Complete Works of Emile Zola (1754 page)

‘Well, at all events,’ said Marc with a touch of irony, ‘God seems to have forsaken and sacrificed you even as your superiors have done.’

Brother Gorgias glanced at his wretched clothes and emaciated hands which testified to his sufferings. ‘It is true,’ he answered, ‘God has chastised me severely for my transgressions and for those of others. I bow to His will, He is working my salvation. But I do not forget, I do not forgive the others for having aggravated my misery. Ah, the bandits! Have they not condemned me to the most frightful existence ever since they compelled me to quit Maillebois? It is in misery that I have had to come back here to endeavour to wring from them the crust of bread which is my due!’

He was unwilling to say more on that subject, but his tragic story could be well divined by the shudder that came over him — the shudder of a wild beast driven from the woods by hunger. The Order, no doubt, had sent him from community to community, the poorest, the most obscure, until at last it had finally cast him out altogether as being by far too compromising. And then he had quitted his gown and tramped along the roads, carrying with him the stigma attaching to a disfrocked cleric. One would never know through what distant lands he had roamed, what a life of privation and chance he had led, what unacknowledgable adventures he had met with, what shameful vices he had indulged in: one could only read a little of all that on the tanned skin of his eager face, in the depths of his eyes which glowed with suffering and hatred. The greater part of his resources must certainly have come from his former confederates, who had wished to purchase his silence and keep him at a distance. Every now and again, when he had written letter upon letter, when he had furiously threatened crushing revelations, some small sum had been sent to him, and then for a few months he had been able to prolong the wretched life he led as a waif whom all rejected.

But at last a time had come when he had no longer received any answer to his applications, when his letters and his threats had remained without any effect; for his former superiors had grown weary of his voracious demands, and regarded him, perhaps, as being no longer dangerous after the lapse of so many years. He himself was intelligent enough to understand that his confessions could no longer have any very serious consequences for his accomplices, but might even deprive him of his last chance of extracting money from them. Nevertheless he had resolved to return and prowl around Maillebois. He knew the Code, he was aware that the law of limitation covered him. And thus for long months he had been living, in some dark nook, on the five-franc pieces which he wrung from the fears of Simon’s accusers, who still trembled at the thought of their shameful victory at Rozan. Yet they must again have been growing weary of his persecution, for his bitterness was too great; he would never have heaped so many insults upon them if they had let him dip his hands in their purses, the previous day, by way of once more purchasing his silence.

Marc fully understood the position. Brother Gorgias only sprang out of the suspicious darkness in which he concealed himself when he had spent his money in crapulous debauchery. And if he had come to Jonville that winter night, in the pouring rain, it was assuredly because his pockets were empty and because he expected to derive some profit from that visit. But what profit could it be? What motive lurked beneath his long and furious denunciation of the men of whom, according to his own account, he had only been a docile instrument?

‘So you are living at Maillebois?’ inquired Marc, whose curiosity was fully awakened.

‘No, no, not at Maillobois.... I live where I can.’

‘But I thought I had already seen you there before meeting you on the Place des Capucins.... You were with one of your former pupils — Polydor, I fancy.’

A faint smile appeared on Brother Gorgias’s ravaged face. ‘Polydor,’ said he, ‘yes, yes, I was always very fond of him. He was a pious and discreet lad. Like myself, he has suffered from the maliciousness of men. He has been accused of all sorts of crimes, cast out unjustly by people who did not understand his nature. And I was glad to meet him when I returned here; we set our wretchedness together, and consoled each other, abandoning ourselves to the divine arms of Our Lord.... But Polydor is young, and he will end by treating me as the others have done. For a month past I have been looking for him: he has disappeared. Ah! everything is going wrong, there must be an end to it all!’

A raucous sigh escaped him, and Marc shuddered, for Gorgias’s manner and tone as he referred to Polydor afforded a glimpse of yet another hell. But there was no time for reflection. Drawing nearer to the schoolmaster the disfrocked brother resumed: ‘Now, listen to me, Monsieur Froment; I have had enough of it, I have come to tell you everything.... Yes, if you will promise to listen to me as a priest would listen, I will tell you the truth, the real truth. You are the only man to whom I can make such a confession without doing violence to my dignity or pride, for you alone have always been a disinterested and loyal enemy.... So receive my confession, on the one understanding that you will keep it secret until I authorise you to divulge it.’

