‘But what kind of a man are you?’ cried Eugène. ‘Were you put on earth to torment me?’
‘Certainly not. I’m a decent chap who’s prepared to get his hands dirty so you can steer clear of the mud for the rest of your days. You’re asking yourself: why such devotion? Well, I’ll tell you one day, whisper it softly in your ear. You were shocked at first when I showed you the workings of the machine and the way society rings the changes; but your initial fear will pass, as it does for any conscript on the battlefield, and you’ll soon come round to the idea that men are soldiers resolved to die in the service of those who crown themselves kings.160 How times have changed, indeed they have! Time was you could say to a cut-throat: “Here’s a hundred écus; go and kill Mister So-and-so for me,” then calmly carry on with your supper, consigning a man to oblivion at the drop of a hat. Today I’m offering you a fine fortune in return for a nod of the head which will leave your reputation intact, and you’re hesitating. We live in a spineless century.’
Eugène signed the bill and handed it to Vautrin in exchange for the banknotes.
‘That’s more like it. Now, let’s talk sensibly,’ Vautrin continued. ‘I intend to leave for America in a few months’ time, to plant my tobacco. I’ll send you some cigars as a sign of our friendship. If I become rich, I’ll help you. If I don’t have any children (as is most likely, I’ve no interest in making cuttings of myself to be replanted), then I’ll leave you my fortune. Is that
the behaviour of a friend? Why, it’s love I feel for you. Besides, I have a passion for sacrificing myself for others; I’ve done it before. You see, my boy, I live life on a higher plane than other men. For me, all actions are means and I always keep the end in sight. What’s a man to me? That!’ he said, flicking his teeth with his thumbnail. ‘A man is all or nothing. He’s less than nothing if he’s called Poiret: you can squash him like a bug; he’s flat and he’s foul. A man such as yourself, however, is a god, not just some machine clad in flesh, but a theatre in which the finest feelings are played out – and I live for feelings alone. What is a feeling but the whole world in one thought? Look at old man Goriot: his two daughters are his entire universe, they are the thread which guides him through the labyrinth of creation. Well, for a man like myself who has delved deep into life, there is only one true feeling and that is the friendship that exists between two men. Pierre and Jaffier, there’s my passion. I know Venice Preserv’d161 off by heart. How many men have you seen who, when a comrade says “Let’s go and bury a corpse!”, have the guts to get on with the job without saying a word or moralizing? Well, I’ve done that. I wouldn’t talk this way to everyone, but you’re a superior kind of man; I could say anything to you and you’d know what I meant. You won’t be floundering around for much longer in this bog, surrounded by all these squat little toads who call it home. Well, I’ve said all I wanted to say. You’re to be married. Let each of us press our points! Mine is made of steel and never droops, ha ha!’
Vautrin went out before the student could object, to let him off the hook. He seemed to know the secret of last-ditch resistance, the battles men stage for their own benefit and which they use to justify their wrongful deeds.
‘Let him do as he likes; I certainly won’t be marrying Mademoiselle Taillefer!’ Eugène said to himself.
Rastignac’s mind became feverish at the thought of making a pact with this man he abhorred but who was growing in stature in his eyes, due to the very cynicism of his ideas and his audacious stranglehold on society. He dressed, called for a cab and drove to Madame de Restaud’s house. Over the past few days, she had shown more and more interest in this young man, whose every step brought him closer to the heart of fashionable society and who would one day surely be a force to be reckoned with. He settled up with Messieurs les Marquis de Trailles and d’Ajuda, played whist for part of the night and won back what he had lost. Being superstitious, like most men who have yet to make their way and who are more or less fatalistic, he chose to see his good fortune as a divine reward for keeping to the straight and narrow. The next morning, he hurried to find Vautrin to ask if he still had his bill of exchange. On hearing that he did, he returned the three thousand francs to him, unable to disguise his pleasure.
‘Things are coming along nicely,’ said Vautrin.
‘But I’m not your accomplice,’ said Eugène.
‘I know, I know,’ replied Vautrin, interrupting him. ‘You’re still behaving like a child. You can’t see past the fancy knockers on the doors.’
IV
CAT-O’-NINE-LIVES
Two days later, Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonneau found themselves sitting on a bench in the sun, on a secluded path in the Jardin des Plantes, talking to the gentleman whom, with some justification, the medical student had found suspicious.
‘Mademoiselle,’ Monsieur Gondureau was saying; ‘I see no reason for you to have any qualms. His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of the realm of France …’
‘Ah! His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of the realm of France …’ repeated Poiret.
‘Yes, His Excellency is handling this affair himself,’ said Gondureau.
