He paused and surveyed the gathering like a speaker letting his audience know he has a few surprises up his sleeve.
‘Write this down, Papa Lachapelle,’ he said to a little old man with white hair, who had removed the statement of offence from a file and sat down at the end of the table. ‘I confirm that I am Jacques Collin, known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, sentenced to twenty years in irons; and I’ve just proved that I earned my name honestly. If I’d so much as raised a hand,’ he said to the boarders, ‘those three beaksmen over there would have spilled my claret all over Ma Vauquer’s humble hearth. The meddling rascals are forever laying traps!’
Madame Vauquer felt rather queasy when she heard this.
‘Gracious! It’s enough to make you ill; and to think I was with him at the Gaîté yesterday,’ she said to Sylvie.
‘Be philosophical, Ma,’ Collin continued. ‘Is it so bad to have been in my box yesterday at the Gaîté?’ he cried. ‘Are you better than we are? We bear less infamy on our shoulders than any of you do in your hearts, the withered limbs of a gangrenous society: even the best of you were no match for me.’ His eyes came to rest on Rastignac, giving him a gracious smile which contrasted strikingly with the harsh expression on his face. ‘Our little deal still holds, my angel, subject to acceptance, that is! You know the one I mean?’ He sang:
‘My Fanchette she is so charming
For she is a simple lass.
‘Don’t worry,’ he went on, ‘I’ll know how to square it. No one tries to sharp me, they’re too scared!’
The penal colony with its customs and cant, with its brusque transitions between the droll and the dreadful, its larger-than-life grandeur, its familiarity, its vulgarity, was suddenly epitomized in this calling to account, and by this man, who was no longer a man, but representative of a whole degenerate nation, an unsocialized and rational race, brutal and expedient. In the space of a moment, Collin became an ode to the inferno, a portrait of all human feelings save one, that of remorse. He had the look of a fallen archangel who will always lust after war. Rastignac lowered his eyes, acknowledging some distant kinship with this criminal to make atonement for his wrongful thoughts.
‘Who betrayed me?’ said Collin, scanning the assembled company with his terrible stare. And letting it settle on Mademoiselle Michonneau: ‘It was you,’ he said to her, ‘grasping old harridan; you gave me that fake fit, poking your nose into my affairs! If I said the word, I could have your head hacked off within the week. But I forgive you, I’m a Christian. Besides, it’s not you who sold me out. Who then? A-ha! So you’re having a look-see upstairs, are you?’ he cried, hearing the detectives opening his cupboards and seizing his possessions. ‘The birds all flew the nest yesterday. And you won’t get a peep out of me. My trading accounts are in here,’ he said, rapping his forehead. ‘Now I know who narked on me. It could only be that cove Silk-Thread.182 I’m right, aren’t I, Nabber, old man?’ he said to the Chief of Police. ‘That ties in only too well with the time our banknotes spent upstairs. Those little grasshoppers183 of yours won’t find a thing. As for Silk-Thread, he’ll be pushing up daisies within a fortnight, even if you call out all your traps to guard him. How much did you give her, this Michonnette of ours?’ he said to the policemen; ‘a couple of thousand écus? I was worth more than that, you mouldy Ninon, you tattered Pompadour, you Père-Lachaise Venus.184 If you’d tipped me off, you’d have had six thousand francs. Hah! You didn’t think of that, you old fleshmonger, otherwise you’d have dealt with me. Yes, I’d have given you that to avoid a tedious journey which will lose me money,’ he said, as they put the handcuffs on him. ‘These rogues will delight in keeping me kicking my heels, just to spur me. If they sent me straight to the penal colony, I’d soon be back to my old tricks, despite the gawpers on the Quai des Orfèvres.185 As soon as I get there, my lads will put heart and soul into planning a bolt for their general, the good Cat-o’-Nine-Lives! Can any one of you boast more than ten thousand brothers ready to do anything for you, as I can?’ he asked proudly. ‘There’s good in here,’ he said, striking his heart; ‘I’ve never betrayed anyone! You there, you old biter, look at them,’ he said to the spinster. ‘They may stare at me with terror, but you make them sick with disgust. Collect your reward.’ He paused, looking round at the boarders. ‘Are you all stupid! Haven’t you ever seen a convict before? A convict of the calibre of Collin, who stands before you, is a man who is less of a coward than the others and who protests against the deep disappointments of the social contract, in the words of Jean-Jacques,186 whose pupil I’m proud to be. You see, I stand alone against the government with all its tribunals, gendarmes, budgets, and I outwit the lot of them every time.’
