He had already more than once reached the end of the garden, that is to say the famous gate overlooking the abandoned field, from which he would always return by the same path, resuming his walk at the same pace and repeating the same gestures, when he looked up, mechanically, towards the house, where he could hear his son playing noisily. The boy had come home from boarding school to spend Sunday and Monday with his mother.
At that moment, he saw M. Noirtier at one of the open windows. The old man had had his chair brought up to that window to enjoy the last rays of the still warm sun as it came to bid farewell to the dying convolvulus flowers and the reddened leaves of the vines entwined around the balcony.
The old man’s eye was fixed as it were on a point which Villefort could only imperfectly distinguish. His look was so full of hatred and savagery, and burned with such impatience, that the crown prosecutor, accustomed to interpreting every nuance of the features that he knew so well, stepped aside from his route to see who could have attracted such a powerful look.
Under a group of lime-trees, almost entirely bare of leaves, he saw Mme de Villefort, sitting with a book in her hand and looking up from her reading at intervals to smile at her son or to throw back the rubber ball which he insisted on throwing from the drawing-room into the garden.
Villefort paled, knowing what the old man wanted.
Noirtier was still looking at the same spot, but his eyes often turned from the wife to the husband, and then Villefort himself had to suffer the onslaught of those devastating eyes which, as they switched from one object to another, also changed in meaning, though without losing any of their threatening expression.
Mme de Villefort, quite unaware of these passions beamed back and forth above her head, was at that moment holding her son’s ball and motioning him to come and fetch it with a kiss; but Edouard took a lot of persuading: a kiss from his mother probably seemed insufficient reward for the trouble he would have to take. Finally he made up his mind, jumped out of the window into a bed of asters and heliotropes and ran over to Mme de Villefort, his forehead bathed in sweat. Mme de Villefort wiped it dry, put her lips to the damp ivory and sent the child off with his ball in one hand and sweets in the other.
Villefort, drawn by an invisible magnet, like a bird fascinated by a snake, came towards the house. As he approached, Noirtier’s eyes were lowered to follow him and the fire in his pupils seemed to reach such a degree of incandescence that Villefort felt it eating into the depths of his heart. There was indeed a fearsome reproach to be read in those eyes, as well as a dreadful threat. Then Noirtier’s eyes and eyelids were raised towards heaven, as if reminding his son of a forgotten oath.
‘Very well, Monsieur!’ Villefort replied, stepping into the courtyard. ‘Very well! Be patient for one day more. I shall do as I said.’
Noirtier seemed to be calmed by these words and his eyes turned indifferently away. Villefort swiftly unbuttoned the frock-coat that was stifling him, passed a pale hand across his brow and went back into his study.
The night passed, cold and calm. Everyone went to bed and slept as usual in the house. Only Villefort (as usual) did not go to bed with the rest but worked until five in the morning, running over the last interrogations carried out the day before by the investigating magistrates, studying the evidence of witnesses and clarifying the language of his own opening speech, one of the most powerful and subtly written that he had ever made.
The first session of the assizes was to take place on the following day, Monday. Villefort saw that day dawn, sinister and sickly pale, its bluish light reflecting off the lines on the paper, written in red ink. The judge had fallen asleep for a moment while his lamp burned itself out. He was woken by its spluttering, his hands damp and ink-stained as if he had dipped them in blood.
He opened his window: a wide orange band crossed the distant horizon, cutting across the slender poplars outlined in black against the sky. In the field of alfalfa, beyond the wall by the chestnut-trees, a skylark winged its way into the heavens, followed by its clear morning song. The damp air of dawn flooded over Villefort’s head, awakening his memory.
‘Today will be the day,’ he forced himself to say. ‘Today the man who is to hold the sword of justice must strike wherever the guilty one may be.’
Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Noirtier’s window, which was at right angles to his: the window where he had seen the old man the evening before. The curtain was drawn. Yet the image of his father was so clear in his mind that he spoke to the closed window as if it had been open, and through the opening he could see the threatening old man. ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t worry.’
