As we were leaving the tobaccoist’s, my friend carefully
sorted his coins. Into his left vest pocket
he slipped little pieces of gold; into his right, silver pieces; into the left
pocket of his trousers, a clutch of pennies; and finally, into the right, a
two-franc silver coin he had carefully checked.
“Odd and fussy distribution,” I said to myself.
We came upon a beggar who held his hat out shakily. –I find
nothing more disquieting than the mute eloquence of such suppliant eyes,
containing a once, for who can read it, so much humility, with as much
reproach. Something nearing that
profoundly complicated feeling can be seen in the eyes of dogs when they are
whipped.
My friend’s offering was much larger than mine and I said to
him, “You are right; except for the pleasure of being astonished, there is no
greater than to cause surprise.”---“That was the false coin,” he replied
tranquilly, as if to justify his prodigality. But my poor brain, always
scouting out imaginary byways (what a tiresome head nature foisted on me),
suddenly arrived at the idea that my friend’s conduct was excusable only if it
meant to create an event in the life of this poor devil, maybe even to
understand the diverse consequences, baleful or other, that could result from a
false coin in a beggar’s hand. Might it
not multiply into genuine coins? Could
it not get him thrown in prison? An
inn-keeper, for instance, or a baker, could have him arrested as counterfeiter
or passer of false coins. Just as
likely, the false coin might prove, for a petty speculator, he germ of a few
days wealth. So my fantasy went on,
lending wings to my friend’s wit and deducing all the possibilities of all
possible hypothesis.
But then my reverie was rudely broken by my own words recurring:
“Yes, you are right; no pleasure can be sweeter than a man’s surprise, getting
more than he hoped for.”
Looking at my friend squarely in the eye, I was appalled to
see his eyes shining with uncontestable candor. Clearly then I saw how much he
wanted to make at once a charitable act and a good deal; a bit of gain along
with God’s approval; to win paradise at a bargain; finally, to get for nothing
a reputation of being charitable. I could almost have pardoned the desire for
criminal enjoyment I had just thought him capable of; I could have found
curious, singular, that he was amused to compromise the poor; but I would never
pardon the ineptitude of his calculation. Meanness is never excusable, but
there is some merit in knowing you are mean. The most unredeemable vice is to
do evil from stupidity.
Charles Baudelaire
