Kabanata Kabanata 36 · 第36章

The heavy footsteps of the coquettish widow, who was coming down the

stairs, interrupted Vautrin’s fortune-telling. “Here is Mamma Vauquerre,

fair as a starr-r-r, dressed within an inch of her life.--Aren’t we a

trifle pinched for room?” he inquired, with his arm round the lady;

“we are screwed up very tightly about the bust, mamma! If we are much

agitated, there may be an explosion; but I will pick up the fragments

with all the care of an antiquary.”

“There is a man who can talk the language of French gallantry!” said the

widow, bending to speak in Mme. Couture’s ear.

“Good-bye, little ones!” said Vautrin, turning to Eugene and Victorine.

“Bless you both!” and he laid a hand on either head. “Take my word for

it, young lady, an honest man’s prayers are worth something; they should

bring you happiness, for God hears them.”

“Good-bye, dear,” said Mme. Vauquer to her lodger. “Do you think that M.

Vautrin means to run away with me?” she added, lowering her voice.

“Lack-a-day!” said the widow.

“Oh! mamma dear, suppose it should really happen as that kind M. Vautrin

said!” said Victorine with a sigh as she looked at her hands. The two

women were alone together.

“Why, it wouldn’t take much to bring it to pass,” said the elderly lady;

“just a fall from his horse, and your monster of a brother----”

“Oh! mamma.”

“Good Lord! Well, perhaps it is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy,” the

widow remarked. “I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew

flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth.

Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn’t speak up for his own

mother, and cheats you out of your share by deceit and trickery. My

cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but unluckily for you, nothing

was said in the marriage-contract about anything that she might come in

for.”

“It would be very hard if my fortune is to cost some one else his life,”

said Victorine. “If I cannot be happy unless my brother is to be taken

out of the world, I would rather stay here all my life.”

“_Mon Dieu!_ it is just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is full of

piety, you see,” Mme. Couture remarked. “I am very glad to find that

he is not an unbeliever like the rest of them that talk of the Almighty

with less respect than they do of the Devil. Well, as he was saying, who

can know the ways by which it may please Providence to lead us?”

With Sylvie’s help the two women at last succeeded in getting Eugene

up to his room; they laid him on the bed, and the cook unfastened

his clothes to make him more comfortable. Before they left the room,

Victorine snatched an opportunity when her guardian’s back was turned,

and pressed a kiss on Eugene’s forehead, feeling all the joy that this

stolen pleasure could give her. Then she looked round the room, and

gathering up, as it were, into one single thought all the untold bliss

of that day, she made a picture of her memories, and dwelt upon it until

she slept, the happiest creature in Paris.

That evening’s merry-making, in the course of which Vautrin had

given the drugged wine to Eugene and Father Goriot, was his own

ruin. Bianchon, flustered with wine, forgot to open the subject of

Trompe-la-Mort with Mlle. Michonneau. The mere mention of the name would

have set Vautrin on his guard; for Vautrin, or, to give him his real

name, Jacques Collin, was in fact the notorious escaped convict.

But it was the joke about the Venus of Pere-Lachaise that finally

decided his fate. Mlle. Michonneau had very nearly made up her mind to

warn the convict and to throw herself on his generosity, with the idea

of making a better bargain for herself by helping him to escape that

night; but as it was, she went out escorted by Poiret in search of the

famous chief of detectives in the Petite Rue Saint-Anne, still thinking

that it was the district superintendent--one Gondureau--with whom she

had to do. The head of the department received his visitors courteously.

There was a little talk, and the details were definitely arranged. Mlle.

Michonneau asked for the draught that she was to administer in order to

set about her investigation. But the great man’s evident satisfaction

set Mlle. Michonneau thinking; and she began to see that this business

involved something more than the mere capture of a runaway convict. She

racked her brains while he looked in a drawer in his desk for the

little phial, and it dawned upon her that in consequence of treacherous

revelations made by the prisoners the police were hoping to lay their

hands on a considerable sum of money. But on hinting her suspicions to

the old fox of the Petite Rue Saint-Anne, that officer began to smile,

and tried to put her off the scent.

“A delusion,” he said. “Collin’s _sorbonne_ is the most dangerous that

has yet been found among the dangerous classes. That is all, and the

rascals are quite aware of it. They rally round him; he is the backbone

of the federation, its Bonaparte, in short; he is very popular with them

all. The rogue will never leave his _chump_ in the Place de Greve.”

