The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 1 of 6

"My relations? Oh! they lodge at the same number as the Goualeuse's. Place of my birth? Why, the first corner of no-matter-what street, either on the right or left-hand side of the way, and either going up or coming down the kennel."

"Then you have cursed your father and mother for having abandoned you?"

"Why, that would not have set my leg if I had broken it! No matter; though it's true they played me a scurvy trick in bringing me into the world. But I should not have complained if they had made me as beggars ought to be made; that is to say, without the sense of cold, hunger, or thirst. Beggars who don't like thieving would find it greatly to their advantage."

"You were cold, thirsty, hungry, Chourineur, and yet you did not steal?"

"No; and yet I was horribly wretched. It's a fact, that I have often gone with an empty bread-basket (fasted) for two days at a time: that was more than my share; but I never stole."

"For fear of a gaol?"

"Pooh!" said the Chourineur, shrugging his shoulders, and laughing loudly, "I should then not have stolen bread, for fear of getting my allowance, eh? An honest man, I was famishing; a thief, I should have been supported in prison, and right well, too! But I did not steal, because – because – why, because the idea of stealing never came across me; so that's all about it!"

This reply, noble as it was in itself, but of the rectitude of which the Chourineur himself had no idea, perfectly astonished Rodolph. He felt that the poor fellow who had remained honest in the midst of the most cruel privations was to be respected twofold, since the punishment of the crime became a certain resource for him. Rodolph held out his hand to this ill-used savage of civilisation, whom misery had been unable wholly to corrupt. The Chourineur looked at his host in astonishment, – almost with respect; he hardly dared to touch the hand tendered to him. He felt impressed with some vague idea that there was a wide abyss between Rodolph and himself.

"'Tis well," said Rodolph to him, "you have heart and honour."

"Heart? honour? what, I? Come, now, don't chaff me," he replied, with surprise.

"To suffer misery and hunger rather than steal, is to have heart and honour," said Rodolph, gravely.

"Well, it may be," said the Chourineur, as if thinking, "it may be so."

"Does it astonish you?"

"It really does; for people don't usually say such things to me; they generally treat me as they would a mangy dog. It's odd, though, the effect what you say has on me. Heart! honour!" he repeated, with an air which was actually pensive.

"Well, what ails you?"

"I' faith, I don't know," replied the Chourineur, in a tone of emotion; "but these words, do you see, they quite make my heart beat; and I feel more flattered than if any one told me I was a 'better man' than either the Skeleton or the Schoolmaster. I never felt anything like it before. Be sure, though, that these words, and the blows of the fist at the end of my tussle, – you did lay 'em on like a good 'un, – not alluding to what you pay for the supper, and the words you have said – in a word," he exclaimed, bluntly, as if he could not find language to express his thoughts, "make sure that in life or death you may depend on the Chourineur."

Rodolph, unwilling to betray his emotion, replied in a tone as calm as he could assume, "How long did you go on as an amateur knacker?"

"Why, at first, I was quite sick of cutting up old worn-out horses, who could not even kick; but when I was about sixteen, and my voice began to get rough, it became a passion – a taste – a relish – a rage – with me to cut and slash. I did not care for anything but that; not even eating and drinking. You should have seen me in the middle of my work! Except an old pair of woollen trousers, I was quite naked. When, with my large and well-whetted knife in my hand, I had about me fifteen or twenty horses waiting their turn, by Jupiter! when I began to slaughter them, I don't know what possessed me, – I was like a fury. My ears had singing in them, and I saw everything red, – all was red; and I slashed, and slashed, and slashed, until my knife fell from my hands! Thunder! what happiness! Had I had millions, I could have paid them to have enjoyed my trade!"

"It is that which has given you the habit of stabbing," said Rodolph.

"Very likely; but when I was turned of sixteen, the passion became so strong that when I once began slashing, I became mad; I spoiled my work; yes, I spoiled the skins, because I slashed and cut them across and across; for I was so furious that I could not see clearly. At last they turned me out of the yard. I wanted employment with the butchers, for I have always liked that sort of business. Well, they quite looked down upon me; they despised me as a shoemaker does a cobbler. Then I had to seek my bread elsewhere, and I didn't find it very readily; and this was the time when my bread-basket was so often empty. At length I got employment in the quarries at Montrouge; but, at the end of two years, I was tired of going always around like a squirrel in his cage, and drawing stone for twenty sous a day. I was tall and strong, and so I enlisted in a regiment. They asked my name, my age, and my papers. My name? – the Albino. My age? – look at my beard. My papers? – here's the certificate of the master quarryman. As I was just the fellow for a grenadier, they took me."

"With your strength, courage, and taste for chopping and slashing, you ought, in war-time, to have been made an officer."

