Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon Read Online Free PDF Page A

house, his animals and his garden. He had never even referred to money. He had become a philosopher. I was puzzled.
    They caught Charlot because a guy by the name of Little Louis tipped off the police; and during our short meetings in the Sante Charlot never stopped swearing he would get Louis the first chance he had. Yet this evening he had not so much as breathed Louis’s name. And as for me--Christ!--I had not said a word about my cops, or Goldstein, or the prosecuting counsel, either. I should have talked about them! I hadn’t escaped just to end up a cross between a gardener and a day laborer.
    I had promised to go straight in this country, and I’d keep my word. But that didn’t mean I had given up my plans for revenge. You mustn’t forget, Papi, that the reason you’re here today is that the idea of revenge kept you going for fourteen years.
    His little black girl was very pretty, all right; but still I wondered whether Big Charlot wouldn’t be better off in a city than in this hole at the far end of creation. Or maybe I was the square, not seeing that my friend’s life had its charm? That was something to chew over.
    Charlot was forty-five, not an old man. Very tail, very strong, built like a Corsican peasant fed on plenty of good, healthy food all his young days. He was deeply burned by the sun of this country, and with his huge straw hat on his head, its brim turned up at the sides, he looked terrific. He was a perfect example of the pioneer in these virgin lands, and he was so much one of the people and the country he did not stand out at all. Far from it: he really belonged.
    Seven years he’d been here, this still young Montmartre safecracker! He must certainly have worked more than two years to clear this stretch of plateau and build his house. He had to go out into the bush, choose the trees, cut them down, bring them back, fit them together. Every beam in his house was made of the hardest and heaviest timber in the world, the kind they call ironwood. I was sure all he earned at the mine had gone into it, because he must have had help and must have paid for the labor, the cement (the house was concreted), the well, and the windmill for pumping the water up to the tank.
    That well-rounded young Negrita with her big loving eyes: she must be a perfect companion for this old sea dog on shore. I’d seen a sewing machine in the big room. She must make those little dresses that suited her so well.
    Maybe the reason Charlot hadn’t gone to the city was that he wasn’t sure of himself, whereas here he enjoyed a life with no problems at all. You’re a great guy, Charlot! You’re the very picture of what a crook can be turned into. I congratulate you. And I also congratulate the people who changed your way of seeing what a life can or ought to be.
    But still these Venezuelans are dangerous, with their generous hospitality. Kindness and goodwill turn you into a prisoner if you let yourself be caught. I’m free, and I mean to stay that way forever.
    I’d better watch it. Above all, no setting up house with a girl. A man needs love when he’s been cut off from it for a long time, but fortunately I’d had a girl in Georgetown two years before, my Hindu, Indara. So I was not so vulnerable as if I’d come straight from jail, as Charlot had. Indara was lovely and I was happy with her; but it wasn’t for that I had settled in Georgetown, living there in clover. If the quiet life is too quiet, even though it’s happy, it’s not for me: that I know very well.
    Adventure! A man needs adventure to feel alive, alive all through! That was why I left Georgetown and why I ended up at El Dorado. And that was why I was where I was today.
    Okay. The girls were pretty, full-blooded and charming, and I certainly could not live without love. It was up to me to avoid complications. I must promise myself to stay there a year, since I was forced to do so anyway. The less I owned, the easier I’d be able to leave this country