The week appeared long to César Hautot. He had never before found
himself alone, and the isolation seemed to him insupportable. Till now,
he had lived at his father's side, just like his shadow, followed him
into the fields, superintended the execution of his orders, and, when
they had been a short time separated, again met him at dinner. They had
spent the evenings smoking their pipes, face to face with one another,
chatting about horses, cows or sheep, and the grip of their hands when
they rose up in the morning might have been regarded as a manifestation
of deep family affection on both sides.
Now César was alone, he went vacantly through the process of dressing
the soil of autumn, every moment expecting to see the tall gesticulating
silhouette of his father rising up at the end of a plain. To kill time,
he entered the houses of his neighbors, told about the accident to all
who had not heard of it, and sometimes repeated it to the others. Then,
after he had finished his occupations and his reflections, he would sit
down at the side of a road, asking himself whether this kind of life was
going to last for ever.
He frequently thought of Mademoiselle Donet. He liked her. He considered
her thoroughly respectable, a gentle and honest young woman, as his
father had said. Yes, undoubtedly she was an honest girl. He resolved to
act handsomely towards her, and to give her two thousand francs a year,
settling the capital on the child. He even experienced a certain
pleasure in thinking that he was going to see her on the following
Thursday and arrange this matter with her. And then the notion of this
brother, this little chap of five, who was his father's son, plagued
him, annoyed him a little, and, at the same time, exhibited him. He had,
as it were, a family in this brat, sprung from a clandestine alliance,
who would never bear the name of Hautot, a family which he might take or
leave, just as he pleased, but which would recall his father.
And so, when he saw himself on the road to Rouen on Thursday morning,
carried along by Graindorge trotting with clattering foot-beats, he felt
his heart lighter, more at peace than he had hitherto felt it since his
bereavement.
On entering Mademoiselle Donet's apartment, he saw the table laid as on
the previous Thursday with the sole difference that the crust had not
been removed from the bread. He pressed the young woman's hand, kissed
Emile on the cheeks, and sat down, more at ease than if he were in his
own house, his heart swelling in the same way. Mademoiselle Donet seemed
to him a little thinner and paler. She must have grieved sorely. She
wore now an air of constraint in his presence, as if she understood what
she had not felt the week before under the first blow of her misfortune,
and she exhibited an excessive deference towards him, a mournful
humility, and made touching efforts to please him, as if to pay him back
by her attentions for the kindness he had manifested towards her. They
were a long time at lunch talking over the business, which had brought
him there. She did not want so much money. It was too much. She earned
enough to live on herself, but she only wished that Emile might find a
few sous awaiting him when he grew big. César held out, however, and
even added a gift of a thousand francs for herself for the expense of
mourning.
When he had taken his coffee, she asked:
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes--I have my pipe."
He felt in his pocket. Good God! He had forgotten it! He was becoming
quite woebegone about it when she offered him a pipe of his father that
had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand,
recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion,
filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then, he set Emile astride on
his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the
tablecloth, and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in
order to wash them as soon as he was gone.
About three o'clock, he rose up with regret, quite annoyed at the
thought of having to go.
"Well! Mademoiselle Donet," he said, "I wish you good evening, and am
delighted to have found you like this."
She remained standing before him, blushing, much affected, and gazed at
him while she thought of the other.
"Shall we not see one another again?" she said.
He replied simply:
"Why, yes, mam'zelle, if it gives you pleasure."
"Certainly, Monsieur César. Will next Thursday suit you then?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Donet."
"You will come to lunch, of course?"
"Well--if you are so kind as to invite me, I can't refuse."
"It is understood, then, Monsieur César--next Thursday at twelve, the
same as to-day."
"Thursday at twelve, Mam'zelle Donet!"
* * * * *
LITTLE LOUISE ROQUÉ
Mederic Rompel, the postman, who was familiarly called by the country
people Mederi, started at the usual hour from the posthouse at
Rouy-le-Tors. Having passed through the little town with his big strides
of an old trooper, he first cut across the meadows of Villaumes in order
to reach the bank of the Brindelle, which led him along the water's edge
to the village of Carvelin, where his distribution commenced. He went
quickly, following the course of the narrow river, which frothed,
murmured, and boiled along its bed of grass, under an arch of
willow-trees. The big stones, impeding the flow, had around them a
cushion of water, a sort of cravat ending in a knot of foam. In some
places, there were cascades, a foot wide, often invisible, which made
under the leaves, under the tendrils, under a roof of verdure, a big
noise at once angry and gentle; then, further on, the banks widened out,
and you saw a small, placid lake where trouts were swimming in the midst
of all that green vegetation which keeps undulating in the depths of
tranquil streams.
Mederic went on without a halt, seeing nothing, and with only this
thought in his mind: "My first letter is for the Poivron family, then I
have one for M. Renardet; so I must cross the wood."
His blue blouse, fastened round his waist by a black leathern belt moved
in a quick, regular fashion above the green hedge of the willow-trees;
and his stick of stout holly kept time with the steady movement of his
legs.
Then, he crossed the Brindelle over a bridge formed of a single tree
thrown lengthwise, with a rope attached to two stakes driven into the
river's banks as its only balustrade.
The wood, which belonged to M. Renardet, the Mayor of Carvelin, and the
largest landowner in the district, consisted of a number of huge old
trees, straight as pillars, and extending for about half a league along
the left-bank of the stream which served as a boundary for this immense
arch of foliage. Alongside the water there were large shrubs warmed by
the sun; but under the trees you found nothing but moss, thick, soft,
plastic moss, which exhaled into the stagnant air a light odor of loam
with withered branches.
Mederic slackened his pace, took off his black cap adorned with red
lace, and wiped his forehead, for it was by this time hot in the
meadows, though it was not yet eight o'clock in the morning.
He had just recovered from the effects of the heat, and resumed his
accelerated pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a
child's small knife. When he picked it up, he discovered a thimble and
also a needle-case not far away.
Having taken up these objects, he thought: "I'll intrust them to the
Mayor," and he resumed his journey, but now he kept his eyes open
expecting to find something else.
All of a sudden, he drew up stiffly as if he had knocked himself against
a wooden bar; for, ten paces in front of him, lay stretched on her back
a little girl, quite naked, on the moss. She was about twelve years old.
Her arms were hanging down, her legs parted, and her face covered with
a handkerchief. There were little spots of blood on her thighs.
Mederic advanced now on tiptoe, as if he were afraid to make a noise,
apprehended some danger, and he glanced towards the spot uneasily.
What was this? No doubt, she was asleep. Then, he reflected that a
person does not go to sleep thus naked, at half-past seven in the
morning under cool trees. So then she must be dead; and he must be face
to face with a crime. At this thought, a cold shiver ran through his
frame, although he was an old soldier. And then a murder was such a rare
thing in the country, and above all the murder of a child, that he could
not believe his eyes. But she had no wound--nothing save this blood
stuck on her leg. How, then, had she been killed?
He stopped quite near her; and he stared at her, while he leaned on his
stick. Certainly, he knew her, as he knew all the inhabitants of the
district; but, not being able to get a look at her face, he could not
guess her name. He stooped forward in order to take off the handkerchief
which covered her face, then paused with outstretched hand, restrained
by an idea that occurred to him.
Had he the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse
before the magisterial investigation? He pictured justice to himself as
a kind of general whom nothing escapes, and who attaches as much
importance to a lost button as to a stab of a knife in the stomach.
Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge
could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a
conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an awkward hand.
