Читать книгу Truth [Vérité] - Emile Zola - Страница 8

[3] In matters of education the French territory is apportioned among a number of 'Academies,' such as those of Paris, Caen, Rennes, Bordeaux, Dijon, &c., which are each governed by Rectors, and which, combined, constitute the University of France, of which the Minister of Public Instruction for the time being is the grand-master. The Rectors communicate with him; under them, in each territorial department within their jurisdiction, they have an 'Inspecteur d'Académie,' who is provided with a general secretary, and who in turn has under him several subordinate inspectors called 'Inspecteurs de l'Instruction primaire.' There is one of these for each arrondissement into which the departments are divided.—Trans.

The young man therefore hastened his steps, desirous of paying his respects to the Inspector, but all at once an unexpected incident restrained him. A cassock had emerged from a neighbouring street, and he recognised in its wearer Father Crabot, the Rector of the Jesuit College of Valmarie. A tall, finely-built man, without a white hair at five and forty, Father Crabot had a broad and regular face, with a somewhat large nose, amiable eyes, and thick, caressing lips. The only failing with which he was reproached was a tendency to become a fashionable cleric as a result of the many aristocratic connections which he was always eager to form. But those connections simply increased the sphere of his power, and some people said, with good reason, that he was the secret master of the department, and that the victory of the Church, which was assuredly approaching, depended solely on him.

Marc felt surprised and disquieted on seeing the Jesuit at Maillebois at that hour. Had he quitted Valmarie very early in the morning then? What urgent business, what pressing visits had brought him there? Whence had he come, whither was he going, distributing bows and smiles as he passed through the streets full of the fever born by rumour and tittle-tattle? And all at once Marc saw Father Crabot stop at the sight of Mauraisin and offer the latter his hand with charming cordiality. Their conversation was not a long one; it consisted, no doubt, of the usual commonplaces, but they seemed to be on excellent terms, as if indeed they discreetly understood each other. When the Elementary Inspector quitted the Jesuit, he drew his little figure erect, evidently feeling very proud of that handshake, which had inspired him with an opinion, a resolution, which perhaps he had hitherto hesitated to form. But Father Crabot, going his way, also caught sight of Marc, and recognising him, from having seen him at Madame Duparque's, where he occasionally condescended to call, made a great show of doffing his hat by way of salutation. The young man, who stood on the kerb of the footway, was compelled to respond by a similar act of politeness, and then watched the Jesuit as the latter, filling the streets with the sweep of his cassock, betook himself through Maillebois, which felt very honoured, flattered, and subjugated by his presence.

Marc, for his part, slowly resumed his walk towards the school. The current of his thoughts had changed, he was growing gloomy again, as if he were returning to some contaminated spot where slow poison had diffused hostility. The houses did not seem to be the same as on the previous day; and, in particular, the faces of the people appeared to have changed. Thus, when he reached Simon's rooms, he was quite surprised to find his friend quietly sorting some papers in the midst of his family. Rachel was seated near the window, the two children were playing in a corner, and if it had not been for the sadness of the parents one would have thought that nothing unusual had occurred in the house.

Simon, however, stepped forward and pressed Marc's hands with keen emotion, like one who felt how friendly and bravely sympathetic was the visit. The perquisition early that morning was at once spoken of.

'Have the police been here?' Marc inquired.

'Yes, it was quite natural they should come: I expected it. Of course they found nothing, and went off with empty hands.'

Marc restrained a gesture of astonishment. What had Pélagie told him? Why had people spread rumours of crushing proofs, of the discovery among other things of copy-slips identical with the one found in the room of the crime? Were lies being told then?

'And you see,' Simon continued, 'I am setting my papers in order, for they mixed them up. What a frightful affair, my friend! We no longer know if we exist.'

Then he mentioned that the post-mortem examination of Zéphirin's remains was to take place that very day. Indeed, they were then expecting the medical officer of the Public Prosecution service. But doubtless it would only be possible to bury the body on the morrow.

'For my part,' Simon added, 'as you will well understand, I seem to be living in a nightmare. I ask myself if such a catastrophe is possible. I have been thinking of nothing else since yesterday morning; I am always beginning the same story afresh, my return on foot, so late but in great quietude, my arrival at the house which was fast asleep, and then that frightful awakening in the morning.'

These remarks gave Marc an opportunity to ask a few questions. 'Did you meet nobody on the road?' he inquired. 'Did nobody see you arrive here at the hour you named?'

'Why, no! I met nobody, and I think nobody saw me come in. At that late hour nobody is about in Maillebois.'

Silence fell. Then Marc resumed: 'But as you did not take the train back you did not use your return ticket. Have you still got it?'

'My return ticket? No! I was so furious when I saw the half-past ten o'clock train going off without me, that I threw the ticket away, in the station yard, directly I decided to return on foot.'

Silence fell again, and Simon gazed fixedly at his friend, saying: 'Why do you put these questions to me?'

Marc affectionately grasped his hands once more, and retained them for a moment in his own, whilst resolving to warn him of impending danger, indeed to tell him everything. 'I regret,' he said, 'that nobody saw you, and I regret still more that you did not keep your return ticket. There are so many fools and malicious folks about! It is being reported that this morning the police found overwhelming proofs here, copies of the writing-slip, initialled in the same way as the one which formed part of the gag. Mignot, it seems, is astonished that he should have found you so sound asleep yesterday morning; and Mademoiselle Rouzaire now remembers that about a quarter to eleven o'clock on the night of the crime, she heard voices and footsteps, as if somebody were entering the house.'

Very pale but very calm, Simon smiled and shrugged his shoulders: 'Ah! that's it, is it? They are suspecting me. Well, I now understand the expressions I have seen on the faces of the folk who have been passing the school since early this morning! Mignot, who is a good fellow at heart, will of course say as everybody else says, for fear of compromising himself with a Jew like me. As for Mademoiselle Rouzaire, she will sacrifice me ten times over, if her confessor has suggested it to her, and if she finds a chance of advancement or merely additional consideration in such a fine deed. Ah! they are suspecting me, are they? and the whole pack of clerical hounds has been let loose!'

He almost laughed as he spoke. But Rachel, whose customary indolence seemed to have been increased by her deep grief, had now suddenly risen, her beautiful countenance all aglow with dolorous revolt.

'You, you! They suspect you of such ignominy!' she exclaimed; 'you who were so kind and gentle when you came home, and clasped me in your arms, and spoke such loving words to me! They must be mad! Is it not sufficient that I should speak the truth, tell of your return, and of the night we spent together?'

Then she flung herself upon his neck, weeping and relapsing into the weakness of an adored and caressed woman. Pressing her to his heart her husband strove to reassure and calm her.

'Don't be distressed, my darling! Those stories are idiotic, they stand on nothing. I am quite at ease; the authorities may turn everything here upside down; they may search all my past life, they will find no guilt in it. I have only to speak the truth, and, do you know, nothing can stand against the truth; it is the great, the eternal victor.'

Then, turning to his friend, he added: 'Is it not so, my good Marc? is one not invincible when one has truth on one's side?'

