Justine

Madame de Lorsange, I say, as soon as she saw her young guest a little more at ease, a little consoled by the caresses and attentions lavished on her and the interest taken in her, induced her to describe in some detail the events which had brought such an honest and sensible-looking creature into such disastrous circumstances.

‘To tell you the story of my life, Madame,’ said the beautiful unfortunate, addressing the Comtesse, ‘is to offer you the most striking example of the misfortunes of innocence. It would be to accuse providence to complain of it – it would be a sort of crime, and I dare not do it…’

Tears flowed abundantly from the eyes of the poor girl. But, having given way to her emotions for a few moments, she regained control of herself and commenced her narrative in these terms.

Four

You will permit me to conceal my name and birth, Madame; without being illustrious it is honourable, nor was I originally destined to the humiliation to which you now see me reduced. I lost my parents while quite young, and thought that, with the little money they left me, I could wait for satisfactory employment. I refused many offers of work because of their dubious nature. And so, without perceiving it, I exhausted my small capital in Paris – where I was born. The poorer I became, the more I found myself despised; the greater my need of assistance, the less did I expect to obtain any. But of all the trials I experienced during the early days of my unhappy situation, of all the horrible proposals made to me, I shall only tell you of the events which befell me at the home of Monsieur Dubourg, one of the wealthiest landlords in the capital. I was sent to him by the woman who kept the boarding-house where I was lodging, and she recommended him as a gentleman whose good name and riches could the most surely alleviate the rigours of my condition. After waiting a very long time in the ante-room of Monsieur Dubourg, I was at last introduced to him. This odd-looking creature, about forty-eight years old, had just got out of bed. He was wrapped in a loose dressing-gown which scarcely hid his disorder; and, when I entered, his servants were dressing his hair. He dismissed them immediately and asked me what I wished for.

‘Alas! sir,’ I replied, very much confused, ‘I am a poor orphan, and despite the fact that I’m not yet fourteen years of age, I am already acquainted with every shade of adversity. I come to beg your pity, to implore your compassion…’

And so I related to him every detail in the story of my misfortunes, the difficulty I had experienced in finding work, and the shame I felt about accepting any, especially as I had not been born into such a lowly position. I told him how my money had slowly gone, how I could not find employment, and how I hoped he would be able to offer me a means of livelihood. To be brief, I unburdened myself with all the eloquence dictated by misfortune; an eloquence which rises quickly in a simple and sensitive soul – yet one which is abhorrent to the mind of the opulent…

Monsieur Dubourg listened to me, indulging in many distractions the while. He then asked me if I had always been good.

‘I should neither be so poor nor so embarrassed, sir,’ I replied, ‘did I wish to cease being so.’

‘But,’ exclaimed Monsieur Dubourg, ‘by what right do you claim that the wealthy should assist you, while you refuse to be of service to them?’

‘Of what service do you pretend to speak, sir?’ I enquired, informing him that I desired nothing better than a chance to render those which decency and my age permitted.

He answered me at some length: ‘The services of a child like you are but little use for domestic purposes; you are neither old enough nor even strong enough for such a position as you wish. You had far better occupy yourself in pleasing men, and in trying to find some fellow who will consent to take care of you. All this virtue of which you make such a fuss is worthless in the world; you may bow continually at the foot of its altars, yet its vain incense will never feed you. What pleases men least, what they hold in the least esteem, and what they despise above all else, is the so-called wisdom of your sex. Here, in this world, my child, we value only what brings us profit or delight – and of what profit is a woman’s virtue to us? Her caprices and her disorders serve us and amuse us, but her chastity never interests us in the slightest. In other words, when men like us grant a request, it is always in the hope of receiving something in return. And how can a little girl like you repay what is done for her, unless she abandons herself completely to us, allowing us all that we may desire of her person?’

‘Oh, sir!’ I replied, my heart grown heavy with sighs, ‘have honesty and benevolence altogether disappeared from the intentions of men?’

‘Very nearly,’ replied Dubourg; ‘people talk about them a great deal, yet why would you have things so? Don’t you realise that people have recovered from the mania of obliging gratis? – they have discovered that the pleasures of chastity are but the enjoyments of pride; and, as nothing is so rapidly dispersed, have come to prefer more genuine sensations. They realise, for example, that with a child like you, it is infinitely more profitable to reap, as the fruit of their monetary advances, all those pleasures offered by the refinements of lust, rather than the very chilly and unsatisfying ones of handing out alms for nothing. The knowledge of his reputation, enjoyed by a liberal, open-handed, and generous man, never equals in pleasure – even at the instant he enjoys such actions most intensely – the slightest delights of the senses.’