Then, he raised himself with the intention of hastening towards the
Mayor's residence, but again another thought held him back. If the
little girl was still alive, by any chance, he could not leave her lying
there in this way. He sank on his knees very gently, a little bit away
from her through precaution, and extended his hand towards her feet. It
was icy cold, with the terrible coldness which makes the dead flesh
frightful, and which leaves us no longer in doubt. The letter-carrier,
as he touched her, felt his heart in his mouth, as he said to himself
afterwards and his lips were parched with dry spittle. Rising up
abruptly he rushed off under the trees towards M. Renardet's house.
He walked on in double-quick time, with his stick under his arm, his
hands clenched, and his head thrust forward, and his leathern bag,
filled with letters and newspapers, kept regularly flapping at his side.
The Mayor's residence was at the end of the wood which he used as a
park, and one side of it was washed by a little pool formed at this spot
by the Brindelle.
It was a big, square house of gray stone, very old, which had stood many
a siege in former days, and at the end of it was a huge tower, twenty
meters high, built in the water.
From the top of this fortress the entire country around it could be seen
in olden times. It was called the Fox's tower, without anyone knowing
exactly why; and from this appellation, no doubt, had come the name
Renardet, borne by the owners of this fief, which had remained in the
same family, it was said, for more than two hundred years. For the
Renardets formed part of the upper middle class all but noble to be met
with so often in the provinces before the Revolution.
The postman dashed into the kitchen where the servants were taking
breakfast, and exclaimed:
"Is the Mayor up? I want to speak to him at once."
Mederic was recognized as a man of weight and authority, and it was soon
understood that something serious had happened.
As soon as word was brought to M. Renardet, he ordered the postman to be
sent up to him. Pale and out of breath, with his cap in his hand,
Mederic found the Mayor seated in front of a long table covered with
scattered papers.
He was a big, tall man, heavy and red-faced, strong as an ox and was
greatly liked in the district, though of an excessively violent
disposition. Very nearly forty years old, and a widower for the past six
months, he lived on his estate like a country gentleman. His choleric
temperament had often brought him into trouble, from which the
magistrates of Rouy-le-Tors, like indulgent and prudent friends, had
extricated him. Had he not one day thrown the conductor of the diligence
from the top of his seat because he was near crushing his retriever,
Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper, who abused him for
having, with a gun in his hand, passed through a neighbor's property?
Had he not even caught by the collar the sub-prefect, who stopped in the
village in the course of an administrative round described by M.
Renardet as an electioneering round; for he was against the government,
according to his family tradition.
The Mayor asked:
"What's the matter now, Mederic?"
"I found a little girl dead in your wood."
Renardet rose up, with his face the color of brick.
"Do you say--a little girl?"
"Yes, m'sieur, a little girl, quite naked, on her back, with blood on
her, dead--quite dead!"
The Mayor gave vent to an oath:
"My God, I'd make a bet 'tis little Louise Roqué! I have just learned
that she did not go home to her mother last night. Where did you find
her?"
The postman pointed out where the place was, gave full details, and
offered to conduct the Mayor to the spot.
But Renardet became brusque:
"No, I don't need you. Send the steward, the Mayor's secretary, and the
doctor immediately to me, and resume your rounds. Quick, quick, go and
tell them to meet me in the woods."
The letter-carrier, a man used to discipline, obeyed and withdrew, angry
and grieved at not being able to be present at the investigation.
The Mayor, in his turn, prepared to go out, took his hat, a big soft
hat, and paused for a few seconds on the threshold of his abode. In
front of him stretched a wide sward, in which three large patches were
conspicuous--three large beds of flowers in full bloom, one facing the
house and the others at either side of it. Further on, rose skyward the
principal trees in the wood, while at the left, above the Brindelle
widened into a pool, could be seen long meadows, an entirely green flat
sweep of the country, cut by dikes and willow edges like monsters,
twisted dwarf-trees, always cut short, and having on their thick squat
trunks a quivering tuft of thick branches.
At the right, behind the stables, the outhouses, all the buildings
connected with the property, might be seen the village, which was
wealthy, being mainly inhabited by rearers of oxen.
Renardet slowly descended the steps in front of his house, and turning
to the left, gained the water's edge, which he followed at a slow pace,
his hand behind his back. He went on with bent head, and from time to
time he glanced round in search of the persons for whom he had sent.
When he stood beneath the trees, he stopped, took off his hat, and wiped
his forehead as Mederic had done; for the burning sun was falling in
fiery rain upon the ground. Then the Mayor resumed his journey, stopped
once more, and retraced his steps. Suddenly, stooping down, he steeped
his handkerchief in the stream that glided at his feet, and stretched it
round his head, under his hat. Drops of water flowed along his temples
over his ears always purple over his strong red neck, and made their
way, one after the other, under his white shirt-collar.
As nobody yet appeared he began tapping with his foot, then he called
out--
"Hallo! Hallo!"
A voice at his right, answered:
"Hallo! Hallo!"
And the doctor appeared under the trees. He was a thin little man, an
ex-military surgeon, who passed in the neighborhood for a very skillful
practitioner. He limped, having been wounded while in the service, and
had to use a stick to assist him in walking.
Next came the steward and the Mayor's secretary, who, having been sent
for at the same time, arrived together. They looked scared, and hurried
forward out of breath, walking and trotting in turn in order to hasten
their progress, and moving their arms up and down so vigorously that
they seemed to do more work with them than with their legs.
Renardet said to the doctor:
"You know what the trouble is about?"
"Yes, a child found dead in the wood by Mederic."
"That's quite correct. Come on."
They walked on side by side, followed by the two men.
Their steps made no noise on the moss, their eyes were gazing downward
right in front of them.
The doctor hastened his steps, interested by the discovery. As soon as
they were near the corpse, he bent down to examine it without touching
it. He had put on a pair of glasses, as when one is looking at some
curious object, and turned round very quietly.
He said without rising up:
"Violated and assassinated, as we are going to prove presently. This
little girl moreover, is almost a woman--look at her throat."
Her two breasts, already nearly full-developed, fell over her chest,
relaxed by death.
The doctor lightly drew away the handkerchief which covered her face. It
looked black, frightful, the tongue protruding, the eyes bloodshot. He
went on:
"Faith, she was strangled the moment the deed was done."
He felt her neck:
"Strangled with the hands without leaving any special trace, neither the
mark of the nails nor the imprint of the fingers. Quite right. It is
little Louise Roqué, sure enough!"
He delicately replaced the handkerchief:
"There's nothing for me to do--She's been dead for the last hour at
least. We must give notice of the matter to the authorities."
Renardet, standing up, with his hands behind his back, kept staring with
a stony look at the little body exposed to view on the grass. He
murmured:
"What a wretch! We must find the clothes."
The doctor felt the hands, the arms, the legs. He said:
"She must have been bathing, no doubt. They ought to be at the water's
edge."
The Mayor thereupon gave directions:
"Do you, Princépe" (this was his secretary), "go and look for those
clothes for me along the river. Do you, Maxime" (this was the steward),
"hurry on towards Roug-le-Tors, and bring on here to me the examining
magistrate with the gendarmes. They must be here within an hour. You
understand."
The two men quickly departed, and Renardet said to the doctor:
"What miscreant has been able to do such a deed in this part of the
country."
The doctor murmured:
"Who knows? Everyone is capable of that? Everyone in particular and
nobody in general. No matter, it must be some prowler, some workman out
of employment. As we live under a Republic, we must expect to meet only
this kind of person along the roads."
Both of them were Bonapartists.
The Mayor went on:
"Yes, it can only be a stranger, a passer-by, a vagabond without heart
or home."
