AN EXECUTION
It must be understood that, notwithstanding the explanations which I
must needs offer, the development of all these events took but very
little time: exactly eighteen seconds, as I had the opportunity of
calculating afterwards. But, during these eighteen seconds--and this
again I observed on many an occasion--the spectator received the
illusion of watching a complete drama, with its preliminary
expositions, its plot and its culmination. And when this obscure,
illogical drama was over, you questioned what you had seen, just as
you question the nightmare which wakes you from your sleep.
Nevertheless it must be said that none of all this partook in any way
of those absurd optical illusions which are so easily contrived or of
those arbitrary ideas on which a whole pseudo-scientific novel is
sometimes built up. There is no question of a novel, but of a physical
phenomenon, an _absolutely natural_ phenomenon, the explanation of
which, when it comes to be known, is also _absolutely natural_.
And I beg those who are not acquainted with this explanation not to
try to guess it. Let them not worry themselves with suppositions and
interpretations. Let them forget, one by one, the theories over which
I myself am lingering: all that has to do with B-rays, materializations,
or the effect of solar heat. These are so many roads that lead
nowhere. The best plan is to be guided by events, to have faith and to
wait.
"It's finished, uncle, isn't it?" I asked.
"It's the beginning," he replied.
"How do you mean? The beginning of what? What's going to happen?"
"I don't know."
I was astounded:
"You don't know? But you knew just now, about this, about those
strange eyes! . . ."
"It all starts with that. But other things come afterwards, things
which vary and which I know nothing about!"
"But how can that be possible?" I asked. "Do you mean to say that you
don't know anything about them, you who prepared everything for them?"
"I prepared them, but I do not control them. As I told you, I have
opened a door which leads into the darkness; and from that darkness
unforeseen images emerge."
"But is the thing that's coming of the same nature as those eyes?"
"No."
"Then what is it, uncle?"
"The thing that's coming will be a representation of images in
conformity with what we are accustomed to see."
"Things which we shall understand, therefore?"
"Yes, we shall understand them; and yet they will be all the more
incomprehensible."
I often wondered, during the weeks that followed, if my uncle's words
were to be fully relied upon and if he had not uttered them in order
to mislead me as to the origin and meaning of his discoveries. How
indeed was it possible to think that the key to the riddle remained
unknown to him? But at that moment I was wholly under his influence,
steeped in the great mystery that surrounded us; and, with a
constricted feeling at my heart, with all my overstimulated senses, I
thought of nothing but gazing into the miraculous panel.
A movement on my uncle's part warned me. I gave a start. The dawn was
rising over the grey surface.
I saw, first of all, a cloudy radiance whirling around a central
point, towards which all the luminous spirals rushed and in which
they were swallowed up while whirling upon themselves. Next, this
point expanded into an ever wider circle, covered with a light, hazy
veil which gradually dispersed, revealing a vague, floating image,
like the apparitions raised by spiritualists and mediums at their
sittings.
Then followed as it were a certain hesitation. The phantom image was
striving with the diffuse shadow and seeking to attain life and light.
Certain features became more pronounced. Outlines and separate planes
took shape; and at last a flood of light issued from the phantom image
and turned it into a dazzling picture, which seemed to be bathed in
sunlight.
It was a woman's face.
I remember that at that moment my mental confusion was such that I
felt like darting forward to feel the marvellous wall and lay my hands
upon the living material in which the incredible phenomenon was
vibrating. But my uncle dug his fingers into my arm:
"I won't have you move!" he growled. "If you budge an inch, the whole
thing will fade away. Look!"
I did not move; indeed, I doubt whether I could have done so. My legs
were giving way beneath me. Both of us, my uncle and I, dropped into
a sitting posture on the fallen trunk of a tree.
"Look, look!" he commanded.
The woman's face had approached in our direction until it was twice
the size of life. The first thing that struck us was the cap, which
was that of a nurse, with the head-band tightly drawn over the
forehead and the veil around the head. The features, handsome and
regular and still young, wore that look of almost divine dignity which
the primitive painters used to give to the saints who are suffering or
about to suffer martyrdom, a nobility compounded of pain and ecstasy,
of resignation and hope, of smiles and tears. Bathed in that light
which really seemed to be an inward flame, the woman opened, upon a
scene invisible to us, a pair of large dark eyes which, though filled
with nameless terror, _nevertheless were not afraid_. The contrast was
remarkable: her resignation was defiant; her fear was full of pride.
"Oh," stammered my uncle, "I seem to observe the same expression as in
the Three Eyes which were there just now. Do you see: the same
dignity, the same gentleness . . . and also the same dread?"
"Yes," I replied, "it's the same expression, the same sequence of
expressions."
And, while I spoke and while the woman still remained in the
foreground, outside the frame of the picture, I felt certain
recollections arise within me, as at the sight of the portrait of a
person whose features are not entirely unfamiliar. My uncle received
the same impression, for he said:
"I seem to remember . . ."
But at that moment the strange face withdrew to the plane which it
occupied at first. The mists that created a halo round it, drifted
away. The shoulders came into view, followed by the whole body. We now
saw a woman standing, fastened by bonds that gripped her bust and
waist to a post the upper end of which rose a trifle above her head.
Then all this, which hitherto had given the impression of fixed
outlines, like the outlines of a photograph, for instance, suddenly
became alive, like a picture developing into a reality, a statue
stepping straight into life. The bust moved. The arms, tied behind,
and the imprisoned shoulders were struggling against the cords that
were hurting them. The head turned slightly. The lips spoke. It was no
longer an image presented for us to gaze at: it was life, moving and
living life. It was a scene taking place in space and time. A whole
background came into being, filled with people moving to and fro.
