第20章

How often had my own hand shrunk with unconquerable repugnance from that contact!I listened while he repeated the same phrases of sympathy with my sorrow which he had already written to me while Iwas at Compiegne.I listened while Madame Bernard uttered other phrases to the same effect;and then the conversation resumed its course,and,during the half-hour that ensued,I looked on,speaking hardly at all,but mentally comparing the physiognomy of my stepfather with that of the visitor,and that of my mother.The contemplation of those three faces produced a curious impression upon me;it was that of their difference,not only of age,but of intensity,of depth.There was no mystery in my mother's face,it was as easy to read as a page in dear handwriting!The mind of Madame Bernard,a worldly,trumpery,poor mind,but harmless enough,was readily to be discerned in her features which were at once refined and commonplace.How little there was of reflection,of decision,of exercise of will,in short of individuality,behind the poetic grace of the one and the pretty affectations of the other!What a face,on the contrary,was that of my stepfather,with its strong individuality,and its vivid expression!In this man of the world,as he stood there talking with two women of the world,in his blue,furtive eyes,too wide apart,and always seeming to shun observation,in his prematurely gray hair,his mouth set round with deep wrinkles,in his dark,blotched,bilious complexion,there seemed to be a creature of another race.What passions had worn those furrows?what vigils had hollowed those eyeballs?Was this the face of a happy man,with whom everything had succeeded,who,having been born to wealth and of an excellent family,had married the woman he loved;who had known neither the wearing cares of ambition,the toil of money-getting,nor the stings of wounded self-love?It is true,he suffered from liver complaint;but why was it that,although I had hitherto been satisfied with this answer,it now appeared to me childish and even foolish?Why did all these marks of trouble and exhaustion suddenly strike me as effects of a secret cause,and why was Iastonished that I had not sooner sought for it?Why was it that in his presence,contrary to my expectations,contrary to what had happened about my mother,I was plunged more deeply into the gulf of suspicion from which I had hoped to emerge with a free mind?

Why,when our eyes met for just one second,was I afraid that he might read my thoughts in my glance,and why did I shift them with a pang of shame and terror?Ah!coward that I was,triple coward!

Either I was wrong to think thus,and at any price I must know that I was wrong;or,I was right and I must know that too.The sole resource henceforth remaining to me for the preservation of my self-respect was ardent and ceaseless search after certainty.

That such a search was beset with difficulty I was well aware.How was I to get at facts?The very position of the problem which Ihad before me forbade all hope of discovering anything whatsoever by a formal inquiry.What,in fact,was the matter in question?

It was to make myself certain whether M.Termonde was or was not the accomplice of the man who had led my father into the trap in which he had lost his life.But I did not know that man himself;Ihad no data to go upon except the particulars of his disguise and the vague speculations of a Judge of Instruction.If I could only have consulted that Judge,and availed myself of his experience?

How often since have I taken out the packet containing the denunciatory letters,with the intention of showing them to him and imploring advice,support,suggestions,from him.But I have always stopped short before the door of his house;the thought of my mother barred its entrance against me.What if he,the Judge of Instruction in the case,were to suspect her as my aunt had done?

Then I would go back to my own abode,and shut myself up for hours,lying on the divan in my smoking-room and drugging my senses with tobacco.During that time I read and re-read the fatal letters,although I knew them by heart,in order to verify my first impression with the hope of dispelling it.It was,on the contrary,deepened.The only gain I obtained from my repeated perusals was the knowledge that this certainty,of which I had made a point of honor to myself,could only be psychological.In short,all my fancies started from the moral data of the crime,apart from physical data which I could not obtain.I was therefore obliged to rely entirely,absolutely,upon those moral data,and I began again to reason as I had done at Compiegne."Supposing,"said I to myself,"that M.Termonde is guilty,what state of mind must he be in?This state of mind being once ascertained,how can I act so as to wrest some sign of his guilt from him?"As to his state of mind I had no doubt.Ill and depressed as I knew him to be,his mind troubled to the point of torment,if that suffering,that gloom,that misery were accompanied by the recollection of a murder committed in the past,the man was the victim of secret remorse.

