What followed next happened very fast. Fouquier summed up his accusation; the president summed up the debates; the jurors took a vote and brought back a verdict of guilty against Lorin and Geneviève. The president condemned them both to death.
Two o’clock rang out from the great clock of the Palais. The president only took as long to pronounce the death sentence as it took the clock to sound the hour. Maurice heard the two sounds jumbled together. When the double vibration of the voice and the clock’s timbre died away, his strength was gone.
The gendarmes led away Geneviève and Lorin, who had offered her his arm. They both saluted Maurice, though in their very different ways: Lorin with a smile, Geneviève, pale and faltering, with one last kiss, blown from fingers wet with tears.
She had kept alive the hope of living until the very last moment and was weeping now not for her life but for her love, which would be extinguished with that life. Maurice was half-demented and did not respond to his friends’ adieus; he rose, weak and dazed, from the seat he’d collapsed onto. His friends had disappeared.
He felt that only one thing was still alive in him: it was hate that bit into his heart like acid. Gazing around one last time he spotted Dixmer, who was shuffling out with the other spectators and had just ducked his head to pass through the low arched door into the corridor.
With the speed of a coiled spring, Maurice bounded from seat to seat to reach the door. Dixmer was already through and was disappearing down the dark corridor. Maurice followed behind him. The moment Dixmer stepped onto the flagstones of the great hall, Maurice tapped him on the shoulder.
53
THE DUEL
In those days, being tapped on the shoulder was never a laughing matter. Dixmer swung around and recognized Maurice.
“Ah, hello, citizen republican,” Dixmer said, without giving away any emotion other than by an imperceptible jolt that he immediately got under control.
“Hello, citizen coward,” replied Maurice. “You were expecting me, weren’t you?”
“Let’s say that, on the contrary, I was no longer expecting you,” said Dixmer.
“Why is that?”
“Because I was expecting you sooner.”
“I’m still here too soon for you, you murderer!” Maurice added in a voice, or rather a low rumble, that was frightening because it was the growling of the storm that had built up in his heart, and his eyes blazed lightning.
“If only looks could kill, citizen!” Dixmer scoffed. “You realize we’ll be recognized and followed.”
“Yes, and you’re terrified of being arrested, aren’t you? You’re terrified of being carted off to the scaffold where you send others? Let them arrest us, so much the better, for it seems to me a certain guilty party is missing from the nation’s jail quota today.”
“Just as one person is missing from the honor roll, isn’t that right? Since your name was struck off, I mean.”
“Right! We’ll get back to that later, I hope. Meanwhile you’ve got your revenge, miserable cur that you are—in the worst possible way, on a woman! Since you were apparently expecting to see me, I wonder why you didn’t wait for me at my place the day you stole Geneviève away from me?”
“I felt the original thief was you.”
“Please, no wit, monsieur, I’ve never known you to show any; no speeches, I know you’re bigger on action than on words. Witness the day you tried to assassinate me: that day, you showed your true colors.”
“And I’ve kicked myself more than once for not paying heed,” Dixmer replied calmly.
“Well then,” said Maurice, smacking his sword, “I’m offering you a chance to avenge yourself.”
“Tomorrow, if you like, not today.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“Or tonight.”
“Why not straightaway?”
“Because I’ll be busy until five o’clock.”
“Some other hideous scheme?” said Maurice. “Some other ambush?”
“I’d leave that alone, if I were you!” said Dixmer. “You are indeed most ungrateful. My God! For six months I let you conduct a great romance with my wife; for six months I respected your rendezvous, let your little smiles pass. Never has a man, you’d have to agree, been less of a tiger than I have.”
“What you mean is you thought I was useful and you used me.”
“No doubt!” Dixmer replied calmly, more and more in control of himself the more Maurice got carried away. “No doubt! Whereas you betrayed your republic and sold it to me for one look from my wife; while you were busy dishonoring yourselves, you by your treason and she by her adultery, I played the wise man and hero. I bided my time and I carried the day.”
“Vile man!” said Maurice.
“Oh! Aren’t I just! You appreciate your own conduct, I hope, monsieur. You are the vile one, surely! You are disgusting!”
“You are wrong, monsieur; what I call vile and disgusting is the conduct of a man to whom a woman’s honor had been entrusted, who had sworn to keep that honor pure and intact and who, instead of keeping his word, used her beauty as bait to hook a hungry heart. Before all else, you had the sacred duty of protecting that woman, monsieur, and instead of protecting her, you sold her.”
