Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and Other Profitable Tales. François-Anatole Thibault

I don't believe that President Bourriche rose to so lofty a metaphysical plane. In my opinion, when he received as true the evidence of Constable 64, he merely acted according to precedent. Imitation lies at the root of most human actions. A respectable person is one who conforms to custom. People are called good when they do as others do."

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      V

      CRAINQUEBILLE SUBMITS TO THE LAWS OF THE REPUBLIC

      AVING been taken back to his prison, Crainquebille sat down on his chained stool, filled with astonishment and admiration. He, himself, was not quite sure whether the magistrates were mistaken. The tribunal had concealed its essential weakness beneath the majesty of form. He could not believe that he was in the right, as against magistrates whose reasons he had not understood: it was impossible for him to conceive that anything could go wrong in so elaborate a ceremony. For, unaccustomed to attending Mass or frequenting the Elysée, he had never in his life witnessed anything so grand as a police court trial. He was perfectly aware that he had never cried "Mort aux vaches!" That for having said it he should have been sentenced to a ​fortnight’s imprisonment seemed to him an august mystery, one of those articles of faith to which believers adhere without understanding them, an obscure, striking, adorable and terrible revelation.

      This poor old man believed himself guilty of having mystically offended Constable 64, just as the little boy learning his first Catechism believes himself guilty of Eve’s sin. His sentence had taught him that he had cried: "Mort aux vaches!" He must, therefore have cried " Mort aux vaches!" in some mysterious manner, unknown to himself. He was transported into a supernatural world. His trial was his apocalypse.

      If he had no very clear idea of the offence, his idea of the penalty was still less clear. His sentence appeared to him a solemn and superior ritual, something dazzling and incomprehensible, which is not to be discussed, and for which one is neither to be praised nor pitied. If at that moment he had seen President Bourriche, with white wings and a halo round his forehead, coming down through a hole in the ceiling, he would not have been surprised at this new manifestation of judicial glory. He would have said: "This is my trial continuing!"

      On the next day his lawyer visited him:

      “Well, my good fellow, things aren’t so bad after ​all! Don't be discouraged. A fortnight is soon over. We have not much to complain of."

      "As for that, I must say the gentlemen were very kind, very polite: not a single rude word. I shouldn't have believed it. And the cipal was wearing white gloves. Did you notice?"

      "Everything considered, we did well to confess."

      "Perhaps."

      "Crainquebille, I have a piece of good news for you. A charitable person, whose interest I have elicited on your behalf, gave me fifty francs for you. The sum will be used to pay your fine."

      "When will you give me the money?"

      "It will be paid into the clerk's office. You need not trouble about it."

      "It does not matter. All the same I am very grateful to this person." And Crainquebille murmured meditatively: "It's something out of the common that's happening to me."

      "Don't exaggerate, Crainquebille. Your case is by no means rare, far from it."

      "You couldn’t tell me where they’ve put my barrow?"

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      VI

      CRAINQUEBILLE IN THE LIGHT OF PUBLIC OPINION

      FTER his discharge from prison, Crainquebille trundled his barrow along the Rue Montmartre, crying: "Cabbages, turnips, carrots!" He was neither ashamed nor proud of his adventure. The memory of it was not painful. He classed it in his mind with dreams, travels and plays. But, above all things, he was glad to be walking in the mud, along the paved streets, and to see overhead the rainy sky as dirty as the gutter, the dear sky of the town. At every corner he stopped to have a drink; then, gay and unconstrained, spitting in his hands in order to moisten his horny palms, he would seize the shafts and push on his barrow. Meanwhile a flight of sparrows, as poor and as early as he, seeking their livelihood in the road, flew off at the sound of his familiar cry: ​"Cabbages, turnips, carrots!" An old house wife, who had come up, said to him as she felt his celery:

      "What’s happened to you, Père Crainquebille? We haven’t seen you for three weeks. Have you been ill? You look rather pale."

      "I’ll tell you, M’ame Mailloche, I’ve been doing the gentleman."

      Nothing in his life changed, except that he went oftener to the pub, because he had an idea it was a holiday and that he had made the acquaintance of charitable folk. He returned to his garret rather gay. Stretched on his mattress he drew over him the sacks borrowed from the chestnut-seller at the corner which served him as blankets and he pondered: "Well, prison is not so bad; one has everything one wants there. But all the same one is better at home."

      His contentment did not last long. He soon perceived that his customers looked at him askance.

      "Fine celery, M’ame Cointreau!"

      "I don’t want anything."

      "What! nothing! do you live on air then? "

      And M’ame Cointreau without deigning to reply returned to the large bakery of which she was the mistress. The shopkeepers and caretakers, who had once flocked round his barrow all green and ​blooming, now turned away from him. Having reached the shoemaker’s, at the sign of l’Ange Gardien, the place where his adventures with justice had begun, he called:

      "M’ame Bayard, M’ame Bayard, you owe me sevenpence halfpenny from last time."

      But M’ame Bayard, who was sitting at her counter, did not deign to turn her head.

      The whole of the Rue Montmartre was aware that Père Crainquebille had been in prison, and the whole of the Rue Montmartre gave up his acquaintance. The rumour of his conviction had reached the Faubourg and the noisy corner of the Rue Richer. There, about noon, he perceived Madame Laure, a kind and faithful customer, leaning over the barrow of another costermonger, young Martin. She was feeling a large cabbage. Her hair shone in the sunlight like masses of golden threads loosely twisted. And young Martin, a nobody, a good-for-nothing, was protesting with his hand on his heart that there were no finer vegetables than his. At this sight Crainquebille’s heart was rent. He pushed his barrow up to young Martin’s, and in a plaintive broken voice said to Madame Laure: "It’s not fair of you to forsake me."

      As Madame Laure herself admitted, she was no ​duchess. It was not in society that she had acquired her ideas of the prison van and the police-station. But can one not be honest in every station in life? Every one has his self respect; and one does not like to deal with a man who has just come out of prison. So the only notice she took of Crainquebille was to give him a look of disgust. And the old costermonger resenting the affront shouted:

      "Dirty wench, go along with you.”

      Madame Laure let fall her cabbage and cried:

      "Eh! Be off with you, you bad penny. You come out of prison and then insult folk! "

      If Crainquebille had had any self-contro1 he would never have reproached Madame Laure with her calling. He knew only too well that one is not master of one’s fate, that one cannot always choose one’s occupation, and that good people may be found everywhere. He was accustomed discreetly to ignore her customers’ business with her; and he despised no one. But he was beside himself. Three times he called Madame Laure drunkard, wench, harridan. A group of idlers gathered round Madame Laure and Crainquebille. They exchanged a few more insults as serious as the first; and they would soon have exhausted their vocabulary, if a policeman had not suddenly appeared, and at once, by his ​silence and immobility, rendered them as silent and as motionless as himself. They separated. But this scene put the finishing touch to the discrediting of Crainquebille in the eyes of the Faubourg Montmartre and the Rue Richer. ​

      VII