The Last Day of a Condemned Man Page 6

  On the morning of the fourth, the deputy of the attorney-general says to himself, as he ties his cravat, "We must bring this case to a close." Then, if the deputy clerk is not kept at home by a breakfast with some friends, the warrant of execution is drawn up, written, copied fair, and despatched; and the following day at dawn a frame is heard being erected on the Place de Greve, and in the streets criers are shouting with hoarse voices.

  Six weeks in all. The young girl was right. But, here are at least five and perhaps six weeks, I dare not stop to count which, that I have already been in this prison of Bicetre, and it seems to me that three days ago was Thursday.

  Chapter IX

  I have just made my will. And yet what is the use? I am condemned at great cost, and all that I have will scarcely suffice to settle it. The guillotine is very expensive.

  I leave a mother, a wife, and one child. A little girl, three years old, sweet, rosy, and frail, with great black eyes and long, nut-brown hair.

  She was two years and one month old when I last saw her.

  So, after my death, there will be three women, without a son, a husband, and a father; three orphans, so to speak; three widows in point of law.

  I admit that I am justly punished; but what have these innocent ones done?

  No matter, they are disgraced, ruined; this is justice.

  It is not my poor old mother who troubles me; she will die--or, if she lasts a few days longer, if up to the last moment she has a few warm coals in her stove, she will say nothing.

  Nor is it my wife who troubles me; she is already weak and in poor health; she will die too.

  I hope she will not go mad. They say that that makes one live; but at least the mind does not suffer; it sleeps and is as if it were dead.

  But my daughter, my child, my poor little Marie, who laughs and plays, who is singing even now, and thinking of nothing. Ah! it is this that hurts me!

  Chapter X

  My cell consists of this:

  Eight square feet and four walls of freestone at right angles to a flag-stone floor, which is raised one step above the outer corridor.

  To the right of the door, upon entering, is a sort of recess, a parody on an alcove. Here they have thrown a bit of straw on which the prisoner is supposed to rest and sleep, covered with a pair of linen trousers and a coat of ticking, the same, winter and summer.

  Above my head, instead of the sky, is a black vault,--an ogive, it is called--from which hang thick cobwebs like rags.

  For the rest, there are no windows, not even a vent-hole; and the one wooden door is entirely covered with iron.

  No, I am wrong; in the centre of the door, toward the top, there is an opening, nine thumbs in width, cut out in the shape of a cross, and which at night is closed by the jailer.

  Outside, is a long corridor, lighted and aired by means of narrow vent-holes near the ceiling, and divided into stone compartments, which open into one another by a series of low, arched doors; each compartment serves as some sort of an antechamber to a cell like mine. In these cells are the criminals sentenced by the director of the prison to severe discipline. The first three cells are reserved for those condemned to die, because, being nearer the jail, they are more convenient for the jailer. These cells are all that is left of the ancient chateau of Bicetre, as it was built in the fifteenth century by the Cardinal of Winchester. He was the one who ordered Jeanne d'Arc burned. I heard this from some visitors who came to see me the other day in my cell, and who looked at me from a distance as though I were a beast in a menagerie. They gave the jailer a hundred sous for admitting them.

  I forgot to say that day and night there is a gendarme at the door of my cell, and that I cannot raise my eyes to the square hole without always finding his, wide open, and staring at me.

  People suppose that there are air and light in this stone box.

  Chapter XI

  Since it was not yet daylight, I was wondering what I should do with the night, when all at once an idea came into my mind. I rose and turned my lamp upon the four walls of my cell. They are covered with names, scrawls, and strange figures, one running into the other. It seems as though each convict wanted to leave a mark behind him here, at least. They are in pencil, chalk, charcoal, black, white, and gray, and often are cut deep into the stone, while here and there are rusty marks that might have been written with blood. Surely, were my mind clear, I would take much interest in this strange book which is developing, page after page, before my eyes on every stone of my cell. I should like to gather all these fragmentary thoughts together that are scattered over the stones, and find the owner under every name, and give life and feeling to these worn-out inscriptions, these broken sentences, these mangled words, these bodies without heads, like those who wrote them.

