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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Conscience by Hector Malot, v3
+#75 in our series The French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy
+#3 in our series by Hector Malot
+
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+Title: Conscience, v3
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+Author: Hector Malot
+
+Release Date: April, 2003  [Etext #3988]
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+
+
+
+
+
+CONSCIENCE
+
+By HECTOR MALOT
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HEDGING
+
+As he did not reply to this cry of triumph, she looked at him in
+surprise.  saw his face, pale, agitated, under the shock evidently of a
+violent emotion that she could not explain to herself.
+
+"What is the matter?"  she asked, with uneasiness.
+
+"Nothing," he answered, almost brutally.
+
+"You do not wish to weaken my hope?"  she said, not imagining that he
+could not think of this hope and of Florentin.  This was a path to lead
+him out of his confusion.  In following it he would have time to recover
+himself.
+
+"It is true," he said.
+
+"You do not think that what Madame Dammauville saw proves Florentin's
+innocence?"
+
+"Would what may be a proof for Madame Dammauville, for you, and for me,
+be one in the eyes of the law?"
+
+"However--"
+
+"I saw you so joyful that I did not dare to interrupt you."
+
+"Then you believe that this testimony is without value," she murmured,
+feeling crushed.
+
+"I do not say that.  We must reflect, weigh the pro and con, compass the
+situation from divers points of view; that is what I try to do, which is
+the cause of my preoccupation that astonishes you."
+
+"Say that it crushes me; I let myself be carried away."
+
+"You need not be crushed or carried away.  Certainly, what this lady told
+you forms a considerable piece of work."
+
+"Does it not?"
+
+"Without any doubt.  But in order that the testimony she gives may be of
+great consequence, the witness must be worthy of trust."
+
+"Do you believe this lady could have invented such a story?"
+
+"I do not say that; but before all, it is necessary to know who she is."
+
+"The widow of an attorney."
+
+"The widow of an attorney and landowner.  Evidently this constitutes a
+social status that merits consideration from the law; but the moral
+state, what is it?  You say that she is paralyzed?"
+
+"She has been so a little more than a year."
+
+"Of what paralysis?  That is a vague word for us others.  There are
+paralyses that affect the sight; others that affect the mind.  Is it one
+of these with which this lady is afflicted, or one of the others, which
+permitted her really to see, the evening of the assassination, that which
+she relates, and which leaves her mental faculties in a sane condition?
+Before everything, it is important to know this."
+
+Phillis was prostrated.
+
+"I had not thought of all that," she murmured.
+
+"It is very natural that you had not; but I am a doctor, and while you
+talked it was the doctor who listened."
+
+"It is true, it is true," she repeated.  "I only saw Florentin."
+
+"In your place I should have seen, like you, only my brother, and I
+should have been carried away by hope.  But I am not in your place.  It
+is by your voice that this woman speaks, whom I do not know, and against
+whom I must be on my guard, for the sole reason that it is a paralytic
+who has told this story."
+
+She could not restrain the tears that came to her eyes, and she let them
+flow silently, finding nothing to reply.
+
+"I am sorry to pain you," he said.
+
+"I saw only Florentin's liberty."
+
+"I do not say this testimony of Madame Dammauville will not influence the
+judge, and, above all, the jury; but I must warn you that you will expose
+yourself to a terrible deception if you believe that her testimony alone
+will give your brother liberty.  It is not on a testimony of this kind or
+of this quality that the law decides; better than we, it knows to what
+illusions people can lend themselves when it is the question of a crime
+that absorbs and excites the public curiosity.  There are some witnesses
+who, with the best faith in the world, believe they have seen the most
+extraordinary things which only existed in their imaginations; and there
+are people who accuse themselves rather than say nothing."
+
+He heaped words on words, as if, in trying to convince Phillis, he might
+hope to convince himself; but when the sound of his words faded, he was
+obliged to declare to himself that, whatever the paralysis of this woman
+might be, it had not, in this instance, produced either defect of sight
+or of mind.  She had seen, indeed, the tall man with long hair and curled
+beard, dressed like a gentleman, who was not Florentin.  When she related
+the story of the lamp and the curtain cords, she knew what she was
+saying.
+
+In his first alarm he had been very near betraying himself.  Without
+doubt he should have told himself that this incident of the curtains
+might prove a trap; but all passed so rapidly that he never imagined
+that, exactly at the moment when Caffie raised the lamp to give him
+light, there was a woman opposite looking at him, and who saw him so
+plainly that she had not forgotten him.  He thought to use all
+precautions on his side in drawing the curtains, when, on the contrary,
+he would have done better had he left them undrawn.  Without doubt the
+widow of the attorney would have been a witness of a part of the scene,
+but in the shadow she would not have distinguished his features as she
+was able to do when he placed himself before the window under the light.
+But this idea did not enter his mind, and, to save himself from an
+immediate danger, he threw himself into another which, although
+uncertain, was not less grave.
+
+Little by little Phillis recovered herself, and the hope that Madame
+Dammauville put in her heart, momentarily crushed by Saniel's remarks,
+sprang up again.
+
+"Is it not possible Madame Dammauville really saw what she relates?"
+
+"Without any doubt; and there are even probabilities that it is so, since
+the man who drew the curtains was not your brother, as we know.
+Unfortunately, it is not ourselves who must be convinced, since we are
+convinced in advance.  It is those who, in advance also, have one whom
+they will not give up unless he is torn from them by force."
+
+"But if Madame Dammauville saw clearly?"
+
+"What must be learned before everything is, if she is in a state to see
+clearly; I have said nothing else."
+
+"A doctor would surely know on examining her?"
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"If you were this doctor?"
+
+It was a cry rather than an exclamation.  She wished that he should
+present himself before this woman; but in that case she would recognize
+him.
+
+Once more, under the pain of betraying his emotion, he must recover from
+this first impulse.
+
+"But how can you wish me to go and examine this woman whom I do not know,
+and who does not know me?  You know very well that patients choose their
+doctors, and not doctors their patients."
+
+"If she sent for you?"
+
+"By what right?"
+
+"By what I shall learn on making the concierge talk, could you not
+recognize her kind of paralysis without seeing her?"
+
+"That would be a little vague.  However, I will do the best I can.  Try
+to learn not only what concerns her illness, but all that relates to her
+--what her position is, who are her relations, which is important for a
+witness who overawes as much by what he is as by what he says.  You
+understand that a deposition that destroys the whole plan of the
+prosecution will be severely disputed, and will only be accepted if
+Madame Dammauville has by her character and position a sufficient
+authority to break down all opposition."
+
+"I will also try to learn who is her doctor.  You may know him.  What he
+would tell you would be worth more than all the details that I could
+bring you."
+
+"We should be immediately decided on the paralysis, and we should see
+what credit we could accord this woman's words."
+
+While listening to Phillis and talking himself, he had time to compass
+the situation that this thunderbolt created for him.  Evidently, the
+first thing to do was to prevent a suspicion from arising in Phillis's
+mind, and it was to this that he applied himself on explaining the
+different kinds of paralysis.  He knew her well enough to know that he
+had succeeded.  But what would she do now?  How did she mean to make use
+of Madame Dammauville's declaration?  Had she spoken of it to any one
+besides himself?  Was it her intention to go to Nougarede and tell him
+what she had learned?  All that must be made clear, and as soon as
+possible.  She must do nothing without his knowledge and approval.  The
+circumstances were critical enough, without his letting accident become
+the master to direct them and conduct them blindly.
+
+"When did you see Madame Dammauville?"  he asked.
+
+"Just this minute."
+
+"And now, what do you wish to do?"
+
+"I think that I ought to tell Monsieur Nougarde."
+
+"Evidently, whatever the value of Madame Dammauville's declaration, he
+should know it; he will appraise it.  Only, as it is well to explain to
+him what may vitiate this testimony, if you wish, I will go to see him."
+
+"Certainly I wish it, and I thank you."
+
+"In the mean time, return to your mother and tell her what you have
+learned; but, that she may not yield to an exaggerated hope, tell her,
+also, that if there are chances, and great ones, in favor of your
+brother, on the other side there are some that are unfavorable.  Tomorrow
+or this evening you will return to the Rue Sainte-Anne and begin your
+inquiries of the concierge.  If the old woman tells you nothing
+interesting, you must go to Madame Dammauville, and make some reason for
+seeing her.  Make her talk, and you will notice if her ideas are
+consecutive, and examine her face and eyes.  Above all, neglect nothing
+that appears to you characteristic.  Having taken care of your mother,
+you know almost as well as a doctor the symptoms of myelitis, and you
+could see instantly if Madame Dammauville has them."
+
+"If I dared!"  she said timidly, after a short hesitation.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I would ask you to come with me to the concierge immediately."
+
+"You think of such a thing!"  he exclaimed.
+
+Since the evening when he had testified to the death of Caffie, he had
+not returned to the Rue Sainte-Anne; and it was not when the description
+given by Madame Dammauville was, doubtless, already spread in the
+quarter, that he was going to commit the imprudence of showing himself.
+But he must explain this exclamation.
+
+"How can you expect a doctor to give himself up to such an investigation?
+On your part it is quite natural; on mine it would be unheard of and
+ridiculous; add that it would be dangerous.  You must conciliate Madame
+Dammauville, and this would be truly a stupidity that would give her a
+pretext for thinking that you are trying to find out whether she is, or
+is not, in her right mind."
+
+"That is true," she said.  "I had not thought of that.  I said to myself
+that, while I could only listen to what the concierge would tell me, you
+would know how to question her in a way that would lead her to say what
+you want to learn."
+
+"I hope that your investigation will tell me.  In any case, let us offend
+in nothing.  If to-morrow you bring me only insignificant details, we
+will consider what to do.  In the mean time, return to the concierge this
+evening and question her.  If it is possible, see Madame Dammauville, and
+do not go home until after having obtained some news on this subject that
+is of such importance to us.  And I will go to see Nougarde."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DAGNEROUS DETAILS
+
+It was not to falsify Phillis's story that Saniel insisted on going to
+see Nougarede.  What good would it do?  That would be a blunder which
+sooner or later would show itself, and in that case would turn against
+him.  He would have liked, with the authority of a physician, to explain
+that this testimony of a paralytic could have no more importance than
+that of a crazy woman.
+
+But at the first words of an explanation Nougarede stopped him.
+
+"What you say is very possible, my dear friend; but I shall make you
+see that it is not for us to raise objections of this kind.  Here is a
+testimony that may save our client; let us accept this, such as it may
+be, whence it comes.  It is the business of the prosecution to prove that
+our witness could not see what she relates that she saw, or that her
+mental condition does not permit her to know what she saw; and do not be
+afraid, investigation will not be lacking.  Do not let us even give a
+hint from our side; that would be stupid."
+
+This, certainly, was not what Saniel wished; only he believed it a duty,
+in his quality of physician, to indicate some rocks against which they
+might strike themselves.
+
+"Our duty," continued the advocate, "is, therefore, to manage in a way to
+escape them; and this is how I understand the role of this really
+providential witness, if it is possible to make her undertake it.  Since
+it has occurred to you--you who wish the acquittal of this poor boy--that
+the testimony of Madame Dammauville may be vitiated by the simple fact
+that it comes from a sick woman, it is incontestable, is it not, that
+this same idea will occur to those who wish for his conviction?  This
+testimony should be irrefutable; it should be presented in such a way
+that no one could raise anything against it, so that it would compel the
+acquittal in the same moment that it is presented.  It was between a
+quarter past and half past five o'clock that Caffie was assassinated;
+at exactly a quarter past five, a woman of respectable position, and
+whose intellectual as well as physical faculties render her worthy of
+being believed, saw in Caffies office a man, with whom it is materially
+impossible to confound Florentin Cormier, draw the curtains of the
+window, and thus prepare for the crime.  She would make her deposition in
+these conditions, and in these terms, and the affair would be finished.
+There would not be a judge, after this confrontation, who would send
+Florentin Cormier before the assizes, and, assuredly, there would not be
+two voices in the jury for conviction.  But things will not happen like
+this.  Without doubt, Madame Dammauville bears a name that is worth
+something; her husband was an estimable attorney, a brother of the one
+who was notary at Paris."
+
+"Have you ever had any business with her?"
+
+"Never.  I tell you what is well known to every one, morally she is
+irreproachable.  But is she the same physically and mentally?  Not at
+all, unfortunately.  If a physician can be found who will declare that
+her paralysis does not give her aberrations or hallucinations, another
+one will be found who will contest these opinions, and who will come to
+an opposite conclusion.  So much for the witness herself; now for the
+testimony.  This testimony does not say that the man who drew the
+curtains at a quarter past five was built in such a way that it is
+materially impossible to confound him with Florentin Cormier, because he
+was small or hunchbacked or bald, or dressed like a workman; while
+Florentin is tall, straight, with long hair and beard, and dressed like a
+gentleman.  It says, simply, that the man who drew the curtains was tall,
+with long hair, and curled blond beard, and dressed like a gentleman.
+But this description is exactly Florentin Cormier's, as it is yours--"
+
+"Mine!"  Saniel exclaimed.
