A Harlot High and Low

  The prisoner, at a sign from the judge, was then dressed by Monsieur Lebrun and the male nurse who withdrew, as did the usher. Camusot seated himself at his desk and began to play with his pen.

  ‘You have an aunt,’ Camusot said abruptly to Jacques Collin.

  ‘An aunt?’ replied Don Carlos Herrera with astonishment. ‘I have no relations, sir, I am the unacknowledged child of the late Duke of Ossuna.’

  And to himself he said: ‘They’re getting warm!’ an allusion to the game of hide-and-seek, which is indeed a childish image of the terrible struggle between the Law and the criminal.

  ‘Bah!’ said Camusot. ‘Look now, you still have your aunt, Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed under the bizarre name of Asia in the service of Demoiselle Esther.’

  Jacques Collin shrugged indifferently in a manner perfectly in keeping with the expression of curiosity with which he greeted the magistrate’s words, the latter glancing at him quizzically.

  ‘Watch out,’ continued Camusot. ‘Listen to me carefully.’

  ‘I am listening, sir.’

  Asia’s qualifications

  ‘YOUR aunt is a dealer in the Temple, her business is run by a Demoiselle Paccard, sister of a man under sentence, an honest wench as it happens, nicknamed La Romette. The Law is on your aunt’s trail, and in a matter of hours we shall have definite proof. This woman is very devoted to you…’

  ‘Go on, Monsieur le Juge,’ said Jacques Collin with perfect composure as Camusot paused, ‘I am listening.’

  ‘Your aunt, who is some five years older than you, was the mistress of Marat of odious memory. It was from that bloodstained source that the nucleus of her present fortune came… She is, according to the information I have received, a very astute receiver of stolen goods, though at the moment that cannot be finally proved. After the death of Marat, she seems, by the report I have here in my hands, to have belonged to a chemist sentenced to death in the year XII, for coining. She appeared as a witness at the trial. It was during this association that she picked up some knowledge of toxicology. She was a wardrobe dealer from year XII of the Republic to 1810. She served two years in prison in 1812 and 1816 for procuring minors… You had already been sentenced for forgery, you left the banking house to which your aunt had sent you as a clerk, thanks to the education you had received and to the patronage your aunt enjoyed with persons whose depravity she provided with victims… All this, prisoner, bears little relation to the elevated station of the dukes of Ossuna… Do you still persist in your denial?…’

  Jacques Collin, as he listened to Monsieur Camusot, was thinking of his happy childhood, at the Oratorian school he had left, a meditation which gave his face a look of real astonishment. Despite the skill of his interrogatory manner of speech, Camusot did not succeed in ruffling that placid physiognomy.

  ‘If you faithfully transcribed the explanation I gave you at the outset, you need only read it over,’ replied Jacques Collin, ‘I can’t change it… I didn’t visit the courtesan, how should I know who her cook was? I have no connection with the individuals of whom you speak.’

  ‘Despite your continued denial, we shall confront you with persons who may shake your composure.’

  ‘A man who has once been shot is ready for anything,’ Jacques Collin answered gently.

  Camusot turned back to the confiscated documents while he waited for the return of the head of the crime squad whose diligence was exemplary, for it was half past eleven, the interrogation had begun at about half past ten, and the usher entered and in a low voice announced to the magistrate the arrival of Bibi-Lupin.

  ‘Let him come in!’ replied Monsieur Camusot.

  Old acquaintances

  ON entering, Bibi-Lupin, from whom a prompt: ‘It’s him all right!’ was expected, stood puzzled. He no longer recognized the face of his customer in that pockmarked visage. This hesitation struck the magistrate.

  ‘It’s his build, his bulk,’ said the agent. ‘Ah! that’s you, Jacques Collin,’ he went on examining the eyes, the cut of the forehead, the ears… There are certain things which cannot be disguised… ‘It’s him all right, Monsieur Camusot… Jacques has the scar of a knife-wound on his left arm, get him to remove his coat, and you’ll see…’

  Once more, Jacques Collin was obliged to take off his frock coat, Bibi-Lupin pulled the shirt sleeve up and pointed out the scar.

  ‘It was a bullet,’ replied Don Carlos Herrera, ‘see, there are other scars.’