  At the head of my bed are two burning hearts pierced by an arrow, and above are written the words: "Love for life." The unfortunate writer did not make a long engagement.

  By the side of this is a three-cornered hat with a small figure roughly sketched above it, and these words: "Long live the Emperor! 1824."

  More burning hearts, with the inscription, a characteristic one in a prison: "I love and adore Matthew Danvin. JACQUES."

  On the opposite wall is: "Papavoine." The capital P is embellished with arabesques, and is carefully drawn.

  A stanza of an obscene song.

  A liberty-cap cut deep into the stone, with this below: "Bories.--The Republic." He was one of the four sub-officers of La Rochelle. Poor fellow! How hideous are their imaginary political needs! For an idea, a dream, a thought, to meet this dread reality called the guillotine! And I am complaining, I, a wretch who has committed a real crime, who has spilled blood!

  I shall look no further among the inscriptions. I have jut seen, in white crayon in the corner of the wall, a frightful picture,--the picture of the scaffold which perhaps is being built even now for me. The lamp just escaped falling from my hands.

  Chapter XII

  I sat down hurriedly on my straw, and my head fell forward upon my knees. But as soon as my childish terror had passed away I felt a strange curiosity to look again along the wall. Next to the name of Papavoine I removed a huge spider-web, thick with dust, from a corner of the wall. Behind the web were four or five names which were perfectly legible, and several others of which only a faint impression remained: "Dautun, 1815; Paulain, 1818; Jean Martin, 1821; Castaing, 1823." As I read these names I remembered the sad fate of each. Dautun cut his brother into pieces, and one night threw the head into a fountain and the body into a sewer in Paris. Poulain murdered his wife. Jean Martin shot his father as the old man was opening a window. Castaing, the physician, poisoned his friend; and instead of trying to cure him, as he pretended to do, he gave him more poison. Near to these was Papavoine, the dreadful madman who killed children by cutting open their heads.

  A hot shiver went through me. These are the ones, I thought to myself, who have occupied my cell before me. Here, on the very floor on which I am standing, they thought their last thoughts, these bloody murderers! In this very dungeon, within these very walls, their last steps turned back and forth like a wild beast. Others took their places without delay; it seems that the cell is never empty. They left the place warm, and it is to me they left it. I, in turn, shall follow them to Clamart Cemetery, where the grass is always green.

  I am neither visionary nor superstitious; perhaps these thoughts are making me feverish, but while I was thinking of them, it seemed to me all at once that these fatal names were written in lines of fire on the dark wall. A wild ringing was in my ears, a red glare came before my eyes; and then it seemed as though the dungeon were full of men, strange men, who carried their heads in their left hands, and held their hands between their teeth, for they had no hair. All shook their fists at me, except the parricide.

  I closed my eyes in horror, but they all came before me still more distinctly.

  Whether it was a dream, a vision, or a reality, I should have gone mad if a sudden
thought had not dispelled them. I was on the point of falling when I felt crawling over my bare foot, a cold body with hairy legs; it was the spider whose web I had torn down.

  That brought me back to myself. Oh, the frightful spectres! No, it was all a phantom, an idea of my empty and tortured brain. A fancy like Macbeth's! The dead are dead,--those who have been here, at least. They are safely locked within the tomb. It is not a prison from which one can escape. How could I have been so terrified? The door of the tomb does not open from within.

  Chapter XIII

  A few days ago I saw a horrible sight.

  It happened before daylight. The prison was very noisy. I heard the opening and closing of the heavy gates, the turning of the locks and the iron bolts, the clank of the heavy bunches of keys hanging from the jailers' waists, the stairs creaking from top to bottom beneath hurried steps, and voices calling and answering from one end of the long corridors to the other. My neighbors in the cell of correction were more gay than usual. All Bicetre seemed to be laughing, singing, running, and dancing.

