“Take care, Passajon,” said the judge. “You are only here as a witness;
but if you attempt to mislead justice, you may return a prisoner”
(he, the monster, had, indeed, the manner of desiring it). “Come now,
consider; who tore out this page?”
Then I very fortunately remembered that some days before he left Paris
the governor had me made bring the books to his house, where they were
all night. The clerk took a note of my declaration, after which the
judge dismissed me with a sign, warning me to be ready when I was
wanted. Then, on the threshold, he called me back: “Stay, M. Passajon,
take this away. I don’t want it any more.”
He held out the papers he had been consulting while he was questioning
me; and judge of my confusion when I saw on the cover the word
“Memoirs,” written in my best round-hand. I, myself, had provided
material to Justice--important details which the suddenness of our
catastrophe had prevented me from saving from the police search of our
office.
My first idea on returning home was to tear up these indiscreet papers;
but on reflection, and after having assured myself that the Memoirs
contained nothing that would compromise me, I have decided to go on with
them, with the certainty of getting some profit out of them one day or
another. There are plenty of novelists at Paris who have no imagination
and can only put true stories in their books, who would be glad to buy
a little book of incidents. That is how I shall avenge myself on this
society of well-to-do swindlers, with which I have been mixed up to my
shame and misfortune.
Besides, I must occupy my leisure time. There is nothing to do at the
bank, which is completely deserted since the judicial inquiry began,
except to arrange the bills of all colours. I have again undertaken the
writing for the cook on the second floor, Mlle. Seraphine, from whom
I accept in return some little refreshment, which I keep in the
strong-box, once more become a provision safe. The wife of the governor
is also very good to me, and stuffs my pockets each time I go to see her
in her great rooms on the Chaussee d’Antin. There nothing has changed;
the same luxury, the same comfort, also a three-months’-old baby--the
seventh--and a superb nurse, whose Norman cap is the admiration of the
Bois de Boulogne. It seems that once started on the rails of fortune,
people need a certain time to slacken their speed or stop. Besides, this
thief of a Paganetti had, in case of accident, settled everything on his
wife. Perhaps that is why this rag-bag of an Italian woman has such an
unshakable admiration for him. He has fled, he is in hiding; but she
remains convinced that her husband is a little Saint-John of innocence,
the victim of his goodness and credulity. One ought to hear her. “You
know him, you Moussiou Passajon. You know if he is scrupulous. But as
true as there is a God, if my husband had committed such crimes as he is
accused of, I myself--you hear me--I myself would put a blunderbuss in
his hands, and would say to him, ‘Here, Tchecco, blow out your brains!’”
and by the way in which she opens the nostrils of her little turned-up
nose, her round eyes, black as jet, one feels that this little Corsican
would have acted as she spoke. He must be very clever, this infernal
governor, to deceive even his wife, to act a part even at home, where
the cleverest let themselves be seen as they really are.
In the meantime all these rogues have good dinners; even Bois l’Hery
has his meals sent in to the prison from the Cafe Anglais, and poor old
Passajon is reduced to live on scraps picked up in the kitchen. Still
we must not grumble too much. There are others more wretched than we
are--witness M. Francis, who came in this morning to the Territorial,
thin, pale, with dirty linen and frayed cuffs, which he still pulled
down by force of habit.
I was at the moment grilling some bacon before the fire in the
board-room, my plate laid on the corner of a marqueterie table, with a
newspaper underneath to preserve it. I invited Monpavon’s valet to share
my frugal meal; but since he has waited on a marquis he had come to
think that he formed part of the nobility, and he declined with a
dignified air, perfectly ridiculous with his hollow cheeks. He began by
telling me that he still had no news of his master; that they had
sent him away from the club, all the papers under seal, and a horde of
creditors like locusts on the marquis’s small wardrobe. “So that I am
a little short,” added M. Francis. That is to say, that he had not the
worth of a radish in his pockets, that he had been sleeping for two days
on the benches in the streets, awakened at each instant by the police,
obliged to rise, to pretend to be drunk so as to seek another shelter.
