Донасьен Альфонс Франсуа де Сад – Justine (страница 6)

‘Oh, Monsieur!’ I cried, ‘is it possible that a master dares attempt to corrupt his servant in such a manner? What is to prevent me from turning against you the very weapons which you have placed in my hands? And how could you reasonably object if I robbed you according to your own principles?’

Monsieur Du Harpin, astonished at my reply, did not dare insist further. He reacted by nursing a secret grudge against me; but explained his behaviour by pretending he had been testing me, saying that it was fortunate I had not succumbed to his insidious suggestions as otherwise I should have been hanged. I accepted his explanation, but from that time onwards I felt both the misfortunes with which such a proposition menaced me, and how unwise I had been to answer so firmly. Nevertheless, there had been no middle way; for I had been faced with the choice of actually committing the crime, or of obstinately rejecting the proposal. Had I been a little more experienced I should have left the house at that instant; but it had already been written on the page of my destiny that every honest impulse in my character would have to be paid for by some misfortune. I was therefore obliged to submit to circumstances without any possibility of escape.

Monsieur Du Harpin allowed almost a month to pass – that is to say nearly the turn of my second year in his employ – and never said a word, or showed the least resentment at my refusal. Then one evening, my work being finished and having just retired to my room for a few hours of rest, I suddenly heard the door thrown open, and saw, not without fear, Monsieur Du Harpin accompanied by a police official and four soldiers of the watch who immediately surrounded my bed.

‘Perform your duties, officer,’ he said to the police official. ‘This miserable creature has stolen a diamond of mine worth a thousand crowns. You will almost certainly find it in her room, or on her person!’

‘But, sir! You cannot possibly think I have robbed you,’ I cried, throwing myself, in consternation, at the foot of my bed. ‘Ah! who knows better than you how repugnant such an action would be to me, and how impossible it is that I should commit it!’

But Monsieur Du Harpin made a great commotion so that nobody could hear what I was saying, and so contrived to order the search that the miserable ring was found in my mattress. In face of such proof there could be no reply. Therefore I was immediately seized, handcuffed, and ignominiously led to the Prison du Palais – without a word being heard of the many things I could have said in my defence.

The trial of those unfortunate wretches who lack both influence and protection is quickly over in France. For it is believed that virtue is incompatible with poverty; and misfortune, in our courts, is accepted as conclusive proof against the accused. An unjust bias causes a presumption that the person who might possibly have committed the crime actually did commit it. The feelings of one’s judges thus take their measure from the situation in which one is found – and if titles or wealth are not available to prove the honesty of the accused, the impossibility of his being so is immediately accepted as demonstrated.

Well might I defend myself, well might I furnish an exact description of the true state of affairs to the state lawyer who was sent to question me. My master accused me in court – the diamond had been found in my room; therefore, clearly, I must have stolen it. When I wished to describe Monsieur Du Harpin’s horrible deed, and to show how the misfortune which had befallen me was simply a consequence of his vengeance, of his obsessive desire to ruin a creature who knowing his secrets was in a position to wield considerable power over him, they interpreted my complaints as recriminations, and informed me that Monsieur Du Harpin had been known for forty years as a man of integrity and was quite incapable of such an outrage. Thus it was that I found myself about to pay with my life for my refusal to participate in a criminal conspiracy – when an unexpected happening set me free, once more to plunge me into the further miseries still awaiting me in the world outside.

A woman of forty named Dubois, celebrated for her indulgence in every species of horror, was likewise on the eve of her execution – which at least was more deserved than mine, since her crimes had been established while mine did not exist.

Somehow or other I had inspired a kind of sympathy in this woman and one evening, a few days before each of us was due to lose her life, she told me not to go to bed, but to remain as unobtrusively close to her as I could.

‘Between midnight and one o’clock in the morning,’ explained this prosperous villain, ‘the prison will be set on fire…thanks to my machinations. Someone may be burned, but what does that matter? The certain thing is that we shall make our escape. Three men, accomplices and friends of mine, will meet us, and I can answer to you for your liberty.’

The hand of heaven, which had just punished my innocence, became the servant of crime so far as my protectress was concerned. Once the fire had started the conflagration became terrible. Ten people were burned alive, but we made our escape in safety. The same day we managed to reach the cottage of a poacher who lived in the forest of Bondy. He was thus a different kind of rogue, yet nevertheless an intimate friend of our band.

‘Now you are free, my dear Sophie,’ la Dubois said to me, ‘and you can choose whatever kind of life seems to suit you best; but if you listen to me you will renounce your virtuous ways, which, as you see, have never succeeded in helping you. Your misplaced delicacy conducted you right to the foot of the gallows, yet a frightful crime has saved me from a similar fate. Just look at the value which goodness has in the world, and then consider whether it is worth dying for. You are young and pretty; and, if you like, I will take care of your future in Brussels. I am going there, because that is where I was born, and within two years I can place you at the very peak of fortune. But I warn you that it will certainly not be by the narrow paths of virtue that I will promote your success. At your age it is necessary to engage in more than one profession, as well as to serve in more than one intrigue, if you wish to make your way to the top with any promptitude. Do you understand me, Sophie? – Do you understand me? Decide quickly because we must be on the move. We are safe here only for a few hours.’

‘Oh, Madame,’ I replied to my benefactress, ‘I am obliged to you for so much, since you have saved my life; yet it fills me with despair when I consider that this was possible only by way of the commission of a crime. And you may be very sure that had it been necessary for me to participate in it I would rather have died than done so. I know but too well the dangers I have courted in abandoning myself to those sentiments of honesty which for ever spring up in my heart, but whatever the thorns of virtue may be I shall always prefer them to the false glow of prosperity and those unreliable advantages which momentarily accompany crime. Thanks be to heaven, my religious convictions will never desert me, and if providence renders my way of life difficult it is only in order the more abundantly to recompense me in a better world. It is this hope which consoles me, this hope which softens all my griefs, calms my complaints, fortifies me in adversity and enables me fearlessly to encounter any evils with which I may be faced. This joy would immediately be extinguished in my heart were I to stain myself with crime – and, to the fear of even more terrible reverses in this world, I should add the frightening expectation of those punishments which celestial justice reserves in the beyond for those who outrage it.’

‘I’m afraid you have some absurd ideas which will quickly take you to the workhouse, my girl,’ exclaimed la Dubois, frowning. ‘Believe me, you will be well advised to give up your ideas of celestial justice, of punishment, or rewards to come. Those things are all best forgotten as soon as you leave school, for their only result is to help cause you to starve to death – if you are stupid enough to believe them once you have launched out on a life of your own. The hardness of the rich justifies the rascality of the poor, my child; if humanity reigned in their hearts, then virtue would become established in ours; but so long as our misfortunes, and our patience in enduring them, so long as our good faith and our submission serve only to multiply our chains, then we can lay our crimes at their door, and we would be fools indeed were we to refuse to profit by them when they can to some extent ameliorate the yoke with which we are burdened.

‘Nature caused us all to be born equal, Sophie; and if chance has been pleased to disorganise the original plan of her general laws, it is for us to correct such caprices, and to recover, by our adroitness, the usurpations of those who are stronger than us. I love to hear them – those rich gentlemen, those judges and magistrates – I love to hear them preach of virtue to us. It must be very difficult to avoid theft when one has three times more than is necessary for living in comfort; it must be equally difficult never to think of murder when one is surrounded only by the adulations of sycophants, or the submission of absolute slaves; likewise it must be enormously distressing to be temperate and sober when one is perpetually surrounded by the most succulent delicacies; and people must experience a great deal of trouble in being honest when they have no reason to lie.