The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (4 page)

This lasted for over a minute.

Finally the murderer was brought back in, his head lowered, his eye bloodshot, his hands tied up behind his back. He stared once again at the picture of the murder…seemed to ponder it and then, in a low voice, speaking as if to himself, came out with:

“Who was around to have seen me at midnight?”

I had been saved from the hangman’s noose!

* * * *

Many years have gone by since this terrible adventure. I no longer do silhouettes or portraits of burgomasters, thank God! By dint of perseverance and hard work, I have staked my claim to a place in the sun and I earn my living honourably by painting works of art, the only end, in my opinion, that any true artist should strive to attain. But the memory of the nocturnal sketch has always stayed in my mind. Sometimes, in the middle of working on something, my thoughts return to it. When that happens I put down my palette and dream for hours on end!

How was it possible for a crime carried out by a man I did not know in a place I had never seen before…to reproduce itself under my charcoal and chalk so accurately, right down to the finest detail?

Was it by chance? No! And besides what is chance, after all, if not the effect of a cause that we cannot fathom?

Who knows? Nature is much bolder in the construction of its realities than man’s imagination in its fantasies.

LEX TALIONIS

In 1854, said Doctor Taifer, I was attached, as assistant-surgeon, to the military hospital at Constantine. This hospital is built in the interior of the Kasbah, on the summit of a pointed rock, some three or four hundred feet high. It overlooks the city, the palace of the governor, and the surrounding plain, as far as the eye can reach.

It is a wild and striking point of view. From my window, opened to the evening breeze, I could see the carrion crows and vultures sweeping about the face of the inaccessible rock, and hiding themselves in its fissures as the last rays of twilight faded away. I could easily have thrown the end of my cigar into the Rummel, which wound by the foot of the gigantic wall.

Not a sound, not a murmur disturbed the calm of my studies, up to the hour when the trumpet and drum awakened the echoes of the fortress, calling the men to their barracks.

Garrison life has never had any charms for me; I could never give myself up to the enjoyment of absinthe, rum, or drams of brandy. At the time of which I am speaking, this was called a want of
esprit de corps
; my gastric faculties did not permit me to have this kind of
esprit
.

I limited myself, therefore, to my hospital wards, to writing my prescriptions, to the discharge of my duties: these done, I returned to my lodgings, made a few notes, turned over the leaves of some of my favorite authors, or reduced my observations to writing.

In the evening, at the hour when the sun slowly withdraws his rays from the plain, with my elbow on the sill of my window, I rested myself by dreamily observing the grand spectacle of nature, always the same in its marvelous regularity, and yet eternally new: a far-off caravan unrolling itself from the sides of the hills; an Arab galloping to the extreme limits of the horizon, like a point lost in space; a group of oaks relieved against the purple streaks of the sunset; and then, far, far below me, the whirling of the birds of prey, ploughing the dark blue air with their cleaving wings, or, as it were, hanging stationary. All these things interested, captivated me. I should have spent there entire hours, had not duty forcibly carried me away to the dissecting-table.

Nobody troubled themselves to criticise these tastes of mine, with the exception of a certain lieutenant of the Voltigeurs,
¹
named Castagnac, whose portrait I must draw for you.

As I stepped from the carriage, on my first arrival at Constantine, I heard a voice behind me exclaim—

“
Tiens!
I bet this is our assistant-surgeon!”

I turned and found myself in the presence of an infantry officer, tall, thin, bony, with a red nose, a grisly moustache, his képi cocked over his ear, and the peak of it pointed to the sky, his saber dangling between his legs; it was Lieutenant Castagnac.

While I was yet endeavoring to recall this strange physiognomy, the lieutenant had seized my hand and shaken it.

“Welcome, doctor! Enchanted to make your acquaintance.
Morbleu!
you’re tired, aren’t you? Let us go in at once. I take upon myself to present you to the club.”

The club, at Constantine, is simply the refreshment-room—the restaurant of the officers.

We went in; for how was the sympathetic enthusiasm of such a man to be resisted? And yet I had read
Gil Blas
.

“
Garçon
, two glasses! What do you take, doctor? Brandy—rum?”

“No; some curaçoa.”

“Curaçoa! why not
parfait-amour
? He! he! he! You’ve an odd taste. Garçon, a glass of absinthe for me—a full one—lift up your elbow! That’s it! Your health, doctor!”

“Yours, lieutenant!”

I was in the good graces of this strange personage. I need hardly tell you that this intimacy could not charm me for long; I very soon observed that my friend Castagnac had a habit of being absorbed in the contents of the newspaper when the moment arrived for paying the reckoning. That tells you the sort of man he was.

On the other hand, I made the acquaintance of several officers of the regiment, who laughed heartily with me at this new kind of Amphictyon; one of these, named Raymond Dutertre, a good fellow, and certainly not wanting in merit, informed me that on his joining the regiment the same thing had happened to him.

“Only,” he added, “as I detest spongers, I told Castagnac as much before some of our comrades. He took the matter in ill part, and, faith, we went for a turn outside the walls, where I gave him a neat touch with the point, that did him enormous harm, for—thanks to a few lucky duels—he enjoyed a great reputation in the regiment, and passed for a regular taker-down of swaggerers.”

Things were in this state when, towards the end of June, fevers made their appearance at Constantine, and the hospital receiving not only soldiers, but a large number of the inhabitants, I was compelled to interrupt my labors to attend to it.

