Conscience Part 36

He explained what Nougarde expected of her.

"Certainly," she said. "I will do all that I am advised to do for Florentin. I will go to Madame Dammauville; I will go everywhere. But will you permit me to express my astonishment that immediate profit is not made of this declaration to obtain the release of my brother?"

He repeated the reasons that Nougarede had given him for not proceeding in this manner.

"I would not say anything that resembles a reproach," said Madame Cormier, with more decision than she ordinarily put into her words; "but perhaps Monsieur Nougarde has some personal ideas in his advice. Our interest is that Florentin should return to us as quickly as possible, and that he should be spared the sufferings of a prison. But I understand that to an 'ordonnance de non-lieu', in which he does not appear, Monsieur Nougarde prefers the broad light of the court, where he could deliver a brilliant address, useful to his reputation."

"Whether or not he has made this calculation," Saniel said, "things are thus. I, also, I should have preferred the 'ordonnance de non-lieu', which has the great advantage of finis.h.i.+ng everything immediately.

Nougarede does not believe that this would be a good plan to follow, so we must follow the one that he traces out for us."

"We will follow it," Phillis said, "and I believe that it may bring about the result Monsieur Nougarede expects, as Madame Dammauville would have spoken to but few persons. When I tried to make her explain herself on this point, without asking her the question directly, she told me that she had only spoken to the concierge of the non-resemblance of the portrait to the man she saw draw the curtains, so that the concierge, who had often spoken to her of Florentin and of my efforts to save him, might warn me. I shall see, then, to-morrow, how far her story has spread, and I will go to see you about it at five o'clock, unless you prefer that I should go at once to see Monsieur Nougarede."

"Begin with me, and we will go together to see him, if there is occasion. I am going to write to him."

"If I understand Monsieur Nougarde's plan, it seems that it rests on Madame Dammauville's appearance in court. Will this appearance be possible? That is what I could not learn; only a physician could tell."

Saniel did not wish to let it appear that he understood this new challenge.

"I forgot to tell you," Phillis continued, "that the physician who attends her is Doctor Balzajette of the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le. Do you know him?"

"A prig, who conceals his ignorance under dignified manners."

No sooner had these words left his lips than he realized his error.

Madame Dammauville should have an excellent physician, one who was so high in the estimation of his 'confreres' that, if he did not cure her, it was because she was incurable.

"Then how can you hope that he will cure her in time for her to go to court?" Phillis asked.

He did not answer, and rose to go. Timidly, Madame Cormier repeated her invitation, but he did not accept it, in spite of the tender glance that Phillis gave him.

CHAPTER XXVII. A NEW PERIL

Would he be able to resist the pressure which from all sides at once pushed him toward the Rue Sainte Anne?

It seemed that nothing was easier than not to commit the folly of yielding, and yet such was the persistence of the efforts that were united against him, that he asked himself if, one day, he would not be led to obey them in spite of himself. Phillis, Nougarede, Madame Cormier. Now, whence would come a new attack?

For several months he had enjoyed a complete security, which convinced him that all danger was over forever. But all at once this danger burst forth under such conditions that he must recognize that there could never more be any security for him. To-day Madame Dammauville menaced him; tomorrow it would be some one else. Who? He did not know. Every one. And it was the anguish of his position to be condemned to live hereafter in fear, and on the defensive, without repose, without forgetfulness.

But it was not tomorrow about which he need be uneasy at this moment, it was the present hour; that is to say, Madame Dammauville.

That she should say, with so much firmness at the sight of a single portrait, that the man who drew the curtains was not Florentin, she must have an excellent memory of the eyes; at the same time a resolute mind and a decision in her ideas, which permitted her to affirm without hesitation what she believed to be true.

If they should ever meet, she would recognize him, and recognizing him, she would speak.

Would she be believed?

This was the decisive question, and from what he had heard of her, it seemed that she would be.

Denials would not suffice. He did not go to Caffie's at a quarter past five. Where was he at this moment? What witness could he call upon?

Caffie's wound was made by a hand skilled in killing, and this learned hand was his, more even than that of a murderer. Every one knew that his position at that moment was desperate, financially speaking; and, suddenly, he paid his debts. Who would believe the Monte Carlo story?

One word, one little hint, from this Madame Dammauville and he was lost, without defence, without possible struggles.

Truly, and fortunately, since she was paralyzed and confined to her bed, he ran no risk of meeting her face to face at the corner of a street, or at the house of an acquaintance, nor of hearing the cry of surprise that she would not fail to give on recognizing him. But that was not enough to make him sleep in an imprudent security on saying to himself that this meeting was improbable. It was improbable, also, to admit that some one was exactly opposite to Caffies window at the moment when he drew the curtains; more improbable yet to believe that this fact, insignificant in itself, that this vision, lasting only an instant, would be so solidly engraved in a woman's memory as to be distinctly remembered after several months, as if it dated from the previous evening; and yet, of all these improbabilities, there was formed a reality which enclosed him in such a way that at any moment it might stifle him.

Despite the importunities of Phillis, Madame Cormier, and Nougarede, and of all those which might arise, he would not be fool enough to confront the danger of a recognition in the room where this paralytic was confined--at least, that was probable, for, after what had happened, he was certain of nothing--but this recognition might take place elsewhere.

