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CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6You may readily imagine, Madame, that one had to be in thefrightful state I indeed was in to accept such a position; not onlywas there infinitely more work to be done than my strengthpermitted me to undertake, but should I be able to live upon whatwas offered me? However, I was careful to raise no difficulties andwas installed that same evening. Were my cruel situation to permitme to amuse you for an instant, Madame, when I must think ofnothing but gaining your compassion, I should dare describe some ofthe symptoms or avarice I witnessed while in that house; but acatastrophe so terrible for me was awaiting me during my secondyear there that it is by no means easy to linger over entertainingdetails before making you acquainted with my miseries.

Nevertheless, you will know, Madame, that, for light in Monsieurdu Harpin's apartment, there was never any but what he got from thestreet lamp which, happily, was placed opposite his room; never didMonsieur or Madame use linen; what I washed was hoarded away, itwas never touched; on the sleeves of Monsieur's coat, as well asupon Madame's dress, were old gauntlet cuffs sewn over thematerial, and these I removed and washed every Saturday evening; nosheets; no towels, and that to avoid laundry expenses. Never waswine drunk in her house, clear water being, declared Madame duHarpin, the natural drink of man, the healthiest and leastdangerous. Every time bread was sliced, a basket was put beneaththe knife so that whatever fell would not be lost; into thiscontainer went, also, and with exactitude all the scraps andleavings that might survive the meal, and this compound, fried upon Sunday together with a little butter, made a banquet for the dayof rest; never was one to beat clothing or too energetically dustthe furniture for fear of wearing it out, instead, very cautiously,one tickled about with a feather. Monsieur's shoes, and Madame's aswell, were double-soled with iron, they were the same shoes thathad served them on their wedding day; but a much more unusualcustom was the one they had me practice once a week: there was inthe apartment a rather large room whose walls were not papered; Iwas expected to take a knife and scrape and shave away acertain

quantity of plaster, and this I next passed through a finesieve; what resulted from this operation became the powderwherewith every morning I sprinkled Monsieur's peruke and Madame'shair, done up in a bun.

Ah! wouldst to God those had been the only turpitudes of whichthis evil pair had made habits! Nothing's more normal than thedesire to conserve one's property; but what is not normal is thedesire to augment it by the accession of the property of others.And it was not long before I perceived that it was only thus duHarpin acquired his wealth. Above us there lodged a solitaryindividual of considerable means who was the owner of some handsomejewels, and whose belongings, whether because of their proximity orbecause they had passed through my master's hands, were very wellknown to him; I often heard him express regrets to his wife overthe loss of a certain gold box worth fifty or sixty louis, whicharticle would infallibly have remained his, said he, had heproceeded with greater cleverness. In order to console himself forthe sale of the said box, the good Monsieur du Harpin projected itstheft, and it was to me he entrusted the execution of his plan.

After having delivered a long speech upon the indifference ofrobbery, upon, indeed, its usefulness in the world, since itmaintains a sort of equilibrium which totally confounds theinequality of property; upon the infrequence of punishment, sinceout of every twenty thieves it could be proven that not above twodies on the gallows; after having demonstrated to me, with anerudition of which I had not dreamt Monsieur du Harpin capable,that theft was honored throughout Greece, that several races yetacknowledge it, favor it, and reward it for a bold deedsimultaneously giving proof of courage and skill (two virtuesindispensable to a warlike nation), after having, in a word,exalted his personal influence which would extricate me from allembarrassments in the event I should be detected, Monsieur duHarpin tendered me two lock picks, one to open the neighbor's frontdoor, the other his secretary within which lay the box in question;incessantly he enjoined me to get him this box and, in return forso important a service, I could expect, for two years, to receivean additional crown.

"Oh Monsieur!" I exclaimed, shuddering at his proposal, "is itpossible a master dare thus corrupt his domestic ! What prevents mefrom turning against you the weapons you put into my hands? DuHarpin, much confused, fell back on a lame subterfuge; what he wasdoing, said he, was being done with the simple intention of testingme; how fortunate that I had resisted this temptation, he added...how I should have been doomed had I succumbed, etc. I scoffed atthis lie; but I was soon enough aware of what a mistake it had beento answer him with such asperity:

malefactors do not like to find resistance in those they seek toseduce; unfortunately, there is no middle ground or median attitudewhen one is so unlucky as to have been approached by them: one mustnecessarily thereupon become either their accomplices, which isexceedingly dangerous, or their enemies, which is even more so.