“I’ll tell you what I had to do, monsieur,” replied Dixmer. “I had to save my friend, who supported a sacred cause with me. Just as I sacrificed my property to that cause, so I sacrificed my honor. As for me, I completely forgot about myself. I thought of myself only at the very last. Now my friend is no more: my friend was stabbed to death; now my Queen is no more: my Queen died at the guillotine; now, well, now I’m finally thinking of my revenge.”
“Why don’t you say murder.”
“You don’t murder an adulteress: in striking her dead you merely punish her.”
“You forced her into adultery; it was therefore legitimate.”
“You think so?” said Dixmer with a dark smile. “Ask her remorse if she thinks she acted legitimately.”
“The man who punishes strikes in broad daylight; you, you aren’t punishing her—you’re throwing her head to the guillotine while cowering in the dark.”
“You think I’m hiding myself! And how do you figure that, dimwit that you are?” Dixmer asked. “Am I hiding by turning up at her condemnation? Am I running away by going as far as the Hall of the Dead to toss her a last good-bye?”
“So you intend to see her again?” cried Maurice. “You are going to say good-bye to her?”
“Really!” said Dixmer, shrugging his shoulders. “You don’t know the first thing about revenge, do you, citizen Maurice? In my place, I suppose you’d be happy just to let things take their course, let circumstances dictate the outcome? For example, the woman in adultery having deserved death, the moment I punish her with death I’ve evened the score with her, or rather, she’s even with me? No, citizen Maurice, I’ve come up with something better than that: I’ve found a way of paying back that woman for all the wrong she’s done me. She loves you—so she’s going to die far away from you; she hates me, so she’s going to see me again before she dies!”
Taking a wallet out of his pocket, he went on, “You see this wallet? It contains a pass signed by the Palais registrar. With this pass, I can get to where they keep the condemned locked up. Well, I shall go in and find Geneviève; I’ll call her an adulteress; I’ll see her hair fall under the hands of the executioner and, while her hair is falling, she’ll hear my voice repeating over and over: Adulteress! I’ll go with her by the side of the cart, and when she steps onto the scaffold the last word she’ll hear will be the word adulteress.”
“Watch out, Dixmer! She won’t have the strength to bear so much vileness: she will denounce you.”
“No!” said Dixmer. “She hates me too much for that. If she was going to denounce me she’d have done it when your friend whispered to her to do it: since she didn’t denounce me to save her life, she won’t denounce me in order to die with me. For she knows full well that if she
denounced me, I’d slow her demise by a day; she knows very well that if she denounced me, I’d go with her, not only to the bottom of the Palais steps but right up to the scaffold; she knows very well that instead of abandoning her, I’d hop up with her onto the cart; she knows very well that, all the way along, I’d repeat that terrible word to her: adulteress; and that on the scaffold I’d go on repeating it, that the moment she drops into eternity the accusation will go with her.”
Dixmer was frightening in his rage and his hate. He had grabbed Maurice’s hand in his and shook it with a force the young man had never once come across before. It had a sobering effect on Maurice: the more wildly excited Dixmer became, the calmer Maurice felt.
“Listen,” said the young man. “There’s one thing lacking in your revenge.”
“What?”
“It is being able to say to her: ‘While I was leaving the Tribunal, I saw your lover and I killed him.’ ”
“On the contrary, I’d prefer to tell her that you’re alive and kicking and that for the rest of your life you will suffer from the sight of her death.”
“And yet you will kill me,” said Maurice, looking around to check whether he was master of the situation. “Or I will kill you.”
Feeling the white heat of his emotion, exalted by fury, his strength doubled by the self-control he’d imposed on himself in order to hear Dixmer’s terrible scheme to the end, Maurice seized Dixmer’s throat and yanked him toward him, walking backward all the while toward a set of stairs that led to the banks of the Seine.
At the touch of Maurice’s hand, Dixmer too felt all the hate rise up like lava.
“Right!” he said. “You don’t need to drag me by force. I’m coming.”
“Come then, you are armed.”
I’ll follow you.”
“No, you go first. But I warn you, the faintest hint of movement and I’ll split your head in two with my sword.”
“Oh! You know very well you don’t frighten me,” said Dixmer with that smile that the ghastly pallor of his lips made so alarming.
“My sword doesn’t frighten you, no,” muttered Maurice, “but losing your revenge does. And yet, now that we are face-to-face, you can kiss revenge good-bye.”
They had actually reached the water’s edge, and if they could still be seen where they were, no one could arrive in time to prevent the duel from taking place. Besides, an equal rage devoured both men.
