Complete Works of Emile Zola (1678 page)

‘Oh! those copies,’ Marc replied, ‘are used currently in all the schools, in the secular ones as well as in those of the religious orders.’

This was confirmed by Brother Fulgence. ‘Quite so,’ said he; ‘similar ones would be found at our school, even as there must be some here.’

La Bissonnière, however, desired more precise information. ‘But do you remember having placed this one in the hands of any of your pupils?’ he asked Simon. ‘Those words “Love one another” must have struck you.’

‘That copy was never used here,’ Simon answered flatly. ‘As you point out, monsieur, I should have recollected it.’

The same question was then addressed to Brother Fulgence, who at first evinced some little hesitation. ‘I have three Brothers with me — Brothers Isidore, Lazarus, and Gorgias,’ he replied, ‘and it is difficult for me to avouch anything.’

Then, in the deep silence which was falling, he added: ‘But no, no, that copy was never used at our school, for it would have come before me.’

The magistrates did not insist on the point. For the time being they did not wish the importance which they attached to the slip to become too manifest. They expressed their surprise, however, that the missing corner of it had not been found.

‘Do not these slips sometimes bear in one corner a stamp of the school to which they belong?’ Daix inquired. Brother Fulgence had to admit that it was so, but Marc protested that he had never stamped any copy-slips used in his school.

‘Excuse me,’ declared Simon in his tranquil way, ‘I have some slips here on which a stamp would be found. But I stamp them down below — here!’

Perceiving the perplexity of the magistrates, Father Philibin, hitherto silent and attentive, indulged in a light laugh. ‘This shows,’ he said, ‘how difficult it is to arrive at the truth.... By the way, Monsieur le Procureur de la République, matters are much the same with the stain which you are now examining. One of us fancied it to be some initialling, a kind of flourish. But, for my part, I believe it to be a blot which some pupil tried to efface with his finger.’

‘Is it usual for the masters to initial the copy-slips?’ asked Daix.

‘Yes,’ Brother Fulgence acknowledged, ‘that is done at our school.’

‘Ah! no,’ cried Simon and Marc in unison, ‘we never do it in the Communal schools.’

You are mistaken,’ said Mademoiselle Rouzaire, ‘although I do not stamp my copies, I have sometimes initialled them.’

With a wave of the hand La Bissonnière stopped the discussion, for he knew by experience what a muddle is reached when one enters into secondary questions of personal habits. The copy-slip, the missing corner of it, the possible existence of a stamp and a paraph would all have to be studied in the course of the investigation. For the moment he now contented himself with asking the witnesses to relate how the crime had been discovered. Mignot had to say that the open window had attracted his attention and that he had raised an outcry on perceiving the victim’s body. Mademoiselle Rouzaire explained how she had hastened to the spot and how, on the previous evening, she had brought Zéphirin home from the Capuchin Chapel, when he had sprung into the room by the window. Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence in their turn related how chance had connected them with the tragedy, in what condition they had found the room, and in what particular spot they had discovered the paper gag, which they had merely unfolded before placing it on the table. Finally, Marc indicated a few observations which he had made on his arrival, subsequent to that of the others.

La Bissonnière thereupon turned to Simon and began to question him: ‘You have told us that you came home at twenty minutes to twelve, and that the whole house then seemed to you to be perfectly quiet. Your wife was asleep—’

At this point Daix interrupted his superior: ‘Monsieur le Procureur,’ said he, ‘is it not advisable that Madame Simon should be present? Could she not come down here a moment?’

La Bissonnière nodded assent, and Simon went to fetch his wife, who soon made her appearance.

Rachel, attired in a plain morning wrap of unbleached linen, looked so beautiful as she entered the room amidst the deep silence, that a little quiver of admiration and tender sympathy sped by. Hers was the Jewish beauty in its flower, a delightfully oval face, splendid black hair, a gilded skin, large caressing eyes, and a red mouth with speckless, dazzling teeth. And one could tell that she was all love, a trifle indolent, living in seclusion in her home, with her husband and her children, like a woman of the East in her little secret garden. Simon was about to close the door behind her, when the two children, Joseph and Sarah, four and two years old respectively, and both of them strong and flourishing, ran in, although they had been forbidden to come downstairs. And they sought refuge in the folds of their mother’s wrap, where the magistrates, by a gesture, intimated they might remain.