If Marc had not been convinced already of Simon's innocence his last doubts would have fled amid the emotion of that scene. Yielding to an impulse of his heart he embraced both husband and wife, as if giving himself to them entirely, in order to help them in the grave crisis which he foresaw. Desirous as he was of taking immediate action, he again spoke of the copy-slip, for he felt that it was the one important piece of evidence on which the elucidation of the whole affair must be reared. But how puzzling was that crumpled, bitten slip of paper, soiled by saliva, with its initialling or its blot half effaced, and with one of its corners carried away, no doubt, by the victim's teeth! The very words 'Love one another,' lithographed in a fine English round-hand, seemed fraught with a terrible irony. Whence had that slip come? Who had brought it to that room—the boy or his murderer? And how could one ascertain the truth when the Mesdames Milhomme, the neighbouring stationers, sold such slips almost daily?

Simon, for his part, could only repeat that he had never had that particular one in his school. 'All my boys would say so. That copy never entered the school, never passed under their eyes.'

Marc regarded this as valuable information. 'Then they could testify to that effect!' he exclaimed. 'As it is being falsely rumoured that the police found similar copies in your rooms, one must re-establish the truth immediately—call on your pupils at their homes, and demand their evidence before anybody tries to tamper with their memory. Give me the names of a few of them; I will take the matter in hand, and carry it through this afternoon.'

Simon, strong in the consciousness of his innocence, at first refused to do so. But eventually, among his pupils' parents, he named Bongard, a farmer on the road to La Désirade, Masson Doloir, a workman living in the Rue Plaisir, and Savin, a clerk in the Rue Fauche. Those three would suffice unless Marc should also like to call on the Mesdames Milhomme. Thus everything was settled, and Marc went off to lunch, promising that he would return in the evening to acquaint Simon with the result of his inquiries.

Once outside on the square, however, he again caught sight of handsome Mauraisin. This time the Elementary Inspector was deep in conference with Mademoiselle Rouzaire. He was usually most punctilious and prudent with the schoolmistresses, in consequence of his narrow escape from trouble, a few years previously, in connection with a young assistant-teacher who had shrieked like a little booby when he had simply wished to kiss her. Malicious people said that Mademoiselle Rouzaire did not shriek, although she was so ugly, and that this explained both the favourable reports she secured and her prospects of rapid advancement.

Standing at the gate of her little garden, she was now speaking to Mauraisin with great volubility, making sweeping gestures in the direction of the boys' school; while the Inspector, wagging his head, listened to her attentively. At last they entered the garden together, gently closing the gate behind them. It was evident to Marc that the woman was telling Mauraisin about the crime and the sounds of footsteps and voices which she now declared she had heard. At the thought of this the quiver of the early morning returned to Marc; he again experienced discomfort—a discomfort arising from his hostile surroundings, from the dark, stealthy plot which was brewing, gathering like a storm, rendering the atmosphere more and more oppressive. Singular indeed was the fashion in which that Elementary Inspector went to the help of a threatened master: he began by taking the opinions of all the surrounding folk whom jealousy or hatred inspired!

At two o'clock in the afternoon Marc found himself on the road to La Désirade, just outside Maillebois. Bongard, whose name had been given him by Simon, there owned a little farm of a few fields, which he cultivated himself with difficulty, securing, as he put it, no more than was needed to provide daily bread. Marc luckily met him just as he had returned home with a cartload of hay. He was a strong, square-shouldered, and stoutish man, with round eyes and placid silent face, beardless but seldom fresh shaven. On her side La Bongard, a long bony blonde, who was also present, preparing some mash for her cow, showed an extremely plain countenance, outrageously freckled, with a patch of colour on each cheek-bone, and an expression of close reserve. Both looked suspiciously at the strange gentleman whom they saw entering their yard.

'I am the Jonville schoolmaster,' said Marc. 'You have a little boy who attends the Communal school at Maillebois, have you not?'

At that moment Fernand, the boy in question, who had been playing on the road, ran up. He was a sturdy lad of nine years, fashioned, one might have thought, with a billhook, and showing a low brow and a dull, heavy countenance. He was followed by his sister Angèle, a lass of seven, with a similarly massive but more knowing face, for in her quick eyes one espied some dawning intelligence which was striving to escape from its fleshy prison. She had heard Marc's question, and she cried in a shrill voice: 'I go to Mademoiselle Rouzaire's, I do; Fernand goes to Monsieur Simon's.'

Bongard had sent his children to the Communal schools, first because the teaching cost him nothing, and secondly because, as a matter of mere instinct—for he had never reasoned the question—he was not on the side of the priests. He practised no religion, and if La Bongard went to church it was simply from habit and by way of diversion. All that the husband, who was scarce able to read or write, appreciated in his wife, who was still more ignorant than himself, was her powers of endurance, which, similar to those of a beast of burden, enabled her to toil from morn till night without complaining. And the farmer showed little or no anxiety whether his children made progress at school. As a matter of fact little Fernand was industrious and took no end of pains, but could get nothing into his head; whereas little Angèle, who proved yet more painstaking and stubborn, at last seemed likely to become a passable pupil. She was like so much human matter in the rough, lately fashioned of clay, and awaking to intelligence by a slow and dolorous effort.

'I am Monsieur Simon's friend,' Marc resumed, 'and I have come on his behalf about what has happened. You have heard of the crime, have you not?'

Most certainly they had heard of it. Their anxious faces suddenly became impenetrable, in such wise that one could read on them neither feeling nor thought. Why had that stranger come to question them in this fashion? Their ideas about things concerned nobody. Besides, it was necessary to be prudent in matters in which a word too much often suffices to bring about a man's sentence.

'And so,' Marc continued, 'I should like to know if your little boy ever saw in his class a copy-slip like this.'

Marc himself on a slip of paper had written the words 'Aimez vous les uns les autres' in a fine round-hand of the proper size. Having explained matters, he showed the paper to Fernand, who looked at it in a dazed fashion, for his mind worked slowly and he did not yet understand what was asked him.

'Look well at it, my little friend,' said Marc; 'did you ever see such a copy at the school?'

But before the lad had made up his mind, Bongard, in his circumspect manner, intervened: 'The child doesn't know, how can he know?'

And La Bongard, like her husband's shadow, added: 'Why of course a child, it can never know.'

Without listening to them, however, Marc insisted, and placed the copy in the hands of Fernand, who, fearing that he might be punished, made an effort, and at last responded: 'No, monsieur, I never saw it.'

As he spoke he raised his head, and his eyes met his father's, which were fixed on him so sternly that he hastened to add, stammering as he did so: 'Unless all the same I did see it; I don't know.'

That was all that could be got out of him. When Marc pressed him, his answers became incoherent, while his parents themselves said yes or no chancewise, according to what they deemed to be their interest. It was Bongard's prudent habit to jog his head in approval of every opinion expressed by those who spoke to him, for fear of compromising himself. Yes, yes, it was a frightful crime, and if the culprit should be caught it would be quite right to cut off his head. Each man to his trade, the gendarmes knew theirs, there were rascals everywhere. As for the priests, there was some good in them, but all the same one had a right to follow one's own ideas. And at last, as Marc could learn nothing positive, he had to take himself off, watched inquisitively by the children, and pursued by the shrill voice of little Angèle, who began chattering with her brother as soon as the gentleman could no longer detect what she said.

