"alas, monsieur," i said, greatly confused, "i am a poor orphan not yet fourteen years old and i have already become familiar with every nuance of misfortune; i implore your commiseration, have pity upon me, i beseech you," and then i told in detail of all my ills, the difficulty i was having to find a place, perhaps i even mentioned how painful it was for me to have to take one, not having been born for a menial's condition. my suffering throughout it all, how i exhausted the little substance i had... failure to obtain work, my hope he would facilitate matters and help me find the wherewithal to live; in sum, i said everything that is dictated by the eloquence of wretchedness, always swift to rise in a sensitive soul.... after having listened to me with many distractions and much yawning, monsieur dubourg asked whether i had always been well-behaved. "i should be neither so poor nor so embarrassed, monsieur," i answered him, "had i wished to cease to be."
"but," said dubourg upon hearing that, "but what right have you to expect the wealthy to relieve you if you are in no way useful to them?"
"and of what service are you speaking, monsieur? i asked nothing more than to render those decency and my years will permit me fulfill."
"the services of a child like yourself are of no great use in a household," dubourg replied to me. "you have neither the age nor the appearance to find the place you are seeking. you would be better advised to occupy yourself with giving men pleasure and to labor to discover someone who will consent to take care of you; the virtue whereof you make such a conspicuous display is worthless in this world; in vain will you genuflect before its altars, its ridiculous incense will nourish you not at all. the thing which least flatters men, that which makes the least favorable impression upon them, for which they have the most supreme contempt, is good behavior in your sex; here on earth, my child, nothing but what brings in gain or insures power is accounted; and what does the virtue of women profit us i it is their wantonness which serves and amuses us; but their chastity could not interest us less. when, to be brief, persons of our sort give, it is never except to receive; well, how may a little girl like yourself show gratitude for what one does for her if it is not by the most complete surrender of all that is desired of her body!"
"oh, monsieur," i replied, grown heavy of heart and uttering a sigh, "then uprightness and benevolence are to be found in man no longer!"
"precious little," dubourg rejoined. "how can you expect them still to exist after all the wise things that have been said and written about them? we have rid ourselves of this mania of obliging others gratuitously; it was recognized that charity's pleasures are nothing but sops thrown to pride, and we turned our thoughts to stronger sensations; it has been noticed, for example, that with a child like you, it is infinitely preferable to extract, by way of dividends upon one's investment, all the pleasures lechery is able to offer much better these delights than the very insipid and futile ones said to come of the disinterested giving of help; his reputation for being a liberal man, an alms-giving and generous man, is not, even at the instant when he most enjoys it, comparable to the slightest sensual pleasure."
"oh, monsieur, in the light of such principles the miserable must therefore perish!"
"does it matter? we have more subjects in france than are needed; given the mechanism's elastic capacities for production, the state can easily afford to be burdened by fewer people."
"but do you suppose children respect their fathers when they are thus despised by them ?"
"and what to a father is the love of the children who are a nuisance to him ?"
"would it then have been better had they been strangled in the cradle ?"
"certainly, such is the practice in numerous countries; it was the custom of the greeks, it is the custom in china: there, the offspring of the poor are exposed, or are put to death. what is the good of letting those creatures live who, no longer able to count upon their parents' aid either because they are without parents or because they are not wanted or recognized by them, henceforth are useful for nothing and simply weigh upon the state: that much surplus commodity, you see, and the market is glutted already; bastards, orphans, malformed infants should be condemned to death immediately they are pupped: the first and the second because, no longer having anyone who wishes or who is able to take care of them, they are mere dregs which one day can have nothing but an undesirable effect upon the society they contaminate; the others because they cannot be of any usefulness to it; the one and the other of these categories are to society what are excrescences to the flesh, battening upon the healthy members' sap, degrading them, enfeebling them; or, if you prefer, they are like those vegetable parasites which, attaching themselves to sound plants, cause them to deteriorate by sucking up their nutritive juices. it's a shocking outrage, these alms destined to feed scum, these most luxuriously appointed houses they have the madness to construct quite as if the human species were so rare, so precious one had to preserve it down to its last vile portion! but enough of politics whereof, my child, you are not likely to understand anything; why lament your fate? for it is in your power, and yours only, to remedy it."
"great heavens! at the price of what!"