In Nougarede's plan Madame Dammauville would come to court to make her declaration; he himself was a witness; they would, therefore, at a given moment, meet each other, and it was not impossible that before the court the recognition would occur with a 'coup de theatre' very different from that arranged by Nougarede.

Without doubt there were chances that Madame Dammauville would not be able to leave her bed to go to court; but were there only one for her leaving it, he must foresee it and take precautions.

A single one offered security: to render himself unrecognizable; to cut his beard and hair; to be no more the long-haired, curled, blond-bearded man that she remembered. Had he been like every one else she would not have remarked him; or, at least, she would have confounded him with others. A man can only permit himself to be original in appearance when he is sure beforehand that he will never have anything to fear.

a.s.suredly, nothing was easier than to have his hair and beard cut; he had only to enter the first barber shop he came to; in a few minutes the change would be radical.

Among his acquaintances he need not be uneasy at the curiosity that this change might produce; more than one would not remark it, and those who would be surprised at first would soon cease to think of it, without doubt; otherwise, he had an easy answer for them; on the eve of becoming a serious personage, he abandoned the last eccentricities of the old student, and pa.s.sed the bridge without wish to return by the left bank.

But it was not only to acquaintances that he must account; there were Phillis and Nougarde. Had not the latter already remarked the resemblance between him and the description, and would it not be imprudent to lead him to ask why this resemblance suddenly disappeared?

It would be dangerous to expose himself to this question from the lawyer, but it would be much more dangerous coming from Phillis.

Nougarede would only show surprise; Phillis might ask for an explanation.

And he must reply to her so much the more clearly, because four or five times already he had almost betrayed himself as to Madame Dammauville, and if she had let his explanations or embarra.s.sment pa.s.s, his hesitations or his refusal, without questioning him frankly, certainly she was not the less astonished. Should he appear before her with short hair and no beard, it would be a new astonishment which, added to the others, would establish suspicions; and logically, by the force of things, in spite of herself, in spite of her love and her faith, she would arrive at conclusions from which she would not be able to free herself. Already, five or six months before, this question of long hair and beard had been agitated between them. As he complained one day of the bourgeois who would not come to him, she gently explained to him that to please and attract these bourgeois it was, perhaps, not quite well to astonish those whom one does not shock. That overcoats less long, hats with less brim, and hair and beard shorter; in fact, a general appearance that more nearly approached their own, would be, perhaps, more agreeable. He became angry, and replied plainly that such concessions were not in keeping with his character. How could he now abruptly make these concessions, and at a time when his success at the examinations placed him above such small compromises? He resisted when he needed help, and when a patient was an affair of life or death to him; he yielded when he had need of no one, and when he did not care for patients. The contradiction was truly too strong, and such that it could not but strike Phillis, whose attention had already had only too much to arouse it.

And yet, as dangerous as it was to come to the decision to make himself unrecognizable, it would be madness on his part to draw back; the sooner the better. His fault had been in not foreseeing, the day after Caffie's death, that circ.u.mstances might arise sooner or later which would force it upon him. At that moment it did not present the same dangers as now; but parting from the idea that he had not been seen by any one, that he could not have been seen, he had rejoiced in the security that this conviction gave him, and quietly become benumbed.

The awakening had come; with his eyes open he saw the abyss to the edge of which his stupidity had brought him.

How strong would he not be if during the last three months he had not had this long hair and beard, which was most terrible testimony against him? Instead of taking refuge in miserable makes.h.i.+fts when Phillis and Nougarede asked him to see Madame Dammauville, he would have boldly held his own, and have gone to see her as they wished. In that case he would be saved, and soon Florentin would be also.

And he believed himself intelligent! And he proudly imagined he could arrange things beforehand so well that he would never be surprised! What he should have foreseen would come to pa.s.s, nothing more; the lesson that experience taught him was hard, and this was not the first one; the evening of Caffie's death he saw very clearly that a new situation opened before him, which to the end of his life would make him the prisoner of his crime. To tell the truth, however, this impression became faint soon enough; but now it was stronger than ever, and to a certainty, never to be dismissed again.

But it was useless to look behind; it was the present and the future that he must measure with a clear and firm glance, if he did not wish to be lost.

After carefully examining and weighing the question, he decided to have his hair and beard cut. However adventurous this resolution was, however embarra.s.sing it might become in provoking curiosity and questions, it was the only way of escaping a possible recognition.

Mechanically, by habit, he bent his steps toward the Rue Neuve-des-Pet.i.ts-Champs, where his barber lived, but he had taken only a few steps when reflection caused him to stop; it would be certainly a mistake to provoke the gossip of this man who, knew him, and who, for the pleasure of talking, would tell every one in the quarter that he had just cut the hair and beard of Dr. Saniel. He returned to the boulevard, where he was not known.

But as he was about to open the door of the shop which he decided to enter, he changed his mind. He happened to find the explanation that he must give Phillis, and as he wished to avoid the surprise that she would not fail to show if she saw him suddenly without hair and beard, he would give this explanation before having them cut, in such a way that all at once and without looking for another reason, she would understand that this operation was indispensable.

And he went to dinner, furious with himself and with things, to see to what miserable expedients he was reduced.

CHAPTER XXVIII. SANIEL VISITS A BARBER