“That seems to me very unlikely,” Hervé answered, with a serenity so unfeigned that I wondered whether he hadn’t gone too far and given the game away. “In any case,” he added, “I’m not going back on my word. The prisoner may speak.”
“In that case,” Fulbert cried, “I shall not stay to listen! I shall leave! I shall return to the château and wait for Vilmain’s return!”
He walked down the steps and set off up the aisle, running the gauntlet of the opposition’s invective, toward the main door at the far end. This didn’t suit my plan at all. Without Fulbert there could be no countertrial. Raising my voice, I shouted at his retreating back, “So you’re so terrified of what I’m about to say that you haven’t even the courage to stay and listen!”
He stopped, swiveled around on his heels, and faced me. I went on in a clear, firm tone: “It is now a quarter past five. Vilmain said that he would be here at five-thirty. I therefore have another quarter of an hour to live, and you, during that last quarter of an hour, you are still so afraid of me that you are trembling like a leaf and rushing off to hide under your bed to wait for your master! Yes, under your bed! Not even on top of it!”
Hervé’s attitude had succeeded in making Fulbert very uneasy. I had reassured him a great deal by announcing that Vilmain was only a quarter of an hour away. And that accusation of cowardice had really made him smart. Because a coward he was not, as I knew. But that strength hid a weakness. Like many courageous people, he was vain of his courage. And as I had expected, that vanity obliged him to take up my challenge.
He stood quite still, pale, stiff, eyes burning above those emaciated cheeks, then he said with vast disdain, “You may deliver yourself of any idiocies you choose. They will not disturb me. Talk if you must. While you can.”
I seized the opening he had offered me immediately. “I mean to. And I shall begin with a complete refutation of all your accusations. Catie first. I did not ‘abuse’ her as you dared to claim, and I did not kidnap her. That was a total fabrication. Of her own free will, and with her uncle’s permission”—“that’s true!” Marcel immediately cried; and I was glad I need no longer worry about compromising him—“she went to pay a visit to her grandmother at Malevil. And while there she fell in love with Thomas and married him. Which put your nose out of joint, didn’t it, Fulbert? Because you wanted to have her up in the château waiting on you.”
There were snickers at this, and Fulbert exclaimed, “That is totally untrue!”
“Oh, pardon me!” a small, voluminous woman of about fifty said immediately, without asking permission to speak. She stood up. It was Josepha, the château housekeeper. Though not held in much esteem theoretically on account of her Portuguese origin (the people of La Roque were racists), she was in practice quite well liked because she had a very ready tongue and told you anything straight to your face when she had something on her chest.
Josepha was no beauty. She had one of those skins apparently beyond the aid of soap and water. Apart from which she was stumpy, jowly, and busty. But with her strong white teeth, her strong jaw, her extremely bright eyes and her luxuriant hair she projected a pleasing impression of animal vitality.
“Pardon me!” she went on in a harsh, vulgar accent that seemed to add a great deal of force to what she said. “You oughtn’t to say things are untrue when they aren’t. Because it’s true that Monseigneur didn’t want me up there any more, and he did want that girl instead. Even though she wouldn’t have served his turn as well,” she added, though whether with false or genuine naïveté I couldn’t say.
She sat down again amid a barrage of jibes and laughter at Fulbert’s expense. And I noticed that Monseigneur avoided taking issue with Josepha over her statement. He clearly knew that tongue of hers too well, and preferred to turn what she’d said back against me.
“I fail to see what you, Comte, have to gain,” he observed haughtily, “by inciting low gossip against your bishop!”
“You are not my bishop!” I said. “Very far from it! And I have everything to gain by throwing your lies back in your teeth! And here is another of them, another monstrous one! You said that I had myself elected to the priesthood by my servants. That is untrue in the first place,” I said with great vehemence, “because I have no servants. I have only friends and equals. And contrary to what happens in La Roque, nothing important is ever done at Malevil without all of us having discussed the matter together.
