Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book II

He had jumped up and thrown himself on me so treacherously that I had not had time to avoid the odious embrace of his arms, and the caress of his wine-bedewed lips.

I struggled against him; I tried to scratch him; I insulted him; vexed, humiliated, trembling with rage and emotion, he let me go at last as if come back to his senses, and half-sobered, growled:

“Confound it! I'm only a juggins, a jay! The jay of jays, to put myself in this state for nothing at all. Yes, I say so, for nothing. Not that you are too young. After all, at seventeen, your confirmation has been over long ago. It's the age when you could take an excursion ticket without fear of accidents.”

He took his seat at table again, threw himself back on the chair, quite cheerful, the thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat of white pique with blue spots.

“Oh, don't think I'm not inclined to start the game! Unfortunately, its impossible-the danger signal is up; the line's blocked; I'm condemned for life. People would talk, and there would be too much gossip about the respectable Monsieur Le Hardeur. At the next elections, I should be left alone in my glory. And all that because a lot of people imagine that I worked at your existence; that you are probably my daughter. Yes, Ninette, my own offspring of the left hand. What silly tales get about! And yet there's not a word of truth in it all!”

I was leaning against the window sill, with the impression that I was listening to the ravings of a fool.

“I've compared dates, I've turned over dirty linen like a detective. There were a pair of us, Flochet and I; two masters, each with the key, slippers and toothbrush. Flochet was only there for show. I had the best of it. But Fripette betrayed us both by the job, hour, day and week, with a fine soldier, an officer of the Cent Gardes, or the Empress's lancers, I don't remember exactly. How could a simple civilian fight, in those days, with the prestige of the sabre, or struggle against the points of waxed moustaches. Ferrum est quod amant. You don't understand? No matter, it's Latin for men. So I heard the cry of the cuckoo, and I was a cuckold, as no man has ever been before or since. I am sure of it; I'll show you the letters. Sad recollections; grief, wounds received in action. Q.E.D. that you are the daughter of the handsome soldier and not mine. If it was not that everybody thought the contrary at my club, the little business might have been brought off in the bosom of one's family, but Monsieur Le Hardeur does not possess the right to brave the world's opinion. That's as clear as clean water!”

I was silent; I felt more inclined to cry than to laugh.

Le Journal, Paris, May 17, 1899.

(This episode is from a novel by René Maizeroy, which was begun in the columns of the Parisian daily paper I have stated and was left unfinished.

It was the story of a “cocotte's” bastard daughter, who eventually is destined by her two fathers to practice for the stage and is introduced to a crowd of Lesbians and courtesans. The story broke off at that juncture but was afterwards published under the title of Amuseuse, Paris, Nilsonn, 1900, 12 mo, illustrated with photographs.)

Appendix H

NOTES FROM THE GAY CITY, by ERIC ARVEL.

(Extract from the London Stock

Exchange Magazine, June 1899.)

“…a steady tide of visitors sets in towards the 'City of Pleasure,' the Mecca of the man whose imagination has been fired by the songs and gestures of the Parisian singers and dancers, but who too often on his arrival at the goal of his desire finds everything as flat and dull as the proverbial ditch water, for I know no more prosaic place than Paris under the Republic. The old animation of the boulevards is like the ball at the Opéra during the Carnival-existing simply in the minds of those who have read the memoirs published by man prior to the days of Nestor Roqueplan. The Jardin de Paris, although Oller is always up to date in his attempts to cater for the visitors, is but a very modernized imitation of Cremorne, and the old Jardin Mabille, where Rigolboche and Finette preceded the ladies who delight in such names as 'Grille de'Egout.'

“'Nini Patte en l'Air,' and 'La Goulue,' has disappeared for want of patronage. Tradition seems to impress English tourists with the legend of Paris; but small wonder that most of them declare on their return that they prefer London to Paris for everything: cooking, drinking, and all the comforts money should purchase when the Briton is on his travels or bound for enjoyment. The summer holidays are the harvest time of those shameless individuals: the touts for all that is bad and vile in a city where men avow deeds so carefully hidden by Pharisees on the other side of the Channel. The police are too busy hunting up small political conspirators to think of arresting thieves, much less these men; who are the purveyors of clandestine places resorted to by foreigners, who often carry their lives in their hands, and owe their safety to the generosity to which they are prompted by the surroundings.”

Appendix I

DIVORCE AMONG THE PEOPLE.

“And now with regard to girls:

“You know in what conditions of deplorable promiscuity the little people of Paris live. The whole family sleeps in two beds in the same room.

As long as the real father is there, we may hope that some remains of instinctive shame will prevent him from showing his children certain sights, from which we turn away our thoughts.

“But what happens when the mother, who cannot live on her own earnings, has started housekeeping with a second husband or a lover? What examples do you think will than be given to the little girls?

“They may think themselves lucky if, one day when the mother has gone out to market, the drunkard, as yet bewildered by the debauch of the preceding evening, does not violate them.

“I know what I am talking about. In the very poor working classes, there is no physical virginity after the age of fourteen.

— Le Bilan du Divorce, by Hugues Le Roux.

Le Figaro, Paris, April 28, 1899.

(Since published in book form.)

Appendix J

THE ALLEGED OFFENCE.

UNDER THE CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT ACT.

At the Wimbledon Police-Court, a clerk, thirty-three years of age, now living at 132, Arngask Road, Catford, but formerly of 153, Hartfield Road, was charged on remand with unlawfully and carnally knowing his step-daughter, Maud Frances Lacey, on various dates between March 1898 and March 1899.

Prisoner has been remanded from time to time for the appearance of his wife. That lady now appeared and denied that she had made any statement to the police beyond saying she was of a nervous and jealous disposition, and very much annoyed at certain things that had occurred between prisoner and her daughter. On many occasions she had caught the pair kissing, once surreptitiously, and this made her extremely jealous, as she thought the girl received attentions which ought to have been paid to herself, and actuated by this she communicated with the police with the idea of getting them separated. Witness gave a direct denial to the most essential points of the girl's evidence.

The girl also want into the box, and denied some of her previous evidence.

Mr. Matthews pointed out that no jury would convict on such evidence.

Mr. Meates said he did not feel disposed to take the responsibility on himself of allowing the case to drop through.

Mr. Matthews, after arguing the legal points of the case at some length, said there was absolutely no corroboration. Prisoner's wife was a jealous woman, who would not suffer her husband to kiss his step-daughter, and that jealousy was her motive for acting as she had was apparent from the fact that she had contradicted all the most vital points of the girl's evidence. If the case was sent for trial it would involve a repetition of a most unsavory story, which must already have become indelibly impressed on the young girl's mind. Besides, no public advantage would be gained by such a course, and therefore, in the interests of public morality, he ventured to suggest that the case should be dismissed.