But Marc hastily interrupted him: ‘No, no, I will not enter into such a compact. I have done nothing to provoke any revelations on your part; you have come here of your own accord, and you say what you please. Should you really place the truth in my hands, I mean to remain at liberty to make use of it according as my conscience may bid me.’ Brother Gorgias scarcely hesitated. ‘Well, let it be so; it is in your conscience that I will confide,’ said he.

Nevertheless he did not immediately speak out. Silence fell once more. The rain was still streaming down the window panes, and gusts of wind howled along the deserted streets, while the flame of the little lamp began to flare amid the vague shadows which hovered about the quiet room. Marc, gradually growing uncomfortable, suffering from all the abominable memories which that man’s presence aroused, glanced anxiously at the door behind which Geneviève must have remained. Had she heard what had been said? If so, how uncomfortable must the stirring up of all that old mud have made her feel also!

At last, after long remaining silent as if to impart yet more solemnity to his confession, Brother Gorgias raised his hand towards the ceiling in a dramatic manner, and after a fresh interval said slowly, in a rough voice: ‘It is true, I confess it before God, I entered little Zéphirin’s room on the night of the crime!’

At this, although Marc awaited the promised confession with a good deal of scepticism, expecting to hear merely some more falsehoods, he was unable to overcome a great shudder, a feeling of horror, which made him spring to his feet. But Gorgias quietly motioned him to his chair again.

‘I entered the room,’ said he, ‘or rather I leant from outside on the window-bar at about twenty minutes past ten o’clock, before the crime. And that is what I wished to tell you, in order to relieve my conscience.... On leaving the Capuchin chapel that night I undertook to escort little Polydor to the cottage of his father, the road-mender, on the way to Jonville, for fear of any mishap befalling the lad. We left the chapel at ten o’clock, and if I took ten minutes to escort Polydor home and ten minutes to return, it must, you see, have been about twenty minutes past ten when I again passed before the school. As I crossed the little deserted square I was surprised to see Zéphirin’s window lighted up and wide-open. I drew near, and I saw the dear child in his nightdress, setting out some religious prints, which some of his companions at the first Communion had given him. And I scolded him for not having closed his window, for the first passer-by might easily have sprung into his room. But he laughed in his pretty way, and complained of feeling very hot. It was, as you must remember, a close and stormy night.... Well, I was making him promise that he would do as I told him, and go to bed as soon as possible, when, among the religious pictures set out on his table, I saw a copy-slip which had come from my class, and which was stamped and initialled by me. It made me angry to see it there, and I reminded Zéphirin that the boys were forbidden to take away anything belonging to the school. He turned very red, and tried to excuse himself, saying that he had taken the slip home in order to finish an exercise. And he asked me to leave the slip with him, promising to bring it back the next morning, and restore it to me.... Then he closed his window, and I went off. That is the truth, the whole truth, I swear it before God!’

Marc, who had now recovered his calmness, gazed at Gorgias fixedly, endeavouring to conceal his impressions.

‘You are quite sure that the boy shut his window when you went away?’ he asked.

‘He shut it, and I heard him putting up the shutter-bar.’

‘Then you still assert that Simon was guilty, for nobody could have got in from outside; and you hold that Simon, after the crime, opened the shutters again in order to cast suspicion on some unknown prowler?’

‘Yes, it is still my opinion that Simon was the culprit. But there is also this chance, that Zéphirin, oppressed by the heat, may have opened the window again after I had gone.’

Marc was not deceived by that supposition, which was offered him as a guide that might lead to a new fact. He even shrugged his shoulders, feeling that as Gorgias still accused another of his crime, his pretended confession had little value. At the same time, however, that medley of fact and fiction cast just a little more light on the affair, and this Marc desired to establish.

‘Why did you not relate what you have now stated at the Assizes?’ he inquired. ‘A great act of injustice might then have been avoided.’

‘Why did I not relate it?’ Gorgias replied. ‘Why, because I should have compromised myself to no good purpose! My own innocence would have been doubted, and besides, I was then already convinced of Simon’s guilt even as I am now; and thus my silence was quite natural.... Moreover, I repeat it, I had seen the copy-slip lying on the table.’

