The Last Day of a Condemned Man Page 9

  "The pockets are perfectly new! The collar is not worn! I can get at least fifteen francs for it. What luck! Tobacco enough for my six weeks!"

  The door opened. They had come for both of us,--to escort me to the room where the convicts awaited their turn; to take him to Bicetre. He took his place, with a laugh, in the midst of the guard who was to lead him away, and said to the gendarmes, --

  "Ah, do not be deceived! Monsieur and I have changed our coats, that is all; but do not mistake me for him. But the devil! that would not trouble me, now that I have some thing with which to get some tobacco!"

  Chapter XXIV

  The old criminal stole my cloak, for I did not give it to him; and he left me this ragged thing, this dirty coat. What do I look like?

  I did not let him take my cloak from my feeling of indifference or charity. No; but because he was stronger than I. Had I refused, he would have struck me with his great fists.

  Charity indeed! I was full of evil thoughts. I should have liked to strangle him with my hands, the old robber! and crush him beneath my feet!

  I feel that my heart is full of rage and bitterness. I think that the sack of hatred has burst. Death makes one wicked.

  Chapter XXV

  They took me to a cell where there were only the four walls, many bars across the window, and many locks at the door, all of which goes without saying.

  I asked for a table, a chair, and the necessary writing-materials, all of which they brought me.

  Then I asked for a bed. The jailer looked at me in surprise, as though to ask, "Of what use?"

  But they put up a cot in the corner. At the same time a gendarme was stationed in what they called "my room." Were they afraid I would strangle myself with the mattress?

  Chapter XXVI

  It is ten o'clock.

  O my poor little girl! only six hours, and I shall be dead! I shall be an unclean something which is dragged over the cold table of the amphitheatres,--a head that they will east on one side, a body that they will dissect on the other; then what is left on one side they will put into a coffin, and take to Clamart.

  This is what they are going to do with your father, these men who do not hate me, but who pity me, and who could save me. They want to kill me. Do you understand all this, Marie? Kill me in cold blood, systematically, for the good of the thing. Ah, my God!

  Poor little maid! Your father who loved you so, your father who kissed your sweet little white neck, who ran his hand through your curls as through silk, who took your sweet, round face in his hands, who jumped you on his knees, and at night joined your little hands to pray to God!

  Who is there now who will do all this for you? Who is there to love you? All the children of your age will have fathers except you. How can you, my child, give up, on New Year's Day, the gifts, the pretty playthings, the candies, and kisses? How can you, poor little orphan, give up drinking and eating?

  Oh, if the jury had only seen my little Marie, they would have understood that they must not kill the father of a baby three years old!

  And when she grows up, if she lives, what will become of her? Her father will be one of the souvenirs of the people of Paris. She will blush for me and my name; she will be scorned, repulsed, despised, on account of me--me, who loves her with my whole heart. O my beloved little Marie! Is it really true that you will feel shame and horror for me?

  Miserable wretch! what a crime I have committed, and what a crime I am about to make society commit!

  Oh, is it really true that I am going to die before the close of the day? Is it really true that it is I? Yes, this dull sound of cries which I hear outside, this crowd of joyous people who are already running to the wharves, the gendarmes who are getting themselves ready in their barracks, the priest in his black gown, the other man with the red hands,--it is all for me! It is I who am going to die! I, this very I who am here, who am living, moving, and breathing, who is seated at this table, which is like another table, and might be elsewhere. It is I, whom I touch and feel, and whose clothing makes these folds!

  Chapter XXVII

  If only I knew how it was done, and in what way they died there; but it is horrible, because I do not know.

  The name of the thing is frightful, and I do not understand how I ever could have written or pronounced it.

  The combination of those ten letters, their shape, their appearance, may well arouse a frightful idea. The physician of evil who invented the thing had a predestined name.

  The picture which this hideous word brings before me is vague, indistinct, and sinister. Every syllable is like a part of the machine. In my mind I build and overthrow the monstrous scaffold unceasingly.

  I dare not ask a question; but it is frightful not to know what it is, or how it works. It seems that there is a seesaw, and that you lie down on your stomach. Ah! my hair will turn white before my head falls!

  Chapter XXVIII

  But once I saw it.

  I was driving over the Place de Greve one day, about eleven o'clock in the morning. All at once the carriage stopped.

  There was a crowd on the Place. I put my head out of the window. Crowds filled La Greve and the wharf; and men, women, and children were standing on the parapet. Above the heads I saw a kind of platform of red wood, that three men were erecting.

  A convict was to be executed that very day, and they were building the machine.

  I turned my head aside before I saw any more. Beside my carriage a woman said to a child,--

  "See! look! the knife works badly; they are going to oil the groove with candle-grease."

  That is probably what they are doing to-day. Eleven o'clock has just struck. No doubt they are oiling the groove.

  Ah, this time, wretch that I am, I shall not turn aside my head!

  Chapter XXIX

  Oh, my pardon! my pardon! Perhaps they will pardon me. The king bears me no ill-will. Let them find my lawyer! quick, my lawyer! I want the galleys. Five years in the galleys, and let it all end, or twenty years--or life with the crimson brand. But pardon for my life!