‘Devil!’ said the painter; ‘he’d make a fine study for a drawing.’
‘Tell me, henchman of His Eminence the Executioner, governor of the Widow’ (the name full of chilling poetry that convicts give the guillotine), he added, turning to the Chief of the Sûreté; ‘be a good boy, tell me if it was Silk-Thread who shopped me! I wouldn’t like him to pay for another, it wouldn’t be fair.’
At this point, the officers who had by now opened and inventoried everything in his rooms came back and spoke in low voices to the leader of the raid. The statement of offence was complete.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Collin, addressing the boarders, ‘they’re going to take me away. You’ve been good company during my stay here; I’m grateful to you for that. And so farewell. Allow me to send you some figs from Provence.’ He walked forward a few steps, then turned to look back at Rastignac.
‘Goodbye, Eugène,’ he said in a sad and gentle voice that contrasted radically with the brusque delivery of his speeches. ‘Should you run into trouble, I’ve left you a devoted friend.’ Despite his handcuffs, he managed to take his guard, then, in the manner of a fencing master, called: ‘One, two!’ and lunged. ‘In your hour of need, apply here. Man and money, they’re all at your disposal.’
That extraordinary character pronounced these last words with such buffoonery that only he and Rastignac understood them. When every last gendarme, soldier and inspector had finally left the house, Sylvie, who was rubbing her mistress’s temples with vinegar, looked at the stunned boarders.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘he was a decent chap, all the same.’
This pronouncement broke the spell cast on them by the bewildering volume and variety of emotions the episode had provoked. Straight away, the boarders caught each other’s eye and looked over at Mademoiselle Michonneau, lurking next to the stove, withered, desiccated and cold as a mummy, her eyes lowered, as if she feared that not even her eye-shade would hide what they expressed. That face, which they had found so unpleasant for so long, was suddenly explained. A low murmur rose up from the four corners of the room, in perfect unison, a sign that the feeling of disgust was unanimous. Mademoiselle Michonneau heard it but didn’t move. Bianchon was the first to lean towards his neighbour.
‘I’m leaving if we’re to have the old girl eating with us,’ he said, just loud enough for the others to hear.
Everyone except Poiret immediately approved his motion; backed by the general consensus, the medical student then approached the elderly lodger.
‘You’re close to Mademoiselle Michonneau,’ he said to him; ‘talk to her, would you, and make her understand she has to leave right away.’
‘Right away?’ repeated Poiret, astonished.
He went up to the old woman and spoke a few words in her ear.
‘But I’ve settled my rent, I’ve paid my share like everyone else,’ she said, giving the boarders a viperish glare.
‘If that’s all you’re worried about, we’ll club together to make up the amount,’ said Rastignac.
‘Monsieur is on Collin’s side,’ she replied, giving the student
a poisonous and challenging look; ‘it’s not hard to work out why.’
At these words, Eugène sprang up as if he meant to hurl himself at the spinster and strangle her. That look, wh
ose perfidious implications he understood, had just shone a terrifying light into his soul.
‘Leave her be,’ cried the boarders.
Rastignac folded his arms and bit his tongue.
‘Let’s have done with Mademoiselle Judas,’ said the painter to Madame Vauquer. ‘Madame, if you don’t send Michonneau packing, we’ll walk out of this dump as one and tell everyone that it’s full of spies and convicts. Alternatively, if you do as we ask, we’ll keep quiet about this incident, which, after all, could happen in the highest society, until the day when prisoners are branded on the forehead and banned from disguising themselves as middle-class Parisians and playing their little pranks on us.’
This speech miraculously cured Madame Vauquer of her indisposition: she stood up, crossed her arms and opened clear and apparently bone-dry eyes.
‘But, my dear Monsieur, you’re asking for nothing less than the ruin of my establishment. There was Monsieur Vautrin … Oh Lord!’ she said, interrupting herself; ‘I can’t help calling him by his good name! That’s one set of rooms empty already,’ she went on, ‘and you want me to have another two to rent at a time of year when everyone has found a place.’