The gallant La Bissonnière, moved by the sight of such great beauty, imparted a flute-like accent to his voice as he asked Rachel a few questions: ‘It was twenty minutes to twelve, madame, was it not, when your husband came home?’

‘Yes, monsieur, he looked at the clock. And he was in bed and we were still chatting in an undertone and with the light out, in order that the children might not be roused, when we heard midnight strike.’

‘But before your husband’s arrival, madame, between half-past ten and half-past eleven, did you hear nothing, no footsteps nor talking, no sounds of struggling, nor stifled cries?’

‘No, absolutely nothing, monsieur. I was asleep. It was my husband’s entry into our room which awoke me. He had left me feeling poorly, and he was so pleased to find me better that he began to laugh as he kissed me, and I made him keep quiet for fear lest the others should be disturbed, so deep was the silence around us. Ah! how could we have imagined that such a frightful misfortune had fallen on the house!’

She was thoroughly upset, and tears coursed down her cheeks, while she turned towards her husband as if for consolation and support. And he, weeping now at the sight of her grief, and forgetting where he was, caught her passionately in his arms, and kissed her with infinite tenderness. The two children raised their heads anxiously. There was a moment of deep emotion and compassionate kindliness, in which all participated.

‘I was rather surprised at the time because there is no train at that hour,’ resumed Madame Simon of her own accord. ‘But when my husband was in bed he told me how it happened.’

‘Yes,’ Simon explained, ‘I could not do otherwise than attend that banquet; but when, on reaching the station at Beaumont, I saw the half-past ten o’clock train steaming away before my eyes, I felt so annoyed that I would not wait for the train at midnight, but set out on foot at once. A walk of less than four miles is nothing to speak of. The night was very beautiful, very warm.... About one o’clock, when the storm burst, I was still talking softly to my wife, telling her how I had spent my evening, for she could not get to sleep again. It was that which kept us late in bed this morning, ignorant of the dreadful blow that had fallen on us.’

Then, as Rachel began to weep again, he once more kissed her, like a lover and like a father. ‘Come, my darling, calm yourself. We loved the poor little fellow with all our hearts, and we have no cause for self-reproach in this abominable catastrophe.’

That was also the opinion of the onlookers. Darras, the mayor, professed great esteem for the zealous and honest schoolmaster Simon. Mignot and Mademoiselle Rouzaire, although by no means fond of the Jews, shared the opinion that this one at all events strove by irreproachable conduct to obtain forgiveness for his birth. Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence on their side, in presence of the general sentiment of the others, affected neutrality, remaining apart and preserving silence, while with keen eyes they scrutinised people and things. The magistrates, thrown back on the theory of some stranger who must have entered and left the boy’s room by the window, had to rest content with this first verification of the facts. Only one point as yet was clearly established, the hour of the crime, which must have been perpetrated between half-past ten and eleven o’clock. As for the crime itself it remained engulfed in darkness.

Leaving the authorities, who had certain details to settle, Marc, after embracing Simon in brotherly fashion, was desirous of going home to lunch. The scene between the husband and the wife had taught him nothing, for he well knew how tenderly they loved each other. But tears had come to his eyes, he had been deeply stirred by the sight of such dolorous affection.

Noon was about to strike at St. Martin’s Church when he again found himself on the square, which was now blocked by such an increasing crowd that it was difficult for him to open a way. As the news of the crime spread, folk arrived from all directions, pressing towards the closed window, which the two gendarmes could hardly defend; and the horribly exaggerated accounts of the affair which circulated through the crowd raised its indignation to fever heat and made it growl wrathfully. Marc had just freed himself from the throng when a priest approached him and inquired:

‘Have you come from the school, Monsieur Froment? Are all these horrible things which people are repeating true?’

The questioner was Abbé Quandieu, priest of St. Martin’s, the parish church. Forty-three years old, tall and robust, the Abbé had a gentle, kindly face, with light blue eyes, round cheeks, and a soft chin. Marc had met him at Madame Duparque’s, for he was the old lady’s confessor and friend. And though the schoolmaster was not fond of priests he felt some esteem for this one, knowing that he was tolerant and reasonable — possessed, too, of more feeling than real mental ability.

