As soon as I left the Auberge de Jehan Cottard I went to bed and slept the clock round, all but one hour. Then I washed my teeth for the first time in a fortnight, bathed and had my hair cut, and got my clothes out of pawn1. I had two glorious days of loafing. I even went in my best suit to the Auberge, leant against the bar and spent five francs on a bottle of English beer. It is a curious sensation, being a customer where you have been a slave’s slave. Boris was sorry that I had left the restaurant just at the moment when we were LANCES and there was a chance of making money. I have heard from him since, and he tells me that he is making a hundred francs a day and has set up a girl who is TRES SERIEUSE and never smells of garlic.
I spent a day wandering about our quarter, saying good-bye to everyone. It was on this day that Charlie told me about the death of old Roucolle the miser2, who had once lived in the quarter. Very likely Charlie was lying as usual, but it was a good story.
Roucolle died, aged3 seventy-four, a year or two before I went to Paris, but the people in the quarter still talked of him while I was there. He never equalled Daniel Dancer or anyone of that kind, but he was an interesting character. He went to Les Halles every morning to pick up damaged vegetables, and ate cat’s meat, and wore newspaper instead of underclothes, and used the wainscoting of his room for firewood, and made himself a pair of trousers out of a sack — all this with half a million francs invested. I should like very much to have known him.
Like many misers4, Roucolle came to a bad end through putting his money into a wildcat scheme. One day a Jew appeared in the quarter, an alert, business-like young chap who had a first-rate plan for smuggling5 cocaine6 into England. It is easy enough, of course, to buy cocaine in Paris, and the smuggling would be quite simple in itself, only there is always some spy who betrays the plan to the customs or the police. It is said that this is often done by the very people who sell the cocaine, because the smuggling trade is in the hands of a large combine, who do not want competition. The Jew, however, swore that there was no danger. He knew a way of getting cocaine direct from Vienna, not through the usual channels, and there would be no blackmail7 to pay. He had got into touch with Roucolle through a young Pole, a student at the Sorbonne, who was going to put four thousand francs into the scheme if Roucolle would put six thousand. For this they could buy ten pounds of cocaine, which would be worth a small fortune in England.
The Pole and the Jew had a tremendous struggle to get the money from between old Roucolle’s claws. Six thousand francs was not much — he had more than that sewn into the mattress8 in his room — but it was agony for him to part with a sou. The Pole and the Jew were at him for weeks on end, explaining, bullying9, coaxing10, arguing, going down on their knees and imploring11 him to produce the money. The old man was half frantic12 between greed and fear. His bowels13 yearned14 at the thought of getting, perhaps, fifty thousand francs’ profit, and yet he could not bring himself to risk the money. He used to sit in a comer with his head in his hands, groaning15 and sometimes yelling out in agony, and often he would kneel down (he was very pious) and pray for strength, but still he couldn’t do it. But at last, more from exhaustion16 than anything else, he gave in quite suddenly; he slit17 open the mattress where his money was concealed18 and handed over six thousand francs to the Jew.
The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and promptly20 vanished. And meanwhile, as was not surprising after the fuss Roucolle had made, the affair had been noised all over the quarter. The very next morning the hotel was raided and searched by the police.
Roucolle and the Pole were in agonies. The police were downstairs, working their way up and searching every room in turn, and there was the great packet of cocaine on the table, with no place to hide it and no chance of escaping down the stairs. The Pole was for throwing the stuff out of the window, but Roucolle would not hear of it. Charlie told me that he had been present at the scene. He said that when they tried to take the packet from Roucolle he clasped it to his breast and struggled like a madman, although he was seventy-four years old. He was wild with fright, but he would go to prison rather than throw his money away.
At last, when the police were searching only one floor below, somebody had an idea. A man on Roucolle’s floor had a dozen tins of face-powder which he was selling on commission; it was suggested that the cocaine could be put into the tins and passed off as face-powder. The powder was hastily thrown out of the window and the cocaine substituted, and the tins were put openly on Roucolle’s table, as though there there were nothing to conceal19. A few minutes later the police came to search Roucolle’s room. They tapped the walls and looked up the chimney and turned out the drawers and examined the floorboards, and then, just as they were about to give it up, having found nothing, the inspector21 noticed the tins on the table.
‘TIENS,’ he said, ‘have a look at those tins. I hadn’t noticed them. What’s in them, eh?’
‘Face-powder,’ said the Pole as calmly as he could manage. But at the same instant Roucolle let out a loud groaning noise, from alarm, and the police became suspicious immediately. They opened one of the tins and tipped out the contents, and after smelling it, the inspector said that he believed it was cocaine. Roucolle and the Pole began swearing on the names of the saints that it was only face-powder; but it was no use, the more they protested the more suspicious the police became. The two men were arrested and led off to the police station, followed by half the quarter.
At the station, Roucolle and the Pole were interrogated22 by the Commissaire while a tin of the cocaine was sent away to be analysed. Charlie said that the scene Roucolle made was beyond description. He wept, prayed, made contradictory23 statements and denounced the Pole all at once, so loud that he could be heard half a street away. The policemen almost burst with laughing at him.
After an hour a policeman came back with the tin of cocaine and a note from the analyst24. He was laughing.
‘This is not cocaine, MONSIEUR,’ he said.
‘What, not cocaine?’ said the Commissaire. ‘MAIS, ALORS— what is it, then?’
‘It is face-powder.’
Roucolle and the Pole were released at once, entirely25 exonerated26 but very angry. The Jew had double-crossed them. Afterwards, when the excitement was over, it turned out that he had played the same trick on two other people in the quarter.
The Pole was glad enough to escape, even though he had lost his four thousand francs, but poor old Roucolle was utterly27 broken down. He took to his bed at once, and all that day and half the night they could hear him thrashing about, mumbling28, and sometimes yelling out at the top of his voice:
‘Six thousand francs! NOM DE JESUS-CHRIST! Six thousand francs!’
Three days later he had some kind of stroke, and in a fortnight he was dead — of a broken heart, Charlie said.
收听单词发音 |
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pawn
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| n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押 | |
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miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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misers
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| 守财奴，吝啬鬼( miser的名词复数 ) | |
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smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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cocaine
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| n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂） | |
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blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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interrogated
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| v.询问( interrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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analyst
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| n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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exonerated
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| v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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