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I quickly stepped away from the little window from whence I had watched the ill treatment of the maid. I walked through the park that surround the house, not knowing where I was going. My eyes could not see; my hands could not feel; my legs trembled, and I often stumbled, as I waded through the grass.
Finally, I sat on the grass, and I began to cry. How that scene had vexed me!
I was much disturbed by all that I had seen: that young woman, who I imagined to be utterly poor and scared of what might happen to her should she lose her employment with Mr LeClair, had allowed those men to use her like the most wretched and hopeless prostitute. She had made herself into their little toy, and, while the women who walk the boulevards at night might seek protection from the rough advances of an inebriated client by calling their pimp who’s eating his soup at a nearby bistro, the maid had no hope of escaping the attention of her employer and his men.
But, and this saddened me even more, towards the end of the punishment that had been administered to her, she had begun to enjoy that treatment. I had heard her beg for more. Let those men inflict more pain into her, let them fill her further, pump her harder! Let their hands hit with more strength! Her little pie had been pierced and split open by the men’s utensils until it spilled its content. I saw that thick bush of unruly fur, that the little peasant had not yet learnt the art of trimming, drench with her sweat and her juice, mixed with the men’s semen.
How quickly she had learned the art of enjoying one’s lot, no matter how hard and unjust!
Those men had become hard watching the trembling girl; they had stuck their dicks inside a fearful lamb, but they had finished by coming inside a wellused whore.
Soon, the young maid would learn to enjoy the company of the men, to drink with them, talk like them. She will learn their taste and make it her own. She would say things like:
‘You like how my little holes feel around your big dick! Aren’t I luck that my parents birthed such a slut? I just can’t get enough: keep going!’
I could see how that innocent young girl would soon turn into another odious woman, like the cook who nobody dares to touch any longer, but who, like an old dog, cannot shake those habits she had learnt in the house. She will enjoy the sight of new girls being scared to death and used for all they had to give. She will become worse than those men because, while such knaves have something to gain from a woman, a woman should at least be bound to another woman by that sisterly bond that exists between victims of the same injustice.
I then felt pity for my own mother… Was she any different from the maid? She had told me so herself: do what you have to do; debase yourself, if this will keep you safe, and learn to find pleasure wherever you can. That was the maxim of the penniless woman who has only her body to offer in exchange for a roof over her head.
I knew how desperate she had been to find someone to offer her some protection, how she had visited the houses of the most depraved men in the city and accepted whatever treatment they had wished to impart on her, no matter how unnatural and humiliating, in the hope that this might gain her the dubious honour of becoming their mistress.
The only difference between that maid and my mother was that my mother had once been rich. Somehow, this meant that she could not be roughed around my every man that lived in our house but was the exclusive property of Mr LeClair. Could such tenuous difference last?
But I was now determined to reveal to her all that I had seen. It didn’t matter if that meant leaving the security that Mr LeClair offered: I was sure that, no matter my mother’s fear for the future, she had some moral feelings and would be incensed by that man’s behaviour. Yes, I would tell her as soon as she came home: that was my resolution. There was still hope: she was still beautiful. Furthermore, she still possessed that apartment in town and, I quickly calculated, some money to last her a few more months. We would pack that very night and return to our previous abode. I would look for employment in some shop, make ends meet, until my mother could find us a more suitable position.
This thought filled me with new energy, and I wiped my tears, now determined to escape that house.
I was then startled from these thoughts from the arrival of Grin. I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t perceived his arrival. He seemed to appear out of thin air.
‘Don’t leave on my account,’ he said. ‘I wanted to speak to you, Eloise.’
I knew at once that his master had sent him here to convince me not to tell my mother what I had seen.
‘I do not wish to listen,’ I said.
I had made my mind to leave that house as soon as practical and felt no interest in what this man I so despised had to tell me.
Grin still sat beside me, leering at me in his usual manner, with less contrition than I expected.
‘I wish to be your friend,’ he began.
I scoffed. My friend, indeed!
Ignoring the scorn that was on my face, he continued:
‘My friends and I are not as refined as you might be. We never had the comfort of a good home, and we learned our manners from the street.’
