"Where are the letters?"
"When you have them," he implored, with the terror of a trapped
beast in his abject face, "you will let me go away?"
"I swear it," I answered; and, as I saw doubt and dread in his
quailing eyes, I added, "by the memory of my father. Where are the
letters?"
"There."
He pointed to a valise in a corner of the room.
"Here is the money."
I flung him the note-case which contained it. Is there a sort of
moral magnetism in the tone of certain words and in certain
expressions of countenance? Was it the nature of the oath which I
had just taken, so deeply impressive at that moment, or had this
man sufficient strength of mind to say to himself that his single
chance of safety resided in belief in my good faith? However that
may be, he did not hesitate for a moment; he opened the iron-bound
valise, took out a yellow-leather box with a patent lock, and,
having opened it, flung its contents--a large sealed envelope-to
me, exactly as I had flung the banknotes to him. I, too, for my
part, had not a moment's fear that he would produce a weapon from
the valise and attack me while I was verifying the contents of the
envelope. These consisted of three letters only; the two first
bore the double stamp of Paris and New York, the third those of New
York and Liverpool, and all three bore the January or February
post-marks of the year 1864.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Not yet," I answered; "you must undertake to leave Paris this
evening by the first train, without having seen your brother or
written to him."
"I promise; and then?"
"When was he to come back here to see you?"
"On Saturday," he answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. "The
bargain was concluded. He was determined to wait until the day
came for me to set out for Havre before paying me the money, so
that he might make quite sure I should not stay on in Paris.--The
game is up," he added, "and now I wash my hands of it."
"Edmond Termonde," said I, rising, but not loosing him from the
hold of my eye, "remember that I have spared you; but you must not
tempt me a second time by putting yourself in my way, or crossing
the path of any whom I love."
Then, with a threatening gesture, I quitted the room, leaving him
seated at the table near the window. I had hardly reached the
corridor when my nerves, which had been so strangely under my
control during the struggle, failed me. My legs bent under me, and
I feared I was about to fall. How was I to account for the
disorder of my clothes? I made a great effort, concealed the torn
ends of my cravat, turned up the collar of my coat to hide the
condition of my shirt, and did my best to repair the damage that
had been done to my hat. I then wiped my face with my
handkerchief, and went downstairs with a slow and careless step.
The inspector of the first floor was, doubtless, occupied at the
other end of the corridor; but two of the waiters saw me and were
evidently surprised at my aspect. They were, however, too busy,
luckily for me, to stop me and inquire into the cause of my
discomposure. At last I reached the courtyard. If anybody who
knew me had been there? I got into the first cab and gave my
address. I had kept my word. I had conquered.
I am afraid to kill; but had I been born in Italy, in the fifteenth
century, would I have hesitated to poison my father's murderer?
Would I have hesitated to shoot him, had I been born in Corsica
fifty years ago? Am I then nothing but a civilized person, a
wretched and impotent dreamer, who would fain act, but shrinks from
soiling his hands in the action? I forced myself to contemplate
the dilemma in which I stood, in its absolute, imperative,
inevitable distinctness. I must either avenge my father by handing
over his murderer to be dealt with by the law, since M. Massol had
prudently fulfilled all the formalities necessary to bar the
limitation, or I must be my own minister of justice. There was a
third alternative; that I should spare the murderous wretch, allow
him to live on in occupation of his victim's place in my mother's
home, from which he had driven me; but at the thought of this my
rage revived. The scruples of the civilized man did indeed give
him pause; but that hesitation did not hinder the savage, who
slumbers in us all, from feeling the appetite for retaliation which
stirs the animal nature of man--all his flesh, and all his blood--
as hunger and thirst stir it. "Well, then," said I to myself, "I
will assassinate my stepfather, since that is the right word. Was
he afraid to assassinate my father? He killed; he shall be killed.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; that is the primitive law,
and all the rest is a lie."