+
+"Yours, as well as that of many others.  And it is this, unfortunately
+for us, which destroys the irrefutability that we must have.  How is it
+certain that this tall man, with long hair and curled beard, is not
+Florentin Cormier, since these are his chief characteristics?  And it was
+at night, at a distance of twelve or fifteen metres, through a window,
+whose panes were obscured by the dust of papers and the mist, that this
+sick woman, whose eyes are affected, whose mind is weakened by suffering,
+was able, in a very short space of time, when she had no interest to
+imprint upon her memory what she saw, to grasp certain signs, that she
+recalled yesterday strongly enough to declare that the man who drew the
+curtains was not Florentin Cormier, against whom so many charges have
+accumulated from various sides, and who has only this testimony in his
+favor--every sensible person could not but find it suspicious!"
+
+"But it is true," Saniel said, happy to lend himself to this view of the
+matter, which was his own.
+
+"What makes the truth of a thing, my dear sir, is the way of presenting
+it; let us change this manner and we falsify it.  To arrive at the
+conclusion which made you say 'It is true,' I am on the side of the idea
+that to-morrow Madame Dammauville's story should be known to the law,
+that the brave lady should be heard before the prosecution, and that time
+should be allowed to examine this testimony that you suspect.  Now let us
+look at it from the opposite point.  Madame Dammauville's story is not
+known to the law, or, if something transpires, we will arrange that this
+something is so vague that the prosecution will attach but little
+importance to it.  And this is possible if we do not base a new defence
+on this testimony.  We arrive at the judgment, and when the prosecution
+has listened to its witnesses which have overwhelmed us--the agent of
+affairs Savoureux, the tailor Valerius,--it is Madame Dammauville's turn.
+She simply relates what she saw, and declares that the man who is on the
+prisoner's bench is not the same who drew the curtains at a quarter past
+five.  Do you see the 'coup de theatre'?  The prosecution had not
+foreseen it; it had not inquired into the health of the witness; the
+physician would not be there to quote the defects of sight or reason;
+very probably it would not think of the dusty windowpanes, or of the
+distance.  And all the opposing arguments that would be properly arranged
+if there were time, would be lacking, and we should carry the acquittal
+with a high hand."
+
+Arranged thus, things were too favorable for Saniel for him not to
+receive, with a sentiment of relief, this combination which brought
+Florentin's acquittal more surely, it seemed to him, than all that they
+had arranged for his defence up to this day.  However, an objection
+occurred to him, which he communicated to Nougarede immediately.
+
+"Would one wish to admit that Madame Dammauville had kept silent on so
+grave a matter, and waited for an audience to reveal it?"
+
+"This silence she kept until yesterday; why should she not keep it a few
+days longer?  It is evident that if she had not related what she saw, it
+is because she had reasons for being silent.  It is probable that, being
+ill, she did not wish to expose herself to the annoyances and fatigue of
+an investigation; and in her eyes her deposition was not of great
+importance.  What should she have revealed to the prosecution?  That the
+man who committed the crime was tall, with a curled blond beard?  This
+man the law held, or it held one the description of whom answered to
+this, which to Madame Dammauville was the same thing.  She did not need,
+therefore, to call the police or the judge to tell them these
+insignificant things for her own comfort; and, also, because she believed
+that she had nothing interesting to say, she did not speak.  It was when
+accident brought to her notice the portrait of the accused, she
+recognized that the law had not the real criminal, and then she broke the
+silence.  The moment when she first saw this portrait is not stated
+precisely; I undertake to arrange that.  The difficulty is not there."
+
+"Where do you see it?"
+
+"Here: Madame Dammauville may have already told her story to so many
+persons that it is already public property, where the prosecution has
+picked it up.  In that case there will be no 'coup de theatre'.  She will
+be questioned, her deposition examined, and we will have only a suspected
+testimony.  The first thing to do, then, is to know how far this story
+has spread, and if there is yet time to prevent it from spreading
+farther."
+
+"That is not easy, it seems to me."
+
+"I believe Mademoiselle Phillis can do it.  She is a brave woman, whom
+nothing dejects or disconcerts, which is the living proof that we are
+only valued according to the force and versatility of the inner
+consciousness.  For the rest, I need not sound her praises, since you
+know her better than I; and what I say has no other object but to explain
+the confidence that I place in her.  As I cannot interfere myself, I
+think there is no better person than she to act on Madame Dammauville,
+without disturbing or wounding her, and to bring about the result that we
+desire.
+
+I am sure that she has already won Madame Dammauville, and that she will
+be listened to with sympathy."
+
+"Do you wish me to write to her to come to see you tomorrow?"
+
+"No; it would be better for you so see her this evening, if possible."
+
+"I shall go to the Batignolles when I leave you."
+
+"She will enter into her part perfectly, I am certain, and she will
+succeed, I hope."
+
+"It seems to me that your combination rests, above all, on the 'coup de
+theatre' of the non-recognition of Florentin by Madame Dammauville.  How
+will you bring this paralytic to court?"
+
+"I depend upon you."
+
+"And how?"
+
+"You will examine her."
+
+"I shall have to go to her house!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I am not her doctor."
+
+"You will become so."
+
+"It is impossible."
+
+"I do not find it at all impossible that you should be called in
+consultation.  I have not forgotten that your thesis was on the paralyses
+due to the affection of the spinal cord, and it was remarkable enough for
+us to discuss it in our 'parlotte' of the Rue de Vaugirard.  You have,
+therefore, authority in the matter."
+
+"It is not on account of having written several works on the pathological
+anatomy of medullary lesions, and especially on the alterations of the
+spinal ganglia, that one acquires authority in a question so
+comprehensive and so delicate."
+
+"Do not be too modest, dear friend.  I have had, lately, to consult my
+Dictionary of Medicine, and at each page your work was quoted.  And,
+besides, the way in which you passed your examinations made you famous.
+Every one talks of you.  So it is not impossible that Mademoiselle
+Phillis, relating that her mother was cured of a similar paralysis, will
+give Madame Dammauville the idea of consulting you, and her physician
+will send for you."
+
+"You will not do that?"
+
+"And why should I not do it?"
+
+They looked at each other a moment in silence, and Saniel turned his eyes
+away.
+
+"I detest nothing so much as to appear to put myself forward."
+
+"In this case it is no matter what you detest or like.  The question is
+to save this unfortunate young man whom you know to be innocent; and you
+can do a kind deed and aid us.  You examine Madame Dammauville; you see
+with which paralysis she is afflicted, and consequently, what exceptions
+may be taken at her testimony.  At the same time, you see if you can cure
+her, or, at least, put her in a state to go to court."
+
+"And if it is proved that she cannot leave her bed?"
+
+"In that case I shall change my order of battle, and that is why it is of
+capital importance--you know that that is the word--that we should be
+warned beforehand."
+
+"You will make the judge receive her deposition?"
+
+"In any case.  But I shall make her write a letter that I shall read at
+the desired moment, and I shall call upon her physician to explain that
+he would not permit his patient to come to court.  Without doubt, the
+effect would not be what I desire, but, anyhow, we should have one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A GOOD MEMORY
+
+After Phillis, Nougarde also wished him to see Madame Dammauville; this
+coincidence was not the least danger of the situation that opened before
+him.
+
+If he saw her, the chances were that she would recognize in him the man
+who drew the curtains; for, if he was able to speak to Phillis and
+Nougarede of an affection of the eyes or of the mind, he did not believe
+in these affections, which for him were only makeshifts.
+
+When he reached Madame Cormier's, Phillis had not returned, and he was
+obliged to explain to the uneasy mother why her daughter was late.
+
+It was a delirium of joy, before which he felt embarrassed.  How should
+he break the hope of this unhappy mother?
+
+What he had said to Phillis and to Nougarede he repeated to her.
+
+"But it is possible, also, for paralytics to enjoy all their faculties!"
+Madame Cormier said, with a decision that was not in accordance with her
+habit or with her character.
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+"Am I not an example?"
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"Then Florentin will be saved."
+
+"This is what we hope.  I only caution you against an excess of joy by an
+excess of prudence.  Nevertheless, it is probable Mademoiselle Phillis
+will settle this for us when she returns."
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better if you had gone to the Rue Sainte-
+Anne.  You would have found her."
+
+There was, then, a universal mania to send him to the Rue Sainte-Anne!
+
+They waited, but the conversation was difficult and slow between them.
+It was neither of Phillis nor of Florentin that Saniel thought; it was of
+himself and of his own fears; while Madame Cormier's thoughts ran to
+Phillis.  Then there were long silences that Madame Cormier interrupted
+by going to the kitchen to look after her dinner, that had been ready
+since two o'clock.
+
+Not knowing what to say or do in the presence of Saniel's sombre face and
+preoccupation, which she could not explain, she asked him if he had
+dined.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"If you will accept a plate of soup, I have some of yesterday's bouillon,
+that Phillis did not find bad."
+
+But he did not accept, which hurt Madame Cormier.  For a long time Saniel
+had been a sort of god to her, and since he had shown so much zeal
+regarding Florentin, the 'culte' was become more fervent.
+
+At last Phillis's step was heard.
+
+"What!  You came to tell mamma!"  she exclaimed, on seeing Saniel.
+
+Ordinarily her mother listened to her respectfully, but now she
+interrupted her.
+
+"And Madame Dammauville?"  she asked.
+
+"Madame Dammauville has excellent eyes.  She is a woman of intellect,
+who, without the assistance of any business man, manages her fortune."
+
+Overcome, Madame Cormier fell into a chair.
+
+"Oh, the poor child!"  she murmured.
+
+Exclamations of joy escaped her which contained but little sense.
+
+"It is as I thought," Saniel said; "but it would be imprudent to abandon
+ourselves to hopes to-day that to-morrow may destroy."
+
+While he spoke he escaped, at least, from the embarrassment of his
+position and from the examination of Phillis.
+
+"What did Monsieur Nougarde say?"  she asked.
+
+"I will explain to you presently.  Begin by telling us what you learned
+from Madame Dammauville.  It is her condition that will decide our
+course, at least that which Nougarde counsels us to adopt."
+
+"When the concierge saw me return," Phillis began, "she showed a certain
+surprise; but she is a good woman, who is easily tamed, and I had not
+much trouble in making her tell me all she knows of Madame Dammauville.
+Three years ago Madame Dammauville became a widow without children.  She
+is about forty years of age, and since her widowhood has lived in her
+house in the Rue Sainte-Anne.  Until last year she was not ill, but she
+went every year to the springs at Lamoulon.  It is a year since she was
+taken with pains that were thought to be rheumatic, following which,
+paralysis attacked her and confined her to her bed.  She suffers so much
+sometimes that she cries, but these are spasms that do not last.  In the
+intervals she lives the ordinary life, except that she does not get up.
+She reads a great deal, receives her friends, her sister-in-law--widow of
+a notary--her nephews and nieces, and one of the vicars of the parish,
+for she is very charitable.  Her eyes are excellent.  She has never had
+delirium or hallucinations.  She is very reserved, detests gossip, and
+above everything seeks to live quietly.  The assassination of Caffie
+exasperated her; she would let no one speak to her of him, and she spoke
+of it to no one.  She even said that if she were in a condition to leave
+her house, she would sell it, so that she would never hear the name of
+Caffie."
+
+"How did she speak of the portrait and of the man she saw in Caffie's
+office?"  Saniel asked.
+
+"That is exactly the question that the concierge was not able to answer;
+so I decided to go to see Madame Dammauville again."
+
+"You are courageous," the mother said with pride.
+
+"I assure you that I was not so on going up-stairs.  After what I had
+heard of her character, it was truly audacious to go a second time, after
+an interval of two hours, to trouble her, but it was necessary.  While
+ascending, I sought a reason to justify, or, at least, to explain my
+second visit, and I found only an adventurous one, for which I ought to
+ask your indulgence."
+
+She said this on turning toward Saniel, but with lowered eyes, without
+daring to look at him, and with an emotion that made him uneasy.
+
+"My indulgence?"  he said.
+
+"I acted without having time to reflect, and under the pressure of
+immediate need.  As Madame Dammauville expressed surprise at seeing me
+again, I told her that what she had said to me was so serious, and might
+have such consequences for the life and honor of my brother, that I had
+thought of returning the next day, accompanied by a person familiar with
+the affair, before whom she would repeat her story; and that I came to
+ask her permission to present this person.  This person is yourself."
+
+"I!"
+
+"And that is why," she said feebly, without raising her eyes, "that I
+have need of your indulgence."
+
+"But I had told you--" he exclaimed with a violence that the
+dissatisfaction at being so disposed of was not sufficient to justify.
+
+"That you could not present yourself to Madame Dammauville in the
+character of a physician unless she sent for you.  I did not forget that;
+and it is not as a physician that I wish to beg you to accompany me, but
+as a friend, if you permit me to speak thus; as the most devoted, the
+most firm, and the most generous friend that we have had the happiness to
+encounter in our distress."
+
+"My daughter speaks in my name, as in her own," Madame Cormier said with
+emotion; "I add that it is a respectful friendship, a profound gratitude,
+that we feel toward you."
+
+Although Phillis trembled to see the effect that she produced on Saniel,
+she continued with firmness:
+
+"You would accompany me, then, without doing anything ostensibly, without
+saying you are a doctor, and while she talks you could examine her.
+Madame Dammauville gave her consent to my request with extreme kindness.
