_Théophraste Again Hears of His Treasures_
|THE clamber over the roofs of the Rue Ge-rondo on a cold rainy night
had a physical and moral effect on Théophraste. He had taken cold and
was suffering in consequence. From a moral point of view it had made
him change his whole view of these events. While he had been reading
the accounts of these crimes with which the new Cartouche had been
terrifying Paris, he had shown a callous indifference, but now he
commenced to hold himself responsible for many of the atrocities, and
especially for the murder of M. Houdry, which he had before facetiously
blamed on the calf.
He often recalled nocturnal visits by the route he was now following,
and several bloody crimes came back to his memory, disgusting him, and
making him weep bitter tears of useless remorse.
It was, however, too late. In spite of all his sufferings, in spite of
M. de la Nox’s invocations, and the torture they had submitted him to,
Cartouche was not dead.
And that evening, then, like many other criminal evenings, he led his
damned soul over the roofs of Paris. He wept. He cursed that mysterious,
irresistible force, which from the depths of centuries commanded him
to kill. He cursed the influence which made him kill. He thought of his
wife—of Adolphe. He bitterly regretted the hours of passed happiness
between those two beings so dear to him. He excused them for running
away. He pardoned them for their terror. He resolved never again to
trouble their peaceful days with his bloody incoherencies. “Let
me disappear,” he said to himself. “Let me hide my shame and my
original defect in the midst of the desert. They will forget me. I shall
forget myself. Let me profit by these logical moments, when my brain,
released momentarily from the Other, discusses, weighs, deduces, and
concludes and sees in the present.”
It was not Cartouche who spoke, it was Théophraste, who cried to
Cartouche: “Let us fly! Since I love Marceline, let us fly! Since I
love Adolphe, let us fly! One day they will be happy without me! There
is no longer happiness with me! Adieu! adieu! Marceline, adored woman,
faithful wife! Farewell, Adolphe, precious, consoling friend! Farewell!
Théophraste tells you farewell!” He wept. Then he said aloud: “I
come, Cartouche!”
Then he plunged into the darkness, going from gutter to gutter, from
roof to roof, sliding from high walls with safety, protected, like a
somnambulist, by Providence.
And now who is that man who, with his head lowered, his back curved,
his hands in his pockets, swayed like a poor wretch in the wind and rain
which fell profusely all the tedious way? He followed the road which
skirts the railroad. It is a straight road, bordered by small, weak
trees, plain common broom-straw—sad ornaments for a departmental
road—running along the side of the railroad. Whence comes this man,
with his hands in his pockets, or, rather, this shade of a man? The
plain extends to the right and the left without an undulation, without
the rising of a hillock, without the hollow of a riser. All this can be
seen, for this is not a night scene; it is broad daylight, on the track,
straight on by the side of the road.
Trains pass each other from time to time, local trains, fast trains,
freight trains, rattling along with an occasional ceasing when one
hears in the wind the ting, ting, ting of the bell of the disks at the
station. There is one station before, and one behind. They are small
stations, and are five kilometers apart. Between the two stations there
is a straight double track, but no viaduct, no tunnel, no bridge, not
even a culvert.
As I said before, from whence came the sad shade of a man?
It is Théophraste. He has resolved to fly—no matter where—far from
his wife.
After a night passed from gutter to gutter, not knowing where to direct
his steps, and not caring at all, he goes into a railway station. He
gets into a train without a ticket, gets out of the train at another
station.
How often does it happen that the control registers of railway stations
are badly made on account of the number of travelers.
Behold him, then, on the road at the entrance of a village which follows
the railroad track. And who is it that watches him as he crosses the
threshold of a little house at the entrance of a village?
Mme. Petito herself!
It was the first time that Mme. Petito had seen M. Longuet since he cut
off the ears of her husband. Upon seeing him, Mme. Petito became highly
indignant, and commenced upbraiding Théophraste.
After all sorts of imprecations—the result of the barbarity of
Théophraste—Mme. Petito informed Théophraste that Signor Petito had
found the treasures of the Chopinettes, that he had put them in a safe
place, and that the treasures were the richest on earth, treasures which
were worth more than two ears. They were as good as the ears of Signor
Petito, and so they were quits.
Théophraste, in the course of this discourse, found it difficult to
say very much, but this did not disturb him. He was glad of the anger
of Mme. Petito, for having furnished him with such valuable information,
and he said: “I have found my treasures, for I have found Signor
Petito again.”
Mme. Petito burst into satanic laughter.
“Signor Petito,” she exclaimed, “is in the train.”
“In which train?”
“In the train which will pass under your very nose! It will carry my
husband beyond the frontier. Get in, then, my dear monsieur; climb in
if you wish to speak to him. But hurry, for he passes by in an hour,
and they do not distribute tickets at the next station,” and her laugh
became more satanic still, so much so that Théophraste almost wished
that he was deaf again. He saluted her and walked away rapidly along
the railroad track. When he was alone he said: “Come, come! I must get
some information about my treasures from Signor Petito himself. But how?
He is in the train which will pass under my nose...