  I, the only quiet one in all this hubbub, the only still being in all the uproar, sat wondering and on the alert, listening to every sound.

  A jailer passed.

  I ventured to call and ask him if there was a fete going on in the prison.

  "You may call it a fete if you like!" he replied. "To-day they are going to put the irons on the convicts who start to-morrow for Toulon. Do you want to see them? It will amuse you."

  A show of any kind, however disagreeable, was a lucky thing for a solitary prisoner, and I accepted the fellow's offer.

  The jailer took the usual precautions, to make sure of me, and then led me into a small empty cell, which contained not an article of furniture. It had a grated window, but a real window nevertheless, breast-high, and from which the real sky was visible.

  "Here," said he, "you can see and hear. You will be alone in your box, like a king."

  He went out, drawing after him the locks, bolts, and bars.

  The window looked out upon a good-sized square court, around the four sides of which, like a wall, rose a great stone structure six stories high. Nothing could be more disagreeable, more forlorn, nor more wretched-looking than that facade with its many barred gratings, behind which peered out, above and below, a crowd of thin, white faces, one over the other, like the stones in a wall, and all framed, as it were, between the iron bars. They were the prisoners, watching the ceremony in which some day they were to take part. They looked like souls who were undergoing the punishment of purgatory, on their way to hell.

  They were watching in silence the empty court. They were waiting. Among the tired, heavy faces, here and there shone out wild, piercing eyes, like sparks of fire.

  The prison which surrounded the four sides of the square was not an unbroken wall. One of the four sides (the one looking to the east) was separated near the centre, and was connected to the other part by an iron railing. This railing opened on to a second court, smaller than the first, and, like it, flanked with walls full of black holes.

  Around the walls of the main court were placed stone benches. In the centre was an iron pole for holding a lantern.

  Noon struck. A large porte-cochere hidden behind a projection was suddenly opened. A wagon appeared, escorted by a species of dirty and shamefaced-looking soldiers in blue uniforms, with red epaulets and yellow shoulder-straps. It dragged heavily across the court with the noise of grating iron. It contained the chiourme (the galley-slaves) and the chains.

  At the same instant, as though that sound had roused every other, the spectators at the windows, who, until then, had stood still and silent, burst out into joyful cries and songs and threats and imprecations, mingled with shouts of laughter, painful to hear. They looked and acted like devils. A grin was on every face, every fist was thrust through the bars, every voice cried out, every eye flamed. I was startled to see such sparks bursting out from the cinders. The keepers, among whom I recognized from their fresh clothes and their apparent fright some curious visitors from Paris, went calmly on with their work. One jumped into the wagon, and threw out the chains, travelling-collars, and bundles of linen trousers. Then they divided the work. Some went to a corner of the court, and unwound the long chains, which, in their slang, are called the strings; others spread out on the pavement the taffetas, the shirts and trousers; the wisest, under the eye of their captain, a short, thickset old man, examined the iron collars, which they tested still further by throwing them upon the pavement. All this went on under the derisive shouts of the prisoners, and the loud laughter of the convicts for whom it was done, and who were lined up behind the gratings of the old prison, which looked out upon the small court.

  When these preliminaries were over, a gentleman with silver embroidery on his coat, whom they called the inspector, gave an order to the director of the prison; and a moment later, from two or three of the lower doors, there poured out all at once into the court, like a cloud of smoke, hideous crowds of ragged, shouting men. These were the convicts.

  At sight of them, the clamor at the windows increased. Some of those who bore great names were welcomed with cries and shouts, which they received with a sort of proud modesty. The most of them wore caps which they had themselves woven from the straw in their cells, of so curious a shape that those who wore them could not fail to be noticed. One in particular aroused shouts of enthusiasm,--a young man, perhaps seventeen years of age, with a face as smooth as a girl's. He came out of his cell where he had been for a week. He had made a garment out of straw, which covered him from head to foot; and he sprang into the court, rolling over and over, with the agility of a serpent. He was a juggler, convicted of theft. There was a burst of handclapping and shouts of joy. The galley-slaves answered it, and the exchange of gayety between the real convicts and the candidates was frightful. Society, represented by the jailers and the frightened visitors, was of small account there; crime laughed in its very face, and made a family fete of this frightful punishment.