+I shall return to her to-morrow, and if you think it useful, if you think
+you should accept the part that I claimed for you without consulting you,
+you can accompany me."
+
+He did not reply to these last words, which were an invitation as well as
+a question.
+
+"Did you not examine her as I told you?"  he asked, after a moment of
+reflection.
+
+"With all the attention of which I was capable in my anguish.  Her glance
+seemed to me straight and untroubled.; her voice is regular, very
+rhythmical; her words follow each other without hesitation; her ideas are
+consecutive and clearly expressed.  There is no trace of suffering on her
+pale face, which bears only the mark of a resigned grief.  She moves her
+arms freely, but the legs, so far as I could judge under the bedclothes,
+are motionless.  In many ways it seems to me that her paralysis resembles
+mamma's, though it is true that in others it does not.  She must be
+extremely sensitive to the cold, for although the weather is not cold
+today, the temperature of her room seemed very high."
+
+"This is an examination," Saniel said, "that a physician could not have
+conducted better, unless he questioned the patient; and had I been with
+you during this visit we should not have learned anything more.  It
+appears certain that Madame Dammauville is in possession of her
+faculties, which renders her testimony invulnerable."
+
+Madame Cormier drew her daughter to her and kissed her passionately.
+
+"I have, therefore, nothing to do with this lady," continued Saniel, with
+the precipitation of a man who has just escaped a danger.  "But your
+part, Mademoiselle, is not finished, and you must return to her tomorrow
+to fulfil that which Nougarde confides to you."
+
+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 finishing 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'Echelle.  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.
+
+Assuredly, 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 passed 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 embarrassment pass, 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 circumstances 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 makeshifts 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 pass, 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
+embarrassing 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-
+Petits-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
+
+The following day at five o'clock when Phillis rang, he opened the door
+for her.  Hardly had she entered when she was about to throw herself into
+his arms as usual, with a quickness that told how happy she was to see
+him.  But he checked her with his hand.
+
+"What is the matter?"  she asked paralyzed and full of fears.
+
+"Nothing; or, at least nothing much."
+
+"Against me?"
+
+"Certainly not, dear one."
+
+"You are ill?"
+
+"No, not ill, but I must take precautions which prevent me from embracing
+you.  I will explain; do not be uneasy, it is not serious."
+
+"Quick!" she cried, examining him, and trying to anticipate his thought.
+
+"You have something to tell me?"
+
+"Yes, good news.  But I beg of you, speak first; do not leave me in
+suspense."
+
+"I assure you that you need not be uneasy; and when I speak thus, you
+know that you should believe me.  You see that I am not uneasy."
+
+"It is for others that you are alarmed, never for yourself."
+
+"Do you know what the pelagre is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It is a special disease of the hair and beard, due to the presence in
+the epidermis of a kind of mushroom.  Well, it is probable that I have
+this disease."
+
+"Is it serious?"
+
+"Troublesome for a man, but disastrous for a woman, because, before any
+treatment, the hair must be cut.  You understand, therefore, that if I
+have the pelagre, as I believe I have, I am not going to expose you to
+the risk of catching it in embracing you.  It is very easily transmitted,
+and in that case you would be obliged, probably, to do for yourself what
+I must do for myself; that is, to cut my hair.  With me it is of no
+consequence; but with you it would be murder to sacrifice your beautiful
+hair."
+
+"You say 'probably.'"
+
+"Because I am not yet quite certain that I have the pelagre.  For about
+two weeks I have felt a slight itching in my head and, naturally, I paid
+no attention to it.  I had other things to do; and besides, I was not
+going to believe I was attacked with a parasitic malady merely on account
+of an itching.  But, after some time, my hair became dry and began to
+fall out.  I had no time to attend to it, and the days passed; besides,
+the excitement of my examinations was enough to make my hair fall.  To-
+day, just before you came, I had a few minutes to spare, and I examined
+one of my hairs through a microscope; if I had not been disturbed I
+should have finished by this time."
+
+"Continue your examination."
+
+"It would take some time to do it thoroughly.  If it is really the
+pelagre, as I have reason to believe, tomorrow you will see me without
+hair and beard.  I would not hesitate, in spite of the astonishment that
+my appearance would cause."
+
+"What good will that do?"
+
+"I cannot tell people that I had my hair and beard cut because I have a
+parasitic disease.  Every one knows it is contagious."
+
+"When the hair is cut, what will be come of the disease?"
+
+"With energetic treatment it will rapidly disappear.  Before long you may
+embrace me if--you do not find me too ugly."
+
+"O dearest!"
+
+"And now for you; you have come from Madame Dammauville?"
+
+He did not need to persist; Phillis accepted his story so readily that he
+felt reassured on her side; she would not alarm herself about it.  As for
+others, the embarrassment of confessing a contagious malady would be a
+sufficient explanation, if he were ever obliged to furnish one.
+
+"What did she say to you?"  he asked.
+
+"Good and kind words to begin with, which show what an excellent woman
+she is.  After having presented myself twice at her house yesterday, you
+understand that I was not quite easy on asking her to receive me again
+to-day.  As I tried to excuse myself, she said she was glad to see my
+devotion to my brother, that I need never excuse myself for asking her
+assistance, and that she would help me all she could.  With this
+encouragement I explained what we want her to do, but she did not appear
+disposed to do it.  Without giving her Monsieur Nougarede's reasons, I
+said we were obliged to conform to the counsels of those who directed the
+affair, and I begged her to help us.  Finally she was won over, but
+reluctantly, and said she would do as we wished.  But she could not
+assure me that her servants had not talked about it, nor could she
+promise to leave her bed to go to court, for she had not left her room
+for a year."
+
+"Does she expect to be able to rise soon?"
+
+"I repeat her words, to which I paid great attention in order not to
+forget them: 'I am promised that I shall be better next year, but who can
+tell?  I will urge my doctor to give me an answer, and when you come
+again I will tell you what he says.'  Profiting by the door that she
+opened to me, I kept the conversation on this doctor.  It seems to me,
+but I am not certain, that she has but little confidence in him.  He was
+the classmate of her husband and of her brother-in-law the notary; he is
+the friend of every one, curing those who can be cured, or letting them
+die by accident.  You see what kind of a doctor he is."
+
+"I told you I knew him."
+
+"See if I deceive myself, and to what I tell you, add what you already
+know.  Frightened to see in whose hands she is, I undertook to find out,
+and finished by learning--without asking her directly--that she has seen
+no other physician during the year.  When she was taken with paralysis a
+consultation was held, and she has had Doctor Balzajette ever since.  She
+says he is very kind, and takes care of her as well as another would."
+
+Saniel improved the opportunity to refer to his stupidity in frankly
+expressing his opinion on the solemn Balzajette.
+
+"It is probable," he said.
+
+"It is certain?  Do you believe that during one year nothing has appeared
+in Madame Dammauville's disease that should demand new treatment?  Do you
+think the solemn Balzajette is incapable of finding it all by himself?"
+
+"He is not so dull as you suppose."
+
+"It is you who speak of dulness."
+
+"To diagnose a disease and to treat it are two things.  It is the
+consultation you speak of that settled the question of Madame
+Dammauville's disease, and prescribed the treatment that Balzajette had
+only to apply; and his capacity, I assure you, is sufficient for this
+task."
+
+As she appeared but little reassured, he persisted, for it would be an
+imprudence to let Phillis become enamored of the idea that if he attended
+Madame Dammauville, he would cure her, even if it required a miracle.
+
+"We have some time before us, since the 'ordonnance de renvoi' before the
+assizes is not yet given out.  Madame Dammauville has promised to
+question her doctor, to learn if he hopes to put her in condition to
+leave her bed soon.  Let us wait, therefore."
+
+"Would it not be better to act than to wait?"
+
+"At least let us wait for news from Balzajette.  Either it will be
+satisfactory, and then we shall have nothing to do, or it will not be,
+and in that case I promise you to see Balzajette.  I know him well enough
+to speak to him of your patient, which, above all, enables me, in making
+your brother intervene, to interest myself openly in his
+reestablishment."
+
+"O dearest, dearest!"  she murmured, in a spirit of gratitude.
+
+"You cannot doubt my devotion to you first, and to your brother
+afterward.  You asked me an impossible thing, that I was obliged to
+refuse, to my regret, precisely because it was impossible; but you know
+that I am yours, and will do all I can for your family."
+
+"Forgive me."
+
+"I have nothing to forgive; in your place I should think as you do, but I
+believe that in mine you would act as I do."
+
+"Be sure that I have never had an idea of blame in my heart for what is
+with you an affair of dignity.  It is because you are high and proud that
+I love you so passionately."
+
+She rose.
+
+"Are you going?"  he asked.
+
+"I want to carry Madame Dammauville's words to mamma; you can imagine
+with what anguish she awaits me."
+
+"Let us, go.  I will leave you at the boulevard to go to see Nougarede."
+
+The interview with the advocate was short.
+
+"You see, dear friend, that my plan is good; bring Madame Dammauville to
+court, and we shall have some pleasant moments."
+
+This time Saniel had not the hesitation of the previous evening, and he
+entered the first barber-shop he saw.  When he returned to his rooms he
+lighted two candles, and placing them on the mantle, he looked at himself
+in the glass.
+
+Coquetry had never been his sin, and often weeks passed without his
+looking in a mirror, so indifferent was he when making his toilet.
+However, as a young boy he sometimes looked in his small glass, asking
+himself what he would become, and he could now recall his looks--an
+energetic face with clearly drawn features, a physiognomy open and frank,
+without being pretty, but not disagreeable.  His beard had concealed all
+this; but now that it was gone, he said to himself without much
+reflection that he would find again, without doubt, the boy he
+remembered.
+
+What he saw in the glass was a forehead lined transversely; oblique
+eyebrows, raised at the inside extremity, and a mouth with tightened lips
+turned down at the corners; furrows were hollowed in the cheeks; and the
+whole physiognomy, harassed, ravaged, expressed hardness.
+
+What had become of that of the young man of other days?  He had before
+him the man that life had made, and of whom the violent contractions of
+the muscles of the face had modelled the expression.
+
+"Truly, the mouth of an assassin!"  he murmured.
+
+Then, looking at his shaved head, he added with a smile:
+
+"And perhaps that of one condemned to death, whose toilet has just been
+made for the guillotine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A BROKEN NEGATIVE
+
+To have made himself unrecognizable was, without doubt, a safe
+precaution; but having started on this course, he would not be easy until
+he had destroyed all traces of himself in such a way that Madame
+Dammauville would never be able to find the man that she had seen so
+clearly under Caffie's lamp.
+
+Precisely because he was not vain and had no pretension to beauty, he had
+escaped the photograph mania.  Once only he had been photographed in
+spite of himself, simply to oblige a classmate who had abandoned medicine
+for photography.
+
+But now this once was too much, for there was danger that this portrait
+taken three years before, and showing him with the hair and beard that he
+wished to suppress, might be discovered.  Without doubt there were few
+chances that a copy of it would be seen by Madame Dammauville; but if
+there existed only one against a hundred thousand, he must arrange it so
+that he need have no fear.
+
+He had had a dozen copies of this photograph, but as his relatives were
+few, he kept the majority of them.  One he sent to his mother, who was
+living at that time; another went to the priest of his village, and later
+he had given one to Phillis.  He must, then, have nine in his possession.
+He found them and burned them immediately.
+
+Of the three that remained, only one might testify against him, the one
+belonging to Phillis.  But it would be easy for him to get it again on
+inventing some pretext, while as to the others, truly he had nothing to
+fear.
+
+The real danger might come from the photographer, who perhaps had some of
+the photographs, and who undoubtedly preserved the negative.  This was
+his first errand the next day.
+
+On entering the studio of this friend, he experienced a disagreeable
+feeling, which troubled him and made him uneasy; he had not given his
+name, and counting on the change made by the cutting of his hair and
+beard, he said to himself that his friend, who had not seen him for a
+long time, certainly would not recognize him.
+
+He had taken but a few steps, his hat in his hand, like a stranger who is
+about to accost another, when the photographer came toward him with
+outstretched hand, and a friendly smile on his face.
+
+"You, my dear friend!  What good fortune is worth the pleasure of your
+visit tome?  Can I be useful to you in any way?"
+
+"You recognize me, then?"
+
+"What!  Do I recognize you?  Do you ask that because you have cut your
+hair and beard?  Certainly it changes you and gives you a new
+physiognomy; but I should be unworthy of my business if, by a different
+arrangement of the hair, I could not recognize you.
+
+Besides, eyes of steel like yours are not forgotten; they are a
+description and a signature."
+
+Then this means in which he placed so much confidence was only a new
+imprudence, as the question, "You recognize me, then?"  was a mistake.
+
+"Come, I will pose you at once," the photographer said.  "Very curious,
+this shaved head, and still more interesting, I think, than with the
+beard and long hair.  The traits of character are more clearly seen."
+
+"It is not for a new portrait that I have come, but for the old one.
+Have you any of the proofs?"
+
+"I think not, but I will see.  In any case, if you wish some they are
+easily made, since I have the plate."
+
+"Will you look them up?  For I have not a single proof left of those you
+gave me, and on looking at myself in the glass this morning I found such
+changes between my face of to-day and that of three years ago, that I
+would like to study them.  Certain ideas came to me on the expression of
+the physiognomy, that I wish to study, with something to support them."