"Thunder and lightning! what do you say? What! to cut up English or Prussians! Why, that would have been better than to cut up old horses; but, worse luck, there was no war, but a great deal of discipline. An apprentice tries to hit his master a thump; well, if he be the weaker, why, he gets the worst of it; if he be the stronger, he has the best of it; he is turned out-of-doors, perhaps put into the cage, – and that is all. In the army it is quite a different thing. One day our sergeant had bullied me a good deal, to make me more attentive, – he was right, for I was very slow; I did not like a poke he gave me, and I kicked at him; he pushed me again, I returned his poke; he collared me, and I gave him a punch of the head. They fell on me, and then my blood was up in my eyes, and I was enraged in a moment. I had my knife in my hand – I belonged to the cookery – and I 'went it my hardest.' I cut, slashed, – slashed, chopped, as if I was in the slaughter-house. I made 'cold meat' of the sergeant, wounded two soldiers, – it was a real shambles; I gave the three eleven wounds, – yes, eleven. Blood flowed, flowed everywhere, blood, as though we were in the bone-house, – I swam in it – "

The brigand lowered his head with a sombre, sullen air, and was silent.

"What are you thinking of, Chourineur?" asked Rodolph, with interest.

"Nothing," he replied, abruptly; and then, with an air of brutish carelessness, he added, "At length they handcuffed me, and brought me before the 'big wigs,' and I was cast for death."

"You escaped, however?"

"True; but I had fifteen years at the galleys instead of being 'scragged.' I forgot to tell you that whilst in the regiment I had saved two of my comrades from drowning in the Marne, when we were quartered at Milan. At another time, – you will laugh, and say I am amphibious either in fire or water when saving men or women, – at another time, being in garrison at Rouen, all the wooden houses in one quarter were on fire, and burning like so many matches. I am the lad for a fire, and so I went to the place in an instant. They told me that there was an old woman who was bedridden, and could not escape from her room, which was already in flames. I went towards it, and, by Jove! how it did burn; it reminded me of the lime-kilns in my happy days. However, I saved the old woman, although I had the very soles of my feet scorched. Thanks to my having done these things, and the cunning of my advocate, my sentence was changed, and, instead of being 'scragged,' I was only sent to the hulks for fifteen years. When I found that my life would be spared, and I was to go to the galleys, I would have jumped upon the babbling fool, and twisted his neck, at the moment when he came to wish me joy, and to tell me he had saved my life, and be hanged to him! only they prevented me."

"Were you sorry, then, to have your sentence commuted?"

"Yes; for those who sport with the knife, the headsman's steel is the proper fate; for those who steal, the 'darbies' to their heels: each his proper punishment. But to force you to live amongst galley-slaves, when you have a right to be guillotined out of hand, is infamous; and, besides, my life, when I first went to the Bagne, was rather queer; one don't kill a man, and soon forget it, you must know."

"You feel some remorse, then, Chourineur?"

"Remorse? No; for I have served my time," said the savage; "but at first, a night did not pass but I saw – like a nightmare – the sergeant and soldiers whom I had slashed and slaughtered; that is, they were not alone," added the brigand, in a voice of terror; "these were in tens, and dozens, and hundreds, and thousands, each waiting his turn, in a kind of slaughter-house, like the horses whose throats I used to cut at Montfauçon, awaiting each his turn. Then, then, I saw red, and began to cut and slash away on these men as I used formerly to do on the horses. The more, however, I chopped down the soldiers, the faster the ranks filled up with others; and as they died, they looked at one with an air so gentle, – so gentle, that I cursed myself for killing 'em; but I couldn't help it. That was not all. I never had a brother; and yet it seemed as if every one of those whom I killed was my brother, and I loved all of them. At last, when I could bear it no longer, I used to wake covered all over with sweat, as cold as melting snow."

"That was a horrid dream, Chourineur!"

"It was; yes. That dream, do you see, was enough to drive one mad or foolish; so, twice, I tried to kill myself, once by swallowing verdigris, and another time by trying to choke myself with my chain; but, confound it, I am as strong as a bull. The verdigris only made me thirsty; and as for the twist of the chain round my neck, why, that only gave me a natural cravat of a blue colour. Afterwards, the desire of life came back to me, nay nightmare ceased to torment me, and I did as others did."

"At the Bagne, you were in a good school for learning how to thieve?"

"Yes, but it was not to my taste. The other 'prigs' bullied me; but I soon silenced them with a few thumps of my chain. It was in this way I first knew the Schoolmaster; and I must pay him the compliment due to his blows, – he paid me off as you did some little time ago."

"He is, then, a criminal who has served his time?"

"He was sentenced for life, but escaped."

"Escaped, and not denounced?"

"I'm not the man to denounce him. Besides, it would seem as if I were afraid of him."

"But how is it that the police do not detect him? Have they not got his description?"

"His description? Oh! yes, yes; but it is long since he has scraped out from his phiz what nature had placed there; now, none but the 'baker who puts the condemned in his oven' (the devil) could recognise him" (the Schoolmaster).

"What has he done to himself?"

"He began by destroying his nose, which was an ell long; he ate it off with vitriol."

"You jest."

"If he comes in this evening, you'll see. He had a nose like a parrot, and now it is as flat as in a death's head; to say nothing of his lips, which are as thick as your fist, and his face, which is as wrinkled as the waistcoat of a rag-picker."

"And so he is not recognised?"

"It is six months since he escaped from Rochefort, and the 'traps' have met him a hundred times without knowing him."

"Why was he at the Bagne?"

"For having been a forger, thief, and assassin. He is called the Schoolmaster because he wrote a splendid hand, and has had a good education."

"And is he much feared?"