It might seem improbable that Poiret, retired clerk, doubtless a man of sound middle-class values, although of limited initiative, should continue to listen to a self-styled man of private means living in the Rue de Buffon, once he had blown his cover by pronouncing the word ‘police’ and revealing the face of an operative from the Rue de Jérusalem162 under his mask of respectability. Yet nothing was more natural. Once we have shared a few comments made by certain observers, which have remained unpublished until now, we may gain a better understanding of the particular species to which Poiret belonged in the larger class of fools. His is the race of pen-pushers, who live crowded together on a budget ranging from the first degree of latitude – where wages of twelve hundred francs are found, a kind of administrative Greenland – to the third degree, where warmer wages of three to six thousand francs start to appear; a temperate region, one in which the bonus, although difficult to cultivate, may acclimatize and flourish. One of the characteristic features of this lesser breed, and one which best represents its unhealthy narrowness, is a sort of involuntary, mechanical, instinctive respect for that Grand Lama of any ministry, known to the clerk only as an illegible signature and the title HIS EXCELLENCY MONSEIGNEUR THE MINISTER, five words worth the Il Bondo Cani of the Caliph of Baghdad,163 and which, in the eyes of this grovelling people, are imbued with a sacred, irrevocable power. Like the Pope for a Christian, Monseigneur is administratively infallible in the eyes of the clerk; his every deed, his every word, not to mention every word spoken in his name, drips with splendour; his name embroiders everything and legalizes whatever deed he orders done; his title ‘Excellency’, which testifies to the purity of his intentions and the sanctity of his desires, serves as a passport for the least admissible ideas. Whatever deed these poor people would never perform in their own interest, they rush to carry out as soon as the words ‘His Excellency’ are pronounced. The bureaucratic system has its own kind of passive obedience, just as the army does: a system which numbs a conscience, annihilates a human being and ends up fixing him like a screw or a cog in the machine of government. So it was that Monsieur Gondureau, who seemed to know a thing or two about the human race, soon identified Poiret as one of these bureaucratic fools and trotted out the deus ex machina, the magic words ‘His Excellency’. He did so at the point when, having unmasked his guns, he needed to dazzle Poiret, who struck him as being the male version of Michonneau, as Michonneau was the female version of Poiret.
‘His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister, in person, you say … ! Well! That changes everything,’ said Poiret.
‘You can hear what this gentleman is saying and you appear to have faith in his judgement,’ continued the bogus man of private means, addressing Mademoiselle Michonneau. ‘Well, His Excellency is now absolutely certain that the man who goes by the name of Vautrin, an
d lodges at the Maison Vauquer, is an escaped convict from the penal colony in Toulon,164 where he was known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives.’
‘Ah! Cat-o’-Nine-Lives! He must be a lucky man if he has earned that title.’
‘Yes indeed,’ continued the operative. ‘The nickname comes from his knack of escaping with his life every time he pulls off some incredible exploit. He’s a dangerous man, you understand! He has certain qualities which make him extraordinary. Even his conviction earned him infinite respect from his associates …’
‘So he’s a man of honour?’ asked Poiret.
‘In his own way. He took the rap for another man’s crime, a forgery committed by an extremely handsome young man he was fond of, a young Italian with a penchant for gambling, who has since enlisted in military service, where, as it happens, he hasn’t put a foot wrong.’
‘But if H.E. the Minister of Police is so sure that Monsieur Vautrin is this Cat-o’-Nine-Lives of yours, why does he need me?’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau.
‘Well! Yes, indeed,’ said Poiret, ‘if the minister, as you have done us the honour of telling us, is at all sure …’
‘I wouldn’t say he was sure; he has a hunch. You’ll soon understand the challenge we face. Jacques Collin, nicknamed Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, enjoys the trust of the convicts of the three penal colonies, who have chosen him to be their agent and banker. He earns a lot by taking on this kind of business, which necessarily requires a man of mark.’
‘A-ha! Did you follow the pun, Mademoiselle?’ said Poiret. ‘Monsieur calls him a man of mark, because he is a marked man.’
‘The fake Vautrin’, continued the operative, ‘receives capital from the convicts, invests it, keeps it safe for them and makes it available to those who escape, or to their families, to whom they bequeath it in their wills, or to their mistresses, to whom they give bills drawn upon him.’
‘Their mistresses! You mean their wives,’ remarked Poiret.
‘No, Monsieur. Convicts generally only have illegal wives, that we call “concubines”.’
‘You mean they all live in a state of concubinage?’
‘As you might expect.’
‘Well,’ said Poiret, ‘if I were Monseigneur, I wouldn’t put up with such things. Since you have the honour of seeing His Excellency, and as you appear to be of a philanthropic bent, it’s
your duty to bring to his attention the immoral conduct of these people who set an extremely bad example to the rest of society.’
‘But Monsieur, the government is hardly holding them up to be models of all the virtues.’
‘True, true. However, Monsieur, if you’ll allow me to …’
‘Now, now, let the gentleman finish what he was saying, dearest,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau.