Evening had come while this strife was raging in my soul. I was
laboring under excitement which contrasted strangely with the
calmness I had felt a few hours previously, when ascending the
stairs in the Grand Hotel. The situation also had undergone a
change; then I was preparing for a struggle, a kind of duel; I was
about to confront a man whom I had to conquer, to attack him face
to face without any treachery, and I had not flinched. It was the
mean hypocrisy of clandestine murder that had made me shrink from
the idea of killing my stepfather, by luring him into a snare. I
had controlled this trembling the first time; but I was afraid of
its coming again, and that I should have a sleepless night, and be
unfit to act next day with the cool calmness I desired.
I felt that I could not bear suspense; on the morrow I must act.
The plan on which I should decide, be it what it might, must be
executed within the twenty-four hours.
The best means of calming my nerves was by making a beginning now,
at once; by doing something beforehand to guard against suspicion.
I determined upon letting myself be seen by persons who could bear
witness, if necessary, that they had seen me, careless, easy,
almost gay. I dressed and went out, intending to dine at a place
where I was known, and to pass the most of the night at the club.
When I was in the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, crowded with carriages
and people on foot--the May evening was delicious--I shared the
physical sensation of the joy of living, which was abroad in the
air. The sky quivered with the innumerable throbs of the stars,
and the young leaves shook at the touch of a slow and gentle
breeze. Garlands of light illumined the various pleasure-gardens.
I passed in front of a restaurant where the tables extended to the
edge of the footpath, and young men and women were finishing their
dinner gaily.
The contrast between the spring-festival aspect of Paris and the
tragedy of my own destiny came home to me too strongly. What had I
done to Fate to deserve that I should be the one only person, amid
all this crowd, condemned to such an experience? Why had my path
been crossed by a man capable of pushing passion to the point of
crime, in a society in which passion is ordinarily so mild, so
harmless, and so lukewarm? Probably there did not exist in all the
"good" society of Paris four persons with daring enough to conceive
such a plan as that which Jacques Termonde had executed with such
cool deliberation under the influence of his passion. And this
villain, who could love so intensely, was my stepfather!
Once more the breath of fatality, which had already thrilled me
with a kind of mysterious horror, passed over me, and I felt that I
could no longer bear the sight of the human face. Turning my back
upon the lit-up, noisy quarter of the Champs Elysees, I walked on
towards the Arc de Triomphe. Without thinking about it I took the
road to the Bois, bore to the right to avoid the vehicles, and
turned into one of the loneliest paths. Had I unconsciously obeyed
one of those almost animal impulses of memory, which bring us back
to ways that we have already trodden? By the soft, bluish light of
the spring moon I recognized the place where I had walked with my
stepfather in the winter, on the occasion of our first drive to the
Bois. It was on that day I obliged him to look the portrait of his
victim in the face, on that day he came to me on the pretext of
asking for the Review which my mother had lent me. In my thoughts
I beheld him, as he then was, and recalled the strange pity which
had stirred my heart at the sight of him, so sad, broken-down, and,
so to speak, conquered. He stood before me, in the light of that
remembrance, as living and real as if he had been there, close
beside me, and the acute sensation of his existence made me feel at
the same time all the signification of those fearful and mysterious
words: to kill. To kill? I was going to kill him, in a few hours
it might be, at the latest in a few days.
I heard voices, and I withdrew into the shade. Two forms passed
me, a young man and a girl, lovers, who did not see me. The
moonlight fell upon them, as they went on their way, hand in hand.
I burst into tears, and wept long, unrestrainedly; for I too was
young; in my heart there was a flood of pent-up tenderness, and
here I was, on this perfumed, moonlit, starlit night, crouching in
a dark corner, meditating murder!
No, not murder, an execution. Has my stepfather deserved death?
Yes. Is the executioner who lets down the knife on the neck of the
condemned criminal to be called an assassin? No! Well, then I
shall be the executioner and nothing else. I rose from the bench
where I had shed my last tears of resolution and cowardice--for
thus I regarded those hot tears to which I now appeal, as a last
proof that I was not born for what I have done.