The point was then to invent a plan which should give,as it were,a form to his remorse,to raise the specter of the deed he had done roughly and suddenly before him.If guilty,it was impossible but that he would tremble;if innocent,he would not even be aware of the experiment.But how was this sudden summoning-up of his crime before the man whom I suspected to be accomplished?On the stage and in novels one confronts an assassin with the spectacle of his crime,and keeps watch upon his face for the one second during which he loses his self-possession;but in reality there is no instrument except unwieldy,unmanageable speech wherewith to probe a human conscience.I could not,however,go straight to M.

Termonde and say to his face:"You had my father killed!"Innocent or guilty,he would have had me turned from the door as a madman!

After several hours of reflection,I came to the conclusion that only one plan was reasonable,and available:this was to have a private talk with my stepfather at a moment when he would least expect it,an interview in which all should be hints,shades,double meanings,in which each word should be like the laying of a finger upon the sorest spots in his breast,if indeed his reflections were those of a murderer.

Every sentence of mine must be so contrived as to force him to ask himself:"Why does he say this to me if he knows nothing?He does know something.How much does he know?"So well acquainted was I with every physical trait of his,the slightest variations of his countenance,his simplest gestures,that no sign of disturbance on his part,however slight,could escape me.If I did not succeed in discovering the seat of the malady by this process,I should be convinced of the baselessness of those suspicions which were constantly springing up afresh in my mind since the death of my aunt.I would then admit the simple and probable explanation--nothing in my father's letters discredited it--that M.Termonde had loved my mother without hope in the lifetime of her first husband,and had then profited by her widowhood,of which he had not even ventured to think.

If,on the contrary,I observed during our interview that he was alive to my suspicions,that he divined them,and anxiously followed my words;if I surprised that swift gleam in his eye which reveals the instinctive terror of an animal,attacked at the moment of its fancied security,if the experiment succeeded,then--then--Idared not think of what then?

The mere possibility was too overwhelming.

But should I have the strength to carry on such a conversation?At the mere thought of it my heart-beats were quickened,and my nerves thrilled.What!this was the first opportunity that had been offered to me of action,of devoting myself to the task of vengeance,so coveted,so fully accepted during all my early years,and I could hesitate?

Happily,or unhappily,I had near me a counsellor stronger than my doubts,my father's portrait,which was hung in my smoking-room.

When I awoke in the night and plunged into those thoughts,I would light my candle and go to look at the picture.How like we were to each other,my father and I,although I was more slightly built!

How exactly the same we were!How near to me I felt him,and how dearly I loved him!With what emotion I studied those features,the lofty forehead,the brown eyes,the rather large mouth,the rather long chin,the mouth especially half-hidden by a black moustache cut like my own;it had no need to open,and cry out:

"Andre,Andre,remember me!"Ah,no,my dear dead father,I could not leave you thus,without having done my utmost to avenge you,and it was only an interview to be faced,only an interview!

My nervousness gave way to determination at once feverish and fixed--yes,it was both--and it was in a mood of perfect self-mastery,that,after a long period of mental conflict,I repaired to the hotel on the boulevard,with the plan of my discourse clearly laid out.I felt almost sure of finding my stepfather alone;for my mother was to breakfast on that day with Madame Bernard.M.Termonde was at home,and,as I expected,alone in his study.

When I entered the room,he was sitting in a low chair,close to the fire,looking chilly,and smoking.Like myself in my dark hours,he drugged himself with tobacco.The room was a large one,and both luxurious and ordinary.A handsome bookcase lined one of the walls.Its contents were various,ranging from grave works on history and political economy,to the lightest novels of the day.

A large,flat writing-table,on which every kind of writing-material was carefully arranged,occupied the middle of the room,and was adorned with photographs in plain leather cases.These were portraits of my mother and M.Termonde's father and mother.