  A criminal can still walk; he can come and go; he can see the sun.

  Chapter XXX

  The priest has returned.

  He has white hair, a quiet manner, and a kind and gentle face; he is a good and charitable man. This morning I saw him empty his purse into the hands of the prisoners. How does it happen that his voice has nothing which may move or be moved? How does it happen that he has not told me anything which appealed to my heart or my mind?

  This morning my thoughts were wandering. I scarcely heard what he said to me. But his words seemed useless, and I was indifferent; they fell like the cold rain on that icy window.

  But when he came in just now, the sight of him did me good. Among all these men, he alone is still a man for me, I say to myself. And he gave me a great thirst for good and consoling words.

  We sat down, he on the chair, I on the bed. He said to me, "My son." This word opened my heart. He continued:--

  "My son, do you believe in God?"

  "Yes, my father," I answered.

  "Do you believe in the holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church?"

  "Yes," I replied.

  "My son," he continued, "you seem by your manner to doubt."

  Then he began to speak. He talked a long time; he used many words. When he thought he had finished, he rose and looked at me for the first time since the beginning of his discourse.

  "Well?" he asked.

  I declare that I listened to him first with eagerness, then with attention, then with devotion.

  I rose too.

  "Monsieur," I replied, "leave me alone, I beg."

  "When shall I return?" he asked.

  "I will let you know."

  Then he went out without a word, but shaking his head as though saying,--

  "An unbeliever!"

  But no, low as I may have fallen, I am not that; God is my witness that I believe in him. But what did the old man say to me? Nothing whic
h roused any feeling, any tenderness, any tears; nothing from the soul; nothing which came straight from his heart into mine; nothing which came from him to me. On the contrary, something vague, indistinct, applicable to everything and everybody; emphatic where there was need for depth, dull where it should have been simple,--a kind of sentimental sermon and theological elegy. Here and there a Latin quotation in Latin. Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory--what do I care about them? And then he seemed to be reciting a lesson which he had recited twenty times already, or of repeating a theme which was almost worn out from having been so long in his mind. There was no expression in his eyes, no feeling in his voice, no meaning in his gestures.

  Yet how could it be otherwise? This priest is the official chaplain of the prison. His mission is to console and exhort, and he lives on this. The galleys, the victims, are the resource of his eloquence. He confesses and attends them, because he has his position to fill. He has grown old in leading men to death. For a long time he has been accustomed to that before which others tremble. His locks, well powdered with white, no longer stand on end; the galleys and the scaffold are everyday affairs for him. He is blase. Probably he has his copybook,--such a page for the galleys; such a page for the convict condemned to die. He is told the evening before, that there will be some one for him to console at such an hour the next day. He asks who it is, galley or convict, and re-reads the page; then he makes his visit. In this way it happens that those who are bound for Toulon and those who are to go to La Greve are common ground for him, and he for them.

  Oh, if instead of all this they would send me some young vicar, or an old curate in charge of his first parish; if they would go to him in the corner of his fireplace, where he is reading his book and expecting nothing, and say to him:--

  "There is a man who is about to die, and you are the one who must console him. You must be there when they bind his hands, when they cut off his hair; you must enter the wagon with him, and with your crucifix hide the hangman from him; you must be jostled with him over the pavement to La Greve; you must go with him through the horrible crowd, drunk with blood; you must embrace him at the foot of the scaffold; you must stay there until his head is severed from his body."

  And when they brought him to me, trembling, and shivering from head to foot, I would throw myself into his arms, and at his feet; and he would cry, and we would cry together, and he would grow eloquent, and I would be consoled; my heart would unburden itself against his, and he would take my soul, and I would take his God.

  But this good old man,--what is he to me, or I to him? An unhappy individual, a shadow, like many another he has already seen--a unit to add to the number of executions.

  Perhaps I am wrong thus to repel him; it is he who is good, and I who am bad. Alas! it is not my fault. It is the atmosphere of the prison which spoils and kills everything.

  They have just brought me some food; they thought that I must be in need of it. The tray is neat and dainty; and there is a chicken, I think, besides other things. Well! I tried to eat; but at the first bite everything fell from my mouth, it tasted so bitter and nauseating!

  Chapter XXXI

  A man just came in, with his hat on his head; but he scarcely noticed me. He opened a foot-rule, and began to measure the height of the stones in the wall, speaking in a very loud voice, and saying, "That is right;" or, "That is not right."

  I asked the gendarme who he was. It seems that he is an under-architect employed in the prison.

  On his part, his curiosity was aroused concerning me. He exchanged a few words in a low tone with the jailers who accompanied him, looked at me an instant, shook his head carelessly, and returned to his measuring, speaking in a loud voice.

  His duty finished, he approached me, saying in his loud tones,--

  "My good friend, in six months this prison will be greatly improved."

  And his gestures seemed to add,--

  "You will not enjoy it; what a pity!"

  He almost smiled. I thought he was going to tease me, as one might tease a young bride on her wedding-night.

  My gendarme, an old soldier with chevrons, replied for me,--

  "Monsieur, we do not speak so loud in a death-chamber."

