Vautrin: A Drama in Five Acts

Vautrin

Yours? Ah! you are right to ask that. Well, whatever happens to me, you have the word of Jacques Collin that he will never compromise you.

But you must obey me in everything!

Joseph

In everything? But —

Vautrin There are no buts with me. If there is any dark business to be done I have my "trusties" and old allies. Have you been long in this place?

Joseph

The duchess took me for her footman when she went with the court to

Ghent, last year and I am trusted by both the ladies of the house.

Vautrin

That's the ticket! I need a few points with regard to these

Montsorels. What do you know about them?

Joseph

Nothing.

Vautrin (aside) He is getting a little too honest. Does he think he knows nothing about them? Well, you cannot talk for five minutes with a man without drawing something out of him. (Aloud) Whose room is this?

Joseph The salon of her grace the duchess, and these are her apartments; those of the duke are on the floor above. The suite of the marquis, their only son, is below, and looks on the court.

Vautrin I asked you for impressions of all the keys of the duke's study. Where are they?

Joseph (hesitatingly)

Here they are.

Vautrin Every time I purpose coming here you will find a cross in chalk on the garden gate; every night you must examine the place. Virtue reigns here, and the hinges of that gate are very rusty; but a Louis XVIII can never be a Louis XV! Good-bye – I'll come back to-morrow night. (Aside) I must rejoin my people at the Christoval house.

Joseph (aside) Since this devil of a fellow has found me out, I have been on tenter-hooks —

Vautrin (coming back from the door)

The duke then does not live with his wife?

Joseph

They quarreled twenty years ago.

Vautrin

What about?

Joseph

Not even their own son can say.

Vautrin

And why was your predecessor dismissed?

Joseph I cannot say. I was not acquainted with him. They did not set up an establishment here until after the king's second return.

Vautrin (aside) Such are the advantages of the new social order; masters and servants are bound together by no ties; they feel no mutual attachment, exchange no secrets, and so give no ground for betrayal. (To Joseph) Any spicy stories at meal-times?

Joseph

Never before the servants.

Vautrin

What is thought of them in the servants' hall?

Joseph

The duchess is considered a saint.

Vautrin

Poor woman! And the duke?

Joseph

He is an egotist.

Vautrin Yes, a statesman. (Aside) The duke must have secrets, and we must look into that. Every great aristocrat has some paltry passion by which he can be led; and if I once get control of him, his son, necessarily – (To Joseph) What is said about the marriage of the Marquis de Montsorel and Inez de Christoval?

Joseph I haven't heard a word. The duchess seems to take very little interest in it.

Vautrin

And she has only one son! That seems hardly natural.

Joseph

Between ourselves, I believe she doesn't love her son.

Vautrin I am obliged to draw this word from your throat, as if it were the cork in a bottle of Bordeaux. There is, I perceive, some mystery in this house. Here is a mother, a Duchesse de Montsorel, who does not love her son, her only son! Who is her confessor?