“Why was I elected to be their abbé? I’ll tell you. You were very anxious to palm Monsieur Gazel off on us in that capacity, and we for our part did not particularly want him at Malevil. I hope I shall not offend him by saying that. That is why my companions elected me to the office of priest. As for being a good or a bad priest, I know nothing about that. I am an elected priest, like Monsieur Gazel. I do my best. When there is no horse for the plow, then the ass must needs serve. I don’t think I am any worse a priest than Monsieur Gazel, and I don’t have to try very hard to be a better one than you.” (Laughter and applause.)
“It is pride that makes you speak thus!” Fulbert cried. “In reality, you are a false priest! A bad priest! An abominable priest! And you know it! I will not even touch on your private life.”
“Nor I on yours!”
He didn’t take that one up. Afraid I’d mention Miette, presumably. “To cite only one example,” he rushed on in his rage, “your conception of confession, and your practice in that respect, are totally heretical!”
“I don’t know whether they’re heretical or not,” I said in a modest voice. “I’m not educated enough in religious matters to decide that. What I do know is that I am a little wary of the practice, because in the hands of a bad priest it can become a method of spying and an instrument of tyranny.”
“And you are quite right, Monsieur Comte,” Judith shouted in her stentor’s voice. “That is precisely what confession has become here in La Roque, in the hands of that Nazi there!”
“Silence, woman!” Fulbert said, turning toward her. “You are a rebel against religion, a madwoman, and a bad Christian!”
“You should be ashamed,” Marcel cried at that, leaning forward, his powerful hands clenched around the back of the chair in front of him. “You should be ashamed talking like that to a woman, and to a woman much better educated than you are too. She even corrected you the other day about the stupid mistakes you made about Jesus’s brothers and sisters.”
“Corrected me!” Fulbert cried, throwing up his arms. “That poor hysteric knows nothing whatever about it! Brothers and sisters is an error of translation. They were his cousins. I’ve already told you that!”
While this amazing theological dispute got under way in the very middle of what was supposed to be a trial, I said quietly to Maurice, “Go and fetch the others. Tell them to come to the main door of the chapel and wait there. When I announce Vilmain’s death they are to come in, not before.”
Maurice melted away, supple and silent as a cat, and I permitted myself to interrupt our Judith, who, quite forgetful of time and place, was still conducting her passionate argument with Fulbert on the subject of Christ’s kith and kin.
“One moment!” I said. “I should like to finish!”
Silence fell, and Judith—who had quite forgotten me—glanced over with a repentant air. I went on in a calm voice: “I come now to the last crime Fulbert has imputed to me. He claims that I wrote a letter claiming suzerainty in La Roque, and announcing my intention of taking the town by force and then occupying it. It is a great pity that Fulbert did not see fit to read my letter out, since everyone here would then have been in a position to know that it said nothing of the kind. But let us suppose that it did. Let us even suppose that I had in fact announced in that letter my intention to attack La Roque. The only question to be asked is this: Did I in fact do it? Was it I who came at nightfall to occupy La Roque? Was it I who slashed the throat of the guard at the gate? Was it I who plundered your stores, threatened your men, and raped your women? Was
it I who slaughtered every human living creature at Courcejac? Yet the man who did all those things, Fulbert treats as his friend! While he has condemned me to death for having, so he claims, the intention of doing them! That is Fulbert’s justice: death for the innocent, his friendship for a murderer!”
The sun had certainly chosen the right moment to light up the window behind me, and behind Hervé too, as he spoke the last lines of his commander’s role. “Hey there, that’s enough, prisoner!” he said. “We can’t have you talking about the captain like that!”
I cut him short. “Don’t interrupt, Hervé. The joke is over.”
Hearing me talk in that tone to my guard, Fulbert started violently, and all the others stared wide-eyed. I drew myself up to my full height. I basked with almost sensual pleasure in the light from the window. I could feel my eyes opening wider and my whole being unfurling in that sudden brightness. It was amazing too how warm the sun felt on my shoulders and back, even filtered through the colored glass. And it was very welcome. I was numb with cold.
