She believed me; she had just seen me overcome by her emotion; she

kissed me tenderly, and I begged her to continue. She then told me that

one day in the previous week a stranger, coming ostensibly from one of

their friends in London, had asked to see my stepfather. He was ushered

into the hall, and into her presence, and she guessed at once by the

extraordinary agitation which M. Termonde displayed that the man was

Edmond. The two brothers went into my stepfather's private room, while

my mother remained in the hall, half dead with anxiety and suspense,

every now and then hearing the angry tones of their voices, but unable

to distinguish any words. At length the brother came out, through the

hall, and looked at her as he passed by with eyes that transfixed her

with fear.

"And the same evening," she went on, "Jacques took to his bed. Now, do

you understand my despair? Ah, it is not our name that I care for. I

wear myself out with repeating, 'What has this to do with us? How can we

be spattered by this mud?' It is his health, his precious health! The

doctor says that every violent emotion is a dose of poison to him. Ah!"

she cried, with a gesture of despair, "this man will kill him." To hear

that cry, which once again revealed to me the depth of her passion for

my stepfather, to hear it at this moment, and to think what I was

thinking!

"You saw him?" I asked, hardly knowing what I said.

"Have I not told you that he passed by me, there?" and, with terror

depicted in her face, she showed me the place on the carpet.

"And you are sure that the man was his brother?"

"Jacques told me so in the evening; but I did not require that; I should

have recognised him by the eyes. How strange it is! Those two brothers,

so different; Jacques so refined, so distinguished, so noble-minded, and

the other, a big, heavy, vulgar lout, common-looking, and a

rascal--well, they have the same look in their eyes."

"And under what name is he in Paris?"

"I do not know. I dare not speak of him any more. If he knew that I have

told you this, with his ideas! But then, dear, you would have heard it

at some time or other; and besides," she added with firmness, "I would

have told you long ago about this wretched secret if I had dared! You

are a man now, and you are not bound by this excessively scrupulous

fraternal affection. Advise me, André, what is to be done?"

"I do not understand you."

"Yes, yes. There must be some means of informing the police and having

this man arrested without its being talked of in the newspapers or

elsewhere. Jacques would not do this, because the man is his brother;

but if we were to act, you and I, on our own side? I have heard you say

that you visit M. Massol, whom we knew at the time of our great

misfortune; suppose I were to go to him and ask his advice? Ah t I must

keep my husband alive--he must be saved! I love him too much!"

Why was I seized with a panic at the idea that she might carry out this

project, and apply to the former Judge of Instruction--I, who had not

ventured to go to his house since my aunt's death for fear he should

divine my suspicions merely by looking at me? What was it that I saw so

clearly, that made me implore her to abandon her idea in the very name

of the love she bore her husband.

"You will not do this," I said; "you have no right to do it. He would

never forgive you, and he would have just cause; it would be betraying

him."

"Betraying him! It would be saving him!"

"And if his brother's arrest were to strike him a fresh blow? If you

were to see him ill, more ill than ever, on account of what you had

done?"

I had used the only argument that could have convinced her. Strange

irony of fate! I calmed her, I persuaded her not to act--I, who had

suddenly conceived the monstrous notion that the doer of the murderous

deed, the docile instrument in my stepfather's hands, was this infamous

brother--that Edmond Termonde and Rochdale were one and the same man!

XV

The night which followed that conversation with my mother remains in my

memory as the most wretched I had hitherto endured; and yet how many

sleepless nights had I passed, while all the world around me slept, in

bitter conflict with a thought which held mine eyes waking and devoured

my heart! I was like a prisoner who has sounded every inch of his

dungeon--the walls, the floor, the ceiling--and who, on shaking the bars

of his window for the hundredth time, feels one of the iron rods loosen

under the pressure. He hardly dares to believe in his good fortune, and

he sits down upon the ground almost dazed by the vision of deliverance

that has dawned upon him. "I must be cool-headed now," said I to myself,

as I walked to and fro in the smoking-room, whither I had retired

without tasting the meal that was served on my return. Evening came,

then the black night; the dawn followed, and once more the full day.

Still I was there, striving to see clearly amid the cloud of

suppositions in which an event, simple in itself (only that in my state

of mind no event would have seemed simple), had wrapped me. I was too

well used to these mental tempests not to know that the only safety

consisted in clinging to the positive facts, as though to immovable

rocks. In the present instance, the positive facts reduced themselves to

two: first, I had just learned that a brother of M. Termonde, who passed

for dead, and of whom my stepfather never spoke, existed; secondly, that

this man, disgraced, proscribed, ruined, an outlaw in fact, exercised a

dictatorship of terror over his rich, honoured, and irreproachable

brother. The first of these two facts explained itself. It was quite

natural that Jacques Termonde should not dispel the legend of the

suicide, which was of his own invention, and had saved the other from

the galleys. It is never pleasant to have to own a thief, a forger, or a

deserter, for one's nearest relation; but this, after all, is only an

excessively disagreeable matter. The second fact was of a different

kind. The disproportion between the cause assigned by my stepfather and

its result in the terror from which he was suffering was too great. The

dominion which Edmond Termonde exercised over his brother was not to be

justified by the threat of his return, if that return were not to have

any other consequence than a transient scandal. My mother, who regarded

her husband as a noble-minded, high-souled, great-hearted man, might be

satisfied with the alleged reason; but not I. It occurred to me to

consult the Code of Military Justice, and I ascertained, by the 184th

clause, that a deserter cannot claim immunity from punishment until

after he has attained his forty-seventh year, so that it was most likely

Edmond Termonde was still within the reach of the law. Was it possible

that his desire to shield his brother from the punishment of the offence

of desertion should throw my stepfather into such a state of illness and

agitation? I discerned another reason for this dominion--some dark and

terrible bond of complicity between the two men. What if Jacques

Termonde had employed his brother to kill my father, and proof of the

transaction was still in the murderer's possession? No doubt his hands

would be tied so far as the magistrates were concerned; but he had it in

his power to enlighten my mother, and the mere threat of doing this

would suffice to make a loving husband tremble, and tame his fierce

pride.

"I must be cool," I repeated, "I must be cool;" and I put all my

strength to recalling the physical and moral particulars respecting the

crime which were in my possession. It was my business now to try whether

one single point remained obscure when tested by the theory of the

identity of Rochdale with Edmond Termonde. The witnesses were agreed in

representing Rochdale as tall and stout, my mother had described Edmond

Termonde as a big, heavy man. Fifteen years lay between the assassin of

1864 and the elderly rake of 1879; but nothing prevented the two from

being identical. My mother had dwelt upon the colour of Edmond

Termonde's eyes, pale blue like those of his brother; the concierge of

the Imperial Hotel had mentioned the pale blue colour and the brightness

of Rochdale's eyes in his deposition, which I knew by heart. He had

noticed this peculiarity on account of the contrast of the eyes with the

man's bronzed complexion. Edmond Termonde had taken refuge in America

after his alleged suicide, and what had M. Massol said? I could hear him

repeat, with his well-modulated voice, and methodical movement of the

hand: "A foreigner, American or English, or, perhaps, a Frenchman

settled in America." Physical impossibility there existed none. And

moral impossibility? That was equally absent. In order to convince

myself more fully of this, I took up the history of the crime from the

moment at which my father's correspondence concerning Jacques Termonde

became explicit, that is to say, in January, 1864.

So as to rid my judgment of every trace of personal enmity, I suppressed

the names in my thoughts, reducing the dreadful occurrence by which I

had suffered to the bareness of an abstract narrative. A man is

desperately in love with the wife of one of his intimate friends, a

woman whom he knows to be absolutely, spotlessly virtuous; he knows, he

feels, that if she were free she would love him; but that, not being

free, she will never, never be his. This man is of the temperament which

makes criminals, his passions are violent in the extreme, he has no

scruples and a despotic will; he is accustomed to see everything give

way to his desires. He perceives that his friend is growing jealous; a

little later and the house will no longer be open to him. Would not the

thought come to him--if the husband could be got rid of? And yet----?

