Within an Inch of His Life

E >> Emile Gaboriau >> Within an Inch of His Life


This was certainly terrible; still, after a moment's reflection,
Dionysia said,--

"Never mind! I accept. Tell Blangin, M. Mechinet, that it is all right."

That Dionysia should accept all the conditions of Blangin the jailer
was perfectly natural; but to obtain M. de Chandore's consent was a much
more difficult task. The poor girl understood this so well, that, for
the first time in her life, she felt embarrassed in her grandfather's
presence. She hesitated, she prepared her little speech, and she
selected carefully her words. But in spite of all her skill, in spite of
all the art with which she managed to present her strange request, M. de
Chandore had no sooner understood her project than he exclaimed,--

"Never, never, never!"

Perhaps in his whole life the old gentleman had never expressed himself
in so positive a manner. His brow had never looked so dark. Usually,
when his granddaughter had a petition, his lips might say, "No;" but his
eyes always said, "Yes."

"Impossible!" he repeated, and in a tone of voice which seemed to admit
of no reply.

Surely, in all these painful events, he had not spared himself, and he
had so far done for Dionysia all that she could possibly expect of him.
Her will had been his will. As she had prompted, he had said, "Yes," or
"No." What more could he have said or done?

Without telling him what she was going to do with it, Dionysia had asked
him for twenty thousand francs, and he had given them to her, however
big the sum might be everywhere, however immense in a small town like
Sauveterre. He was quite ready to give her as much again, or twice as
much, without asking any more questions.

But for Dionysia to leave her home one evening at six o'clock, and not
to return to it till the next morning--

"That I cannot permit," he repeated.

But for Dionysia to spend a night in the Sauveterre jail, in order to
have an interview with her betrothed, who was accused of incendiarism
and murder; to remain there all night, alone, absolutely at the mercy of
the jailer, a hard, coarse, covetous man--

"That I will never permit," exclaimed the old gentleman once more.

Dionysia remained calm, and let the storm pass. When her grandfather
became silent, she said,--

"But if I must?"

M. de Chandore shrugged his shoulders. She repeated in a louder tone,--

"If I must, in order to decide Jacques to abandon this system that will
ruin him, to induce him to speak before the investigation is completed?"

"That is not your business, my child," said the old gentleman.

"Oh!"

"That is the business of his mother, the Marchioness of Boiscoran.
Whatever Blangin agrees to venture for your sake, he will do as well
for her sake. Let the marchioness go and spend the night at the jail. I
agree to that. Let her see her son. That is her duty."

"But surely she will never shake Jacques's resolution."

"And you think you have more influence over him than his mother?"

"It is not the same thing, dear papa."

"Never mind!"

This "never mind" of Grandpapa Chandore was as positive as his
"impossible;" but he had begun to discuss the question, and to discuss
means to listen to arguments on the other side.

"Do not insist, my dear child," he said again. "My mind is made up; and
I assure you"--

"Don't say so, papa," said the young girl.

And her attitude was so determined, and her voice so firm, that the old
gentleman was quite overwhelmed for a moment.

"But, if I am not willing," he said.

"You will consent, dear papa, you will certainly not force your little
granddaughter, who loves you so dearly, to the painful necessity of
disobeying you for the first time in her life."

"Because, for the first time in her life I am not doing what my
granddaughter wants me to do?"

"Dear papa, let me tell you."

"Rather listen to me, poor child, and let me show you to what dangers,
to what misfortunes, you expose yourself. To go and spend a night at
this prison would be risking, understand me well, your honor,--that
tender, delicate honor which is tarnished by a breath, which involves
the happiness and the peace of your whole life."

"But Jacques's honor and life are at stake."

"Poor imprudent girl! How do you know but he would be the very first to
blame you cruelly for such a step?"

"He?"

"Men are made so: the most perfect devotion irritates them at times."

"Be it so. I would rather endure Jacques's unjust reproaches than the
idea of not having done my duty."

M. de Chandore began to despair.

"And if I were to beg you, Dionysia, instead of commanding. If your
old grandfather were to beseech you on his knees to abandon your fatal
project."

"You would cause me fearful pain, dear papa: but it would be all in
vain; for I must resist your prayers, as I must resist your orders."

"Inexorable!" cried the old gentleman. "She is immovable!" And suddenly
changing his tone, he cried,--

"But, after all, I am master here."

"Dear papa, pray!"

"And since nothing can move you, I will speak to Mechinet, I will let
Blangin know my will."