‘Gentlemen, let’s get our hats and go and dine at Flicoteaux’s,187 on the Place de la Sorbonne,’ said Bianchon.
Madame Vauquer decided on the most advantageous course of action in a trice and slid over to Mademoiselle Michonneau.
‘Now, now, my pretty beauty, you don’t want to ruin me, do you? You can see that I’m being forced by these gentlemen to consider extreme measures; why not go and spend the evening upstairs in your room.’
‘For shame, that’s not what we said!’ cried the boarders; ‘we want her to leave right away.’
‘But she hasn’t had her dinner, the poor demoiselle,’ said Poiret pathetically.
‘She can have dinner wherever she wants,’ cried several voices at once.
‘Out with the grass!’
‘Out with the grasses!’
‘Gentlemen,’ cried Poiret, suddenly drawing himself up with the courage of a lovesick ram; ‘have some respect for the fair sex.’
‘A grass has no sex,’ said the painter.
‘Sexorama my aunt!’
‘Show them the way-outorama!’
‘Gentlemen, this is quite unacceptable. When you throw someone out, you must do so in the proper manner. We’ve paid, we’re staying,’ said Poiret, pulling his hat down and sitting on a chair next to Mademoiselle Michonneau, who was being lectured by Madame Vauquer.
‘Naughty little boy,’ the painter said jokingly, ‘be off with you now!’
‘Hurry up; if you don’t go, we will!’ said Bianchon.
And the boarders moved as one towards the drawing room.
‘Mademoiselle, what are you trying to do to me?’ cried Madame Vauquer. ‘I’m ruined. You can’t stay, they’ll be turning violent next.’
Mademoiselle Michonneau stood up.
‘Will she go!’ – ‘Will she stay!’ – ‘Will she go!’ – ‘Will she stay!’ These two phrases were chanted in turn, and the hostility of the comments that began to rain down on her forced Mademoiselle Michonneau to leave, but not before making a few remarks to the landlady in a low voice.
‘I’ll be boarding with Madame Buneaud,’ she said threateningly.
‘Go where you like, Mademoiselle,’ said Madame Vauquer, stung by this spiteful preference for an establishment that was in competition with her own and which, as a result, she detested. ‘Go to Buneaud’s place: you’ll be served wine that would give a goat the jitters and food straight from the slop-merchant’s.’
The boarders formed two rows in absolute silence. Poiret gazed at Mademoiselle Michonneau so tenderly, and looked so transparently indecisive, not knowing whether to follow her or stay, that the boarders, delighted to see the back of Mademoiselle Michonneau, caught each other’s eye and started to laugh.
‘Gee up, Poiret,’ the painter shouted to him. ‘Hup hup! Walk on!’
The museum clerk launched into a comic rendition of the opening of that well-known romance:
‘Leaving for Syria
Handsome young Dunois …’188
‘Go on, you’re dying to go, trahit sua quemque voluptas,’ said Bianchon.
‘ “Every Jack must follow his Jill,” freely translated from Virgil,’189 said the tutor.
Mademoiselle Michonneau was looking at Poiret and when she made as if to take his arm, he was unable to resist her appeal and let the old lady lean on him. There was a burst of applause and laughter. ‘Bravo, Poiret! – Who’s a pretty Poiret! – Poiret Apollo – Poiret Mars – Brave Poiret!’
At this juncture, a messenger came in and handed a letter to Madame Vauquer, who sank into her chair as she read it.
‘That’s it, the house may as well burn down, it’s a lightning conductor. Taillefer’s son died at three. That’ll teach me for wishing those ladies well at the expense of that poor young man. Madame Couture and Victorine request me to send on their belongings; they’re going to live with her father. Monsieur Taillefer has given his daughter permission to have widow Couture as her lady’s companion. Four sets of rooms to let, five lodgers gone!’ She sat down, apparently close to tears. ‘Misfortune has moved into this house,’ she cried.
All of a sudden they heard the sound of a carriage pulling up.
‘That’ll be some fresh mischief,’ said Sylvie.
Goriot’s face appeared soon afterwards, looking so radiant and flushed with happiness that he almost seemed a new man.
‘Goriot in a carriage,’ said the boarders, ‘then it really is the end of the world.’