The doctor added with the shadow of a smile on his face:
"And without a wife. Having neither a good supper nor a good bed, he
procured the rest for himself. You can't tell how many men there may be
in the world capable of a crime at a given moment. Did you know that
this little girl had disappeared?"
And with the end of his stick he touched one after the other the
stiffened fingers of the corpse, resting on them as on the keys of a
piano.
"Yes, the mother came last night to look for me about nine o'clock, the
child not having come home from supper up to seven. We went to try and
find her along the roads up to midnight, but we did not think of the
wood. However, we needed daylight to carry out a search with a practical
result."
"Will you have a cigar?" said the doctor.
"Thanks, I don't care to smoke. It gives me a turn to look at this."
They both remained standing in front of this corpse of a young girl, so
pale, on the dark moss. A big fly with a blue belly that was walking
along one of the thighs, stopped at the bloodstains, went on again,
always rising higher, ran along the side with his lively, jerky
movements, climbed up one of the breasts, then came back again to
explore the other, looking out for something to drink on this dead girl.
The two men kept watching this wandering black speck.
The doctor said:
"How pretty it is, a fly on the skin! The ladies of the last century
had good reason to paste them on their faces. Why has this fashion gone
out?"
The Mayor seemed not to hear, plunged as he was in deep thought.
But, all of a sudden, he turned round, for he was surprised by a shrill
noise. A woman in a cap and a blue apron rushed up under the trees. It
was the mother, La Roqué. As soon as she saw Renardet she began to
shriek:
"My little girl, where's my little girl?" in such a distracted manner
that she did not glance down at the ground. Suddenly, she saw the
corpse, stopped short, clasped her hands, and raised both her arms while
she uttered a sharp, heartrending cry--the cry of a mutilated animal.
Then she rushed towards the body, fell on her knees, and took off, as if
she would have snatched it away, the handkerchief that covered the face.
When she saw that frightful countenance, black and convulsed, she rose
up with a shudder, then pressed her face against the ground, giving vent
to terrible and continuous screams with her mouth close to the thick
moss.
Her tall, thin frame, to which her clothes were clinging tightly, was
palpitating, shaken with convulsions. They could see her bony ankles and
her dried up calves covered with thick blue stockings, shivering
horribly; and she went digging the soil with her crooked fingers as if
in order to make a hole there to hide herself in it.
The doctor moved, said in a low tone:
"Poor old woman!"
Renardet felt a strange rumbling in his stomach; then he gave vent to a
sort of loud sneeze that issued at the same time through his nose and
through his mouth; and, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, he
began to weep internally, coughing, sobbing, and wiping his face
noisily.
He stammered--
"Damn--damn--damned pig to do this! I would like to see him
guillotined."
But Princépe reappeared, with his hands empty. He murmured--
"I have found nothing, M'sieu le Maire, nothing at all anywhere."
The doctor, scared, replied in a thick voice, drowned in tears:
"What is that you could not find?"
"The little girl's clothes."
"Well--well--look again, and find them--or you'll have to answer to me."
The man, knowing that the Mayor would not brook opposition, set forth
again with hesitating steps, casting on the corpse indirect and timid
glances.
Distant voices arose under the trees, a confused sound, the noise of an
approaching crowd; for Mederic had, in the course of his rounds carried
the news from door to door. The people of the neighborhood, stupefied at
first, had gone chatting from their own firesides into the street, from
one threshold to another. Then they gathered together. They talked over,
discussed, and commented on the event for some minutes, and they had now
come to see it for themselves.
They arrived in groups a little faltering and uneasy through fear of the
first impression of such a scene on their minds. When they saw the body
they stopped, not daring to advance, and speaking low. They grew bold,
went on a few steps, stopped again, advanced once more, and soon they
formed around the dead girl, her mother, the doctor, and Renardet, a
thick circle, agitated and noisy, which crushed forward under the sudden
pushes of the last comers. And now they touched the corpse. Some of them
even bent down to feel it with their fingers. The doctor kept them back.
But the mayor, waking abruptly out of his torpor, broke into a rage,
and, seizing Dr. Labarbe's stick, flung himself on his townspeople,
stammering:
"Clear out--clear out--you pack of brutes--clear out!"
And in a second, the crowd of sightseers had fallen back two hundred
meters.
La Roqué was lifted up, turned round, and placed in a sitting posture,
and she now remained weeping with her hands clasped over her face.
The occurrence was discussed among the crowd; and young lads' eager eyes
curiously scrutinized this naked body of a girl. Renardet perceived
this, and abruptly taking off his vest, he flung it over the little
girl, who was entirely lost to view under the wide garment.
The spectators drew near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a
continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall
trees.
The Mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick in
his hands, in a fighting attitude. He seemed exasperated by this
curiosity on the part of the people, and kept repeating:
"If one of you come nearer, I'll break his head just as I would a
dog's."
The peasants were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe,
who was smoking, sat down beside La Roqué, and spoke to her in order to
distract her attention. The old woman soon removed her hands from her
face, and she replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief
in copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the
death of her man, a bullsticker, who had been gored to death, the
infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without
resources and with a child to support. She had only this one, her little
Louise, and the child had been killed--killed in this wood. All of a
sudden, she felt anxious to see it again, and dragging herself on her
knees towards the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that
covered her; then she let it fall again, and began wailing once more.
The crowd remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother's gestures.
But all of a sudden, a great swaying movement took place, and there was
a cry of "the gendarmes! the gendarmes!"
The gendarmes appeared in the distance, coming on at a rapid trot,
escorting their captain and a little gentleman with red whiskers, who
was bobbing up and down like a monkey on a big white mare.
The steward had just found M. Putoin, the examining magistrate, at the
moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride, for he
posed as a good horseman to the great amusement of the officers.
He alighted along with the captain, and passed the hands of the Mayor
and the Doctor, casting a ferret-like glance on the linen vest which
swelled above the body lying underneath.
When he was thoroughly acquainted with the facts, he first gave orders
to get rid of the public, whom the gendarmes drove out of the wood, but
who soon reappeared in the meadow, and formed a hedge, a big hedge of
excited and moving heads all along the Brindelle, on the other side of
the stream.
The doctor in his turn, gave explanations, of which Renardet took a note
in his memorandum book. All the evidence was given, taken down, and
commented on without leading to any discovery. Maxime, too, came back
without having found any trace of the clothes.
This disappearance surprised everybody; no one could explain it on the
theory of theft, and as these rags were not worth twenty sous, even this
theory was inadmissible.
The examining magistrate, the mayor, the captain, and the doctor, set to
work by searching in pairs, putting aside the smallest branches along
the water.
Renardet said to the judge:
"How does it happen that this wretch has concealed or carried away the
clothes, and has thus left the body exposed in the open air and visible
to everyone?"
The other, sly and knowing, answered:
"Ha! Ha! Perhaps a dodge? This crime has been committed either by a
brute or by a crafty blackguard. In any case we'll easily succeed in
finding him."
The rolling of a vehicle made them turn their heads round. It was the
deputy magistrate, the doctor and the registrar of the court who had
arrived in their turn. They resumed their searches, all chatting in an
animated fashion.
Renardet said suddenly:
"Do you know that I am keeping you to lunch with me?"
Everyone smilingly accepted the invitation, and the examining
magistrate, finding that the case of little Louise Roqué was quite
enough to bother about for one day, turned towards the Mayor:
"I can have the body brought to your house, can I not? You have a room
in which you can keep it for me till this evening."
