Notes from France (1)

A month later, Fagin rode in a carriage belonging to Jacques Gallen, bearing the insignia of the French Embassy, directly through the VIP passage into the VIP waiting room at the dock.

Boarding the ship from here is relatively safe, after all, Fagin is a wanted criminal in Britain, the kind who, if caught, would definitely be hanged. Of course, going up through the ordinary passage isn't particularly dangerous either, although there are portraits of a large group of wanted criminals, including Fagin, hanging there. Fagin recognizes many of them, but Fagin, he hasn't seen a single portrait that looks like a real criminal; some portraits even get the gender wrong.

Furthermore, these portraits, exposed to the elements and not replaced for a long time, had faded terribly, almost to the point of being illegible. But Fagin knew these portraits were still very useful, at least to the police officers. Using these portraits, which looked somewhat similar to each person yet subtly different, they could easily pick out those who didn't use the VIP lane to board the ship (these people were mostly without connections and easy to bully), and then say, "You look like Fagin. We need to take you back for questioning."

At this point, a sensible person would simply take out money and bribe the police officer, and then naturally, he wouldn't look like Fagin anymore; as for the ungrateful one, dragging him to the station, would he really be so ungrateful? In the end, he'd always be made to behave, wouldn't he? Therefore, drawing a portrait of a criminal on a wanted poster is a technical job. Its most important principle is that the drawing must have similarities to everyone, but also some differences.

However, using the VIP passage would eliminate all such trouble. You see, those who use this passage are all prominent figures. If the police of the United Kingdom are as ruthless as Pit Tosa when dealing with the poor (of course, neither of these breeds exists now), then they are as docile as pugs when facing the "respectable people" here. Even more docile and human-like than pugs.

It was also Fagin's first time waiting to board a ship in the waiting room for so-called "decent people." He looked around and felt out of place. Most of the passengers here were accompanied by servants, and they were now sitting on sofas, their every move attended to by their servants. As for Fagin, he was dragging a large trunk (this slightly more respectable trunk, as well as the decent clothes he was wearing, were all given to him by Jacques Gallen), and he exuded the so-called "vulgar" aura.

The "respectable people" in the waiting room only glanced at him, saw his thick, muscular hands, his red, wrinkled, rough face like sandpaper, and his decent clothes, and immediately made this judgment: nouveau riche.

However, while most "respectable people" feel a genuine sense of superiority when facing "nouveau riche," they also know that it's unwise to flaunt this superiority. Most "nouveau riche" became rich for a reason. Besides luck, they are all exceptionally capable individuals. It's unwise to offend them rashly when there's no conflict of interest.

For this reason, although Fagin looked like a country bumpkin, the kind of pretentious slap-in-the-face stories that the general public loves to see never happened.

Fagin looked around, looking for a place to sit down. Suddenly, he saw a young man not far from the fireplace, dressed much like the other ordinary people, and even more out of place in this luxurious waiting room compared to him, sitting alone.

Perhaps disliking the man's shabby appearance, the other respectable people sat far away from him. But this was exactly what Fagin needed, so he went over and said to the young man, "May I sit here?"

The young man gave a simple, honest smile and replied in somewhat broken English, "Of course."

So Fagin sat down next to the young man and started chatting with him.

"My name is Kolya, I'm from London, and I'm on my way to Paris. Judging from your accent, you don't seem to be Britain?" Fagin said, extending his hand to the man.

"Grandet, I am France." The man also extended his hand to shake Fagin's, and Fagin noticed that the man's hand was covered in calluses.

"Look at these hands, they seem to belong to a craftsman."

With that in mind, Fagin continued his conversation with the young man. Soon, he learned that this France named Grandet was a businessman who had made his fortune during the France Revolution and had just completed a major deal in Britain, and was preparing to sail back home.

"Boat tickets are really expensive these days," Grandet said. "One ticket costs as much as my monthly income used to. If it weren't for the company buying the tickets for me, and I had to pay for them myself, I would never have bought them. Um, Mr. Kolya, what do you plan to do in France?"