Dionysia, turning as pale as death, but with burning eyes, drew back a
step, and said,--

"If you do that, grandpapa, if you destroy my last hope"--

"Well?"

"I swear to you by the sacred memory of my mother, I will be in a
convent to-morrow, and you will never see me again in your life, not
even if I should die, which would certainly soon"--

M. de Chandore, raising his hands to heaven, and with an accent of
genuine despair, exclaimed,--

"Ah, my God! Are these our children? And is this what is in store for
us old people? We have spent a lifetime in watching over them; we have
submissively gratified all their fancies; they have been our greatest
anxiety, and our sweetest hope; we have given them our life day by day,
and we would not hesitate to give them our life's blood drop by drop;
they are every thing to us, and we imagine they love us--poor fools that
we are! One fine day, a man goes by, a careless, thoughtless man, with
a bright eye and a ready tongue, and it is all over. Our child is no
longer our own; our child no longer knows us. Go, old man, and die in
your corner."

Overwhelmed by his grief, the old man staggered and sank into a chair,
as an old oak, cut by the woodman's axe, trembles and falls.

"Ah, this is fearful!" murmured Dionysia. "What you say, grandpapa, is
too fearful. How can you doubt me?"

She had knelt down. She was weeping; and her hot tears fell upon the old
gentleman's hands. He started up as he felt them on his icy-cold hand;
and, making one more effort, he said,--

"Poor, poor child! And suppose Jacques is guilty, and, when he sees you,
confesses his crime, what then?"

Dionysia shook her head.

"That is impossible," she said; "and still, even if it were so, I ought
to be punished as much as he is; for I know, if he had asked me, I
should have acted in concert with him."

"She is mad!" exclaimed M. de Chandore, falling back into his chair.
"She is mad!"

But he was overcome; and the next day, at five in the afternoon, his
heart torn by unspeakable grief, he went down the steep street with
his daughter on his arm. Dionysia had chosen her simplest and plainest
dress; and the little bag she carried on her arm contained not sixteen
but twenty thousand francs. As a matter of course, it had been necessary
to take the marchioness into their confidence; but neither she, nor the
Misses Lavarande, nor M. Folgat, had raised an objection. Down to the
prison, grandfather and grandchild had not exchanged a word; but, when
they reached it, Dionysia said,--

"I see Mrs. Blangin at the door: let us be careful."

They came nearer. Mrs. Blangin saluted them.

"Come, it is time," said the young girl. "Till to-morrow, dear papa! Go
home quickly, and be not troubled about me."

Then joining the keeper's wife, she disappeared inside the prison.



X.

The prison of Sauveterre is in the castle at the upper end of town, in a
poor and almost deserted suburb. This castle, once upon a time of great
importance, had been dismantled at the time of the siege of Rochelle;
and all that remains are a few badly-repaired ruins, ramparts with
fosses that have been filled up, a gate surmounted by a small belfry, a
chapel converted into a magazine, and finally two huge towers connected
by an immense building, the lower rooms in which are vaulted.

Nothing can be more mournful than these ruins, enclosed within an
ivy-covered wall; and nothing would indicate the use that is made
of them, except the sentinel which stands day and night at the gate.
Ancient elm-trees overshadow the vast courts; and on the old walls, as
well as in every crevice, there grow and bloom enough flowers to rejoice
a hundred prisoners. But this romantic prison is without prisoners.

"It is a cage without birds," says the jailer often in his most
melancholy voice.

He takes advantage of this to raise his vegetables all along the
slopes; and the exposure is so excellent, that he is always the first in
Sauveterre who had young peas. He has also taken advantage of this--with
leave granted by the authorities--to fit up very comfortable lodgings
for himself in one of the towers. He has two rooms below, and a chamber
up stairs, which you reach by a narrow staircase in the thickness of the
wall. It was to this chamber that the keeper's wife took Dionysia with
all the promptness of fear. The poor girl was out of breath. Her heart
was beating violently; and, as soon as she was in the room, she sank
into a chair.

"Great God!" cried the woman. "You are not sick, my dear young lady?
Wait, I'll run for some vinegar."

"Never mind," replied Dionysia in a feeble voice. "Stay here, my dear
Colette: don't go away!"

For Colette was her name, though she was as dark as gingerbread, nearly
forty-five years old, and boasted of a decided mustache on her upper
lip.

"Poor young lady!" she said. "You feel badly at being here."

"Yes," replied Dionysia. "But where is your husband?"

