Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “My man, I owe my life to you; it is a heavy debt, but be assured I will pay it. David, will you go and learn how Murphy is,” added Rodolph, “and return again instantly?”

  The black went out.

  “Where is the Schoolmaster, my good fellow?”

  “In another room, with the Chouette. You will send for the police, M. Rodolph?”

  “No.”

  “You surely will not let him go! Ah, M. Rodolph, none of that nonsensical generosity! I say again, he is a mad dog, — let the passengers look out!”

  “He will never bite again, be assured.”

  “Then you are going to shut him up somewhere?”

  “No; in half an hour he will leave this house.”

  “The Schoolmaster?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without gens-d’armes?”

  “Yes.”

  “He will go out from here, and free?”

  “Free.”

  “And quite alone?”

  “Quite alone.”

  “But he will go—”

  “Wherever he likes,” said Rodolph, interrupting the Chourineur with a meaning smile.

  The black returned.

  “Well, David, well, and how is Murphy?”

  “He sleeps, my lord,” said the doctor, despondingly; “his respiration is very difficult.”

  “Not out of danger?”

  “His case is very critical, my lord; yet there is hope.”

  “Oh, Murphy! vengeance! vengeance!” exclaimed Rodolph, in a tone of concentrated rage. Then he added, “David, a word—”

  And he whispered something in the ear of the black. He started back.

  “Do you hesitate?” said Rodolph. “Yet I have often suggested this idea to you; the moment is come to put it into practice.”

  “I do not hesitate, my lord; the suggestion is well worthy the consideration of the most elevated jurists, for this punishment is at the same time terrible and yet fruitful for repentance. In this case it is most applicable. Without enumerating the crimes which have accumulated to send this wretch to the Bagne for his life, he has committed three murders, — the cattle-dealer, Murphy, and yourself; it is in his case justice—”

  “He will have before him an unlimited horizon for expiation,” added Rodolph. After a moment’s silence he resumed: “And five thousand francs will suffice, David?”

  “Amply, my lord.”

  “My good fellow,” said Rodolph to the bewildered Chourineur, “I have two words to say to M. David; will you go into that chamber on the other side, where you will see a large red pocketbook on a bureau; open it and take out five notes of a thousand francs each, and bring them to me.”

  “And,” inquired the Chourineur, involuntarily, “who are those five thousand francs for?”

  “For the Schoolmaster. And do you, at the same time, tell them to bring him in here.”

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE PUNISHMENT.

  THE SCENE WE are about to describe took place in a room hung with red, and brilliantly lighted. Rodolph, clothed in a long dressing-gown of black velvet, which increased the pallor of his features, was seated before a large table covered with a green cloth. On this table was the Schoolmaster’s pocketbook, the pinchbeck chain of the Chouette (to which was suspended the little Saint Esprit of lapis lazuli), the blood-stained stiletto with which Murphy had been stabbed, the crowbar with which the door had been forced, and the five notes of a thousand francs each, which the Chourineur had fetched out of the next apartment.

  The negro doctor was seated at one side of the table, the Chourineur on the other. The Schoolmaster, tightly bound with cords, and unable to move a limb, was placed in a large armchair on casters, in the middle of the salon. The people who had brought in this man had withdrawn, and Rodolph, the doctor, the Chourineur, and the assassin were left alone. Rodolph was no longer out of temper, but calm, sad, and collected; he was about to discharge a solemn, self-imposed, and important duty. The doctor was lost in meditation. The Chourineur felt an indescribable fear; he could not take his eyes off Rodolph. The Schoolmaster’s countenance was ghastly; he was in an agony of fear. The most profound silence reigned within; nothing was heard but the splash, splash of the rain without, as it fell from the roof on to the pavement. Rodolph addressed the Schoolmaster:

  “Anselm Duresnel, you have escaped from the Bagne at Rochefort, where you were condemned for life for forgery, robbery, and murder!”

  “It’s false!” said the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice, and looking about him with his restless and glaring glance.

  “You are Anselm Duresnel, and you murdered and robbed a cattle-dealer on the road to Poissy—”

  “It’s a lie!”

  “You shall confess it presently.”

  The scoundrel looked at Rodolph with an air of astonishment.

  “This very night you came here to rob, and you have stabbed the master of this house—”

  “It was you who suggested this robbery!” assuming an air of assurance. “I was attacked, and I defended myself.”

  “The man you stabbed did not attack you, — he was unarmed. True, I did suggest this robbery to you, — I’ll tell you why. Last night only, after having robbed a man and woman in the Cité, you offered to kill me for a thousand francs—”

  “I heard him,” said the Chourineur.