This dream of the death of him, who forms the sole obstacle to his

happiness, troubles the man's head, it recurs once, twice, many times,

and he turns the fatal idea over and over again in his brain until he

becomes used to it. He arrives at the "If I dared," which is the

starting-point of the blackest villainies. The idea takes a precise

form; he conceives that he might have the man whom he now hates, and by

whom he feels that he is hated, killed. Has he not, far away, a wretch

of a brother, whose actual existence, to say nothing of his present

abode, is absolutely unknown? What an admirable instrument of murder he

should find in this infamous, depraved, and needy brother, whom he holds

at his beck and call by the aid in money that he sends him! And the

temptation grows and grows. An hour comes when it is stronger than all

besides, and the man, resolved to play this desperate game, summons his

brother to Paris. How? By one or two letters in which he excites the

rascal's hopes of a large sum of money to be gained, at the same time

that he imposes the condition of absolute secrecy as to his voyage. The

other accepts; he is a social failure, a bankrupt in life, he has

neither relations nor ties, he has been leading an anonymous and

haphazard existence for years. The two brothers are face to face. Up to

that point all is logical, all is in conformity with the possible stages

of a project of this order.

I arrived at the execution of it; and I continued to reason in the same

way, impersonally. The rich brother proposes the blood-bargain to the

poor brother. He offers him money; a hundred thousand francs, two

hundred thousand, three hundred thousand. From what motive should the

scoundrel hesitate to accept the offer? Moral ideas? What is the

morality of a rake who has gone from libertinism to theft? Under the

influence of my vengeful thoughts I had read the criminal news of the

day in the journals, and the reports of criminal trials, too assiduously

for years past, not to know how a man becomes a murderer. How many cases

of stabbing, shooting, and poisoning have there not been, in which the

gain was entirely uncertain, and the conditions of danger extreme,

merely to enable the perpetrators to go, presently, and expend the

murder-money in some low haunt of depravity! Fear of the scaffold? Then

nobody would kill. Besides, debauchees, whether they stop short at vice

or roll down the descent into crime, have no foresight of the future.

Present sensation is too strong for them; its image abolishes all other

images, and absorbs all the vital forces of the temperament and the

soul. An old dying mother, children perishing of hunger, a despairing

wife; have these pictures of their deeds ever arrested drunkards,

gamblers, or profligates? No more have the tragic phantoms of the

tribunal, the prison, and the guillotine, when, thirsting for gold, they

kill to procure it. The scaffold is far off, the brothel is at the

street corner, and the being sunk in vice kills a man, just as a butcher

would kill a beast, that he may go thither, or to the tavern, or to the

low gaming-house, with a pocket full of money. This is the daily mode of

procedure in crime. Why should not the desire of a more elevated kind of

debauch possess the same wicked attraction for men who are indeed more

refined, but are quite as incapable of moral goodness as the rascally

frequenters of the lowest dens of iniquity? Ah! the thought that my

father's blood might have paid for suppers in a New York night-house was

too cruel and unendurable. I lost courage to pursue my cold, calm,

reasonable deductions, a kind of hallucination came upon me--a mental

picture of the hideous scene--and I felt my reason reel. With a great

effort I turned to the portrait of my father, gazed at it long, and

spoke to him as if he could have heard me, aloud, in abject entreaty.

"Help me, help me!" And then, I once more became strong enough to resume

the dreadful hypothesis, and to criticise it point by point. Against it

was its utter unlikelihood; it resembled nothing but the nightmare of a

diseased imagination. A brother who employs his brother as the assassin

of a man whose wife he wants to marry! Still, although the conception of

such a devilish plot belonged to the domain of the wildest fantasies, I

said to myself: "This may be so, but in the way of crime, there is no

such thing as unlikelihood. The assassin ceases to move in the habitual

grooves of social life by the mere fact that he makes up his mind to

murder." And then a score of examples of crimes committed under

circumstances as strange and exceptional as those whose greater or less

probability I was then discussing with myself, recurred to my memory.

One objection arose at once. Admitting this complicated crime to be

possible only, how came I to be the first to form a suspicion of it? Why

had not the keen, subtle, experienced old magistrate, M. Massol, looked

in that direction for an explanation of the mystery in whose presence he

confessed himself powerless? The answer came readily. M. Massol did not

think of it, that was all. The important thing is to know, not whether

the Judge of Instruction suspected the fact, or did not suspect it; but

whether the fact itself is, or is not real. Again, what indications had

reached M. Massol to put him on this scent? If he had thoroughly studied

my father's home and his domestic life, he had acquired the certainty

that my mother was a faithful wife, and a good woman. He had witnessed

her sincere grief, and he had not seen, as I had, letters written by my

father in which he acknowledged his jealousy, and revealed the passion

of his false friend. But, even supposing the judge had from the first

suspected the villainy of my future stepfather, the discovery of his

accomplice would have been the first thing to be done, since, in any

case, the presence of M. Termonde in our house at the time of the murder

was an ascertained fact. Supposing M. Massol had been led to think of

the brother who had disappeared, what then? Where were the traces of

that brother to be found? Where and how? If Edmond and Jacques had been

accomplices in the crime, would not their chief care be to contrive a

means of correspondence which should defy the vigilance of the police?

Did they not cease for a time to communicate with each other by letters?

What had they to communicate, indeed? Edmond was in possession of the

price of the murder, and Jacques was occupied in completing his conquest

of my mother's heart. I resumed my argument: all this granted again,

but, although M. Massol was ignorant of the essential factor in the

case, although he was unaware of Jacques Termonde's passion for the wife

of the murdered man, my aunt knew it well, she had in her hands

indisputable proofs of my father's suspicions, how came she not to have

thought as I was now thinking? And how did I know that she had not

thought just as I was thinking? She had been tormented by suspicions,

even she, too; she had lived and died haunted by them. The only

difference was that she had included my mother in them, being incapable

of forgiving her the sufferings of the brother whom she loved so deeply.

To act against my mother was to act against me, so she had forsworn that

idea for ever. But, if she would have acted against my mother, how could

she have gone beyond the domain of vague inductions, since she, no more

than I, could have divined my stepfather's alibi, or known of the actual

existence of Edmond Termonde? No; that I should be the first to explain

the murder of my father as I did, proved only that I had come into

possession of additional information respecting the surroundings of the

crime, and not that the conjectures drawn from it were baseless.

Other objections presented themselves. If my stepfather had employed his

brother to commit the murder, how came he to reveal the existence of

that brother to his wife? An answer to this question was not far to

seek. If the crime had been committed under conditions of complicity,

only one proof of the fact could remain, namely, the letters written by

Jacques Termonde to Edmond, in which the former recalled the latter to

Europe and gave him instructions for his journey; these letters Edmond

had of course preserved, and it was through them, and by the threat of

showing them to my mother, that he kept a hold over his brother. To tell

his wife so much as he had told her was to forestall and neutralise this

threat, at least to a certain extent; for, if the doer of the deed

should ever resolve on revealing the common secret to the victim's

widow, now the wife of him who had inspired it, the latter would be able

to deny the authenticity of the letters, to plead the former confidence

reposed in her respecting his brother, and to point out that the

denunciation was an atrocious act of revenge achieved by a forgery. And,

besides, if indeed the crime had been committed in the manner that I

imagined, was not that revelation to my mother justified by another

reason?

The remorseful moods by which I believed my stepfather to be tortured

were not likely to escape the observant affection of his wife; she could

not fail to know that there was a dark shadow on his life which even her

love could not dispel. Who knows but she had suffered from the worst of

all jealousy, that which is inspired by a constant thought not imparted,

a strange emotion hidden from one? And he had revealed a portion of the

truth to her so as to spare her uneasiness of that kind, and to protect

himself from questions which his conscience rendered intolerable to him.

