THE TWO PRISONERS
Sartines’ uneasiness about Rochefort had arisen from an intuitive
knowledge of that gentleman’s character, and strange misdoubts as to
how that character might develop under the double influence of Love and
Prison.
As a matter of fact, no sooner had the excitement of his arrival at
Vincennes passed off, no sooner had he dined that evening, cracked
a bottle of Beaune, joked Bonvallot, and rubbed his hands at the
discomfiture of Choiseul, than reaction took place accompanied by
indigestion. He flung himself on the bed.
Monsieur de Rochefort was not made for a quiet life. If he could not be
hunting or hawking he must be moving—moving on the pavements of Paris,
talking, laughing, joking or quarrelling.
Here there was no one to laugh with, joke with, or quarrel
with—nothing to walk on, except the floor of his cell. And it was now
that he first became aware of a fact which he never knew before: that
it was his habit to change about from room to room. He was one of those
unfortunates who cannot endure to be long in one place. He never knew
this till now.
It was now that he became aware for the first time of another fact
unknown to him until this: that he was a great talker. And of another
fact, more general in its application, that to enjoy talking one must
be _en rapport_ with the person to whom one is talking.
This latter fact was borne in upon him by the voice of Ferminard.
Ferminard, who had also finished his dinner, seemed now in a sprightly
mood, to judge by the voice that came to Rochefort, a voice which came
literally from under his bed.
“Monsieur de Rochefort,” said the voice, “are you there, Monsieur de
Rochefort?”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried Rochefort, who had started on his elbow at this
sudden interruption of his thoughts. “Am I here? Where else would I be?
Yes, I am here—what do you wish?”
“_Ma foi_! nothing but a little quiet conversation.” Rochefort laughed.
“A little quiet conversation—why, your voice comes to me like the
voice of a dog grumbling under my bed. How can one converse under such
circumstances? But go on, talk as much as you please, I have nothing to
do but listen.”
“Well, Monsieur de Rochefort, you are not encouraging, but I will do my
best; it is better to talk to a bad listener than to talk to no one,
and it is better to talk to no one than not to talk at all. Let us
talk, then, of Monsieur Rousseau’s absurd comedy with music attached to
it, which at the instigation of M. de Coigny he produced at Versailles.”
“Good heavens, no! What do you take me for—a music-master? If you
cannot talk on reasonable subjects, then be dumb. Let me talk of
getting out of this infernal castle of Vincennes, which, it seems to
me, I was a fool to have entered. Have you that big sou upon you, M.
Ferminard?”
“Yes, M. de Rochefort, it is in my pocket.”
“Well, then, if you wish to be agreeable to me, pass it through the
hole to me. I wish to examine it. It, at all events, will speak to me
of liberty.”
“Monsieur,” said Ferminard, “if my pockets were full of louis, I would
pass them to you for the asking. But the big sou—no.”
“And why not, may I ask?”
“Because, monsieur, it would, as you say, talk to you of liberty, and
it might even tempt you to try and make your escape.”
“And why should I not make my escape?”
“For two reasons, monsieur. First, you have forgotten that you are
hiding from M. de Choiseul.”
“Curse Choiseul!”
“I agree, yet still you are hiding from him. Secondly——”
“Well?”
“Secondly, monsieur, if you escaped, I would be left with no one to
talk to.”
“Have you not Bonvallot?”
“_Oh hé_! Bonvallot. A man without parts, without understanding,
without knowledge of the world! A nice man to leave me in company with!”
“But I do not intend leaving you in his company. I ask you only for the
big sou that I may look at it and see what another man has done so that
he might obtain his liberty. If you refuse to gratify my curiosity, M.
Ferminard, I shall stuff up that hole with my blanket, and there will
be an end of our pleasant conversations.”
“Well, M. de Rochefort, here it is, pull your bed out and I will put it
in your hand.”
Rochefort arose and pulled his bed out and the hand of Ferminard came
through the hole. Rochefort took the coin and approached the lamp with
it.
