by Paul Busson
"Aglaia!” I exclaimed. It was Aglaia.
My love, escaped from the shadows, awakened from her deep slum-by the yell of infuriated brutes...
There she stood, faced on all sides by madmen and murderers, while weapons, stones and sticks were being flung at her.
She uttered a cry... Her dazzling brow was tom by a red gaping wound, her eyes opened wide... A dirty wooden shaft suddenly appeared piercing the bright brocade of her corsage... I heard silk tearing with a hiss... I heard a short cry of pain... like a bird’s!
Flames fell from above and rose from below... They enveloped me.
Suddenly I pushed through the mob, forward, flinging men aside! I broke my stick against a face, raised my fist at a roaring mouth, sobbed, screamed, trampled with my feet, and seized hold of the hilt of a sword and struck out blindly, again and again. I saw blood. I yelled louder at the sight of it than all the rest put together. My eyes were riveted to that convulsed, white body all covered with blood-red roses, fuming red rags of flesh... I saw a dark hand tearing at something long and pink, a bare black foot treading on a quivering woman’s breast!
A stunning blow came down on my head.
I fell. I tried to rise to my knees.
Diabolical faces glared over me; hideous teeth showed like fangs in a wide-open mouth.
Then before my very face, held in the hollow of a beast’s hand, there quivered a blood-red lump of flesh, glaringly red, terrible to see... a beating heart...
I fell down on my face.
The world disappeared in an unearthly noise.
Chapter Fourty Four
The prison in which I found myself as I awoke had formerly been a coal-cellar. The mean little windows had never been washed. Their bars were covered with a thick crust of dirt from the street, and the scant and livid light they allowed to filter through left the background of the cell in complete darkness.
A long time elapsed before the pain in the back of my head had quieted down sufficiently to let me look round. But again and again the pain blazed up - a reminder of the terrible blow which had been dealt me in the scuffle. I tried to clean my dress of the dirt and blood that stuck to it. I was not altogether indifferent to my appearance, for the good reason that there were ladies present. The dirty planks which strewed the room had been cleared and set along the floor for them, and those of the male prisoners who chanced to be wearing their overcoats at the moment of their arrest had stripped them off and turned them into blankets and bedding for the ladies.
“May I inquire after your name, sir?” a tall, flawlessly dressed gentleman in a scarlet coat addressed me. “that I may introduce you if you are willing.”
I named myself, and Vicomte de la Tour d’Auray formally introduced me to the other prisoners. In the most polite manner they expressed their regret that they were reduced to making my esteemed acquaintance under such painful circumstances. A very pretty lady with beauty-spots on her rosy face said it was a great misfortune that I had not come to Paris two years earlier; in the present circumstances
I was sure to receive an entirely false impression of the manners of the French.
With a bow I replied that it was of no great consequence in what conditions people met; and that even within the last few moments I had been deeply moved by their chivalrous attention, which was quite unmerited.
When I was asked about the cause of my arrest I had to give an attenuated account of the murder of the Princesse de Lamballe. The ladies at once broke into tears, and several of the men clasped their fists, expressing an ardent desire for unprecedented vengeance. The sudden death of that beautiful woman, on whose ability so many hopes were founded, was felt as a severe blow by all of them, putting an end to many secret hopes. Their wishes were now directed entirely towards a quick and bloody retaliation. But it was already decided. The heads in which such plans were being made were destined for Samson’s basket.
At first my recollection of what likeness the murdered Princess bore to the beloved feminine form that ever and again escaped from me to the world of shadows had thrown me into a terrible state of excitement; but at length it gave place to a hopeless void. Like a secret asphodel within me grew the desire to pursue the beloved apparition that had offered itself to me under so many different forms, only again to disappear into the unexplored realm that was its eternal home, leaving me desolate. I thought of my probable end without emotion.
The hands of my watch, which I found, crystal broken in my waistcoat pocket, were measuring the last hours of my life. I looked at the numbers painted on the white disk, decorated with a rose-wreath, and thought that by the time the hands went around once, perhaps twice, a short sword would go through my neck and my thinking would be ended. With unspeakable distinctness I saw my beheaded body lying in convulsions, my head leaping into the executioner’s basket, and in its place two intermittent fountains of blood. I looked dispassionately at the dreadful picture in my mind, as if it had nothing to do with me.
The efforts that the ladies were making, even here, to maintain a conversation disturbed my meditations. I was forced to answer all manner of questions about my former life, about my family, and whether I had encountered any adventures in Paris. Painful subjects about which I had long since ceased to speak were touched on by them with a graceful lightness. But ere long I saw that the women’s interest was not as intense as one might have concluded from the polite eagerness with which they asked their questions. Everything that was done and said here had in reality only one purpose - to pass away in the most agreeable and least desponding manner the gloomy and hopeless days that lay between us and our miserable end. Some of the men assumed the duties of maitres de plaisirs; at once when a thoughtful silence threatened they tried every means of dispersing it. They danced minuettes and gavottes; they practised the almost obsolete pavane; they sang cheerful melodies, played at forfeits and blind-man’s buff, or told frivolous anecdotes.
