THE CHOURINEUR'S HISTORY.
The reader has not forgotten the two guests at the _tapis-franc_ who
were watched so closely by the third individual who had come into the
cabaret. We have said that one of these fellows, who had on a Greek cap,
and concealed his left hand with much care, asked the ogress if the
Schoolmaster and Gros-Boiteux had not arrived.
During the story of the Goualeuse, which they could not overhear, they
had been constantly talking in a very low tone, throwing occasional
hurried glances at the door. He who wore the Greek cap said to his
comrade, "The Gros-Boiteux does not 'show,' nor the Schoolmaster."
"Perhaps the Skeleton has 'done for him,' and made off with the 'swag.'"
"A precious 'go' that would be for us, who 'laid the plant,' and look
out for our 'snacks,'" replied the other.
The newcomer, who observed the two men, was seated too far off to hear a
word they said, but, after having cautiously consulted a small paper
concealed at the bottom of his cap, he appeared satisfied with his
remarks, rose from the table, and said to the ogress, who was sleeping
at the bar, with her feet on the stove, and her great cat on her knee:
"I say, Mother Ponisse, I shall soon be back again; take care of my
pitcher and my plate; I don't want any one to make free with them."
"Make yourself easy, my fine fellow," said Mother Ponisse; "if your
plate and pitcher are empty, no one will touch them."
The newcomer laughed loudly at the joke of the ogress, and then slipped
out, so that his departure was unnoticed. At that moment when this man
retired, and before the door could be shut, Rodolph saw the
charcoal-dealer, whose black face and tall form we have already alluded
to, and he had just time to manifest to him, by an impatient gesture,
how much he disliked his watchful attendance; but the charcoal-man did
not appear to heed this in the least, and still kept hanging about the
_tapis-franc_. The countenance of the Goualeuse became still more
saddened; with her back to the wall, her head drooping on her bosom, her
full blue eyes gazing mechanically about her, the unfortunate being
seemed bowed down with the weight of her oppressive thoughts. Two or
three times, having met Rodolph's fixed look, she turned away, unable to
account to herself for the singular impression which the unknown had
caused her. Weighed down and abashed at his presence, she almost
regretted having made so candid a narrative to him of her unhappy life.
The Chourineur, on the contrary, was quite in high spirits; he had
devoured the whole harlequin without the least assistance; the wine and
brandy had made him very communicative; the fact of his having found his
master, as he called him, had been forgotten in the generous conduct of
Rodolph; and he also detected so decided a physical superiority, that
his humiliation had given way to a sentiment of admiration, mingled with
fear and respect. This absence of rancour, and the savage pride with
which he boasted of never having robbed, proved that the Chourineur was
not as yet thoroughly hardened. This had not escaped the sagacity of
Rodolph, and he awaited the man's recital with curiosity.
"Now, my boy," said he, "we are listening."
The Chourineur emptied his glass, and thus began:
"You, my poor girl, were at last taken to by the Chouette, whom the
devil confound! You never had a shelter until the moment when you were
imprisoned as a vagabond. I can never recollect having slept in what is
called a bed before I was nineteen years of age,--a happy age!--and then
I became a trooper."
"What, you have served, then, Chourineur?" said Rodolph.
"Three years; but you will hear all about it: the stones of the Louvre,
the lime-kilns of Clichy, and the quarries of Montrouge, these were the
hôtels of my youth. Then I had my house in Paris and in the country. Who
but I--"
"And what was your trade?"
"Faith, master, I have a foggy recollection of having strolled about in
my childhood with an old rag-picker, who almost thumped me to death; and
it must be true, for I have never since met one of these old Cupids,
with a wicker-work quiver, without a longing to pitch into him,--a proof
that one of them must have thumped me when I was a child. My first
employment was to help the knackers to cut the horses' throats at
Montfauçon. I was about ten or twelve. When I began to slash
(_chouriner_) these poor old beasts, it had quite an impression on me.