"Let's go to Paris first and see if there are any opportunities to make a fortune," Fagin replied. He couldn't very well tell people that he would first go to Paris to see if the revolution had benefited the common people, then go to Toulon to learn the theories and techniques of rebellion, then go to Ireland to put theory into practice, and then come back...

Those respectable people in the vicinity, upon hearing this, would probably immediately call the police, and the police would arrest them with maximum efficiency.

When he told everyone that he might be doing something that would cost him his head, Buck dismissively said, "Who here hasn't done something that would cost them their head?"

When Fagin answered, "It's different." However, he didn't elaborate on the differences. Fagin knew that if he were caught by the police now, he would definitely lose his head, but the police wouldn't expend much effort to catch him. Catching him would be good, but not catching him wouldn't matter much. But once he embarked on that path, the entire police system would treat him as a formidable enemy that had to be apprehended. The London police weren't all fools; many times, they hadn't been able to catch him before simply because they didn't consider it an urgent matter.

But his answer intrigued Grandet. Grandet told him that Britain textiles were currently quite popular in France because of their low prices, and that some France products, such as wine, were also very popular in Britain. He himself was from the Saumur region, which also produced wine of good quality, no less than that of Saumur. As long as it had the Bordeaux, even France people couldn't tell the difference.

"If Mr. Kolya is interested in the wine business, he can contact me after he arrives in France." Grandet also left a mailing address for Fagin.

It was almost time for the ship to depart, and the VIPs always boarded first. Fagin and Grandet boarded together. Coincidentally, their compartments were next to each other.

This naturally gave Grandet the opportunity to continue trying to sell various goods to Fagin. During their conversations, he gradually discovered that this Monsieur Kolya was neither familiar with nor particularly interested in wine and the like, but was quite interested in weapons and knives. So he told Fagin that he knew many arms dealers and could help him make these connections...

The journey from Britain to France was not far; two days later, the ship docked at Calais. Grandet and Fagin bid each other a reluctant farewell, and Grandet boarded the mail train bound for Lorraine. Before leaving, he repeatedly reminded Fagin not to forget him if he were to do any business.

Fagin also boarded a mail train bound for Paris, finally free from Grandet, which gave him a sense of relief.

The mail truck sped along the roads of France. It was still winter, and the fields were barren. Generally, this was one of the few quiet times of the year for farmers, when they had little to do. They would usually stay indoors, waiting for winter to pass. The fields should have been very quiet at this time.

But along the way, Fagin saw large groups of farmers working in the fields more than once.

"What are they doing?" Fagin asked the others in the mail truck in broken French.

"They're digging an irrigation ditch," a businessman-looking man replied. "These are Veterans Association members, leading the villagers to dig the ditch while they have nothing else to do."

"Ah, is it really this hard even in the dead of winter?" Fagin said.

"It's hard work, but it's worth it," the merchant replied. "I heard that the Veterans Association has connections and can buy electric water pumps. So all they have to do is dig the irrigation ditches in winter, and when the wheat needs watering, they just turn on the electric pumps and irrigate huge fields. This summer, some rural areas were already using these, and the wheat yields increased dramatically. I heard that the farmers in those areas are already eating white bread themselves."

"The farmers' lives are really much better now," another person interjected. "Now that there are no nobles, although the country's tax revenue is nominally much higher than it was during the kingdom's heyday, the farmers actually get much more than before because of the nobles' land rent. Plus, there are water pumps, and the Veterans Association even hired experts to teach them techniques. Sigh, speaking of which, the farmers' lives have really improved since the revolution."

"And what about the poor in the France city?" Fagin asked again.

"In the city? The poor suffer just as much. Or rather, probably even more than before. Although it's not as good as people imagined before the revolution, at least they have bread to eat. Well, once you get to Paris, you can go and see for yourself," the merchant replied.