in a sort of programme of life which was found among the prisoner’s
papers, among those that are left. For it is one of the charges
against him that, between his examination and his written attestation,
he destroyed the most of them. Could you,” he added, “give any
explanation of one sentence of this programme which is very obscure
to the profane who are not conversant with modern philosophy? Here is
the sentence,” taking a sheet from among the others: “Multiply to the
utmost psychological experiences.” “What do you think Robert Greslon
understands by that?”
“I am very much puzzled to answer you, monsieur,” said M. Sixte after a
silence; but the judge began to see that it was useless to use artifice
with a man so simple, and he understood that his silence simply showed
that he was seeking an exact expression for his thoughts. “I only
know the meaning which I myself should attach to this formula, and
probably this young man was too well instructed in works of psychology
not to think the same. It is evident that in the other sciences of
observation, such as physics or chemistry, the counter-verification of
any law whatever exacts a positive and concrete application of that
law. When I have decomposed water, for example, into its elements,
I ought to be able, all conditions being equal, to reconstruct
water out of these same elements. That is an experience of the most
ordinary kind, but which suffices to summarize the method of the
modern sciences. To know by an experimental knowledge is to be able
to reproduce at will such or such a phenomenon, by reproducing its
conditions.”
“Is such a procedure admissible with moral phenomena? I, for
my part, believe that it is, and definitely this that we call
education is nothing more than a psychological experience more or
less well established, since it sums up thus: having given such a
phenomenon--which sometimes is called a virtue, such as patience,
prudence, sincerity; sometimes an intellectual aptitude, such as a
dead or a living language, orthography, calculation--to find the
conditions in which this phenomenon produces itself the most easily.
But this field is very limited, for if I wished, for instance, the
exact conditions of the birth of such passion being once known, to
produce at will this passion in a subject, I should immediately come
up against insoluble difficulties of law and morals. There will come a
time perhaps, when such experiments will be possible.
“My opinion is that, for the present, we psychologists must keep to
the experiences established by law and by accident. With memoirs, with
works of literature or art, with statistics, with law reports, with
notes on forensic medicine, we have a world of facts at our service.
“Robert Greslon had, in fact, discussed this _desideratum_ of our
science with me. I recollect, he regretted that those condemned to
death could not be placed in special conditions, which would permit
of experimenting upon them certain moral phenomena. This was simply
a hypothetical opinion, of a very young mind, who did not consider
that, to work usefully in this order of ideas, it is necessary to
study one case for a very long time. It would be best to experiment on
children, but how could we make any one believe that it would be useful
to science to produce in them certain defects or certain vices for
example?”
“Vices!” exclaimed the judge astounded by the tranquillity with which
the philosopher pronounced this phrase.
“I speak as a psychologist,” responded the savant who smiled in his
turn at the exclamation of the judge; “that is just why, monsieur, our
science is not susceptible of certain progress. Your exclamation proves
that if I had needed any proof. Society cannot get beyond the theory
of the good and the bad which for us has no other meaning than to mark
a collection of conventions sometimes useful, sometimes puerile.”
“You admit, however, that there are good actions and bad actions,” said
M. Valette; then the magistrate asserting himself and turning this
general discussion to the profit of his inquiry: “This poisoning of
Mlle. de Jussat,” he insinuated, “for example, you will admit that this
is a crime?”
“From the social point of view, without doubt,” responded M. Sixte.
“But for philosophy there is neither crime nor virtue. Our volitions
are facts of a certain order governed by certain laws, that is all.
But, monsieur,” and here the naïve vanity of the writer showed itself,
“you will find a demonstration of these theories, which I venture to
think conclusive, in my ‘Anatomy of the Will.’”
“Did you sometimes approach these subjects with Robert Greslon?” asked
the judge, “and do you believe that he shared your views?”
“Very probably,” said the philosopher.
“Do you know, monsieur,” asked the magistrate, unmasking his batteries,
“that you come very near justifying the accusations of monsieur the
Marquis de Jussat, who claims that the doctrines of contemporary
materialists have destroyed all moral sense in this young man, and
have made him capable of this murder?”