I began to speak again, but discarding my previous calm tone, allowing my voice full rein, till it filled the chapel with its volume.
“When Armand killed Pimont after attempting to abuse his wife, you protected him. When Bébelle had slit Lanouaille’s throat, you entertained him and Vilmain at your table. When Jean Feyrac had massacred the people of Courcejac, you continued to drink and joke with him. And why did you do all that? To win Vilmain’s friendship, because now that Armand was dead you were counting on Vilmain’s help to perpetuate your tyranny over La Roque, to rid yourself at one and the same time of Malevil and all internal opposition too.”
I had thundered my accusations out in total silence. As I finished, I saw that Fulbert had managed to pull himself together.
“I can only wonder what the point of all this chatter is,” he said, the cello tones back again. “It is not going to alter your fate one iota.”
“You haven’t answered!” Judith stormed, leaning forward, square jaw jutting from the turtleneck of her navy blue sweater, blue eyes shooting sparks of fury in Fulbert’s direction.
“I was about to do so, and very briefly,” Fulbert said with a furtive glance at his watch. (I supposed that he had by now succeeded in stilling his apprehensions and was expecting Vilmain to arrive at any moment.) “I need hardly say,” he went on, “that I do not approve of all the things that Captain Vilmain and his men have done, here and elsewhere. But soldiers have always been soldiers, and there is nothing we can do about it. My role, as Bishop of La Roque, is to consider the good that I can extract from that evil. If I am enabled, thanks to Captain Vilmain’s aid, to root out heresy root and branch in La Roque and in Malevil, then I shall consider that I have done my duty.”
At that, a paroxysm was reached, the crowd’s fury knew no bounds. Not just the opposition either. The whole population had been goaded into rage by this admission. And I wasn’t even thinking of turning the fact to my advantage at that moment. I was speechless, because I had just realized, with profound astonishment, that Fulbert had been almost sincere in what he said. Not that I am denying his hunger for personal revenge! But all the same, at that instant, it became quite clear to me that this false priest, this mountebank, this scheming opportunist, had ended up by identifying himself with his role. He more than half believed in his mission as guardian of the true faith!
Without entirely grasping its significance, the docile attitude of my guards toward me must have encouraged and reassured the congregation, because insults and threats were being showered on Fulbert now from all sides, and mingled with them, here and there, albeit enunciated with no less passion, a variety of petty personal grievances. For instance, I caught the voice of old Pougès at one point, filled with hate as he reproached the cura for having refused him a glass of wine one day. Fulbert now seemed to me to be almost the only person present who still believed in Vilmain’s imminent arrival. He was clinging to that illusion desperately. And I could see that he was strengthened in his hopes when he heard a noise behind him at that moment beyond the great main door. He turned, and as he did so Maurice slipped in through the side door and signaled to me that the others were outside.
Ever more furious, the imprecations and insults continued to rain on Fulbert as he stood, stoical and still, in the center of the main aisle. If words, looks, and gestures alone could kill, he would have been already ripped to pieces. And at the very moment when I was about to give him his coup de grâce, knowing quite well what would happen when I did, I hesitated. Needless to say, that hesitation was no more than a little indulgence I was allowing my conscience, at the very last moment, to make my soul as white as my clothes. Because in fact it was too late. I had set the machinery in motion now, and I could no longer stop it. Just as Fulbert had judged my execution necessary on the grounds that I was a heretic and a troublemaker, so I considered his indispensable to any union between Malevil and La Roque, the necessary foundation of our mutual security. The difference was that I was about to kill him for real, and without any sentence of death, any trial, any shot being fired, without even soiling my hands.