It was indeed a marvel: in a moment he managed to unscrew the two
surfaces and from the tiny box which they formed when in apposition
leaped a little silvery saw, small as a watch-spring.
Rochefort, leaving the little saw on the table, refastened the box.
“_Mordieu_!” said he, “it is clever. What will you sell it to me for,
Monsieur Ferminard?”
“You shall have it as a gift, M. Rochefort, when we are both breathing
the free air of heaven, but only then.”
“You think I will use it to make my escape?”
“No, monsieur, I think you might use it to break your neck, or to be
re-captured by this horrible Choiseul whose very name gives me the
nightmare.”
“Well, you are wrong,” replied the other. “Were I outside this place
I would not be re-captured, simply because I would do what I ought to
have done this morning.”
“And what is that?”
“Go straight to his Majesty and tell him the whole of my story and ask
him to be my judge—or better still, go straight to de Choiseul and
talk to him as a man to a man.”
“To M. de Choiseul?”
“Why, yes. I should never have run away from him. Nor would I, only
that on the night of the Presentation I was in a hurry to go to Paris;
he tried to stop me and I resisted arrest. And now it seems to me that
I am in a hurry to go to Paris again and that de Sartines is trying to
stop me, and that I am prepared to resist his hand.”
He had almost forgotten Lavenne and his words, he had almost forgotten
the presence of Ferminard on the other side of the wall, and he talked
half to himself as he paced the floor uneasily, the big sou in his hand
and his mind revolving this new idea that had only just occurred to him.
He should not have resisted arrest, even at the hands of Camus.
Choiseul wanted him primarily for the killing of the agent. Had he gone
straight to Choiseul and given him the whole truth, including Camus’
conduct in the case of Javotte, whom he could have called as a witness,
Choiseul would he now imagined have released him after inquiry. But he
had resisted arrest, not because he felt guilty, but because he wanted
to go to Paris to meet Camille Fontrailles. Choiseul did not know that.
It seemed to Rochefort, as his thoughts wandered back, that Camille
Fontrailles had been his evil star. She it was who had made him join
with the Dubarrys, she it was who had made him run away from Choiseul,
she it was who, refusing to see him, had put him in such a temper with
the world that his mind, unable to think for itself, had allowed other
men to think for it.
It seemed to him now that Lavenne’s advice, though it was the best
that Lavenne could give, was not the best that Policy could devise.
He—Rochefort—was saved from Choiseul for the moment; tucked away in
Vincennes he might be saved from Choiseul as long as Choiseul remained
in power—but how long would that be?
Choiseul might remain in power for years, and at this thought the sweat
moistened M. de Rochefort’s hands, wetting the big sou which he still
held, and which, like some magician, whilst talking of Liberty to him,
had shown him, as in a vision, his foolishness and his false position.
Sartines had put him under “protection” at Vincennes, not for
his—Rochefort’s—sake, but for his—Sartines’—convenience.
So many charming people in this world are wise after the event; it is
chiefly the hard-headed and unpleasant and prosperous people whose
wisdom, practical as themselves, saves them and makes them prosper.
If Rochefort could only have gone back in his life; if he could only
have carried his present wisdom back to the night of the Presentation,
how differently things might have shaped themselves as regards his
interests—or would he, in the face of everything, have pursued the
path pointed out to him, as the old romance-writers would have said,
“by Love and Folly”?
I believe he would, for M. de Rochefort had amongst his other
qualities, good and bad, the persistence of a snail. Not only had
Love urged him that night to strike Camus and escape on the horse of
Choiseul’s messenger, but Persistence had lent its powerful backing to
Love. This gentleman hated to break his word with himself, and, as a
matter of fact, he never did. If he had promised himself to repent of
his sins and lead a virtuous life, I believe he would have done so.
He was longing to promise himself now to escape from this infernal
prison into which Folly had led him.