“I do not know what matter is,” said M. Sixte, “so I am not a
materialist. As to throwing upon a doctrine the responsibility of the
absurd interpretation which a badly balanced brain gives to it, that is
almost as bad as to reproach the chemist who discovered dynamite for
the crimes in which this substance is employed. That is an argument
which has no force.”
The tone in which the philosopher pronounced these words revealed the
invincible strength of spiritual resistance which profound faith gives,
as a timidity almost infantile, in the midst of the stir of material
life, was revealed in the accent with which he suddenly asked:
“Do you believe that I shall be obliged to go to Riom to testify?”
“I think not, monsieur,” said the judge who could not help noticing
with new astonishment the contrast between the firmness of thought in
the first part of his discourse and the anxiety with which this last
sentence had been uttered, “for I see that your interviews with the
prisoner have been more superficial than his mother believed, if indeed
they were limited to those two visits and to a correspondence which
appears to have been exclusively philosophical. But have you never
received any confidences relating to his life with the Jussats?”
“Never; beside he ceased to write to me almost immediately after he
entered that family, said M. Sixte.”
“In his last letters was there no trace of new aspirations, of
inquietude of a curiosity of unknown sensations?”
“I have not noticed any,” said the philosopher.
“Well, monsieur,” replied M. Valette after a brief silence, during
which he studied anew this singular witness, “I will not detain
you any longer. Your time is too precious. Permit me to go over
the few responses you have made, to my clerk. He is not accustomed
to examinations that bear upon matters so elevated. You will sign
afterward.”
While the magistrate was dictating to his clerk what he thought would
be of interest to justice in the deposition of the savant, the latter,
who was evidently confused by the horrible revelation of the crime of
Robert Greslon and by his conversation with the judge, listened without
making any remarks, almost without comprehending what was being said.
He signed his name without looking, after M. Valette had read aloud to
him the pages on which his answers were recorded, and once more before
taking leave he said:
“Then I can be very sure that I shall not have to go down there?”
“I hope not,” said the judge, conducting him to the door; and he
added: “in any case it would only be for a day or two,” feeling a
secret pleasure at the childish anguish depicted on the good man’s
face. Then when M. Sixte had left his office. “There are some fools
that it would be well to shut up,” said he to his clerk, who assented
by a nod. “It is through ideas like those of this fellow upon crime
that young people are ruined. He seems to be sincere. He would be less
dangerous if he were a scoundrel. Do you know that he might easily cut
off his disciple’s head with his paradoxes? But that appears to be all
right. He is only anxious to know if he will have to go to Riom. What
a maniac!” And the judge and his clerk shrugged their shoulders and
laughed. Then the former after a reverie of some minutes, in which he
went over the various impressions he had received in regard to this
being absolutely enigmatical to him, added:
“Faith, little did I ever suspect the famous Adrien Sixte was anything
like that. It is inconceivable.”
III.
SIMPLE GRIEF.
THE epithet by which the Judge of Instruction condemned the
impassibility of the savant would have been more energetic still, if he
could have followed M. Sixte and read the philosopher’s thoughts during
the short time which separated this examination from the rendezvous
fixed by the unhappy mother of Robert Greslon.
Having arrived in the great court of the Palais de Justice, he whom M.
Vilette at that very moment was calling a maniac looked first at the
clock, as became a worker so minutely regular.
“Quarter-past two,” he thought, “I shall not be home before three.
Madame Greslon ought to be there at four. I shall not be able to do any
work. That is very disagreeable.” And he resolved on the spot to take
his daily walk, the more readily that he could reach the Jardin des
Plantes along the river and through the city, whose old physiognomy and
quiet peacefulness he loved.
The sky was blue with the clear blue of frosty days, vaguely tinted
with violet at the horizon. The Seine flowed under the bridges green
and gayly laborious, with its loaded boats on which smoked the chimneys
of small wooden houses whose windows were adorned with familiar plants.
The horses trotted swiftly over the dry pavement.