While walking back to Paris, I multiplied and reiterated my
arguments. Sometimes I succeeded in silencing a voice within me,
stronger than my reasoning and my longing for vengeance, a voice
which pronounced the words formerly uttered by my aunt: "Vengeance
is mine, saith the Lord God." And if there be no God? And if
there be, is not the fault His, for He has let this thing be? Yes,
such were my wild words and thoughts; and then all these scruples
of my conscience appeared to me mere vain, futile quibbles, fitting
for philosophers and confessors.
There remained one indisputable, absolute fact; I could not endure
that the murderer of my father should continue to be the husband of
my mother.
There was a second no less evident fact; I could not place this man
in the hands of justice without, probably, killing my mother on the
spot, or, quite certainly, laying her whole life waste. Therefore
I would have to be my own tribunal, judge, and executioner in my
own cause. What mattered to me the arguments for or against? I
was bound to give heed first to my final instinct, and it cried out
to me "Kill!"
I walked fast, keeping my mind fixed on this idea with a kind of
tragic pleasure, for I felt that my irresolution was gone, and that
I should act. All of a sudden, as I came close to the Arc de
Triomphe, I remembered how, on that very spot, I had met one of my
club companions for the last time. He shot himself the next day.
Why did this remembrance suddenly suggest to me a series of new
thoughts?
I stopped short with a beating heart. I had caught a glimpse of
the way of safety. Fool that I had been, led away as usual by an
undisciplined imagination! My stepfather should die. I had
sentenced him in the name of my inalienable right as an avenging
son; but could I not condemn him to die by his own hand? Had I not
that in my possession which would drive him to suicide? If I went
to him without any more reserves or circumlocution, and if I said
to him, "I hold the proof that you are the murderer of my father.
I give you the choice--either you will kill yourself, or I denounce
you to my mother," what would his answer be? He, who loved his
wife with that reciprocated devotion by which I had suffered so
much, would he consent that she should know the truth, that she
should regard him as a base, cowardly assassin? No, never; he
would rather die.
My heart, weary and worn with pain, rushed towards this door of
hope, so suddenly opened. "I shall have done my duty," I thought,
"and I shall have no blood on my hands. My conscience will not be
stained." I experienced an immense relief from the weight of
foreseen remorse that had caused me such agony, and I went on
drawing a picture of the future, freed at last from one dark image
which had veiled the sunshine of my youth. "He will kill himself;
my mother will weep for him; but I shall be able to dry her tears.
Her heart will bleed, but I will heal the wound with the balm of my
tenderness. When the assassin is no longer there, she and I will
live over again all the dear time that he stole from us, and then I
shall be able to show her how I love her. The caresses which I did
not give her when I was a child, because the other froze me by his
mere presence, I will give her then; the words which I did not
speak, the tender words that were stopped upon my lips, she shall
hear then. We will leave Paris, and get rid of these sad
remembrances. We will retire to some quiet spot, far, far away,
where she will have none but me, I none but her, and I will devote
myself to her old age. What do I want with any other love, with
any other tie? Suffering softens the heart; her grief will make
her love me more. Ah! how happy we shall be." But once more the
voice within resumed: "What if the wretch refuse to kill himself?
What if he were not to believe me when I threaten to denounce him?"
Had I not been acting for months as his accomplice in maintaining
the deceit practiced upon my mother? Did he not know how much I
loved her, he who had been jealous of me as her son, as I had been
jealous of him as her husband? Would he not answer: "Denounce me!"
being well assured that I would not deal such a blow at the poor
woman? To these objections I replied, that, whereas I had
suspected previously, now I knew. No, he will not be entirely
convinced that the evidence I hold will make me dare everything.
Well then, if he refuse, I shall have attempted the impossible to
avoid murder--let destiny be accomplished!