As Mlle. Michonneau seemed mystified, Gondureau explained the two

slang words for her benefit. _Sorbonne_ and _chump_ are two forcible

expressions borrowed from thieves’ Latin, thieves, of all people, being

compelled to consider the human head in its two aspects. A sorbonne is

the head of a living man, his faculty of thinking--his council; a chump

is a contemptuous epithet that implies how little a human head is worth

after the axe has done its work.

“Collin is playing us off,” he continued. “When we come across a man

like a bar of steel tempered in the English fashion, there is always one

resource left--we can kill him if he takes it into his head to make the

least resistance. We are reckoning on several methods of killing Collin

to-morrow morning. It saves a trial, and society is rid of him without

all the expense of guarding and feeding him. What with getting up the

case, summoning witnesses, paying their expenses, and carrying out the

sentence, it costs a lot to go through all the proper formalities before

you can get quit of one of these good-for-nothings, over and above the

three thousand francs that you are going to have. There is a saving

in time as well. One good thrust of the bayonet into Trompe-la-Mort’s

paunch will prevent scores of crimes, and save fifty scoundrels from

following his example; they will be very careful to keep themselves out

of the police courts. That is doing the work of the police thoroughly,

and true philanthropists will tell you that it is better to prevent

crime than to punish it.”

“And you do a service to our country,” said Poiret.

“Really, you are talking in a very sensible manner tonight, that you

are,” said the head of the department. “Yes, of course, we are serving

our country, and we are very hardly used too. We do society very great

services that are not recognized. In fact, a superior man must rise

above vulgar prejudices, and a Christian must resign himself to

the mishaps that doing right entails, when right is done in an

out-of-the-way style. Paris is Paris, you see! That is the explanation

of my life.--I have the honor to wish you a good-evening, mademoiselle.

I shall bring my men to the Jardin du Roi in the morning. Send

Christophe to the Rue du Buffon, tell him to ask for M. Gondureau in the

house where you saw me before.--Your servant, sir. If you should ever

have anything stolen from you, come to me, and I will do my best to get

it back for you.”

“Well, now,” Poiret remarked to Mlle. Michonneau, “there are idiots

who are scared out of their wits by the word police. That was a very

pleasant-spoken gentleman, and what he wants you to do is as easy as

saying ‘Good-day.’”

The next day was destined to be one of the most extraordinary in the

annals of the Maison Vauquer. Hitherto the most startling occurrence in

its tranquil existence had been the portentous, meteor-like apparition

of the sham Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil. But the catastrophes of this

great day were to cast all previous events into the shade, and supply an

inexhaustible topic of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her boarders so

long as she lived.

In the first place, Goriot and Eugene de Rastignac both slept till close

upon eleven o’clock. Mme. Vauquer, who came home about midnight from

the Gaite, lay a-bed till half-past ten. Christophe, after a prolonged

slumber (he had finished Vautrin’s first bottle of wine), was behindhand

with his work, but Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau uttered no complaint,

though breakfast was delayed. As for Victorine and Mme. Couture, they

also lay late. Vautrin went out before eight o’clock, and only came back

just as breakfast was ready. Nobody protested, therefore, when Sylvie

and Christophe went up at a quarter past eleven, knocked at all the

doors, and announced that breakfast was waiting. While Sylvie and the

man were upstairs, Mlle. Michonneau, who came down first, poured the

contents of the phial into the silver cup belonging to Vautrin--it was

standing with the others in the bain-marie that kept the cream hot for

the morning coffee. The spinster had reckoned on this custom of the

house to do her stroke of business. The seven lodgers were at last

collected together, not without some difficulty. Just as Eugene came

downstairs, stretching himself and yawning, a commissionaire handed him

a letter from Mme. de Nucingen. It ran thus:--

“I feel neither false vanity nor anger where you are concerned, my

friend. Till two o’clock this morning I waited for you. Oh, that waiting

for one whom you love! No one that had passed through that torture could

inflict it on another. I know now that you have never loved before.

What can have happened? Anxiety has taken hold of me. I would have come

myself to find out what had happened, if I had not feared to betray the

secrets of my heart. How can I walk out or drive out at this time of

day? Would it not be ruin? I have felt to the full how wretched it is to

be a woman. Send a word to reassure me, and explain how it is that you

have not come after what my father told you. I shall be angry, but I

will forgive you. One word, for pity’s sake. You will come to me soon,

will you not? If you are busy, a line will be enough. Say, ‘I will

hasten to you,’ or else, ‘I am ill.’ But if you were ill my father would

have come to tell me so. What can have happened?...”