The young man gave way to some sad reflections as he returned to Maillebois. He had just come in contact with the thick layer of human ignorance, the huge blind, deaf multitude still enwrapped in the slumber of the earth. Behind the Bongards the whole mass of country folk remained stubbornly, dimly vegetating, ever slow to awaken to a true perception of things. There was a whole nation to be educated if one desired that it should be born to truth and justice. But how colossal would be the labour! How could it be raised from the clay in which it lingered, how many generations perhaps would be needed to free the race from darkness! Even at the present time the vast majority of the social body remained in infancy, in primitive imbecility. In the case of Bongard one descended to mere brute matter, which was incapable of being just because it knew nothing and would learn nothing.

Marc turned to the left, and after crossing the High Street found himself in the poor quarter of Maillebois. Various industrial establishments there polluted the waters of the Verpille, and the sordid houses of the narrow streets were the homes of many workpeople. Doloir the mason tenanted four fairly large rooms on a first floor over a wineshop in the Rue Plaisir. Marc, imperfectly informed respecting the address, was seeking it when he came upon a party of masons who had just quitted their work to drink a glass together at the bar of the wineshop. They were discussing the crime in violent language.

'A Jew's capable of anything,' one big fair fellow exclaimed. 'There was one in my regiment who was a thief, but that did not prevent him from being a corporal, for a Jew always gets out of difficulties.'

Another mason, short and dark, shrugged his shoulders. 'I quite agree,' said he, 'that the Jews are not worth much, but all the same the priests are no better.'

'Oh! as for the priests,' the other retorted, 'some are good, some are bad. At all events the priests are Frenchmen, whereas those dirty beasts, the Jews, have sold France to the foreigners twice already.' Then, as his comrade, somewhat shaken in his views, asked him if he had read that in Le Petit Beaumontais, 'No, I didn't,' he added; 'those newspapers give me too much of a headache. But some of my mates told me, and, besides, everybody knows it well.'

The others, thereupon feeling convinced, became silent, and slowly drained their glasses. They were just quitting the wineshop when Marc, approaching, asked the tall fair one if he knew where Doloir the mason lived. The workman laughed. 'Doloir, monsieur? that's me,' he said; 'I live here; those are my three windows.'

The adventure quite enlivened this tall sturdy fellow of somewhat military bearing. As he laughed his big moustaches rose, disclosing his teeth, which looked very white in his highly coloured face, with large, good-natured blue eyes.

'You could not have asked anybody more likely to know, could you, monsieur?' he continued. 'What do you wish of me?'

Marc looked at him with a feeling of some sympathy in spite of the hateful words he had heard. Doloir, who had been for several years in the employment of Darras, the Mayor and building contractor, was a fairly good workman—one who occasionally drank a drop too much, but who took his pay home to his wife regularly. He certainly growled about the employers, referred to them as a dirty gang, and called himself a socialist, though he had only a vague idea what socialism might be. At the same time he had some esteem for Darras, who, while making a great deal of money, tried to remain a comrade with his men. But above everything else three years of barrack-life had left an ineffaceable mark on Doloir. He had quitted the army in a transport of delight at his deliverance, freely cursing the disgusting and hateful calling in which one ceased to be a man. But ever since that time he had been continually living his three years' service afresh; not a day passed but some recollection of it came to him. With his hand spoilt as it were by the rifle he had carried, he had found his trowel heavy, and had returned to work in a spiritless fashion, like one who was no longer accustomed to toil, but whose will was broken and whose body had become used to long spells of idleness, such as those which intervened between the hours of military exercise. To become once more the excellent workman that he had been previously was impossible. Besides, he was haunted by military matters, to which he was always referring apropos of any subject that presented itself. But he chattered in a confused way, he had no information, he read nothing, he knew nothing, being simply firm and stubborn on the patriotic question, which, to his mind, consisted in preventing the Jews from handing France over to the foreigners.

'You have two children at the Communal school,' Marc said to him, 'and I have come from the master, my friend Simon, for some information. But I see that you are hardly a friend of the Jews.'

Doloir still laughed. 'It's true,' said he, 'that Monsieur Simon is a Jew; but hitherto I always thought him a worthy man. What information do you want, monsieur?'

When he learnt that the question was merely one of showing his children a writing copy in order to ascertain whether they had ever used it in their class, he responded: 'Nothing can be easier, monsieur, if it will do you a service. Come upstairs with me, the children must be at home.'

The door was opened by Madame Doloir, a dark, short but robust woman, having a serious, energetic face with a low brow, frank eyes, and a square-shaped chin. Although she was barely nine and twenty she was already the mother of three children, and it was evident that she was expecting a fourth. But this did not prevent her from being always the first to rise and the last to go to bed in the home, for she was very industrious, very thrifty, always busy, scrubbing and cleaning. She had quitted her employment as a seamstress about the time of the birth of her third child, and nowadays she only attended to her home, but she did so like a woman who fully earned her bread.

'This gentleman is a friend of the schoolmaster, and wishes to speak to the children,' her husband explained to her.

Marc entered a very clean dining or living room. The little kitchen was on the left, with its door wide open. In front were the bedrooms of the parents and the children.

'Auguste! Charles!' the father called.

Auguste and Charles, one eight, the other six years old, hastened forward, followed by their little sister Lucille, who was four. They were handsome, well-fed children in whom one found the characteristics of the father and the mother combined; the younger boy appearing more intelligent than the elder one, and the little girl, a blondine with a soft laugh, already looking quite pretty.

When, Marc, however, showed the copy to the boys and questioned them, Madame Doloir, who hitherto had not spoken a word, hastily intervened: 'Excuse me, monsieur, but I do not wish my children to answer you.'

She said this very politely, without the slightest sign of temper, like a good mother, indeed, who was merely fulfilling her duty.

'But why?' Marc asked in his amazement.

'Why, because there is no need for us, monsieur, to meddle in an affair which seems likely to turn out very badly. I have had it dinned into my ears ever since yesterday morning; and I won't have anything to do with it, that's all.'

Then, as Marc insisted and began to defend Simon, she retorted: 'I say nothing against Monsieur Simon, the children have never had to complain of him. If he is accused, let him defend himself: that is his business. For my part I have always tried to prevent my husband from meddling in politics, and if he listens to me he will hold his tongue, and take up his trowel without paying any attention either to the Jews or to the priests. All this, at bottom, is politics again.'

She never went to church, although she had caused her children to be baptised and had decided to let them take their first Communion. Those, however, were things one had to do. For the rest, she simply and instinctively held conservative views, accepting things as they were, accommodating herself to her narrow life, for she was terrified by the thought of catastrophes which might diminish their daily bread. With an expression of stubborn resolve she repeated: 'I do not wish any of us to be compromised.'

Those words were decisive: Doloir himself bowed to them. Although he usually allowed his wife to lead him, he did not like her to exercise her power before others. But this time he submitted.

'I did not reflect, monsieur,' he said. 'My wife is right. It is best for poor devils like us to keep quiet. One of the men in my regiment knew all sorts of things about the Captain. Ah! they did not stand on ceremony with him. You should have seen what a number of times he was sent to the cells!'

Marc, like the husband, had to accept the position; and so, renouncing all further inquiry there, he merely said: 'It is possible that the judicial authorities may ask your boys what I desired to ask them. In that case they will have to answer.'