If the philosopher saw all these details in the time that he took to
reach the sidewalk of the quay, with the precaution of a provincial
afraid of the carriages, it was for him a sensation even more
unconscious than usual. He continued to think of the surprising
revelation which the judge had just made to him; but a philosopher’s
head is a machine so peculiar that events do not produce the direct
and simple impression which seems natural to other persons. This one
was composed of three individuals fitted into one; there was the
simple-minded, Sixte, an old bachelor, a slave to the scrupulous care
of his servant and anxious first of all for his material tranquillity.
Then there was the philosophical polemic, the author, animated, unknown
to himself, by a ferocious self-love common to all writers. And last,
the great psychologist, passionately attached to the problems of the
inner life; and in order that an idea should accomplish its full action
upon this mind, it was necessary for it to pass through these three
compartments.
From the Palais de Justice to the first step on the border of the
Seine, it was the bourgeois who reasoned: “Yes,” said he to himself,
repeating the words which the sight of the clock had called forth,
“that is very disagreeable. A whole day lost, and why? I wonder what I
have to do with all that story, of assassination, and what information
my testimony has brought to the examination!”
He did not suspect that, in the hands of a skillful advocate, his
theory of crime and responsibility might become the most formidable of
weapons against Greslon.
“It was not worth the trouble to disturb me,” continued he. “But these
people have no idea of the life of a man who writes. What a stupid that
judge was with his imbecile questions! I hope I shall not have to go to
Riom to appear before some others of the same sort!”
He saw the picture of his departure painted afresh in his imagination
in characters of odious confusion which a derangement of this kind
represents to a man of study whom action unsettles and for whom
physical ennui becomes a positive unhappiness. Great abstract
intellects suffer from these puerilities. The philosopher saw in a
flash of anguish his trunk open, his linen packed, the papers necessary
to his work placed near his shirts, his getting into a cab, the tumult
of the station, the railway carriage, and the coarse familiarity of
proximity, the arrival in an unknown town, the miseries of the hotel
chamber without the care of Mlle. Trapenard, who had become necessary
to him, although he was as ignorant of it as a child.
This thinker, so heroically independent that he would have marched
to martyrdom for his convictions, with the firmness of a Bruno or a
Vanini, was seized by a sort of vertigo at the picture of an event so
ordinary.
He saw himself in the Hall of Assizes, constrained to answer questions,
in the presence of an attentive crowd, and that without an idea to
support him against his native timidity.
“I will never receive a young man again,” he concluded, “yes, I will
shut my door henceforth. But I will not anticipate. Perhaps I shall not
have to go through this unpleasant task and all is ended. Ended?” And
already the home-keeping citizen gave place in this inward monologue
to the second person hidden within the philosopher, namely, the writer
of books which were discussed with passion by the public. “Ended?”
Yes, for him who comes and goes, who lives in the Rue Guy de la Brosse
and who would be very much annoyed if he had to go to Auvergne in the
winter, it may be. But what about my books and my ideas? What a strange
thing is this instinctive hate of the ignorant for the systems which
they cannot even comprehend.
“A jealous young man murders a young girl to prevent her marrying
another. This young man has been in correspondence with a philosopher
whose works he studies. It is the philosopher who is guilty. And I am a
materialist forsooth, I who have proved the nonexistence of matter!”
He shrugged his shoulders, then a new image crossed his memory,
the image of Marius Dumoulin, the young substitute at the College
of France, the man whom he most detested in the world. He saw, as
if they were there before his eyes, some of the formulæ so dear to
this defender of spiritualism: “Fatal doctrines. Intellectual poison
distilled from pens which one would like to believe are unconscious.
Scandalous exposure of a psychology of corruption.” “Yes,” said Adrien
Sixte to himself with bitterness, “if some one does not catch up this
chance which makes an assassin of one of my pupils, it will not be he!
Psychology will have done it all.”
