces—I do not fear them. I will say——”
“Do you think you are engaged with a pygmy like yourself?” saidBertuccio, in so calm a tone, and with so steadfast a look, that Andreawas moved to the very soul. “Do you think you have to do with galley-slaves, or novices in the world? Benedetto, you are fallen into terriblehands; they are ready to open for you—make use of them. Do not play withthe thunderbolt they have laid aside for a moment, but which they cantake up again instantly, if you attempt to intercept their movements.”
50157m
“My father—I will know who my father is,” said the obstinate youth; “Iwill perish if I must, but I will know it. What does scandal signify tome? What possessions, what reputation, what ‘pull,’ as Beauchampsays,—have I? You great people always lose something by scandal,notwithstanding your millions. Come, who is my father?”
“I came to tell you.”
“Ah,” cried Benedetto, his eyes sparkling with joy. Just then the dooropened, and the jailer, addressing himself to Bertuccio, said:
“Excuse me, sir, but the examining magistrate is waiting for theprisoner.”
“And so closes our interview,” said Andrea to the worthy steward; “Iwish the troublesome fellow were at the devil!”
“I will return tomorrow,” said Bertuccio.
“Good! Gendarmes, I am at your service. Ah, sir, do leave a few crownsfor me at the gate that I may have some things I am in need of!”
“It shall be done,” replied Bertuccio.
Andrea extended his hand; Bertuccio kept his own in his pocket, andmerely jingled a few pieces of money.
“That’s what I mean,” said Andrea, endeavoring to smile, quite overcomeby the strange tranquillity of Bertuccio.
“Can I be deceived?” he murmured, as he stepped into the oblong andgrated vehicle which they call “the salad basket.”
“Never mind, we shall see! Tomorrow, then!” he added, turning towardsBertuccio.
“Tomorrow!” replied the steward.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated Page 108