""Tis I."
But he restrained himself. He went back, however, during the night, to fish up the dead girl"s wooden shoes, in order to carry them to her mother"s threshold.
As long as the inquiry lasted, as long as it was necessary to guide and aid justice, he was calm, master of himself, sly and smiling. He discussed quietly with the magistrates all the suppositions that pa.s.sed through their minds, combated their opinions, and demolished their arguments. He even took a keen and mournful pleasure in disturbing their investigations, in embroiling their ideas in showing the innocence of those whom they suspected.
But from the day when the inquiry came to a close he became gradually nervous, more excitable still than he had been before, although he mastered his irritability. Sudden noises made him jump up with fear; he shuddered at the slightest thing, trembled sometimes from head to foot when a fly alighted on his forehead. Then he was seized with an imperious desire for movement, which compelled him to keep continually on foot, and made him remain up whole nights walking to and fro in his own room.
It was not that he was goaded by remorse. His brutality did not lend itself to any shade of sentiment or of moral terror. A man of energy and even of violence, born to make war, to ravage conquered countries and to ma.s.sacre the vanquished, full of the savage instincts of the hunter and the fighter, he scarcely took count of human life. Though he respected the church through policy, he believed neither in G.o.d nor in the devil, expecting consequently in another life neither chastis.e.m.e.nt nor recompense for his acts. As his sole belief, he retained a vague philosophy composed of all the ideas of the encyclopedists of the last century; and he regarded religion as a moral sanction of the law, the one and the other having been invented by men to regulate social relations. To kill anyone in a duel, or in war, or in a quarrel, or by accident, or for the sake of revenge, or even through bravado, would have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing, and would not have left more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in the first place, perpetrated it in the distraction of an irresistible gust of pa.s.sion, in a sort of spiritual tempest that had overpowered his reason. And he had cherished in his heart, cherished in his flesh, cherished on his lips, cherished even to the very tips of his murderous fingers, a kind of b.e.s.t.i.a.l love, as well as a feeling of crushing horror, towards this little girl surprised by him and basely killed.
Every moment his thoughts returned to that horrible scene, and, though he endeavored to drive away this picture from his mind, though he put it aside with terror, with disgust, he felt it surging through his soul, moving about in him, waiting incessantly for the moment to reappear.
Then, in the night, he was afraid, afraid of the shadow falling around him. He did not yet know why the darkness seemed to seem frightful to him; but he instinctively feared it, he felt that it was peopled with terrors. The bright daylight did not lend itself to fears. Things and beings were seen there, and so there were only to be met there natural things and beings which could exhibit themselves in the light of day.
But the night, the unpenetrable night, thicker than walls, and empty, the infinite night, so black, so vast, in which one might brush against frightful things, the night when one feels that mysterious terror is wandering, prowling about, appeared to him to conceal an unknown danger, close and menacing.
What was it?
He knew it ere long. As he sat in his armchair, rather late one evening when he could not sleep, he thought he saw the curtain of his window move. He waited, in an uneasy state of mind, with beating heart. The drapery did not stir; then, all of a sudden it moved once more. He did not venture to rise up; he no longer ventured to breathe, and yet he was brave. He had often fought, and he would have liked to catch thieves in his house.
Was it true that this curtain did move? he asked himself, fearing that his eyes had deceived him. It was, moreover, such a slight thing, a gentle flutter of lace, a kind of trembling in its folds, less than an undulation such as is caused by the wind.
Renardet sat still, with staring eyes, and outstretched neck; and he sprang to his feet abruptly ashamed of his fear, took four steps, seized the drapery with both hands, and pulled it wide apart. At first, he saw nothing but darkened gla.s.s, resembling plates of glittering ink. The night, the vast, impenetrable sketched behind as far as the invisible horizon. He remained standing in front of this illimitable shadow, and suddenly he perceived a light, a moving light, which seemed some distance away.