In a few words Marc recounted the facts of the case, which were already sufficiently horrid.

‘Ah, poor Monsieur Simon!’ said the priest compassionately, ‘how deeply grieved he must be, for he was very much attached to his nephew and behaved very well in regard to him! I have had proof of it.’

This spontaneous testimony pleased Marc, who remained conversing with the priest for another minute. But a Capuchin Father drew near, Father Théodose, the Superior of the little community attached to the neighbouring chapel. Superbly built, having also a handsome face with large ardent eyes, and a splendid dark beard, which rendered him quite majestic, Father Théodose was a confessor of repute, and a preacher of a mystical turn, whose glowing accents attracted all the devout women of Maillebois. Though he was covertly waging war against Abbé Quandieu, he affected in his presence the deferential manner of a younger and more humbly situated servant of Providence. He immediately gave expression to his emotion and his grief, for he had noticed the poor child, he said, at the chapel on the previous evening. So pious a child he was, a little angel with a cherub’s fair curly locks. But Marc did not tarry to listen, for the Capuchin inspired him with unconquerable distrust and antipathy. So he turned his steps homeward; but all at once he was again stopped, this time by a friendly tap on the shoulder.

‘What! Férou, are you at Maillebois?’ he exclaimed. The man whom he addressed by the name of Férou was schoolmaster at Le Moreau, a lonely hamlet, some two and a half miles from Jonville. The little place had not even a priest of its own, but was looked after, from the religious standpoint, by the Jonville priest, Abbé Cognasse. Férou there led a life of black misery with his wife and his children, three girls. He was a big loosely-built fellow of thirty, whose clothes always seemed too short for him. His dark hair bristled on his long and bony head, he had a bumpy nose, a wide mouth, and a projecting chin, and knew not what to do with his big feet and his big hands.

‘You know very well that my wife’s aunt keeps a grocery shop here,’ he answered. ‘We came over to see her. But, I say, what an abominable business this is about the poor little hunchback! Won’t it just enable those dirty priests to belabour us and say that we pervert and poison the young!’

Marc regarded Férou as a very intelligent, well-read man, whom a confined life full of privations had embittered to the point of violence and inspired with ideas of revenge. The virulence of the remark he had just made disturbed Marc, who rejoined: ‘Belabour us? I don’t see what we have to do with it.’

‘Then you are a simpleton,’ Férou retorted. ‘You don’t understand that species, but you will soon see the good Fathers and the dear Brothers, all the black gowns, hard at work. Haven’t they already allowed it to be surmised that Simon himself strangled his nephew?’

At this Marc lost his temper. Férou’s hatred of the Church led him too far.

‘You are out of your senses,’ said Marc. ‘Nobody suspects, nobody for one moment would dare to suspect, Simon. All acknowledge his integrity and kindliness. Even Abbé Quandieu told me a moment ago that he had had proof of his fatherly treatment of the poor victim.’ Férou’ s lean and lanky figure was shaken by a convulsive laugh, his hair seemed to bristle yet higher on his equine head. ‘Ah! it’ s too amusing,’ he replied. ‘So you fancy they will restrain themselves when a dirty Jew is in question? Does a dirty Jew deserve to have the truth told about him? Your friend Quandieu and all the others will say whatever may be desirable if it is necessary that the dirty Jew should be found guilty, thanks to the complicity of us others, the scamps who know neither God nor country, and who corrupt the children of France. For that is what the priests say of us — you know it well!’

Then as Marc, chilled to the heart, continued to protest, Férou resumed yet more vehemently: ‘But you know what goes on at Le Moreux! I starve there, I’m treated with contempt, pressed down even lower than the wretched road-menders. When Abbé Cognasse comes over to say Mass he ‘d spit on me if he met me. And if I don’t eat bread every day it’s simply because I refused to sing in the choir and ring the church bell! You know Abbé Cognasse yourself. You have managed to check him at Jonville, since you contrived to get the mayor over to your side; but, none the less, you are always at war; he would devour you if you only gave him the chance. A village schoolmaster indeed! Why, he ‘s everybody’s beast of burden, everybody’s lackey, a man without caste, an arrant failure; and the peasants distrust him, and the priests would like to bum him alive in order to ensure the undivided reign of the Church Catechism throughout the country!’