by Robert Merle
I ran to the window. He was right: some on horseback, some on mules, the Présidial judges and the canons, who had condemned Cabassus to be defrocked, surrounded the pyre, their faces grave and formal. Some were chatting quietly among themselves and seemed very impatient to get the thing over with. Behind them, forming a kind of rampart to keep the crowds away from the judges and the stake, Cossolat had drawn up a circle of two rows of archers.
The captain was spurring his horse to the right and to the left, his hawk’s eyes ceaselessly surveying his surroundings and even the windows of the houses that gave onto the square, which were full of people of both sexes, including some pregnant women and mothers nursing their babies, who were laughing, joking and chattering as if they were going to watch some farce or magic show. The crowd on the square, as best I could judge (for Fogacer, was holding my arms to prevent me from opening the curtains wider) was immense, and I could tell that Cabassus had appeared when a howl went up so loud, strident and savage that it made my blood curdle and I was unable for a moment to make out the words that were shouted with such hatred by thousands of mouths, “Burn, atheist! Burn!”
“Ah,” observed Fogacer, as he paled and grabbed my hand, “who said that man is a wolf to his own kind! That’s a bad saying: it vilifies the wolf!”
“I can’t watch any more,” said Maître Sanche, his voice trembling, “I’m going back to my laboratory.” And he quickly left us.
Cabassus, flanked by two archers, had neither hands tied nor legs hobbled, but still walked with great difficulty and as though he were staggering, as much because he had not yet recovered from the torture he’d suffered as because someone had tied a huge bundle of hay on his back, which interfered with his steps and was, I suppose, a symbol of the fate that awaited him. The crowd certainly understood its meaning and hurled insults and jokes at him, crying, “Strike the flint, villain, and roast!” But this scene did not suit the canons, perhaps because this burden reminded one, as derisory as it was, of the cross that Christ had had to bear at Golgotha. Eventually, after having argued about it among themselves, the oldest among them, standing up in his stirrups, shouted to Vignogoule to remove the bundle of hay. Which the executioner did, to the great annoyance and displeasure of the crowd, who, not daring to hoot at the clergy, began spitting at him.
At this moment, the rain, which had let up at the arrival of the archers, started in again, not in sheets but in tiny drops that fell like a curtain out of the sky, which was very dark all the way to the horizon with livid openings in the clouds. The soldiers who had escorted Cabassus having withdrawn, the abbot stood alone at the foot of the pyre, clothed in the ragged old doublet that he had donned when he was defrocked. He no longer rolled his eyes, but was very calm and seemed as resolved as on the day of his degradation.
One of the Présidial judges rode up to Cabassus on his horse, unrolled a scroll that he was holding, and read his sentence in Latin, in French and in Provençal. This done, he asked Cabassus if he had any final words, and Cabassus said in a clear voice:
“I’m dying as a witness to truth.”
“This is not a time to argue your case,” said the judge, frowning, and turning to Vignogoule he cried in a loud voice: “Villain, do your duty.”
At this command, the crowed applauded enthusiastically, stamping their feet with impatience, happy that this spectacle they’d been awaiting in the rain and cold was finally beginning. On the faces I could see in the windows around the square, I perceived only pleasure and relief, as if it were a feast-day bonfire and everyone were going to dance and play around it. You might have said that Cabassus, being an atheist, was a different species entirely from the human, and that it had become as legitimate and pleasant to burn him in the middle of all this wood as it would have been if he’d been one of the insects unlucky enough to have made their nests in those logs.
Vignogoule, hearing the judge, quietly stepped up to Cabassus, and, placing his hands on his shoulders, and in a gesture that seemed more affectionate than brutal, whispered something in his ear, and Cabassus, nodding in assent, sat down on a log, took off his shoes, and next removed his breeches and his doublet, which he then folded with care and laid on a log next to him as if he intended to put them back on after he’d been burnt. This done, standing there on the wet pavement, barefoot and in his shirtsleeves, he waited, his hair matted by the rain, which trickled down his face, without a single muscle moving, other than an occasional shiver. Some of the rogues, seeing this shiver, yelled that he would warm up soon enough. But this joke didn’t provoke much laughter since everyone’s attention was now fixed on Vignogoule.