  As each convict came out, he was led between two lines of gendarmes to the barred court, where he waited for the visit of the physicians. It was at this point that each tried a last resort in order to escape the journey, offering as an excuse their health, poor eyesight, lameness, or a maimed hand. But almost all were found fitted for work; and each resigned himself carelessly, forgetting a few minutes after, his pretended life infirmity.

  The grating of the small court opened. A guard called the roll alphabetically; and then each convict came out, one by one, and took his stand in a corner of the large court, next to a comrade whose initial letter happened to be the same. Thus each was alone, carrying his own chain, side by side with a stranger; and if a convict chanced to be near a friend, the chain separated them. This was their greatest punishment.

  When about thirty had gone out, the grating was closed. A keeper singled them out with his baton, threw in front of each a shirt, a jacket, and a pair of coarse linen trousers, then gave the signal, and they all began to undress. An unlooked-for incident changed this humiliation into torture.

  Until then the weather had been clear; and although the October air was cold, every now and then the gray clouds opened, and from the chinks fell a ray of sunlight. But scarcely had the convicts dropped their prison-rags, and just as they stood naked before the suspicious glances of the keepers, and the curious looks of the strangers who walked around them in order to examine their shoulders, the sky became black, a cold autumn rain began to fall in torrents upon the square court, upon the bare heads and naked bodies of the galley-slaves, and upon their miserable clothes lying on the pavement.

  In the twinkling of an eye the yard was cleared of everyone who was not a keeper or a galley-slave. The visitors from Paris sought shelter beneath the doorways.

  The rain fell in torrents. Nothing could be seen in the court but the naked, dripping convicts on the soaked pavement. A moody silence had succeeded their boastful shouting. They shivered; their te
eth chattered; their thin limbs and bent knees knocked against each other, and it was pitiful to see them putting over their blue bodies the shirts, jackets, and trousers which were soaked with the rain. They would better have remained naked.

  One old man, however, was still lively. He cried out, wringing his dripping slurt, that "this was not on the programme"; then he began to laugh, shaking his fist at the sky.

  When they had put on their travelling-clothes, they were led in groups of twenty or thirty to the other corner of the yard, where the cordons awaited them. These cordons are great long chains crossed every two feet by other shorter chains, at the end of which is attached a square collar which opens by means of a hinge fastened to one of the corners, and closes at the opposite corner by an iron bolt, locked on the galley-slave's neck throughout the entire journey. As these cordons lie on the ground they look like the backbone of a fish.

  They made the slaves sit down in the mud on the soaking pavements. They tried on the collars; then two of the prison blacksmiths brought portable anvils, and riveted them on with a great iron hammer. It was a dreadful moment, and the bravest paled. At every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil, which leaned against their back, the victim's chin rebounded; the least movement made his head jump like a nutshell.

  After this was done the convicts became gloomy. Nothing was heard but the clanking of the chains, an occasional groan, and the dull thud of the keeper's baton on the limbs of the offender. Some cried; the old men shivered and bit their lips. I looked with terror upon all these sinister profiles in their iron frames.

  After the visit of the physicians, came that of the jailers; and after the jailers, the putting into chains. Three acts to the play!

  A ray of sunlight appeared. It acted like a touch of fire. The convicts rose with one accord. The five cordons took hold of hands, and all together they formed an immense circle about the lantern-pole. My eyes grew weary watching them turn. They sang a prison-song, a slangy romance, to a tune now sad, now wild and gay. Every now and then shrill cries were heard and bursts of hoarse, breathless laughter, mingled with strange words; then furious shouts rang out, the clanking chains serving as an orchestra to the song, which was harsher than their grating. If ever I wanted a picture of a nocturnal meeting of witches I should ask for nothing better or worse than this.