The other got confused, and stammered:
"Yes--no--no. To tell the truth, I prefer that it should not come into
my house on account of--on account of my servants who are already
talking about ghosts in--in my tower, in the Fox's tower. You know--I
could no longer keep a single one. No--I prefer not to have it in my
house."
The magistrate began to smile:
"Good! I am going to get it carried off at once to Roug, for the legal
examination."
Turning towards the door:
"I can make use of your trap can I not?"
"Yes, certainly."
Everybody came back to the place where the corpse lay. La Roqué now,
seated beside her daughter, had caught hold of her head, and was staring
right before her, with a wandering listless eye.
The two doctors endeavored to lead her away, so that she might not
witness the dead girl's removal; but she understood at once what they
wanted to do, and, flinging herself on the body, she seized it in both
arms. Lying on top of the corpse, she exclaimed:
"You shall not have it--'tis mine--'tis mine now. They have killed her
on me, and I want to keep her--you shall not have her--!"
All the men, affected and not knowing how to act, remained standing
around her. Renardet fell on his knees, and said to her:
"Listen, La Roqué, it is necessary in order to find out who killed her.
Without this, it could not be found out. We must make a search for him
in order to punish him. When we have found him, we'll give her up to
you. I promise you this."
This explanation shook the woman's mind, and a feeling of hatred
manifested itself in her distracted glance.
"So then they'll take him?"
"Yes, I promise you that."
She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked; but, when the
captain remarked:
"'Tis surprising that her clothes were not found."
A new idea, which she had not previously thought of, abruptly found an
entrance into her brain, and she asked:
"Where are her clothes. They're mine. I want them. Where have they been
put?"
They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she called out
for them with desperate obstinacy and with repeated moans.
"They're mine--I want them. Where are they? I want them!"
The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed, and persisted in
her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the
clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched
being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune, as through
maternal tenderness.
And when the little body rolled up in blankets which had been brought
out from Renardet's house, had disappeared in the vehicle, the old woman
standing under the trees, held up by the Mayor and the Captain,
exclaimed:
"I have nothing, nothing, nothing in the world, not even her little
cap--her little cap."
The curé had just arrived, a young priest already growing stout. He took
it on himself to carry off La Roqué, and they went away together towards
the village. The mother's grief was modified under the sugary words of
the clergyman, who promised her a thousand compensations. But she
incessantly kept repeating:
"If I had only her little cap."
Sticking to this idea which now dominated every other.
Renardet exclaimed some distance away:
"You lunch with us, Monsieur l'Abbé--in an hour's time."
The priest turned his head round, and replied:
"With pleasure, Monsieur le Maire. I'll be with you at twelve."
And they all directed their steps towards the house whose gray front and
large tower built on the edge of the Brindelle, could be seen through
the branches.
The meal lasted a long time. They talked about the crime. Everybody was
of the same opinion. It had been committed by some tramp passing there
by mere chance while the little girl was bathing.
Then the magistrates returned to Roug, announcing that they would return
next day at an early hour. The doctor and the curé went to their
respective homes, while Renardet, after a long walk through the meadows,
returned to the wood where he remained walking till nightfall with slow
steps, his hands behind his back.
He went to bed early, and was still asleep next morning when the
examining magistrate entered his room. He rubbed his hands together with
a self-satisfied air. He said:
"Ha! ha! You're still sleeping. Well, my dear fellow, we have news this
morning."
The Mayor sat up on his bed.
"What, pray?"
"Oh! Something strange. You remember well how the mother yesterday
clamored for some memento of her daughter, especially her little cap?
Well, on opening her door this morning, she found on the threshold, her
child's two little wooden shoes. This proves that the crime was
perpetrated by some one from the district, some one who felt pity for
her. Besides, the postman, Mederic comes and brings the thimble, the
knife and the needle case of the dead girl. So then the man in carrying
off the clothes in order to hide them, must have let fall the articles
which were in the pocket. As for me, I attach special importance about
the wooden shoes, as they indicate a certain moral culture and a faculty
for tenderness on the part of the assassin. We will therefore, if I have
no objection, pass in review together the principal inhabitants of your
district."
The Mayor got up. He rang for hot water to shave with, and said:
"With pleasure, but it will take rather a long time, and we may begin at
once."
M. Putoin had sat astride on a chair, thus pursuing even in a room, his
mania for horsemanship.
Renardet now covered his chin with a white lather while he looked at
himself in the glass; then he sharpened his razor on the strop and went
on:
"The principal inhabitant of Carvelin bears the name of Joseph Renardet,
Mayor, a rich landowner, a rough man who beats guards and coachmen--"
The examining magistrate burst out laughing:
"That's enough; let us pass on to the next."
"The second in importance is ill. Pelledent, his deputy, a rearer of
oxen, an equally rich landowner, a crafty peasant, very sly, very
close-fisted on every question of money, but incapable in my opinion, of
having perpetrated such a crime."
M. Putoin said:
"Let us pass on."
Then, while continuing to shave and wash himself, Renardet went on with
the moral inspection of all the inhabitants of Carvelin. After two
hours' discussion, their suspicions were fixed on three individuals who
had hitherto borne a shady reputation--a poacher named Cavalle, a fisher
for trails and crayfish named Paquet, and a bullsticker named Clovis.
* * * * *
PART II
The search for the perpetrator of the crime lasted all the summer, but
he was not discovered. Those who were suspected and those who were
arrested easily proved their innocence, and the authorities were
compelled to abandon the attempt to capture the criminal.
But this murder seemed to have moved the entire country in a singular
fashion. There redisquietude, a vague fear, a sensation of mysterious
terror, springing not merely from the impossibility of discovering any
trace of the assassin, but also and above all from that strange finding
of the wooden shoes in front of La Roqué's door on the day after the
crime. The certainty that the murderer had assisted at the
investigation, that he was still living in the village without doubt,
left a gloomy impression on people's minds, and appeared to brood over
the neighborhood like an incessant menace.
The wood besides, had become a dreaded spot, a place to be avoided, and
supposed to be haunted.
Formerly, the inhabitants used to come and sit down on the moss at the
feet of the huge tall trees, or walk along the water's edge watching the
trouts gliding under the green undergrowth. The boys used to play bowls,
hide-and-seek and other games in certain places where they had upturned,
smoothed out, and leveled the soil, and the girls, in rows of four or
five, used to trip along holding one another by the arms, and screaming
out with their shrill voices ballads which grated on the ear, and whose
false notes disturbed the tranquil air and set the teeth on edge like
drops of vinegar. Now nobody went any longer under the wide lofty vault,
as if people were afraid of always finding there some corpse lying on
the ground.
Autumn arrived, the leaves began to fall. They fell down day and night,
descended from the tall trees, round and round whirling to the ground;
and the sky could be seen through the bare branches. Sometimes when a
gust of wind swept over the tree-tops, the slow, continuous rain
suddenly grew heavier, and became a storm with a hoarse roar, which
covered the moss with a thick carpet of yellow water that made rather a
squashing sound under the feet. And the almost imperceptible murmur, the
floating, ceaseless murmur gentle and sad, of this rainfall seemed like
a low wail, and those leaves continually falling, seemed like tears,
big tears shed by the tall mournful trees which were weeping, as it
were, day and night over the close of the year, over the ending of warm
dawns and soft twilights, over the ending of hot breezes and bright
suns, and also perhaps over the crime which they had seen committed
under the shade of their branches, over the girl violated and killed at
their feet. They wept in the silence of the desolate empty wood, the
abandoned, dreaded wood, where the soul, the childish soul of the dead
little girl must be wandering all alone.