The executioner—the same one who would have cut my head off if the Présidial court had condemned me—was a mountain of a man, at least six feet tall, large and fat in all parts of his body, from his rump to his belly and from his belly to his breasts, which fell onto his torso like those of a woman; his face was fleshy as well, his eyes pale and watery, his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes not so much blonde as absent of any colour. Although of prodigious strength, he moved with extreme sloth, his head bobbing, his stomach shaking over his belt, his large backside swaying in his breeches, placing his feet one before the other as quietly as a cat’s paw; but this paw was monstrous, like his hands, so big and strong that they could strangle the most robust man in the blink of an eye as easily as if he’d been a pigeon.
In his ordinary behaviour, Vignogoule, it seemed, wouldn’t have killed a fly or a mosquito, for from this enormous hulk there issued a very soft voice. His gestures were round and caressing, his expression suave, benign and fawning. But having a heart devoid of any humanity—on the contrary, he had an unimaginable delight in the suffering of others—whenever he got the chance to torture some poor devil, or strangle him, or decapitate, hang or burn him, his eyes, glued to his victim, suddenly glowed with pleasure, his pupils dilated and, opening wide his great maw, his breath would become as hoarse and noisy as if he were mounting a wench.
As much as they loved these spectacles that he provided them, the crowd hated, despised and rejected Vignogoule, doubtless because his cruelty presented a mirror of their own bloodthirstiness and enlarged it. As soon as Cabassus was undressed and in his shirtsleeves, Vignogoule, who towered head and shoulders over his meagre, frail little body, began panting like the bellows in a forge, his huge hands trembling to their fingertips, and his eyes turned up as if in a fit. And even though the populace held its collective breath to watch him, they were unable to bear this odious delight and, bursting out suddenly with hateful imprecations, shouted, “Burn yourself, Vignogoule, burn yourself!”
At this the judge signalled a drum roll, and when silence had returned on the square, he turned to Vignogoule and said with extreme disgust, “Do your duty, villain, and no more delay.”
Vignogoule, still panting and rolling his eyes, stepped up to Cabassus and, giving him a gentle push—almost a caress—he showed him the pyre, but said not a word, unable to speak, no doubt, through his laboured breathing. At this, Cabassus started joyfully up the steps that had been fashioned from some of the logs, and sat down at the foot of the stake, his legs folded in front of him—no doubt as he had been instructed by his executioner. In this position, he waited with marvellous patience, his face totally calm, not batting an eyelid, though still shivering occasionally from the cold rain.
Vignogoule, still panting, climbed up in his turn, and, tying Cabassus’s hands against his chest, attached his torso to the stake with several turns of the rope, making a knot with each loop, a practice intended, I surmised, to keep the rope in place when the flames began to attack the hemp. Next, he placed the noose that Fogacer had pointed out to me around his neck, and checked to see that the free end could move freely in the hole that had been pierced in the stake. This done, he placed on the logs, at a couple of paces from Cabassus, a copy of the abbot’s manuscript on atheism, which the judges had ordered to be burnt with the condemned man. He scrupulously avoided touching the manusc
ript with his bare hands but held it at arm’s length with a pair of long pincers, as though he were afraid being infected by it if he so much as touched it.
Vignogoule accomplished all of this at a snail’s pace, his entire body jiggling like jelly with each step, but, in his otherwise calm face, his eyes were rolling, and from his gaping mouth his breath came in loud, hoarse pants, as I have mentioned. As for Cabassus, his expression changed to one of intense sadness when he saw his Nego placed on the logs, and he moved his hands desperately in an attempt to reach it. But suddenly he ceased all movement, lowered his eyes and his lips began moving as if in prayer.
