“But a person can be stupid, citizen,” the proud registrar went on, dying to call Fouquier-Tinville monseigneur.1
“Stupid or otherwise,” said the public prosecutor, “no one should allow themselves to doze off in their love for the Republic. The geese on the Capitol2 were stupid, too, mere creatures, yet they managed to wake up in time and save Rome.”
The registrar had nothing to say to such an argument; he merely groaned and waited.
“I pardon you,” said Fouquier. “I’d even go so far as to defend you—I don’t want one of my employees suspected for a second. But just remember, at the slightest word that reaches my ears, at the slightest reminder of this business, it’s off with your head.”
There is no need to say with what enthusiasm and solicitude the registrar ran to get the newspapers, which are always keen to say what they know and sometimes what they don’t know, even if ten men’s heads were to roll as a result.
He looked everywhere for Dixmer to caution him to remain silent, but Dixmer had quite naturally moved and could not be found.
Geneviève was brought to the chair of the accused, but she had already declared during the preliminary hearing that neither she nor her husband had any accomplices. So you can imagine how he beamed his thanks at the poor woman when he saw her go by on her way to the Tribunal. But after she had gone by and he had popped back into the office for a moment to retrieve a file citizen Fouquier-Tinville had requested, he suddenly saw Dixmer coming toward him, looking cool, calm, and collected. The vision petrified him.
“Oh!” he cried as though he’d seen a ghost.
“Don’t you recognize me?” the vision asked.
“Of course I do. You are citizen Durand, or rather citizen Dixmer.”
“So I am.”
“But are you dead, citizen?”
“Not yet, as you can see.”
“I mean you’re going to be arrested.”
“Who do you think’s going to arrest me? No one knows who I am.”
“But I know who you are and I only have to say the word and you’ll be guillotined.”
“And I, I only have to say two words and you’ll be guillotined with me.”
“That’s horrible, what you’re saying!”
“No, it’s logical.”
“But what’s this about? Come on, tell me! Hurry up—the less time we spend talking together the less danger for either of us.”
“The situation is this. My wife is going to be condemned, right?”
“I’m afraid that’s right! Poor woman!”
“Well then, I want to see her one last time to say good-bye.”
“Where?”
“In the Hall of the Dead!”
“You’d dare go in there?”
“Why not?”
“Oh!” said the registrar, goose bumps sprouting at the very idea of such a thing.
“There must be a way,” Dixmer persisted.
“To get into the Hall of the Dead? Yes, no doubt.”
“How?”
“You get yourself a pass.”
“And where do you get these passes?”
The registrar went pale as a corpse and stammered:
“The passes, where do you get them—is that what you asked?”
“I’m asking where you procure them,” replied Dixmer. “I think the question is clear enough.”
“You procure them … here.”
“Oh, really! And who usually signs them?”
“The registrar.”
“But you are the registrar.”
“Yes, I know, it’s me.”
“Fancy that! What a stroke of luck!” said Dixmer, helping himself to a seat. “You will sign a pass for me.”
The registrar gave a start.
“You’re asking me for my head, citizen,” he said.
“No I’m not! I’m asking you for a pass, that’s all.”
“I’m going to have you arrested, you miserable creep!” said the registrar, gathering all his energy.
“Go ahead!” said Dixmer. “But the instant you do, I’ll denounce you as my accomplice, and instead of going into the infamous Hall all on my own, I’ll take you with me.”
The registrar went white.
“Oh, you mongrel!” he said.
“There’s no mongrel about it,” said Dixmer. “I need to speak to my wife and I’m asking you for a pass so I can reach her.”
“Come now, is it really so essential that you speak to her?”
“It would seem to be, wouldn’t it, I’m risking my neck to do it.”
The reasoning seemed plausible to the registrar; Dixmer could see that the man was rattled.
“Come on,” Dixmer said, “don’t worry, no one will be any the wiser. For Christ’s sake, there must be other cases similar to this from time to time, surely.”
“It’s rare. There’s not a lot of competition.”
“Well then, we can change that. That’s all I’m asking for—if it can be done.”
“It can be done, all right. You enter through the door of the condemned; you don’t need a pass for that. Then, when you’ve spoken to your wife, call me and I’ll escort you out.”
“Not bad!” said Dixmer. “Unfortunately, there’s a story doing the rounds.”
“What?”
“The story about a poor hunchback who took the wrong door and, thinking he was entering Archives, wound up in the room we’re talking about. But since he came in through the door of the condemned instead of through the main door, and as he didn’t have a pass that would confirm his identity once he was inside, they wouldn’t let him go. They argued that since he had come in through the door of the other condemned, he was condemned like the others. He protested in vain, cursed, yelled his head off—no one believed him, no one came to his aid, no one got him out. So, despite his protests, his curses, his shouts, the executioner first cut off his hair and then his head. Is the story true, citizen registrar? You would know better than anyone.”
“Alas! Yes. It is true!” said the registrar, shaking visibly.
“Well then, you see that with precedents like that, I’d be mad to walk into such a death trap.”
“But I’ll be there, I tell you!”