‘Oh, sir! When mankind is ruled by principles such as these, there can be nothing left for the unfortunate except to perish!’

‘What matter? The population of France is much greater than is necessary; providing its machine always has the same elasticity, what does it matter to the State whether its body is composed of a few more or a few less individuals?’

‘But do you believe that children can respect their fathers or their elders when they are ill-treated by them?’

‘What does it matter to a father whether the children who trouble him love him or not?’

‘It would, then, have been far better had we been smothered in our cradles!’

‘Certainly! – Such was once the custom in many countries; amongst the Greeks for instance; and such is the custom of the Chinese: in that country unfortunate children are exposed, or put to death. What is the good of letting such creatures live when they cannot rely on the assistance of their parents – either because these happen to be dead, or because they disclaim their offspring? If such children are allowed to live they only serve to overburden the State by increasing a population which is already too great. Bastards, orphans and deformed children should be condemned to death at birth; the first two classes because they no longer have anyone to watch over them and care for them – and because a childhood endured under such conditions may one day make them dangerous to society; the others because deformed weaklings can be of no use to society. All children coming within these categories are to society what excrescences become to the flesh: they nourish themselves on the sap of the healthy members, and at the same time weaken them causing them to degenerate. They might be compared with those parasitic plants and vegetables which, attaching themselves to healthy growths, completely spoil these by drawing off their nutritious essence. The funds collected to feed such scum are crying abuses; particularly those richly endowed establishments which are built for such creatures, and at such an expense! As if the human species was so exceedingly rare, so infinitely precious, that it becomes necessary to consider the welfare of its lowest segment! But let us leave the discussion of these policies of which you cannot, my child, comprehend a thing; and as for yourself, why complain of your predicament when the remedy lies within yourself?’

‘At what a price, gracious heaven!’

‘At the price of a mere chimera, a thing which has no value at all, other than the one which your pride places on it. Briefly,’ continued this barbarian, whilst rising and opening the door, ‘that is all I can do for you – If you can’t agree to my proposition, get out of my sight! I do not like beggars…’

My tears flowed; I could not hold them back any longer. Would you believe it, Madame? – they served only to increase the irritable temper of this man, instead of softening him. He slammed the door, and seizing me by the collar of my dress brutally told me that he was going to force me into doing that which I would not willingly grant him. At this cruel moment my misfortune lent me courage; I extricated myself from his arms and threw myself towards the door.

‘Loathsome man,’ I shouted as I ran; ‘may heaven, so grievously insulted by you, punish you as you deserve for your execrable cruelty and hardness of heart! You are worthy neither of those riches which you put to so vile a use, nor of the air which you breathe in a world stained by your barbarities.’

Reaching my lodgings I hastened to inform my landlady as to the kind of reception given me by the man to whose house she had sent me. But my surprise passed all bounds when I heard this female wretch load me with reproaches instead of sympathetically sharing my grief!

‘You mean little creature,’ she exclaimed in her rage; ‘do you imagine that men are foolish enough to bestow charity on little girls such as yourself without exacting the interest on their money? Monsieur Dubourg is too kind to have acted as he has done. Had I been in his position you would not have escaped from my room before I had satisfied my desires. However, since you do not wish to profit by the help I have offered, I can only let you dispose of yourself as you wish. You owe me rent – by tomorrow you must either pay me my money or go to prison!’

‘Madame, have pity on me…’

‘People starve through indulging in pity.’

‘But what would you have me do?’

‘You must return to Monsieur Dubourg – you must satisfy him, and bring me back some cash. I shall go and see him and make up, if I can, for your silly behaviour. I shall offer him your apologies. But mind you behave better next time!’

Ashamed and in despair at not knowing which path to take, seeing myself harshly repulsed by everyone, and without any other resource, I told Madame Desroches (that was my landlady’s name) that I was ready for everything in order to placate her. She went off to see the financier, and on her return informed me that she had experienced considerable difficulty in prevailing on him to grant me another chance – that only by dint of repeated entreaties had she persuaded him to see me again the following morning. She ended by warning me that I had better keep an eye on my conduct, for if I disappointed him again, or disobeyed him in the least, he would himself undertake the business of having me locked up for life.

Next day I arrived at the mansion quite excited. Dubourg was alone, and in a more indecent state than on the previous evening. Brutality, libertinism, all the marks of debauchery shone forth from his sullen features.