Had I been a little experienced, I would have quit the houseforthwith, but it was already written in Heaven that every one ofthe honest gestures that was to emanate from me would be answeredby misfortunes. Monsieur Du Harpin let more than a month drift by,that is to say, he waited until the end of my second year with him,and waited without showing the least hint of resentment at therefusal I had given him, when one evening, having just retired tomy room to taste a few hours of repose, I suddenly heard my doorburst opens and there, not without terror, I saw Monsieur du Harpinand four soldiers of the watch standing by my bed. "Perform yourduty, Sirrah," said he to the men of the law, "this wretch hasstolen from me a diamond worth a thousand crowns, you will find itin her chamber or upon her person, the fact is certain." "I haverobbed you, Monsieur!" said I, sore troubled and springing from mybed, "I! Great Heaven! Who knows better than you the contrary to betrue! Who should be more deeply aware than you to what point Iloathe robbery and to what degree it is unthinkable I could havecommitted it." But du Harpin made a great uproar to drown out mywords; he continued to order perquisitions, and the miserable ringwas discovered in my mattress. To evidence of this strength therewas nothing to reply; I was seized instantly, pinioned, and led toprison without being able to prevail upon the authorities to listento one word in my favor. The trial of an unfortunate creature whohas neither influence nor protection is conducted with dispatch ina land where virtue is thought incompatible with misery, wherepoverty is enough to convict the accused; there, an unjustprepossession causes it to be supposed that he who ought to havecommitted a crime did indeed commit it; sentiments are proportionedaccording to the guilty one's estate; and when once gold or titlesare wanting to establish his innocence, the impossibility that hebe innocent then appears self-evident. ( o ages yet to come ! Youshall no longer be witness to these horrors and infamiesabounding!) I defended myself, it did no good, in vain I furnishedthe best material to the lawyer whom a protocol of form required begiven me for an instant or two; my employer accused me, the diamondhad been discovered in my room; it was plain I had stolen it.

When I wished to describe Monsieur du Harpin's awful traffic andprove that the misfortune that had struck me was naught but thefruit of his vengeance and the consequence of his eagerness to berid of a creature who, through possession of his secret, had becomehis master, these pleadings were interpreted as so manyrecriminations, and I was informed that for twenty years Monsieurdu Harpin had been known as a man of integrity, incapable of such ahorror. I was transferred to the Conciergerie, where I saw myselfupon the brink of having to pay with my life for having refused toparticipate in a crime; I was shortly to perish; only a new misdeedcould save me: Providence willed that Crime serve at least once asan aegis unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abysswhich is some-day going to engulf judges together with theirimbecility. I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, ascelebrated for her beauty as for the variety and number of hervillainies; she was called Dubois and, like the unlucky Therese,was on the eve of paying the capital penalty, but as to the exactform of it the judges were yet mightily perplexed: having renderedherself guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselvesvirtually obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose herto one whence we ordinarily exempt our s*x.

This woman had become interested in me, criminally interestedwithout doubt, since the basis of her feelings, as I learnedafterward, was her extreme desire to make a proselyte of me. Onlytwo days from the time set for our execution, Dubois came to me; itwas at night. She told me not to lie down to sleep, but to staynear her side. Without attracting attention, we moved as close aswe could to the prison door. "Between seven and eight," she said,"the Conciergerie will catch fire, I have seen to it; no questionabout it, many people will be burned; it doesn't matter, Therese,"the evil creature went on, "the fate of others must always be asnothing to us when our own lives are at stake; well, we are goingto escape here, of that you can be sure; four men Ä myconfederates Ä will join us and I guarantee you we will befree." I have told you, Madame, that the hand of God which had justpunished my innocence, employed crime to protect me; the firebegan, it spread, the blaze was horrible, twenty-one persons wereconsumed, but we made a successful sally. The same day we reachedthe cottage of a poacher, an intimate friend of our band who dweltin the forest of Bondy. "There you are, Therese," Dubois says tome, "free. You may now choose the kind of life you wish, but were Ito have any advice to give you, it would be to renounce thepractice of virtue which, as you have noticed, is the courting ofdisaster; a misplaced delicacy led you to the foot of the scaffold,an appalling crime rescued you from it; have a look about and seehow useful are good deeds in this world, and whether it is reallyworth the trouble immolating yourself for them.