“And what if you’re called away, what if you’re busy elsewhere—or if you forget?” Dixmer ruthlessly emphasized the last word: “What if you forget that I’m there?”
“But I promise …”
“No. Besides, that would compromise you: you’d be seen talking to me, and then again, in the end, I just don’t like the idea. I’d definitely prefer a pass.”
“Can’t be done.”
“Then, my friend, I will talk, and we will go and take a little turn of the place de la Révolution together.”
In a delirious, catatonic state, the registrar signed a pass, one for “a citizen.” Dixmer threw himself upon it and rushed out to grab a seat in the courtroom, as we have seen.
You know the rest.
From that moment, to avoid any accusation of complicity, the registrar stuck close to Fouquier-Tinville, leaving the management of his office to his chief assistant.
At ten minutes past three, Maurice, armed with the pass, crossed a hedgerow of wicket clerks and gendarmes and reached the fatal door without mishaps of any kind. When we say fatal we are exaggerating a bit, for there were two doors: the main door, through which carriers of passes came and went, and the door of the condemned, through which only those people entered who would be leaving only to walk to the scaffold.
The room into which Maurice had managed to penetrate was divided into two sections. In one section sat the employees whose job it was to register the names of arrivals; in the other, furnished only with a few wooden benches, were placed both those who had just been arrested and those who had just been condemned—which amounted to the same thing.
The room was dark, lit only by the windows of a glass partition taken from the office.
A woman dressed in white reclined in a
corner, motionless and semiconscious, with her back to the wall. A man was standing before her, arms folded, shaking his head from time to time and hesitating to speak to her, for fear of bringing her back to a consciousness she seemed to have vacated.
Around these two characters you could see the condemned stirring in bewilderment, sobbing or singing patriotic hymns. Others paced the floor, taking long strides as though seeking some release in movement from the thoughts that devoured them.
This was indeed death’s antechamber, and the furnishings saw to it that it lived up to its name. You could see caskets filled with straw, half-open as though beckoning the living: these served as beds, provisional tombs.
A huge cupboard stood against the wall opposite the glass partition. One of the prisoners opened it out of curiosity and reeled back in horror. The cupboard held the bloodstained clothes of the previous day’s beheaded, and long locks of hair hung here and there: these were the executioner’s perquisites, his tips, which he sold to the relatives when not required by the authorities to burn such precious relics.
Maurice was out of breath and panting in great distress when he opened the door and took in the whole scene at a glance. He took a few steps into the room and then rushed and fell at Geneviève’s feet.
The poor woman gave out a cry that Maurice smothered on her lips. Lorin hugged his friend in his arms, weeping; those were the first tears he had shed.
What was strange was that all the unhappy people gathered together, all of whom were to die together, barely glanced at the moving tableau offered to them by these three unhappy people, their fellows. Everyone had too much on their own mind to think about what others were going through.
The three friends remained momentarily locked in an embrace that was silent, ardent, almost jubilant. Lorin was the first to pull away from his sorrowing friends.
“So you are condemned too?” he said to Maurice.
“Yes,” Maurice replied.
“Oh! How wonderful!” murmured Geneviève. The joy of people who only have an hour to live can’t even last as long as they live.
Maurice, after contemplating Geneviève with the deep and burning love he had in his heart, after thanking her for her at once extremely egotistical and extremely loving outburst, turned to Lorin.
“Now,” he said, enfolding Geneviève’s hands in his, “let’s talk.”
“Ah, yes! Let’s talk!” replied Lorin. “I mean, if we still have any time left, it’s only right. What do you want to say to me? Let’s have it.”
“You were arrested because of me, condemned because of her, having broken no laws. As Geneviève and I are paying our debt, it isn’t right that you be asked to pay as well.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lorin, you are free.”
“Free, me? You’re mad!” said Lorin.
“No, I’m not mad; I repeat, you are free: look, here’s a pass. They’ll ask you who you are. Tell them you’re employed in the registry office in the Carmes prison; you came to speak to the citizen registrar of the Palais. You asked him for a pass to see the condemned out of curiosity. You went, you saw, you’re satisfied, and now you’re leaving.”
“I hope you’re joking?”
“Not at all, my friend. Here’s the pass, for God’s sake use it. You’re not in love. You don’t need to die just to spend a few more minutes with the woman who is your heart’s desire and not to lose a second of eternity together.”
“Now listen, Maurice!” said Lorin. “If one can get out of here, which I swear I would never have thought, why not save Geneviève first? As for you, we’ll see what we can do.”
“No, no, impossible,” said Maurice with a dreadful clutch at the heart. “Look, you see, on the pass is written citizen, not citizeness; and anyway Geneviève wouldn’t want to leave me here, to live knowing I was to die.”
“Well then, if she wouldn’t want to, why would I? Do you think I have less courage than a woman, then?”
“No, my friend, I know, on the contrary, that you are the bravest of men. But nothing in the world could excuse your pigheadedness in the circumstances. Please, Lorin, profit from the moment and give us the supreme joy of knowing you’re free and happy!”
“Happy!” cried Lorin. “Are you kidding? Happy without you? … What on earth do you want me to do in this world, without you, in Paris, without my old habits? Without seeing you ever again, without annoying you ever again with my poetry? No, for pity’s sake, no!”
