He listened, thought, and then asked:
“Was his mind clear this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Did he have much money with him?”
“Yes, he was carrying my dowry.”
“Your dowry! The whole of it?”
“The whole of it—in order to pay
for the practice which he bought.”
“Well, my dear cousin, by this time your husband
must be well on his way to Belgium.”
She could not understand. She kept repeating:
“My husband—you say—”
“I say that he has disappeared with your—your
capital—that’s all!”
She stood there, a prey to conflicting emotions, sobbing.
“Then he is—he is—he is
a villain!”
And, faint from excitement, she leaned her head on
her cousin’s shoulder and wept.
As people were stopping to look at them, he pushed
her gently into the vestibule of his house, and, supporting
her with his arm around her waist, he led her up the
stairs, and as his astonished servant opened the door,
he ordered:
“Sophie, run to the restaurant and get a luncheon
for two. I am not going to the office to-day.”
He was dead—the head of a high tribunal,
the upright magistrate whose irreproachable life was
a proverb in all the courts of France. Advocates,
young counsellors, judges had greeted him at sight
of his large, thin, pale face lighted up by two sparkling
deep-set eyes, bowing low in token of respect.
He had passed his life in pursuing crime and in protecting
the weak. Swindlers and murderers had no more
redoubtable enemy, for he seemed to read the most
secret thoughts of their minds.
He was dead, now, at the age of eighty-two, honored
by the homage and followed by the regrets of a whole
people. Soldiers in red trousers had escorted
him to the tomb and men in white cravats had spoken
words and shed tears that seemed to be sincere beside
his grave.
But here is the strange paper found by the dismayed
notary in the desk where he had kept the records of
great criminals! It was entitled: Why?
20th June, 1851. I have just left court.
I have condemned Blondel to death! Now, why did
this man kill his five children? Frequently one
meets with people to whom the destruction of life
is a pleasure. Yes, yes, it should be a pleasure,
the greatest of all, perhaps, for is not killing the
next thing to creating? To make and to destroy!
These two words contain the history of the universe,
all the history of worlds, all that is, all!
Why is it not intoxicating to kill?
25th June. To think that a being is there who
lives, who walks, who runs. A being? What
is a being? That animated thing, that bears in
it the principle of motion and a will ruling that
motion. It is attached to nothing, this thing.
Its feet do not belong to the ground. It is a
grain of life that moves on the earth, and this grain
of life, coming I know not whence, one can destroy
at one’s will. Then nothing—nothing
more. It perishes, it is finished.