Other figures were writhing, bound to posts. I counted eight of them.
A squad of soldiers marched up, with shouldered rifles. They wore
spiked helmets.
My uncle observed:
"Edith Cavell."
"Yes," I said, with a start, "I recognize her: Edith Cavell; the
execution of Edith Cavell."
Once more and not for the last time, in setting down such phrases as
these, I realize how ridiculous they must sound to any one who does
not know to begin with what they signify and what is the exact truth
that lies hidden in them. Nevertheless, I declare that this idea of
something absurd and impossible did not occur to the mind when it was
confronted with the phenomenon. Even when no theory had as yet
suggested the smallest element of a logical explanation, people
accepted as irrefutable the evidence of their own eyes. All those who
saw the thing and whom I questioned gave me the same answer.
_Afterwards_, they would correct themselves and protest. _Afterwards_,
they would plead the excuse of hallucinations or visions received by
suggestion. But, at the time, even though their reason was up in arms
and though they, so to speak, "kicked" against facts which had no
visible cause, they were compelled to bow before them and to follow
their development as they would the representation of a succession of
real events.
A theatrical representation, if you like, or rather a cinematographic
representation, for, on the whole, this was the impression that
emerged most clearly from all the impressions received. The moment
Miss Cavell's image had assumed the animation of life, I turned round
to look for the apparatus, standing in some corner of the Yard, which
was projecting that animated picture; and, though I saw nothing,
though I at once understood that in any case no projection could be
effected in broad daylight and without omitting shafts of light, yet I
received and retained that justifiable impression. There was no
projector, no, but there was a screen: an astonishing screen which
received nothing from without, since nothing was transmitted, but
which received everything from within. And that was really the
sensation experienced. The images did not come from the outside. They
sprang to the surface from within. The horizon opened out on the
farther side of a solid material. The darkness gave forth light.
Words, words, I know! Words which I heap upon words before I venture
to write those which express what I saw issuing from the abyss in
which Miss Cavell was about to undergo the death-penalty. The
execution of Miss Cavell! Of course I said to myself, if it was a
cinematographic representation, if it was a film--and how could one
doubt it?--at any rate it was a film like ever so many others, faked,
fictitious, based upon tradition, in a conventional setting, with paid
performers and a heroine who had thoroughly studied the part. I knew
that. But, all the same, I watched as though I did not know it. The
miracle of the spectacle was so great that one was constrained to
believe in the whole miracle, that is to say, in the reality of the
representation. No fake was here. No make-believe. No part learned by
heart. No performers and no setting. It was the actual scene. The
actual victims. The horror which thrilled me during those few minutes
was that which I should have felt had I beheld the murderous dawn of
the 8th of October, 1915, rise across the thrice-accursed
drill-ground.
It was soon over. The firing-platoon was drawn up in double file, on
the right and a little aslant, so that we saw the men's faces between
the rifle-barrels. There were a good many of them: thirty, forty
perhaps, forty butchers, booted, belted, helmeted, with their straps
under their chins. Above them hung a pale sky, streaked with thin red
clouds. Opposite them . . . opposite them were the eight doomed
victims.
There were six men and two women, all belonging to the people or the
lower middle-class. They were now standing erect, throwing forward
their chests as they tugged at their bonds.
An officer advanced, followed by four _Feldwebel_ carrying unfurled
handkerchiefs. Not any of the people condemned to death consented to
have their eyes bandaged. Nevertheless, their faces were wrung with
anguish; and all, with an impulse of their whole being, seemed to rush
forward to their doom.
The officer raised his sword. The soldiers took aim.
A supreme effort of emotion seemed to add to the stature of the
victims: and a cry issued from their lips. Oh, I _saw_ and _heard_
that cry, a fanatical and desperate cry in which the martyrs shouted
forth their triumphant faith.
The officer's arm fell smartly. The intervening space appeared to
tremble as with the rumbling of thunder. I had not the courage to
look; and my eyes fixed themselves on the distracted countenance of
Edith Cavell.
She also was not looking. Her eyelids were closed. But how she was
listening! How her features contracted under the clash of the
atrocious sounds, words of command, detonations, cries of the victims,
death-rattles, moans of agony. By what refinement of cruelty had her
own end been delayed? Why was she condemned to that double torture of
seeing others die before dying herself?
Still, everything must be over yonder. One party of the butchers
attended to the corpses, while the others formed into line and,
pivoting upon the officer, marched towards Miss Cavell. They thus
stepped out of the frame within which we were able to follow their
movements; but I was able to perceive, by the gestures of the officer,
that they were forming up opposite Nurse Cavell, between her and us.
The officer stepped towards her, accompanied by a military chaplain,
who placed a crucifix to her lips. She kissed it fervently and
tenderly. The chaplain then gave her his blessing; and she was left
alone. A mist once more shrouded the scene, leaving her whole figure
full in the light. Her eyelids were still closed, her head erect and
her body rigid.
She was at that moment wearing a very sweet and very tranquil
expression. Not a trace of fear distorted her noble countenance. She
stood awaiting death with saintly serenity.
And this death, as it was revealed to us, was neither very cruel nor
very odious. The upper part of the body fell forward. The head drooped
a little to one side. But the shame of it lay in what followed. The
officer stood close to the victim, revolver in hand. And he was
pressing the barrel to his victim's temple, when, suddenly, the mist
broke into dense waves and the whole picture disappeared. . . .