SANIEL MAKES A RESOLUTION
This evening Phillis was obliged to be at home early, but she cleared off
the table, and put everything in order before leaving.
"You can breakfast on the remains of the chicken," she said, as she put
it in the pantry.
And as Saniel accompanied her with a candle in his hand, he saw that she
had thought not only of his breakfast for the following day, but for many
days, besides carrots for the rabbits.
"What a good heart you have!" he said.
"Because I think of the rabbits?"
"Because of your tenderness and thoughtfulness."
"I wish I could do something for you!"
As soon as she was gone he seated himself at his desk and began to work,
anxious to make up for the time that he had given to sentiment. The fact
that his work might not be of use to him, and that his experiments might
be rudely interrupted the next morning or in a few days, was not a
sufficient reason for being idle. He had work to do, and he worked as if
with the certitude that he would pass his examinations, and that his
experiments of four years past would have a good ending, without
interference from any one.
This was his strong point, this power to work, that was never disturbed
or weakened by anything; not by pleasure or pain, by preoccupation or by
misery. In the street he could think of Phillis, be he hungry or sleepy;
at his desk he had no thought of Phillis, neither of hunger nor of sleep,
no cares, no memories; his work occupied him entirely.
It was his strength, and also his pride, the only superiority of which he
boasted; for although he knew that he had others, he never spoke of them,
while he often said to his comrades:
"I work when I will and as much as I wish. My will never weakens when I
am at work."
This evening he worked for about an hour, in his usual condition of mind;
neither sheriffs, nor Jardine, nor Caffie troubled him. But having to
draw upon his memory for certain facts, he found that it did not obey him
as usual; there were a hesitation, a fogginess, above all, extraordinary
wanderings. He wrestled with it and it obeyed, but only for a short
time, and soon again it betrayed him a second time, then a third and
fourth time.
Decidedly he was not in a normal state, and his will obeyed in place of
commanding.
There were a name and a phrase that recurred to him mechanically from
time to time. The name was Caffie, and the phrase was, "Nothing easier."
Why should this hypothesis to strangle Caffie, of which he had lightly
spoken, and to which he had attached no importance at the moment when he
uttered it, return to him in this way as a sort of obsession?
Was it not strange?
Never, until this day, had he had an idea that he could strangle a man,
even as wicked as this one, and yet, in talking of it, he found very
natural and legitimate reasons for the murder of this scamp.
Had not Phillis herself condemned him?
To tell the truth, she had added that Providence or justice should be his
executor, but this was the scruple of a simple conscience, formed in a
narrow environment, to which influence he would not submit.
Had he these scruples, this old man who coldly, and merely for the
interest of so much a hundred on a dot, advised him to hasten the death
of a woman by drunkenness, and that of an infant in any way he pleased?
When he reached this conclusion he stopped, and asked himself whether he
were mad to pursue this idea; then immediately, to get rid of it, he set
to work, which absorbed him for a certain time, but not so long a time as
at first.
Then, finding that he could not control his will, he turned his thoughts
to Caffie.
It was only too evident that if he had carried out the idea of strangling
Caffie, all the difficulties against which he had struggled, and which
would overwhelm him, if not the following day, at least in a few days,
would have disappeared immediately.
No more sheriffs, no more creditors. What a deliverance!
Repose, the possibility of passing examinations with a calm spirit that
the fever of material troubles would not disturb--in this condition he
felt his success was assured.
And his experiments! He would run no danger of seeing them rudely
interrupted. His preparations were not cast out-of-doors; his precious
culture-tubes were not broken; his vases, his balloons, were not at the
second-hand dealer's. He continued this train of thought to the results
that he desired for him, glory; for humanity, the cure of one, and
perhaps two, of the most terrible maladies with which it was afflicted.
The question was simple:
On one side, Caffie;
On the other side, humanity and science;
An old rascal who deserved twenty deaths, and who would, anyhow, die
naturally in a short time;
And humanity, science, which would profit by a discovery of which he
would be the author.
He saw that the perspiration stood out on his hands, and he felt it run
down his neck.
Why this weakness? From horror of the crime, the possibility of which he
admitted? Or from fear of seeing his experiments destroyed?
He would reflect, think about it, be upon his guard.
He had told Phillis that intelligent men, before engaging in an action,
weigh the pro and con.
Against Caffie's death he saw nothing.
For, on the contrary, everything combined.
If he had had Phillis's scruples, or Brigard's beliefs, he would have
stopped.
But, not having them, would he not be silly to draw back?
Before what should he shrink? Why should he stop?
Remorse? But he was convinced that intelligent men had no remorse when
they came to a decision on good grounds. It was before that they felt
remorse, not after; and he was exactly in this period of before.
