A NEW PERIL
Would he be able to resist the pressure which from all sides at once
pushed him toward the Rue Sainte Anne?
It seemed that nothing was easier than not to commit the folly of
yielding, and yet such was the persistence of the efforts that were
united against him, that he asked himself if, one day, he would not be
led to obey them in spite of himself. Phillis, Nougarede, Madame
Cormier. Now, whence would come a new attack?
For several months he had enjoyed a complete security, which convinced
him that all danger was over forever. But all at once this danger burst
forth under such conditions that he must recognize that there could never
more be any security for him. To-day Madame Dammauville menaced him;
tomorrow it would be some one else. Who? He did not know. Every one.
And it was the anguish of his position to be condemned to live hereafter
in fear, and on the defensive, without repose, without forgetfulness.
But it was not tomorrow about which he need be uneasy at this moment, it
was the present hour; that is to say, Madame Dammauville.
That she should say, with so much firmness at the sight of a single
portrait, that the man who drew the curtains was not Florentin, she must
have an excellent memory of the eyes; at the same time a resolute mind
and a decision in her ideas, which permitted her to affirm without
hesitation what she believed to be true.
If they should ever meet, she would recognize him, and recognizing him,
she would speak.
Would she be believed?
This was the decisive question, and from what he had heard of her, it
seemed that she would be.
Denials would not suffice. He did not go to Caffie's at a quarter past
five. Where was he at this moment? What witness could he call upon?
Caffie's wound was made by a hand skilled in killing, and this learned
hand was his, more even than that of a murderer. Every one knew that his
position at that moment was desperate, financially speaking; and,
suddenly, he paid his debts. Who would believe the Monte Carlo story?
One word, one little hint, from this Madame Dammauville and he was lost,
without defence, without possible struggles.
Truly, and fortunately, since she was paralyzed and confined to her bed,
he ran no risk of meeting her face to face at the corner of a street, or
at the house of an acquaintance, nor of hearing the cry of surprise that
she would not fail to give on recognizing him. But that was not enough
to make him sleep in an imprudent security on saying to himself that this
meeting was improbable. It was improbable, also, to admit that some one
was exactly opposite to Caffies window at the moment when he drew the
curtains; more improbable yet to believe that this fact, insignificant in
itself, that this vision, lasting only an instant, would be so solidly
engraved in a woman's memory as to be distinctly remembered after several
months, as if it dated from the previous evening; and yet, of all these
improbabilities, there was formed a reality which enclosed him in such a
way that at any moment it might stifle him.
Despite the importunities of Phillis, Madame Cormier, and Nougarede, and
of all those which might arise, he would not be fool enough to confront
the danger of a recognition in the room where this paralytic was
confined--at least, that was probable, for, after what had happened, he
was certain of nothing--but this recognition might take place elsewhere.
In Nougarede's plan Madame Dammauville would come to court to make her
declaration; he himself was a witness; they would, therefore, at a given
moment, meet each other, and it was not impossible that before the court
the recognition would occur with a 'coup de theatre' very different from
that arranged by Nougarede.
Without doubt there were chances that Madame Dammauville would not be
able to leave her bed to go to court; but were there only one for her
leaving it, he must foresee it and take precautions.
A single one offered security: to render himself unrecognizable; to cut
his beard and hair; to be no more the long-haired, curled, blond-bearded
man that she remembered. Had he been like every one else she would not
have remarked him; or, at least, she would have confounded him with
others. A man can only permit himself to be original in appearance when
he is sure beforehand that he will never have anything to fear.
Assuredly, nothing was easier than to have his hair and beard cut; he had
only to enter the first barber shop he came to; in a few minutes the
change would be radical.
Among his acquaintances he need not be uneasy at the curiosity that this
change might produce; more than one would not remark it, and those who
would be surprised at first would soon cease to think of it, without
doubt; otherwise, he had an easy answer for them; on the eve of becoming
a serious personage, he abandoned the last eccentricities of the old
student, and passed the bridge without wish to return by the left bank.