  ‘Ah! and that’s his voice!’ exclaimed Bibi-Lupin.

  ‘Your conviction is only a piece of information, it isn’t a proof,’ said the judge.

  ‘I know that,’ answered Bibi-Lupin with deference; ‘but I’ll find you witnesses. One lodger who was at the Maison Vauquer is here already…’ he said with a look at Collin.

  The calm expression on Collin’s face did not falter.

  ‘Call this person in,’ said Monsieur Camusot peremptorily, his irritation evident despite his air of studied indifference.

  This flicker was observed by Jacques Collin who wasn’t counting on any sympathy from his examining magistrate, so that a marked apathy covered what in fact was a violent inner search to divine its cause. The usher showed in Madame Poiret of whom this unexpected sight occasioned a slight quiver in the convict, but this trepidation escaped the magistrate whose mind seemed made up.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked the judge launching straight into the formalities with which all depositions and interrogations begin.

  Madame Poiret, a little old woman white and wrinkled like calves’ sweetbreads, dressed in a gown of dark-blue silk, described herself as Christine-Michelle Michonneau, wife of Sieur Poiret, aged fifty-one, born in Paris, domiciled in the rue des Poules at the corner of the rue des Postes, keeper of a boarding-house.

  ‘In 1818 and 1819, Madame,’ said the magistrate, ‘you resided on premises kept by a Dame Vauquer.’

  ‘Yes, sir, that is where I made the acquaintance of Monsieur Poiret, retired clerical worker, subsequently my husband, whom, for a year past, I keep in bed,… poor man! he is very unwell. Thus I ought not to be long away from home…’

  ‘At that time a lodger in the house was a certain Vautrin…?’ inquired the magistrate.

  ‘Oh, sir! what a tale that was, he turned out to be a terrible convict…’

  ‘You took part in his arrest.’

  ‘That is not so, sir…’

  ‘You stand before the Law, be careful!…’ Monsieur Camusot said sternly.

  Madame Poiret remained silent.

  ‘Recall your memories!’ Camusot went on, ‘do you remember the man?… would you recognize him?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is it the man you see here?…’ said the judge.

  Madame Poiret put on tinted spectacles and looked at Father Carlos Herrera.

  ‘He was broad like that, about the same height, but… no,… though if,… Monsieur le Juge,’ she went on, ‘if I could see his bare chest, I should recognize that at once.’

  The magistrate and his clerk could not restrain themselves from laughing, despite the gravity of their functions. Jacques Collin joined in their hilarity, though with moderation. The prisoner had not yet put his arms into the sleeves of the frock coat which Bibi-Lupin had just taken off him; and, at a sign from the judge, he obligingly opened his shirt.

  ‘That is his palatine; but you’ve gone grey, Monsieur Vautrin,’ exclaimed Madame Poiret.

  The prisoner’s daring

  ‘WHAT do say to that?’ asked the judge.

  ‘The woman is mad!’ said Jacques Collin.

  ‘Oh, my goodness! if I was in doubt, for his face isn’t the same, that voice would be sufficient, I heard it threatening me… Ah! and that was his way of looking.’

  ‘The criminal investigation agent and this woman could not,’ the magistrate went on addressing Jacques Collin, ‘have agreed to say the same about you, for neither of them had seen you; how do you explain that?’
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  ‘The Law has committed worse mistakes than would result from accepting the testimony of a woman who recognizes a man by the hair on his chest and the suspicions of a policeman,’ replied Jacques Collin. ‘My voice, my way of looking, my build are found to resemble those of an important criminal, that seems a bit vague to begin with. As to the reminiscence which is supposed to prove that between the lady and my double there were relations which do not cause her to blush,… you laughed at that yourself. If, on behalf of the Law, sir, you are one half as anxious as I am, for my part, to establish the truth, will you ask this Madame… Foi…’

  ‘Poiret…’

  ‘Poret. Forgive me! (I am Spanish), if she remembers the people who were living in this… what did you call the house?…’

  ‘A respectable boarding-house,’ said Madame Poiret.

  ‘What kind of establishment is that?’ asked Jacques Collin.

  ‘A house at which you breakfast and dine by subscription.’