  The architect went away.

  And I was left there, like one of the stones he had measured.

  Chapter XXXII

  Then a funny thing happened.

  They had taken away my kind old gendarme, whom I had not even shaken by the hand, ungrateful egoist that I am. Another took his place, a man with a low brow, eyes like a cow's, and a stupid face.

  I paid no attention to him, but sat before the table with my back to the door. I was trying to cool my brow with my hand, for I was troubled in mind.

  A light touch on my shoulder made me turn. It was the new gendarme, who was alone with me.

  This is somewhat the way in which he addressed me.

  "Criminal, have you a kind heart?"

  "No," I replied.

  The brusqueness of my answer seemed to disconcert him. But he continued hesitatingly,--

  "One is not bad for the pleasure of being so."

  "And why not?" I asked. "If you have nothing else to say to me, leave me. What are you aiming at?"

  "I beg pardon, my criminal," he replied; "just two words. These: If you could make a poor man happy, without its costing you anything, would you not do so?"

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  "Do you come from Charenton? You choose a strange vase from which to draw happiness. I make any one happy!"

  He lowered his voice, and assumed an air of mystery, which was not in keeping with his stupid face.

  "Yes, criminal, happy and lucky. You can make me all this. Listen. I am a poor gendarme. My duties are heavy, my pay is small; my horse is my own, and is the ruin of me. But to offset this I take shares in the lottery. One must have some business. Until now I have needed nothing in order to win except lucky numbers. I look everywhere for sure ones; but I always fall to one side. I place 76; it draws 77. In vain have I kept them; they do not come. A little patience, please; I am almost through. But here is a lucky chance for me. It seems--pardon me, criminal--that you are to die to-day. It is a well-known fact that these who die in this way see the lottery in advance. Promise me to come to-morrow evening,--what difference will it make to you?--and give me three numbers, three good ones. Hey? I am not afraid of ghosts, you may be sure. This is my address: Caserne Popincourt, staircase A, number 26, at the end of the corridor. You will recognize me, won't you? Come even this evening, if it is more convenient for you."

  I would have scorned answering him--the imbecile!--if a mad hope had not crossed my mind. In such a desperate position one occasionally imagines that a chain can be broken by a thread.

  "Listen," I said, acting the comedian as much as is possible when one is about to die, "I will make you richer than the king, so that you can win millions--on one condition."

  He opened his stupid eyes.

  "What condition? What? Anything to please you, my criminal."

  "Instead of three numbers, I promise you four. Change clothes with me."

  "If that is all!" he cried, unhooking the top hooks of his uniform.

  I rose from my chair. I watched his every movement with a beating heart. Already I saw the doors opening before the gendarme's uniform, and the Place, the street, and the Palais of Justice behind me!

  But he turned with an undecided air.

  "Ah, is this in order that you may escape?"

  Then I knew that all was lost, yet I tried a last resort, which was foolish and useless.

  "Yes," I replied, "but your fortune is made."

  He interrupted.

  "Well, no! Not so fast! You must be dead for my numbers to be lucky ones."

  I sat down mute, in greater despair than ever, after the hope I had had.

  Chapter XXXIII

  I closed my eyes, and raised my hands, trying to forget the present in the past. As I dreamed, thoughts of my childh
ood and early manhood came back to me one by one, sweet, calm, and smiling, like islands of flowers, across the gulf of black and confused thoughts which were seething in my brain.

  I was a child again, a merry, laughing schoolboy, playing, running, and shouting with my brothers in the great green paths of the wild garden where I passed my early years, in an old yard belonging to a convent, over which towered the dark dome of the Val-de-Grace.

  And then four years later, a child still, but dreamy and passionate. There was a young girl in the lonely garden.

  Pepa, a little Spanish maid of fourteen, with great eyes, thick hair, a golden-brown skin, and red lips and rosy cheeks.

  Our mothers told us to go and run together; but we walked.

  They told us to play, but we talked, children of the same age, but of different sex.

  There was only one year left for us to run and quarrel together. I argued with Pepita over the most beautiful apple on the tree; I struck her for a bird's nest. She cried: I said, "That served you right!" and we went to our mothers with our complaints; and they told us aloud that we were in the wrong, but whispered aside to us that we were right.

  Later she is leaning on my arm, and I am proud and happy. We walk slowly, and speak in low tones. She drops her handkerchief; I pick it up for her. Our trembling hands touch. She tells me about the little birds, about the star which is visible beyond, about the crimson sun setting behind the trees, or about her schoolmates, her dress, and her ribbons. We make innocent remarks, and both of us blush. The little maid has grown into a young woman.

  That evening--it was summer--we were under the chestnut-trees, at the end of the garden. After one of those long pauses with which our conversation abounded, she dropped my arm, exclaiming, "Let us run!"

  I can see her now; she was in black, in mourning for her grandmother. This childish idea had entered her head; Pepa was Pepita again, as she cried, "Let us run!"

  She started ahead of me, her slender waist like a wasp's, and her flying skirts showing her little feet above the ankles, I sped after her. Now and then the wind raised her black tippet, and I saw her soft brown neck.