— Translation by Cat Nilan
28. La Fausse Monnaie
Comme nous nous éloignions du bureau de tabac, mon ami fit un soigneux
triage de sa monnaie ; dans la poche gauche de son gilet il glissa de petites
pièces d�or; dans la droite, de petites pièces d�argent; dans la poche gauche de
sa culotte, une masse de gros sols, et enfin, dans la droite, une pièce d�argent
de deux francs qu�il avait particulièrement examinée.
«Singulière et minutieuse répartition!» me dis-je en moi-même.
Nous fîmes la rencontre d�un pauvre qui nous tendit sa casquette en
tremblant. — Je ne connais rien de plus inquiétant que l�éloquence muette de
ces yeux suppliants, qui contiennent à la fois, pour l�homme sensible qui sait y
lire, tant d�humilité, tant de reproches. Il y trouve quelque chose approchant
cette profondeur de sentiment compliqué, dans les yeux larmoyants des chiens
qu�on fouette.
L�offrande de mon ami fut beaucoup plus considérable que la mienne, et je
lui dis: «Vous avez raison; après le plaisir d�être étonné, il n�en est pas de
plus grand que celui de causer une surprise. — C�était la pièce fausse», me
répondit-il tranquillement, comme pour se justifier de sa prodigalité.
Mais dans mon misérable cerveau, toujours occupé à chercher midi à
quatorze heures (de quelle fatigante faculté la nature m�a fait cadeau!) entra
soudainement cette idée qu�une pareille conduite, de la part de mon ami, n�était
excusable que par le désir de créer un événement dans la vie de ce pauvre
diable, peut-être même de connaître les conséquences diverses, funestes ou
autres, que peut engendrer une pièce fausse dans la main d�un mendiant. Ne
pouvait-elle pas se multiplier en pièces vraies? ne pouvait-elle pas aussi le
conduire en prison? Un cabaretier, un boulanger, par exemple, allait peut-être
le faire arrêter comme faux monnayeur ou comme propagateur de fausse monnaie.
Tout aussi bien la pièce fausse serait peut-être, pour un pauvre petit
spéculateur, le germe d�une richesse de quelques jours. Et ainsi ma fantaisie
allait son train, prêtant des ailes à l�esprit de mon ami et tirant toutes les
déductions possibles de toutes les hypothèses possibles.
Mais celui-ci rompit brusquement ma rêverie en reprenant mes propres
paroles: «Oui, vous avez raison; il n�est pas de plaisir plus doux que de
surprendre un homme en lui donnant plus qu�il n�espère.»
Je le regardai dans le blanc des yeux, et je fus épouvanté de voir que
ses yeux brillaient d�une incontestable candeur. Je vis alors clairement qu'il
avait voulu faire à la fois la charité et une bonne affaire; gagner quarante
sols et le c�ur de Dieu; emporter le paradis économiquement; enfin attraper
gratis un brevet d�homme charitable. Je lui aurais presque pardonné le désir de
la criminelle jouissance dont je le supposais tout à l�heure capable; j'aurais
trouvé curieux, singulier, qu�il s�amusât à compromettre les pauvres; mais je ne
lui pardonnerai jamais l�ineptie de son calcul. On n�est jamais excusable
d�être méchant, mais il y a quelque mérite à savoir qu�on l�est; et le plus
irréparable des vices est de faire le mal par bêtise.
As we were walking away from a tobacconist's, my friend carefully sorted
out his change: into his left vest pocket he slipped the small gold coins, into
his right vest pocket the small silver coins; into the left pocket of his pants,
a handful of large copper coins, and finally into his right pant's pocket, a two
franc silver piece he had examined with particular attention.
"A singular and meticulous division!," I said to myself.
We encountered a poor man who tremblingly held out his hat to us. — I
know nothing more disquieting than the mute eloquence of those supplicating
eyes, which contain at one and the same time so much humility and so many
reproaches, at least for the sensitive man who knows how to read them. He finds
something approaching these depths of complicated emotion in the tearful eyes of
dogs being beaten.
My friend's offering was much larger than my own, and I said to him: "You
are right: next to the pleasure of being astonished, there is none greater than
causing surprise." "It was the counterfeit coin," he replied tranquilly, as if
to justify his prodigality.
But into my miserable brain, always missing the obvious (what a tiresome
faculty nature made me a gift of!), entered suddenly the idea that such conduct
on the part of my friend was only excusable on the grounds of a desire to create
an event in the life of that poor devil, perhaps even to learn the diverse
consequences, whether deadly or otherwise, that a counterfeit coin might produce
in the hands of a beggar. Might it not be converted into real coins? Might it
not also lead him into prison? A publican or a baker might, for example, have
him arrested as a counterfeiter or as a passer of counterfeit coins. But the
counterfeit coin might also just as well serve as the seed for several day's
wealth, in the hands of a poor, small-scale speculator. And so my fancy played
itself out, lending wings to the spirit of my friend and drawing all possible
deductions from all possible hypotheses.
But he brusquely broke my reverie by repeating my very words: "Yes, you
are right: there is no pleasure sweeter than surprising a man by giving him more
than he had hoped for."
I gazed into the whites of his eyes, and I was appalled to see that his
eyes were shining with an incontestable candor. I then saw clearly that he had
wanted to both perform a charitable act and make a good deal at the same time —
to gain forty sous and the heart of God; to get into paradise economically;
finally, to earn for free the badge of a charitable man. I might almost have
pardoned him for the desire for criminal enjoyment of which I had just recently
supposed him capable. I would have found it curious and singular that he amused
himself by compromising the poor, but I could never pardon him for the ineptness
of this calculation. One is never excused for being evil, but there is some
merit in knowing that one is — and the most irreparable of vices is to do evil
through stupidity.
What is the devious stupidity which the fraudulently charitable man has ignored? In giving a man a false piece, he has detracted from his very capacity to purchase. Baudelaire's on-looking protagonist has apparently no real knowledge of economics.
When more money is pushed into circulation, it depreciates, whether a man is aware that he is spending false money or not. When the government publishes fiat currency, it actually unmakes the very value of the money in the first place.
In giving the man more money to spend, he in fact diminished his purchasing power. This subtle irony defines man's every attempt to "gain the heart of God."
All our works are filthy rags (Isaiah 64: 6). The more that we try in our own efforts, forcing or faking our way to garner God's favor, we actually bring ourselves into great bondage. The fact that man in his flesh is dead in his trespasses, and that to be carnally minded is death, it follows subsequent that attempting to buy something that cannot be bought merely depreciates what is already of no value!
This irony, which touches on the nature of God's grace and the currency, is certainly an irony which the poet was unaware of.