‘Yes, only you now admit that it came from your school, and that you had stamped and initialled it yourself. You did not always say that, remember.’

‘Oh! those fools, Father Crabot and the others, imposed a ridiculous story on me; and to prop up their senseless theory with the help of their grotesque experts they afterwards invented the still more foolish idea of a forged stamp.... For my part, I at once desired to admit the authenticity of the copy-slip, which was self-evident. But I had to bow to their authority, accept their ridiculous inventions, under penalty of being abandoned and sacrificed.... You saw how furious they became before the trial at Rozan, when I ended by acknowledging that the paraph was mine. They wanted to save that unfortunate Philibin; they fancied they were clever enough to spare the Church even the shadow of a suspicion, and for that very reason they do not even now forgive me for having ceased to repeat their lies!’

Then Marc, noticing that Gorgias was gradually becoming exasperated, said, as if thinking aloud and by way of spurring him on: ‘All the same, it is very strange that the copy-slip should have been on the child’s table.’

‘Strange! why? It often happened that one of the boys took a slip away with him. Little Victor Milhomme had taken one, and it was that very circumstance that made you suspect the truth as to the origin of the slip.... But do you still accuse me of being the murderer? Do you still believe that I walked about with that slip in my pocket? Come, is it reasonable — eh?’

Gorgias spoke with such jeering, aggressive violence, his lips twitching the while with that rictus which disclosed his wolfish teeth, that Marc slightly lost countenance. In spite of his conviction of the Brother’s guilt, that slip, which had come nobody knew whence, had always seemed to him a very obscure feature of the affair. Even as the Ignorantine constantly repeated, it was scarcely likely that he had carried the paper in his pocket that evening on quitting the ceremony at the Capuchin chapel. Whence had it come then? How was it that Gorgias had found it inside with a copy of
Le Petit Beaumontais?
Marc felt that if he had been able to penetrate that mystery the whole affair would have been perfectly clear. To conceal his perplexity he tried an argument: ‘It wasn’t necessary for you to have the slip in your pocket,’ said he, ‘for you have said that you saw it lying on the table.’

But Brother Gorgias had now risen, either yielding to his usual vehemence or playing some comedy in order to end the interview, which was not taking the course he desired. Black and bent, he walked up and down the shadowy room, gesticulating wildly.

‘On the table, yes, of course I saw it on the table! If I say that, it is because I have nothing to fear from such an admission. You suppose me to be guilty, but in that case do you imagine I should give you a weapon by telling you where I took the slip!... We say it was on the table, eh? So it would follow that I took it up, and took a newspaper also out of my pocket, and crumpled it up with the slip, in order to turn both into a gag. What an operation — eh? — at such a moment, how logical and simple it would have been!... But no, no! If the newspaper was in my pocket the slip must have been there also. Prove that it was; for otherwise you have nothing substantial and decisive to go upon. And it wasn’t in my pocket, for I saw it on the table, I swear it again before God!’

Wildly, savagely, he drew near to Marc and cast in his face those words in which one detected a kind of audacious provocation, compounded of scraps of truth, impudently set forth in the shape of suppositions, falsehoods that barely masked the fearful scene which he must have lived afresh with a frightful, demoniacal delight.

But Marc, cast into disturbing perplexity, feeling that he would learn nothing useful from his visitor, had also decided to end the interview. ‘Listen,’ said he, ‘why should I believe you? You come here and you tell me a tale which is the third version you have given of the affair.... At the outset you agreed with the prosecution; the slip, you said, belonged to the secular school; you did not initial it; it was Simon who had done so in order to cast his crime on you. Then, on the discovery of the stamped corner torn off by Father Philibin, you felt it impossible to shelter yourself any longer behind the stupid report of the experts; you admitted that the initialling was your work, and that the slip had come from you. At present, with what motive I do not know, you make a fresh confession to me; you assert that you saw little Zéphirin in his room a few minutes before the crime, that the copy-slip was then lying on his table, that you scolded him, and that he closed his shutters.... Well, think it over; there is no reason why I should regard this version as final. I shall wait to hear the plain truth, if indeed it ever pleases you to tell it.’