Then he put his face close to the window-pane, thinking that a person looking for crayfish might be poaching in the Brindelle, for it was past midnight, and this light rose up at the edge of the stream, under the trees. As he was not yet able to see clearly, Renardet placed his hands over his eyes; and suddenly this light became an illumination, and he beheld little Louise Roque naked and bleeding on the moss. He recoiled frozen with horror, sank into his chair, and fell backward. He remained there some minutes, his soul in distress, then he sat up and began to reflect. He had had a hallucination--that was all; a hallucination due to the fact that a marauder of the night was walking with a lantern in his hand near the water"s edge. What was there astonishing, besides, in the circ.u.mstance that the recollection of his crime should sometimes bring before him the vision of the dead girl?
He rose up, swallowed a gla.s.s of wine and sat down again.
He thought.
"What am I to do if this come back?"
And it did come back; he felt it; he was sure of it. Already his glance was drawn towards the window; it called him; it attracted him. In order to avoid looking at it, he turned aside his chair. Then he took a book and tried to read; but it seemed to him that he presently heard something stirring behind him, and he swung round his armchair on one foot.
The curtain still moved--unquestionably, it did move this time; he could no longer have any doubt about it.
He rushed forward and seized it in his grasp so violently that he knocked it down with its fastener. Then, he eagerly pasted his face against the gla.s.s. He saw nothing. All was black without; and he breathed with the delight of a man whose life has just been saved.
Then, he went back to his chair, and sat down again; but almost immediately he felt a longing once more to look out through the window.
Since the curtain had fallen the s.p.a.ce in front of him made a sort of dark patch fascinating and terrible on the obscure landscape. In order not to yield to this dangerous temptation, he took off his clothes, blew out the light, went to bed, and shut his eyes.
Lying on his back motionless, his skin hot and moist, he awaited sleep.
Suddenly a great gleam of light flashed across his eyelids. He opened them, believing that his dwelling was on fire. All was black as before, and he leaned on his elbow in order to try to distinguish his window which had still for him an unconquerable attraction. By dint of straining his eyes, he could perceive some stars, and he arose, groped his way across the room, discovered the panes with his outstretched hands, and placed his forehead close to them. There below, under the trees, the body of the little girl glittered like phosphorus, lighting up the surrounding darkness.
Renardet uttered a cry and rushed towards his bed, where he lay till morning, his head hidden under the pillow.
From that moment, his life became intolerable. He pa.s.sed his days in apprehension of each succeeding night; and each night the vision came back again. As soon as he had locked himself up in his room, he strove to struggle; but in vain. An irresistible force lifted him up and pushed him against the gla.s.s, as if to call the phantom, and ere long he saw it lying at first in the spot where the crime was committed, lying with arms and legs outspread, just in the way the body had been found.
Then the dead girl rose up and came towards him with little steps just as the child had done when she came out of the river. She advanced quietly, pa.s.sing straight across the gra.s.s, and over the border of withered flowers. Then she rose up into the air towards Renardet"s window. She came towards him, as she had come on the day of the crime towards the murderer. And the man recoiled before the apparition--he retreated to his bed and sank down upon it, knowing well that the little one had entered the room, and that she now was standing behind the curtain which presently moved. And until daybreak, he kept staring at this curtain, with a fixed glance, ever waiting to see his victim depart.
But she did not show herself any more; she remained there behind the curtain which quivered tremulously now and then.
And Renardet, his fingers clinging to the bedclothes, squeezed them as he had squeezed the throat of little Louise Roque.
He heard the clock striking the hours; and in the stillness the pendulum kept ticking in time with the loud beatings of his heart. And he suffered, the wretched man, more than any man had ever suffered before.
Then, as soon as a white streak of light on the ceiling announced the approaching day, he felt himself free, alone, at last, alone in his room; and at last he went to sleep. He slept then some hours--a restless, feverish sleep in which he retraced in dreams the horrible vision of the night just past.
When, later on, he went down to breakfast, he felt doubled up as if after prodigious fatigues; and he scarcely ate anything, still haunted as he was by the fear of what he had seen the night before.
He knew well, however, that it was not an apparition, that the dead do not come back, and that his sick soul, his soul possessed by one thought alone, by an indelible remembrance, was the only cause of his punishment, the only evoker of the dead girl brought back by it to life, called up by it and raised by it before his eyes in which the ineffaceable image remained imprinted. But he knew, too, that he could not cure it, that he would never escape from the savage persecution of his memory; and he resolved to die, rather than to endure these tortures any longer.