'Very good,' Madame Doloir answered quietly, 'if the judicial authorities question them we shall see what they ought to do. They will answer or not, it will all depend; my children are mine, and it is my business.'

Marc withdrew, escorted by Doloir, who was in a hurry to return to his work. When they reached the street, the mason almost apologised. His wife was not always easy to deal with, he remarked; but when she said the right thing, it was right and no mistake.

Such was Marc's discouragement that he now wondered whether it would be worth his while to carry the inquiry further by visiting Savin the clerk. In the Doloirs' home he had not found the same dense ignorance as at the Bongards'. The former were a step higher in the social scale, and if both husband and wife were still virtually illiterate, they at least came in contact with other classes, and knew a little of life. But how vague was still the dawn which they typified, how dim was the groping through idiotic egotism, in what disastrous errors did lack of solidarity maintain the poor folk of that class! If they were not happier it was because they were ignorant of every right condition of civic life, of the necessity that others should be happy in order that one might be happy oneself. Marc thought of that human house, the doors and windows of which people have striven to keep closed for ages, whereas they ought to be opened widely in order to allow air and warmth and light to enter in torrents freely.

While he was thus reflecting, he turned the corner of the Rue Plaisir, and reached the Rue Fauche, where the Savins dwelt. He thereupon felt ashamed of his discouragement, so he climbed the stairs to their flat, and speedily found himself in the presence of Madame Savin, who had hastened to answer his ring.

'My husband, monsieur? Yes, as it happens, he is at home, for he was rather feverish this morning and could not go to his office. Please follow me.'

She was charming was Madame Savin, dark, refined and gay, with a pretty laugh, and so young-looking also, though her twenty-eighth year was already past, that she seemed to be the elder sister of her four children. The firstborn was a girl, Hortense; followed by twin boys, Achille and Philippe, and then by another boy, Jules, whom the young mother was still nursing. It was said that her husband was terribly jealous, that he suspected her, and watched her, ever full of ill-natured disquietude, although she gave him no cause for it. A bead-worker by trade, and an orphan, she had been sought by him in marriage for her beauty's sake, after her aunt's death, when she was quite alone in the world; and on this account she retained a feeling of gratitude towards him, and conducted herself very uprightly like a good wife and a good mother.

Just as she was about to usher Marc into the adjoining room, some embarrassment came over her. Perhaps she feared the bad temper of her husband, who was ever ready to pick a quarrel, and to whom she preferred to yield for the sake of domestic peace.

'What name am I to give, monsieur?' she asked.

Marc told her his name and the object of his visit, whereupon with graceful suppleness she glided away, leaving the young man in the little ante-chamber, which he began to scrutinise. The flat was composed of five rooms, occupying the whole of that floor of the house. Savin, a petty employé of the Revenue service, clerk to the local tax-collector, had to keep up his rank, which in his opinion necessitated a certain amount of outward show. Thus his wife wore bonnets, and he himself never went out otherwise than in a frock coat. But how painful were the straits of the life which he led behind that façade so mendaciously suggestive of class superiority and easy circumstances! The bitterness of his feelings came from his consciousness that he was bound fast to his humble duties, that he had no prospect whatever of advancement, but was condemned for life to never-changing toil and a contemptible salary, which only just saved him from starvation. Poor in health and soured, humble and irritable at one and the same time, feeling as much terror as rage in his everlasting anxiety lest he might displease his superiors, he showed himself obsequious and cowardly at his office, whilst at home he terrorised his wife with his fits of passion, which suggested those of a sickly child. She smiled at them in her pretty, gentle way, and after attending to the children and the household she found a means to work bead-flowers for a firm at Beaumont, very delicate and well-paid work, which provided the family with little luxuries. But her husband, vexed at heart, such was his middle-class pride, would not have it said that his wife was forced to work, and so it was necessary for her to shut herself up with her beads, and deliver her work by stealth.

For a moment Marc heard a sharp voice speaking angrily. Then, after a gentle murmur, silence fell, and Madame Savin reappeared: 'Please follow me, monsieur.'

Savin scarcely rose from the arm-chair in which he was nursing his attack of fever. A village schoolmaster was of no consequence. Short, lean, and puny, quite bald already, although he was only thirty-one years old, the clerk had a poor, cadaverous countenance, with slight, tired features, light eyes, and a very scanty beard of a dirty yellowish tinge. He finished wearing out his old frock coats at home, and that day the coloured scarf he had fastened about his neck helped to make him look like a little old man, burdened with complaints and quite neglectful of his person.

'My wife tells me, monsieur,' he said, 'that you have called about that abominable affair, in which Simon the schoolmaster, according to some accounts, is likely to be compromised; and my first impulse, I confess it, was to refuse to see you.'

Then he stopped short, for he had just noticed on the table some bead-work flowers which his wife had been making as she sat beside him, while he perused Le Petit Beaumontais. He gave her a terrible glance which she understood, for she hastened to cover her work with the newspaper.

'But don't regard me as a Reactionary, monsieur,' Savin resumed. 'I am a Republican—in fact a very advanced Republican; I do not hide it, my superiors are well aware of it. When one serves the Republic it is only honest to be a Republican, is it not? Briefly, I am on the side of the Government for and in all things.'

Compelled to listen politely, Marc contented himself with nodding his assent.

'My views on the religious question are very simple,' Savin continued. 'The priests ought to remain in their own sphere. I am an anti-clerical as I am a Republican. But I hasten to add that in my opinion a religion is necessary for women and children, and that as long as the Catholic religion is that of the country, why, we may as well have that one as another! Thus, with respect to my wife, I have made her understand that it is fitting and necessary for a woman of her age and position to follow the observances of religion in order that she may have a rule and a morale in the eyes of the world. She goes to the Capuchins!'

Madame Savin became embarrassed, her face turned pink, and she cast down her eyes. That question of religious practices had long been a great source of unpleasantness in her home. She, with all her charming delicacy, her gentle, upright, heart, had always regarded those practices with repugnance. As for her husband, he, wild with jealousy, ever picking quarrels with her respecting what he called her unfaithfulness of thought, looked upon Confession and Communion solely as police measures, moral curbs, excellently suited to restrain women from descending the slope which leads to betrayal. And his wife had been obliged to yield to him in the matter, and accept the confessor whom he selected, the bearded Father Théodose, though with her woman's instinct she divined the latter to be a man of a horrid nature. But if she was wounded at heart and blushed with offended delicacy, she none the less shrugged her shoulders and continued to obey her husband for the sake of domestic quietude.

'As for my children, monsieur,' Savin was now saying, 'my resources have not enabled me to send Achille and Philippe, my twin sons, to college; so, naturally enough, I have sent them to the secular school in accordance with my duty as a functionary and a Republican. In the same way my daughter Hortense goes to Mademoiselle Rouzaire's; but, at bottom, I am well pleased to find that that lady has religious sentiments, and conducts her pupils to church—for, after all, such is her duty, and I should complain if she did not do so. Boys always pull through. And yet if I did not owe an account of my actions to my superiors, would it not have been more advantageous for my sons if I had sent them to a Church school? Later in life they would have been helped on, placed in good situations, supported, whereas now they will simply vegetate, as I myself have vegetated.'