His head fell back on his chest and, with it bowed, he walked a few times round his study before finally throwing himself, fully dressed, on a sofa, not so much to sleep as to loosen his limbs which were stiff with tiredness and the chill of work which reached right to the marrow of the bones.
Little by little, everyone woke up. Villefort, in his study, heard the successive noises that, as it were, made up the life of the house: the doors opening and closing; the ringing of Mme de Villefort’s bell, summoning her maid; the first cries of the child, who got up merrily as one does at that age.
Villefort himself rang. His new valet came in, bringing the newspapers together with a cup of chocolate.
‘What’s that you’re bringing me?’ Villefort asked.
‘A cup of chocolate.’
‘I didn’t ask for it. Who is taking such care of me?’
‘Madame. She said that Monsieur would no doubt have to speak a good deal today in that matter of the murder and that he needed to build up his strength.’ And the valet put down the vermeil cup on the table beside the sofa – a table which, like the rest, was covered in papers. Then he went out.
Villefort looked grimly for a moment at the cup, then suddenly grabbed it and drank down the contents in a single draught. It was as though he hoped that the liquid was some deadly poison and that he was calling on death to release him from a duty that was ordering him to do something much more difficult than dying. Then he got up and walked round his study with a sort of smile which would have been terrible to see, had there been anyone to see it.
The chocolate was harmless and M. de Villefort felt no ill-effects.
When breakfast time arrived, M. de Villefort did not appear at table. The valet came back to the study. ‘Madame wishes to inform Monsieur that eleven o’clock has just struck,’ he said, ‘and that the session opens at midday.’
‘So?’ said Villefort.
‘Madame’s toilet is complete. She is quite ready and wishes to know if she will be accompanying Monsieur?’
‘Where?’
‘To the law courts.’
‘What for?’
‘Madame says that she would very much like to be present at the session.’
‘Ah!’ Villefort said, in almost terrifying tones. ‘Does she really!’
The servant shrank back and said: ‘If Monsieur would like to go out alone, I shall inform Madame.’
For a moment Villefort said nothing, but scratched his cheek – pale, in contrast to his ebony-black beard.
‘Tell Madame,’ he said finally, ‘that I should like to speak to her and that she should expect me in her rooms.’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘Then come back to shave and dress me.’
‘Immediately.’
The valet disappeared briefly, then returned to shave Villefort and solemnly dress him in black. When he had finished, he said: ‘Madame says that she will expect Monsieur as soon as he is ready.’
‘I am going.’ With his dossiers under his arm and his hat in his hand, Villefort set off towards his wife’s apartments.
At the door, he stopped for a moment and wiped away the sweat that was running down his livid white forehead. Then he pushed open the door.
Mme de Villefort was sitting on an ottoman, impatiently leafing through some newspapers and brochures that young Edouar
d was tearing in pieces even before his mother had had time to finish reading them. She was completely dressed to go out. Her hat was waiting for her on a chair and she had her gloves on.
‘Ah! Here you are, Monsieur,’ she said quite calmly, in her ordinary voice. ‘Good heavens, how pale you are! Have you been working all night again? Why didn’t you come to have luncheon with me? So, are you going to take me, or shall I go on my own with Edouard?’
As one can see, Mme de Villefort had asked one question after another, in order to get some response; but M. de Villefort remained cold and silent as a statue at every enquiry.
‘Edouard,’ he said, fixing the child with a commanding look. ‘Go and play in the drawing-room. I have something to say to your mother.’
This cold stare, resolute voice and unexpected introduction made Mme de Villefort shudder. Edouard had looked up at his mother and, when she did not confirm M. de Villefort’s orders, went back to cutting the heads off his lead soldiers.
‘Edouard!’ M. de Villefort shouted, so harshly that the child leapt up on the carpet. ‘Do you hear me? Go!’