"at the price of an illusion, of something that has none but the value wherewith your pride invests it. well," continued this barbarian, getting to his feet and opening the door, "that is all i can do for you; consent to it, or deliver me from your presence; i have no fondness for beggars...."
my tears flowed fast, i was unable to check them; would you believe it, madame? they irritated rather than melted this man. he shut the door and, seizing my dress at the shoulder, he said most brutally he was going to force from me what i would not accord him voluntarily. at this cruel moment my misery endowed me with courage; i freed myself from his grasp and rushed toward the door:
"odious man," said i as i fled from him, "may the heaven you have so grievously offended some day punish your execrable heartlessness as it merits to be. you are worthy neither of the riches you have put to such vile use, nor of the very air you breathe in a world you defile with your barbarities."
i lost no time telling my hostess of the reception given me by the person to whom she had sent me; but what was my astonishment to have this wretch belabor me with reproaches rather than share my sorrow.
"you idiotic chit!" said she in a great rage, "do you imagine men are such great dupes as to dole out alms to little girls such as you without requiring something for their money? monsieur dubourg's behavior was far too gentle; in his place i should not have allowed you to leave without having had satisfaction from you. but since you do not care to profit from the aid i offer you, make your own arrangements as you please; you owe me money: pay it tomorrow; otherwise, it's to jail."
"madame, have pity!"
"yes, yes, pity; one need only have pity and one starves to death."
"but what would you have me do ?"
"you must go back to dubourg; you must appease him; you must bring home money to me; i will visit him, i will give him notice; if i am able, i'll repair the damage your stupidity has caused; i will convey your apologies, but keep it in mind, you had better improve your conduct."
ashamed, desperate, knowing not which way to turn, seeing myself savagely repulsed by everyone, i told madame desroches (that was my landlady's name) that i had decided to do whatever had to be done to satisfy her. she went to the financier's house and upon her return advised me that she had found him in a very irritable mood, that it had not been without an effort she had managed to incline him in my favor, that by dint of supplications she had at least persuaded him to see me again the following morning, but that i would have to keep a strict watch over my behavior, because, were i to take it into my head to disobey him again, he himself would see to it i was imprisoned forever.
all atremble, i arrived; dubourg was alone and in a state yet more indecent than on the previous day. brutality, libertinage, all the characteristics of the debauchee glittered in his cunning glances.
"thank desroches," he said harshly, "for it is as a favor to her i intend to show you an instant's kindness; you must surely be aware how little you deserve it after your performance yesterday. undress yourself and if you once again manifest the least resistance to my desires, two men, waiting for you in the next room, will conduct you to a place whence you will never emerge alive."
"oh monsieur," say i, weeping, clutching the wicked man's knees, "unbend, i beseech you; be so generous as to relieve me without requiring what would be so costly i should rather offer you my life than submit to it.... yes, i prefer to die a thousand times over than violate the principles i received in my childhood.... monsieur, monsieur, constrain me not, i entreat you; can you conceive of gleaning happiness in the depths of tears and disgust? dare you suspect pleasure where you see naught but loathing? no sooner shall you have consummated your crime than my despair will overwhelm you with remorse...."
but the infamies to which dubourg abandoned himself prevented me from continuing; that i was able to have believed myself capable of touching a man who was already finding, in the very spectacle of my suffering, one further vehicle for his horrible passions! would you believe it, madame? becoming inflamed by the shrill accents of my pleadings, savoring them inhumanly, the wretch disposed himself for his criminal attempts! he gets up, and exhibiting himself to me in a state over which reason is seldom triumphant, and wherein the opposition of the object which causes reason's downfall is but an additional ailment to delirium, he seizes me brutally, impetuously snatches away the veils which still conceal what he burns to enjoy; he caresses me.... oh! what a picture, great god i what unheard-of mingling of harshness... and lewdness! it seemed that the supreme being wished, in that first of my encounters, to imprint forever in me all the horror i was to have for a kind of crime whence there was to be born the torrent of evils that have beset me since. but must i complain of them? no, needless to say; to his excesses i owe my salvation; had there been less debauchery in him, i were a ruined girl; dubourg's flames were extinguished in the fury of his enterprises, heaven intervened in my behalf against the monster before he could commit the offenses he was readying for, and the loss of his powers, before the sacrifice could occur, preserved me from being its victim.