His bitter rancour was overflowing; and, seized with a secret dread, he added in a lower tone: 'The priests, you see, are the stronger, and in spite of everything one ought always to be with them.'

A feeling of compassion came over Marc; that poor, puny, trembling being, driven desperate by mediocrity of circumstances and foolishness of nature, seemed to him in sore need of pity. Foreseeing the conclusion of all his speeches the young man had already risen. 'And so, monsieur,' he said, 'the information which I desired to obtain from your children——'

'The children are not here,' Savin answered; 'a lady, a neighbour, has taken them for a walk. But, even if they were here, ought I to allow them to answer you? Judge for yourself. A functionary can in no case take sides. And I already have quite enough worries at my office without incurring any responsibility in this vile affair.'

Then, as Marc hastily bowed, he added: 'Although the Jews prey on our land of France I have nothing to say against that Monsieur Simon, unless it be that a Jew ought never to be allowed to be a schoolmaster. I hope that Le Petit Beaumontais will start a campaign on that subject. … Liberty and justice for all—such ought to be the watchwords of a good Republican. But the country must be put first, the country alone must be considered, when it is in danger! Is that not so?'

Madame Savin, who since Marc's entry into the room had not spoken a word, escorted the young man to the door of the flat, where, while still retaining an air of embarrassment amid her submissiveness—that of a slave-wife superior to her harsh master—she contented herself with smiling divinely. Then at the bottom of the stairs Marc encountered the children whom the neighbour was bringing home. Hortense, the girl, now nine years old, was already a pretty and coquettish little person, with artful eyes which gleamed with maliciousness when she did not veil them with the expression of hypocritical piety which she had learnt to acquire at Mademoiselle Rouzaire's. But Marc was more interested in the twin boys, Achille and Philippe, two thin pale lads, sickly like their father, and very unruly and sly for their seven years. They pushed their sister against the banister, and almost made her fall; and when they had climbed the stairs, and the door of the flat opened, an infant's wail was heard, that of little Jules, who had awoke and was already in the arms of his mother, eager for her breast.

As Marc walked down the street, he caught himself talking aloud. So they were all agreed, from the ignorant peasant to the timid and idiotic clerk, passing by way of the brutified workman, the spoilt fruit of barrack-life and the salary system. In ascending the social scale one merely found error aggravated by narrow egotism and base cowardice. Men's minds remained steeped in darkness; the semi-education which was nowadays acquired without method, and which reposed on no serious scientific foundation, led simply to a poisoning of the brain, to a state of disquieting corruption. There must be education certainly, but complete education, whence hypocrisy and falsehood would be banished—education which would free the mind by acquainting it with truth in its entirety. Marc trembled at the thought of the abyss of ignorance, error, and hatred which opened before him. What an awful bankruptcy there would be if those folk were needed some day for some work of truth and justice! And those folk typified France; they were the multitude, the heavy, inert mass, many of them worthy people no doubt, but none the less a mass of lead, which weighed the nation down to the ground, incapable as they were of leading a better life, of becoming free, just, and truly happy, because they were steeped in ignorance and poison.

As Marc went slowly towards the school to acquaint his friend Simon with the sad result of his visits, he suddenly remembered that he had not yet called on the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers of the Rue Courte; and although he anticipated no better result with them than with the others he resolved to fulfil his commission to the very end.

The Milhommes, the ladies' husbands, had been two brothers, born at Maillebois. Edouard, the elder, had inherited a little stationery business from an uncle, and, being of a stay-at-home and unaspiring disposition, had made a shift to live on it with his wife; while his younger, more active, and ambitious brother Alexandre laid the foundations of a fortune while hurrying about the country as a commercial traveller. But death swooped down on both: the elder brother was the first to die, as the result of a tragic accident, a fall into a cellar; the second succumbing six months later to an attack of pulmonary congestion while he was at the other end of France. Their widows remained—one with her humble shop, the other with a capital of some twenty thousand francs, the first savings on which her husband had hoped to rear a fortune. It was to Madame Edouard, a woman of decision and diplomatic skill, that the idea occurred of inducing her sister-in-law, Madame Alexandre, to enter into a partnership, and invest her twenty thousand francs in the little business at Maillebois, which might be increased by selling books, stationery, and other articles for the schools. Each of the two widows had a son, and from that time forward the Mesdames Milhomme, as they were called, Madame Edouard with her little Victor, and Madame Alexandre with her little Sébastien, had kept house together, living in the close intimacy which their interests required, although their natures were radically different.

Madame Edouard followed the observances of the Church, but this did not mean that her faith was firm. She simply placed the requirements of her business before everything else. Her customers were chiefly pious folk whom she did not wish to displease. Madame Alexandre, on the contrary, had given up church-going at the time of her marriage, for her husband had been a gay companion and freethinker, and she refused to take up religion again. It was Madame Edouard, the clever diplomatist, who ingeniously indicated that these divergencies might become a source of profit. Their business was spreading; their shop, situated midway between the Brothers' school and the Communal school, supplied articles suitable for both—lesson books, copybooks, diagrams, and drawing copies, without speaking of pens, pencils, and similar things. Thus it was decided that each of the two women should retain her views and ways, the one with the priests, the other with the freethinkers, in such wise as to satisfy both sides. And in order that nobody might remain ignorant of the understanding, Sébastien was sent to the secular Communal school, where Simon the Jew was master, while Victor remained at the Brothers' school. Matters being thus settled, engineered with superior skill, the partnership prospered, and Mesdames Milhomme now owned one of the most thriving shops in Maillebois.

Marc, on reaching the Rue Courte, in which there were only two houses, the Milhommes' and the parsonage, slackened his steps, and for a moment examined the windows of the stationery shop, in which religious prints were mingled with school pictures glorifying the Republic, whilst illustrated newspapers, hanging from strings, almost barred the doorway. He was about to enter when Madame Alexandre—a tall and gentle-looking blonde, whose face, faded already, though she was only thirty, was still lighted by a faint smile—appeared upon the threshold. Close beside her was her little Sébastien, of whom she was very fond: a child of seven, fair and gentle like his mother, very handsome also, with blue eyes, a delicately shaped nose, and a mouth bespeaking amiability.

Madame Alexandre was acquainted with Marc, and she at once referred to the abominable crime which seemed to haunt her. 'How dreadful, Monsieur Froment!' said she. 'To think also that it occurred so near to us! I frequently saw poor little Zéphirin go by, either on his way to school or returning home. And he often came here to buy copybooks and pens. I can no longer sleep since I saw him dead!'

Then she spoke compassionately of Simon and his grief. She considered him to be very kind-hearted and upright, particularly as he took a great interest in her little Sébastien, who was one of his most intelligent and docile pupils. Whatever other people might say, she would never be able to think the master capable of such a frightful deed as that crime. As for the copy-slip of which people talked so much, nothing would have been proved even if similar ones had been found in the school.

'We sell such slips, you know, Monsieur Froment,' she continued, 'and I have already searched through those which we have in stock. It is true that none bear those particular words, "Love one another"——'

At this moment Sébastien, who had been listening attentively, raised his head. 'I saw one like that,' said he. 'My cousin Victor brought one home from the Brothers' school—there were those words on it!'