There was then no contradiction between this half-revelation made to my

mother, and my own theory of the complicity of the two brothers. It was

also clear to me that in making that revelation he had been unable to go

beyond a certain point in urging upon her the necessity of silence

towards me--silence which would never have been broken but for her

unforeseen emotion, but for my affectionate entreaties, but for the

sudden arrival of Edmond Termonde, which had literally bewildered the

poor woman. But how was my stepfather's imprudence in refusing money to

this brother, who was at bay and ready to dare any and everything, to be

explained? This, too, I succeeded in explaining to myself. It had

happened before my aunt's death, at a period when my stepfather believed

himself to be guaranteed from all risk on my side. He believed himself

to be sheltered from justice by the statute of limitation. He was ill.

What, then, was more natural than that he should wish to recover those

papers which might become a means of levying blackmail upon his widow

after his death, and dishonouring his memory in the heart of that woman

whom he had loved--even to crime--at any price? Such a negotiation could

only be conducted in person. My stepfather would have reflected that his

brother would not fulfil his threat without making a last attempt; he

would come to Paris, and the accomplices would again be face to face

after all these years. A fresh but final offer of money would have to be

made to Edmond, the price of the relinquishment of the sole proof

whereby the mystery of the Imperial Hotel could be cleared up. In this

calculation my stepfather had omitted to forecast the chance that his

brother might come to the hotel on the Boulevard de Latour-Maubourg,

that he would be ushered into my mother's presence, and that the result

of the shock to himself--his health being already undermined by his

prolonged mental anguish--would be a fresh attack of his malady. In

events, there is always the unexpected to put to rout the skilful

calculations of the most astute and the most prudent, and when I

reflected that so much cunning, such continual watchfulness over himself

and others had all come to this--unless indeed these surmises of mine

were but fallacies of a brain disturbed by fever and the consuming

desire for vengeance--I once more felt the passage of the wind of

destiny over us all.

However, whether reality or fancy, there they were, and I could not

remain in ignorance or in doubt. At the end of all my various arguments

for and against the probability of my new explanation of the mystery, I

arrived at a positive fact: rightly or wrongly I had conceived the

possibility of a plot in which Edmond Termonde had served as the

instrument of murder in his brother's hand. Were there only one single

chance, one against a thousand, that my father had been killed in this

way, I was bound to follow up the clue to the end, on pain of having to

despise myself as the veriest coward that lived. The time of sorrowful

dreaming was over; it was now necessary to act, and to act was to know.

Morning dawned upon these thoughts of mine. I opened my window, I saw

the faces of the lofty houses livid in the first light of day, and I

swore solemnly to myself, in the presence of re-awakening life, that

this day should see me begin to do what I ought, and the morrow should

see me continue, and the following days should see the same, until I

could say to myself: "I am certain." I resolutely repressed the wild

feelings which had taken hold of me during the night, and I fixed my

mind upon the problem: "Does there exist any means of making sure

whether Edmond Termonde is, or is not, identical with the man who in

1864 called himself Rochdale?" For the answer to this question I had

only myself, the resources of my own intelligence, and my personal will

to rely upon. I must do myself the justice to state that not for one

minute, during all those cruel hours, was I tempted to rid myself once

for all of the difficulties of my tragic task by appealing to justice,

as I should have done had I not taken my mother's sufferings into

account. I had resolved that the terrible blow of learning that for

fifteen years she had been the wife of an assassin should never be dealt

to her by me. In order that she might always remain in ignorance of this

story of crime, it was necessary for the struggle to be strictly

confined to my stepfather and myself. And yet, I thought, what if I find

that he is guilty? At this idea, no longer vague and distant, but liable

to-day, to-morrow, at any time, to become an indisputable truth, a

terrible project presented itself to my mind. But I would not look in

that direction, I made answer to myself: "I will think of this later

on," and I forced myself to concentrate all my reflections upon the

actual day and its problem: How to verify the identity of Edmond

Termonde with the false Rochdale? To tear the secret from my stepfather

was impossible. I had vainly endeavoured for months to find the flaw in

his armour of dissimulation; I had but broken not one dagger, but twenty

against the plates of that cuirass. If I had had all the tormentors of

the Middle Ages at my service, I could not have forced his fast-shut

lips to open, or extorted an admission from his woebegone and yet

impenetrable face. There remained the other; but, in order to attack

him, I must first discover under what name he was hiding in Paris, and

where. No great effort of imagination was required to hit upon a certain

means of discovering these particulars. I had only to recall the

circumstances under which I had learned the fact of Edmond Termonde's

arrival in Paris. For some reason or other--remembrance of a guilty

complicity or fear of a scandal--my stepfather trembled with fear at the

mere idea of his brother's return. His brother had returned, and my

stepfather would undoubtedly make every effort to induce him to go away

again. He would see him, but not at the house on the Boulevard de

Latour-Maubourg, on account of my mother and the servants. I had,

therefore, a sure means of finding out where Edmond Termonde was living;

I would have his brother followed.

There were two alternatives: either he would arrange a meeting in some

lonely place, or he would go himself to Edmond Termonde's abode. In the

latter case, I should have the information I wanted at once; in the

former, it would be sufficient to give the description of Edmond

Termonde just as I had received it from my mother, and to have him also

followed on his return from the place of meeting. The spy-system has

always seemed to me to be infamous, and even at that moment I felt all

the ignominy of setting this trap for my stepfather; but when one is

fighting, one must use the weapons that will avail. To attain my end, I

would have trodden everything under foot except my mother's grief. And

then? Supposing myself in possession of the false name of Edmond

Termonde and his address, what was I to do? I could not, in imitation of

the police, lay my hand upon him and his papers, and get off with

profuse excuses for the action when the search was finished. I remember

to have turned over twenty plans in my mind, all more or less ingenious,

and rejected them all in succession, concluding by again fixing my mind

on the bare facts.

Supposing the man really had killed my father, it was impossible that

the scene of the murder should not be indelibly impressed upon his

memory. In his dark hours the face of the dead man, whom I resembled so

closely, must have been visible to his mind's eye. Once more I studied

the portrait at which my stepfather had hardly dared to glance, and

recalled my own words: "Do you think the likeness is sufficiently strong

for me to have the effect of a spectre upon the criminal?" Why not

utilise this resemblance? I had only to present myself suddenly before

Edmond Termonde, and call him by the name--Rochdale--to his ears its

syllables would have the sound of a funeral bell. Yes! that was the way

to do it: to go into the room he now occupied, just as my father had

gone into the room at the Imperial Hotel, and to ask for him by the name

under which my father had asked for him, showing him the very face of

his victim. If he was not guilty, I should merely have to apologise for

having knocked at his door by mistake; if he was guilty, he would be so

terrified for some minutes that his fear would amount to an avowal. It

would then be for me to avail myself of that terror to wring the whole

of his secret from him. What motives would inspire him? Two,

manifestly--the fear of punishment, and the love of money. It would then

be necessary for me to be provided with a large sum when taking him

unawares, and to let him choose between two alternatives, either that he

should sell me the letters which had enabled him to blackmail his

brother for years past, or that I should shoot him on the spot. And what

if he refused to give up the letters to me? Is it likely that a ruffian

of his kind would hesitate? Well, then, he would accept the bargain,

hand me over the papers by which my stepfather is convicted of murder,

and take himself off? And I must let him go away just as he had gone

away from the Imperial Hotel, smoking a cigar, and paid for his

treachery to his brother, even as he had been paid for his treachery to

my father! Yes, I must let him go away thus, because to kill him with my

own hand would be to place myself under the necessity of revealing the

whole of the crime, which I am bound to conceal at all hazards. "Ah,

mother! what will you not cost me!" I murmured with tears. Fixing my

eyes again upon the portrait of the dead man, it seemed to me that I

read in its eyes and mouth an injunction never to wound the heart of the

woman he had so dearly loved--even for the sake of avenging him. "I will

obey you," I made answer to my father, and bade adieu to that part of my

vengeance. It was very hard, very cruel to myself; nevertheless, it was

possible; for, after all, did I hate the wretch himself? He had struck

the blow, it is true, but only as a servile tool in the hand of another.