This method of spending the creeping hours appealed but little to my serious mood, but I complied with it as well as the others. Still more disagreeable to me were the lamentations of a young Count, who sighed for the times when one of his noble relatives had. just for the fun of it. brought down with a shot-gun a man who was at work on his castle tower roof. Another gentleman, who seemed to share these feudal views, lauded the glorious days when a member of his family had been granted by Louis XIII, on the occasion of a carousal, the privilege of cutting open the bodies of two peasants, to warm his feet when they became cold at a hunt.
Hearing such talk made me wonder which was the more amazing, the blindness of these men who could admit the mere possibility of such conditions, or the boundless patience of the people who had remained obedient to such masters until the last extremity, until they were robbed of their last loaf of bread. Despite my horror of the brutes in the street I fully realised that what had happened in this country, amid dreadful convulsions and according to laws that were known to God alone, had been a necessity, the unavoidable effect of the causes these thoughtless men were now regretting. For the gentlewomen in prison and for the old men (one of whom was Count Merignot, well known for his works of charity) I had nothing but the sincerest compassion. But some of the prisoners regarded all people of common birth with conceited contempt and insolent disdain; they had no use for knowledge or art, unless these appealed to their debauched and sensual tastes. Their approaching fate was hardly to be regarded as unjust. And I felt a solemn pleasure when I discovered on the wall, written in red, the words:
“Numbered, weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
In the late afternoon, when that drab room waxed dark and its outlines dim, and only a solitary candle remained burning in one of the corners, the laughter and the conversation gradually died out. A group of the prisoners talked in whispers on some topic that they were evidently concealing from the others. The miserable food brought in by two jailers was either untouched or quickly finished. Later on, many of that unhappy gathering stretched the
mselves out on the planks or the tiled floor to escape into the freedom of sleep; others sat and murmured prayers, handling the beads of their rosaries.
I was weary and my head was painful. I sat apart from the others, trying to soothe the pain by stroking the swelling with my fingers. A man emerged out of the twilight; he carried a stool and sat down on it by my side.
“May I," he said, “at the risk of disturbing your meditations, and with your permission, ask you several important questions? Much, very much, depends for me on your answers.”
The stranger moved his stool nearer, very close indeed, and began whispering excitedly.
“As far as human probability goes,” he said, “all of us here are certain to meet death within a few days. I do not see anything terrifying in the certainty that our lives, which are in any case doomed to destruction, will come to an end sooner than Nature intended. It is not this that disturbs me, sir, but the thought of what happens when the string of me which connects the brain with the furthest and smallest parts of the body is severed by the axe.”
“Any doctor will tell you,” I replied, “that what ensues is the thing we call death."
“The thing we call!” exclaimed the stranger under his breath. “But then have you not noticed that the severed head is still alive? Do you know that the eyes roll, the hair bristles up, the basket may be gnawed through? - that your head, in fact, will turn round if your name is called. If that head is asked questions, its lips form distinctly recognisable words? What? Do not tell me, worshipful sir, anything about Dr. Galvani’s frog. Here we have to do with thought, with consciousness
“The problem is eminently futile,” I said. “Even if we accept that the severed head does continue to think and try to act, this may last only a very short while. In a few minutes the lack of blood puts an end to every activity of the brain.”
The man moved with his stool still nearer to me.
“Good,” he said, in agitated undertones. “Let that be. It is of little importance, indeed. But what is death? Is it the death of the body and the deliverance of the soul? Or are body and soul so much one that either of them dies with the other? Can you give me a consoling answer?”
These last words sounded like an entreaty. There was complete silence in our prison, and I could hear nothing but the tread of the sentinel before the windows and a thin, low whistling sound - the breathing of those asleep.
“As you seem to lay importance on the opinion of a stranger,” I said, “I will answer you. Sir, I believe that by the death of the body the soul is set free and returns into the eternal life whence it came.” He shook his head violently.
“The priests of all denominations use words like yours,” he retorted. “But no one can visualise them. What do you mean by ‘returning into eternity’? Without the complex apparatus of the brain the soul is incapable of expressing itself. What becomes of it? A whirlwind, a cloud of vapour, a translucent ether? Where does it go?”
“It goes into a new receptacle.” I felt as if it was someone else speaking through me. I had never thought of this idea, but now I expressed it as confidently as if it had always been in me.
He laughed constrainedly.
“A new receptacle! That is to say, a new body! This verges on the absurd. The number of the deceased is so great that a thousandth part of them would not be able to find a new dwelling!”
But I listened to the inner voice.
“He who, after death, can preserve the consciousness of his earthly existence is born into a new human body,” I replied. “This is my belief.”
“And if so - how often do you think such a reincarnation is repeated?”
“Until the soul is purified,” I answered with emotion.
“And after that?”
“After that the soul reposes consciously in God, part of whom it becomes.”
The man struck his knee with his fist.
“The same old story! Purified! Clean!... Well, and what about hatred? The burning desire for vengeance, the wrath that outlasts death, the hope for a thousandfold retaliation?”