+
+The search for the proofs made by an assistant led to no results; there
+were no proofs.
+
+"Exactly; and for several days I have thought of making some," the
+photographer said.  "Because your day of glory will come, when your
+portrait will be in a distinguished place in the shop-windows and
+collections.  Every one talks of your 'concours'.  Although I have
+abandoned medicine without the wish to return to it, I have not become
+indifferent to what concerns it, and I learned of your success.  Which
+portrait shall we put in circulation?  The old or the new?"
+
+"The new."
+
+"Then let us arrange the pose."
+
+"Not to-day; it is only yesterday that I was shaved, fearing an attack of
+pelagre, and the skin covered by the beard has a crude whiteness that
+will accentuate the hardness of my physiognomy, which is really useless.
+We will wait until the air has tanned me a little, and then I will
+return, I promise you."
+
+"How many proofs do you want of your old portrait?"
+
+"One will do."
+
+"I will send you a dozen."
+
+"Do not take the trouble; I will take them when I come to pose.  But in
+the mean time, could you not show me the plate?"
+
+"Nothing easier."
+
+When it was brought, Saniel took the glass plate with great care, holding
+it with the tips of his fingers by the two opposite corners, in order not
+to efface the portrait.  Then, as he was standing in the shadow of a blue
+curtain, he walked towards the chimney where the light was strong, and
+began his examination.
+
+"It is very good," he said; "very curious."
+
+"Only a photograph can have this documentary value."
+
+To compare this document with the reality, Saniel approached the chimney
+more closely, above which was a mirror.  When his feet touched the marble
+hearth he stopped, looking alternately at the plate which he held
+carefully in his hands, and at his face reflected in the glass.  Suddenly
+he made an exclamation; he let fall the plate, which, falling flat on the
+marble, broke into little pieces that flew here and there.
+
+"How awkward I am!"
+
+He showed a vexation that should not leave the smallest doubt in the
+photographer's mind as to its truth.
+
+"You must get one of the proofs that you have given away," his friend
+said," for I have not a single one left."
+
+"I will try and find one."
+
+What he did try to find on leaving was whether or no he had succeeded in
+rendering himself unrecognizable, for he could not trust to this
+experience, weakened by the fact that this old friend was a photographer.
+With him it was a matter of business to note the typical traits that
+distinguish one face from another, and in a long practice he had acquired
+an accuracy Madame Dammauville could not possess.
+
+Among the persons he knew, it seemed to him that the one in the best
+condition to give certainty to the proof was Madame Cormier.  He knew at
+this hour she would be alone, and as she had not been, assuredly, warned
+by her daughter that he intended to shave, the experiment would be
+presented in a way to give a result as exact as possible.
+
+In answer to his ring Madame Cormier opened the door, and he saluted her
+without being recognized; but as the hall was dark this was not of great
+significance.  His hat in his hand, he followed her into the dining-room
+without speaking, in order that his voice should not betray him.
+
+Then, after she had looked at him a moment, with uneasy surprise at
+first, she began to smile.
+
+"It is Doctor Saniel !"  she cried.  "Mon Dieu!  How stupid of me not to
+recognize you; it changes you so much to be shaved!  Pardon me."
+
+"It is because I am shaved that I come to ask a favor."
+
+"Of us, my dear sir?  Ah!  Speak quickly; we should be so happy to prove
+our gratitude."
+
+"I would ask Mademoiselle Phillis to give me, if she has it, a photograph
+that I gave her about a year ago."
+
+As Phillis wished the liberty to expose this photograph frankly, in order
+to have it always before her, she had asked for it, and Saniel had given
+it to her, in her mother's presence.
+
+"If she has it!"  exclaimed Mme.  Cormier.  "Ah!  my dear sir, you do not
+know the place that all your goodness, and the services that you have
+rendered us, have made for you in our hearts."
+
+And passing into the next room, she brought a small velvet frame in which
+was the photograph.  Saniel took it out, on explaining the study for
+which he wanted it, and after promising to bring it back soon, he
+returned to his rooms.
+
+Decidedly, everything was going well.  The plate was destroyed, Phillis's
+proof in his hands; he had nothing more to fear from this side.  As to
+the experiment made on the mother, it was decisive enough to inspire him
+with confidence.  If Madame Cormier, who had seen him so often and for so
+long a time, and who thought of him at every instant, did not recognize
+him, how was it possible that Madame Dammauville, who had only seen him
+from a distance and for a few seconds, could recognize him after several
+months?
+
+Would he never accustom himself to the idea that his life could not have
+the tranquil monotony of a bourgeois existence, that it would experience
+shocks and storms, but that if he knew how to remain always master of his
+force and will, it would bring him to a safe port?
+
+The calm that was his before this vexation came back to him, and when the
+last proofs of his concours, confirming the success of the first, had
+given him the two titles that he so ardently desired and pursued at the
+price of so many pains, so many efforts and privations, he could enjoy
+his triumph in all security.
+
+He held the present in his strong hands, and the future was his.
+
+Now he could walk straight, boldly, his head high, jostling those who
+annoyed him, according to his natural temperament.
+
+Although these last months had been full of terrible agitation for him,
+on account of everything connected with the affair of Caffie and
+Florentin, and above all, on account of the fatigue, emotion, and the
+fever of his 'concours', yet he had not interrupted his special works for
+a day or even an hour, and his experiments followed for so many years had
+at length produced important results, that prudence alone prevented him
+from publishing.  In opposition to the official teaching of the school,
+these discoveries would have caused the hair to stand upright on the old
+heads; and it was not the time, when he asked permission to enter, to
+draw upon himself the hostility of these venerable doorkeepers, who would
+bar the way to a revolutionist.  But, now that he was in the place for
+ten or twelve years, he need take no precautions, either for persons or
+for ideas, and he might speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+PHILLIS PRECIPITATES MATTERS
+
+Saniel saw his colleague, the solemn Balzajette, and so adroitly as not
+to provoke surprise or suspicion, he spoke of Madame Dammauville, in whom
+he was interested incidentally; without persisting, and only to justify
+his question, he explained the nature of this interest.
+
+Although solemn, Balzajette was not the less a gossip, and it was his
+solemnity that made him gossip.  He listened to himself talk, and when,
+his chest bulging, his pink chin freshly shaved resting on his white
+cravat, his be-ringed hand describing in the air noble and demonstrative
+gestures, one could, if one had the patience to listen to him, make him
+say all that one wished; for he was convinced that his interlocutor
+passed an agreeable moment, whose remembrance would never be forgotten.
+His patients might wait in pain or anguish, he did not hasten the
+majestic delivery of his high-sounding phrases with choice adjectives;
+and unless it was to go to a dinner-party, which he did at least five
+days in the week, he could not leave you until after he had made you
+partake of the admiration that he professed for himself.
+
+It was to an affection of the spinal cord that Mme. Dammauville's
+paralysis was due, and consequently it was perfectly curable; even
+Balzajette was astonished that with his treatment and his care the cure
+was delayed.
+
+"But what shall I say to you, young 'confrere'?  You know better than I
+that with women everything is possible--above all the impossible."
+
+And during a half-hour he complaisantly related the astonishment that the
+fashionable women under his care had caused him, in spite of his
+knowledge and experience.
+
+"Well, to resume, what shall I tell you, young 'confrere'?"
+
+And he repeated and explained what he had already said and explained.
+
+Although Balzajette read only a morning paper, and never opened a book,
+he had heard of Saniel's reputation, and because he was young he thought
+he might manage this 'confrere', who seemed destined to make a good
+position.  In spite of the high esteem that he professed for his own
+merits and person, he vaguely felt that the doctors of his generation
+who were eminent did not treat him with all the consideration that he
+accorded himself, and in order to teach his ancient comrades a lesson,
+he was glad to enter into friendly relations with a young one 'dans le
+mouvement'.  He would speak of his young confrere Saniel: "You know the
+one who was appointed 'agrege'," and he would relate the advice that he,
+Balzajette, had given him.
+
+That Madame Dammauville would be well enough to go to court Saniel
+doubted, above all, after Balzajette had explained his treatment; and as
+far as he was concerned, he could not but rejoice.  Doubtless, it would
+be hard for Florentin not to have this testimony, and not to profit by
+the 'coup de theatre' prepared by Nougarede; but for himself, he could
+only feel happy over it.  In spite of all the precautions he had taken,
+it would be better not to expose himself to a meeting with Madame
+Dammauville in the witness-chamber, or even in court.  They must depend
+upon a letter supported by Balzajette's deposition, and Florentin would
+be not the less acquitted.  Only Nougarede would have to regret his 'coup
+de theatre'.  But the satisfaction or disappointment of Nougarede was
+nothing to him.
+
+But he did not tell Phillis the ideas suggested by his interview with
+Balzajette; he summed up the conclusions of this interview.  Balzajette
+said that Madame Dammauville would soon be on her feet, and one might
+have faith in his word; Florentin would be saved, and there was nothing
+to do but to let things go on as they were going.
+
+Phillis, Madame Cormier, Nougarede, Florentin himself, whom the Mazas
+cell had reconciled neither with hope nor with providential justice, were
+all delighted with this idea.
+
+Also, when the chamber of the prosecution sent Florent to the assizes,
+the emotion of Madame Cormier and Phillis would not be too violent.
+Madame Dammauville would be in a state to make her deposition, since the
+evening before she had been able to leave her bed; and although she left
+it for only an hour, and then to go from her bedroom to her parlor, that
+was enough.  Nougarede said that the affair would come on at the second
+session in April; between then and now Madame Dammauville would be solid
+enough on her legs to appear before the jury and carry the acquittal.
+
+To Phillis, Saniel repeated that the cure was certain, and to her, also,
+he rejoiced aloud.  But he was troubled about this cure.  This meeting,
+only the idea of which had alarmed him to the point of losing his head,
+would be brought about, and under conditions that could not but affect
+him.  Truly, the precautions he had taken should reassure him, but after
+all there remained no less a troublesome uncertainty.  Who could tell?
+He preferred that she should not leave her room, and that Nougarede
+should find a way to obtain her deposition without taking her to court;
+he would then feel more reassured, more calm in mind, and with a more
+impassive face he could go to court.
+
+Was he really unrecognizable?  This was the question that beset him now.
+Many times he compared his reflection in the glass with the photograph
+that he had given Phillis.  The hair and beard were gone, but his eyes of
+steel, as his friend said, still remained, and nothing could change them.
+He might wear blue eyeglasses, or injure himself in a chemical experiment
+and wear a bandage.  But such a disguise would provoke curiosity and
+questions just so much more dangerous, because it would coincide with the
+disappearance of his hair and beard.
+
+But these fears did not torment him long, for Phillis, who now passed a
+part of every day in the Rue Sainte-Anne with Madame Dammauville, came
+one evening in despair, and told him that that day the invalid had been
+able to leave her bed for a few minutes only.
+
+Then she would not go to court.
+
+This apprehension of meeting Madame Dammauville face to face had begun to
+exasperate him; he felt like a coward in yielding to it, and since he had
+not the force to shake it off, he was happy to be relieved from it by the
+intervention of chance, which, after having been against him so long, now
+became favorable.  The wheel turned.
+
+"See Madame Dammauville often," he said to Phillis, "and note all that
+she feels; perhaps I shall find some way to repair this impediment,
+something that I may suggest to Balzajette without his suspecting it.
+Besides, it is reasonable to believe that the recrudescence of cold that
+we are suffering from now may have something to do with the change in her
+condition; it is probable that with the mild spring weather she may
+improve."
+
+He hoped by this counsel to quiet Phillis's uneasiness and to gain time.
+But it had the opposite effect.  In her anguish, which increased as the
+time for the trial approached, it was not probabilities, any more than
+the uncertain influence of the spring, that Phillis could depend on; she
+must have something more and better; but fearing a refusal, she forbore
+to tell him what she hoped to obtain.
+
+It was only when she had succeeded that she spoke.
+
+Every day, on leaving Madame Dammauville, she came to tell him what she
+had learned, and for three successive days her story was the same:
+
+"She was not able to leave her bed."
+
+And each day he made the same reply:
+
+"It is the cold weather.  Surely, we shall soon have a change; this frost
+and wind will not continue beyond the end of March."
+
+He was pained at her desolation and anguish, but what could he do?  It
+was not his fault that this relapse occurred at a decisive moment; fate
+had been against him long enough, and he was not going to counteract it
+at the time when it seemed to take his side, by yielding to the desire
+that Phillis dared not express, but which he divined, and by going to see
+Madame Dammauville.
+
+When she entered his office on the fourth day, he knew at once by her
+manner that something favorable to Florentin had happened.
+
+"Madame Dammauville is up," he said.
+
+"No."
+
+"I thought she must be, by your vivacity and lightness."  "It is because
+I am happy; Madame Dammauville wishes to consult you."
+
+He took her hands roughly and shook them.
+
+"You have done that!"  he exclaimed.
+
+She looked at him frightened.
+
+"You!  You!"  he repeated with increasing fury.
+
+"At least listen to me," she murmured.  "You will see that I have not
+compromised you in anything."
+
+Compromised!  It was professional dignity of which he thought, truly!