At least one prominent trait of its owner's character,his scrupulous attention to order and correctness of detail,was revealed by the aspect of my stepfather's study;but this quality,which is common to so many persons of his position in the world,may belong to the most commonplace character as well as to the most refined hypocrite.It was not only in the external order and bearing of his life that my stepfather was impenetrable,none could tell whether profound thoughts were or were not hidden behind his politeness and elegance of manner.I had often reflected on this,at a period when as yet I had no stronger motive for examining into the recesses of the man's character than curiosity,and the impression came to me with extreme intensity at the moment when Ientered his presence with a firm resolve to read in the book of his past life.

We shook hands,I took a seat opposite to his on the other side of the hearth,lighted a cigar,and said,as if to explain my unaccustomed presence:

"Mamma is not here?"

"Did she not tell you,the other day,that she was to breakfast with Madame Bernard?There's an expedition to Lozano's studio"(Lozano was a Spanish painter much in vogue just then),"to see a portrait he is painting of Madame Bernard.Is there anything you want to have told to your mother?"he added,simply.

These few words were sufficient to show me that he had remarked the singularity of my visit.Ought I to regret or to rejoice at this?

He was,then,already aware that I had some particular motive for coming;but this very fact would give all their intended weight to my words.I began by turning the conversation on an indifferent matter,talking of the painter Lozano and a good picture of his which I knew,"A Gipsy-dance in a Tavern-yard at Grenada."Idescribed the bold attitudes,the pale complexions,the Moorish faces of the "gitanas,"and the red carnations stuck into the heavy braids of their black hair,and I questioned him about Spain.

He answered me,but evidently out of mere politeness.

While continuing to smoke his cigar,he raked the fire with the tongs,taking up one small piece of charred wood after another between their points.By the quivering of his fingers,the only sign of his nervous sensitiveness which he was unable entirely to keep down,I could observe that my presence was then,as it always was,disagreeable to him.Nevertheless he talked on with his habitual courtesy,in his low voice,almost without tone or accent,as though he had trained himself to talk thus.His eyes were fixed on the flame,and his face,which I saw in profile,wore the expression of infinite weariness that I knew well,in indescribable stillness and sadness,with long deep lines,and the mouth was contracted as though by some bitter thought ever present.

Suddenly,I looked straight at that detested profile,concentrating all the attention I had in me upon it,and,passing from one subject to another without transition,I said:

"I paid a very interesting visit this morning.""In that you are agreeably distinguished from me,"was his reply,made in a tone of utter indifference,"for I wasted my morning in putting my correspondence in order.""Yes,"I continued,"very interesting.I passed two hours with M.

Massol."

I had reckoned a good deal on the effect of this name,which must have instantly recalled the inquiry into the mystery of the Imperial Hotel to his memory.The muscles of his face did not move.He laid down the tongs,leaned back in his chair,and said in an absent manner:

"The former Judge of Instruction?What is he doing now?"Was it possible that he really did not know where the man,whom,if he were guilty,he ought to have dreaded most of all men,was then living?How was I to know whether this indifference was feigned?

The trap I had set appeared to me all at once a childish notion.

Admitting that my stepfather's pulses were even now throbbing with fever,and that he was saying to himself with dread:"What is he coming to?What does he mean?"why,this was a reason why he should conceal his emotion all the more carefully.No matter.Ihad begun;I was bound to go on,and to hit hard.

"M.Massol is Counsellor to the Court,"I replied,and I added--although this was not true--"I see him often.We were talking this morning of criminals who have escaped punishment.Only fancy his being convinced that Troppman had an accomplice.He founds his belief on the details of the crime,which presuppose two men,he says.If this be true it must be admitted that 'Messieurs les assassins'have a kind of honor of their own,however odd that may appear,since the child-killing monster let his own head be cut off without denouncing the other.Nevertheless,the accomplice must have put some bad time over him,after the discovery of the bodies and the arrest of his comrade.I,for my part,would not trust to that honor,and if the humor took me to commit a crime,I should do it by myself.Would you?"I asked jestingly.

