Chapter 11

LOVE IN PRISON.

I.

BESIDES misdeeds, robberies, the division of spoils after
an ambuscade, and the twilight exploitation of the barriers
of Paris, footpads, burglars, and gaol-birds generally have
another industry: they have ideal loves.

This requires explanation.

The trade in negro slaves moves us, and with good reason;
we examine this social sore, and we do well. But let
us also learn to lay bare another ulcer, which is more
painful, perhaps: the traffic in white women.

Here is one of the singular things connected with and
characteristic of this poignant disorder of our civilization:

Every gaol contains a prisoner who is known as the "artist."

All kinds of trades and professions peculiar to prisons
develop behind the bars. There is the vendor of
liquorice-water, the vendor of scarfs, the writer, the advocate, the
usurer, the hut-maker, and the barker. The artist takes
rank among these local and peculiar professions between
the writer and the advocate.

To be an artist is it necessary to know how to draw? By
no means. A bit of a bench to sit upon, a wall to lean
against, a lead pencil, a bit of pasteboard, a needle stuck
in a handle made out of a piece of wood, a little Indian
ink or sepia, a little Prussian blue, and a little vermilion in
three cracked beechwood spoons,--this is all that is
requisite; a knowledge of drawing is superfluous. Thieves are
as fond of colouring as children are, and as fond of tattooing
as are savages. The artist by means of his three spoons
satisfies the first of these needs, and by means of his needle
the second. His remuneration is a "nip" of wine.

The result is this:

Some prisoners, say, lack everything, or are simply
desirous of living more comfortably. They combine, wait
upon the artist, offer him their glasses of wine or their bowls
of soup, hand him a sheet of paper and order of him a
bouquet. In the bouquet there must be as many flowers
as there are prisoners in the group. If there be three
prisoners, there must be three flowers. Each flower bears
a figure, or, if preferred, a number, which number is that
of the prisoner.

The bouquet when painted is sent, through the mysterious
means of communication between the various prisons that
the police are powerless to prevent, to Saint Lazare. Saint
Lazare is the women's prison, and where there are women
there also is pity. The bouquet circulates from hand to
hand among the unfortunate creatures that the police
detain administratively at Saint Lazare; and in a few days
the infallible secret post apprises those who sent the
bouquet that Palmyre has chosen the tuberose, that Fanny
prefers the azalea,