+
+"I do not want to listen to you; I shall not go."
+
+"Do not say that."
+
+"It only needed that you should dispose of me in your own way."
+
+"Victor!"
+
+Anger carried him away.
+
+"I belong to you, then!  I am your thing!  You do with me what you wish!
+You decide, and I have only to obey!  There is too much of this!  You can
+go; everything is at an end between us."
+
+She listened, crushed; but this last word, which struck her in her love,
+gave her strength.  In her turn she took his hands, and although he
+wished to withdraw them, she held them closely in her own.
+
+"You may throw in my face all the angry words you please; you may
+reproach me as much as you think I deserve it, and I will not complain.
+Without doubt, I have done you wrong, and I feel the weight of it on
+seeing how profoundly you are wounded; but to send me away, to tell me
+that all is over between us, no, Victor, you will not do that.  You will
+not say it, for you know that never was a man loved as I love you,
+adored, respected.  And voluntarily, deliberately, even to save my
+brother, that I should have compromised you!"
+
+He pushed her from him.
+
+"Go!" he said harshly.
+
+She threw herself on her knees, and taking his hands that he had
+withdrawn, she kissed them passionately.
+
+"But listen to me," she cried.  "Before condemning me, hear my defence.
+Even if I were a hundred times more guilty than I really am, you could
+not drive me from you with this unmerciful hardness."
+
+"Go!"
+
+"You lose your head; anger carries you away.  What is the matter?  It is
+impossible that I, by my stupidity, through my fault, could put you in
+such a state of mad exasperation.  What is the matter, my beloved?"
+
+These few words did more than Phillis's despair of her expressions of
+love.  She was right, he lost his head.  And however guilty she might be
+towards him, it was evident that she could not admit that the fault she
+committed threw him into this access of furious folly.  It was not
+natural; and in his words and actions all must be natural, all must be
+capable of explanation.
+
+"Very well, speak!"  he said.  "I am listening to you.  Moreover, it is
+better to know.  Speak!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE APPOINTMENT
+
+"You should understand," she said with a little more calmness--for, since
+he permitted her to speak, she hoped to convince him--"that I have done
+all I could to bring Madame Dammauville to the idea of calling, in
+consultation with Monsieur Balzajette, a doctor--"
+
+"Which would be myself."
+
+"You or another; I have not mentioned any name.  You should not think me
+awkward enough to put you forward clumsily; it would not be a good way to
+make you acceptable to an intelligent woman, and I value your dignity too
+much to lower it.  I believed that another doctor than Monsieur
+Balzajette would find a remedy, some way, a miracle if you will, to
+enable Madame Dammauville to go to the Palais de justice, and I said it.
+I said it in every tone, in every way, with as much persuasion as I could
+put in my words.  Was it not the life of my brother that I defended, our
+honor?  At first, I found Madame Dammauville much opposed to this idea.
+She would be better soon, she felt it.  Otherwise, if it were her duty to
+be carried to the Palais de justice, she would not hesitate."
+
+"She would do that?"
+
+"Assuredly.  No one has a stronger sense of justice.  She would feel
+guilty did she not give her testimony to save an innocent person; not to
+save him when she could would be to take the responsibility of his loss.
+It is therefore certain that if she cannot go to court alone, she will do
+all she can to go, no matter how--on M. Balzajette's arm, or on a
+stretcher.  I was, then, easy enough on this side, but I was not for the
+stretcher.  What would people think to see her in this condition?  What
+impression would she make on the jury?  Would not her appearance weaken
+the value of her testimony?  As Madame Dammauville is fond of me, and
+very kind to me, I determined to profit by this kindness to urge a
+consultation, but without mentioning any name.  I represented to her
+that, since M. Balzajette might say with every appearance of truth he had
+cured her, he should not be angry if she desired to ratify this cure.
+That besides, there was an imperative motive that would not permit her to
+wait, for it would be very disagreeable to her to present herself at the
+court of assizes in a theatrical way, which was not at all according to
+her character or habits.  I easily discovered that the fear of giving
+pain to this old friend of her husband was the chief reason why she was
+opposed to this consultation.  It was then that your name was
+pronounced."
+
+"You acknowledge it, then?"
+
+"You will see how, and you will not be angry about it.  I have often
+spoken to Madame Dammauville of mamma, and, consequently, of how you
+cured her paralysis, that resembled hers.  It was not wrong, was it, to
+say what you have done for us?  And without letting any one suspect my
+love, I could praise you, which my gratitude prompted.  She asked me many
+questions, and naturally, as usual when I speak of you, when I have the
+joy of pronouncing your name, I answered in detail.  That is not a
+crime?"
+
+She waited a moment, looking at him.  Without softening the hardness of
+his glance, he made a sign to her to continue.
+
+"When I persisted on the consultation, Madame Dammauville recalled what I
+had said, and she was the first--you hear?--the first to pronounce your
+name.  As you had cured my mother, I had the right to praise you.  With a
+nature like hers, she would not have understood if I had not done it; she
+would have believed me ungrateful.  I spoke of your book on the diseases
+of the spinal cord, which was quite natural; and as she manifested a
+desire to read it, I offered to lend it to her."
+
+"Was that natural?"
+
+"With any but Madame Dammauville, no; but she is not frivolous.  I took
+the book to her two days ago, and she has just told me that, after
+reading it, she has decided to send for you."
+
+"I shall certainly not go; she has her own physician."
+
+"Do not imagine that I have come to ask you to pay her a visit; all is
+arranged with Monsieur Balzajette, who will write to you or see you, I do
+not know which."
+
+"That will be very extraordinary on the part of Balzajette!"
+
+"Perhaps you judge him harshly.  When Madame Dammauville spoke to him of
+you he did not raise the smallest objection; on the contrary, he praised
+you.  He says that you are one of the rare young men in whom one may have
+confidence.  These are his own words that Madame Dammauville told me."
+
+"What do I care for the opinion of this old beast!"
+
+"I am explaining how it happens that you are called into consultation; it
+is not because I spoke of you, but because you have inspired Monsieur
+Balzajette with confidence.  However stupid he may be, he is just to you,
+and knows your value."
+
+It was come then, the time for the meeting that he did not wish to
+believe possible; and it was brought about in such a way that he did not
+see how he could escape it.  He might refuse Phillis; but Balzajette?
+A colleague called him in consultation, and why should he not go?  Had he
+foreseen this blow he would have left Paris until the trial was over, but
+he was taken unawares.  What could he say to justify a sudden absence?
+He had no mother or brothers who might send for him, and with whom he
+would be obliged to remain.  Besides, he wished to go to court; and since
+his testimony would carry considerable weight with the jury, it was his
+duty to be present on account of Florentin.  It would be a contemptible
+cowardice to fail in this duty, and more, it would be an imprudence.  In
+the eyes of the world he must appear to have nothing to fear, and this
+assurance, this confidence in himself, was one of the conditions of his
+safety.  Now, if he went to court, and from every point of view it was
+impossible that he should not go, he would meet Madame Dammauville,
+as she intended to be carried there if she were unable to go in any other
+way.  Whether it was at her house, or at the Palais de justice, the
+meeting was then certain, and in spite of what he had done, circumstances
+stronger than his will had prepared it and brought it about; nothing that
+he could do would prevent it.
+
+The only question that deserved serious consideration just now was to
+know where this meeting would be the least dangerous for him--at Madame
+Dammauville's or at the Palais?
+
+He reflected silently, paying no more attention to Phillis than if she
+were not present, his eyes fixed, his brow contracted, his lips tightly
+closed, when the doorbell rang.  As Joseph was at his post, Saniel did
+not move.
+
+"If it is a patient," Phillis said, who did not wish to go yet, "I will
+wait in the dining-room."
+
+And she rose.
+
+Before she could leave the room, Joseph entered.
+
+"Doctor Balzajette," he said.
+
+"You see!"  Phillis cried.
+
+Without replying, Saniel made a sign to Joseph to admit Doctor
+Balzajette, and while Phillis silently disappeared, he went toward the
+parlor.
+
+Balzajette came forward with both hands extended.
+
+"Good-day, my young 'confrere'.  I am enchanted to meet you."
+
+The reception was benevolent, amicable, and protecting, and Saniel
+replied at his best.
+
+"Since we met the other day," Balzajette continued, "I have thought of
+you.  And nothing more natural than that, for you inspired me with a
+quick sympathy.  The first time you came to see me you pleased me
+immediately, and I told you you would make your way.  Do you remember?"
+
+Assuredly he remembered; and of all the visits that he made to the
+doctors and druggists of his quarter, that to Balzajette was the hardest.
+It was impossible to show more pride, haughtiness, and disdain than
+Balzajette had put into his reception of the then unknown young man.
+
+"I told you what I thought of you," continued Balzajette.  "It is with
+regard to this patient of whom you spoke to me; you remember?"
+
+"Madame Dammauville?"
+
+"Exactly.  I put her on her feet, as I told you, but since then this bad
+weather has compelled her to take to her bed again.  Without doubt, it is
+only an affair of a few days; but in the mean time, the poor woman is
+irritable and impatient.  You know women, young 'confrere'.  To calm this
+impatience, I spontaneously proposed a consultation, and naturally
+pronounced your name, which is well known by your fine work on the
+medullary lesions.  I supported it, as was proper, with the esteem that
+it has acquired, and I have the satisfaction to see it accepted."
+
+Saniel thanked him as if he believed in the perfect sincerity of this
+spontaneous proposition.
+
+"I like the young, and whenever an occasion presents itself, I shall be
+happy to introduce you to my clientage.  For Madame Dammauville, when can
+you go with me to see her?"
+
+As Saniel appeared to hesitate, Balzajette, mistaking the cause of his
+silence, persisted.
+
+"She is impatient," he said.  "Let us go the first day that is possible."
+
+He must reply, and in these conditions a refusal would be inexplicable.
+
+"Will to-morrow suit you?"  he asked.
+
+"To-morrow, by all means.  At what hour?"
+
+Before replying, Saniel went to his desk and consulted an almanac, which
+appeared perfectly ridiculous to Balzajette.
+
+"Does he imagine, the young 'confrere', that I am going to believe his
+time so fully occupied that he must make a special arrangement to give me
+an hour?"
+
+But it was not an arrangement of this kind that Saniel sought.  His
+almanac gave the rising and the setting of the sun, and it was the exact
+hour of sunset that he wished: "26 March, 6h. 20m."  At this moment it
+would not be dark enough at Madame Dammauville's for lamps to be lighted,
+and yet it would be dark enough to prevent her from seeing him clearly in
+the uncertain light of evening.
+
+"Will a quarter past six suit you?  I will call for you at six o'clock."
+
+"Very well.  Only I shall ask you to be very exact; I have a dinner at
+seven o'clock in the Rue Royale."
+
+Saniel promised promptness.  The dinner was a favorable circumstance,
+enabling him to escape from Madame Dammauville's before the lamps would
+be lighted.
+
+When Balzajette was gone, he rejoined Phillis in the dining-room.
+
+"A consultation is arranged for to-morrow at six o'clock, at Madame
+Dammauville's."
+
+She threw herself on his breast.
+
+"I knew that you would forgive me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE FATAL LIGHT
+
+It was not without emotion that the next day Saniel saw the afternoon
+slip away, and although he worked to employ his time, he interrupted
+himself at each instant to look at the clock.
+
+Sometimes he found the time passing quickly, and then all at once it
+seemed to stand still.
+
+This agitation exasperated him, for calmness had never been more
+necessary than at this moment.  A danger was before him, and it was only
+in being master of himself that he could be saved.  He must have the
+coolness of a surgeon during an operation, the glance of a general in a
+battle; and the coolness and the glance were not found among the nervous
+and agitated.
+
+Could he escape from this danger?
+
+This was the question that he asked himself unceasingly, although he knew
+the uselessness of it.  What good was it to study the chances for or
+against him?
+
+Either he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable or he had
+not; but it was done, and now he could do nothing more.  He did the best
+he could in choosing an hour when the dim evening light put the chances
+on his side; for the rest he must trust to Fortune.
+
+All day he studied the sky, because for the success of his plan it must
+be neither too bright nor too dark: if it were too bright Madame
+Dammauville could see him clearly; if it were too dark the lamps would be
+lighted.  He remembered that it was by lamplight she had seen him.  Until
+evening the weather was uncertain, with a sky sometimes sunny, sometimes
+cloudy; but at this hour the clouds were driven away by a wind from the
+north, and the weather became decidedly cold, with the pink and pale
+clearness of the end of March when it still freezes.
+
+On examining himself he had the satisfaction to feel that he was calmer
+than in the morning, and that as the moment of attack approached, his
+agitation decreased; decision, firmness, and coolness came to him; he
+felt master of his will, and capable of obeying it.
+
+At six o'clock precisely he rang at Balzajette's door, and they started
+immediately for the Rue Sainte-Anne.  Happy to have a complaisant
+listener, Balzajette did all the talking, so that Saniel had only to
+reply "yes" or "no" from time to time, and of course it was not of Madame
+Dammauville that he spoke, but other matters--of a first representation
+on the previous evening at the Opera Comique; of politics; of the next
+salon.