I laughed at these words, signalling that that excuse was a poor one and I wished not to hear another word from him, but he kept talking:
‘My friends and I were some of those street urchins with a thousand fathers you see in every street of France. The women that had birthed us laundresses, cleaners, shop assistants were no mothers to us, often drunk or too busy getting broken by work to look after us. Because their work was so poorly paid, they often sought an extra coin by spreading their legs for the men of the neighbourhood, thus giving us more brothers and sisters to run around with.
‘We grew up together, those kids and I, children of the same undistinguishable mother and a thousand faceless fathers. We looked at those excellent parents and learned to regard work as a useless enterprise that barely keeps you alive so that you have enough strength to return the next day. So, we stole, and we bartered, and we swindled. In a word, the World taught us that in your pocket you will only have what you can take by force, and we wanted to have our pockets full. So, we took!
‘We stole apples from the vendors’ carts, scraps of metal from the blacksmith’s yard, leather hinds from the tanner. The unattended merchandise was quickly sold for a small profit to sustain us until the morrow.
‘Those who got caught copped a beating. Some were sent to the workhouse. But, as soon as we were able to extend our fingers once again, we used them: we picked, and we robbed.
‘What else could we do?
‘Yes,’ Grin added, ‘Auguste was one of us.
‘Now you see him with an important name that everybody knows, living in a big house, with servants at his command, and plenty of money to spend. But he was born just another bastard. He and I have the same lineage. In fact, I have slept with his own mother for a little fee, and he probably has slept with mine. You can see, we are each other’s brother and each other’s father.
‘Outwardly, as a I said, Auguste wasn’t much different from the rest of us: just another abandoned child, dirty and hungry, headed for an early grave. But, to those who knew him well, it was obvious he was different. The Heavens had made him out of different clay: he was smarter that me, or any other kid in our gang. But that’s nothing: there’s a million smart people out there. What was different is that he had ambition. That had been beaten out of all of us.
‘He always saw himself as different, and often claimed that there was no reason why he should not ride in a carriage, like the wealthy men who passed through our neighbourhood, the curtains half drawn not to see the filth we lived in. Why couldn’t he aspire to living in a big house, with servants, and fine foods served three times a day? Why should he content himself with a stolen morsel? He often said that one day he would be the richest man in town!
‘How we laughed when he said these things, that seemed impossible to anyone who lived in our part of town, but he was dead serious. Being born in abject poverty, without any education or connection, didn’t seem to be an obstacle for him.
‘With the profits of his little commerce, instead of a drink of alcohol or a night with a whore, Auguste often bought clothes and books. When he was old enough, he began searching for employment. He avoided the factories or the small warehouses. He would not be one of those poor men, constantly hungry and enslaved to a meagre wage, that you see march to work at the crack of dawn.
‘Instead, he knocked at the door of lawyers’ offices and trading houses.
‘Auguste knew how to comport himself, in the imitation of a wealthy gentleman: he dressed elegantly, and he spoke in a calm manner, avoiding slang words. He could also be servile as he waited for his opportunity. He could be of service; he offered no threat. Eventually, he found employment, working alongside many other young men calculating debts and credits on a ledger.
‘Every morning, he would be the first to arrive, and every night he would be the last to leave. His determination never wavered: he wanted to impress him employers, but, more than anything, he wanted to learn how to make money. He studied the ledgers, looked for little mistakes, analysed the reasons behind each transaction. What was the secret that made rich men richer? He educated himself, as best as he could, and, perhaps, had he continued on this path, he would be the head of that department by now.’
Grin laughed:
‘I have no illusion that such hard work would make anyone truly rich, but that was Auguste’s illusion at the time. Let me tell you what did it for your mother’s lover.
‘By working in this office, Auguste came to know his employer’s daughter. Her name was Delphine. He was a wealthy man, and she was the man’s only daughter. I won’t deny that she was beautiful, and I wonder if, at the beginning, Auguste’s interest for this girl was genuine, or if he hoped that, by marrying the sole heir to her father’s fortune, he could quickly get the wealth he aspired to.
