Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [84]
for you."
"What good will they do me?" said Europe, letting her arms drop like a woman to whom life seems impossible.
"You could go back to Valenciennes, buy a good business, and set up as an honest woman if you chose; there are many tastes in human nature. Paccard thinks of settling sometimes; he has no encumbrances on his hands, and not much on his conscience; you might suit each other," replied Carlos.
"Go back to Valenciennes! What are you thinking of, monsieur?" cried Europe in alarm.
Europe, who was born at Valenciennes, the child of very poor parents, had been sent at seven years of age to a spinning factory, where the demands of modern industry had impaired her physical strength, just as vice had untimely depraved her. Corrupted at the age of twelve, and a mother at thirteen, she found herself bound to the most degraded of human creatures. On the occasion of a murder case, she had been as a witness before the Court. Haunted at sixteen by a remnant of rectitude, and the terror inspired by the law, her evidence led to the prisoner being sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.
The convict, one of those men who have been in the hands of justice more than once, and whose temper is apt at terrible revenge, had said to the girl in open court:
"In ten years, as sure as you live, Prudence" (Europe's name was Prudence Servien), "I will return to be the death of you, if I am scragged for it."
The President of the Court tried to reassure the girl by promising her the protection and the care of the law; but the poor child was so terror-stricken that she fell ill, and was in hospital nearly a year. Justice is an abstract being, represented by a collection of individuals who are incessantly changing, whose good intentions and memories are, like themselves, liable to many vicissitudes. Courts and tribunals can do nothing to hinder crimes; their business is to deal with them when done. From this point of view, a preventive police would be a boon to a country; but the mere word Police is in these days a bugbear to legislators, who no longer can distinguish between the three words--Government, Administration, and Law-making. The legislator tends to centralize everything in the State, as if the State could act.
The convict would be sure always to remember his victim, and to avenge himself when Justice had ceased to think of either of them.
Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger--in a general sense, so to speak--left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of seventeen to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most successful was that of a "super" at a minor theatre. She was picked up by Paccard, and to him she told her woes. Paccard, Jacques Collin's disciple and right-hand man, spoke of this girl to his master, and when the master needed a slave he said to Prudence:
"If you will serve me as the devil must be served, I will rid you of Durut."
Durut was the convict; the Damocles' sword hung over Prudence Servien's head.
But for these details, many critics would have thought Europe's attachment somewhat grotesque. And no one could have understood the startling announcement that Carlos had ready.
"Yes, my girl, you can go back to Valenciennes. Here, read this."
And he held out to her yesterday's paper, pointing to this paragraph:
"TOULON--Yesterday, Jean Francois Durut was executed here. Early in the morning the garrison," etc.
Prudence dropped the paper; her legs gave way under the weight of her body; she lived again; for, to use her own words, she never liked the taste of her food since the day when Durut had threatened her.
"You see, I have kept my word. It has taken four years to bring Durut to the scaffold by leading him into a snare.--Well, finish my job here, and you will find yourself at the head of a little country business in your native town, with twenty thousand francs of your own as Paccard's wife, and I will allow him to be virtuous as a form of pension."
Europe picked up the paper and read with greedy eyes all the details, of which for twenty
"What good will they do me?" said Europe, letting her arms drop like a woman to whom life seems impossible.
"You could go back to Valenciennes, buy a good business, and set up as an honest woman if you chose; there are many tastes in human nature. Paccard thinks of settling sometimes; he has no encumbrances on his hands, and not much on his conscience; you might suit each other," replied Carlos.
"Go back to Valenciennes! What are you thinking of, monsieur?" cried Europe in alarm.
Europe, who was born at Valenciennes, the child of very poor parents, had been sent at seven years of age to a spinning factory, where the demands of modern industry had impaired her physical strength, just as vice had untimely depraved her. Corrupted at the age of twelve, and a mother at thirteen, she found herself bound to the most degraded of human creatures. On the occasion of a murder case, she had been as a witness before the Court. Haunted at sixteen by a remnant of rectitude, and the terror inspired by the law, her evidence led to the prisoner being sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.
The convict, one of those men who have been in the hands of justice more than once, and whose temper is apt at terrible revenge, had said to the girl in open court:
"In ten years, as sure as you live, Prudence" (Europe's name was Prudence Servien), "I will return to be the death of you, if I am scragged for it."
The President of the Court tried to reassure the girl by promising her the protection and the care of the law; but the poor child was so terror-stricken that she fell ill, and was in hospital nearly a year. Justice is an abstract being, represented by a collection of individuals who are incessantly changing, whose good intentions and memories are, like themselves, liable to many vicissitudes. Courts and tribunals can do nothing to hinder crimes; their business is to deal with them when done. From this point of view, a preventive police would be a boon to a country; but the mere word Police is in these days a bugbear to legislators, who no longer can distinguish between the three words--Government, Administration, and Law-making. The legislator tends to centralize everything in the State, as if the State could act.
The convict would be sure always to remember his victim, and to avenge himself when Justice had ceased to think of either of them.
Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger--in a general sense, so to speak--left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of seventeen to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most successful was that of a "super" at a minor theatre. She was picked up by Paccard, and to him she told her woes. Paccard, Jacques Collin's disciple and right-hand man, spoke of this girl to his master, and when the master needed a slave he said to Prudence:
"If you will serve me as the devil must be served, I will rid you of Durut."
Durut was the convict; the Damocles' sword hung over Prudence Servien's head.
But for these details, many critics would have thought Europe's attachment somewhat grotesque. And no one could have understood the startling announcement that Carlos had ready.
"Yes, my girl, you can go back to Valenciennes. Here, read this."
And he held out to her yesterday's paper, pointing to this paragraph:
"TOULON--Yesterday, Jean Francois Durut was executed here. Early in the morning the garrison," etc.
Prudence dropped the paper; her legs gave way under the weight of her body; she lived again; for, to use her own words, she never liked the taste of her food since the day when Durut had threatened her.
"You see, I have kept my word. It has taken four years to bring Durut to the scaffold by leading him into a snare.--Well, finish my job here, and you will find yourself at the head of a little country business in your native town, with twenty thousand francs of your own as Paccard's wife, and I will allow him to be virtuous as a form of pension."
Europe picked up the paper and read with greedy eyes all the details, of which for twenty