"Down stairs, on the lookout, madam. He will come up directly." Very
soon afterwards, a heavy step was heard on the stairs; and Blangin came
in, looking pale and anxious, like a man who feels that he is running a
great risk.

"Neither seen nor known," he cried. "No one is aware of your presence
here. I was only afraid of that dog of a sentinel; and, just as you came
by, I had managed to get him round the corner, offering him a drop of
something to drink. I begin to hope I shall not lose my place."

Dionysia accepted these words as a summons to speak out.

"Ah!" she said, "don't mind your place: don't you know I have promised
you a better one?"

And, with a gayety which was very far from being real, she opened her
little bag, and put upon the table the rolls which it contained.

"Ah, that is gold!" said Blangin with eager eyes.

"Yes. Each one of these rolls contains a thousand francs; and here are
sixteen."

An irresistible temptation seized the jailer.

"May I see?" he asked.

"Certainly!" replied the young girl. "Look for yourself and count."

She was mistaken. Blangin did not think of counting, not he. What he
wanted was only to gratify his eye by the sight of the gold, to hear its
sound, to handle it.

With feverish eagerness he tore open the wrappings, and let the pieces
fall in cascades upon the table; and, as the heap increased, his lips
turned white, and perspiration broke out on his temples.

"And all that is for me?" he said with a stupid laugh.

"Yes, it is yours," replied Dionysia.

"I did not know how sixteen thousand francs would look. How beautiful
gold is! Just look, wife."

But Colette turned her head away. She was quite as covetous as her
husband, and perhaps even more excited; but she was a woman, and she
knew how to dissemble.

"Ah, my dear young lady!" she said, "never would my old man and myself
have asked you for money, if we had only ourselves to think of. But we
have children."

"Your duty is to think of your children," replied Dionysia.

"I know sixteen thousand francs is a big sum. Perhaps you will be sorry
to give us so much money."

"I am not sorry at all: I would even add to it willingly." And she
showed them one of the other four rolls in her bag.

"Then, to be sure, what do I care for my place!" cried Blangin. And,
intoxicated by the sight and the touch of the gold, he added,--

"You are at home here, madam; and the jail and the jailer are at your
disposal. What do you desire? Just speak. I have nine prisoners, not
counting M. de Boiscoran and Trumence. Do you want me to set them all
free?"

"Blangin!" said his wife reprovingly.

"What? Am I not free to let the prisoners go?"

"Before you play the master, wait, at least, till you have rendered our
young lady the service which she expects from you."

"Certainly."

"Then go and conceal this money," said the prudent woman; "or it might
betray us."

And, drawing from her cupboard a woollen stocking, she handed it to
her husband, who slipped the sixteen thousand francs into it, retaining
about a dozen gold-pieces, which he kept in his pocket so as always to
have in his hands some tangible evidence of his new fortune. When this
was done, and the stocking, full to overflowing, had been put back in
the cupboard under a pile of linen, she ordered her husband,--

"Now, you go down. Somebody might be coming; and, if you were not there
to open when they knock, that might look suspicious."

Like a well-trained husband, Blangin obeyed without saying a word; and
then his wife bethought herself how to entertain Dionysia. She hoped,
she said, her dear young lady would do her the honor to take something.
That would strengthen her, and, besides, help her to pass the time;
for it was only seven o'clock, and Blangin could not take her to M. de
Boiscoran's cell before ten, without great danger.

"But I have dined," Dionysia objected. "I do not want any thing."

The woman insisted only the more. She remembered (God be thanked!) her
dear young lady's taste; and she had made her an admirable broth, and
some beautiful dessert. And, while thus talking, she set the table,
having made up her mind that Dionysia must eat at all hazards; at least,
so says the tradition of the place.

The eager zeal of the woman had, at least, this advantage,--that it
prevented Dionysia from giving way to her painful thoughts.

Night had come. It was nine o'clock; then it struck ten. At last, the
watch came round to relieve the sentinels. A quarter of an hour after
that, Blangin reappeared, holding a lantern and an enormous bunch of
keys in his hands.

"I have seen Trumence to bed," he said. "You can come now, madam."

Dionysia was all ready.

"Let us go," she said simply.

Then she followed the jailer along interminable passages, through a
vast vaulted hall, in which their steps resounded as in a church, then
through a long gallery. At last, pointing at a massive door, through the
cracks of which the light was piercing, he said,--

"Here we are."

