Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [211]
to be the prime mover of his arrest in the Maison Vauquer in 1819 (Le Pere Goriot). Selerier, whom we must call Fil-de-Soie, as we shall also call Dannepont la Pouraille, already guilty of evading surveillance, was concerned in certain well-known robberies without bloodshed, which would certainly take him back to the hulks for at least twenty years.
The other convict, named Riganson, and his kept woman, known as la Biffe, were a most formidable couple, members of the swell-mob. Riganson, on very distant terms with the police from his earliest years, was nicknamed le Biffon. Biffon was the male of la Biffe--for nothing is sacred to the swell-mob. These fiends respect nothing, neither the law nor religions, not even natural history, whose solemn nomenclature, it is seen, is parodied by them.
Here a digression is necessary; for Jacques Collin's appearance in the prison-yard in the midst of his foes, as had been so cleverly contrived by Bibi-Lupin and the examining judge, and the strange scenes to ensue, would be incomprehensible and impossible without some explanation as to the world of thieves and of the hulks, its laws, its manners, and above all, its language, its hideous figures of speech being indispensable in this portion of my tale.
So, first of all, a few words must be said as to the vocabulary of sharpers, pickpockets, thieves, and murderers, known as Argot, or thieves' cant, which has of late been introduced into literature with so much success that more than one word of that strange lingo is familiar on the rosy lips of ladies, has been heard in gilded boudoirs, and become the delight of princes, who have often proclaimed themselves "done brown" (floue)! And it must be owned, to the surprise no doubt of many persons, that no language is more vigorous or more vivid than that of this underground world which, from the beginnings of countries with capitals, has dwelt in cellars and slums, in the third limbo of society everywhere (le troisieme dessous, as the expressive and vivid slang of the theatres has it). For is not the world a stage? Le troisieme dessous is the lowest cellar under the stage at the Opera where the machinery is kept and men stay who work it, whence the footlights are raised, the ghosts, the blue-devils shot up from hell, and so forth.
Every word of this language is a bold metaphor, ingenious or horrible. A man's breeches are his kicks or trucks (montante, a word that need not be explained). In this language you do not sleep, you snooze, or doze (pioncer--and note how vigorously expressive the word is of the sleep of the hunted, weary, distrustful animal called a thief, which as soon as it is in safety drops--rolls--into the gulf of deep slumber so necessary under the mighty wings of suspicion always hovering over it; a fearful sleep, like that of a wild beast that can sleep, nay, and snore, and yet its ears are alert with caution).
In this idiom everything is savage. The syllables which begin or end the words are harsh and curiously startling. A woman is a trip or a moll (une largue). And it is poetical too: straw is la plume de Beauce, a farmyard feather bed. The word midnight is paraphrased by twelve leads striking--it makes one shiver! Rincer une cambriole is to "screw the shop," to rifle a room. What a feeble expression is to go to bed in comparison with "to doss" (piausser, make a new skin). What picturesque imagery! Work your dominoes (jouer des dominos) is to eat; how can men eat with the police at their heels?
And this language is always growing; it keeps pace with civilization, and is enriched with some new expression by every fresh invention. The potato, discovered and introduced by Louis XVI. and Parmentier, was at once dubbed in French slang as the pig's orange (Orange a Cochons)[the Irish have called them bog oranges]. Banknotes are invented; the "mob" at once call them Flimsies (fafiots garotes, from "Garot," the name of the cashier whose signature they bear). Flimsy! (fafiot.) Cannot you hear the rustle of the thin paper? The thousand franc-note is male flimsy (in
The other convict, named Riganson, and his kept woman, known as la Biffe, were a most formidable couple, members of the swell-mob. Riganson, on very distant terms with the police from his earliest years, was nicknamed le Biffon. Biffon was the male of la Biffe--for nothing is sacred to the swell-mob. These fiends respect nothing, neither the law nor religions, not even natural history, whose solemn nomenclature, it is seen, is parodied by them.
Here a digression is necessary; for Jacques Collin's appearance in the prison-yard in the midst of his foes, as had been so cleverly contrived by Bibi-Lupin and the examining judge, and the strange scenes to ensue, would be incomprehensible and impossible without some explanation as to the world of thieves and of the hulks, its laws, its manners, and above all, its language, its hideous figures of speech being indispensable in this portion of my tale.
So, first of all, a few words must be said as to the vocabulary of sharpers, pickpockets, thieves, and murderers, known as Argot, or thieves' cant, which has of late been introduced into literature with so much success that more than one word of that strange lingo is familiar on the rosy lips of ladies, has been heard in gilded boudoirs, and become the delight of princes, who have often proclaimed themselves "done brown" (floue)! And it must be owned, to the surprise no doubt of many persons, that no language is more vigorous or more vivid than that of this underground world which, from the beginnings of countries with capitals, has dwelt in cellars and slums, in the third limbo of society everywhere (le troisieme dessous, as the expressive and vivid slang of the theatres has it). For is not the world a stage? Le troisieme dessous is the lowest cellar under the stage at the Opera where the machinery is kept and men stay who work it, whence the footlights are raised, the ghosts, the blue-devils shot up from hell, and so forth.
Every word of this language is a bold metaphor, ingenious or horrible. A man's breeches are his kicks or trucks (montante, a word that need not be explained). In this language you do not sleep, you snooze, or doze (pioncer--and note how vigorously expressive the word is of the sleep of the hunted, weary, distrustful animal called a thief, which as soon as it is in safety drops--rolls--into the gulf of deep slumber so necessary under the mighty wings of suspicion always hovering over it; a fearful sleep, like that of a wild beast that can sleep, nay, and snore, and yet its ears are alert with caution).
In this idiom everything is savage. The syllables which begin or end the words are harsh and curiously startling. A woman is a trip or a moll (une largue). And it is poetical too: straw is la plume de Beauce, a farmyard feather bed. The word midnight is paraphrased by twelve leads striking--it makes one shiver! Rincer une cambriole is to "screw the shop," to rifle a room. What a feeble expression is to go to bed in comparison with "to doss" (piausser, make a new skin). What picturesque imagery! Work your dominoes (jouer des dominos) is to eat; how can men eat with the police at their heels?
And this language is always growing; it keeps pace with civilization, and is enriched with some new expression by every fresh invention. The potato, discovered and introduced by Louis XVI. and Parmentier, was at once dubbed in French slang as the pig's orange (Orange a Cochons)[the Irish have called them bog oranges]. Banknotes are invented; the "mob" at once call them Flimsies (fafiots garotes, from "Garot," the name of the cashier whose signature they bear). Flimsy! (fafiot.) Cannot you hear the rustle of the thin paper? The thousand franc-note is male flimsy (in