His mother appeared stupefied: 'What are you saying?' she exclaimed. 'You never mentioned that to me!'

'But you did not ask. Besides, Victor forbade me to tell, because it's forbidden to take the copy-slips from school.'

'Then where is that one?'

'Ah! I don't know. Victor hid it somewhere, so that he might not be scolded.'

Marc was following the scene, astonished, delighted, his heart beating fast with hope. Was the truth about to come forth from the mouth of that child? Perchance this would prove the feeble ray which spreads little by little until it finally expands into a great blaze of light. And the young man was already putting precise and decisive questions to Sébastien, when Madame Edouard, accompanied by Victor, appeared upon the scene. She was returning from a visit which she had just made to Brother Fulgence, under the pretext of applying for the payment of a stationery account.

Taller than her sister-in-law, Madame Edouard was dark, with a massive square-shaped face and a masculine appearance. Her gestures were quick, her speech was loud. A good and honest woman in her way, she would not have wronged her partner of a sou, though she never hesitated to domineer over her. She indeed was the man in the household, and the other as a means of defence only possessed her force of inertia, her very gentleness, of which she availed herself at times for weeks and months together, thereby often securing the victory. As for Victor, Madame Edouard's son, he was a sturdy, squarely-set lad, nine years of age, with a big dark head and massive face, quite a contrast indeed to his cousin Sébastien.

Directly Madame Edouard was apprised of the situation, she looked at her son severely: 'What! a copy? You stole a copy from the Brothers and brought it here?'

Victor had already turned a glance of despair and fury upon Sébastien. 'No, no, mamma,' he answered.

'But you did, for your cousin saw it. He does not usually tell falsehoods.'

The boy ceased answering, but he still cast terrible glances at his cousin. And the latter was by no means at his ease, for he well knew the physical strength of his playmate, and commonly represented the vanquished, beaten enemy whenever they had a game at war together. Under the elder's guidance, there were endless noisy gallops through the house; the younger, so gentle by nature, letting himself be led into them with a kind of rapturous terror.

'No doubt he did not steal it,' Madame Alexandre observed indulgently. 'Perhaps he only brought it home by mistake.'

In order that his cousin might the more readily forgive his indiscretion, Sébastien at once confirmed this suggestion: 'Of course, it was like that. I did not say he stole it.'

Madame Edouard, having now calmed down, ceased to exact an immediate answer from Victor, who remained silent as if stubbornly resolved upon making no confession. His mother, for her part, doubtless reflected that it would be scarcely prudent to investigate the matter in a stranger's presence without weighing the gravity of the consequences. She pictured herself taking one or the other side in the affair, and setting either the Brothers' school or the Communal school against her, thereby losing one set of customers. So, after casting a domineering glance at Madame Alexandre, she contented herself with saying to her son: 'That will do. Go indoors, monsieur; we will settle all this by and by. Just reflect, and if you do not tell me the real truth, I shall know what to do to you.'

Then, turning to Marc, she added: 'We will tell you what he says, monsieur; and you may depend upon it that he will soon speak unless he desires such a whipping as he is not likely to forget.'

Marc could not insist any further, however ardent might be his desire to learn the whole truth immediately, in order that he might convey it to Simon like tidings of deliverance. But he no longer felt a doubt respecting the genuineness of the decisive fact, the triumphant proof which chance had placed in his hands; so he at once hastened to his friend's, to tell him of his successive repulses with the Bongards, the Doloirs, and the Savins, and of the unhoped-for discovery which he made at the Milhommes'. Simon listened quietly, showing no sign of the delight which Marc had anticipated. Ah! there were similar copies at the Brothers' school? Well, he was not astonished to hear it. For his own part, why should he worry, as he was innocent?

'I thank you very much for all the trouble you have taken, my good friend,' he added, 'and I fully understand the importance of that child's statement. But I cannot accustom myself to the idea that my fate depends on what may be said, or what may not be said, considering that I am guilty of nothing. To my thinking, that is as evident as the sun in the skies.'

Marc, who felt quite enlivened, began to laugh. He now shared his friend's confidence. And after they had chatted for a moment, he took, his leave, but suddenly returned to ask: 'Has handsome Mauraisin been to see you?'

'No, I have not seen him,' Simon answered.

'In that case, my friend, he must have wished to ascertain the opinions of all Maillebois before coming. I caught sight of him this morning, first with Father Crabot, and afterwards with Mademoiselle Rouzaire. While I was running about this afternoon, too, I fancied I saw him twice—once slipping into the Ruelle des Capucins, and then, as it seemed to me, on his way to the mayor's. He must have been making inquiries in order to be sure of taking the stronger side.'

Simon, hitherto so calm, made a nervous gesture; for, timid by nature, he regarded his superiors with respect and fear. Indeed, his sole personal worry in the catastrophe was the possibility of a great scandal which might cost him his situation, or at least cause him to be regarded very unfavourably by the officials of his department. And he was about to confess this apprehension to Marc when, as it happened, Mauraisin presented himself, looking frigid and thoughtful.

'Yes, Monsieur Simon, I have hastened here on account of that horrible affair. I am in despair for the school, for all of you, and for ourselves. It is very serious—very serious—very serious.'

As he spoke the Elementary Inspector drew up his little figure, and his words fell from his lips with increasing severity. In a formal way he had shaken hands with Marc, knowing that Le Barazer, the Academy Inspector, his superior, was partial to the young man. But he looked at him askance through his glasses as if to invite him to withdraw. And Marc could not linger, although it worried him to leave Simon alone with that man, on whom his position depended, and before whom he now trembled—he who had shown so much courage ever since the morning. But there was no help for it; so Marc went home full of the new impression that had come to him, the covert hostility of that man Mauraisin, whom he divined to be a traitor.

The evening, spent with the ladies, proved very quiet. Neither Madame Duparque nor Madame Berthereau referred to the crime, and the little house fell asleep peacefully, as if nought of the tragedy in progress elsewhere had ever entered it. Marc had thought it prudent to say nothing about his busy afternoon. On going to bed he contented himself with telling his wife that he felt quite at ease with reference to his friend Simon. The news pleased Geneviève; and they then continued chatting until rather late, for in the daytime they were never alone together, never able to speak freely, in such wise that they seemed to be strangers. When they fell asleep in each other's arms, it was as if they had been blissfully reunited after a positive separation.

But, in the morning, Marc was painfully astonished to find an abominable article against Simon in Le Petit Beaumontais. He remembered the paragraph of the previous day which had expressed so much sympathy with the schoolmaster and had covered him with praise. Twenty-four hours had sufficed to effect a complete change, and now, with a wonderful show of perfidious suppositions and false interpretations of the facts, the Jew was savagely sacrificed, plainly accused of the ignoble crime. What could have happened then? What powerful influence could have been at work? Whence came that poisoned article, drafted so carefully in order that the Jew might be for ever condemned by the ignorant populace athirst for falsehood? That newspaper melodrama with its mysterious intricacies, its extraordinary fairy-tale improbabilities, would prove, Marc felt it, a legend changing into truth, positive truth, from which people henceforth would refuse to depart. And when the young man had finished his perusal he again became conscious of some secret working in the gloom, some immense work which mysterious forces had been accomplishing since the previous day in order to ruin the innocent and thereby save the unknown culprit.