It is proper to state that, Dumoulin had, on the appearance of the
“Anatomy of the Will,” pointed out a grave error. Adrien Sixte had
based one of his most ingenious chapters upon a so-called discovery of
a German physician which was proved to be incorrect. Perhaps Dumoulin
dwelt on this inadvertence of the great analyst with a severity of
irony far too disrespectful.
M. Sixte, who rarely noticed criticisms, had replied to this one. While
confessing the error, he proved without any trouble, that this point
of detail did not affect the thesis as a whole. But he cherished an
unpardonable rancor against the spiritualist.
“It is as if I heard him!” thought Sixte. “What he may say of my books
is nothing but psychology? Psychology! This is the science on which
depends the future of our beloved France.”
As we see, the philosopher, like all other systematics, had reached
the point where he made his doctrines the pivot of the universe. He
reasoned about like this: Given a historic fact, what is the chief
cause of it? The general condition of mind. This condition is derived
from the current ideas. The French Revolution, for example, proceeded
entirely from a false conception of man which springs from the
Cartesian philosophy and from the “Discourse on Method.”
He concluded that to modify the march of events, it was necessary to
modify the received notions upon the human mind, and to install in
their place some precise notions whence would result a new education
and politics. So in his indignation against Dumoulin he sincerely
believed that he was indignant at an obstacle to the public good.
He had some unpleasant moments while thus figuring to himself this
detested adversary, taking as a text the death of Mlle. de Jussat for a
vigorous sortie against the modern science of the mind.
“Shall I have to answer him again?” asked Sixte, who already was sure
of the attack of his rival, such power have the passions to consider
real that which they only imagine. “Yes,” he insisted, and then aloud,
“I will reply in my best manner!”
He was by this time behind the apsis of Notre Dame and he stopped
to survey the architecture of the cathedral. This ancient edifice
symbolized to him the complex character of the German intellect
which he contrasted in thought with the simplicity of the Hellenic
mind, reproduced for him in a photograph of the Parthenon, which he
had often contemplated in the Library of Nancy. The remembrance of
Germany changed the current of his thoughts for a moment. He recalled,
almost unconsciously, Hegel, then the doctrine of the identity of
contrarieties, then the theory of evolution which grew out of it. This
last idea, joined itself to those which had already agitated him, and
resuming his walk, he began to argue against the anticipated objections
of Dumoulin in the case of young Greslon.
For the first time the drama of the Château Jussat-Randon appeared
real to his mind, for he was thinking of it with the most real part
of his nature, his psychologic faculty. He forgot Dumoulin as well as
the inconveniences of the possible journey to Riom, and his mind was
completely absorbed by the moral problem which the crime presented.
The first question would naturally have been: “Did Robert Greslon
really assassinate Mlle. de Jussat?” But the philosopher did not think
of that, yielding to this defect of generalizing minds, that never more
than half verify the ideas upon which they speculate. Facts are, to
them, only matter for theoretic using, and they distort them wilfully
the better to build up their systems. The philosopher again took up
the formula by which he summed up this drama: “A young man who becomes
jealous and commits a murder, this is one more proof in support of my
theory that the instinct of destruction and that of love awake at the
same time in the male.” He had used this principle to write a chapter
of extraordinary boldness on the aberrations of the generative faculty
in his ‘Theory of the Passions.’
The reappearance of fierce animality among the civilized would alone
suffice to explain this act. It would be necessary also to study the
personal heredity of the assassin. He forced himself to see Robert
Greslon without any other traits than those which confirmed the
hypothesis already outlined in his mind.
“Those very brilliant black eyes, those too vivacious gestures, that
brusque manner of entering into relations with me, that enthusiasm
in speaking to me, there was nervous derangement in this fellow. The
father died young? If it could be proved that there was alcoholism
in the family, then there would be a beautiful case of what Legrand
Du Saulle calls _épilepsie larvée_. In this way his silence may
be explained, and his denials may be sincere. This is the essential
difference between an epileptic and the deranged. The last remembers
his act, the epileptic forgets them. Would this then be a _larval
epileptic_?”