Among the number of my patients were Castagnac and Dutertre; Castagnac was not suffering from fever, however, but from a strange affection called
delirium tremens
, a state of delirium and nervous trembling peculiar to individuals addicted to the drinking of absinthe. It is preceded by restlessness, inability to sleep, sudden shiverings; redness of the face and alcoholic odor of the breath are among its characteristics.

Poor Castagnac threw himself out of his bed, crawled about the floor on his hands and knees, as if catching rats. He gave utterance to terrible cat-cries, mixed with this cabalistic word, pronounced in the tones of a fakir in a state of ecstasy, “Fatima! O Fatima!”—a circumstance which made me presume that the poor fellow might at some time have been the victim of an unfortunate love-passion, for which he had consoled himself by the abuse of spirituous liquors.

Indeed, this idea inspired me with a feeling of commiseration for him; it was something pitiable to see his tall, thin body bounding right and left, then stiffening itself like a log, the face pale, the nose blue, the teeth locked; one could not be present at these crises without shuddering.

On coming to himself at the end of half an hour, Castagnac never failed to demand—

“What have I said, doctor? Have I said anything?”

“No, nothing, lieutenant.”

“Yes, I must have said something. Come, don’t hide anything from me!”

“Bah! How can I remember? Words without meaning! All sick people drivel more or less.”

“Words without meaning!—but what were they?”

“Eh? How do I know? If you wish it, I’ll make a note of them another time.”

He turned pale, and fixed upon me a look that penetrated almost to the depths of my soul; then he closed his flaccid eyelids, compressed his lips, and murmured—

“A glass of absinthe would do me good.”

At length he straightened himself out, his arms extended by his sides, and rested in stoical immobility.

* * * *

Now, one morning, as I was going into the room occupied by Castagnac, I saw my friend Raymond Dutertre coming towards me, from the end of the passage.

“Doctor,” he said, holding out his hand to me, “I’ve come to ask you to do me a service.”

“With pleasure; that is, if I possibly can.”

“I want you to give me a written permission to go out for the day.”

“Oh, you must not think of such a thing! Anything else you like.”

“But it seems to me that I am quite well. I have had no attack for the last four days.”

“Yes, but fevers are raging in the city, and I cannot expose you to the danger of a relapse.”

“Grant me only two hours—time to go and return.”

“Impossible, my dear fellow; don’t insist—it will be useless to do so. I know well the tedium of the hospital. I know how impatient the sick are to breathe the free air out of doors; but they must have patience; there is nothing for it but that!”

“You are positive, then?”

“Positive. In a week’s time, if you go on feeling well, we’ll see about it.”

He retired in a very ill-humor. I cared nothing for that; but as I turned round, what was my surprise to see Castagnac staring after his comrade, with a strange look in his eyes!

“Well,” I said, “how are you this morning?”

“Very well,” he answered sharply. “That’s Raymond going along there, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“Oh, nothing; a written permission to go out, which I have refused to give him.”

“Ah! You refused?”

“Of course.”

Castagnac drew a long breath, and, as it were retreating within himself, appeared to relapse into somnolency.

I was seized with I know not what vague apprehension; the tone of this man had grated on my nerves.

* * * *

That day one of my patients died. I had the body carried to the dissecting-room, and, towards nine o’clock, returning from my lodging, I descended the stairs leading to the amphitheater.

Imagine a small vaulted room, fifteen feet high by twenty feet wide, its two windows opening out on the precipice bordering the high-road from Philippeville. At the back is an inclined table, and on this table the body I proposed to study.

After placing my lamp on a jutting stone let into the wall for the purpose, and opening my case of instruments, I began my work, which continued for nearly two hours without interruptions.

The rappel had long been sounded; the only sounds that reached me in the silence were the measured tread of the sentinel, his times of pausing, when he brought the butt of his musket to the ground; then, from hour to hour, the passing of the guard, the
qui vive
, the far-off whisper of the watch-word, the flickering of the lantern throwing a ray of light above the parapet—short, mingled sounds, the gradual dying away of which seemed to make the silence greater.

It was nearly eleven o’clock, and I was becoming fatigued, when happening to look towards the open window, I suddenly beheld the strangest spectacle—a row of small grey owls, their feathers ruffled, their green squinting eyes fixed on my lamp, crowding on the edge of the casement and struggling for places. These hideous birds, attracted by the odor of flesh, waited but my departure to swoop down upon their prey.

I cannot describe to you the horror which this apparition caused me. I sprang towards the window. They disappeared into the midst of the darkness, like dead leaves borne away by the breeze.

But at that moment, a strange sound fell upon my ear—a sound almost imperceptible in the void of the abyss. I bent downwards, my hand upon the window-ledge, peering without, and holding my breath to listen the better.

Above the amphitheater was situated the chamber of Lieutenant Castagnac, and below it, between the precipice and the wall of the hospital, ran a ledge about a foot wide, covered with fragments of bottles and crockery, thrown there by the hospital attendants.

Now, at that hour of the night, when the least sound, the lightest breath, becomes perceptible, I distinguished the steps and gropings of a man making his way along this ledge.

“God send that he is not seen by the sentinel!” I said to myself. “Let him hesitate for an instant and he will fall!”

I had hardly made this reflection when a hoarse and stifled voice—the voice of Castagnac—cried abruptly in the midst of the silence—

“Raymond!—where are you going?”

This exclamation thrilled me to the marrow of my bones. It was a sentence of death.

At the same instant some of the rubbish slipped from the ledge; then, along the narrow way, I heard someone clutching and breathing painfully.