Vanity Fair: “who pities a poor barber…?”

As I’ve said before, one of the main attractions of Vanity Fair is the narrator. He can be sarcastic and cynical, he can be warm, he can be funny. And sometimes he can make you see things differently. 

For example, in a chapter titled “How to Live Well on Nothing a Year”, he writes about the way Rebecca (Becky Sharp) and her husband Rawdon Crawley live a life of luxury without having much income. 

“It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys' departure that the landlord of the hotel which they occupied during their residence at Paris found out the losses which he had sustained: not until Madame Marabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until Monsieur Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour. It is a fact that even the poor gardener's wife, who had nursed madame's child, was never paid after the first six months for that supply of the milk of human kindness with which she had furnished the lusty and healthy little Rawdon. No, not even the nurse was paid—the Crawleys were in too great a hurry to remember their trifling debt to her.” (Ch.36) 

The Crawleys, especially Becky, are basically con-artists. It does raise an important question though: how did things work in the Regency era that some people could get away with not paying for things for so long? 

“As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street was to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London. […] And the old man not only let his house to the Colonel but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the kitchen below and sending up dinners of which old Miss Crawley herself might have approved. This was the way, then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school; and the value of the meat and drink which his own family—and for a time that of Colonel Crawley too—consumed; and though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year—and so it was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel Crawley's defective capital.

I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawley's way?—how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house—and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.” (Ch.37) 

To you, this may be nothing special, I don’t know. But personally I find it interesting because I often read 19th century novels and don’t think other writers directly address, as Thackeray does, the impact on the tradesmen and employees when a person of higher class lives beyond their means and cheats them, or goes bankrupt and cannot repay debts.  

This is one example of Thackeray’s digressions—they don’t advance the plot, but who cares, they’re interesting in themselves.