These two little words meant nothing,were merely an insignificant jest,if the man to whom I put my odd question was innocent.But,if he were guilty,those two little words were enough to freeze the marrow in his bones.He surrounded himself with smoke while listening to me,his eye-lids half veiled his eyes;I could no longer see his left hand,which hung over the far side of his chair,and he had put the right into the pocket of his morning-coat.There was a short pause before he answered me--very short--but the interval,perhaps a minute,that divided his reply from my question,was a burning one for me.But what of this?It was not his way to speak in a hurry;and besides,my question had nothing interesting in it if he were not guilty,and if he were,would he not have to calculate the bearing of the phrase which he was about to utter with the quickness of thought?He closed his eyes completely--his constant habit--and said,in the unconcerned tone of a man who is talking generalities:

"It is a fact that scraps of conscience do remain intact in very depraved individuals.One sees instances of this especially in countries where habits and morals are more genuine and true to nature than ours.There's Spain,for instance,the country that interests you so much;when I lived in Spain,it was still infested by brigands.One had to make treaties with them in order to cross the Sierras in safety;there was no case known in which they broke the contract.The history of celebrated criminal cases swarms with scoundrels who have been excellent friends,devoted sons,and constant lovers.But I am of your opinion,and I think it is best not to count too much upon them."He smiled as he uttered the last words,and now he looked full at me with those light blue eyes which were so mysterious and impassible.No,I was not of stature to cope with him,to read his heart by force.It needed capacity of another kind than mine to play in the case of this personage the part of the magnate of police who magnetizes a criminal.And yet,why did my suspicions gather force as I felt the masked,dissimulating,guarded nature of the man in all its strength?Are there not natures so constituted that they shut themselves up without cause,just as others reveal themselves;are there not souls that love darkness as others love daylight?Courage,then,let me strike again.

"M.Massol and I,"I resumed,"have been talking about what kind of life Troppmann's accomplice must be leading;and also Rochdale's;for neither of us has relinquished the intention of finding him.

Before M.Massol's retirement he took the precaution to bar the limitation by a formal notice,and we have several years before us in which to search for the man.Do these criminals sleep in peace?

Are they punished by remorse,or by the apprehension of danger,even in their momentary security?It would be strange if they were both at this moment good,quiet citizens,smoking their cigars like you and me,loved and loving.Do you believe in remorse?""Yes,I do believe in remorse,"he answered.

Was it the contrast between the affected levity of my speech,and the seriousness with which he had spoken,that caused his voice to sound grave and deep to my ears?No,no;I was deceiving myself,for without a thrill he had heard the news that the limitation had been barred,that the case might be reopened any day--terrible news for him if he were mixed up with the murder--and he added,calmly,referring to the philosophic side of my question only:

"And does M.Massol believe in remorse?"

"M.Massol,"said I,"is a cynic.He has seen too much wickedness,known too many terrible stories.He says that remorse is a question of stomach and religious education,and that a man with a sound digestion,who had never heard anything about hell in his childhood,might rob and kill from morning to night without feeling any other remorse than fear of the police.He also maintains,being a sceptic,that we do not know what part that question of the other life plays in solitude;and I think he is right,for I often begin to think of death,at night,and I am afraid;--yes,I,who don't believe in anything very much,am afraid.And you,"Icontinued,"do you believe in another world?""Yes."This time I was sure that there was an alteration in his voice.

"And in the justice of God?"

"In His justice and His mercy,"he answered,in a strange tone.

"Singular justice,"I said vehemently,"which is able to do everything,and yet delays to punish!My poor aunt used always to say to me when I talked to her about avenging my father:'I leave it to God to punish,'but,for my part,if I had got hold of the murderer,and he was there before me--if I were sure--no,I would not wait for the hour of that tardy justice of God."I had risen while uttering these words,carried away by involuntary excitement which I knew to be unwise.M.Termonde had bent over the fire again,and once more taken up the tongs.He made no answer to my outburst.Had he really felt some slight disturbance,as I believed for an instant,at hearing me speak of that inevitable and dreadful morrow of the grave which fills myself with such fear now that there is blood upon my hands?

I could not tell.His profile was,as usual,calm and sad.