At this point of his reverie the philosopher experienced a moment of
real joy. He had just constructed a building of ideas which he called
an explanation, following the habit so dear to his race. He considered
this hypothesis from different points, recalling several examples cited
by his author in his beautiful treatise on forensic medicine, until he
arrived at the Jardin des Plantes, which he entered by the large gate
of the Quay Saint Bernard.
He turned to the right into an avenue planted with old trees whose
distorted trunks were inclosed in iron and coated with whitewash.
There floated in the air a musty smell emanating from the tawny beasts
which moved around in their barred cages nearby. The philosopher was
distracted from his meditations by this odor, and he turned to look at
a large, old wild-boar with an enormous head, which, standing on his
slender feet, held his mobile and eager snout between the bars.
“And,” thought the savant, “we know ourselves but little better than
this animal knows himself. What we call our person is a consciousness
so vague, so disturbed by operations which are going on within us,”
and returning to Robert Greslon: “Who knows? This young man who was so
preoccupied by the multiplicity of the self? Did he not have an obscure
feeling that there were in himself two distinct conditions, a primary
and secondary condition as it were--two beings in fact, one, lucid,
intelligent, honest, loving works of the intellect, the one whom I
knew; and another, gloomy, cruel, impulsive, the one who has committed
murder. Evidently this is a case. I am very happy to have come across
it.” He forgot that on leaving the Palais de Justice he had deplored
his relations with the accused. “It will be a fortunate thing to study
the mother now. She will furnish me with facts about the ancestors.
That is what is lacking to our psychology; good monographs made _de
visu_ upon the mental structure of great men and of criminals. I
will try to write out this one.”
All sincere passion is egoistic, the intellectual as well as the
others. Thus the philosopher, who would not have harmed a fly
walked with a more rapid step in going toward the gate at the Rue
Cuvier whence he would reach the Rue Jussieu, then the Rue Guy de la
Brosse--he was about to have an interview with a despairing mother who
was coming, without doubt, to entreat him to aid her in saving the
head of a son who was perhaps innocent! But the possible innocence of
the prisoner, the grief of the mother, the part which he himself would
be called to play in this novel scene, all were effaced by the fixed
idea of the notes to be taken, of the little insignificant facts to be
collected.
Four o’clock struck when this singular dreamer, who no more
suspected his own ferocity than does a physician who is charmed by a
beautiful autopsy, arrived in front of his house. On the threshold
of the _porte cochère_ were two men: Father Carbonnet and the
_commissionaire_ usually stationed at the corner of the street.
With their back turned to the side from which Adrien Sixte came, they
were laughing at the stumblings of a drunken man on the opposite walk,
and saying such things as a spectacle of that character suggests to the
common people. The cock Ferdinand, brown and lustrous, hopped about
their feet and picked between the stones of the pavement.
“That fellow has taken a drop too much for sure,” said the
_commissionaire_.
“What if I should tell you,” responded Carbonnet, “that he has not
drunk enough? For if he had drunk more, he would have fallen down at
the wineseller’s. Good! see him stumble up against the lady in black.”
The two speakers, who had not seen the philosopher, continued to bar
the way. The last; with the customary amenity of his manners, hesitated
to disturb them.
Mechanically he turned his eyes in the direction of the drunken man. He
was an unfortunate fellow in rags; his head was covered with a high hat
weakened by innumerable falls; his feet danced in his wornout boots. He
had just knocked against a person in deep mourning who was standing at
the angle of the Rue Guy de la Brosse and the Rue Linné. Without doubt
she was looking at some one on the side of this latter street, some one
in whom she was interested, for she did not turn at once.
The man in rags, with the persistency of drunken people, was excusing
himself to this woman, who then first became aware of his presence.
She drew back with a gesture of disgust. The drunken man became
angry, and supporting himself against the wall, hurled at her some
offensive language; a crowd of children soon collected around him.
The _commissionaire_ began to laugh, and so did Carbonnet. Then
turning around to look for the cock, muttering: “Where has he gone
to crow, the runaway?” he saw Adrien Sixte, behind whom Ferdinand had
taken refuge, and who was also regarding the scene between the drunken
man and the unknown lady.