But it was not only to acquaintances that he must account; there were
Phillis and Nougarde. Had not the latter already remarked the
resemblance between him and the description, and would it not be
imprudent to lead him to ask why this resemblance suddenly disappeared?
It would be dangerous to expose himself to this question from the lawyer,
but it would be much more dangerous coming from Phillis. Nougarede would
only show surprise; Phillis might ask for an explanation.
And he must reply to her so much the more clearly, because four or five
times already he had almost betrayed himself as to Madame Dammauville,
and if she had let his explanations or embarrassment pass, his
hesitations or his refusal, without questioning him frankly, certainly
she was not the less astonished. Should he appear before her with short
hair and no beard, it would be a new astonishment which, added to the
others, would establish suspicions; and logically, by the force of
things, in spite of herself, in spite of her love and her faith, she
would arrive at conclusions from which she would not be able to free
herself. Already, five or six months before, this question of long hair
and beard had been agitated between them. As he complained one day of
the bourgeois who would not come to him, she gently explained to him that
to please and attract these bourgeois it was, perhaps, not quite well to
astonish those whom one does not shock. That overcoats less long, hats
with less brim, and hair and beard shorter; in fact, a general appearance
that more nearly approached their own, would be, perhaps, more agreeable.
He became angry, and replied plainly that such concessions were not in
keeping with his character. How could he now abruptly make these
concessions, and at a time when his success at the examinations placed
him above such small compromises? He resisted when he needed help, and
when a patient was an affair of life or death to him; he yielded when he
had need of no one, and when he did not care for patients. The
contradiction was truly too strong, and such that it could not but strike
Phillis, whose attention had already had only too much to arouse it.
And yet, as dangerous as it was to come to the decision to make himself
unrecognizable, it would be madness on his part to draw back; the sooner
the better. His fault had been in not foreseeing, the day after Caffie's
death, that circumstances might arise sooner or later which would force
it upon him. At that moment it did not present the same dangers as now;
but parting from the idea that he had not been seen by any one, that he
could not have been seen, he had rejoiced in the security that this
conviction gave him, and quietly become benumbed.
The awakening had come; with his eyes open he saw the abyss to the edge
of which his stupidity had brought him.
How strong would he not be if during the last three months he had not had
this long hair and beard, which was most terrible testimony against him?
Instead of taking refuge in miserable makeshifts when Phillis and
Nougarede asked him to see Madame Dammauville, he would have boldly held
his own, and have gone to see her as they wished. In that case he would
be saved, and soon Florentin would be also.
And he believed himself intelligent! And he proudly imagined he could
arrange things beforehand so well that he would never be surprised! What
he should have foreseen would come to pass, nothing more; the lesson that
experience taught him was hard, and this was not the first one; the
evening of Caffie's death he saw very clearly that a new situation opened
before him, which to the end of his life would make him the prisoner of
his crime. To tell the truth, however, this impression became faint soon
enough; but now it was stronger than ever, and to a certainty, never to
be dismissed again.
But it was useless to look behind; it was the present and the future that
he must measure with a clear and firm glance, if he did not wish to be
lost.
After carefully examining and weighing the question, he decided to have
his hair and beard cut. However adventurous this resolution was, however
embarrassing it might become in provoking curiosity and questions, it was
the only way of escaping a possible recognition.
Mechanically, by habit, he bent his steps toward the Rue Neuve-des-
Petits-Champs, where his barber lived, but he had taken only a few steps
when reflection caused him to stop; it would be certainly a mistake to
provoke the gossip of this man who, knew him, and who, for the pleasure
of talking, would tell every one in the quarter that he had just cut the
hair and beard of Dr. Saniel. He returned to the boulevard, where he was
not known.
But as he was about to open the door of the shop which he decided to
enter, he changed his mind. He happened to find the explanation that he
must give Phillis, and as he wished to avoid the surprise that she would
not fail to show if she saw him suddenly without hair and beard, he would
give this explanation before having them cut, in such a way that all at
once and without looking for another reason, she would understand that
this operation was indispensable.
And he went to dinner, furious with himself and with things, to see to
what miserable expedients he was reduced.