The restlessness of his hands--recalling to my mind the gesture with which he turned and returned his cane while my mother was telling him of the disappearance of my father--yes,the restlessness of his hands was extreme;but he had been working at the fire with the same feverish eagerness just before.Silence had fallen between us suddenly;but how often had the same thing happened?Did it ever fail to happen when he and I were in each other's company?And then,what could he have to say against the outburst of my grief and wrath,orphan that I was?Guilty or innocent,it was for him to be silent,and he held his peace.My heart sank;but,at the same time,a senseless rage seized upon me.

At that moment I would have given my remaining life for the power of forcing their secret from those shut lips,by any mode of torture.

My stepfather looked at the clock--he,too,had risen now--and said:"Shall I put you down anywhere?I have ordered the carriage for three o'clock,as I have to be at the club at half-past.

There's a ballot coming off tomorrow."Instead of the down-stricken criminal I had dreamed of,there stood before me a man of society thinking about the affairs of his club.He came with me so far as the hall,and took leave of me with a smile.

Why,then,a quarter of an hour afterwards,when we passed each other on the quay,I going homeward on foot,he in his coupe--yes--why was his face so transformed,so dark and tragic?He did not see me.He was sitting back in the corner,and his clay-colored face was thrown out by the green leather behind his head.His eyes were looking--where,and at what?The vision of distress that passed before me was so different from the smiling countenance of a while ago that it shook me from head to foot with an extraordinary emotion,and forced me to exclaim,as though frightened at my own success:

"Have I struck home?"

IX

This impression of dread kept hold of me during the whole of that evening,and for several days afterwards.There is an infinite distance between our fancies,however precise they may be,and the least bit of reality.

My father's letters had stirred my being to its utmost depths,had summoned up tragic pictures before my eyes;but the simple fact of my having seen the agonized look in my stepfather's face,after my interview with him,gave me a shock of an entirely different kind.

Even after I had read the letters repeatedly,I had cherished a secret hope that I was mistaken,that some slight proof would arise and dispel suspicions which I denounced as senseless,perhaps because I had a foreknowledge of the dreadful duty that would devolve upon me when the hour of certainty had come.Then I should be obliged to act on a resolution,and I dared not look the necessity in the face.No,I had not so regarded it,previous to my meeting with my enemy,when I saw him cowering in anguish upon the cushions of his carriage.Now I would force myself to contemplate it.What should my course be,if he were guilty?Iput this question to myself plainly,and I perceived all the horror of the situation.On whatever side I turned I was confronted with intolerable misery.

That things should remain as they were I could not endure.I saw my mother approach M.Termonde,as she often did,and touch his forehead caressingly with her hand or her lips.That she should do this to the murderer of my father!My very bones burned at the mere thought of it,and I felt as though an arrow pierced my breast.So be it!I would act;I would find strength to go to my mother and say:"This man is an assassin,"and prove it to her--and lo!I was already shrinking from the pain that my words must inflict on her.It seemed to me that while I was speaking I should see her eyes open wide,and,through the distended pupils,discern the rending asunder of her being,even to her heart,and that she would go mad or fall down dead on the spot,before my eyes.No,Iwould speak to her myself.If I held the convincing proof in my hands I would appeal to justice.

But then a new scene arose before me.I pictured my mother at the moment of her husband's arrest.She would be there,in the room,close to him."Of what crime is he accused?"she would ask,and she would have to hear the inevitable answer.And I should be the voluntary cause of this,I,who,since my childhood,and to spare her a pang,had stifled all my complaints at the time when my heart was laden with so many sighs,so many tears,so much sorrow,that it would have been a supreme relief to have poured them out to her.

I had not done so then,because I knew that she was happy in her life,and that it was her happiness only that blinded her to my pain.I preferred that she should be blind and happy.And now?

Ah!how could I strike her such a cruel blow,dear and fragile being that she was?

The first glimpse of the double prospect of misery which my future offered if my suspicions proved just was too terrible for endurance,and I summoned all my strength of will to shut out a vision which must bring about such consequences.Contrary to my habit,I persuaded myself into a happy solution.My stepfather looked sad when he passed me in his coupe;true,but what did this prove?Had he not many causes of care and trouble,beginning with his health,which was failing from day to day?