Then, he thought of how he would kill himself. He wished for something simple and natural, which would preclude the idea of suicide. For he clung to his reputation, to the names bequeathed to him by his ancestors; and if there were any suspicion as the cause of his death, people"s thoughts might be perhaps directed towards the mysterious crime, towards the murderer who could not be found, and they would not hesitate to accuse him of the crime.
A strange idea came into his head, that of getting himself crushed by the tree at the foot of which he had a.s.sa.s.sinated little Louise Roque.
So he determined to have his wood cut down, and to simulate an accident.
But the beech-tree refused to smash his ribs.
Returning to his house, a prey to utter despair he had s.n.a.t.c.hed up his revolver, and then he did not dare to fire it.
The dinner bell summoned him. He could eat nothing, and then he went up-stairs again. And he did not know what he was going to do. Now that he had escaped the first time, he felt himself a coward. Presently, he would be ready, fortified, decided, master of his courage and of his resolution; now, he was weak and feared death as much as he did the dead girl.
He faltered:
"I will not venture it again--I will not venture it."
Then he glanced with terror, first at the revolver on the table, and next at the curtain which hid his window. It seemed to him, moreover that something horrible would occur as soon as his life was ended.
Something? What? A meeting with her perhaps. She was watching for him; she was waiting for him; she was calling him; and her object was to seize him in her turn, to draw him towards the doom that would avenge her, and to lead him to die so that she might exhibit herself thus every night.
He began to cry like a child, repeating:
"I will not venture it again--I will not venture it." Then, he fell on his knees, and murmured:
"My G.o.d! my G.o.d!" without believing, nevertheless, in G.o.d. And he no longer dared, in fact, to look out through his window where he knew the apparition was visible nor at his table where his revolver gleamed.
When he had risen up, he said:
"This cannot last; there must be an end of it."
The sound of his voice in the silent room made a shiver of fear pa.s.s through his limbs, but, as he could not bring himself to come to a determination as he felt certain that his finger would always refuse to pull the trigger of his revolver, he turned round to hide his head under the bedclothes, and plunged into reflection.
He would have to find some way in which he could force himself to die, to invent some device against himself, which would not permit of any hesitation on his part, any delay, any possible regrets. He envied condemned criminals who are led to the scaffold surrounded by soldiers.
Oh! if he could only beg of some one to shoot him; if he could, confessing the state of his soul, confessing his crime to a sure friend who would never divulge it, obtain from him death.
But from whom could he ask this terrible service? From whom? He cast about in his thoughts among his friends whom he knew intimately. The doctor? No, he would talk about it afterwards, most certainly. And suddenly a fantastic idea entered his mind. He would write to the examining magistrate, who was on terms of close friendship with him and would denounce himself as the perpetrator of the crime. He would in this letter confess everything, revealing how his soul had been tortured, how he had resolved to die, how he had hesitated about carrying out his resolution, and what means he had employed to strengthen his failing courage. And in the name of their old friendship he would implore of the other to destroy the letter as soon as he had ascertained that the culprit had inflicted justice on himself. Renardet might rely on this magistrate, he knew him to be sure, discreet, incapable of even an idle word. He was one of those men who have an inflexible conscience governed, directed, regulated by their reason alone.
Scarcely had he formed this project when a strange feeling of joy took possession of his heart. He was calm now. He would write his letter slowly, then at daybreak he would deposit it in the box nailed to the wall in his office, then he would ascend his tower to watch for the postman"s arrival, and when the man in the blue blouse showed himself, he would cast himself head foremost on the rocks on which the foundations rested. He would take care to be seen first by the workmen who had cut down his wood. He could then climb to the step some distance up which bore the flag staff displayed on fete days. He would smash this pole with a shake and precipitate it along with him.
Who would suspect that it was not an accident? And he would be killed completely, having regard to his weight and the height of the tower.
Presently he got out of bed, went over to the table, and began to write.