His mother and sister completely failed to recognize him. At dinner that evening he showed them a large sum of money he had on him, and in the course of the night they slaughtered him with a hammer.
After taking the money they flung the body into the river. Next morning his wife came and, without thinking, betrayed the guest’s identity. His mother hanged herself. His sister threw herself into a well. I must have read that story thousands of times. In one way it sounded most unlikely; in another, it was plausible enough. Anyhow, to my mind, the man was asking for trouble; one shouldn’t play fool tricks of that sort.
So, what with long bouts of sleep, my memories, readings of that scrap of newspaper, the tides of light and darkness, the days slipped by. I’d read, of course, that in jail one ends up by losing track of time. But this had never meant anything definite to me. I hadn’t grasped how days could be at once long and short. Long, no doubt, as periods to live through, but so distended that they ended up by overlapping on each other. In fact, I never thought of days as such; only the words “yesterday” and “tomorrow” still kept some meaning.
When, one morning, the jailer informed me I’d now been six months in jail, I believed him—but the words conveyed nothing to my mind. To me it seemed like one and the same day that had been going on since I’d been in my cell, and that I’d been doing the same thing all the time.
After the jailer left me I shined up my tin pannikin and studied my face in it. My expression was terribly serious, I thought, even when I tried to smile. I held the pannikin at different angles, but always my face had the same mournful, tense expression.
The sun was setting and it was the hour of which I’d rather not speak—“the nameless hour,” I called it—when evening sounds were creeping up from all the floors of the prison in a sort of stealthy procession.
I went to the barred window and in the last rays looked once again at my reflected face. It was as serious as before; and that wasn’t surprising, as just then I was feeling serious.
But, at the same time, I heard something that I hadn’t heard for months. It was the sound of a voice; my own voice, there was no mistaking it. And I recognized it as the voice that for many a day of late had been sounding in my ears. So I knew that all this time I’d been talking to myself.
And something I’d been told came back; a remark made by the nurse at Mother’s funeral. No, there was no way out, and no one can imagine what the evenings are like in prison.
III
ON THE whole I can’t say that those months passed slowly; another summer was on its way almost before I realized the first was over. And I knew that with the first really hot days something new was in store for me. My case was down for the last sessions of the Assize Court, and those sessions were due to end some time in June.
The day on which my trial started was one of brilliant sunshine. My lawyer assured me the case would take only two or three days. “From what I hear,” he added, “the court will dispatch your case as quickly as possible, as it isn’t the most important one on the Cause List. There’s a case of parricide immediately after, which will take them some time.”
They came for me at half-past seven in the morning and I was conveyed to the law courts in a prison van. The two policemen led me into a small room that smelled of darkness. We sat near a door through which came sounds of voices, shouts, chairs scraping on the floor; a vague hubbub which reminded me of one of those small-town “socials” when, after the concert’s over, the hall is cleared for dancing.
One of my policemen told me the judges hadn’t arrived yet, and offered me a cigarette, which I declined. After a bit he asked me if I was feeling nervous. I said, “No,” and that the prospect of witnessing a trial rather interested me; I’d never had occasion to attend one before.
“Maybe,” the other policeman said. “But after an hour or two one’s had enough of it.”
After a while a small electric bell purred in the room. They unfastened my handcuffs, opened the door, and led me to the prisoner’s dock.
There was a great crowd in the courtroom. Though the Venetian blinds were down, light was filtering through the chinks, and the air stiflingly hot already. The windows had been kept shut. I sat down, and the police officers took their stand on each side of my chair.
It was then that I noticed a row of faces opposite me. These people were staring hard at me, and I guessed they were the jury. But somehow I didn’t see them as individuals. I felt as you do just after boarding a streetcar and you’re conscious of all the people on the opposite seat staring at you in the hope of finding something in your appearance to amuse them.
Of course, I knew this was an absurd comparison; what these people were looking for in me wasn’t anything to laugh at, but signs of criminality. Still, the difference wasn’t so very great, and, anyhow, that’s the idea I got.
What with the crowd and the stuffiness of the air I was feeling a bit dizzy. I ran my eyes round the courtroom but couldn’t recognize any of the faces. At first I could hardly believe that all these people had come on my account. It was such a new experience, being a focus of interest; in the ordinary way no one ever paid much attention to me.
“What a crush!” I remarked to the policeman on my left, and he explained that the newspapers were responsible for it.
He pointed to a group of men at a table just below the jury box. “There they are!” “Who?” I asked, and he replied, “The press.” One of them, he added, was an old
friend of his.
A moment later the man he’d mentioned looked our way and, coming to the dock, shook hands warmly with the policeman. The journalist was an elderly man with a rather grim expression, but his manner was quite pleasant. Just then I noticed that almost all the people in the courtroom were greeting each other, exchanging remarks and forming groups—behaving, in fact, as in a club where the company of others of one’s own tastes and standing makes one feel at ease. That, no doubt, explained the odd impression I had of being de trop here, a sort of gate-crasher.
However, the journalist addressed me quite amiably, and said he hoped all would go well for me. I thanked him, and he added with a smile:
“You know, we’ve been featuring you a bit. We’re always rather short of copy in the summer, and there’s been precious little to write about except your case and the one that’s coming on after it. I expect you’ve heard about it; it’s a case of parricide.”
He drew my attention to one of the group at the press table, a plump, small man with huge black-rimmed glasses, who made me think of an overfed weasel.
“That fellow’s the special correspondent of one of the Paris dailies. As a matter of fact, he didn’t come on your account. He was sent for the parricide case, but they’ve asked him to cover yours as well.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “That was very kind of them,” but then I thought it would sound silly. With a friendly wave of his hand he left us, and for some minutes nothing happened.
Then, accompanied by some colleagues, my lawyer bustled in, in his gown. He went up to the press table and shook hands with the journalists. They remained laughing and chatting together, all seemingly very much at home here, until a bell rang shrilly and everyone went to his place. My lawyer came up to me, shook hands, and advised me to answer all the questions as briefly as possible, not to volunteer information, and to rely on him to see me through.
I heard a chair scrape on my left, and a tall, thin man wearing pince-nez settled the folds of his red gown as he took his seat. The Public Prosecutor, I gathered. A clerk of the court announced that Their Honors were entering, and at the same moment two big electric fans started buzzing overhead.
Three judges, two in black and the third in scarlet, with brief cases under their arms, entered and walked briskly to the bench, which was several feet above the level of the courtroom floor. The man in scarlet took the central, high-backed chair, placed his cap of office on the table, ran a handkerchief over his small bald crown, and announced that the hearing would now begin.
The journalists had their fountain pens ready; they all wore the same expression of slightly ironical