As to eating, I believe he had not done so for a long time, for he
looked at the food with such hungry eyes as to wring one’s heart, and
when I insisted on putting before him a slice of bacon and a glass of
wine, he fell on it like a wolf. All at once the blood came back to his
cheeks and, still eating, he began to chatter.
“You know, _pere_ Passajon,” said he to me between two mouthfuls, “I
know where he is. I have seen him.”
He winked his eye knowingly. I looked at him in wonder. “Who is it you
have seen, M. Francis?”
“The marquis, my master--over there in the little white house behind
Notre-Dame.” (He did not use the word morgue, it is too low.) “I was
sure I should find him there. I went there first thing next morning.
There he was. Oh, well disguised, I tell you. Only his valet could
recognise him. The hair gray, the teeth gone, the wrinkles showing his
sixty-five years, which he used to hide so well. On the marble slab,
with the tap running above, I seemed to see him at his dressing-table.”
“And you said nothing?”
“No. I knew his intentions on the subject for long. I let him go away
discreetly, without awakening attention, as he wished. But, all the
same, he might have given me a crust of bread before he went, after a
service of twenty years.”
And on a sudden, striking the table with his fist with rage:
“When I think that if I had liked I might have been with Mora, instead
of going to Monpavon, that I might have had Louis’s place. What luck he
has had! How many bags of gold he laid his hands on when his duke died!
And the wardrobe--hundreds of shirts, a dressing-gown of blue fox fur
worth more than twenty thousand francs. Like Noel, too, he must have
made his pile! He had to hurry, too, for he knew that it would stop
soon. Now there is nothing to be got in the Place Vendome. An old
policeman of a mother who manages everything. Saint-Romans is to be
sold, the pictures are to be sold, half the house to be let. It is a
real break-up.”
I must confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction, for
this wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who
boasted of being so rich, who said so everywhere. The public bit at
it like a fish who sees the scales shine through the net. He has lost
millions, I admit, but why did he make us believe he had more? They have
arrested Bois l’Hery; they should have arrested _him_. Ah! if we had had
another expert, I am sure it would have been done. Besides, as I said to
Francis, you had only to look at this upstart of a Jansoulet to see what
he was worth. What a head--like a bandit!
“And so common,” said the ex-valet.
“No principles.”
“An absolute want of form. Well, there he is on his beam-ends, and then
Jenkins, too, and plenty of others with them.”
“What! the doctor too? Ah! so much the worse. Such a polite and amiable
man.”
“Yes, still another breaking-up of his establishment. Horses, carriages,
furniture. The yard of the house is full of bills, and it sounds as
empty as if some one were dead. The place at Nanterre is on sale. There
were half a dozen of the ‘little Bethlehems’ left whom they packed up in
a cab. It is a break-up, I tell you, _pere_ Passajon, a ruin which
we, old as we are, may not see the end of, but it will be complete.
Everything is rotten, it must all come down!”
He was a sinister figure, this old steward of the Empire, thin, stubbly,
covered with mud, and shouting like a Jeremiah, “It is the downfall!”
with a toothless mouth, black and wide open. I felt afraid and ashamed
of him, with a great desire to see him outside, and I thought: “Oh, M.
Chalmette! Oh, my little vineyard of Montbars!”
_Same date_.--Great news. Mme. Gaganetti came this afternoon to bring me
mysteriously a letter from the governor. He is in London, going to begin
a magnificent thing. Fine offices in the best part of the town, a superb
list of shareholders. He offers me the chance of joining him, “happy to
repair thus the damage he has caused me,” says he. I shall have twice my
wages at the Territorial, be lodged comfortably, five shares in the new
bank, and all my arrears paid. All I need is a little money to go
there and to pay a few small debts round here. Good luck! My fortune
is assured. I shall write to the notary of Montbars to mortgage my
vineyard.