Yet no fresh incident had occurred, the magistrates had not returned to Maillebois, there was still only the gendarmes guarding the chamber of the crime, where lay the remains of the poor little victim, awaiting burial. The post-mortem examination on the previous day had merely confirmed the facts which were already known: After a scene of horror Zéphirin had been killed by strangulation, as was indicated by the deep violet finger-marks around his neck. It had been settled that the funeral should take place that afternoon, and, according to report, preparations were being made to invest it with avenging solemnity. The authorities were to be present as well as all the victim's school-fellows.

Marc, whom anxiety assailed once more, spent a gloomy morning. He did not go to see Simon, for he thought it best to do so in the evening after the funeral. He contented himself with strolling through Maillebois, which he found drowsy, as if gorged with horrors, while waiting for the promised spectacle. After his walk the young man's spirits revived, and he was finishing lunch with the ladies, amused by the prattle of little Louise, who was very lively that day, when Pélagie, on entering the room with a fine plum tart, found herself unable to restrain her rapturous delight.

'Ah! madame,' she exclaimed, 'they are arresting that brigand of a Jew! At last! It's none too soon!'

'They are arresting Simon? How do you know it?' exclaimed Marc, who had turned very pale.

'Why, everybody says so, monsieur. The butcher across the road has just gone off to see it.'

Marc flung down his napkin, rose, and went out without touching any tart. The ladies were aghast, deeply offended by such a breach of good manners. Even Geneviève seemed to be displeased.

'He is losing his senses,' said Madame Duparque dryly. 'Ah! my dear girl, I warned you. Without religion no happiness is possible.'

When Marc reached the street he immediately realised that something extraordinary was taking place. All the shopkeepers were at their doors, some people were running, while an ever-increasing uproar of shouts and jeers was to be heard. Hastening his steps Marc turned into the Rue Courte, and there he at once perceived the Mesdames Milhomme and their children assembled on the threshold of the stationery shop. They also were deeply interested in the great event. And Marc then remembered that there was some good evidence to be obtained there, of which he had better make sure immediately.

'Is it true?' he asked. 'Is Monsieur Simon being arrested?'

'Why, yes, Monsieur Froment,' Madame Alexandre replied in her gentle way. 'We have just seen the Commissary pass.'

'And it is certain, you know,' said Madame Edouard in her turn, looking him straight in the face, and anticipating the question which she had already read in his eyes, 'it is quite certain that Victor never had that pretended copy-slip. I have questioned him, and I am convinced that he is telling no falsehood.'

The boy raised his face, with its square chin and large eyes full of quiet impudence. 'No, of course I am not telling a falsehood,' he said.

Amazed, chilled to the heart, Marc turned to Madame Alexandre: 'But what was it your son said, madame? He saw that copy in his cousin's hands—he declared it!'

The mother appeared ill at ease and did not immediately answer. Her little Sébastien had already taken refuge in her skirts as if to hide his face, and she with a quivering hand fondled his hair, covered his head anxiously and protectingly.

'No doubt, Monsieur Froment,' she at last responded, 'he saw it, or rather he fancied he saw it. At present he is not very sure: he thinks he may have been mistaken. And so, you see, there is nothing more to be said.'

Unwilling to insist with the women, Marc addressed himself to the little boy. 'Is it true that you did not see the copy? There is nothing so wicked as a lie, my child.'

Sébastien, instead of answering, pressed his face more closely to his mother's skirt, and burst into sobs. It was evident that Madame Edouard, like a good trader, who feared that by taking any particular side in the conflict she might lose a part of her custom, had imposed her will upon the others. She was as firm as a rock, and it would be impossible to move her. However, she condescended to indicate the reasons by which she was guided.

'Mon Dieu, Monsieur Froment,' she said, 'we are against nobody, you know; we need everybody's help in our business. Only it must be admitted that all the appearances are against Monsieur Simon. Take, for instance, that train which he says he missed, that return ticket which he threw away in the station yard, that four-mile walk when he met nobody. Besides, Mademoiselle Rouzaire is positive that she heard a noise about twenty minutes to eleven o'clock, whereas he pretends that he did not return till an hour later. Explain, too, how it happened that Monsieur Mignot had to go and wake him when it was nearly eight o'clock in the morning—he who is usually up so early. … Well, perhaps he will justify himself. For his sake, let us hope so——'

Marc stopped her with a gesture. She was repeating what he had read in Le Petit Beaumontais, and he was terrified by it. He cast a keen glance on both women—the one who so resolutely silenced her conscience, the other who trembled from head to foot; and he himself shuddered at the thought of their sudden falsehood which might lead to such disastrous consequences. Then he left them and hastened to Simon's.

A closed vehicle, guarded by two plain-clothes officers, was waiting at the door. The orders were stringent, but Marc at last contrived to enter. While two other officers guarded Simon in the classroom, the Commissary of Police, who had arrived with a warrant signed by Investigating Magistrate Daix, conducted a fresh and very minute perquisition through the whole house, seeking, no doubt, for copies of the famous writing slip. But he found nothing; and when Marc ventured to ask one of the officers if a similar perquisition had taken place at the school kept by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, the man looked at him in amazement. A perquisition at the good Brothers' school? What for, indeed? But Marc was already shrugging his shoulders at his own simplicity, for, even supposing that the officers had gone to the Brothers', the latter had been allowed ample time to burn and destroy everything likely to compromise them.

The young man had to exert all his powers of restraint to prevent himself from expressing his feelings of revolt. His powerlessness to demonstrate the truth filled him with despair. For yet another hour he had to remain in the hall, waiting for the finish of the Commissary's search. At last, just as the officers were about to remove Simon, he was able to see him for a moment. Madame Simon and her two children were there also, and she flung herself, sobbing, about her husband's neck, while the Commissary, a rough but not hard-hearted man, made a pretence of giving some last orders. There came a most heart-rending scene.

Simon, livid, crushed by the downfall of his life, strove to preserve great calmness.

'Do not grieve, my darling,' he said. 'It can only be an error, an abominable error. Everything will certainly be explained as soon as I am interrogated, and I shall soon return to you.'

But Rachel sobbed yet more violently, with a wild expression on her tear-drenched face, while she raised the poor little ones, Joseph and Sarah, in order that their father might kiss them once again.

'Yes, yes, the poor children; love them well; take good care of them until my return. And I beg you do not weep so; you will deprive me of all my courage.'

He tore himself from her clasp, and then, at the sight of Marc, his eyes sparkled with infinite joy. He quickly grasped the hand which the young man offered him: 'Ah! comrade, thank you! Let my brother David be warned at once; be sure to tell him I am innocent. He will seek everywhere, he will find the culprit, it is to him that I confide my honour and my children's.'

'Be easy,' replied Marc, half-choking with emotion, 'I will help him.'