Fulbert’s voice was drowned by the hate-filled clamor of the congregation, and I admired his courage as he stood there, incapable of making himself heard, but still returning hate for hate, with interest, with his blazing eyes. For a moment, however, there was a sudden lull, and he found the strength to throw them one last challenge. “You will sing a different tune when Captain Vilmain comes!”
He had given me my cue. This was my big scene. At the last moment I had hit upon what I was sure was the right way to play it. So I improvised. I stretched out my arms to ask for silence, as Fulbert himself had done earlier, and as soon as the din faded, I said in my most calm, even voice, “I can’t help wondering why you insist on referring to Vilmain as ‘Captain.’ Because he wasn’t a captain.” I didn’t emphasize that past tense too much in speaking it. “I have here”—removing my wallet from my revolver pocket—“a document that proves it irrefutably. It is a professional card. With a very clear photograph. All those here who knew Vilmain will recognize him easily. And it says on this card, in black and white, that Vilmain was an accountant. Monsieur Gazel, would you like to take this card and show it to Fulbert?”
Silence fell like an ax descending, and the entire congregation turned their heads as one toward the central aisle, necks craning, heads tilting simultaneously to watch Fulbert’s reaction. Because after all, however much he might wish to be at that moment, he was not blind. If the document being carried over to him had come into my possession, what was he to conclude from that? Fulbert snatched the card Gazel held out. One glance was enough. His face remained expressionless, his color didn’t change. But the hand holding the card began to quiver. It was a very slight movement, but extremely rapid, and one that was apparently impossible for him to stop. From the tension in his features, I sensed that Fulbert was making desperate efforts to immobilize that card quivering like a tiny wing at the end of his fingers.
A long second passed, he still didn’t manage to get out a single word. What I was seeing now was simply a man struggling with every ounce of strength he could muster against the terror welling up in him. The sight of that torture made me feel suddenly sickened, and I determined to cut it short.
In a voice I hoped was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the main door, I said, “I see that I owe you an explanation. The four armed guards you see with me are all honest young men whom Vilmain recruited by force. Two of them had come over to my side before the battle, and the two others entered my service immediately after it. These four are the only survivors of the band. Vilmain, at this moment, is occupying two square yards of Malevil territory.”
There was a stunned murmur, over which Marcel’s voice could easily be heard: “You mean he’s dead?”
“That is exactly what I mean. Jean Feyrac is dead. Vilmain is dead. And with the exception of these four, who have become our friends
, all the others have been killed too.”
At that moment, the great Gothic door at the far end of the chapel swung half open, and one by one, Meyssonnier, Thomas, Peyssou, and Jacquet, moved forward into the nave, guns in hand. I say moved forward, because it was not an irruption. The movement was calm and even slow. Had it not been for their rifles, they could have passed for friendly visitors. They advanced a few paces up the central aisle, then I signaled to them with one hand to stop. My guards, who at another signal had stood up, were now gathered around me and equally motionless. There was a moment of stunned silence, then the congregation began howling threats of death at Fulbert. Only the two armed groups blocking both ends of the central aisle remained silent.
It was all over in no time. At the grating sound made by the main door, Fulbert swiveled around to look, and the last shred of his illusions vanished. When he turned back to face me again, face contorted, he saw me with my guards closing the trap on him. His nerves were unable to bear so great a fall after all the hope I had held out to him. His courage snapped. He had no other thought in his head but to escape—escape physically—from his hunters. In his panic he tried to reach the side door by going between two rows of chairs. But in his blindness he ran just in front of the one occupied by Marcel, Judith, and the two widows. Marcel didn’t even strike him with his fist. He just pushed him with the flat of his hand, but without counting on the strength of his arm. Fulbert was hurled back violently onto the flagstones of the central aisle. A savage growling and howling went up. The mob closed in on him, scattering their chairs, and Fulbert vanished beneath the furious pack clustering and clinging around him. I heard him cry out twice. At the other end of the aisle I could see Peyssou’s sickened and horrified expression, and his eyes fixed on mine asking me if he should intervene. I shook my head.