‘I don’t know how he first met her, if he sought her out, or if their encounter was an accident. But, within a year, he was often accompanying her out on her errands. He waited for her at the gate of her home. He would bring small treats, as his pay allowed.
‘Auguste was pleasing to the eye and always very elegant. I am sure the girl was intrigued, but she never gave herself to him. Instead, she strung him along, maybe enjoying the sight of this young man, so much her inferior, debasing himself further for her.
‘One day, Auguste met me and some of the men in our gang. “I’ve had enough of this shit,” he said. “How can anyone be expected to make it in this world through honest work?’
‘I had always believed that theft was the best investment of one’s talent, and I said so: “You put in very little and take out many times over your principal capital.”
‘Auguste laughed bitterly: “Good investment indeed! A sausage one day, a sentencing hearing the next. Eventually, someone will crack your head open for that sausage, and it’s goodbye Grin.”
‘He appeared quite dispirited, and I asked him the cause.
‘Auguste told me he had been fired. Delphine’s father had discovered how this young nobody in his employment was courting his daughter.
‘ “I tried to reason with him, but he said I was lucky he was not going to call the guards on me… But I am now more determined than ever to make it and to show the old goat what I am made of. I have decided to enlist.”
‘At first, I laughed at this suggestion. Joining the army didn’t seem the life for me.
‘Auguste said it didn’t matter: “Come out with me tonight. I’ll offer you a drink, so that we can say goodbye. You’ll see: a year from now, I’ll return a rich man.”
‘August, some of our friends, and I drank all night. He told us about the fortune he would make, how he would be able to rise through the ranks in the army, how he would return to this city where everyone was hungry and without hope as a rich man, and he was so full of enthusiasm and spoke so well that by morning, all very drunk, we all believed that he had found a way to leave our poverty behind us.
‘So, in the morning, stinking of alcohol, we presented ourselves at the doors of the barracks ready to sign our names into that book of theirs.
‘They gave us a uniform, and, within a month, they sent us to Northern Italy. Ours was a happy company: we were all old friends, just as desperate as each other and, therefore, happy to face the same destiny.
‘We marched through small villages, across mountains, and through muddy valleys, under the most inclement weather, following a man we called Captain Rifle. He was a big man. Tall, with a large moustache that always ruminated some secret care. He was named Captain Rifle for he was always the first to shoot and didn’t always wait for battle to do so. If he felt hungry, he would shoot sheep. Sometimes, he shot the farmer who resented the appropriation of his animal too.
‘This was not our captain’s first time at war. This was his career, and, like all career men, he knew the tricks of the trade. He knew that, by wearing a uniform, he was entitled to special treatment.
‘ “Let’s take that farm and keep warm for the night,” he would say. Then, rifle in hand, he would barge into the little house and demand what he willed. “Wine for the men! Where are the women?”
‘That’s where we picked up some of the habits you just saw, Eloise. The captain would tell the men to take the girls they liked, if there were any, and to take them into the next room. “Do what you want with them: you’re with the army!”
‘We would take our turn, one after the other, with these women. We learned not to discriminate: fat, think, young, old. They would all do. We didn’t even consider whether these were allies or enemies… This was the war that Captain Rifle led us into.
‘With a gun to their heads, all women become very compliant, and every man could indulge his fantasies. But nothing was as terrible as what the captain would do to the women.
‘We often heard the crying of the women, their protestation, from the other room, as each one of the men did what they wanted with them. Then, always last, Captain Rifle would walk into the room, close the door, and soon every sound would halt from the other room.
‘Yes, we were a plague sent from Hell… But not Auguste. He had no interest in women and wine. He didn’t even care for food and a warm bed to sleep in. He had come into war to seek fortune, but how could he?
‘As the men ate and took the women, Captain Rifle walked through the house, looking for whatever valuables might be therein. He knew all the places where these people hid their money: the bucket in the well, the freshly dug up earth under a tree, the loose floorboard.
‘Auguste would look at him as he went. He would count the coins that entered his pocket.
‘ “What about us, Captain?” he asked a few times.
‘Once or twice, the captain threw us some green copper coins. But, other times, his moustache would move in that way I had describe and his hands would grip the rifle.