But the Commissary now returned and put an end to the leave-taking. It was necessary that Madame Simon, wild with grief, should be removed at the moment when Simon was led away by the two officers. What followed was monstrous. The hour fixed for the funeral of little Zéphirin was three, and, in order to prevent any regrettable collision, it had been decided to arrest Simon at one o'clock. But the perquisition had lasted so long that the very thing which the authorities had wished to prevent took place. When Simon appeared outside, on the little flight of steps, the square was already crowded with people who had come to see the funeral procession. And this crowd, which had gorged itself with the tales of Le Petit Beaumontais, and which was still stirred by the horror of the crime, raised angry shouts as soon as it perceived the schoolmaster, that accursed Jew, that slayer of little children, who for his abominable witchery needed their virgin blood, whilst it was yet sanctified by the presence of the Host. That was the legend, never to be destroyed, which sped from mouth to mouth, maddening the tumultuous and menacing crowd.

'To death! To death with the murderer and sacrilegist! To death, to death with the Jew!'

Chilled to his bones, paler and yet more rigid than before, Simon, from the top of the steps, responded by a cry which henceforth came without cessation from his lips as if it were the very voice of his conscience: 'I am innocent, I am innocent!'

Then rage transported the throng, the hoots ascended tempestuously, a huge human wave bounded forward to seize the accursed wretch and throw him down and tear him into shreds.

'To death! to death with the Jew!'

But the officers had quickly pushed Simon into the waiting vehicle, and the driver urged his horse into a fast trot, while the prisoner, never tiring, repeated his cry in accents which rose above the tempest:

'I am innocent! I am innocent! I am innocent!'

All the way down the High Street the crowd rushed, howling louder and louder, behind the vehicle. And Marc, who had remained in the square, dazed and full of anguish, began to think of the other demonstration, the indignant murmurs, the explosion of revolt which had attended the end of the prize-giving at the Brothers' school two days previously. Barely forty-eight hours had sufficed for a complete revulsion of public opinion, and he was terrified by the abominable skill, the cruel promptitude displayed by the mysterious hands which had gathered so much darkness together. His hopes had crumbled, he felt that truth was obscured, defeated, in peril of death. Never before had he experienced such intense distress of mind.

But the procession for little Zéphirin's funeral was already being formed. Marc saw the devout Mademoiselle Rouzaire bringing up the girls of her class, after witnessing Simon's Calvary without making even a gesture of sympathy. Nor had Mignot, who was surrounded by some of the boys, gone to press his superior's hand. He stood there sullen and embarrassed, suffering no doubt from the struggle between his good nature and his interests. At last the procession started, directing its steps towards St. Martin's amidst extraordinary pomp. Again one realised how carefully artful hands had organised everything in order to move the people, excite its pity, and its desire for vengeance. On either side of the little coffin walked those of Zéphirin's school-fellows who had taken their first Communion at the same time as himself. Next appeared Darras, the Mayor, attended by the other authorities and acting as chief mourner. Then came all the pupils of the Brothers' school, led by Brother Fulgence with his three assistants, Brothers Isidore, Lazarus, and Gorgias. The important airs which Brother Fulgence gave himself were much remarked; he came, went, and commanded on all sides, going even so far in his agitation as to meddle with Mademoiselle Rouzaire's pupils as though they were under his orders. And several Capuchins were also present with their superior, Father Théodose, and there were Jesuits from the College of Valmarie, headed by their rector, Father Crabot, together with priests who had come from all the surrounding districts—such a gathering of gowns and cassocks, indeed, that the whole Church of the region seemed to have been mobilised in order to ensure itself a triumph by claiming as its own the poor little body which, amid that splendid procession, was now being carried to the grave.

Sobs burst forth along the whole line of route, and furious cries resounded: 'Death to the Jews! Death to the dirty Jews!'

A final incident completed Marc's enlightenment while, with his heart full of bitterness, he continued to watch the scene. He caught sight of Inspector Mauraisin, who, as on the previous day, had come from Beaumont to ascertain, no doubt, what might be his best line of conduct. And when Father Crabot passed, Marc saw that he and Mauraisin exchanged a smile and a discreet salutation, like men who understood each other and regarded each other's conduct with approval. All the monstrous iniquity, woven in the gloom during the last two days, then appeared to Marc under the clear sky, while the bells of St. Martin's rang out in honour of the poor little boy whose tragic fate was about to be so impudently exploited.

But a rough hand was laid on Marc's shoulder, and some words addressed to him in a tone of bitter irony caused him to look round.

'Well, what did I tell you, my worthy and simple colleague? The dirty Jew is convicted of villainy and murder. And while he travels to Beaumont gaol, all the good Brothers are triumphing!'

It was Férou who spoke—Férou the rebellious, starveling schoolmaster, looking more gawky than ever, with his hair all in disorder, his long bony head, and his big sneering mouth.

'How can they be accused,' he continued, 'since the little victim belongs to them, to them alone? Ah! it's certain that nobody will dare to accuse them, for all Maillebois has seen them take him to the grave in grand procession! The amusing thing is the buzzing of that ridiculous black fly, that idiotic Brother Fulgence, who knocks up against everybody. He's over zealous. But you must have also seen Father Crabot with his shrewd smile, which doubtless hides no little stupidity, whatever may be his reputation for skilfulness. At all events, remember what I tell you, the cleverest, the only really clever one among them all, is certainly Father Philibin, who pretends to look like a big booby. You may search for him, but you won't find him there. It wasn't likely that he would come to Maillebois to-day. He's keeping himself in the background, and you may be sure that he's doing some fine work. Ah! I don't know exactly who the culprit may be—he is certainly none of those—but he belongs to their shop, that's as plain as a pikestaff, and they will overturn everything rather than give him up.'

Then as Marc, still overcome, remained silent, merely nodding, Férou went on: 'Ah! they regard it as a fine opportunity to crush the freethinkers. A Communal schoolmaster guilty of abomination and murder! What a splendid battle-cry! They will soon settle our hash, rogues that we are, without God or country! Yes, death to the traitors who've sold themselves! Death to the dirty Jews!'

Waving his long arms, Férou went off into the crowd. As he was wont to say with his excessive jeering bitterness, it mattered little to him at bottom whether he ended by being burnt at the stake, in a shirt dipped in brimstone, or whether he starved to death in his wretched school at Le Moreux.

That evening, when, after a silent dinner in the ladies' company, Marc found himself alone again with Geneviève, she, observing his despair, lovingly passed her arms about him, and burst into tears. He felt deeply moved, for it had seemed to him that day as if their bond of union had been slightly shaken, as if severance were beginning. He pressed her to his heart, and for a long time they both wept without exchanging a word.

At last, hesitating somewhat, she said to him: 'Listen, my dear Marc, I think we should do well to shorten our stay with grandmother. We might go away to-morrow.'

Surprised by these words, he questioned her: 'Has she had enough of us then? Were you told to signify it to me?'

'Oh! no, no! On the contrary, it would grieve mamma. We should have to invent a pretext, get somebody to send us a telegram.'

'But in that case, why should we not spend our full month here as usual? We have some little differences together, no doubt; but I don't complain.'

For a moment Geneviève remained embarrassed. She did not dare to confess her anxiety at the thought that something had seemed to be detaching her from her husband that evening, in the atmosphere of devout hostility in which she lived at her grandmother's. She had felt indeed as if the ideas and feelings of her girlhood were returning and clashing with the life which she led as wife and mother. But all that was merely the faint touch of the past, and her gaiety and confidence soon returned amid Marc's caresses. Near her, in the cradle, she could hear the gentle and regular breathing of her little Louise.