“Lorin, my friend!…”
“Exactly, it’s because I am your friend that I must insist: if I were a prisoner, as I am, I’d knock down walls if it meant seeing the two of you again. But to escape from here all alone, to drift about the streets weighed down with something like remorse moaning incessantly in my ears: ‘Maurice! Geneviève!,’ to wander past certain places and certain houses where I’ve seen you both and where I will see no more than your shades from now on, to finally wind up hating Paris, which I’ve always loved so much: no, thank you! I believe they were right to outlaw kings, if only because of Dagobert.”
“And what’s King Dagobert got to do with what’s happening to us?”
“What’s he got to do with it? Didn’t that frightful tyrant say to the great Eloi:3 ‘No one is such good company you can’t leave them’? Well, I’m a republican! And I say: You should never leave good company for anything, not even the guillotine. I like it here and I’m staying.”
“My poor friend! My poor friend!” said Maurice. Geneviève said nothing but she gazed at Lorin with eyes bathed in tears.
“You regret life, don’t you?” said Lorin. “
Yes, because of her!”
“Me, I don’t regret it because of anything. Not even because of the Goddess of Reason, who—I forgot to tell you—recently wronged me greatly, which won’t even mean she goes to the trouble of consoling herself like that other Artemisia, the ancient one who built her husband a mausoleum. So I’ll have got off as gay as a lark. I’ll put on a show for all the scoundrels that run after the cart; I’ll whip up a nice quatrain for monsieur Sanson and then it’ll be curtains. That is, wait a minute …”
Lorin broke off.
“Ah, that’s right, that’s right,” he said, “that’s right, I do want to get out. I knew very well I didn’t love anyone, but I forgot there’s someone I hate. What does your watch say, Maurice? The time!”
“Three-thirty.”
“I’ve got time, by jiminy! I’ve got time.”
“Of course,” cried Maurice. “There are nine accused left today, it won’t finish before five o’clock. So we have nearly two hours before us.”
“That’s all I need; give me your pass and lend me twenty sous.”4
“Oh! My God! What are you going to do?” murmured Geneviève.
Maurice shook his hand; all that mattered to him was that Lorin got out.
“I have an idea,” said Lorin.
Maurice pulled his purse out of his pocket and put it in his friend’s hand.
“And now the pass, for the love of God! I mean, for the love of the Eternal Being.”
Maurice handed him the pass. Lorin kissed Geneviève’s hand and, taking advantage of the moment when a batch of condemned were being brought to the office, leapt over the wooden benches and presented himself at the main door.
“Hey!” said a gendarme. “Here’s one trying to get away, looks like.” Lorin stood straight and presented his pass.
“Here, citizen, gendarme,” he said. “Try to be a better judge of people, next time.”
The gendarme recognized the registrar’s signature, but he belonged to that class of civil servants generally lacking in trust, and as it just so happened that the registrar was returning from the Tribunal at that very moment, shaking with a tremor that hadn’t left him since he had so recklessly risked his signature, the gendarme appealed to him.
“Citizen registrar,” he said, “here is a pass that an individual wants to use in order to leave the
Hall of the Dead. Is the pass in order?”
The registrar went white with fright and, convinced that he would see the terrible figure of Dixmer if he looked up, he snatched the pass and hastened to reply.
“Yes, yes, that’s my signature, all right.”
“Well then,” said Lorin, “since it’s your signature, hand it back.”
“Not on your life,” said the registrar, tearing the pass into a thousand pieces. “Not on your life! These sorts of passes can only be used once.”
Lorin stood for a moment, undecided.
“Ah, too bad!” he said. “The main thing is that I kill him.”
And he raced out of the registrar’s office without further ado.
Maurice had gazed after Lorin with an emotion only too easy to imagine. As soon as Lorin had disappeared he said to Geneviève, “He’s saved!” with an exaltation akin to joy. “They tore up his pass, he can’t come back. And anyway, if he were to get back in somehow, the Tribunal session is nearly over; at five o’clock he’ll come back and we’ll be dead.”
Geneviève gave a sigh and shivered.
“Oh! Hold me in your arms,” she said. “We’ll never leave each other again.… God! Why can’t we be struck with the same blow and let out our last breath together!”
They withdrew to the remotest corner of the dark room; Geneviève snuggled close to Maurice and wrapped both arms around his neck; thus entwined, breathing the same breath, silencing in themselves all noise and thought, they reached a numb out-of-body state together through force of love, at the approach of death.
Half an hour ticked away.
55
WHY LORIN LEFT
Suddenly a great commotion was heard and gendarmes rushed in from the low door, trailing Sanson and his assistants behind them, carrying bundles of ropes.
“Oh! My friend, my friend!” cried Geneviève. “The fatal moment has come, I can feel myself faltering.”
“But you are wrong to,” broke out the ringing voice of Lorin:
“You are wrong, it seems to me,
For death itself spells liberty.”
“Lorin!” wailed Maurice in despair.
“That wasn’t so good, was it? I’m with you. Since yesterday I’ve been coming up with the most pathetic lines.…”
The Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 44