  The Schoolmaster darted at him a glance of deadliest hate.

  Rodolph continued:

  “You see there was no occasion to tempt you to do mischief.”

  “You are not my judge, and I will not answer you another question.”

  “Rodolph Addressed the Schoolmaster”

  Etching by Mercier, after the drawing by Frank T. Merrill

  “I’ll tell you why I proposed this robbery to you. I knew you were a runaway convict, — you know the parents of the unfortunate girl, all whose misfortunes have been caused by your miserable accomplice, the Chouette. I wished to draw you here by the temptation of a robbery, because this was the only temptation that could avail with you. Once in my power, I leave you the choice of being handed over to the hands of justice, which will make you pay with your head the assassination of the cattle-dealer—”

  “It is false! I did not commit that crime.”

  “Or of being conducted out of France, under my direction, to a place of perpetual confinement, where your lot will be less painful than at the Bagne; but I will only allow you this relaxation of punishment on condition that you give me the information which I desire to acquire. Condemned for life, you have broken away from your confinement, and by seizing upon you and placing you hereafter beyond the possibility of doing injury, I serve society; and from your confession I may, perhaps, find the means of restoring to her family a poor creature much more unfortunate than guilty. This was my first intention, — it was not legal; but your escape and your fresh crimes forbid any such course on my part now, and place you beyond all law. Yesterday, by a remarkable revelation, I discovered that you are Anselm Duresnel—”

  “It’s false! I am not called Duresnel.”

  Rodolph took from the table the chain of the Chouette, and pointing to the little Saint Esprit of lapis lazuli said, in a threatening voice:

  “Sacrilege! You have prostituted to an infamous wretch this holy relic, — thrice holy, for your infant boy had this pious gift from his mother and grandmother!”

  The Schoolmaster, dumfounded at this discovery, lowered his head and made no response.

  “You carried off your child from his mother fifteen years ago, and you alone possess the secret of his existence. I had in this an additional motive for laying hands on you when I had detected who you were. I seek no revenge for what you have done to me personally, but to-night you have again shed blood without provocation. The man you have assassinated came to you in full confidence, not suspecting your sanguinary purpose. He asked you what you wanted: ‘Your money or your life!’ and you stabbed him with your poniard.”

  “So M. Murphy
said when I first came to his aid,” said the doctor.

  “It’s false! He lied!”

  “Murphy never lies,” said Rodolph, calmly. “Your crimes demand a striking reparation. You came into this garden forcibly; you stabbed a man that you might rob him; you have committed another murder; you ought to die on this spot; but pity, respect for your wife and son, they shall save you from the shame of a scaffold. It will be said that you were killed in a brawl with weapons in your hand. Prepare, the means for your punishment are at hand.”

  Rodolph’s countenance was implacable. The Schoolmaster had remarked in the next room two men, armed with carbines. His name was known; he thought they were going to make away with him and bury in the shade his later crimes, and thus spare his family the new opprobrium. Like his fellows, this wretch was as cowardly as he was ferocious. Thinking his hour was come, he trembled, and cried “Mercy!”

  “No mercy for you,” said Rodolph. “If your brains are not blown out here, the scaffold awaits you—”

  “I prefer the scaffold, — I shall live, at least, two or three months longer. Why, why should I be punished at once? Mercy! mercy!”

  “But your wife — your son — they bear your name—”

  “My name is dishonoured already. If only for eight days, let me live! in mercy do!”

  “Not even that contempt of life which is sometimes displayed by the greatest criminals!” said Rodolph, with disgust.

  “Besides, the law forbids any one to take justice into their own hands,” said the Schoolmaster, with assurance.

  “The law! the law!” exclaimed Rodolph. “Do you dare to invoke the law? you, who have always lived in open revolt and constant enmity against society?”

  The ruffian bowed his head and made no answer; then added, in a more humble tone:

  “At least, for pity’s sake, spare my life!”

  “Will you tell me where your son is?”

  “Yes, yes, I will tell you all I know.”

  “Will you tell me who are the parents of the young girl whose childhood the Chouette made one scene of torture?”

  “In my pocketbook there are papers which will put you on the track of the persons who gave her to the Chouette.”

  “Where is your son?”

  “Will you let me live?”

  “First make a full confession.”

  “And then, when I have told you all—” said the Schoolmaster with hesitation.

  “You have killed him!”

  “No, no! I have confided him to one of my accomplices, who, when I was apprehended, effected his escape.”

  “What did he do with him?”