The old man headed straight for Eugène, who was sitting in a corner deep in thought, and led him away by the arm: ‘Come on,’ he said, bursting with joy.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Eugène. ‘Vautrin was a convict and has just been arrested, and Taillefer’s son is dead.’
‘What’s that to us?’ replied old Goriot. ‘I’m dining with my daughter, in your rooms, do you hear me? She’s waiting for you, come on!’
He tugged Rastignac by the arm and frog-marched him out with such force that he resembled a man abducting his mistress.
‘Let’s have dinner,’ the painter called out.
Everyone immediately pulled back their chairs and sat down.
‘Honestly!’ said Sylvie, ‘everything’s gone to the dogs today; my harico of mutton has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Humph! Too bad, you’ll have to eat it burnt.’
Words failed Madame Vauquer when she saw only ten instead of eighteen people sitting at her table; but everyone did their best to console her and cheer her up. Although at first the regulars talked about Vautrin and the day’s events, their conversation soon snaked off in different directions, and they began to discuss duels, the penal colony, justice, laws to be remade, prisons, until finally they ended up a thousand leagues away from Jacques Collin, Victorine and her brother. Although there were only ten of them, they shouted as loud as twenty so there seemed to be more of them than usual; that was the only difference between dinner today and the day before. The habitual indifference of this selfish little world, which, the next day, would pick out other fish to fry from the daily course of events in Paris, eventually prevailed, and even Madame Vauquer allowed herself to be soothed by hope, speaking through big Sylvie.
That day, and the rest of the evening, seemed to Eugène like some fantastic vision. Despite his strength of character and generosity of mind, his thoughts were in turmoil when he found himself sitting in the carriage next to old man Goriot, whose words were so unusually joyful, and followed in the wake of such intense emotions that they boomed distantly in his ears like the words we hear in dreams.
‘We finished it this morning. The three of us are going to dine together – together! What do you think of that? I haven’t had dinner with Delphine, my sweet Delphine, for four years. I’m going to be near her for a whole evening. We’ve been at your rooms since this mo
rning. I’ve been working like a navvy, with my sleeves rolled up. I helped them carry in all the furniture. Ah! you’ve no idea what a delight it is to dine with her, how she looks after me: “Have some of this, Papa, it’s delicious.” And then I can’t eat a thing. Oh! It’s been so long since I last enjoyed her company in peace, as we will tonight!’
‘But’, said Eugène, ‘surely the world is upside down today?’
‘Upside down?’ said old man Goriot. ‘Why, in all its history things have never been so right with the world. All I can see in the streets are happy people, shaking hands warmly, kissing each other, as overjoyed as if they were all about to sit at their daughters’ tables and wolf down that delightful dinner she ordered before my very eyes from the chef at the Café des Anglais.190 Hah! Why, if you’re sitting next to her, even bitter aloes191 taste as sweet as honey.’
‘I can feel myself coming back to life,’ said Eugène.
‘What are you waiting for, driver,’ shouted old Goriot, opening the front window. ‘Make haste and I’ll tip you a hundred sous if you take me you-know-where in ten minutes.’ Hearing this promise, the coachman crossed Paris at lightning speed.
‘He’s a terrible slow-coach, this driver of ours,’ said old Goriot.
‘But where are you taking me?’ Rastignac asked him.
‘Home,’ said old man Goriot.
The carriage stopped in the Rue d’Artois. The old man stepped out first and threw ten francs to the driver with the extravagance of a widower who, in a frenzy of delight, throws caution to the winds.
‘Come on, let’s go up,’ he said to Rastignac, steering him across a courtyard and leading him to the door of an apartment on the third floor, at the far end of a handsome new building. Before old Goriot could ring the bell, Thérèse, Madame de Nucingen’s maid, opened the door to let them in. Eugène found himself in a delightful set of bachelor rooms, made up of an entrance hall, a small drawing room, a bedroom and a closet, all looking out over a garden. In the little drawing room, whose furnishings and decoration bore comparison with the most beautiful and elegant to be found anywhere, he caught sight of Delphine in the candlelight. She stood up from a love-seat192 by the fire and, in a tone of voice charged with tenderness, said: ‘So you had to be fetched, Monsieur, the man who refused to understand.’
Old Man Goriot Page 24