Ah! that other, I would not let _him_ escape, when he should be in my

grip, he who had conceived, meditated, arranged, and paid for the deed,

he who had stolen all from me, all, all, from my father's life even to

my mother's love, he, the real, the only culprit. Yes, I would lay hold

of him, and contrive and execute my vengeance, while my mother should

never suspect the existence of that duel out of which I should come

triumphant. I was intoxicated beforehand with the idea of the punishment

which I would find means to inflict upon the man whom I execrated. It

warmed my heart only to think of how this would repay my long, cruel

martyrdom. "To work! to work!" I cried aloud. I trembled lest this

should be nothing but a delusion, lest Edmond Termonde should have

already left the country, my stepfather having previously purchased his

silence. At nine o'clock I was in an abominable Private Inquiry

Office--merely to have passed its threshold would have seemed to me a

shameful action, only a few hours before. At ten, I was with my broker,

giving him instructions to sell out 100,000 francs' worth of shares for

me. That day passed, and then a second. How I bore the succession of the

hours, I know not. I do know that I had not courage to go to my mother's

house, or to see her again. I feared she might detect my wild hope in my

eyes, and unconsciously forewarn my stepfather by a sentence or a word,

as she had unconsciously informed me. Towards noon, on the third day, I

learned that my stepfather had gone out that morning. It was a

Wednesday, and on that day my mother always attended a meeting for some

charitable purpose in the Grenelle quarter. M. Termonde had changed his

cab twice, and had alighted from the second vehicle at the Grand Hotel.

There he had paid a visit to a traveller who occupied a room on the

second floor (No. 353); this person's name was entered in the list of

arrivals as Stanbury. At noon I was in possession of these particulars,

and at two o'clock I ascended the staircase of the Grand Hotel, with a

loaded revolver and a note-case containing one hundred bank-notes,

wherewith to purchase the letters, in my pocket.

Was I about to enter on a formidable scene in the drama of my life, or

was I about to be convinced that I had been once more made the dupe of

my own imagination?

At all events, I should have done my duty.

XVI

I had reached the second floor. At one corner of the long corridor there

was a notification that the numbers ran from 300 to 360. A waiter passed

me, whistling; two girls were chattering and laughing in a kind of

office at the stair-head; the various noises of the courtyard came up

through the open windows. The moment was opportune for the execution of

my project. With these people about the man could not hope to escape

from the house. 345, 350, 351 353--I stood before the door of Edmond

Termonde's room; the key was in the lock; chance had served my purpose

better than I had ventured to hope. This trifling particular bore

witness to the security in which the man whom I was about to surprise

was living. Was he even aware that I existed? I paused a moment before

the closed door. I wore a short coat, so as to have my revolver within

easy reach in the pocket, and I put my right hand upon it, opened the

door with my left, and entered without knocking.

"Who is there?" said a man who was lying rather than sitting in an

arm-chair, with his feet on a table; he was reading a newspaper and

smoking, and his back was turned to the door. He did not trouble himself

to rise and see whose hand had opened the door; thinking, no doubt, that

a servant had come in, he merely turned his head slightly, and I did not

give him time to look completely round.

"M. Rochdale?" I asked.

He started to his feet, pushed away the chair, and rushed to the other

side of the table, staring at me with a terrified countenance; his light

blue eyes were unnaturally distended, his face was livid, his mouth was

half open, his logs bent under him. His tall, robust frame had sustained

one of those shocks of excessive terror which almost paralyse the forces

of life. He uttered but one word--Cornélis!

At last I held in my victorious hand the proof that I had been seeking

for months, and in that moment I was master of all the resources of my

being. Yes, I was as calm, as clear of purpose as my adversary was the

reverse. He was not accustomed to live, like his accomplice, in the

daily habit of studied dissimulation. The name, "Rochdale," the

terrifying likeness, the unlooked--for arrival! I had not been mistaken

in my calculation. With the amazing rapidity of thought that accompanies

action I perceived the necessity of following up this first shock of

moral terror by a shock of physical terror. Otherwise, the man would

hurl himself upon me, in the moment of reaction, thrust me aside and

rush away like a madman, at the risk of being stopped on the stairs by

the servants, and then? But I had already taken out my revolver, and I

now covered the wretch with it, calling him by his real name, to prove

that I knew all about him.

"M. Edmond Termonde," I said, "if you make one step towards me, I will

kill you, like an assassin as you are, as you killed my father."

Pointing to a chair at the corner of the half-open window, I added:

"Sit down!"

He obeyed mechanically. At that instant I exercised absolute control

over him; but I felt sure this would cease so soon as he recovered his

presence of mind. But even though the rest of the interview were now to

go against me, that could not alter the certainty which I had acquired.

I had wanted to know whether Edmond Termonde was the man who had called

himself Rochdale, and I had secured undeniable proof of the fact.

Nevertheless, it was due to myself that I should extract from my enemy

the proof of the truth of all my conjectures, that proof which would

place my stepfather at my mercy. This was a fresh phase of the struggle.

I glanced round the room in which I was shut up with the assassin. On

the bed, placed on my left, lay a loaded cane, a hat and an overcoat, on

a small table were a steel knuckle-duster and a revolver. Among the

articles laid out on a chest of drawers on my right a bowie-knife was

conspicuous, a valise was placed against an unused door, a wardrobe with

a looking-glass stood before another unused door, then came the

toilet-stand, and the man, crouching under the aim of my revolver,

between the table and the window. He could neither escape, nor reach to

any means of defence without a personal struggle with me; but he would

have to stand my fire first, and besides, if he was tall and robust, I

was neither short nor feeble. I was twenty-five, he was fifty. All the

moral forces were for me, I must win.

"Now," said I, as I took a seat, but without releasing him from the

covering barrel of my pistol, "let us talk."

"What do you want of me?" he asked roughly. His voice was both hoarse

and muffled; the blood had gone back into his cheeks, his eyes, those

eyes so exactly like his brother's, sparkled. The brute-nature was

reviving in him after having sustained a fearful shock, as though

astonished that it still lived.

"Come, then," he added, clenching his fists, "I am caught. Fire on me,

and let this end."

Then, as I made him no answer, but continued to threaten him with my

pistol, he exclaimed:

"Ah! I understand; it is that blackguard Jacques who has sold me to you

in order to get rid of me himself. There's the statute of

limitations--he thinks he is safe! But has he told you that he was in it

himself, good, honest man, and that I have the proof of this? Ah! he

thinks I am going to let you kill me, like that, without speaking? No,

no, I shall call out, we shall be arrested, and all will be known."

Fury had seized upon him; he was about to shout "Help!" and the worst of

it was that rage was rising in me also. It was he, with that same hand

which I saw creeping along the table, strong, hairy, seeking something

to throw at me--yes--it was he who had killed my father. One impulse

more of anger and I was lost; a bullet was lodged in his body, and I saw

his blood flow. Oh, what good it would have done me to see that sight!

But no, I had made the sacrifice of this particular vengeance. In a

second, I beheld myself arrested, obliged to explain everything, and my

mother exposed to all the misery of it. Happily for me, he also had an

interval of reflection. The first idea that must have occurred to him

was that his brother had betrayed him, by telling me one-half of the

truth, so as to deliver him up to my vengeance. The second, no doubt,

was that, for a son who came to avenge his dead father, I was making a

good deal of delay about it. There was a momentary silence between us.

This allowed me to regain my coolness, and to say: "You are mistaken,"

so quietly that his amazement was visible in his face. He looked at me,

then closed his eyes, and knitted his brow. I felt that he could not

endure my resemblance to my father.

"Yes, you are mistaken," I continued deliberately, giving the tone of a

business conversation to this terrible interview. "I have not come here

either to have you arrested, or to kill you. Unless," I added, "you

oblige me to do so yourself, as I feared just now you would oblige me. I

have come to propose a bargain to you, but it is on the condition that

you listen, as I shall speak, with coolness."