The Brindelle, swollen by the storms, rushed on more quickly, yellow and
angry, between its dry banks, between two thin, bare willow-hedges.
And here was Renardet suddenly resuming his walks under the trees. Every
day, at sunset, he came out of his house decended the front steps
slowly, and entered the wood, in a dreamy fashion with his hands in his
pockets. For a long time he paced over the damp soft moss, while a
legion of rooks, rushing to the spot from all the neighboring haunts in
order to rest in the tall summits, unrolled themselves through space,
like an immense mourning veil floating in the wind, uttering violent and
sinister screams. Sometimes, they rested, dotting with black spots the
tangled branches against the red sky, the sky crimsoned with autumn
twilights. Then, all of a sudden, they set again, croaking frightfully
and trailing once more above the wood the long dark festoon of their
flight.
They swooped down at last, on the highest treetops, and gradually their
cawings died away while the advancing night mingled their black plumes
with the blackness of space.
Renardet was still strolling slowly under the trees; then, when the
thick darkness prevented him from walking any longer, he went back to
the house, sank all of a heap into his armchair in front of the glowing
hearth, stretching towards the fire his damp feet from which for some
time under the flames vapor emanated.
Now, one morning, an important bit of news was circulated around the
district; the Mayor was getting his wood cut down.
Twenty woodcutters were already at work. They had commenced at the
corner nearest to the house, and they worked rapidly in the master's
presence.
At first, the loppers climbed up the trunk. Tied to it by a rope collar,
they cling round in the beginning with both arms, then, lifting one leg,
they strike it hard with a blow of the edge of a steel instrument
attached to each foot. The edge penetrates the wood, and remains stuck
in it; and the man rises up as if on a step in order to strike with the
steel attached to the other foot, and once more supports himself till he
lifts his first foot again.
And with every upward movement he raises higher the rope collar which
fastens him to the tree. Over his loins, hangs and glitters the steel
hatchet. He keeps continually clinging on in an easy fashion like a
parasitic creature attacking a giant; he mounts slowly up the immense
trunk, embracing it and spurring it in order to decapitate it.
As soon as he reaches the first branches, he stops, detaches from his
side the sharp ax, and strikes. He strikes slowly, methodically, cutting
the limb close to the trunk, and, all of a sudden, the branch cracks,
gives away, bends, tears itself off, and falls down grazing the
neighboring trees in its fall. Then, it crashes down on the ground with
a great sound of broken wood, and its slighter branches keep quivering
for a long time.
The soil was covered with fragments which other men cut in their turn,
bound in bundles, and piled in heaps, while the trees which were still
left standing seemed like enormous posts, gigantic forms amputated and
shorn by the keen steel of the cutting instruments.
And when the lopper had finished his task, he left at the top of the
straight slender shaft of the tree the rope collar which he had brought
up with him, and afterwards descends again with spurlike prods along the
discrowned trunk, which the woodcutters thereupon attacked at the base,
striking it with great blows which resounded through all the rest of the
wood.
When the foot seemed pierced deeply enough, some men commenced dragging
to the accompaniment of a cry in which they joined harmoniously, at the
rope attached to the top; and, all of a sudden, the immense mast cracked
and tumbled to the earth with the dull sound and shock of a distant
cannon-shot.
And each day the wood grew thinner, losing its trees which fell down one
by one, as an army loses its soldiers.
Renardet no longer walked up and down. He remained from morning till
night, contemplating, motionless, and with his hands behind his back the
slow death of his wood. When a tree fell, he placed his foot on it as if
it were a corpse. Then he raised his eyes to the next with a kind of
secret, calm impatience, as if he had expected, hoped for, something at
the end of this massacre.
Meanwhile, they were approaching the place where little Louise Roqué had
been found. At length, they came to it one evening, at the hour of
twilight.
As it was dark, the sky being overcast, the woodcutters wanted to stop
their work, putting off till next day the fall of an enormous
beech-tree, but the master objected to this, and insisted that even at
this hour they should lop and cut down this giant, which had
overshadowed the crime.
When the lopper had laid it bare, had finished its toilets for the
guillotine, when the woodcutters were about to sap its base, five men
commenced hauling at the rope attached to the top.
The tree resisted; its powerful trunk, although notched up to the middle
was as rigid as iron. The workmen, altogether, with a sort of regular
jump, strained at the rope, stooping down to the ground, and they gave
vent to a cry with throats out of breath, so as to indicate and direct
their efforts.
Two woodcutters standing close to the giant, remained with axes in their
grip, like two executioners ready to strike once more, and Renardet,
motionless, with his hand on the bark, awaited the fall with an uneasy,
nervous feeling.
One of the men said to him:
"You're too near, Monsieur le Maire. When it falls, it may hurt you."
He did not reply and did not recoil. He seemed ready himself to catch
the beech-tree in his open arms in order to cast it on the ground like a
wrestler.
All at once, at the foot of the tall column of wood there was a rent
which seemed to run to the top, like a painful shake; and it bent
slightly, ready to fall, but still resisting. The men, in a state of
excitement, stiffened their arms, renewed their efforts with greater
vigor, and, just as the tree, breaking, came crashing down, Renardet
suddenly made forward step, then stopped, his shoulders raised to
receive the irresistible shock, the mortal shock which would crush him
on the earth.
But the beech-tree, having deviated a little, only rubbed against his
loins, throwing him on his face five meters away.
The workmen dashed forward to lift him up. He had already risen to his
knees, stupefied, with wandering eyes, and passing his hand across his
forehead, as if he were awaking out of an attack of madness.
When he had got to his feet once more, the men, astonished, questioned
him, not being able to understand what he had done. He replied, in
faltering tones, that he had had for a moment a fit of abstraction, or
rather a return to the days of his childhood, that he imagined he had to
pass his time under a tree, just as street-boys rush in front of
vehicles driving rapidly past, that he had played at danger, that, for
the past eight days, he felt this desire growing stronger within him,
asking himself whether, every time one was cracking, so as to be on the
point of falling, he could pass beneath it without being touched. It was
a piece of stupidity he confessed; but everyone has these moments of
insanity, and these temptations towards boyish folly.
He made this explanation in a slow tone, searching for his words, and
speaking in a stupefied fashion.
Then, he went off, saying:
"Till to-morrow, my friends--till to-morrow."
As soon as he had got back to his room, he sat down before his table,
which his lamp, covered with a shade, lighted up brightly, and, clasping
his hands over his forehead, he began to cry.
He remained crying for a long time, then wiped his eyes, raised his
head, and looked at the clock. It was not yet six o'clock.
He thought:
"I have time before dinner."
And he went to the door and locked it. He then came back, and sat down
before his table. He pulled out a drawer in the middle of it, and taking
from it a revolver, laid it down over his papers, under the glare of the
sun. The barrel of the fire-arm glittered and cast reflections which
resembled flames.
Renardet gazed at it for some time with the uneasy glance of a drunken
man; then he rose by, and began to pace up and down the room.
He walked from one end of the apartment to the other, and stopped from
time to time, and started to pace up and down again a moment afterwards.
Suddenly, he opened the door of his dressing room, steeped a napkin in a
water-jug and moistened his forehead, as he had done on the morning of
the crime.
Then he went walking up and down once more. Each time he passed the
table the gleaming revolver attracted his glance, tempted his hand; but
he kept watching the clock, and reflected:
"I have still time."