While they spoke they had descended the small set of steps that lead down from the square in front of the Palais. The quay was virtually deserted at this hour, for it was just past two and, as the condemnations continued, the crowd was still packing the courtroom, corridors, and courtyards of the Palais.
Dixmer seemed as thirsty for Maurice’s blood as Maurice was for his. They dived under one of the arches that lead from the prison cells of the Conciergerie to the river, today putrid sewers, but once full of blood and used for carrying more than one corpse far away from the black holes of the dungeons. Maurice stood between Dixmer and the water.
“I really do think it is I who will kill you, Maurice,” said Dixmer. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“And I,” said Maurice, taking his sword in hand and carefully cutting off any retreat, “on the contrary, Dixmer, think that it is I who will kill you and, having killed you, will remove from your wallet that pass from the Palais registrar. Oh! Never mind about buttoning up your coat; I can tell you now my sword would tear it open even if you were wearing an antique bronze breastplate.”
“You intend to take the pass?” said Dixmer.
“Yes!” said Maurice. “I’m the one who’ll get to use it, your little pass; I’m the one who’ll get to flash the pass and go in to Geneviève; I’m the one who’ll sit next to her on the cart; I’m the one who’ll murmur in her ear for the time remaining to her to live: I love you. And when her head falls: I loved you.”
Dixmer made a move with his left hand to transfer the pass from his right and throw it with the wallet into the river. But, quick as a flash of lightning, slicing like an ax, Maurice’s saber came down and severed that hand entirely from the wrist.
The mutilated man gave out a cry, shaking his bleeding stump and moved into the en garde position as a terrible battle began under the arches in this dark and hidden recess of the Seine. Confined to such a narrow space that blows could not be aimed freely from off the line of the body, so to speak, the two men slipped on the wet stones and clung with difficulty to the sewer walls. Every slip only enraged both men further, and they threw themselves all the more frenziedly into the fray.
Dixmer felt his blood run out of him and knew his strength would flow out with it. He charged at Maurice with such violence that Maurice was forced to take a step back. As he broke away, his left foot slipped and the point of his enemy’s sword grazed his chest. But with a movement as speedy as thought, on his knees though he was, he flipped the blade back up with his left hand and held the point at Dixmer, who surged forward, airborne with anger, on sloping ground, fell on his sword, and impaled himself.
A terrible curse was heard, then the two bodies rolled together out from under the vault.
Only one man got up again and that man was Maurice, Maurice covered in blood, but the blood was the blood of his enemy. He plucked his sword from the body and, as he did so, he seemed to suck out the rest of the life that still quivered through Dixmer’s limbs in a nervous tremor.
When he had thoroughly assured himself that Dixmer was dead, he leaned over the body, opened the dead man’s coat, took the wallet out, and dashed off.
Giving himself a rapid glance, he could see that he wouldn’t go four steps in the street without being arrested, for he was covered in blood. He went and crouched down at the water’s edge and washed his hands and clothes. Then he bounded back up the stairs, casting one last look behind him. A steaming red thread was coming out from under the arches and streaming toward the river.
When Maurice had almost reached the Palais, he opened the wallet and found the pass signed by the Palais registrar.
“Justice exists! Thank you, God!” he murmured.
And on that note he swiftly mounted the steps that lead to the Hall of the Dead as the clock struck three.
54
THE HALL OF THE DEAD
You will recall that the Palais registrar had opened his registers of nuts and bolts for Dixmer and enjoyed relations with him that the presence of Madame Dixmer did nothing to sour.
This man, as you may well imagine, was frightened out of his wits when the revelations about Dixmer’s plot got out. Indeed, for him, the issue was no less grave than whether he looked to others like he might be one of Dixmer’s phony colleague accomplices—thereby being condemned to death as surely as Geneviève.
Fouquier-Tinville had summoned him to appear before him.
You can understand the pains the poor man took to establish his innocence in the eyes of the public prosecutor. He succeeded, largely thanks to Geneviève’s confession, which established the man’s ignorance of her husband’s plans—and partly thanks to Dixmer’s flight, but above all thanks to the interests of Fouquier-Tinville who wanted to keep his administration free from taint of any kind.
“Citizen,” the registrar had said, throwing himself on his knees, “forgive me, I let myself be hoodwinked.”
“Citizen,” the public prosecutor had replied, “an employee of the nation who lets himself be hoodwinked in times such as these deserves to be guillotined.”
“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?”
Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 43