‘I’m sure you understand, Mademoiselle,’ continued Gondureau. ‘It might be very much in the government’s interest to seize this illicit fund, said to have swelled to a considerable amount. Cat-o’-Nine-Lives has amassed vast sums of money by not only holding capital belonging to various of his associates, but also that which comes from the Ten Thousand Club …’
‘Ten thousand thieves!’ cried Poiret, alarmed.
‘No, the Ten Thousand Club is a band of top thieves, men who work on the grand scale and never take on a job unless they stand to gain at least ten thousand francs. The members of this club are our highest class of customer – those whose cases go straight to the Assize Court.165 They know the law and never risk being sentenced to death when they’re caught. Collin is their man of confidence, their representative. Thanks to his huge resources, the man has been able to create his own intelligence corps, a vast network of contacts shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. We’ve had him surrounded with spies for a year now, but still haven’t managed to see his hand. His coffers and his talents are therefore constantly in use, making vice pay, funding crime and maintaining an army of scoundrels who wage perpetual war against society. If we could only get our hands on Cat-o’-Nine-Lives and confiscate his bank, we would strike at the root of evil. Which is why the highest-ranking State officials have a stake in this affair, one likely to bring honour to those who contibute to its success. You, Monsieur, might enter the civil service again, becoming secretary to a Police Superintendent, a position which shouldn’t prevent you from drawing your pension.’
‘But’, said Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘why doesn’t Cat-o’-Nine-Lives just make off with the cash?’
‘Well, if he stole from the penal colony,’ said the operative, ‘wherever he went, he’d be followed by a man whose job it was to kill him. And then, you can’t run off with a stash of money as easily as you can with a young lady from a good family. In any case, Collin isn’t the type to play that kind of trick; he would feel it brought him into disrepute.’
‘Monsieur,’ said Poiret, ‘you’re right: it would indeed bring him into disrepute.’
‘None of that tells us why you can’t just turn up and clap him in irons,’ remarked Mademoiselle Michonneau.
‘Well, Mademoiselle, I’ll tell you … But’, he said in her ear, ‘stop your man interrupting me or we’ll be here all day. He’s lucky anyone will listen to him, the old duffer. Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, on arriving here, slipped into the skin of an honest man, made himself an upright citizen of Paris, took lodgings in an obscure boarding house; he’s a man of cunning all right – we’ll never catch him without camouflage. So you see, Monsieur Vautrin is a highly regarded man, involved in affairs of high regard.’
‘Of course,’ Poiret said to himself.
‘Should a bona fide Monsieur Vautrin be arrested by accident, the Minister would rather not have all the businessmen in Paris on his back, never mind public opinion. Things are a little shaky for the Chief of Police, he has enemies. If a mistake were made, his rivals would make the most of all the liberal yapping and grousing to have him kicked out. We need to proceed here as we did in the Coignard Affair,166 with that fellow who passed himself off as the Comte de Sainte-Hélène; if he’d turned out to be the real Comte de Sainte-Hélène, we’d have been in a fine mess. So we need to check that this is our man!’
‘Yes, and so you need a pretty woman for that,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau swiftly.
‘Cat-o’-Nine-Lives wouldn’t let a woman anywhere near him,’ said the operative. ‘I’ll tell you a secret: he doesn’t like women.’
‘Well in that case, I can’t see how I’d be able to carry out this check of yours, assuming of course that I agreed to do so, for two thousand francs.’
‘Nothing could be easier,’ said the stranger; ‘I’m going to give you a bottle containing one dose of a preparation which makes the blood rush to the brain, simulating an apoplectic fit, but without the slightest risk. The drug can be mixed with wine or with coffee. Have your man carried to bed immediately and undress him to make sure he’s not dying. As soon as you’re on your own, slap him on the shoulder – wham! – and the brand will reappear.’
‘Why, nothing could be simpler,’ said Poiret.
‘So, will you do it?’ Gondureau said to the spinster.
‘But, dear Monsieur,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘if there is no brand, will I still get my two thousand francs?’
‘No.’
‘So what would I be paid?’
‘Five hundred francs.’
‘So little to do a thing like that. My conscience will prick me equally whatever the outcome and I must appease my conscience, Monsieur.’
‘I can confirm’, said Poiret, ‘that Mademoiselle is endowed with a sizeable conscience, as well as being a very kind person, and an accomplished one.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ continued Mademoiselle Michonneau: ‘give me three thousand francs if he’s Cat-o’-Nine-Lives and nothing if he’s a respectable citizen.’
‘Done,’ said Gondureau, ‘as long as you finish the job tomorrow.’
‘Not that soon, dear Monsieur; I need to see my confessor.’
‘You’re a wily bird!’ said the
operative as he stood up. ‘Until tomorrow then. And if you need to speak to me urgently, come to the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne, at the far end of the Cour de la Sainte-Chapelle. There’s only one door beneath the arch. Ask for Monsieur Gondureau.’