Once more we were both silent. In the corridor, almost at the door of

the room, there were sounds of feet, voices, and peals of laughter. This

was enough to recall me to the necessity of controlling myself, and him

to the consciousness that he was playing a dangerous game. A shot, a

cry, and some one would enter the room, for it opened upon the corridor.

Edmond Termonde had heard me with extreme attention, a gleam of hope

succeeded by a singular look of suspicion had passed over his face.

"Make your conditions," said he.

"If I had intended to kill you," I resumed, so as to convince him of my

sincerity by the evidence of his senses, "you would be dead already." I

raised the revolver. "If I had intended to have you arrested, I would

not have taken the trouble to come here myself; two policemen would have

been sufficient, for you don't forget that you are a deserter, and still

amenable to the law."

"True," he replied simply, and then added, following out a mental

argument which was of vital importance to the issue of our interview:

"If it is not Jacques, then who is it that has sold me?"

"I held you at my disposal," I continued, without noticing what he had

said, "and I have not availed myself of that. Therefore I had a strong

reason for sparing you yesterday, ere yesterday, this morning, a little

while ago, at the present moment; and it depends upon yourself whether I

spare you altogether."

"And you want me to believe you," he answered, pointing to my revolver

which I still continued to hold in my hand, but no longer covering him

with it. "No, no," and he added--with an expression which smacked of the

barrack-room, "I don't tumble to that sort of thing."

"Listen to me," said I, now assuming a tone of extreme contempt. "The

powerful motive which I have for not shooting you like a mad dog, you

shall learn. I do not choose that my mother should ever know what a man

she married in your brother. Do you now understand why I resolved to let

you go; provided you are of the same mind, however; for even the idea of

my mother would not stop me, if you pushed me too far. I will add, for

your guidance, that the limitation by which you supposed yourself to be

safe from pursuit for the murder in 1864 has been traversed; you are

therefore staking your head at this moment. For ten years past you have

been successfully levying blackmail on your brother. I do not suppose

you have merely played upon the chord of fraternal love. When you came

from America to assume the personality of Rochdale, it was clearly

necessary that he should send you some instructions. You have kept those

letters. I offer you one hundred thousand francs for them."

"Sir," he replied slowly, and his tone showed me that for the moment he

had recovered his self-control, "how can you imagine that I should take

such a proposal seriously? Admitting that any such letters were ever

written, and that I had kept them, why should I give up a document of

this kind to you? What security should I have that you would not have me

laid by the heels the moment after? Ah!" he cried, looking me straight

in the face, "you know nothing! That name! That likeness! Idiot that I

am, you have tricked me."

His face turned crimson with rage, and he uttered an oath.

"You shall pay for this!" he cried; and at the same instant, when he was

no longer covered by my pistol, he pushed the table upon me so

violently, that if I had not sprung backwards I must have been thrown

down; but he already had time to fling himself upon me and seize me

round the body. Happily for me the violence of the attack had knocked

the pistol out of my hands, so that I could not be tempted to use it,

and a struggle began between us in which not one word was spoken by

either. With his first rush he had flung me to the ground; but I was

strong, and the strange premonitions of danger, from which I suffered in

my youth, had led me to develop all my physical energy and adroitness. I

felt his breath on my face, his skin upon my skin, his muscles striving

against mine, and at the same time the dread that our conflict might be

overheard gave me the coolness which he had lost. After a few minutes of

this tussle, and just as his strength was failing, he fastened his teeth

in my shoulder so savagely that the pain of the bite maddened me; I

wrenched one of my arms from his grasp and seized him by the throat at

the risk of choking him. I held him under me now, and I struck his head

against the floor as though I meant to smash it. He remained motionless

for a minute, and I thought I had killed him. I first picked up my

pistol, which had rolled away to the door, and then bathed his forehead

with water in order to revive him.

When I caught sight of myself in the glass, with my coat-collar torn, my

face bruised, my cravat in rags, I shuddered as if I had seen the

spectre of another André Cornélis. The ignoble nature of this

adventure filled me with disgust; but it was not a question of

fine-gentleman fastidiousness. My enemy was coming to himself, I must

end this. I knew in my conscience I had done all that was possible to

fulfil my vow in regard to my mother. The blame must fall upon destiny.

The wretch had half-raised himself, and was looking at me; I bent over

him, and put the barrel of my revolver within a hair's breadth of his

temple.

"There is still time," I said. "I give you five minutes to decide upon

the bargain which I proposed to you just now; the letters, and one

hundred thousand francs, with your liberty; if not, a bullet in your

head. Choose. I wished to spare you on account of my mother; but I will

not lose my vengeance both ways. I shall be arrested, your papers will

be searched, the letters will be found, it will be known that I had a

right to shoot you. My mother will go mad with grief; but I shall be

avenged. I have spoken. You have five minutes, not one more."

No doubt my face expressed invincible resolution. The assassin looked at

that face, then at the clock. He tried to make a movement, but saw that

my finger was about to press the trigger.

"I yield," he said.

I ordered him to rise, and he obeyed me.

"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 ironbound 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 bank-notes 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 postmarks 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.

XVII

What was I going to do with those letters of my stepfather's which I had

bought so dear, since I had paid for them by the sacrifice of one-half

of my vengeance? The letters placed him at my mercy, even as they had

held him for long years at the mercy of his brother--what was I going to

do with them?

I began to read them in the cab on my way to the Avenue Montaigne. The

first, which was of great length, reminded Edmond of his past faults and

the hopelessness of his actual condition, and then indicated, without

entering into any particulars, a possible means of at least partially

repairing all these disasters and once more gaining a fortune. The first

condition was that the outlaw should scrupulously obey the orders of his

brother. He was to begin by announcing his departure from New York to

all his ordinary associates, and then to remove into another quarter of

the city under a new name, and wait there for the next letter. That one,

the second, made it evident that an answer from Edmond had been received

prior to its despatch, and that he had accepted the offer. By this

second letter the wretch was enjoined to go to Liverpool and to await

further instructions there. These instructions, contained in the third

letter--a mere note--were limited to an appointment at an early date, at

ten o'clock in the evening, in Paris, on the portion of the footpath of

the Rue de Jussieu which faces the Rue Guy-de-la-Brosse. At that hour,

those two streets, situated between the old Jardin des Plantes and the

buildings of the Entrepôt des Vins, are as solitary as the streets of a

country town. There was no more mention in this note than in the two

preceding letters of the plan that had been laid by Jacques Termonde,

and which was to be discussed by the brothers at their first meeting

after so many years; but, even if I had not had the false Rochdale's own

avowal, extorted by his surprise and terror, the coincidence of date

between this clandestine recall and the assassination of my father

constituted an undeniable proof. I read and re-read those accusing

pages--as I had read and re-read my father's letters written at the same

time--first in the cab, and then in the solitude of my own apartment,

and the horrible plot which had made me fatherless was fully revealed to

me with all its terrible details.