This didn’t fail to astonish and move the canons, who quickly gathered for a discussion, and the eldest rode up close to the pyre on his horse and asked Cabassus in a loud voice if God had touched his hardened heart and if he’d recovered his faith.
Cabassus shook his head, no.
“And yet, you’re praying!” said the canon.
“I’m not praying,” replied Cabassus, in a loud and clear voice, “I’m repeating to myself the reasons I have for not believing.”
“What reasons can stand up to divine revelation?” cried the canon.
At this Cabassus smiled—I repeat: he smiled—and in the silence that fell over the square, he said in a beautifully clear and distinct voice: “My reasons must necessarily prevail since you are forced to burn them!”
The canon, looking very wounded by this assertion, shouted to Vignogoule, “Carry on, villain!” and the executioner struck a flint, lit his torches and gave them to his aides, who set fire to the pyre at the front and on both sides, but not at the back, doubtless to allow the executioner a means to reach the condemned man.
Although the lowest logs burned well enough, having been protected from the rain by the higher ones, the fire seemed unable to rise much and produced much more smoke than flames. These, however, eventually came to lick the Nego and suddenly it caught fire, illuminating the visage of poor Cabassus, who turned to face the canons and cried in an extraordinarily loud voice:
“Even though I myself and my Nego will be reduced to ashes, our ashes will still cry out to you: ‘There is no God!’”
The head judge then made a gesture with the scroll he was holding, and Vignogoule, still panting, climbed up behind Cabassus and, seizing the rope that was threaded through the back of the stake, pulled it towards him, though with a weak gesture, as though regretfully.
“Thank God, he’s strangling him!” breathed Fogacer, squeezing my hand, and leaving me quite surprised that he should be invoking the Almighty—which he ordinarily never did.
And, indeed, the noose tightened on Cabassus’s neck, his head fell forward on his chest and remained inert, and the crowd, in a single shout, hooted at the executioner, as if they were unhappy that Cabassus should die by the rope and not by the flames. Their spite was of short duration, however, since the flame was now beginning to reach the place where the body was sitting, and suddenly the abbot began writhing convulsively in his bonds, and, raising his head, began to scream in unbearable pain, being attacked by the flames from beneath.
“Oh, Vignogoule!” seethed Fogacer, squeezing my hand so hard I thought it would break. “Oh, you scum! You rogue! You only half strangled him till he passed out, but not more.”
Meanwhile, Cabassus screamed to break the hardest of hearts, and all the more so since the pyre, despite being fanned from all sides by the aides with the torches, began to wane, and here and there died out, since the rain was now coming down so heavily.
“Villain!” shouted the head judge, crimson with rage and now standing up in his stirrups. “Get that fire burning or I’ll burn you!”
Hearing this, Vignogoule ran over to the pharmacy and banged on the door repeatedly, begging to be given oil and turpentine to rekindle the flames. No one answered, so Fogacer left my side to go to see what he could do; as soon as had he gone, I could see, as I leant out, that Maître Sanche had opened the door and was telling the executioner that he’d give him all the oil he had, but that it wouldn’t be enough to get the fire going again.
“Executioner!” screamed the head judge. “Get some straw!”
Meanwhile Cabassus was burning slowly, and as the small flames licked at his body, he was convulsed like a madman and emitted unbearably strident and heart-rending cries, yet no one could tell when his suffering would end, since the straw would have to be gathered outside the city and carted in, all of which would take at least an hour. And the victim’s screams ultimately so bothered the crowd that the pitiful cries eventually effected a strange revolution in their feelings, and the assembled began to pity his suffering and to grumble about the executioner and even about the judges—and all the more so since suddenly there were blinding flashes of lightning and deafening thunder claps over the city, and it seemed as if God Himself were furious that they were so botching the burning of the very person who denied His existence!
Some crazed fellow (as there seems always to be in large crowds) began prophesying and shouting over and over that Cabassus would soon be struck down by a thunderbolt by the Almighty, and this set off an astonishing flux and reflux of people, some, fearing the lightning, hastening to get as far away from the stake as possible, others hoping to get a first-hand look and surging towards it. Soon, given the clash of these two opposing forces, there were insults, fisticuffs and injuries.