“Well, M. de Rochefort,” came the voice of Ferminard, “it is not for me
to say whether you are right or wrong, but seeing that you are here,
and safe under the protection of M. de Sartines, there is nothing to be
done but have patience.”
“_Mordieu_, patience! To be told that always makes me angry. Monsieur
Ferminard, if you use that word again to me I will stuff up that hole
with my blanket.”
“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “The word escaped from me, and now, monsieur,
if you have done with that big sou.”
“Here is your sou,” replied the other, replacing the coin in the
hand of Ferminard that was thrust through the opening, “and now, M.
Ferminard, I am going to sit down on my bed and try if sleep will not
help me to forget M. de Sartines, M. de Choiseul, myself, and this
infernal castle where stupidity has brought me. _Bon soir._”
“_Bon soir_, monsieur,” replied Ferminard.
Rochefort blew out his candle, and having replaced the bed, flung
himself upon it, but not to sleep. Camille Fontrailles it was who now
haunted him. The rapid events of the day had pushed her image to one
side, and now in the darkness it reappeared to torment him. His passion
for her, born of a moment, was by no means dead, but it had received
a serious blow. At the crucial moment of his life she had refused to
see him; after all that he had done for her friends, after all he had
sacrificed for her, she had refused to see him, and not only that, she
had sent a cold message, and also, she had sent it by the mouth of that
fat-lipped libertine, Jean Dubarry.
Jean Dubarry could talk to her through her bedroom door, whilst he,
Rochefort, had to remain downstairs, like a servant waiting for a
message.
Yes, he would escape, if for no other object than to pull Jean
Dubarry’s nose. An intense hatred of the whole Dubarry faction surged
up in his mind again. Jean, Chon, and the Countess, he did not know
which was the more detestable. He rose from his bed. The moon, which
was now near the full, was casting her light through the window, a ray
fell on the little steel saw that was lying on the table. He picked it
up and examined it again.
The window had only one bar, but the bar was fairly thick and it seemed
impossible that he could ever cut through it with the instrument in his
hand. Yet M. de Thumery had prepared to do so and would he be daunted
by a business that an invalid had contemplated and would undoubtedly
have carried out had not Death intervened?
He opened the sash of the window carefully and examined the bar. Then
he brought his chair to the window, and, standing on the chair and
holding either end of the saw between finger and thumb, drew its teeth
against the iron of the bar.
It was one of those saws nicknamed “Dust of Iron,” so wonderfully
tempered and so keen that, properly used, no iron bar could stand
before them. After five minutes’ work Rochefort found that he could
use the thing properly and with effect, and it seemed to him that with
patience and diligence, working almost night and day, he could cut
through the bar top and bottom—in about ten years’ time.
In fact, though five minutes’ work had produced a tiny furrow in
the bar sufficient to be felt with his thumb-nail, the whole thing
seemed hopeless. But only for a minute. He began to calculate. If five
minutes’ labour made a perceptible furrow in the iron of the bar, fifty
minutes would give him ten times that result, and a hundred minutes
twenty times. Two hours’ labour, then, ought to start him well on his
way through the business.
But even with this calculation fresh in his mind, his heart quailed
before the thought of what he would have to do and to suffer before the
last cut of the saw and the crowning of his efforts.
It was a life’s work compressed into days. The labours of a Titan
condensed and diminished, but not in the least lightened, and his heart
quailed at the thought, not because he was a coward, but because he
knew that if he once took the job in hand he would go through with it
to the end.
He came from the window and putting the saw on the table, lay down on
the bed. He lay for a few minutes without moving, like a man exhausted.
Then all of a sudden, and as though some vital spring had been wound up
and set going, he rose from the bed, snatched the saw from the table
and approached the bar.
From the next cell he could hear a faint rhythmical sound. It was the
sound of Ferminard snoring. Asleep and quite unconscious of the fact
that his precious box which he had placed in his pocket after receiving
it back, had been rifled of its contents.