It happened that I was well acquainted with the street in which Jacques

played the part of tempter to Edmond; Joseph Dediot, my former

schoolfellow at Versailles, had a lodging close to it in the Rue Cuvier

for some years after he and I had left school, and I used constantly to

drop in the morning or the afternoon to pass an hour or two with him,

or take him to one of the restaurants on the Quay, from whence we could

look out upon the green water of the Seine, the busy workmen on the

Quay, and the long line of boats. Often and gaily had I trodden that

pavement on which the two accomplices walked while they were keeping

their rendezvous of crime. How plainly I saw them, coming and going

between the gas lamps! I heard the sound of their footsteps, I

distinguished the voice of the man who was to be my stepfather. That

insinuating and impassioned voice uttered words fraught with

consequences to the whole of my life, words which were the death-warrant

of my father and also of my aunt; for the malady that killed her had its

origin in grief. I, myself, had suffered severely in my childhood, was

suffering cruelly at this very moment on account of the words spoken in

that place. And then there came to me an equally distinct vision of the

infamous scoundrel whose bite still made it painful for me to move my

left shoulder. I saw him arranging his disordered dress after I had left

his room, strapping his trunks, calling the waiter, asking for his bill,

paying it with one of the notes which I had flung to him, and leaving

the house. His luggage was hoisted up on the carriage, and he was driven

off in haste to a railway station--no doubt that of Le Nord, because it

is nearest to the frontier. He took the first train and departed, and

never more should I hold him at my mercy. Again rage seized upon me! He

had not yet had time to get very far away. What if I were to go to the

Prefecture de Police? My description of him would be sufficient; he

would be arrested. I had sworn to him by my father's memory that I would

let him go free. Well, what then? An oath to such a wretch! He would be

arrested; they would be arrested--and my mother? What of her? For the

first time since the suspicion of the fatal truth had dawned upon me, I

recoiled from the thought of her. At the moment my anger burned so

fiercely at the image of the escaping murderer, that I reproached

myself, as though it were a weakness, for the filial pity which had

induced me to sacrifice one-half of my vengeance to the peace of my

dearly-beloved mother. "Let her suffer," I said to myself; "let her be

punished for her unfaithfulness to the memory of the dead!" But I was

ashamed a little later of having allowed such a thought to flit across

my mind; I repelled it as a crime. To have lived with an assassin for

fifteen years, and borne his name! Ah, she never could endure such a

discovery, or I the remorse of having revealed so hideous a truth to

her. No, no, let him escape! I looked at the clock, and with each swing

of the pendulum the chances of the villain's escape were increased. What

route had he taken? Had he set out for England? A few hours more and he

would be in London, secure, hidden, and lost amid the swarming

multitudes of the great city. "Oh, mother, mother," I cried as I flung

myself upon the sofa and writhed in mental agony, "what have I not done

for you!" After a while I arose and resolutely put away the image of

Edmond Termonde, substituting that of his brother. He at least could not

escape me. If "vengeance is a dish to be eaten cold," I had full leisure

to prepare mine at my case. My stepfather could not fly as his

accomplice had done; his marriage with my mother, the successful result

of his crime, made him my prisoner. I knew where to find him always, and

should always be free to approach him and bring about the scene between

us which the execution of my design demanded. What design? What but that

which had already haunted me, that which had appeared to offer

sufficient compensation, if I did not allow one of my two enemies to

escape; the design that had taken the form in my mind of a resolution? I

uttered aloud the words, "I am going to kill him." Several times I

repeated, "I am going to kill him, I am going to kill him," with a kind

of frenzy, as though I were intoxicated. So I was, by a vision of my

mothers infamous husband, stiff, stark, dead; those, eyes whose glance I

had suffered from so long, sightless; that mouth which had proposed the

blood bargain, mute. Never would that body, whose movements I had so

detested, move again. A strange wild delight came over me, while the

vision born of my hate was before my mind's eye. "At last, at last," I

again said aloud, "I am going to kill him!" Immediately after came the

inevitable question: how?

I had to prevent at any cost my mother's learning the truth respecting

the death of my father. I had not sacrificed my first vengeance,

allowing the wretch who actually did the deed to go free, to permit the

consequence of the second to wound the unhappy woman far more cruelly. I

had therefore to plan this second act of justice so as to secure beyond

all risk my own escape from the law. I should have to employ, in the

killing of my stepfather, all the cautious precaution that he had

employed in procuring the killing of my own father. Let me speak

plainly: I was bound to assassinate him. Yes, to assassinate him; that

is the name by which the act of killing a man who does not defend

himself is called--and things would happen thus. No matter how ingenious

the snare that I might lay for him, were I to poison him drop by drop,

to wait for him at a street corner and stab him, to fire a pistol at

him, there would be only one name for the deed. An assassination! I

myself should be an assassin. All the base infamy the word represents

was suddenly evoked in my thoughts, and for the first time I was afraid

of the vengeance I had so much desired, on which I had counted since my

childhood, as the sole and supreme reparation for all my misery. When I

became conscious of the sudden failure of my courage in presence of the

actual deed now it had become feasible, I was at first astounded. I

closed my eyes that I might collect my mind and force it in upon itself,

and I had to confess to myself: "I am afraid." Afraid of what? Afraid of

a word! For it was only a word. My vengeance, to which I had sacrificed

even the respect due to the wishes of the dying--had I not failed to

fulfil the desire of my aunt in her last moments?--now caused me a

thrill of terror, because the work that was to be done was repugnant. To

what? To the prejudices of my class and my time. 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 civilised 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 civilised 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

labouring 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-Élysées, 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 noisy quarter of the

Champs-Élysées, 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 recognised 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 head 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 irresolution 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

filial 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 practised 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!

XVIII

It was four o'clock in the afternoon on the following day, when I

presented myself at the hotel on the Boulevard de Latour-Maubourg. I

knew that my mother would most probably be out. I also thought it likely

my stepfather would be feeling none the better of his early excursion to

the Grand Hotel on the previous day, and I therefore hoped to find him

at home, perhaps in his bed. I was right; my mother was out, and he had

remained at home. He was in his study, the room in which our first

explanation had taken place. That upon which I was now bent was of far

greater importance, and yet I was less agitated than on the former

occasion. At last I was completely certain of the facts, and with that

certainty a strange calmness had come to me. I can recall my having

talked for a few moments with the servant who announced me, about a

child of his who was ill. I also remember to have observed for the first

time that the smoky chimney of some manufacturing works at the back of

the garden, built, no doubt, during the last winter, was visible through

the window of the staircase. I record these things because I am bound to

recognise that my mind was quite clear and free--for I will be sincere

to the end--when I entered the spacious room. My stepfather was

reclining in a deep arm-chair at the far side of the fireplace, and

occupied in cutting the pages of a new book with a dagger. The blade of

this weapon was broad, short, and strong. He had brought the knife back

from Spain, with several other kinds of arms, which lay about in the

rooms he habitually occupied. I now understood the order of ideas which

this singular taste indicated. He was dressed for walking; but his

altered looks bore witness to the intensity of the crisis through which

he had passed. It had affected his whole being. Very likely my face was

expressive of an extraordinary resolution, for I saw by his eyes as our

looks met, that he had read the depths of my thoughts at a glance.

Nevertheless, he said: "Ah, is it you, André? It is very kind of you to

come," thus exhibiting once more the power of his self-control, and he

put out his hand. I did not take it, and my refusal, contrasting with

his gesture of welcome, the silence which I kept for some minutes, the

contraction of my features, and, no doubt, the menace in my eyes,

entirely enlightened him as to the mood in which I came to him. Very

quietly, he laid down his book and the Spanish knife he had been using,

on a large table within his reach, and then he rose from his chair,

leaned his back against the mantelpiece, and crossing his arms, looked

at me with the haughty stare I knew so well, and which had so often

humiliated me in my boyhood. I was the first to break the silence;

replying to his polite greeting in a harsh tone, and looking him

straight in the face, I said:

"The time of lies is past. You have guessed that I know all?"

He bent his brows into the stern frown he always assumed when he felt

anger he was bound to suppress, his eyes met mine with indomitable

pride, and he merely replied:

"I do not understand you."

"You do not understand me? Very well, I am about to enlighten you." My

voice shook in uttering these words; my coolness was forsaking me. The

day before, and in my conversation with the brother, I had come in

contact with the vile infamy of a knave and a coward; but the enemy whom

I was now facing, although a greater scoundrel than the other, found

means to preserve a sort of moral superiority, even in that terrible

hour when he knew well he was face to face with his crime. Yes, this man

was a criminal, but of a grand kind, and there was no cowardice in him.