“All these are impurities that must fall away.” I was repeating the words of my inner voice. “In the purification of purgatory...”
“Purgatory! You speak like a Catholic priest... Where is it then, this purgatory of yours?”
“Here. Life is purgatory. Life in a human form - or-------”
“Or?”
“Or in the body of an animal,” I said, and saw through the darkness the tears falling from the hideous eyes of a parrot.
“But these are only theories. I want certainty...” he demanded obstinately.
“There is only one certainty possible, sir... the certainty of the feeling. That is to say, faith.”
“Old wives' tales, sir, old wives’ tales. I’ll tell you what there is after death. Nothing. And this is the worst of it... to be extinguished. Never to have been. It is dreadful. And I stand in no need of faith to be certain of this. I simply know it.”
“I am sorry not to be able to give you any better help,” I said, with a pang of intense compassion.
*The fault is mine,” he explained politely. “A few days ago I had a talk with the Abbé Gauthier, just before his execution. An old grey-haired man, a worthy priest. He was intent on converting a hunchback quack-doctor, who had been convicted of common crimes. He spoke of the eternal goodness of God.
But the Italian would hear nothing of it. and went on crying: ‘Niente! Finito - finito. No immortalité, O Dio. Dio! ”
“Why did he call God?” I asked.
“Just by way of habit. That excellent Abbé Gauthier said about the same things as you are saying now. I envy you and him. Good-night.”
He slipped away, carrying his stool into a dark corner. I heard him heave a deep sigh.
A bunch of keys clinked. The iron door creaked on its hinges. The sleepers groaned and turned in their sleep, muttering incoherent words.
A jailer entered, a lighted lantern in his hand. He was followed by a Commissaire wearing the three-coloured scarf. The jailer went carefully through the paper the official had handed him, and then called in a whisper:
“Citizen Dronte.”
I stood up obediently. At once I saw the Commissaire make a movement, either of violent surprise or joy. He took the lantern from the attendant, motioned him to remain standing at the door and rapidly walked to me.
“My name is Commissaire Cordeau,” he said hurriedly, and in a whisper.
It was Magister Hemmetschnur, whom I had taken with me from Krottenriede!...
“I have only a minute to stay here,” he began in a monotonous chant, the lantern clattering and trembling in his hand. “When I found your name on the list I went the round of the prisons. This is the last one. I know everything. I have sent many accursed aristocrats to Hades, but I would gladly become once more the miserable Hemmetschnur I was at Krottenriede, if by doing so I might save your noble life, which is so dear to me.
“Do not move, do not say a word. There are spies here as in every prison: I have spoken with the President of the tribunal that is going to judge you. The charge is false. It was not your intention to save the Lamballe, but as a true friend of the Republic you wanted to prevent the unsuspecting people from committing a rash act, which has now made for ever impossible the disclosure of the Princess’s dangerous plans.
“Your words will find credit. You will at once receive an important post, which will shield you henceforward. Do not shake your head. You must accept. Otherwise you are done for. If I have not made my meaning clear to you, put your hands together as if to implore. You don’t do it? So you have understood everything. Therefore a necessary comedy will now begin. Do not be afraid of me, I would be happy to kiss your hands.”
Raising his voice, he went on: “So you hesitate? You will not disclose the hiding-place of the escaped traitor? Good. To-morrow you will appear before the judges. Remember that there is an axe between the fasces of the lictors.”
; With well-feigned indignation he stamped his foot and beckoned to the jailer.
“Citizen Gaspard!” he growled, “I make you responsible for the guarding of this dangerous man.”
The jailer grinned and held up the light to my face.
“His head sits loose,” he chuckled. “I know my business, Citizen Commissaire!”
The Magister laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, and they both went out of the prison. The door shut with a groan, the key rattled.
“François!” cried out one of the sleepers. “Who is that accursed peasant there driving through the courtyard?"
All was still. The darkness descended like drops of falling pitch.
I saw before me in the dark the face of Iza Bekchi. His kind eyes were fixed on me - The scar between his eyebrows shone like sunrise.
“I will not lie,” I said to myself.
I saw nothing but dark night and stretched myself out on the scanty straw for a little rest.
Chapter Fourty Five
After the prisoners had been supplied with breakfast a Commissaire accompanied by soldiers entered the cellar and read out the names of three prisoners who were to go to trial. My own name was among them.
Of my companions one was a fine young woman, who had spent most of her time sitting alone and weeping. The ladies gave little heed to her. The other was a tall, naugnty-looking man in a dark blue coat embroidered with gold and white silk stockings. I had not caught his name when we were introduced on the previous day. I noticed him only because of the great respect shown him by the imprisoned aristocrats, and the negligent, condescending manner with which he occasionally addressed them, while he hardly paid any attention to me.
I was led from the prison between two soldiers, following the woman and the haughty man. We were taken down a filthy and narrow alley, fouled with garbage of all sorts, to an old house which had a tricolour flag over the doorway; then through a short passage into a very large room with a low ceiling, where we were ordered to wait behind a freshly-painted cupboard smelling of fresh paint.