‘ “Careful private…” he would say.
‘We had been in Italy for nearly a year. As hungry and cold as we had been in France. And, even though we now received a wage, not much richer.
‘One night, Auguste and I were standing guard, so we had time to talk while the rest of our battalion slept. It was cold and the rain was turning into snow. We had lost half of the men, either in battle or from illness. The night appeared darker than any other I had ever lived through. I was suddenly filled with the thought that we might presently die.
‘ “August, where is that fortune you have promised us?”
‘He was silent and said nothing.
‘ “Did you hear me?” I asked again. “Half of our men are dead. God knows how long and how far the captain will drag us through these mountains. He seemed to never have enough of war. But I’m a man, and I live for a glass of wine and a woman. I have had enough of the bayonet, of the smell of gangrenous wounds…”
‘Again, he said nothing.
‘ “Auguste…” I called. For a moment, I thought he too had died there and then.
‘ “How much money do you think the captain has amassed?” he asked finally.
‘I said I didn’t know.
‘He laughed and said: “A hundred thousand Napoleons, and many gold objects of even greater value.” He had counted every coin the captain had taken. The number was so large I thought Auguste was teasing me.
‘ “That’s the fortune I seek,” he said.
‘ “Pity our good Captain Rifle got it first,” I replied.
‘Again he said nothing. Then, he whispered: “Follow me.”
‘I didn’t know what he had in mind, but I did as he said.
‘Auguste walked through the camp without the aid of a lamp. I knew not how he could find his way through the rain and the mud. I often stumbled behind him and begged him for some light, but he told me in a whisper that we could not afford any light.
‘ “Don’t make another sound, Grin,” he said.
‘Finally, we arrived outside the captain’s tent. The rain had turned into a storm so terrible that no guard stood outside.
‘ “He will have a rifle…” Auguste said to me handing me a knife.
‘A knife! What could a knife against a ball between the eyes?
‘But, under that downpour, our powder was so wet we had no other resort.
‘ “I can’t…” I said.
‘I had fired at the enemy many times, but to kill another Frenchman was plain murder.
‘ “Hold him by the wrists,” he said. “I’ll do the rest.”
‘I knew I couldn’t. The captain was stronger than the both of us. He was armed. If we could ever overpower him, I knew we would get caught and hanged.
‘ “A hundred thousand Napoleons…” he repeated. “Come, my good Grin.”
‘Once again, I said I couldn’t do it, and I wondered if the thought of all that money that he had carried with him for many months had not made him mad.
‘Auguste scoffed at me and pushed me away.
‘I wanted to stop him, but he had already disappeared inside the tent.
‘I returned to my post and didn’t see Auguste after that night. My premonition that I would die the next day was nearly exact: as soon as dawn broke, some Austrian troops descended on our camp. The captain was nowhere to be found. In the confusion, I didn’t see August. The men knew not what to do, as there was nobody to give orders and lead the charge. We could not offer a compact front: those who resisted were killed, and the rest of us were captured and taken prisoners.
‘I will not tell you what the following months were like. I lost sight of all my friends and will only say that I returned home with nothing more than my life.
‘Imagine my surprise when I enquired after my old friend Auguste, whether perhaps he too had returned, to find out that he was now comfortably living with Delphine.
*
Grin continued his narration, now almost oblivious of my presence. At times, he raised his hands and looked at objects only his mind could see, such was the transport of the emotion he was under. He spoke without pause:
‘I returned after two years of absence from home. I had witnessed war and prison. Many men I knew well had perished, either torn by the bayonet or reduced to nothing by cold and starvation. While our march into Italy had been a triumph, under the guide of Captain Rifle, my return to France was the fearful race of the mouse that will not have the courage to look behind to see if the cat is still chasing him, but that always feels his claws and its teeth behind him.
‘I walked at night, sleeping in ditches, eating what I could find scratching the frozen surface of the barren fields I walked across. Whether in my wake or in my dreams, I always feared the ball of a musket and the hand of the gaoler. Death itself was accompanying me, laughing at my attempts to escape her and to outsmart her.
ero