Pride sat upon that brow so laden with dark thoughts, but fear set no

mark upon it, any more than did repentance. In his eyes--exactly like

those of his brother--a fierce resolution shone; I felt that he would

defend himself to the end. He would yield to evidence only, and such

strength of mind displayed at such a moment had the effect of

exasperating me. The blood flew to my head, and my heart beat rapidly,

as I went on:

"Allow me to take up the matter a little farther back. In 1864 there was

in Paris a man who loved the wife of his most intimate friend. Although

that friend was very trusting, very noble, very easily duped, he became

aware of this love, and he began to suffer from it. He grew

jealous--although he never doubted his wife's purity of heart--jealous

as every one is who loves too well. The man who was the object of his

jealousy perceived it, understood that he was about to be forbidden the

house, knew that the woman whom he loved would never degrade herself by

listening to a lover, and this is the plan which he conceived. He had a

brother somewhere in a distant land, an infamous scoundrel who was

supposed to be dead, a creature sunk in shame, a thief, a forger, a

deserter, and he bethought him of this brother as an instrument ready to

his hand wherewith to rid himself of the friend who stood in the way of

his passion. He sent for the fellow secretly, he appointed to meet him

in one of the loneliest corners of Paris--in a street adjoining the

Jardin des Plantes, and at night--you see. I am well informed. It is

easy to imagine how he persuaded the former thief to play the part of

bravo. A few months after, the husband was assassinated by this brother,

who eluded justice. The felon-friend married almost immediately the

woman whom he loved; he is now a man in society, wealthy, and respected,

and his pure and pious wife loves, admires, nay, worships him. Do you

now begin to understand?"

"No more than before," he answered, with the same impassive face. He did

well not to flinch. What I had said might be only an attempt to wrest

his secret from him by feigning to know all. Nevertheless, the detail

concerning the place where he had appointed to meet his brother had made

him start. That was the spot to hit, and quickly.

"The cowardly assassin," I continued, "yes, the coward, because he dared

not commit the crime himself, had carefully calculated all the

circumstances of the murder; but he had reckoned without certain little

accidents, for instance, that his brother would keep the three letters

he had received, the first two at New York, the last at Liverpool, and

which contained instructions relating to the stages of this clandestine

journey. Neither had he taken into account that the son of his victim

would grow up, would become a man, would conceive certain suspicions of

the true cause of his father's death, and would succeed in procuring

overwhelming proof of the dark conspiracy. Come, then," I added

fiercely, "off with the mask! M. Jacques Termonde, it is you who had my

unhappy father killed by your brother Edmond. I have in my possession

the letters you wrote him in January, 1864, to induce him to come to

Europe, first under the false name of Rochester and afterwards under

that of Rochdale. It is not worth your while to play the indignant or

the astonished with me--the game is up."

He had turned frightfully pale; but his arms still remained crossed, and

his bold eyes did not droop. He made one last attempt to parry the

straight blow I had aimed at him, and he had the hardihood to say:

"How much did that wretch Edmond ask as the price of the forgery which

he fabricated in revenge for my refusal to give him money?"

"Be silent, you--" said I still more fiercely. "Is it to me that you

dare to speak thus--to me? Did I need those letters in order to learn

all? Have we not known for weeks past, I, that you had committed the

crime, and you, that I had divined your guilt? What I still needed was

the written, indisputable, undeniable proof, that which can be laid

before a magistrate. You refused him money? You were about to give him

money, only that you mistrusted him, and chose to wait until the day of

his departure. You did not suspect that I was upon your track. Shall I

tell you when it was you saw him for the last time? Yesterday, at ten

o'clock in the morning, you went out, you changed your cab first at the

Place de la Concorde, and a second time at the Palais Royal. You went to

the Grand Hotel, and you asked whether Mr. Stanbury was in his room. A

few hours later, I, I myself, was in that same room. Ah! how much did

Edmond Termonde ask from me for the letters? Why, I tore them from him,

pistol in hand, after a struggle in which I was nearly killed. You see

now that you can deceive me no more, and that it is no longer worth your

while to deny."

I thought he was about to drop dead before me. His face changed, until

it was hardly human, as I went on, on, on, piling up the exact facts,

tracking his falsehood, as one tracks a wild beast, and proving to him

that his brother had defended himself after his fashion, even as he had

done. He clasped his hands about his head, when I ceased to speak, as

though to compress the maddening thoughts which rushed upon him; then,

once more looking me in the face, but this time with infinite despair in

his eyes, he uttered exactly the same sentence as his brother had

spoken, but with quite another expression and tone:

"This hour too was bound to come. What do you want from me now?"

"That you should do justice on yourself," I answered. "You have

twenty-four hours before you. If, to-morrow at this hour, you are still

living, I place the letters in my mother's hands."

Every sort of feeling was depicted upon his livid face while I placed

this ultimatum before him, in a firm voice which admitted of no farther

discussion. I was standing up, and I leaned against the large table; he

came towards me, with a sort of delirium in his eyes as they strove to

meet mine.

"No," he cried, "no, André, not yet! Pity me, André, pity me! See now,

I am a condemned man, I have not six months to live. Your revenge! Ah!

you had no need to undertake it. What! If I have done a terrible deed,

do you think I have not been punished for it? Look at me, only look at

me; I am dying of this frightful secret. It is all over; my days are

numbered. The few that remain, leave, oh leave them to me! Understand

this, I am not afraid to die; but to kill myself, to go away, leaving

this grief to her whom you love as I do! It is true that, to win her, I

have done an atrocious deed; but say, answer, has there ever been an

hour, a minute since, in which her happiness was not my only aim? And

you would have me leave her thus, inflict upon her the torment of

thinking that while I might have grown old by her side, I preferred to

go away, to forsake her before the time? No, André, this last year,

leave it to me! Ah, leave it to me, leave it to us, for I assure you

that I am hopelessly ill, that I know it, that the doctors have not

hidden it from me. In a few months--fix a date--if the disease has not

carried me off, you can come back. But I shall be dead. She will weep

for me, without the horror of that idea that I have forestalled my hour,

she who is so pious! You only will be there to console her, to love her.

Have pity upon her, if not upon me. See, I have no more pride towards

you, I entreat you in her name, in the name of her dear heart, for well

you know its tenderness. You love her, I know that; I have guessed truly

that you hid your suspicions to spare her pain. I tell you once again,

my life is a hell, and I would joyfully give it to you in expiation of

what I have done; but she, André, she, your mother, who has never,

never cherished a thought that was not pure and noble, no, do not

inflict this torture upon her."

"Words, words," I answered, moved to the bottom of my soul in spite of

myself, by the outburst of an anguish in which I was forced to recognise

sincerity. "It is because my mother is noble and pure that I will not

have her remain the wife of a vile murderer for a day longer. You shall

kill yourself, or she shall know all."

"Do it then if you dare," he replied, with a return to the natural pride

of his character, at the ferocity of my answer. "Do it if you dare! Yes,

she is my wife, yes, she loves me; go and tell her, and kill her

yourself with the words. Ha, you see! You turn pale at the mere thought.

I have allowed you to live, yes, I, on account of her, and do you

suppose I do not hate you as much as you hate me? Nevertheless, I have

respected you because you were dear to her, and you will have to do the

same with me. Yes, do you hear, it must be so----"

It was he who was giving orders now, he who was threatening. How plainly

had he read my mind, to stand up before me in such an attitude. Furious

passion broke loose in me; I took in the facts of the situation. This

man had loved my mother madly enough to purchase her at the cost of the

murder of his most intimate friend, and he loved her after all those

years passionately enough to desire that not one of the days he had

still to pass with her might be lost to him. And it was also true that

never, never should I have the courage to reveal the terrific truth to

the poor woman. I was suddenly carried away by rage to the point of

losing all control over my frenzy. "Ah!" I cried, "since you will not do

justice on yourself, die then, at once!" I stretched out my hand and

seized the dagger which he had recently placed upon the table. He

looked at me without flinching, or recoiling, indeed presenting his

breast to me, as though to brave my childish rage. I was on his left,

bending down, and ready to spring. I saw his smile of contempt, and then

with all my strength I struck him with the knife in the direction of the

heart. The blade entered his body to the hilt. No sooner had I done this

thing than I recoiled, wild with terror at the deed. He uttered a cry.