It struck half-past six. Then he took up the revolver, opened his mouth
wide with a frightful grimace, and stuck the barrel into it, as if he
wanted to swallow it. He remained in this position for some seconds
without moving, his finger on the lock, then, suddenly, seized with a
shudder of horror, he dropped the pistol on the carpet.
And he fell back on his arm-chair, sobbing:
"I can't. I dare not! My God! My God! How can I have the courage to kill
myself?"
There was a knock at the door. He rose up in a stupefied condition. A
servant said:
"Monsieur's dinner is ready."
He replied:
"All right. I'm going down."
Then he picked up the revolver, locked it up again in the drawer, then
he looked at himself in the glass over the mantelpiece to see whether
his face did not look too much convulsed. It was as red as usual, a
little redder perhaps. That was all. He went down, and seated himself
before the table.
He ate slowly, like a man who wants to drag on the meal, who does not
want to be alone with himself.
Then he smoked several pipes in the hall while the plates were being
removed. After that, he went back to his room.
As soon as he was shut up in it, he looked under his bed, opened all his
cupboards, explored every corner, rummaged through all the furniture.
Then he lighted the tapers over the mantelpiece, and, turning round
several times, ran his eye all over the apartment with an anguish of
terror that made his face lose its color, for he knew well that he was
going to see her, as on every night--Little Louise Roqué, the little
girl he had violated and afterwards strangled.
Every night the odious vision came back again. First, it sounded in his
ears like a kind of snorting such as is made by a threshing machine or
the distant passage of a train over a bridge. Then he commenced to pant,
to feel suffocated, and he had to unbutton his shirt-collar and his
belt. He moved about to make his blood circulate, he tried to read, he
attempted to sing. It was in vain. His thoughts, in spite of himself,
went back to the day of the murder, and made him begin it all over again
in all its most secret details, with all the violent emotions he had
experienced from the first minute to the last.
He had felt on rising up that morning, the morning of the horrible day,
a little stupefaction and dizziness which he attributed to the heat, so
that he remained in his room till the time came for breakfast.
After the meal he had taken a siesta, then, towards the close of the
afternoon, he had gone out to breathe the fresh, soothing breeze under
the trees in the wood.
But, as soon as they were outside, the heavy, scorching air of the plain
oppressed him more. The sun, still high in the heavens, poured out on
the parched soil, dry and thirsty, floods of ardent light. Not a breath
of wind stirred the leaves. Every beast and bird, even the grasshoppers,
were silent. Renardet reached the tall trees, and began to walk over the
moss where the Brindelle sent forth a slight, cool vapor under the
immense roof of trees. But he felt ill at ease. It seemed to him that an
unknown, invisible hand, was squeezing his neck, and he scarcely thought
of anything, having usually few ideas in his head. For the last three
months, only one thought haunted him, the thought of marrying again. He
suffered from living alone, suffered from it morally and physically.
Accustomed for ten years past to feeling a woman near him, habituated
to her presence every moment, to her embrace each successive day, he had
need, an imperious and perplexing need of incessant contact with her and
the regular touch of her lips. Since Madame Renardet's death, he had
suffered continually without knowing why, he had suffered from not
feeling her dress brush against his legs every day, and, above all, from
no longer being able to grow calm and languid between her arms. He had
been scarcely six months a widower, and he had already been looking out
through the district for some young girl or some widow he might marry
when his period of marrying was at an end.
He had a chaste soul, but it was lodged in a powerful Herculean body,
and carnal images began to disturb his sleep and his vigils. He drove
them away; they came back again; and he murmured from time to time,
smiling at himself:
"Here I am, like St. Antony."
Having had this morning several besetting visions, the desire suddenly
came into his breast to bathe in the Brindelle in order to refresh
himself and appease the ardor of his heat.
He knew, a little further on, a large deep spot where the people of the
neighborhood came sometimes to take a dip in summer. He went there.
Thick willow trees hid this clear volume of water where the current
rested and went to sleep for a little while before starting its way
again. Renardet, as he appeared, thought he heard a light sound, a faint
smell which was not that of the stream on the banks. He softly put aside
the leaves and looked. A little girl, quite naked in the transparent
water, was beating the waves with both hands, dancing about in them a
little and dipping herself with pretty movements. She was not a child
nor was she yet a woman. She was plump and formed, while preserving an
air of youthful precocity, as of one who had grown rapidly, and who was
now almost ripe. He no longer moved, overcome with surprise, with a pang
of desire, holding his breath with a strange poignant emotion. He
remained there, his heart beating as if one of his sensual dreams had
just been realized, as if an impure fairy had conjured up before him
this creature so disturbing to his blood, so very young this little
rustic Venus, was born in the waves of the sea.
Suddenly the little girl came out of the water, and without seeing came
over to where he stood looking for her clothes in order to dress
herself. While she was gradually approaching with little hesitating
steps, through fear of the sharp pointed stones, he felt himself pushed
towards her by an irresistible force, by a bestial transport of passion,
which stirred up all his flesh, stupefied his soul, and made him tremble
from head to foot.
She remained standing some seconds behind the willow tree which
concealed him from view. Then, losing his reason entirely, he opened the
branches, rushed on her, and seized her in his arms. She fell, too
scared to offer any resistance, too much terror-stricken to cry out, and
he possessed her without understanding what he was doing.
He woke up from his crime, as one wakes out of a nightmare. The child
burst out weeping.
He said:
"Hold your tongue! Hold your tongue! I'll give you money."
But she did not hear him, she went on sobbing.
He went on:
"Come now, hold your tongue! Do hold your tongue. Keep quiet."
She still kept shrieking, writhing in the effort to get away from him.
He suddenly realized that he was ruined, and he caught her by the neck
to stop her mouth from uttering these heartrending, dreadful screams. As
she continued to struggle with the desperate strength of a being who is
seeking to fly from death, he pressed his enormous hands on the little
throat swollen with cries, and in a few seconds he had strangled her so
furiously did he grip her, without intending to kill her but only to
make her keep silent.
Then he rose up overwhelmed with horror.
She lay before him with her face bleeding and blackened. He was going to
rush away when there sprang up in his agitated soul the mysterious and
undefined instinct that guides all beings in the hour of danger.
It was necessary to throw the body into the water; but another impulse
drove him towards the clothes, of which he made a thin parcel. Then as
he had a piece of twine in his pocket, he tied it up and hid it in a
deep portion of the stream, under the trunk of a tree, the foot of which
was steeped in the Brindelle.
Then he went off at a rapid pace, reached the meadows, took a wide turn
in order to show himself to some peasants who dwelt some distance away
at the opposite side of the district, and he came back to dine at the
usual hour, and told his servants all that was supposed to have happened
during his walk.
He slept, however, that night; he slept with a heavy brutish sleep, such
as the sleep of persons condemned to death must be occasionally. He
only opened his eyes at the first glimmer of dawn, and he waited,
tortured by the fear of having his crime discovered, for his usual
waking hour.
Then he would have to be present at all the stages of the inquiry as to
the cause of death. He did so after the fashion of a somnambulist, in a
hallucination which showed him things and human beings in a sort of
dream, in a cloud of intoxication, in that dubious sense of unreality
which perplexes the mind at the time of the greatest catastrophe.
The only thing that pierced his heart was La Roqué's cry of anguish. At
that moment he felt inclined to cast himself at the old woman's feet,
and to exclaim--
"'Tis I."
But he restrained himself. He went back, however, during the night, to
fish up the dead girl's wooden shoes, in order to carry them to her
mother's threshold.