These movements of the multitude began to worry the judges and the canons, who, however, were expected to remain there until the execution was fully completed, no matter how bothered they were by the thick smoke emanating from the pyre, which the wind was blowing their way, and which they couldn’t escape since the archers behind them were preventing their departure. Meanwhile, Cossolat, surrounded by a strong platoon of his archers, tried to calm the various scuffles that broke out here and there. Spurring his horse towards them, he cajoled and threatened the crowd as was his wont, but these fractious factions, terrified and maddened by Cabassus’s strident screams and by the bolts of lightning that seemed to open up livid holes in the heavens and by the interminable explosions of thunder directly overhead, refused to listen to him but instead hurled savage imprecations in his direction.
I made up my mind in the blink of an eye. I loaded an arquebus and, taking care that its barrel did not stick out from behind the curtains, aimed at Cabassus’s heart.
“By all the devils in hell!” screamed Fogacer, as he entered my room, and he rushed over and pushed the barrel aside. “What are you doing, Siorac? Are you crazy? Don’t you have enough troubles? Killing a condemned man is murder; it’s a capital crime! Are you going to offend the Présidial and risk your head again?”
“Fogacer,” I said, “you can see that all of the judges and canons are completely blinded by the smoke, that Cossolat is entirely caught up in managing the crowd, that there are thunder claps every five seconds, that my arquebus won’t be heard and that there won’t be any trace of my bullet since Cabassus will end up a pile of ashes. Fogacer, am I going to sit by while Cabassus screams in agony for another hour? I had something to do with this execution, as you very well know!”
“You had nothing to do with it!” cried Fogacer, still holding my arm lowered. “Cabassus is there because he wrote his Nego and because he sought martyrdom at all costs.”
“I furnished the occasion for his arrest.”
“The occasion but not the cause!” countered my tutor.
“Oh! Ever the logician!” I cried. “Here we are, arguing while he screams! Take your hand from my barrel, Fogacer! I’ve made up my mind!”
Fogacer looked at me for a moment in silence, then, reading in my eyes that he could not shake my resolve, let go of the weapon. I shouldered it, aimed extremely carefully, held my breath and fired. I stepped back immediately so that no smoke would be visible at the window, then, leaning my arquebus against the wall, ran to the window. Cabassus’s head hung on his chest, his body was completely still and his screams had ceased. An
d, as luck would have it, the thunder ceased, the rain stopped and a great silence fell over the whole square. The crowds of people slowed and then stopped their restless movement, and suddenly everyone was standing in silent amazement, as if nailed to the spot. The canons quickly gathered for another discussion and the eldest, raising himself in his stirrups, turned to the crowd and, in stentorian tones, announced: “The smoke from this impious scoundrel has irritated Heaven and now you see the effect of God’s wrath and of His compassion.”
The entire crowd erupted in a shout of happy relief at his explanation, which was, indeed, extremely clever, for, without saying that lightning had struck the victim, since no one had seen a flash of lightning, it suggested that God had intervened somehow to punish the atheist and, in His great mercy, to put an end to his interminable agony.
“It is finished!” continued the canon, when the crowd quieted and he could speak again. “Let us pray using the words of the Our Father!”
This done, he began chanting the dominical prayer and everyone took up the response with wonderful fervour and then each one went on his separate way without any further disturbance to the public order.
“Well, Siorac,” said Fogacer arching his satanic eyebrows, and speaking with unusual bitterness, “your lips aren’t moving. Aren’t you going to pray with these foul hypocrites who dare speak of compassion? You’re the unique and veritable author of the miracle they’re celebrating!”
“Oh, Fogacer,” I begged, “please! No joking. This whole thing was an abomination and I’ll never forget it as long as I live.” I closed the window and sat down on my stool, my head in my hands.
“However that may be,” he said, “one thing is certain: after this miracle, no one will ever be able to accuse you of having fired that shot.”