Therese, you are young and attractive, heed me, and in two yearsI'll have led you to a fortune; but don't suppose I am going toguide you there along the paths of virtue: when one wants to geton, my dear girl, one must stop at nothing; decide, then, we haveno security in this cottage, we've got to leave in a fewhours."

"Oh Madame," I said to my benefactress, "I am greatly indebtedto you, and am far from wishing to disown my obligations; you savedmy life; in my view, 'tis frightful the thing was achieved througha crime and, believe me, had I been the one charged to commit it, Ishould have preferred a thousand deaths to the anguish ofparticipating in it; I am aware of all the dangers I risk intrusting myself to the honest sentiments which will always remainin my heart; but whatever be the thorns of virtue, Madame, I preferthem unhesitatingly and always to the perilous favors which arecrime's accompaniment. There are religious principles within mewhich, may it please Heaven, will never desert me; if

Providence renders difficult my career in life, 'tis in order tocompensate me in a better world. That hope is my consolation, itsweetens my griefs, it soothes me in my sufferings, it fortifies mein distress, and causes me confidently to face all the ills itpleases God to visit upon me. That joy should straightway beextinguished in my soul were I perchance to besmirch it with crime,and together with the fear of chastisements in this world I shouldhave the painful anticipation of torments in the next, which wouldnot for one instant procure me the tranquillity I thirstafter."

"Those are absurd doctrines which will have you on the dung heapin no time, my girl," said Dubois with a frown; "believe me: forgetGod's justice, His future punishments and rewards, the lot of thoseplatitudes lead us nowhere but to death from starvation. O Therese,the callousness of the Rich legitimates the bad conduct of thePoor; let them open their purse to our needs, let humaneness reignin their hearts and virtues will take root in ours; but as long asour misfortune, our patient endurance of it, our good faith, ourabjection only serves to double the weight of our chains, ourcrimes will be their doing, and we will be fools indeed to abstainfrom them when they can lessen the yoke wherewith their crueltybears us down. Nature has caused us all to be equals born, Therese;if fate is pleased to upset the primary scheme of the general law,it is up to us to correct its caprices and through our skill torepair the usurpations of the strongest. I love to hear these richones, these titled ones, these magistrates and these priests, Ilove to see them preach virtue to us. It is not very difficult toforswear theft when one has three or four times what one needs tolive; it is not very necessary to plot murder when one issurrounded by nothing but adulators and thralls unto whom one'swill is law; nor is it very hard to be temperate and sober when onehas the most succulent dainties constantly within one's reach; theycan well contrive to be sincere when there is never any apparentadvantage in falsehood...

But we, Therese, we whom the barbaric Providence you are madenough to idolize, has condemned to slink in the dust ofhumiliation as doth the serpent in grass, we who are beheld withdisdain only because we are poor, who are tyrannized because we areweak; we, who must quench our thirst with gall and who, wherever wego, tread on the thistle always, you would have us shun crime whenits hand alone opens up unto us the door to life, maintains us init, and is our only protection when our life is threatened; youwould have it that, degraded and in perpetual abjection, while thisclass dominating us has to itself all the blessings of fortune, wereserve for ourselves naught but pain, beatings, suffering, nothingbut want and tears, brandings and the gibbet. No, no, Therese, no;either this Providence you reverence is made only for our scorn, orthe world we see about us is not at all what Providence would haveit. Become better acquainted with your Providence, my child, and beconvinced that as soon as it places us in a situation where evilbecomes necessary, and while at the same time it leaves us thepossibility of doing it, this evil harmonizes quite as well withits decrees as does good, and Providence gains as much by the oneas by the other; the state in which she has created us is equality:he who disturbs is no more guilty than he who seeks to re-establishthe balance; both act in accordance with received impulses, bothhave to obey those impulses and enjoy them."