"Does it astonish you?"
"It really does; for people don't usually say such things to me; they generally treat me as they would a mangy dog. It's odd, though, the effect what you say has on me. Heart! honour!" he repeated, with an air which was actually pensive.
"Well, what ails you?"
"I' faith, I don't know," replied the Chourineur, in a tone of emotion; "but these words, do you see, they quite make my heart beat; and I feel more flattered than if any one told me I was a 'better man' than either the Skeleton or the Schoolmaster. I never felt anything like it before. Be sure, though, that these words, and the blows of the fist at the end of my tussle,—you did lay 'em on like a good 'un,—not alluding to what you pay for the supper, and the words you have said—in a word," he exclaimed, bluntly, as if he could not find language to express his thoughts, "make sure that in life or death you may depend on the Chourineur."
Rodolph, unwilling to betray his emotion, replied in a tone as calm as he could assume, "How long did you go on as an amateur knacker?"
"Why, at first, I was quite sick of cutting up old worn-out horses, who could not even kick; but when I was about sixteen, and my voice began to get rough, it became a passion—a taste—a relish—a rage—with me to cut and slash. I did not care for anything but that; not even eating and drinking. You should have seen me in the middle of my work! Except an old pair of woollen trousers, I was quite naked. When, with my large and well-whetted knife in my hand, I had about me fifteen or twenty horses waiting their turn, by Jupiter! when I began to slaughter them, I don't know what possessed me,—I was like a fury. My ears had singing in them, and I saw everything red,—all was red; and I slashed, and slashed, and slashed, until my knife fell from my hands! Thunder! what happiness! Had I had millions, I could have paid them to have enjoyed my trade!"
"It is that which has given you the habit of stabbing," said Rodolph.
"Very likely; but when I was turned of sixteen, the passion became so strong that when I once began slashing, I became mad; I spoiled my work; yes, I spoiled the skins, because I slashed and cut them across and across; for I was so furious that I could not see clearly. At last they turned me out of the yard. I wanted employment with the butchers, for I have always liked that sort of business. Well, they quite looked down upon me; they despised me as a shoemaker does a cobbler. Then I had to seek my bread elsewhere, and I didn't find it very readily; and this was the time when my bread-basket was so often empty. At length I got employment in the quarries at Montrouge; but, at the end of two years, I was tired of going always around like a squirrel in his cage, and drawing stone for twenty sous a day. I was tall and strong, and so I enlisted in a regiment. They asked my name, my age, and my papers. My name?—the Albino. My age?—look at my beard. My papers?—here's the certificate of the master quarryman. As I was just the fellow for a grenadier, they took me."
"With your strength, courage, and taste for chopping and slashing, you ought, in war-time, to have been made an officer."
"Thunder and lightning! what do you say? What! to cut up English or Prussians! Why, that would have been better than to cut up old horses; but, worse luck, there was no war, but a great deal of discipline. An apprentice tries to hit his master a thump; well, if he be the weaker, why, he gets the worst of it; if he be the stronger, he has the best of it; he is turned out-of-doors, perhaps put into the cage,—and that is all. In the army it is quite a different thing. One day our sergeant had bullied me a good deal, to make me more attentive,—he was right, for I was very slow; I did not like a poke he gave me, and I kicked at him; he pushed me again, I returned his poke; he collared me, and I gave him a punch of the head. They fell on me, and then my blood was up in my eyes, and I was enraged in a moment. I had my knife in my hand—I belonged to the cookery—and I 'went it my hardest.' I cut, slashed,—slashed, chopped, as if I was in the slaughter-house. I made 'cold meat' of the sergeant, wounded two soldiers,—it was a real shambles; I gave the three eleven wounds,—yes, eleven. Blood flowed, flowed everywhere, blood, as though we were in the bone-house,—I swam in it—"