‘You have la Desroches to thank for my welcome,’ he grumbled in a harsh tone; ‘for it is only on her account that I condescend to grant you my kindness for a space. You should certainly feel undeserving of it after your conduct yesterday! Undress immediately! And if you offer anything like the slightest resistance to my desires, two men who are waiting in my ante-room will take you to a place which you will never leave again while there is life in your body…’

‘Oh, sir!’ I wept, throwing myself at the knees of this despicable man, ‘relent, allow yourself some mercy, I beseech you! I would rather die a thousand deaths than betray the principles I received during my childhood. Do you not realise that you will no sooner have accomplished your crime than the spectacle of my despair will overwhelm you with remorse…’

But the infamies to which Dubourg had abandoned himself whilst I spoke hindered me from proceeding further. I realised the folly of pretending to myself that I could affect a man who found my grief merely a vehicle for the increase of his horrible passions. He became more and more inflamed at my bitter accents, at my weeping and shuddering, relishing them with an inhumanity which frightened me, and further preparing himself for his criminal attempts. He rose to his feet, revealing himself to me in a state in which reason rarely triumphs, and during which the resistance of the object which causes such loss of reason is but an added stimulus to the delirium of the senses. He grasped me brutally; impetuously he tore away those veils which still concealed what he was burning to enjoy; then, in turn, he abused me, flattered me, caressed me, and treated me with contempt…Oh! what a picture! Almighty God, what a strange medley of hardness and mad unbridled lust! It seemed as if the Supreme Being, during the first of such circumstances in my life, wished to imprint eternally on my soul an image of all the horror I ought to feel for the kind of crime, or sin, which so often has its genesis in an abundance of evils similar to those with which I was threatened…But was there necessity for complaint at this hour? Certainly not – for I owed my very safety to his excesses…A little less debauchery and he would have had his will of me; but the fires of Dubourg’s ardour were extinguished by the effervescence of his attempts. Heaven avenged, on my behalf, all the assaults to which the monster tried to abandon himself – for the loss of his force before the sacrifice preserved me from becoming his victim.

Nevertheless, Dubourg only became the more insulting. He accused me of being the cause of his weakness, and wished to recompense himself by fresh outrages and abuses of an even more terrifying nature. There was nothing disgusting he did not say to me, nothing he did not attempt, nothing his vile imagination, the hardness of his nature, and his depraved morals did not cause him to undertake. But my awkwardness tired his patience, especially as I made not the slightest attempt to play up to him. You may well imagine that it required considerable fortitude on my part to lend myself in such a manner; nor has the passage of time been able to obliterate my remorse…Nothing, however, succeeded; his final attempts failed miserably; and my submission lost its power to inflame him. In vain he successively passed from tenderness to severity, from severity to tyranny, from glances of loving sympathy to the excesses of filth and lust. At length we were equally tired – a condition which fortunately persisted and prevented his being able to recover the ability necessary for truly dangerous attacks. He gave over, but made me promise to return the following day; and in order to be absolutely sure of this he paid me only the sum I owed la Desroches. And so I returned to the woman’s house exceedingly humbled by my adventure, and firmly decided, whatever might happen to me in the future, never to expose myself to this man a third time. I expressed these ideas to my landlady when paying her, and decried with maledictions the old rogue who had been capable of so cruelly taking advantage of my misery. Nevertheless, my curses, far from bringing on him the wrath of God, seemed only to bring him good fortune. Eight days later I learned that this notorious libertine had just received from the government a grant which increased his annual revenue to more than 400,000 livres. I was lost in reflections on this and similar inconsistencies of destiny, when a ray of hope seemed suddenly to lighten my heart.

La Desroches came to tell me that at last she had discovered a house where I would gladly be received, providing I conducted myself well therein.

‘Oh! Merciful heaven,’ I cried delightedly, flinging myself into her arms, ‘– that is the very condition I should myself lay down; do not doubt my decision for an instant – I accept the offer with pleasure…’

And so I left the home of Desroches for what I hoped would be a changed and better period of life.

My new master was an old usurer who had become rich not only by way of lending money, but also by robbing everyone with whom he came into contact – whenever he found it possible to do so safely and with impunity. He lived on the rue Quincampoix, in an apartment on the first floor, accompanied by an old mistress whom he called his wife and who was at least as wicked as he himself.

‘Sophie,’ said this miser to me (for that was the name I had assumed in order to conceal my own), ‘my dear Sophie, the first of the virtues necessary to anyone who lives in my house is that of honesty…And if ever I should find you appropriating to yourself the tenth part of one of my pennies, I shall have you hanged – hanged, do you understand, until it would be impossible to revive you! For if my wife and I are able to enjoy a few small pleasures in our old age, it is only because it is the fruit of our excessive labours and profound sobriety. By the way, my child, do you eat a lot?’

‘Only a few ounces of bread a day, sir,’ I replied; ‘together with a little water and some soup when I am lucky enough to be able to have it.’