The child, unaccustomed to such treatment, got up, ashen-faced – though it was hard to say whether from anger or fear. His father went over to him, took his arm and kissed his forehead. ‘Go on, child,’ he said. Edouard went out.
M. de Villefort walked over to the door and locked it.
‘My heavens!’ the young woman said, looking deep into her husband’s soul and starting to form a smile, which was frozen by Villefort’s impassive stare. ‘What is the matter?’
‘Madame, where do you keep the poison that you habitually use?’ the magistrate said, clearly and unambiguously, standing between his wife and the door.
Mme de Villefort felt what a lark must feel when it sees the tightening circle of the kite above its head. A harsh, broken sound, somewhere between a cry and a sigh, burst from her chest and she went as white as a sheet. ‘Monsieur,’ she said. ‘I… I don’t understand.’
She had leapt up in a paroxysm of terror and now, in a second paroxysm that seemed even stronger than the first, she collapsed back on to the cushions on the sofa.
‘I asked you,’ Villefort said in a perfectly calm voice, ‘where you keep the poison with which you killed my father-in-law, Monsieur de Saint-Méran, my mother-in-law, Barrois and my daughter, Valentine.’
‘Oh, Monsieur!’ Mme de Villefort cried, clasping her hands. ‘What are you saying?’
‘It is not your place to question me, but to reply.’
‘To the husband or the judge?’ Mme de Villefort stammered.
‘To the judge, Madame; to the judge!’
The woman’s pallor, her anguished expression and the trembling that shook her whole body were dreadful to behold.
‘Oh, Monsieur,’ she muttered. ‘Oh, Monsieur…’ Nothing more.
‘You do not answer me, Madame!’ said her terrible questioner. Then he added, with a smile that was even more terrifying than his anger: ‘It is true that you don’t deny it!’
She shrank back.
‘And you cannot deny it,’ Villefort added, stretching his hand towards her as if to seize her in the name of justice. ‘You carried out these different crimes with impudent skill, though it could only have deceived those whose affection for you predisposed them to blindness where you were concerned. After Madame de Saint-Méran’s death, I knew that there was a poisoner in my house. Monsieur d’Avrigny had warned me of it. After the death of Barrois, God forgive me, my suspicions turned towards someone, towards an angel… those suspicions which, even when no crime has been committed, are always smouldering in the depth of my heart. But after Valentine’s death, I could have no further doubt, Madame. And not only I, but others. So your crime, which is known now to two people and suspected by many, will be made public. As I said to you a moment ago, Madame, it is no longer your husband who is speaking to you, but your judge!’
The young woman hid her face in both hands. ‘Oh, Monsieur,’ she stammered, ‘I beg you, don’t be misled by appearances!’
‘Can you be a coward?’ Villefort cried, in a contemptuous voice. ‘I have indeed always noticed that poisoners are cowards. But are you a coward, who had enough frightful courage to watch two old people and a girl die in front of you, when you had killed them?
‘Can you be a coward?’ he continued, in growing excitement. ‘You, who have counted out one by one the minutes of four death agonies? You who have concocted your infernal plans and your criminal potions with such miraculous skill and precision? You who have so devised all that so well, could you have forgotten to calculate one thing: namely, where the revelation of your crimes might lead? No, that’s impossible! You must have kept some sweeter, subtler and more lethal poison to escape from your just deserts… I hope at least you have done that?’
Mme de Villefort wrung her hands and fell to her knees.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, ‘you confess. But a confession made in court, a last-minute confession, a confession when the facts can no longer be denied: such a confession does not in any way mitigate the punishment inflicted on the guilty party.’
‘Punishment!’ Mme de Villefort cried. ‘Punishment! Monsieur, this is twice that you have spoken that word, I think?’
