“Now, Jeanne,” I said, sitting on one of two bentwood chairs I’d placed opposite each other, “this is what I would like you to do.” I took her by the wrist and dragged her close to me, handing her the hammer I had bought the previous day. “I want you to use this to knock out all of my teeth, making sure you retrieve all of them and let none of them fall down my throat.” A look of panic flickered across her face. “Yes, it will hurt, but that is not your concern. I won’t get angry at you. I won’t punish you. I want you to do it. In fact, I insist on it. Come now.” I tilted my face toward her and opened my mouth wide as I had at the dentist two days earlier. If Jeanne had any hesitation, she of course showed nothing of it. She simply gave a little nervous sigh and began hammering. I made such a commotion that Berthe opened the door a little to see what was happening. I waved her away with one grunt and, with another, urged Jeanne to continue. When she was done, she washed the gold teeth in a glass of water without a word and placed them with the other precious things procured thanks to the unwitting generosity of Desire Michaux.

I felt as beaten up as after a flogging, and spent some minutes hunched over, blood drooling from my mouth. Admittedly, I might have made things easier on myself by crossing with Jeanne first, and then chiseling the gold teeth from Feuille’s mouth, but I was determined to inflict no needless suffering on the girl, considering that what I was about to do was cruelty enough. It would be a blind crossing, and she would inherit a broken body, but I appeased my conscience with the thought that at least it was the body of a free man, a white man, a wealthy man. It would be assumed that he’d been the victim of a violent robbery.

I could hear Berthe fretting outside. My bloodied mouth was throbbing and swollen and I could not speak, so it was with gestures and grunts that I instructed Jeanne to sit on one of two chairs. Then I locked the door.

Go here.

Jeanne Duval

Born 1822

First crossing 1838

Second crossing 1864

Date of death unknown