As long as the inquiry lasted, as long as it was necessary to guide and
aid justice, he was calm, master of himself, sly and smiling. He
discussed quietly with the magistrates all the suppositions that passed
through their minds, combated their opinions, and demolished their
arguments. He even took a keen and mournful pleasure in disturbing their
investigations, in embroiling their ideas in showing the innocence of
those whom they suspected.
But from the day when the inquiry came to a close he became gradually
nervous, more excitable still than he had been before, although he
mastered his irritability. Sudden noises made him jump up with fear; he
shuddered at the slightest thing, trembled sometimes from head to foot
when a fly alighted on his forehead. Then he was seized with an
imperious desire for movement, which compelled him to keep continually
on foot, and made him remain up whole nights walking to and fro in his
own room.
It was not that he was goaded by remorse. His brutality did not lend
itself to any shade of sentiment or of moral terror. A man of energy and
even of violence, born to make war, to ravage conquered countries and to
massacre the vanquished, full of the savage instincts of the hunter and
the fighter, he scarcely took count of human life. Though he respected
the church through policy, he believed neither in God nor in the devil,
expecting consequently in another life neither chastisement nor
recompense for his acts. As his sole belief, he retained a vague
philosophy composed of all the ideas of the encyclopedists of the last
century; and he regarded religion as a moral sanction of the law, the
one and the other having been invented by men to regulate social
relations. To kill anyone in a duel, or in war, or in a quarrel, or by
accident, or for the sake of revenge, or even through bravado, would
have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing, and would not have left
more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had
experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in
the first place, perpetrated it in the distraction of an irresistible
gust of passion, in a sort of spiritual tempest that had overpowered his
reason. And he had cherished in his heart, cherished in his flesh,
cherished on his lips, cherished even to the very tips of his murderous
fingers, a kind of bestial love, as well as a feeling of crushing
horror, towards this little girl surprised by him and basely killed.
Every moment his thoughts returned to that horrible scene, and, though
he endeavored to drive away this picture from his mind, though he put it
aside with terror, with disgust, he felt it surging through his soul,
moving about in him, waiting incessantly for the moment to reappear.
Then, in the night, he was afraid, afraid of the shadow falling around
him. He did not yet know why the darkness seemed to seem frightful to
him; but he instinctively feared it, he felt that it was peopled with
terrors. The bright daylight did not lend itself to fears. Things and
beings were seen there, and so there were only to be met there natural
things and beings which could exhibit themselves in the light of day.
But the night, the unpenetrable night, thicker than walls, and empty,
the infinite night, so black, so vast, in which one might brush against
frightful things, the night when one feels that mysterious terror is
wandering, prowling about, appeared to him to conceal an unknown danger,
close and menacing.
What was it?
He knew it ere long. As he sat in his armchair, rather late one evening
when he could not sleep, he thought he saw the curtain of his window
move. He waited, in an uneasy state of mind, with beating heart. The
drapery did not stir; then, all of a sudden it moved once more. He did
not venture to rise up; he no longer ventured to breathe, and yet he was
brave. He had often fought, and he would have liked to catch thieves in
his house.
Was it true that this curtain did move? he asked himself, fearing that
his eyes had deceived him. It was, moreover, such a slight thing, a
gentle flutter of lace, a kind of trembling in its folds, less than an
undulation such as is caused by the wind.
Renardet sat still, with staring eyes, and outstretched neck; and he
sprang to his feet abruptly ashamed of his fear, took four steps, seized
the drapery with both hands, and pulled it wide apart. At first, he saw
nothing but darkened glass, resembling plates of glittering ink. The
night, the vast, impenetrable sketched behind as far as the invisible
horizon. He remained standing in front of this illimitable shadow, and
suddenly he perceived a light, a moving light, which seemed some
distance away.
Then he put his face close to the window-pane, thinking that a person
looking for crayfish might be poaching in the Brindelle, for it was past
midnight, and this light rose up at the edge of the stream, under the
trees. As he was not yet able to see clearly, Renardet placed his hands
over his eyes; and suddenly this light became an illumination, and he
beheld little Louise Roqué naked and bleeding on the moss. He recoiled
frozen with horror, sank into his chair, and fell backward. He remained
there some minutes, his soul in distress, then he sat up and began to
reflect. He had had a hallucination--that was all; a hallucination due
to the fact that a marauder of the night was walking with a lantern in
his hand near the water's edge. What was there astonishing, besides, in
the circumstance that the recollection of his crime should sometimes
bring before him the vision of the dead girl?
He rose up, swallowed a glass of wine and sat down again.
He thought.
"What am I to do if this come back?"
And it did come back; he felt it; he was sure of it. Already his glance
was drawn towards the window; it called him; it attracted him. In order
to avoid looking at it, he turned aside his chair. Then he took a book
and tried to read; but it seemed to him that he presently heard
something stirring behind him, and he swung round his armchair on one
foot.
The curtain still moved--unquestionably, it did move this time; he could
no longer have any doubt about it.
He rushed forward and seized it in his grasp so violently that he
knocked it down with its fastener. Then, he eagerly pasted his face
against the glass. He saw nothing. All was black without; and he
breathed with the delight of a man whose life has just been saved.
Then, he went back to his chair, and sat down again; but almost
immediately he felt a longing once more to look out through the window.
Since the curtain had fallen the space in front of him made a sort of
dark patch fascinating and terrible on the obscure landscape. In order
not to yield to this dangerous temptation, he took off his clothes, blew
out the light, went to bed, and shut his eyes.
Lying on his back motionless, his skin hot and moist, he awaited sleep.
Suddenly a great gleam of light flashed across his eyelids. He opened
them, believing that his dwelling was on fire. All was black as before,
and he leaned on his elbow in order to try to distinguish his window
which had still for him an unconquerable attraction. By dint of
straining his eyes, he could perceive some stars, and he arose, groped
his way across the room, discovered the panes with his outstretched
hands, and placed his forehead close to them. There below, under the
trees, the body of the little girl glittered like phosphorus, lighting
up the surrounding darkness.
Renardet uttered a cry and rushed towards his bed, where he lay till
morning, his head hidden under the pillow.
From that moment, his life became intolerable. He passed his days in
apprehension of each succeeding night; and each night the vision came
back again. As soon as he had locked himself up in his room, he strove
to struggle; but in vain. An irresistible force lifted him up and pushed
him against the glass, as if to call the phantom, and ere long he saw it
lying at first in the spot where the crime was committed, lying with
arms and legs outspread, just in the way the body had been found.
Then the dead girl rose up and came towards him with little steps just
as the child had done when she came out of the river. She advanced
quietly, passing straight across the grass, and over the border of
withered flowers. Then she rose up into the air towards Renardet's
window. She came towards him, as she had come on the day of the crime
towards the murderer. And the man recoiled before the apparition--he
retreated to his bed and sank down upon it, knowing well that the little
one had entered the room, and that she now was standing behind the
curtain which presently moved. And until daybreak, he kept staring at
this curtain, with a fixed glance, ever waiting to see his victim
depart.
But she did not show herself any more; she remained there behind the
curtain which quivered tremulously now and then.
And Renardet, his fingers clinging to the bedclothes, squeezed them as
he had squeezed the throat of little Louise Roqué.
He heard the clock striking the hours; and in the stillness the pendulum
kept ticking in time with the loud beatings of his heart. And he
suffered, the wretched man, more than any man had ever suffered before.
Then, as soon as a white streak of light on the ceiling announced the
approaching day, he felt himself free, alone, at last, alone in his
room; and at last he went to sleep. He slept then some hours--a
restless, feverish sleep in which he retraced in dreams the horrible
vision of the night just past.