But Dionysia seized his arm, and said in an almost inaudible voice,--

"Wait a moment."

She was almost overcome by so many successive emotions. She felt her
legs give way under her, and her eyes become dim. In her heart she
preserved all her usual energy; but the flesh escaped from her will and
failed her at the last moment.

"Are you sick?" asked the jailer. "What is the matter?"

She prayed to God for courage and strength: when her prayer was
finished, she said,--

"Now, let us go in."

And, making a great noise with the keys and the bolts, Blangin opened
the door to Jacques de Boiscoran's cell.

Jacques counted no longer the days, but the hours. He had been
imprisoned on Friday morning, June 23, and this was Wednesday night,
June 28, He had been a hundred and thirty-two hours, according to the
graphic description of a great writer, "living, but struck from the roll
of the living, and buried alive."

Each one of these hundred and thirty-two hours had weighed upon him
like a month. Seeing him pale and haggard, with his hair and beard
in disorder, and his eyes shining brightly with fever, like
half-extinguished coals, one would hardly have recognized in him the
happy lord of Boiscoran, free from care and trouble, upon whom fortune
had ever smiled,--that haughty sceptical young man, who from the height
of the past defied the future.

The fact is, that society, obliged to defend itself against criminals,
has invented no more fearful suffering than what is called "close
confinement." There is nothing that will sooner demoralize a man, crush
his will, and utterly conquer the most powerful energy. There is no
struggle more distressing than the struggle between an innocent man
accused of some crime, and the magistrate,--a helpless being in the
hands of a man armed with unlimited power.

If great sorrow was not sacred, to a certain degree, Dionysia might have
heard all about Jacques. Nothing would have been easier. She would have
been told by Blangin, who was watching M. de Boiscoran like a spy, and
by his wife, who prepared his meals, through what anguish he had passed
since his imprisonment.

Stunned at first, he had soon recovered; and on Friday and Saturday he
had been quiet and confident, talkative, and almost cheerful. But Sunday
had been a fatal day. Two gendarmes had carried him to Boiscoran to take
off the seals; and on his way out he had been overwhelmed with insults
and curses by the people who had recognized him. He had come back
terribly distressed.

On Tuesday, he had received Dionysia's letter, and answered it. This
had excited him fearfully, and, during a part of the night, Trumence
had seen him walk up and down in his cell with all the gestures and
incoherent imprecations of a madman.

He had hoped for a letter on Wednesday. When none came, he had sunk into
a kind of stupor, during which M. Galpin had been unable to draw a word
from him. He had taken nothing all day long but a little broth and a cup
of coffee. When the magistrate left him, he had sat down, leaning his
head on his elbows, facing the window; and there he had remained, never
moving, and so deeply absorbed in his reveries, that he had taken no
notice when they brought him light. He was still in this state, when, a
little after ten o'clock, he heard the grating of the bolts of his cell.
He had become so well acquainted with the prison that he knew all its
regulations. He knew at what hours his meals were brought, at what
time Trumence came to clean up his room, and when he might expect
the magistrate. After night, he knew he was his own master till next
morning. So late a visit therefore, must needs bring him some unexpected
news, his liberty, perhaps,--that visitor for whom all prisoners look so
anxiously.

He started up. As soon as he distinguished in the darkness the jailer's
rugged face, he asked eagerly,--

"Who wants me?"

Blangin bowed. He was a polite jailer. Then he replied,--

"Sir, I bring you a visitor."

And, moving aside, he made way for Dionysia, or, rather, he pushed her
into the room; for she seemed to have lost all power to move.

"A visitor?" repeated M. de Boiscoran.

But the jailer had raised his lantern, and the poor man could recognize
his betrothed.

"You," he cried, "you here!"

And he drew back, afraid of being deceived by a dream, or one of those
fearful hallucinations which announce the coming of insanity, and take
hold of the brains of sick people in times of over-excitement.

"Dionysia!" he barely whispered, "Dionysia!"

If not her own life (for she cared nothing for that), but Jacques's
life, had at that moment depended on a single word, Dionysia could not
have uttered it. Her throat was parched, and her lips refused to move.
The jailer took it upon himself to answer,--

"Yes," he said, "Miss Chandore."

"At this hour, in my prison!"

"She had something important to communicate to you. She came to me"--

"O Dionysia!" stammered Jacques, "what a precious friend"--

"And I agreed," said Blangin in a paternal tone of voice, "to bring her
in secretly. It is a great sin I commit; and if it ever should become
known--But one may be ever so much a jailer, one has a heart, after all.
I tell you so merely because the young lady might not think of it. If
the secret is not kept carefully, I should lose my place, and I am a
poor man, with wife and children."