His face was distorted with terrible agony, and he moved his right hand

towards the wound, as though he would draw out the dagger. He looked at

me, convulsed with unbearable agony; I saw that he wanted to speak; his

lips moved, but no sound issued from his mouth. The expression of a

supreme effort passed into his eyes, he turned to the table, took a pen,

dipped it into the inkstand, and traced two lines on a sheet of paper

within his reach. He looked at me again, his lips moved once more, then

he fell down like a log.

I remember--I saw the body stretched upon the carpet, between the table

and the tall mantelpiece, within two feet of me. I approached him, I

bent over his face. His eyes seemed to follow me even after death. Yes,

he was dead. The doctor who certified the death explained afterwards

that the knife had passed through the cardiac muscle without completely

penetrating the left cavity of the heart, and that, the blood not being

shed all at once, death had not been instantaneous. I cannot tell how

long he lived after I struck him, nor do I know how long I remained in

the same place, overwhelmed by the thought: "Some one will come, and I

am lost." It was not for myself that I trembled. What could be done to a

son who had but avenged his murdered father? But, my mother? This was

what all my resolutions to spare her at any cost, my daily solicitude

for her welfare, my unseen tears, my tender silence, had come to in the

end! I must now, inevitably, either explain myself, or leave her to

think that I was a mere murderer. I was lost. But if I called, if I

cried out suddenly that my stepfather had just killed himself in my

presence, should I be believed? And, besides, had he not written what

would convict me of murder, on that sheet of paper lying on the table?

Was I going to destroy it, as a practised criminal destroys every

vestige of his presence before he leaves the scene of his crime? I

seized the sheet of paper; the lines were written upon it in characters

rather larger than usual. How it shook in my hand while I read these

words: "Forgive me, Marie. I was suffering too much. I wanted to be done

with it." And he had had the strength to affix his signature! So then,

his last thought had been for her. In the brief moments that had elapsed

between my blow with the knife, and his death, he had perceived the

dreadful truth, that I should be arrested, that I would speak to explain

my deed, that my mother would then learn his crime--and he had saved me

by compelling me to silence. But was I going to profit by this means of

safety? Was I going to accept the terrible generosity by which the man,

whom I had so profoundly detested, would stand acquitted towards me for

evermore? I must render so much justice to my honour; my first impulse

was to destroy that paper, to annihilate with it even the memory of the

debt imposed upon my hatred by the atrocious but sublime action of the

murderer of my father. At that moment I caught sight of a portrait of my

mother on the table close to where he had been sitting. It was a

photograph taken in her youth; she was represented in brilliant evening

attire, her bare arms shaded with lace, pearls in her hair, gay, ay,

better than gay, happy, with an ineffably pure expression overspreading

her face. My stepfather had sacrificed all to save her from despair on

learning the truth, and was she to receive the fatal blow from me, to

learn at the same moment that the man she loved had killed her first

husband, and that he had been killed by her son? I desire to believe, so

that I may continue to hold myself in some esteem, that only the vision

of her grief led me to my decision. I replaced the sheet of paper on the

table, and turned away from the corpse lying on the carpet, without

casting a glance at it. The remembrance of my flight from the Grand

Hotel, on the previous day, gave me courage; I must try a second time to

get away without betraying discomposure. I found my hat, left the room,

and closed the door carelessly. I crossed the hall and went down the

staircase, passing by the footman who stood up mechanically, and then

the concierge who saluted me. The two servants had not even put me out

of countenance. I returned to my room as I had done the day before, but

in a far more tragic state of suspense! Was I saved? Was I lost? All

depended on the moment at which somebody might go into my stepfather's

room. If my mother were to return within a few minutes of my departure;

if the footman were to go upstairs with some letter, I should instantly

be suspected, in spite of the declaration written by M. Termonde. I felt

that my courage was exhausted. I knew that, if accused, I should not

have moral strength to defend myself, for my weariness was so

overwhelming that I did not suffer any longer. The only thing I had

strength to do, was to watch the swing of the pendulum of the timepiece

on the mantelshelf, and to mark the movement of the hands. A quarter of

an hour elapsed, half-an-hour, a whole hour. It was an hour and a half

after I had left the fatal room, when the bell at the door was rung. I

heard it through the walls. A servant brought me a laconic note from my

mother scribbled in pencil and hardly legible. It informed me that my

stepfather had destroyed himself in an attack of severe pain. The poor

woman implored me to go to her immediately. Ah, she would now never know

the truth!

XIX

The confession that I wished to write, is written. To what end could I

add fresh facts to it now? I hoped to ease my heart by passing in review

all the details of this dark story, but I have only revived the dread

memory of the scenes in which I have been an actor; from the first--when

I saw my father stretched dead upon his bed, and my mother weeping by

his side, to the last--when I noiselessly entered a room in which the

unhappy woman was again kneeling and weeping. Again upon the bed there

lay a corpse, and she rose as she had done before, and uttered the same

despairing cry: "My André--my son." And I had to answer her questions;

I had to invent for her a false conversation with my stepfather, to tell

her that I left him rather depressed, but with nothing in his appearance

or manner to indicate a fatal resolution. I had to take the necessary

steps to prevent this alleged suicide from getting known, to see the

commissary of police and the "doctor of the dead." I had to preside at

the funeral ceremonies, to receive the guests and act as chief mourner.

And always, always, he was present to me, with the dagger in his breast,

writing the lines that had saved me, and looking at me, while his lips

moved. Ah, begone, begone, abhorred phantom! Yes! I have done it; yes! I

have killed you; yes! it was just. You know well that it was just. Why

are you still here now? Ah! I _will_ live; I _will_ forget. If I could

only cease to think of you for one day, only one day, just to breathe,

and walk, and see the sky, without your image returning to haunt my poor

head which is racked by this hallucination, and troubled? My God! have

pity on me. I did not ask for this dreadful fate; it is Thou that hast

sent it to me. Why dost Thou punish me? Oh, my God, have pity on me!

_Miserere mei, Domine_.

Vain prayers! Is there any God, any justice, is there either good or

evil? None, none, none, none. There is nothing but a pitiless destiny

which broods over the human race, iniquitous and blind, distributing joy

and grief at haphazard. A God who says, "Thou shalt not kill," to him

whose father has been killed? No, I don't believe it. No, if hell were

there before me, gaping open, I would make answer: "I have done well,"

and I would not repent. I do not repent. My remorse is not for having

seized the weapon and struck the blow, it is that I owe to him--to

him--that infamous good service which he did me--that I cannot to the

present hour shake from me the horrible gift I have received from that

man. If I had destroyed the paper, if I had gone and given myself up, if

I had appeared before a jury, revealing, proclaiming my deed, I should

not be ashamed; I could still hold up my head. What relief, what joy it

would be if I might cry aloud to all men that I killed him, that he

lied, and I lied, that it was I, I, who took the weapon and

plunged it into him! And yet, I ought not to suffer from having

accepted--no--endured the odious immunity. Was it from any motive of

cowardice that I acted thus? What was I afraid of? Of torturing my

mother, nothing more. Why then do I suffer this unendurable anguish? Ah,

it is she, it is my mother who, without intending it, makes the dead so

living to me, by her own despair. She lives, shut up in the rooms where

they lived together for sixteen years; she has not allowed a single

article of furniture to be touched; she surrounds the man's accursed

memory with the same pious reverence that my aunt formerly lavished on

my unhappy father. I recognise the invincible influence of the dead in

the pallor of her cheeks, the wrinkles in her eyelids, the white streaks

in her hair. He disputes her with me from the darkness of his coffin, he

takes her from me, hour by hour, and I am powerless against that love.

If I were to tell her, as I would like to tell her, all the truth, from

the hideous crime which he committed, down to the execution carried out

by me, it is I whom she would hate, for having killed him. She will grow

old thus, and I shall see her weep, always, always---- What good is it

to have done what I did, since I have not killed him in her heart?

HERE ENDS THE STORY OF ANDRÉ CORNÉLIS