When, later on, he went down to breakfast, he felt doubled up as if
after prodigious fatigues; and he scarcely ate anything, still haunted
as he was by the fear of what he had seen the night before.
He knew well, however, that it was not an apparition, that the dead do
not come back, and that his sick soul, his soul possessed by one thought
alone, by an indelible remembrance, was the only cause of his
punishment, the only evoker of the dead girl brought back by it to life,
called up by it and raised by it before his eyes in which the
ineffaceable image remained imprinted. But he knew, too, that he could
not cure it, that he would never escape from the savage persecution of
his memory; and he resolved to die, rather than to endure these tortures
any longer.
Then, he thought of how he would kill himself. He wished for something
simple and natural, which would preclude the idea of suicide. For he
clung to his reputation, to the names bequeathed to him by his
ancestors; and if there were any suspicion as the cause of his death,
people's thoughts might be perhaps directed towards the mysterious
crime, towards the murderer who could not be found, and they would not
hesitate to accuse him of the crime.
A strange idea came into his head, that of getting himself crushed by
the tree at the foot of which he had assassinated little Louise Roqué.
So he determined to have his wood cut down, and to simulate an accident.
But the beech-tree refused to smash his ribs.
Returning to his house, a prey to utter despair he had snatched up his
revolver, and then he did not dare to fire it.
The dinner bell summoned him. He could eat nothing, and then he went
up-stairs again. And he did not know what he was going to do. Now that
he had escaped the first time, he felt himself a coward. Presently, he
would be ready, fortified, decided, master of his courage and of his
resolution; now, he was weak and feared death as much as he did the dead
girl.
He faltered:
"I will not venture it again--I will not venture it."
Then he glanced with terror, first at the revolver on the table, and
next at the curtain which hid his window. It seemed to him, moreover
that something horrible would occur as soon as his life was ended.
Something? What? A meeting with her perhaps. She was watching for him;
she was waiting for him; she was calling him; and her object was to
seize him in her turn, to draw him towards the doom that would avenge
her, and to lead him to die so that she might exhibit herself thus every
night.
He began to cry like a child, repeating:
"I will not venture it again--I will not venture it." Then, he fell on
his knees, and murmured:
"My God! my God!" without believing, nevertheless, in God. And he no
longer dared, in fact, to look out through his window where he knew the
apparition was visible nor at his table where his revolver gleamed.
When he had risen up, he said:
"This cannot last; there must be an end of it."
The sound of his voice in the silent room made a shiver of fear pass
through his limbs, but, as he could not bring himself to come to a
determination as he felt certain that his finger would always refuse to
pull the trigger of his revolver, he turned round to hide his head under
the bedclothes, and plunged into reflection.
He would have to find some way in which he could force himself to die,
to invent some device against himself, which would not permit of any
hesitation on his part, any delay, any possible regrets. He envied
condemned criminals who are led to the scaffold surrounded by soldiers.
Oh! if he could only beg of some one to shoot him; if he could,
confessing the state of his soul, confessing his crime to a sure friend
who would never divulge it, obtain from him death.
But from whom could he ask this terrible service? From whom? He cast
about in his thoughts among his friends whom he knew intimately. The
doctor? No, he would talk about it afterwards, most certainly. And
suddenly a fantastic idea entered his mind. He would write to the
examining magistrate, who was on terms of close friendship with him and
would denounce himself as the perpetrator of the crime. He would in this
letter confess everything, revealing how his soul had been tortured, how
he had resolved to die, how he had hesitated about carrying out his
resolution, and what means he had employed to strengthen his failing
courage. And in the name of their old friendship he would implore of the
other to destroy the letter as soon as he had ascertained that the
culprit had inflicted justice on himself. Renardet might rely on this
magistrate, he knew him to be sure, discreet, incapable of even an idle
word. He was one of those men who have an inflexible conscience
governed, directed, regulated by their reason alone.
Scarcely had he formed this project when a strange feeling of joy took
possession of his heart. He was calm now. He would write his letter
slowly, then at daybreak he would deposit it in the box nailed to the
wall in his office, then he would ascend his tower to watch for the
postman's arrival, and when the man in the blue blouse showed himself,
he would cast himself head foremost on the rocks on which the
foundations rested. He would take care to be seen first by the workmen
who had cut down his wood. He could then climb to the step some distance
up which bore the flag staff displayed on fête days. He would smash this
pole with a shake and precipitate it along with him.
Who would suspect that it was not an accident? And he would be killed
completely, having regard to his weight and the height of the tower.
Presently he got out of bed, went over to the table, and began to write.
He omitted nothing, not a single detail of the crime, not a single
detail of the torments of his heart, and he ended by announcing that he
had passed sentence on himself, that he was going to execute the
criminal, and begging of his friend, his old friend, to be careful that
there should never be any stain on his memory.
When he had finished his letter, he saw that the day had dawned.
He closed and sealed it, wrote the address; then he descended with light
steps, hurried towards the little white box fastened to the wall in the
corner of the farm-house, and when he had thrown into it the paper which
made his hand tremble, he came back quickly, shut the bolts of the great
door, and climbed up to his tower to wait for the passing of the
postman, who would convey his death sentence.
He felt self-possessed, now. Liberated! Saved!
A cold dry wind, an icy wind, passed across his face. He inhaled it
eagerly, with open mouth, drinking in its chilling kiss. The sky was
red, with a burning red, the red of winter, and all the plain whitened
with frost glistened under the first rays of the sun, as if it had been
powdered with bruised glass.
Renardet, standing up, with his head bare, gazed at the vast tract of
country before him, the meadow to the left, and to the right the village
whose chimneys were beginning to smoke with the preparations for the
morning meal. At his feet he saw the Brindelle flowing towards the
rocks, where he would soon be crushed to death. He felt himself reborn
on that beautiful frosty morning, full of strength, full of life. The
light bathed him, penetrated him like a new-born hope. A thousand
recollections assailed him, recollections of similar mornings, of rapid
walks on the hard earth which rang under his footsteps, of happy chases
on the edges of pools where wild ducks sleep. All the good things that
he loved, the good things of existence rushed into memory, penetrated
him with fresh desires, awakened all the vigorous appetites of his
active, powerful body.
And he was about to die? Why? He was going to kill himself stupidly,
because he was afraid of a shadow--afraid of nothing? He was still rich
and in the prime of life! What folly! But all he wanted was distraction,
absence, a voyage in order to forget.
This night even he had not seen the little girl because his mind was
preoccupied, and so had wandered towards some other subject. Perhaps he
would not see her any more? And even if she still haunted him in this
house, certainly she would not follow him elsewhere! The earth was wide,
the future was long.
Why die?
His glance traveled across the meadows, and he perceived a blue spot in
the path which wound alongside the Brindelle. It was Mederic coming to
bring letters from the town and to carry away those of the village.
Renardet got a start, a sensation of pain shot through his breast, and
he rushed towards the winding staircase to get back his letter, to
demand it back from the postman. Little did it matter to him now whether
he was seen. He hurried across the grass moistened by the light frost of
the previous night, and he arrived in front of the box in the corner of
the farm-house exactly at the same time as the letter carrier.
The latter had opened the little wooden door, and drew forth the four
papers deposited there by the inhabitants of the locality.
Renardet said to him:
"Good morrow, Mederic."
"Good morrow, M'sieu le Maire."
"I say, Mederic, I threw a letter into the box that I want back again. I
came to ask you to give it back to me."
"That's all right, M'sieur le Maire--you'll get it."