  ‘You’re right,’ exclaimed Camusot with a nod of the head which appeared to show agreement with Jacques Collin, so evidently was he struck by the apparent good faith with which the latter showed his willingness to be helpful. ‘Try to remember the subscribers who were there at the time of Jacques Collin’s arrest.’

  ‘There was Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, old Goriot,… Mademoiselle Taillefer…’

  ‘Good,’ said the judge who hadn’t taken his eyes off Jacques Collin’s face which remained impassive. ‘Well, now, this old Goriot…’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Madame Poiret.

  ‘Sir,’ said Jacques Collin, ‘I’ve several times met at Lucien’s a Monsieur de Rastignac, attached, I believe, to Madame de Nucingen, and, if he’s the young man in question, he certainly never mistook me for the convict with whom an attempt is being made to confuse me…’

  ‘Monsieur de Rastignac and Doctor Bianchon,’ said the judge, ‘are persons of such high standing in society that their testimony, if it is in your favour, would be enough to set you at liberty. Coquart, make out their writs of summons.’

  Within a matter of minutes, the formalities of Madame Poiret’s deposition were concluded. Coquart read over to her his report of the scene which had just taken place, and she signed it; but the prisoner refused to sign basing his refusal on a lack of knowledge of French legal procedure.

  An interruption

  ‘WELL, that’s quite enough for one day,’ Monsieur Camusot went on, ‘you must be feeling the need for a little food, I’ll have you taken back to the Conciergerie.’

  ‘Alas! I don’t feel well enough to eat,’ said Jacques Collin.

  Camusot wanted to make the moment of Jacques Collin’s return coincide with the time of the prisoners’ exercise period in the prison yard; but he also wanted a reply from the governor of the Conciergerie to the order he’d given him that morning, and he rang for his usher to be sent for it. The usher came and said that the woman doorkeeper of the house on the Quai Malaquais had brought him a substantial document relating to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempré. This interruption was to prove so important that it made Camusot forget his design.

  ‘Let her come in!’ he said.

  ‘Pardon, excuse me, sir,’ said the doorwoman curtseying in turn to the magistrate and Father Carlos. ‘We got so flustered, my husband and me, by the Law, the two times it came, that we forgot we had in the drawer a letter addressed to Monsieur Lucien, on which we had ten sous to pay, what’s more, although it was posted in Paris, because it’s so heavy. Can you pay me the carriage? Goodness only knows when we shall be seeing our tenants again!’

  ‘This letter was given you by the postman?’ asked Camusot after studying the envelope carefully.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Coquart, you’d better draw up a report of this declaration. Right! my good woman. Give us your name, your occupation…’

  Camusot swore the woman in, then he dictated the report.

  While these formalities proceeded, he checked the postmark which showed the times of collection and delivery, as well as the date. This letter, it thus appeared, delivered to Lucien’s the day after Esther’s death, had indubitably been written and posted on the day of the calamity.

  We may now judge of Monsieur Camusot’s stupefaction on reading this letter, written and signed by one believed by the Law to have been the victim of a crime.

  Too much

  ESTHER TO LUCIEN

  Monday, 13 May 1830.

  (MY LAST DAY, AT TEN O’ CLOCK IN THE MORNING.)

  Dear Lucien, I have not an hour to live. By eleven o’clock I shall be dead, and I shall die without pain. I paid fifty thousand francs for a pretty little black fruit containing a poison which kills with lightning speed. Thus, my lamb, you will be able to say: ‘My little Esther didn’t suffer…’ No, I shall suffer only in writing you these pages.

  That monster who bought me so dearly, knowing that the day on which I regarded myself as his would have no morrow, Nucingen has just gone, drunk as a bear who has been plied with liquor. For the first and last time in my life, I have been able to compare my former profession as a ‘daughter of joy’ with the life of love, to juxtapose that tenderness which opens like a flower in the infinite and the horror of a duty which could wish so to annihilate itself as not to leave room for a kiss. I needed this disgust to find death adorable… I’ve had a bath; I should have liked the confessor at the convent where I was baptized to come and confess me, in short to wash my soul. But there’s been quite enough prostitution without that, it would be to profane a sacrament, and besides I feel bathed in the waters of sincere repentance. God will do with me as He pleases.