+
+At exactly a quarter past six they reached the house in the Rue Sainte-
+Anne, where Saniel had not been since Caffies death.  On passing the old
+concierge's lodge he felt satisfied with himself; his heart did not
+beat too quickly, his ideas were firm and clear.  Should danger arrive,
+he felt assured of mastery over himself, without excitement, as without
+brutality.
+
+Balzajette rang the bell, and the door was opened by a maid, who was,
+evidently, placed in the vestibule to await their arrival.  Balzajette
+entered first, and Saniel followed him, giving a hasty glance at the
+rooms through which they passed.  They reached a door at which Balzajette
+knocked twice.
+
+"Enter," replied a feminine voice in a firm tone.
+
+This was the decisive moment; the day was everything that could be
+wished, neither too light nor too dark.  What would Madame Dammauville's
+first glance mean?
+
+"My confrere, Doctor Saniel," Balzajette said on going toward Madame
+Dammauville, and taking her hand.
+
+She was lying on the little bed of which Phillis had spoken, but not
+against the windows, rather in the middle of the room, placed there
+evidently after the experience of a sick person who knows that to be
+examined she must be easily seen.
+
+Profiting by this arrangement, Saniel immediately passed between the bed
+and the windows in such a way that the daylight was behind him, and
+consequently his face was in shadow.  This was done naturally, without
+affectation, and it seemed that he only took this side of the bed because
+Balzajette took the other.
+
+Directed by Saniel, the examination commenced with a clearness and a
+precision that pleased Balzajette.  He did not lose himself in idle
+words, the young 'confrere', any more than in useless details.  He went
+straight to the end, only asking and seeking the indispensable; and as
+Madame Dammauville's replies were as precise as his questions, while
+listening and putting in a word from time to time he said to himself that
+his dinner would not be delayed, which was the chief point of his
+preoccupation.  Decidedly, he understood life, the young 'confrere';
+he might be called in consultation with his heavy appearance and careless
+toilet, there was no danger of rivalry.
+
+However, when Madame Dammauville began to speak of being sensitive to
+cold, Balzajette found that Saniel let her lose herself in minute
+details.
+
+"Have you always been sensitive to cold?"
+
+"Yes; and with a deplorable disposition to take cold if the temperature
+is lowered one or two degrees."
+
+"Did you exercise in the open air?"
+
+"Very little."
+
+"Were you ever advised to try shower-baths of cold water?"
+
+"I should not have been able to bear it."
+
+"I must tell you," Balzajette interrupted, "that before occupying this
+house that belongs to her, Madame Dammauville lived in a more modern
+apartment which was heated by a furnace, and where consequently it was
+easier to maintain an even temperature to which she was accustomed."
+
+"On coming to live in this house, where it is not possible to have a
+furnace," Madame Dammauville went on, "I employed every means to shelter
+me from the cold, which I am sure is my great enemy.  You can see that I
+have had weather-strips put at the doors, as well as at the windows."
+
+In spite of this invitation and the gesture which accompanied it, Saniel
+was careful not to turn his head toward the window; he kept his face in
+the shadow, contenting himself with looking at the door which was
+opposite to him.
+
+"At the same time," she continued, "I had hangings put on the walls,
+carpets on the floors, thick curtains at the windows and doors, and in
+spite of the large fire in my fireplace, often I am unable to get warm."
+
+"Do you also have a fire in this little stove?"  Saniel asked, pointing
+to a small movable stove at the corner of the fireplace.
+
+"Only at night, so that my servants need not get up every hour to
+replenish the fire in the chimney.  The fire is made in the evening just
+before I go to sleep; the pipe is placed in the chimney, and it maintains
+sufficient heat until morning."
+
+"I think it will be expedient to suppress this mode of heating, which
+must be very inconvenient," Saniel said; "and my 'confrere' and myself
+will consider the question whether it will not be possible to give you
+the heat you need with this chimney, without fatiguing your servants,
+and without waking you too often to take care of the fire.  But let us
+continue."
+
+When he reached the end of his questions he rose to examine the patient
+on her bed, but without turning round, and in such a way as still to keep
+his back to the light.
+
+As little by little the reflection of the setting sun faded,
+
+Balzajette proposed asking for a lamp: without replying too hastily,
+Saniel refused; it was useless, the daylight was sufficient.
+
+They passed into the parlor, where they very quickly came to an amicable
+conclusion, for at everything that Saniel said Balzajette replied:
+
+"I am happy to see that you partake of my opinion.  That is it.  Truly,
+that is so!"
+
+And, besides, each had his reasons for hurrying--Saniel, for fear of the
+lamps; Balzajette, uneasiness for his dinner.  The diagnosis and the
+treatment were rapidly settled; Saniel proposed, Balzajette approved.
+The question of the movable stove was decided in two words: for the night
+a grate would be placed in the chimney; a fire of coal covered with damp
+coal-dust would keep the fire until morning.
+
+"Let us return," Balzajette said, who took the initiative and decided on
+all material things.
+
+Saniel, who kept his eyes on the windows, was calm; it was yet too light
+to need lamps, besides, during their tete-a-tete, no servant had crossed
+the salon to enter Madame Dammauville's room.
+
+But when Balzajette opened the door to return to the patient, a flood of
+light filled the parlor and enveloped them.  A lamp with a shade was
+placed on the little table near the bed, and two other lighted lamps with
+globes were on the mantel, reflecting their light in the mirror.  How had
+he not foreseen that there was another door to Madame Dammauville's room
+besides the door from the parlor?  But if he had foreseen it, it would
+not have lessened the danger of the situation.
+
+He would have had time to prepare himself, that was all.  But to prepare
+himself for what?  Either to enter the room and brave this danger, or to
+fly.  He entered.
+
+"This is what we have decided," Balzajette said, who never lost an
+occasion to put himself forward and to speak.
+
+While he spoke, Madame Dammauville seemed not to listen to him.  Her eyes
+were on Saniel, placed beween her and the chimney with his back to the
+lamps, and she looked at him with a characteristic fixedness.
+
+Balzajette, who listened to himself, observed nothing; but Saniel, who
+knew what there was behind this glance, could not but be struck with it.
+Happily for him, he had only to let Balzajette talk, for if he had spoken
+he would surely have betrayed himself by the quivering of his voice.
+
+However, Balzajette seemed coming to the end of his explanations.
+Suddenly Saniel saw Madame Dammauville extend her hand toward the lamp on
+the table, and raise the shade by lowering it toward her in such a way as
+to form a reflector that threw the light on him.  At the same time he
+received a bright ray full on his face.
+
+Madame Dammauville uttered a small, stifled cry.
+
+Balzajette stopped; then his astonished eyes went from Madame Dammauville
+to Saniel, and front Saniel to Madame Dammauville.
+
+"Are you suffering?"  he asked.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+What, then, was the matter?  But it was seldom that he asked for an
+explanation of a thing that astonished him, preferring to divine and to
+explain it himself.
+
+"Ah!  I understand it," he said with a satisfied smile.
+
+"The youth of my young 'confrere' astonishes you.  It is his fault.  Why
+the devil did he have his long hair and his light curled beard cut?"
+
+If Madame Dammauville had not released the lampshade, she would have seen
+Saniel turned pale and his lips quiver.
+
+"Mais voila!"  continued Balzajette.  "He made this sacrifice to his new
+functions; the student has disappeared before the professor."
+
+He might have continued along time.  Neither Madame Dammauville nor
+Saniel listened to him; but, thinking of his dinner, he was not going to
+launch into a discourse that at any other moment he would not have failed
+to undertake.  He rose to go.
+
+As Saniel bowed, Madame Dammauville stopped him with a movement of her
+hand.
+
+"Did you not know this unfortunate who was assassinated opposite?"  she
+asked, pointing to the windows.
+
+So serious as was an acknowledgment, Saniel could not answer in the
+negative.
+
+"I was called in to prove his death," he said.
+
+And he took several steps toward the door, but she stopped him again.
+
+"Had you business with him?"  she asked.
+
+"I saw him several times."
+
+Balzajette cut short this conversation, which was idle talk to him.
+
+"Good evening, dear Madame.  I will see you tomorrow, but not in the
+morning, for I go to the country at six o'clock, and shall not return
+until noon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+SUSPENSE
+
+"Did you observe how I cut the conversation short?"  Balzajette said, as
+they went down-stairs.  "If you listen to women they will never let you
+go.  I cannot imagine why she spoke to you of this assassinated man, can
+you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I believe that this assassination has affected her brain to a certain
+point.  In any case, it has given her a horror of this house."
+
+He continued thus without Saniel listening to what he said.  On reaching
+the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Balzajette hailed a passing cab.
+
+"You have had the kindness not to delay me," he said, pressing the hand
+of his young 'confrere', "but I feel that I must hurry.  'Au revoir'."
+
+A good riddance!  This babbling gave Saniel the vertigo.
+
+He must recover himself, look the situation in the face, and consider
+that which might, which must, happen.
+
+The situation was plain; Madame Dammauville's cry revealed it.  When the
+lamplight struck him full in the face, she found in him the man whom she
+had seen draw Caffies curtains.  If, in her amazement, she at first
+refused to believe it, her questions regarding Caffie, and Balzajette's
+explanations about his hair and beard, destroyed her hesitation and
+replaced doubt by the horror of certainty.  He was the assassin; she knew
+it, she had seen him.  And such as she revealed herself to him, it seemed
+that she was not the woman to challenge the testimony of her eyes, and to
+let the strength of her memory be shaken by simple denials, supported by
+Balzajette's words.
+
+With a vivid clearness he saw to the bottom of the abyss open before him;
+but what he did not see was in what way she would push him into this
+giddy whirlpool, that is, to whom she would reveal the discovery that she
+had made.  To Phillis, to Balzajette, or to the judge?
+
+It was almost a relief to think that for this evening, at least, it would
+not be to Phillis, for at this moment she would be at his rooms,
+anxiously awaiting his return.  He felt a sadness and a revulsion at the
+thought that she might be the first to learn the truth.  He did not wish
+that, and he would prevent it.
+
+This preoccupation gave him an object; he reached the Rue Louis-le-Grand
+thinking more of Phillis than of himself.  What distress when she should
+know all!  How could she support this blow, and with what sentiments
+would it inspire her, with what judgment for the man whom she loved?
+Poor girl!  He grew tender at the thought.  As for him, he was lost, and
+it was his fault; he bore the penalty of his own stupidity.  But Phillis
+--it would be a blow to her love that she must bear.  And what a blow to
+this sensitive heart, to this proud and noble soul!
+
+Perhaps he would now see her for the last time, for this one hour, and
+never again.  Then he would be kind to her, and leave her a memory that,
+later, would be an alleviation to her sorrow, a warm, bright ray in her
+time of mourning.  During these last few days he had been hard, brutal,
+irritable, strange, and with her habitual serenity she had overlooked it
+all.  When he pushed her from him with his heavy hand, she had kissed
+this hand, fastening on him her beautiful, tender eyes, full of
+passionate caresses.  He must make her forget that, and she must carry
+from their last interview a tender impression that would sustain her.
+
+What could he do for her?  He remembered how happy she had been at their
+impromptu dinners six months before, and he would give her this same
+pleasure.  He would see her happy again, and near her, under her glance,
+perhaps he would forget tomorrow.
+
+He went to the caterer who furnished him with breakfast, and ordered two
+dinners to be sent to his rooms immediately.
+
+Before he could put the key in the lock, his door was opened by Phillis,
+who recognized his step on the landing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Your brother is saved."
+
+"Madame Dammauville will go to court?"
+
+"I promise you that he is saved."
+
+"By you?"
+
+"Yes, by me--exactly."
+
+In her access of joy, she did not notice the accent on these last words.
+
+"Then you forgive me?"
+
+He took her in his arms, and kissing her with deep emotion said:
+
+"With all my heart, I swear it!"
+
+"You see it was written that you should see Madame Dammauville, in spite
+of yourself, in spite of all; it was providential."
+
+"It is certain that your friend Providence could not interfere more
+opportunely in my affairs."
+
+This time she was struck by the tone of his voice; but she imagined that
+it was only this allusion to superior intervention that had vexed him.
+
+"It was of ourselves that I thought," she said, "not of you."
+
+"I understood.  But do not let us talk of that; you are happy, and I do
+not wish to shadow your joy.  On the contrary, I thought to associate
+myself with it by giving you a surprise: we are going to dine together."
+
+"Oh, dearest!"  she exclaimed, trembling, "how-good you are!  I will set
+the table," she added joyously, "and you light the fire; for we must have
+a bright fire to enliven us and to keep our dinner warm.  What have you
+ordered?"
+
+"I do not know; two dinners."
+
+"So much the better!  We will have surprises.  We will leave the dishes
+covered before the fire, and we will take them anyhow.  Perhaps we shall
+eat the roast before the entree, but that will be all the more funny."
+
+Light, quick, busy, graceful, and charming, she came and went around the
+table.
+
+When the dinner came, the table was ready, and they sat down opposite to
+each other.
+
+"What happiness to be alone!"  she said.  "To be able to talk and to look
+at each other freely!"
+
+He looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes that she had never before
+seen, with a depth of serious contemplation that overwhelmed her.  From
+time to time little cries of happiness escaped her.
+
+"Oh!  Dearest, dearest!"  she murmured.