‘Soup! Soup! – good heavens!’ exclaimed the old miser to his wife – ‘Let us bewail the extravagance of luxury and its progress in our times!’ Then he continued: ‘For a year this child has been looking for a job; for a year she has been dying of starvation; and at the same time she wants to eat soup! We ourselves have it only rarely – once every Sunday, to be precise – we who have worked ourselves like galley-slaves for forty years. You will receive three ounces of bread a day, my girl, half a bottle of river water, and every eighteen months one of my wife’s old dresses from which you can make your petticoats. At the end of a year, if we are satisfied with your services, and if your approach to economy corresponds with our own; if, in short, you order arrangements so that our domestic matters prosper, then we will pay you three crowns.

‘Looking after us is only a small matter. It is simply a case of cleaning and polishing this six-roomed flat three times each week. And, of course, you will make the beds, answer the door, powder my wig, dress the hair of my wife, look after the dog, the cat, and the parrot, attend to your kitchen duties, and wash the dishes regularly, whether they have been used or not; as well as helping my wife with the cooking and spending your spare time making caps, knitting stockings, and producing other little things for the household. So you see, Sophie, there isn’t much to do, and you will have quite enough leisure in which to attend to your own odd jobs and make whatever clothing you may need.’

You can easily imagine, Madame, that one would have to be in precisely that state of misery in which I happened to be before you would have accepted such a position. Not only were these creatures asking me to do far more work than my age and strength permitted, but was it possible to keep going on the food and the pittance they offered? Nevertheless I was careful not to be difficult, and installed myself in their home that same evening.

If, Madame, the cruel situation in which I found myself allowed me to think of amusing you for a moment – when I ought only to try and arouse sympathetic feeling for me in your heart – I honestly believe I could send you into paroxysms of laughter by relating in detail some of the manifestations of avarice which abounded so plentifully in that house. But such a terrible catastrophe befell me during my second year there that, when I think of it, I find it difficult to offer humorous details before acquainting you with the nature of this misfortune. Nevertheless, I can tell you, Madame, that lights were never used in that house. The bedroom of my master and mistress was situated directly opposite the street lamp, so they dispensed with any other means of illumination, not even using a light to see their way to bed. As for underwear and suchlike, they never wore it, but sewed into the sleeves of their coats and dresses old ruffles, which I washed each Saturday evening, so that they would be clean and fresh for Sunday. Neither were there any sheets or towels, so as to avoid the expense of laundering – for this, according to the respectable Monsieur Du Harpin, was an unusually expensive item. They never had wine in the house, for, according to Madame Du Harpin, clear water was the natural beverage of the first men, and the only one prescribed us by nature. Every time bread was cut a basket had to be placed underneath the loaf so as to catch the crumbs. To these were added the remnants of every meal, and on Sundays the mixture was fried in a little rancid butter and served up to form the special dish of the Sabbath day. Clothes and upholstery were never brushed in the usual manner, as that might have tended to produce wear in the material. Instead they were lightly swept with a feather duster. Their shoes were reinforced with metal caps, and each of them kept, as venerable relics, those which they had worn on their wedding day. But a much more bizarre duty was one which I had to undertake once a week. There was one large room in the flat with completely bare walls. Here I used to go regularly in order to scrape some of the plaster off the walls with a knife. This was then passed through a fine sieve, and I was instructed to use the resulting powder each morning to dress the gentleman’s wig and the chignon of the lady.

I would to God that these were the only depraved methods of economy indulged by this sorry couple. Nothing is more natural than the desire to conserve one’s means; but what is not equally so is the wish to increase them with the fortunes of others – and it did not take me long to realise that it was in this manner that Monsieur Du Harpin had become so rich.

Now at that time there was living above us an individual in very easy circumstances, owning some very pretty jewels; and these, perhaps because they belonged to our neighbour, or perhaps because they had actually passed through his hands, were well known to my master. Quite frequently I heard him lamenting to his wife about a certain gold box worth thirty or forty louis, which, he said, would certainly have belonged to him if he had been a little more adroit at an earlier time. In order to console himself for having returned the box which he had once borrowed, Monsieur Du Harpin planned to steal it, and it was me he commanded to effect this transference.

Having delivered a long speech on the unimportance of stealing, and on the possible utility to society of such an activity – since it served to re-establish an equilibrium totally upset by the unequal distribution of wealth, Monsieur Du Harpin presented me with a false key, assuring me that it would open the apartment of our neighbour, and that I would find the box in a desk which was never locked. He added that I would be able to remove it without any danger, and that for such a considerable service he would add an extra crown to my wages for the following two years.

‘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.