At the month's end I thought no more about it; on the contrary, I began
to like my trade. No one had his knife so sharpened and keen-edged as
mine; and that made me rejoice in using it. When I had cut the animals'
throats, they gave me for my trouble a piece of the thigh of some animal
that had died of disease; for those that they slaughter are sold to the
'cag-mag' shops near the School of Medicine, who convert it into beef,
mutton, veal, or game, according to the taste of purchasers. However,
when I got to my morsel of horse's flesh, I was as happy as a king! I
went with it into the lime-kiln like a wolf to his lair, and then, with
the leave of the lime-burners, I made a glorious fry on the ashes. When
the burners were not at work, I picked up some dry wood at Romainville,
set light to it, and broiled my steak under the walls of the bone-house.
The meat certainly was bloody, and almost raw, but that made a change."
"And your name? What did they call you?" asked Rodolph.
"I had hair much more flaxen than now, and the blood was always in my
eyes, and so they called me the 'Albino.' The Albinos are the white
rabbits amongst men; they have red eyes," added the Chourineur, in a
grave tone, and, as it were, with a physiological parenthesis.
"And your relations? your family?"
"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?"
"He will not be any longer, when you have given him such a licking as
you gave me. Oh, by Jove, I am anxious to see it!"
"What does he do for a living?"
"He is associated with an old woman as bad as himself, and as deep as
the 'old one;' but she is never seen, though he has told the ogress that
some day or other he would bring his 'mot' (woman) with him."
"And this women helps him in his robberies?"
"Yes, and in his murders too. They say he brags of having already, with
her assistance, 'done for' two or three persons; and, amongst others,
three weeks ago, a cattle-dealer on the road to Poissy, whom they also
robbed."
"He will be taken sooner or later."
"They must be very cunning, as well as powerful, to do that, for he
always has under his blouse a brace of loaded pistols and a dagger. He
says that Charlot (the executioner) waits for him, and he can only lose
his head once, and so he will kill all he can kill to try and escape.
Oh! he makes no mystery of it; and as he is twice as strong as you and
I, they will have a tough job who take him."
"What did you do, Chourineur, when you left the Bagne?"
"I offered myself to the master-lighterman of the Quai St. Paul, and I
get my livelihood there."
"But as you have never been a 'prig,' why do you live in the Cité?"
"Why, where else can I live? Who likes to be seen with a discharged
criminal? I should be tired of always being alone, for I like company,
and here I am with my equals. I have a bit of a row sometimes, and they
fear me like fire in the Cité; but the police have nothing to say to
me, except now and then for a 'shindy,' for which they give me, perhaps,
twenty-four hours at the watch-house, and there's an end of that."
"What do you earn a day?"
"Thirty-five sous for taking in the river foot-baths, up to the stomach
from twelve to fifteen hours a day, summer and winter; but let me be
just, and tell the truth; so if, through having my toes in the water, I
get the _grenouille_,[7] I am allowed to break my arms in breaking up
old vessels, and unloading timber on my back. I begin as a beast of
burden, and end like a fish's tail. When I lose my strength entirely, I
shall take a rake and a wicker basket, like the old rag-picker whom I
see in the recollections of my childhood."
[7] A disease of the skin to which all who work in the water are
liable.
"And yet you are not unhappy."
"There are worse than I am; and without my dreams of the sergeant and
soldiers with their throats cut,--for I have the dream still
sometimes,--I could quietly wait for the moment when I should drop down
dead at the corner of some dunghill, like that at which I was born; but
the dream--the dream--by heaven and earth! I don't like even to think of
that," said the Chourineur, and he emptied his pipe at the corner of the
table.
The Goualeuse had hardly listened to the Chourineur; she seemed wholly
absorbed in a deep and melancholy reverie. Rodolph himself was pensive.
A tragic incident occurred, which brought these three personages to a
recollection of the spot in which they were.