"You are the best of men!" exclaimed M. de Boiscoran, far from
suspecting the price that had been paid for Blangin's sympathy, "and, on
the day on which I regain my liberty, I will prove to you that we whom
you have obliged are not ungrateful."

"Quite at your service," replied the jailer modestly.

Gradually, however, Dionysia had recovered her self-possession. She said
gently to Blangin,--

"Leave us now, my good friend."

As soon as he had disappeared, and without allowing M. de Boiscoran to
say a word, she said, speaking very low,--

"Jacques, grandpapa has told me, that by coming thus to you at night,
alone, and in secret, I run the risk of losing your affection, and of
diminishing your respect."

"Ah, you did not think so!"

"Grandpapa has more experience than I have, Jacques. Still I did not
hesitate. Here I am; and I should have run much greater risks; for your
honor is at stake, and your honor is my honor, as your life is my life.
Your future is at stake, _our_ future, our happiness, all our hopes here
below."

Inexpressible joy had illumined the prisoner's face.

"O God!" he cried, "one such moment pays for years of torture."

But Dionysia had sworn to herself, as she came, that nothing should turn
her aside from her purpose. So she went on,--

"By the sacred memory of my mother, I assure you, Jacques, that I have
never for a moment doubted your innocence."

The unhappy man looked distressed.

"You," he said; "but the others? But M. de Chandore?"

"Do you think I would be here, if he thought you were guilty? My aunts
and your mother are as sure of it as I am."

"And my father? You said nothing about him in your letter."

"Your father remained in Paris in case some influence in high quarters
should have to be appealed to."

Jacque shook his head, and said,--

"I am in prison at Sauveterre, accused of a fearful crime, and my father
remains in Paris! It must be true that he never really loved me. And yet
I have always been a good son to him down to this terrible catastrophe.
He has never had to complain of me. No, my father does not love me."

Dionysia could not allow him to go off in this way.

"Listen to me, Jacques," she said: "let me tell you why I ran the risk
of taking this serious step, that may cost me so dear. I come to you
in the name of all your friends, in the name of M. Folgat, the great
advocate whom your mother has brought down from Paris and in the name of
M. Magloire, in whom you put so much confidence. They all agree you have
adopted an abominable system. By refusing obstinately to speak, you rush
voluntarily into the gravest danger. Listen well to what I tell you.
If you wait till the examination is over, you are lost. If you are once
handed over to the court, it is too late for you to speak. You will
only, innocent as you are, make one more on the list of judicial
murders."

Jacques de Boiscoran had listened to Dionysia in silence, his head bowed
to the ground, as if to conceal its pallor from her. As soon as she
stopped, all out of breath, he murmured,--

"Alas! Every thing you tell me I have told myself more than once."

"And you did not speak?"

"I did not."

"Ah, Jacques, you are not aware of the danger you run! You do not
know"--

"I know," he said, interrupting her in a harsh, hoarse voice,--"I know
that the scaffold, or the galleys, are at the end."

Dionysia was petrified with horror.

Poor girl! She had imagined that she would only have to show herself
to triumph over Jacques's obstinacy, and that, as soon as she had heard
what he had to say, she would feel reassured. And instead of that--

"What a misfortune!" she cried. "You have taken up these fearful
notions, and you will not abandon them!"

"I must keep silent."

"You cannot. You have not considered!--"

"Not considered," he repeated.

And in a lower tone he added,--

"And what do you think I have been doing these hundred and thirty mortal
hours since I have been alone in this prison,--alone to confront a
terrible accusation, and a still more terrible emergency?"

"That is the difficulty, Jacques: you are the victim of your own
imagination. And who could help it in your place? M. Folgat said so
only yesterday. There is no man living, who, after four days' close
confinement, can keep his mind cool. Grief and solitude are bad
counsellors. Jacques, come to yourself; listen to your dearest friends
who speak to you through me. Jacques, your Dionysia beseeches you.
Speak!"

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

She waited for some seconds; and, as he did not reply, she said, not
without a slight accent of bitterness in her voice,--

"Is it not the first duty of an innocent man to establish his
innocence?"

The prisoner, with a movement of despair, clasped his hands over his
brow. Then bending over Dionysia, so that she felt his breath in her
hair, he said,--