  Let’s have done with this whining, for you I want to remain your Esther until the last moment, not to bore you with my death, with the future, with God, who would not be good if he tormented me in the other world when I have swallowed so many griefs in this one…

  I have in front of me the lovely miniature Madame de Mirbel did of you. This ivory panel often consoled me for your absence, I look at it with intoxication as I write you my last thoughts, depict my last heartbeats for you. I shall enclose this portrait with my letter, for I don’t want it stolen and sold. The thought of what gave me so much pleasure being mixed up in some shop window with the officers and ladies of the Empire, or with Chinese curiosities, is almost a death in itself. That portrait, my darling, hide it or have it cleaned off, don’t give it to anyone else… unless such a present could win you the heart of that walking lath in clothes, that Clotilde de Grandlieu, who will cover you with bruises in her sleep her bones are so sharp… . Yes, I consent to that, I should still be good for something as I was in my lifetime. Ah! to give you pleasure, or if it had just made you laugh, I’d have held myself close to a fire with an apple in my mouth to roast it for you! My death will then still be of use to you… I should have troubled your domestic life… Oh! that Clotilde, I don’t understand her! To be able to be your wife, to bear your name, not to leave you day or night, to be yours, and still to make difficulties! to do that, you need to belong to the Faubourg Saint Germain! and not to have ten pounds of flesh on your bones…

  Poor Lucien, darling, disappointed man of ambition, I dream of your future! Come now, you’ll sometimes miss your poor faithful dog, that kind-hearted tart who stole for you, who’d have let herself be dragged before the Court of Assize to ensure your happiness, whose sole occupation was to think of your pleasures, to invent new ones, who felt love for you in her hair, in her feet, in her ears, in fact your ballerina whose every look blessed you; who, for six years past, thought only of you, so much your creature that I was never more than an emanation of your soul as light is of the sun. But there, for lack of money and position, alas! I can’t be your wife… I’ve always provided for your future by giving you what I had… Come as soon as you get this letter, and take what you’ll find under my pillow, for I don’t trust those in the house…

  You’ll see, I mean to make a beautiful corpse, I shall
lie down, I shall put myself nicely to bed, I shall arrange myself, eh! Then I shall press the berry against the soft palate, and I shan’t be disfigured either by convulsion, or by lying in a ridiculous posture.

  I know that Madame de Sérisy has quarrelled with you, because of me; but, you see, pussy, when she knows I’m dead, she’ll forgive you, you’ll just have to make a fuss of her, she’ll marry you off well, if the Grandlieus persist in their refusal.

  My once-was, I don’t want a lot of loud lamentation from you when you learn of my death. First, I must tell you that eleven o’clock on Monday 13 May was just the termination of a long illness which began the day when, on the terrace at Saint Germain, you sent me back to my old career… The soul can be hurt like the body. Only, the soul won’t just let itself suffer stupidly like the body, the body doesn’t help the soul as the soul helps the body, and the soul may find a cure in those very thoughts which lead seamstresses to their bags of charcoal. You held out a whole life to me the day before yesterday when you said that if Clotilde still refused you you’d marry me. It would have been a great misfortune for both of us, I should have been all the more dead, to put it that way; for deaths may be more or less bitter. We should never have been accepted by society.

  Believe me! these past two months I’ve thought a great deal. A poor whore is in the mud, as I was before I went to the convent; men find her beautiful, they get her to serve their pleasure without showing much consideration, they receive her on foot after going out to look for her by carriage; if they don’t spit in her face, it’s because she’s preserved from that outrage by her beauty; but morally, they do worse. Well, now! if the tart inherits five or six million, she’ll be sought by princes, she’ll be greeted with respect when she goes by in her carriage, she can take her pick of the ancient scutcheons of France and Navarre. Society, which would have hurled abuse at us on seeing two fine creatures united and happy, was always polite to Madame de Staël, in spite of her wild adventures, because she had two hundred thousand francs’ income. The world, which bows before Money or Fame, won’t bow before happiness, or goodness; for I should have done good… Oh! how many tears I should have wiped away!… as many I think as I have shed! Yes, I should have wanted to live only for you and for those in need.