Under Sentence of Death. Виктор Мари Гюго
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have not had time to read the morning papers; but I suppose I shall see it all in the evening. When I am much engaged, I tell our porter to keep them for me, and I read them on my return.”
“What!” exclaimed the usher; “is it possible that you have not heard the news of this morning—the news that is convulsing Paris?”
I interrupted him.
“I think that I know it.”
The usher stared at me.
“You! well, really, what do you say to it?”
“You are too curious,” replied I.
“Why so, sir?” answered the usher. “Every one has his own opinion regarding politics, and I respect you too much not to presume that you have yours. For my part I am entirely in favour of the reconstruction of the National Guard; I was the sergeant of my company, and faith, it was most pleasant–”
I interrupted him again.
“It was not that I had imagined which caused the excitement, but something else.”
“What was it then? You said you knew it.”
“I was referring to something else that Paris was thinking of to-day.”
The idiot did not yet understand me.
“Some more news! How on earth did you manage to pick them up? Can you guess what it can be, your reverence? Come, pray let me know. You cannot imagine how fond I am of a piece of news. I will repeat it to the President, it will amuse him.”
And he uttered a hundred more platitudes, turning to the priest and to myself. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well,” continued he, “what are you thinking of?”
“I was thinking,” answered I, “that I shall think no more this evening!”
“Ah! that is what is troubling you; you are cast down. Come, cheer up; Mr. Castaing talked all the way.”
Then, after a pause, he continued: “I escorted Mr. Papavoine; he wore his otter-skin cap, and smoked all the way. As to those young people from Rochelle, they talked to each other the whole time.”
“Madmen, enthusiasts,” he added, “they appeared to despise all the world; but really, my young friend, you are too sad.”
“Young!” answered I, bitterly; “I am older than you. Each quarter of an hour as it passes adds a year to my age.”
He turned round and looked at me for a few seconds with unfeigned surprise.
“You are joking—older than I am; why I might be your grandfather.”
“I was not joking,” answered I, gravely.
He opened his snuff-box.
“There, my dear sir, do not be angry, and do not bear me a grudge.”
“I shall not bear it long,” was my reply.
At this moment the snuff-box, which he had placed against the barred division, was shaken from his hand by a violent jolt of the vehicle, and fell at his feet.
“Confound the bars!” cried he. “Am I not unlucky? I have lost all my snuff!”
“I am losing more than you,” answered I, with a smile.
He endeavoured to pick up the snuff, grumbling to himself.
“Losing more than me! that is easy to say; not a grain of snuff until I get to Paris; it is awful!”
The chaplain condoled with him on his loss; and, whether it was that I was preoccupied or not, I do not know, but it seemed to me as if this consolation fitted very well with the exhortation that he had commenced to me.
Little by little the conversation between the priest and the usher increased, whilst I buried myself in my own thoughts.
As we passed the barrier, the noise of the great city seemed louder than usual.
The vehicle stopped a moment at the office of the Customs whilst the officers examined it. If it had been an ox or a sheep that was being taken to the slaughter-house a fee would have to have been paid, but man goes free.
The boulevard once passed, we plunged into those old winding streets of the Cité and the Faubourg St. Marceau, which intersect each other like the paths of an ant-hill. On the stone-paved roadway of their streets the noise of the vehicle was so deafening that it drowned all exterior sounds. When I glanced through the little window it seemed to me as if the passers-by stopped to gaze after the carriage, whilst crowds of children followed at a run. At the crossings I could see ragged men and women holding in their hands bundles of newspapers which were eagerly purchased by the crowd.
Half-past eight sounded from the palace clocks as we arrived in the courtyard of the Conciergerie. The sight of the wide staircase, the gloomy chapel, and the sinister-looking wickets froze my blood. When the carriage stopped, I thought that my heart too would stop beating.
I summoned up my courage. The door was thrown open like a flash of lightning; I leapt from my rolling dungeon, and found myself under an archway between two ranks of soldiers. A curious crowd had already collected to watch my arrival.
CHAPTER XXII
As long as I walked through the public passages of the Courts of Justice, I felt almost free and at my ease, but my courage almost failed me when a low door opened, and I was led through gloomy corridors and down secret staircases—places where only the condemned and their judges are permitted to enter.
The usher was still with me. The priest had left me promising to return in two hours, as he had some business to do.
I was led to the offices of the governor, to whom the usher handed me over. After all it was a mere exchange, for the governor begged him to wait for a few moments, as he had some game to give him which was to be taken back to the Bicêtre at once. No doubt this was the newly-condemned criminal; he who was to sleep in my cell upon the truss of straw which I had hardly used.
“Good!” answered the usher, “I will wait a moment, and we can draw up the documents for both of them at the same time.”
Whilst this was being done I was placed in a small room adjoining the director’s office, the door of which was securely fastened.
I do not know how long I had been there, or, indeed, of what I was thinking, when a violent burst of laughter close to my ear aroused me from my reverie. I started and looked up; I was not alone, there was a man with me—a man of about fifty-five years of age, of middle height, wrinkled, bent, and grey-haired, strongly built, with a sinister expression in his eyes, and a mocking smile upon his lips, dirty, ragged, and disgusting to the sight.
The door had been opened, and he had been thrust in without my having perceived it. Would death come thus to me?
This man and I gazed earnestly at each other for some moments, he continuing his sinister chuckle, which had something convulsive in it, and I half alarmed and wholly surprised.
“Who are you?” exclaimed I, at length.
“A nice question to ask,” answered he. “I am booked through.”
“What is that?” I inquired.
“It means,” cried he, with another burst of laughter, “that in six weeks the knife will chop my nut into the sack, as it will yours in about six hours. Ha, ha! you understand me now, it seems.”
He was right. I turned pale, and my hair stood on end, for here was the other condemned man of to-day, my heir at the Bicêtre.
He continued—
“Well, this is my history. I am the son of a good old prig, and it was a pity that Charlot1 strung him up by the neck: that was when the gallows was an institution. At six years of age I was an orphan, and used to pick up a few coppers in the spring by turning head over heels by the sides of the carriages. In winter I used to run about with my naked feet in the mud, blowing my fingers, all red with the cold, and showing my
The hangman.