‘Indeed so. Is it because you are four times guilty that you thought you would escape scot-free? Is it because you are the wife of him who demands punishment that you thought to evade it? Whoever she may be, the scaffold awaits the poisoner, especially, as I have just said, if she did not take care to reserve a few drops of her most lethal poison for herself.’
Mme de Villefort gave a wild cry, and hideous and uncontrollable terror swept over her ravaged features.
‘Oh, do not fear the scaffold, Madame,’ the magistrate said. ‘I do not wish to dishonour you, because that would be to dishonour myself. No, on the contrary, if you have fully understood what I said, you will realize that you cannot die on the scaffold.’
‘No, I have not understood. What do you mean?’ the unhappy woman stammered, completely aghast.
‘I mean that, by her infamy, the wife of the chief magistrate of Paris will not soil a name which has so far been without blemish, or dishonour her husband and her child.’
‘No! Oh, no!’
‘Very well, Madame. That will be a fine action on your part, and I thank you for it.’
‘Thank me? What for?’
‘For what you have just said.’
‘What I have said! My head is reeling! I don’t understand anything any more! Oh, my God! My God!’ And she looked up, her hair dishevelled, her lips foaming.
‘You have not replied, Madame, to the question which I put you on entering this room: where is the poison which you habitually use, Madame?’
Mme de Villefort raised her arms towards heaven and convulsively wrung her hands.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No! You cannot want that!’
‘What I do not want, Madame, is for you to perish on the scaffold,’ said Villefort. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘Oh, Monsieur, spare me!’
‘What I do want is for justice to be done. I have been put on earth to punish, Madame,’ he added, his eyes blazing. ‘To any other woman, even a queen, I should send the executioner. But on you I shall have mercy. To you, I shall say: is it not true, Madame, that you have kept a few drops of your gentlest, quickest and most infallible poison?’
‘Oh, forgive me, Monsieur! Let me live!’
‘She was a coward!’ said Villefort.
‘Consider that I am your wife!’
‘You are a poisoner.’
‘In heaven’s name… !’
‘No!’
‘In the name of the love you once had for me!’
‘No! No!’
‘In the name of our child! Oh, for our child’s sake, let me live!’
‘No, no, no, I tell you! One day, if I should let you live, you might kill him as you did the others.’
‘I! Kill my
son!’ the mother cried, wildly hurling herself on Villefort. ‘I, kill my Edouard! Oh, oh!’ And the sentence ended in a terrible laugh, a demonic laugh, the laugh of a madwoman, and was drowned by a bloody croak. Mme de Villefort had fallen at her husband’s feet.
Villefort went over to her. ‘Consider this, Madame,’ he said. ‘If, on my return, justice has not been done, I shall denounce you with my own lips and arrest you with my own hands.’
She listened, panting, exhausted, crushed. Only her eye still lived, smouldering with an awful fire.
‘Do you hear me?’ Villefort asked. ‘I am going there to demand the death penalty against a murderer… If I come back to find you still alive, you will sleep in the conciergerie this evening.’
Mme de Villefort gave a sigh, her nerves gave way and she fell, a broken woman, on the carpet.
The crown prosecutor seemed to feel a pang of pity. He looked at her less severely and, bending gently over her, said slowly: ‘Adieu, Madame! Adieu!’
This last farewell fell like the fatal blade on Mme de Villefort. She fainted. The crown prosecutor left the room and, after doing so, double-locked the door.
CIX
THE ASSIZES
The Benedetto Affair, as it was called in the courts and in society, had created an enormous sensation. A frequenter of the Café de Paris, the Boulevard de Gand and the Bois de Boulogne, the pseudo-Cavalcanti, while he had been in Paris and for the two or three months that his glory had lasted, had met a host of people. The newspapers had described the accused in his different incarnations, in society and in prison, so there was tremendous curiosity on the part of everyone who had personally been acquainted with Prince Andrea Cavalcanti. It was these above all who had decided to risk anything to get a glimpse of M. Benedetto, murderer of his fellow-convict, while he stood in the dock.
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