+
+Yet she knew him too well not to see that a cloud of sadness often veiled
+these eyes full of love, and that also they were often without any
+expression, as if they looked within.  Suddenly she became quiet; but she
+could not long remain silent when she was uneasy.  Why this melancholy at
+such a moment?
+
+"What a difference between this dinner," she said, "and those of the end
+of October!  At that time you were harassed by the most trying
+difficulties, at war with creditors, menaced on all sides, without hope;
+and now all is smooth.  No more creditors, no more struggles.  The cares
+that I brought you are nearly at an end.  Life opens easy and glorious.
+The end that you pursued is reached; you have only to walk straight
+before you, boldly and proudly.  Yet there is a sadness in your face that
+torments me.  What is the matter?  Speak, I beg you!  To whom should you
+confess, if not to the woman who adores you?"
+
+He looked at her a long time without replying, asking himself if, for the
+peace of his own heart, this confession would not be better than silence;
+but courage failed him, pride closed his lips.
+
+"What should be the matter?"  he said.  "If my face is sad, it does not
+indicate faithfully what I feel; for what I feel at this moment is an
+ineffable sentiment of tenderness for you, an inexpressible gratitude for
+your love, and for the happiness that you have given me.  If I have been
+happy in my rough and struggling life, it is through you.  What I have
+had of joy, confidence, hope, memories, I owe to you; and if we had not
+met I should have the right to say that I have been the most miserable
+among the miserable.  Whatever happens to us, remember these words, my
+darling, and bury them in the depths of your heart, where you will find
+them some day when you would judge me."
+
+"To judge you--I!"
+
+"You love me, therefore you do not know me.  But the hour will come when
+you will wish to know exactly the man whom you have loved; when that time
+comes remember this evening."
+
+"It is too radiant for me to forget it."
+
+"Whatever it may be, remember it.  Life is so fragile and so ephemeral a
+thing, that it is beautiful to be able to concentrate it, to sum it up by
+remembrance, in one hour that marks it and gives it its scope.  Such an
+hour is this one, which passes while I speak to you with deep sincerity."
+
+Phillis was not accustomed to these 'elanas', for, in the rare effusions
+to which he sometimes abandoned himself, Saniel always observed a certain
+reserve, as if he feared to commit himself, and to let her read his whole
+nature.  Many times he rallied her when she became sentimental, as he
+said, and "chantait sa romance;" and now he himself sang it--this romance
+of love.
+
+Great as was her happiness to listen to him, she could not help feeling
+an uneasy astonishment, and asked herself under what melancholy
+impression he found himself at this moment.
+
+He read her too well not to divine this uneasiness.  Not wishing to
+betray himself, he brought a smile to his eyes, and said:
+
+"You do not recognize me, do you?  I am sure you are asking yourself if I
+am not ill."
+
+"Oh, dearest, do not jest, and do not harden yourself against the
+sentiment that makes such sweet music on your lips!  I am happy, so
+happy, to hear you speak thus, that I would like to see your happiness
+equal to mine; to dissipate the dark cloud that veils your glance.  Will
+you never abandon yourself?  At this hour, above all, when everything
+sings and laughs within us as about us!  Nothing was more natural than
+that you should be sad six months ago; but today what more do you want to
+make you happy?"
+
+"Nothing, it is true."
+
+"Is not the present the radiant morning of a glorious future?"
+
+"What will you?  There are sad physiognomies as there are happy ones;
+mine is not yours.  But let us talk no more of that, nor of the past, nor
+of the future; let us talk of the present."
+
+He rose, and, taking her in his arms, made her sit next to him on the
+sofa.
+
+The sound of the doorbell made Saniel jump as if he had received an
+electric shock.
+
+"You will not open the door?"  Phillis said.  "Do not let any one take
+our evening from us."
+
+But soon another ring, more decided, brought him to his feet.
+
+"It is better to know," he said, and he went to open the door, leaving
+Phillis in his office.
+
+A maid handed him a lettter.
+
+"From Madame Dammauville," she said; "there is an answer."
+
+He left her in the vestibule, and returned to his office to read the
+letter.  The dream had not lasted long; reality seized him with its
+pitiless hands.  This letter, certainly, would announce the blow that
+menaced him.
+
+     "If Dr. Saniel is disengaged, I beg that he will come to see me this
+     evening on an urgent affair; I will wait for him until ten o'clock.
+     If not, I count on seeing him to-morrow morning after nine o'clock.
+                                             "A.  DAMMAUVILLE."
+
+He returned to the vestibule.
+
+"Say to Madame. Dammauville that I shall be there in a quarter of an
+hour."
+
+When he reentered the office he found Phillis before the glass, putting
+on her hat.
+
+"I heard," she said.  "What a disappointment!  But I cannot wish you to
+stay, since it is for Florentin that you leave me."
+
+As she walked toward the door he stopped her.
+
+"Embrace me once more."
+
+Never had he pressed her in such a long and passionate embrace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+ON THE RACK
+
+He had not a second of doubt; Madame Dammauville did not wish a
+professional visit from him.  She wished to speak to him of Caffie, and,
+in the coming crisis, he said to himself that perhaps it was fortunate
+that it was so; at least he would be first to know what she had decided
+to do, and he could defend himself.  Nothing is hopeless as long as a
+struggle is possible.
+
+He rang the bell with a firm hand, and the door was opened by the maid
+who brought the letter.  With a small lamp in her hand, she conducted him
+through the dining-room and the salon to Madame Dammauville's bedroom.
+
+At the threshold, a glance showed him that some changes had been made in
+the arrangement of the furniture.  The small bed where he had seen Madame
+Dammauville was placed between the two windows, and she was lying in a
+large bed with canopy and curtains.  Near her was a table on which were a
+shaded lamp, some books, a blotting-book, a teapot, and a cup; on the
+white quilt rested an unusually long bellrope, so that she might pull it
+without moving.  The fire in the chimney was out, but the movable stove
+sent out a heat that denoted it was arranged for the night.
+
+Saniel felt the heat, and mechanically unbuttoned his overcoat.
+
+"If the heat is uncomfortable, will you not remove your overcoat?"
+Madame Dammauville said.
+
+While he disposed of it and his hat, placing them on a chair by the
+fireplace, he heard Madame Dammauville say to her maid:
+
+"Remain in the salon, and tell the cook not to go to bed."
+
+What did this mean?  Was she afraid that he would cut her throat?
+
+"Will you come close to my bed?"  she said.  "It is important that we
+should talk without raising our voices."
+
+He took a chair and seated himself at a certain distance from the bed,
+and in such a way that he was beyond the circle of light thrown by the
+lamp.  Then he waited.
+
+A moment of silence, which he found terribly long, slipped away before
+she spoke.
+
+"You know," she said at last, "how I saw, accidentally, from this place"
+--she pointed to one of the windows--" the face of the assassin of my
+unfortunate tenant, Monsieur Caffie."
+
+"Mademoiselle Cormier has told me," he replied in a tone of ordinary
+conversation.
+
+"Perhaps you are astonished that at such a distance I saw the face
+clearly enough to recognize it after five months, as if it were still
+before me."
+
+"It is extraordinary."
+
+"Not to those who have a memory for faces and attitudes; with me this
+memory has always been strongly developed.  I remember the playmates of
+my childhood, and I see them as they were at six and ten years of age,
+without the slightest confusion in my mind."
+
+"The impressions of childhood are generally vivid and permanent."
+
+"This persistency does not only apply to my childish impressions.  Today,
+I neither forget nor confound a physiognomy.  Perhaps if I had had many
+acquaintances, and if I had seen a number of persons every day, there
+might be some confusion in my mind; but such is not the case.  My
+delicate health has obliged me to lead a very quiet life, and I remember
+every one whom I have met.  When I think of such a one, it is not of the
+name at first, but of the physiognomy.  Each time that I have been to the
+Senate or to the Chamber, I did not need to ask the names of the deputies
+or senators who spoke; I had seen their portraits and I recognized them.
+If I go into these details it is because they are of great importance, as
+you will see."
+
+It was not necessary for her to point out their importance; he understood
+her only too well.
+
+"In fine, I am thus," she continued.  "It is, therefore, not astonishing
+that the physiognomy and the attitude of the man who drew the curtains in
+Monsieur Caffie's office should not leave my memory.  You admit this, do
+you not?"
+
+"Since you consult me, I must tell you that the operations of the memory
+are not so simple as people imagine.  They comprise three things: the
+conservation of certain states, their reproduction and localization in
+the past, which should be reunited to constitute the perfect memory.  Now
+this reunion does not always take place, and often the third is lacking."
+
+"I do not grasp your meaning very well.  But what is the third thing?"
+
+"Recognition."
+
+"Well, I can assure you that in this case it is not lacking!"
+
+The action beginning in this way, it was of the utmost importance for
+Saniel that he should throw doubts in Madame Dammauville's mind, and
+should make her think that this memory of which she felt so sure was not,
+perhaps, as strong or as perfect as she imagined.
+
+"It is," he said, "exactly this third thing that is the most delicate,
+the most complex of the three, since it supposes, besides the state of
+consciousness, some secondary states, variable in number and in degree,
+which, grouped around it, determine it."
+
+Madame Dammauville remained silent a moment, and Saniel saw that she made
+an effort to explain these obscure words to herself.
+
+"I do not understand," she said at last.
+
+This was exactly what he wished; yet, as it would not be wise to let her
+believe that he desired to deceive or confuse her, he thought he might be
+a little more precise.
+
+"I wish to ask," he said, "if you are certain that in the mechanism of
+the vision and that of the recognition, which is a vision of the past,
+there is no confusion?"
+
+She drew a long breath, evidently satisfied to get rid of these
+subtleties that troubled her.
+
+"It is exactly because I admit the possibility of this confusion, at
+least in part, that I sent for you," she said, "in order that you might
+establish it."
+
+Saniel appeared not to comprehend.
+
+"I, Madame?"
+
+"Yes.  When you came herewith Monsieur Balzajette a few hours ago, you
+must have observed that I examined you in a way that was scarcely
+natural.  Before the lamps were lighted, and when you turned your back to
+the daylight, I tried in vain to remember where I had seen you.  I was
+certain that I found in you some points of resemblance to a physiognomy
+I had known, but the name attached to this physiognomy escaped me.  When
+you returned, and I saw you more clearly by lamplight, my recollections
+became more exact; when I raised the lamp-shade the light struck you full
+in the face, and then your eyes, so characteristic, and at the same time
+a violent contraction of your features, made me recall the name.  This
+physiognomy, these eyes, this face, belonged to the man whom from this
+place" she pointed to the window--"I saw draw Monsieur Caffies curtains."
+
+Saniel did not flinch.
+
+"This is a resemblance that would be hard for me," he said, "if your
+memory were faithful."
+
+"I tell myself that it may not be.  And after the first feeling of
+surprise which made me cry out, I was confirmed in this thought on
+recalling the fact that you did not wear the long hair and blond beard
+that the man wore who drew the curtains; but at that moment Monsieur
+Balzajette spoke of the hair and beard that you had had cut.  I was
+prostrated.  However, I had the strength to ask if you had had any
+business with Monsieur Caffie.  Do you remember your answer?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"After your departure I experienced a cruel anguish.  It was you whom I
+had seen draw the curtains, and it could not be you.  I tried to think
+what I ought to do--to inform the judge or to ask you for an interview.
+For a long time I wavered.  At length I decided on the interview, and I
+wrote to you."
+
+"I have come at your call, but I declare that I do not know what to reply
+to this strange communication.  You believe that you recognize in me the
+man who drew the curtains."
+
+"I recognize you."
+
+"Then what do you wish me to say?  It is not a consultation that you ask
+of me?"
+
+She believed she understood the meaning of this reply and divined its
+end.
+
+"The question does not concern me," she said, "neither my moral nor
+mental state, but yourself.  My eyes, my memory, my conscience, bring a
+frightful accusation against you.  I cannot believe my eyes or my memory.
+I challenge my conscience, and I ask you to reduce this accusation to
+nothing."
+
+"And how, Madame?"
+
+"Oh, not by protestations!"
+
+"How can you expect that a man in my position will lower himself to
+discuss accusations that rest on an hallucination?"
+
+"Do you believe that I have hallucinations?  If you do, call one of your
+'confreres' to-morrow in consultation.  If he believes as you do, I will
+submit; if not, I shall be convinced that I saw clearly, and I shall act
+accordingly."
+
+"If you saw clearly, Madame, and I am ready to concede this to you, it
+proves that there is some one somewhere who is my double."
+
+"I said this to myself; and it is exactly this idea that made me write to
+you.  I wished to give you the opportunity of proving that you could not
+be this man."
+
+"You will agree that it is difficult for me to admit a discussion on such
+an accusation."
+
+"One may find one's self accused by a concourse of fatal circumstances,
+and be not less innocent.  Witness the unfortunate boy imprisoned for
+five months for a crime of which he is not guilty.  And I pass from your
+innocence as from his, to ask you to prove that the charges against you
+are false."
+
+"There are no charges against me."
+
+"There may be; that depends upon yourself.  Your hair and beard may have
+been cut at the time of the assassination; in that case it is quite
+certain that the man I saw was not you, and that I am the victim of an
+hallucination.  Were they or were they not?"