Fear of being arrested? But intelligent men do not let themselves be
arrested. Those who are lost are brutes who go straight ahead, or the
half-intelligent, who use their skill and cunning to combine a
complicated or romantic act, in which their hand is plainly seen. As for
him, he was a man of science and precision, and he would not compromise
himself by act or sentiment; there would be nothing to fear during the
action, and nothing afterward. Caffie strangled, suspicion would not
fall upon a doctor, but on a brute. When doctors wish to kill any one,
they do it learnedly, by poison or by some scientific method. Brutal men
kill brutally; murder, called the assassin's profession.
A few minutes before, he was inundated by perspiration; this word froze
him.
He rose nervously, and walked up and down the room with long, unsteady
steps. The fire had long since gone out; out-of-doors the street noises
had ceased, and in his brain resounded the one word that he pronounced in
a low tone, "Assassin!"
Was be the man to be influenced and stopped by a word? Where are the
rich, the self-made men, the successful men, who have not left some
corpses on the road behind them? Success carries them safely, and they
achieved success only because they had force.
Certainly, violence was not recreation, and it would be more agreeable to
go in his way peacefully, by the power of intelligence and work, than to
make a way by blows; but he had not chosen this road, he was thrown into
it by circumstances, by fate, and whoever wishes to reach the end cannot
choose the means. If one must walk in the mud, what matters it, when one
knows that one will not get muddy?
If Caffie had had heirs, poor people who expected to be saved from
misery by inheriting his fortune, he would have been touched by this
consideration, undoubtedly. Robber! The word was yet more vile than
that of assassin. But who would miss the few banknotes that he would
take from the safe? To steal is to injure some one. Whom would he
injure? He could see no one. But he saw distinctly an army of afflicted
persons whom he would benefit.
A timid ring of the bell made him start violently, and he was angry with
himself for being so nervous, he who was always master of his mind as of
his body.
He opened the door, and a man dressed like a laborer bowed humbly.
"I beg your pardon for disturbing you, sir."
"What do you want?"
"I called on account of my wife, if you will be so good as to come to see
her."
"What is the matter with her?"
"She is about to be confined. The nurse does not know what to do, and
sent me for a doctor."
"Did the nurse tell you to come for me?"
"No, sir; she sent me to Doctor Legrand."
"Well?"
"His wife told me he could not get up on account of his bronchitis. And
the chemist gave me your address."
"That is right."
"I must tell you, sir, I am an honest man, but we are not rich; we could
not pay you--immediately."
"I understand. Wait a few minutes."
Saniel took his instruments and followed the laborer, who, on the way,
explained his wife's condition.
"Where are we going?" Saniel asked, interrupting these explanations.
"Rue de la Corderie."
It was behind the Saint Honore' market, on the sixth floor, under the
roof, in a room that was perfectly clean, in spite of its poverty. As
soon as Saniel entered the nurse came forward, and in a few words told
him the woman's trouble.
"Is the child living?"
"Yes."
"That is well; let us see."
He approached the bed and made a careful examination of the patient, who
kept repeating:
"I am going to die. Save me, doctor!"
"Certainly, we shall save you," he said, very softly. "I promise you."
He turned away from the bed and said to the nurse:
"The only way to save the mother is to kill the child."
The operation was long, difficult, and painful, and after it was over
Saniel remained a long time with the patient. When he reached the street
a neighboring clock struck five, and the market-place had already begun
to show signs of life.
But in the streets was still the silence and solitude of night, and
Saniel began to reflect on what had occurred during the last few hours.
Thus, he had not hesitated to kill this child, who had, perhaps, sixty or
seventy years of happy life before it, and he hesitated at the death of
Caffie, to whom remained only a miserable existence of a few weeks. The
interests of a poor, weak, stunted woman had decided him; his, those of
humanity, left him perplexed, irresolute, weak, and cowardly. What a
contradiction!
He walked with his eyes lowered, and at this moment, before him on the
pavement, he saw an object that glittered in the glare of the gas. He
approached it, and found that it was a butcher's knife, that must have
been lost, either on going to the market or the slaughterhouse.
He hesitated a moment whether he should pick it up or leave it there;
then looking all about him, and seeing no one in the deserted street,
and hearing no sound of footsteps in the silence, he bent quickly and
took it.
Caffie's fate was decided.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
As free from prejudices as one may be, one always retains a few
As ignorant as a schoolmaster
Confidence in one's self is strength, but it is also weakness
Conscience is a bad weighing-machine
Conscience is only an affair of environment and of education
Find it more easy to make myself feared than loved
Force, which is the last word of the philosophy of life
I believed in the virtue of work, and look at me!
Intelligent persons have no remorse
It is only those who own something who worry about the price
Leant--and when I did not lose my friends I lost my money
Leisure must be had for light reading, and even more for love
People whose principle was never to pay a doctor
Power to work, that was never disturbed or weakened by anything
Reason before the deed, and not after
Will not admit that conscience is the proper guide of our action