  “He brought him up, and gave him an education which fitted him to enter into a banking-house at Nantes, so that we might get information, manage an introduction to the banker, and so facilitate our plans. Although at Rochefort, and preparing for my escape, I arranged this plan and corresponded in cipher with my friend—”

  “Oh, mon Dieu! his child! his son! This man appals me!” cried Rodolph, with horror, and hiding his head between his hands.

  “But it was only of forgery that we thought,” exclaimed the scoundrel; “and when my son was informed what was expected of him, he was indignant, told all to his employer, and quitted Nantes. You will find in my pocketbook notes of all the steps taken to discover his traces. The last place we ascertained he had lived in was the Rue du Temple, where he was known under the name of François Germain; the exact address is also in my pocketbook. You see I do not wish to conceal anything, — I have told you everything I know. Now keep your promise. I only ask you to have me taken into custody for this night’s robbery.”

  “And the cattle-merchant at Poissy?”

  “That affair can never be brought to light, — there are no proofs. I own it to you, in proof of the sincerity with which I am speaking, but before any other person I should deny all knowledge of the business.”

  “You confess it, then, do you?”

  “I was destitute, without the smallest means of living, — the Chouette instigated me to do it; but now I sincerely repent ever having listened to her. I do, indeed. Ah! would you but generously save me from the hands of justice, I would promise you most solemnly to forsake all such evil practices for the future.”

  “Be satisfied, your life shall be spared; neither will I deliver you into the hands of the law.”

  “Do you, then, pardon me?” exclaimed the Schoolmaster, as though doubting what he heard. “Can it be? Can you be so generous as to forgive?”

  “I both judge you and award your sentence,” cried Rodolph, in a solemn tone. “I will not surrender you to the power of the laws, because they would condemn you to the galleys or the scaffold; and that must not be. No, for many reasons. The galleys would but open a fresh field for the development of your brutal strength and villainy, which would soon be exercised in endeavouring to obtain domination over the guilty or unfortunate beings you would be associated with, to render yourself a fresh object of horror or of dread; for even crime has its ambition, and yours has long consisted in a preëminence in vicious deeds and monstrous vices, while your iron frame would alike defy the labours of the oar or the chastisement of those set over you. And the strongest chains may be broken, the thickest wall pierced through, — steep ramparts have been scaled before now, — and you might one day burst your yoke and be again let loose upon society, like an infuriated beast, marking your passage with murder and destruction; for none would be safe from your Herculean strength, or from the sharpness of your knife; therefore such consequences must be avoided. But since the galleys might fail to stop your infamous career, how is society to be preserved from your brutal violence? The scaffold comes next in consideration—”

  “It is my life, then, you seek!” cried the ruffian. “My life! Oh, spare it!”

  “Peace, coward! Hope not that I mean so speedy a termination to your just punishment. No; your eager craving after a wretched existence would prevent you from suffering the agony of anticipated death, and, far from dwelling upon the scaffold and the block, your guilty soul would be filled with schemes of escape and hopes of pardon; neither would you believe you were truly doomed to die till in the very grasp of the executioner; and even in that terrible moment it is probable that, brutalised by terror, you would be a mere mass of human flesh, offered up by justice as an expiatory offering to the manes of your victims. That mode of settling your long and heavy accounts will not half pay the debt. No; poor, wretched, trembling craven! we must devise a more terrific method of atonement for you. At the scaffold, I repeat, you would cling to hope while one breath remained within you; wretch that you are, you would dare to hope! you, who have denied all hope and mercy to so many unhappy beings! No, no! unless you repent, and that with all your heart, for the misdeeds of your infamous life, I would (in this world, at least) shut out from you the faintest glimmer of hope—”

  “What man is this? What have I ever done to injure him? — whence comes he thus to torture me? — where am I?” asked the Schoolmaster, in almost incoherent tones, and nearly frantic with terror.

  Rodolph continued:

  “If even you could meet death with a man’s courage, I would not have you ascend the scaffold; for you it would be merely the arena in which, like many others, you would make a disgusting display of hardened ferocity; or, dying as you have lived, exhale your last sigh with an impious scoff or profane blasphemy. That must not be permitted. It is a bad example to set before a gazing crowd the spectacle of a condemned being making sport of the instrument of death, swaggering before the executioner, and yielding with an obscene jest the divine spark infused into man by the breath of a creating God. To punish the body is easily done; to save the soul is the great thing to be laboured for and desired. ‘All sin may be forgiven,’ said our blessed Saviour, but from the tribunal to the scaffold the passage is too short, — time and opportunity are required to repent and make atonement; this leisure you shall have. May God grant that you turn it to the right
purpose!”