+
+"They were not; it is only a few days since I had them cut on account of
+a contagious disease."
+
+"It may be," she continued, without appearing to be impressed by this
+explanation, "that the day of the assassination, at the hour when I saw
+you, you were occupied somewhere in such a way that you can prove you
+could not have been in the Rue Sainte-Anne, and that I was the victim of
+an hallucination.  And again, it may be that at the time your position
+was not that of a man at the last extremity, forced to crime by misery or
+ambition, and that consequently you had no interest in committing the
+crime of a desperate man.  What do I know?  Twenty other means of defence
+may be in your hands."
+
+"You cited the example of this poor boy who is imprisoned, although
+innocent.  Would it not be applicable to me if you did not recognize the
+error of your eyes or your memory?  Would he not be condemned without
+your testimony?  Should I not be if I do not find one that destroys your
+accusation?  And I see no one from whom I can ask this testimony.  Have
+you thought of the infamy with which such an accusation will cover me?
+If I repel it, and I shall repel it, will it not have dishonored me,
+ruined me forever?"
+
+"It is just because I thought of this that I sent for you, to the end
+that by an explanation that you would give, it seemed to me, you would
+prevent me from informing the judge of this suspicion.  This explanation
+you do not give me; I must now think only of him whose innocence is
+proved for me, and take his side against him whose guilt is not less
+proved.  To-morrow I shall inform the judge."
+
+"You will not do that!"
+
+"My duty compels me to; and whatever might come, I have always done my
+duty.  For me, in this horrible affair, there is the cause of the
+innocent and of the guilty, and I place myself on the side of the
+innocent."
+
+"I can prove to you that it was an aberration of vision--"
+
+"You will prove it to the judge; the law will appreciate it."
+
+He rose brusquely.  She put her hand on the bellcord.  They looked at
+each other for a moment, and what their lips did not express their eyes
+said:
+
+"I do not fear you; my precautions are taken."
+
+"That bell will not save you."
+
+At last he spoke in a hoarse and quivering voice:
+
+"To you the responsibility of whatever happens Madame."
+
+"I accept it before God," she said, with a calm firmness.  "Defend
+yourself."
+
+He went to the armchair on which he had placed his coat and hat, and
+bending down to take them, he noiselessly turned the draught of the
+stove.
+
+At the same time Madame Dammauville pulled the bellcord; the maid opened
+the door of the salon.
+
+"Show Doctor Saniel to the door."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A SECOND VICTIM
+
+On returning to his room Saniel was very much cast down, and without
+lighting a candle, he threw himself on the divan, where he remained
+prostrated.
+
+The frightful part of the affair was the rapidity with which he condemned
+this poor woman to death, and without hesitation executed her.  To save
+himself she must die; she should die.  This time the idea did not turn
+and deviate as in Caffie's case.  Is it not true then, that it is the
+first crime that costs, and in the path that he had entered, would he go
+on to the end sowing corpses behind him?
+
+A shudder shook him from head to foot as he thought that this victim
+might not be the last that his safety demanded.  When she threatened to
+warn the judge, he only saw a threat; if she spoke he was lost; he had
+closed her mouth.  But had not this mouth opened before he closed it?
+Had she not already spoken?  Before deciding on this interview she may
+have told all to some one of her friends, who, between the time of his
+departure with Balzajette and his return, might have visited her, or to
+some one for whom she had sent for advice.  In that case, those also were
+condemned to death.
+
+A useless crime, or a series of crimes?
+
+The horror that rose within him was so strong that he thought of running
+to the Rue Sainte-Anne; he would awake the sleeping household, open the
+doors, break the windows, and save her.  But between his departure and
+this moment the carbonic acid and the oxide of carbon had had time to
+produce asphyxiation, and certainly he would arrive after her death; or,
+if he found her still living, some one would discover that the draught of
+the stove had been turned, and seeing it, he would betray himself as
+surely as by an avowal.
+
+After all, the maid might have discovered that the draught was turned,
+and in that case she was saved and he was lost.  Chance would decide
+between them.
+
+There are moments when a shipwrecked man, tired of swimming, not knowing
+to which side to direct his course, without light, without guide, at the
+end of strength and hope, floats on his back and lets himself be tossed
+by the waves, to rest and wait for light.  This was his case; he could do
+nothing but wait.
+
+He would not commit the insane folly of wishing to see and know, as in
+Caffie's case; he would know the result soon enough, too soon.
+
+Rising, he lighted a candle, and paced up and down his apartment like a
+caged animal.  Then it occurred to him that those underneath would hear
+his steps; doubtless they would remark this agitated march, would be
+surprised, and would ask an explanation.  In his position he must take
+care not to give cause for any remark that could not be explained.  He
+took off his boots and continued his walk.
+
+But why had she spoken to him of double weatherstrips at the doors and
+windows, of hangings on the walls, of thick curtains?  It was she who
+thus suggested to him the idea of the draught of the stove, which would
+not have come to him spontaneously.
+
+The night passed in such agitating thoughts; at times the hours seemed to
+stand still, and again they flew with astounding rapidity.  One moment
+the perspiration fell from his forehead on his hands; at another he felt
+frozen.
+
+When his windows grew light with the dawn, he threw himself prostrated
+and shuddering on the divan, and leaning on a cushion he detected the
+odor of Phillis; burying his head in it he remained motionless and slept.
+
+A ring of the bell woke him, horrified, frightened; he did not know where
+he was.  It was broad daylight, carriages rumbled through the street.  A
+second ring sounded stronger, more violent.  Shivering, he went to open
+the door, and recognized the maid who the previous evening brought a note
+from Madame Dammauville.  He did not need to question her: fate was on
+his side.  His eyes became dim; without seeing her he heard the maid
+explain why she had come.
+
+She had been to Monsieur Balzajette; he was in the country.  Her mistress
+was nearly cold in her bed; she neither spoke nor breathed, yet her face
+was pink.
+
+"I will go with you."
+
+He did not need to learn more.  That rosy color, which has been observed
+in those asphyxiated by oxide of carbon, decided it.  However, he
+questioned the maid.
+
+Nothing had occurred; she had talked with the cook in the kitchen, who,
+near midnight, went to her room in the fifth story, and then she went to
+bed in a small room contiguous to that of her mistress.  During the night
+she heard nothing; in the morning she found her mistress in the state she
+mentioned, and immediately went for Monsieur Balzajette.
+
+Continuing his questions, Saniel asked her what Madame Dammauville did
+after the consultation with Monsieur Balzajette.
+
+"She dined as usual, but less than usual, eating almost nothing; then she
+received a visit from one of her friends, who remained only a few
+minutes, before starting on a voyage."
+
+This was what he dreaded: Madame Dammauville might have told this friend.
+If this were so, his crime would be of no use to him; where would it
+carry him?
+
+After a few moments, and in a tone that he tried to render indifferent,
+he asked the name of this friend.
+
+"A friend of her youth, Madame Thezard, living at No. 9, in the Rue des
+Capucines, the wife of a consul."
+
+Until he reached the house in the Rue Sainte-Anne he repeated this name
+and address to himself, which he could not write down, and which he must
+not forget, for it was from there now that the danger would come if
+Madame Dammauville had spoken.
+
+For a long time he had been habituated to the sight of death, but when he
+found himself in the presence of this woman stretched on her bed as if
+she slept, a shiver seized him.
+
+"Give me a mirror and a candle," he said to the maid and the cook who
+stood at the door, not daring to enter.
+
+While they went in search of these things he walked over to the stove;
+the draught remained as he had turned it on the previous evening; he
+opened it and returned to the bed.
+
+His examination was not long; she had succumbed to asphyxiation caused by
+the gas from the charcoal.  Did it proceed from the construction of the
+stove, or from a defect in the chimney?  The inquest would decide this;
+as for him, he could only prove the death.
+
+On leaving him the evening before, Phillis, uneasy, told him that she
+would come early in the morning to know what Madame Dammauville wished.
+When he told her she was dead she was prostrated with despair; in that
+case Florentin was lost.  He tried to reassure her, but without success.
+
+Nougarede, also, was in despair, and regretted that he had not proceeded
+otherwise.  And he tried to reassure Phillis; the prosecution rested on
+the button and the struggle that had torn it off.  Saniel would destroy
+this hypothesis; he counted on him.
+
+Saniel became, then, as he had been before the intervention of Madame
+Dammauville, the only hope of Phillis and her mother, and to encourage
+them he exaggerated the influence that his testimony would have.
+
+"When I shall have demonstrated that there was no struggle, the
+hypothesis of the torn button will crumble by itself."
+
+"And if it is sustained, how and with what shall we overthrow it?"
+
+If he had appeared as usual, she would have shared the confidence with
+which he tried to inspire her; but since the death of Madame Dammauville
+he was so changed, that she could not help being uneasy.  Evidently it
+was Madame Dammauville's death that made him so gloomy and irritable that
+he would submit to no opposition.  He saw the dangers of the situation
+that this death created for Florentin, and with his usual generosity he
+reproached himself for not having consented to take care of her sooner;
+he would have saved her, certainly, as he had begun by demanding the
+removal of the stove, and Florentin would have been saved also.
+
+The day of the trial arrived without a word from Madame Thezard, which
+proved that Madame Dammauville had said nothing to her friend.  It was
+six months since the assassination occurred, and the affair had lost all
+interest for the Parisian public; in the provinces it was still spoken
+of, but at Paris it was a thing of the past.  There is no romance about a
+clerk who cuts the throat of his employer to rob him; there is no woman
+in the case, no mystery.
+
+Saniel preferred that Phillis should remain at home with her mother, but
+in spite of his wishes and prayers she insisted on going to court.  She
+must be there so that Florentin would see her and take courage; he would
+defend himself better if she were there.
+
+He defended himself badly, or at least indifferently, like a man who
+gives up because he knows beforehand that whatever he may say will be
+useless.
+
+Until Saniel's deposition the witnesses who testified were insignificant
+enough, and revealed nothing that was not already known; only Valerius,
+with his pretensions to a professional secret, which he developed slowly,
+amused the audience.  This deposition Saniel made brief and exact,
+contenting himself with repeating his report.  But then Nougarede rose,
+and begged the president to ask the witness to explain the struggle which
+should have taken place between the victim and his assassin; and the
+president, who had commenced by arguing, before the insistence of the
+defence, decided to ask this question.  Then Saniel slowly explained how
+the position of the body in the armchair and his condition were
+scientific proof that there was no struggle.
+
+"This is an opinion," said the president dryly; "the jury will appreciate
+it."
+
+"Perfectly," replied Nougarede, "and I intend to make the jury feel the
+weight that it carries on the authority of him who formulated it."
+
+This phrase for effect was destined to invalidate in advance the
+contradictions that the prosecution would, he believed, raise against the
+testimony; but nothing of the kind occurred, and Saniel could go and take
+his place beside Phillis without being called to the bar to sustain his
+opinion against a physician whose scientific authority would be opposed
+to his.
+
+In default of Madame Dammauville, Nougarede had summoned the concierge of
+Rue Sainte-Anne, as well as the maid and the cook, who had heard their
+mistress say that the man who drew Caffies curtains did not resemble
+Florentin's portrait; but this was only gossip repeated by persons of no
+importance, who could not produce the effect of the 'coup de theatre' on
+which he had based his defence.
+
+When the advocate-general pronounced his address, it was evident why
+Saniel's opinion on the absence of a struggle was not contradicted.
+Although the prosecution believed in this struggle, it wished to abandon
+it a moment, having no need of this hypothesis to prove that the button
+had not been torn off on falling from a ladder; it had been done in the
+act of assassination, in the effort made to cut the throat of the victim
+who had violently extended the right arm, and, by the shock to the
+suspenders, the button was torn off.  The effect of Saniel's deposition
+was destroyed, and that one produced by the testimony of Madame
+Dammauville's maids, far less strong, was also destroyed when the
+advocate-general proved that this gossip turned against the accused.
+She had seen, it was said, a man with long hair and curled beard, draw
+the curtains; very well!  Does this description apply to the accused?
+To tell the truth, it was said that she did not recognize him in a
+portrait published by an illustrated paper.  Well, it was because this
+portrait did not resemble him.  Besides, was it possible to admit that a
+woman of Madame Dammauville's character would not have informed the judge
+if she believed her testimony important and decisive?  The proof that she
+considered it insignificant was the fact that she had kept silent.
+
+Nougarede's eloquent appeal did not destroy these two arguments, any more
+than it effaced the impression produced by the money-lender relative to
+the theft of forty-five francs.  The jury brought in a verdict of
+"Guilty," but without premeditation, and admitting extenuating
+circumstances.
+
+On hearing the decree that condemned Florentin to twenty years of forced
+labor, Phillis, half suffocated, clung to Saniel's arm; but he could not
+give her the attention he wished, for Brigard, who came to the trial to
+assist at the triumph of his disciple, accosted him.
+
+"Receive my felicitations for your deposition, my dear friend; it is an
+act of courage that does you honor.  If this poor boy could have been
+saved, it would have been by you; you may well say you are the man of
+conscience."
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+It is the first crime that costs
+Repeated and explained what he had already said and explained
+You love me, therefore you do not know me
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Conscience, v3
+by Hector Malot
+
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