TRUTH

[VÉRITÉ]

By

ÉMILE ZOLA

Translated by

ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE

THE BODLEY HEAD

1903

CONTENTS

[PREFACE]
[TRUTH]
[BOOK I]
[I]
[II]
[III]
[IV]
[BOOK II]
[I]
[II]
[III]
[IV]
[BOOK III]
[I]
[II]
[III]
[IV]
[BOOK IV]
[I]
[II]
[III]
[IV]

[PREFACE]

Conspicuous among the writings which influenced the great changes witnessed by the world at the end of the eighteenth century were the 'Nouvelle Héloise,' the 'Contrat Social,' the 'Émile ou l'Éducation' of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. At the close of the nineteenth, the advent of the twentieth century, one finds three books, 'Fécondité,' 'Travail,' and 'Vérité,' the works of Émile Zola, Rousseau's foremost descendant. It is too soon by far to attempt to gauge the extent of the influence which these works may exercise; but, disseminated in French and in many other languages to the uttermost ends of the earth, they are works which will certainly have to be reckoned with in a social as well as a literary sense. The writings of Rousseau, violently assailed by some, enthusiastically praised by others, ended by leaving their mark on the world at large. Very few may read them nowadays, but in certain essential respects their spirit pervaded the nineteenth century, and their influence is not dead yet, for the influence which springs from the eternal truths of nature cannot die. As for the critics who will undoubtedly arise to dispute the likelihood of any great influence being exercised by the last writings of Émile Zola, I adjourn them to some twenty years hence. Rome was not built in a day, many long years elapsed before the spirit of Rousseau's writings became fully disseminated, and, although the world moves more quickly now than it did then, time remains a factor of the greatest importance.

Moreover, the future alone can decide the fate of Émile Zola's last books; for, while dealing with problems of the present time, they are essentially books which appeal to the future for their justification. Each of those three volumes, 'Fécondité,' 'Travail,' and 'Vérité,' takes as its text an existing state of things, and then suggests alterations and remedies which can only be applied gradually, long years being required to bring about any substantial result. It is known that the series was to have comprised a fourth and concluding volume, which would have been entitled 'Justice'; and indeed the actual writing of that volume would have been begun on September 29 last if, at an early hour on that very day, the hand of Émile Zola had not been stayed for ever by a tragic death, which a few precautions would undoubtedly have prevented. At an earlier stage it was surmised—on many sides I see by the newspaper cuttings before me—that this unwritten book, 'Justice,' would deal chiefly with the Dreyfus case, in which Zola played so commanding and well-remembered a part. But that was a mistake, a misconception of his intentions. Though his work would have embraced the justice dispensed in courts of law, his chief thought was social justice, equity as between class and class, man and man. And thus the hand of death at least robbed those who are in any way oppressed of a powerful statement of their rights.

As for the Dreyfus case, it figures in the present volume, or rather it serves as the basis of one of the narratives unfolded in it. The Dreyfus case certainly revealed injustice; but it even more particularly revealed falsehood, the most unblushing and the most egregious mendacity, the elevation of the suppressio veri and the suggestio falsi to the dignity of a fine art. The world has known greater deeds of injustice than the Dreyfus case, but never has it known—and may it never again know—such a widespread exhibition of mendacity, both so unscrupulous and so persevering, attended too by the most amazing credulity on the part of nine-tenths of the French nation—for small indeed (at the beginning, at all events) was the heroic band which championed the truth. Behind all the mendacity and credulity, beyond the personages directly implicated in the case, stood one of the great forces of the world, the Roman Catholic Church. Of all the ministers of that Church in France, only one raised his voice in favour of the truth, all the others were tacitly or actively accomplices in the great iniquity. And that will explain much which will be found in Émile Zola's last book.

The horrible crime on which he bases a part of his narrative is not ascribed to any military man (in fact the army scarcely figures in 'Vérité'); it is one of the crimes springing from the unnatural lives led by those who have taken vows in the Roman Church, of which some record will be found in the reports on criminality in France, which the Keeper of the Seals issues every ten years. Many such crimes, particularly those which are not carried to the point of murder, are more or less hushed up, the offenders being helped to escape by their friends in the Church; but sufficient cases have been legally investigated during the last thirty years to enable one to say that the crime set forth in 'Vérité' is not to be regarded as altogether exceptional in its nature. The scene of the book is laid in the French school world, and by the intriguing of clericalist teachers the crime referred to is imputed to a Jew schoolmaster. Forthwith there comes an explosion of that anti-Semitism—cruelly and cowardly spurred on by the Roman Church—which was the very fons et origo of the Dreyfus case.

On the dogmas of the Roman Church, and on her teaching methods with the young, falls the entire responsibility of such fanaticism and such credulity. Republican France, fully enlightened respecting the Church's aims by many circumstances and occurrences—the Dreyfus case, the treasonable monarchical spirit shown by her officers when educated in Jesuit colleges, the whole Nationalist agitation, and the very educational exhibits sent by the Religious Orders to the last great world-show in Paris, exhibits which proved peremptorily that 1,600,000 children were being reared by Brothers and Sisters in hatred and contempt of the government of the country—France is now driving the Church from both the elementary and the superior schools. Those who merely glance with indifference at the Paris letters and telegrams appearing in the newspapers may be told that a great revolution is now taking place in France, a revolution partaking of some of the features of the Reformation, a change such as England, for instance, has not witnessed since Henry VIII. and James II. The effects of that change upon the world at large may be tremendous; Rome knows it, and resists with the tenacity of despair; but faith in her dogmas and belief in her protestations have departed from the great majority of the French electorate; and, driven from the schools, unable in particular to continue moulding the women by whom hitherto she has so largely exercised her influence, the Church already finds herself in sore straits, at a loss almost how to proceed. By hook or crook she will resist, undoubtedly, to the last gasp; but with the secularisation of the whole educational system it will be difficult for her to recruit adherents in the future, and poison the national life as she did poison it throughout the years of the Dreyfus unrest. She sowed the storm and now she is reaping the whirlwind.

Besides the powerful 'story of a crime' which is unfolded in the pages of 'Vérité,' besides the discussion of political and religious methods and prospects, and the exposition of educational views which will be found in the book, it has other very interesting features. The whole story of Marc Froment and his struggle with his wife Geneviève is admirable. It has appealed to me intensely, for personal reasons, though happily my home never knew so fierce a conflict. Yet experience has taught me what may happen when man and woman do not share the same faith, and how, over the most passionate love, the sincerest affection, there may for that reason fall a blighting shadow, difficult indeed to dispel. And though Marc Froment at last found his remedy, as I found mine, living to enjoy long after-years of perfect agreement with the chosen helpmate, it is certain that a difference of religious belief is a most serious danger for all who enter the married state, and that it leads to the greatest misery, the absolute wrecking of many homes. In 'Vérité' the subject is treated with admirable insight, force, and pathos; and I feel confident that this portion of the book will be read with the keenest interest.

Of the rest of the work I need hardly speak further; for I should merely be paraphrasing things which will be found in it. Some of the personages who figure in its pages will doubtless be recognised. Nobody acquainted with the Dreyfus case can doubt, I think, the identity of the scoundrel who served as the basis of Brother Gorgias. Father Crabot also is a celebrity, and Simon, David, Delbos, and Baron Nathan are drawn from life. There are several striking scenes—the discovery of the crime, the arrest and the first trial of the Jew schoolmaster, the parting of Marc from his wife, and subsequently from his daughter Louise, the deaths of Madame Berthereau and Madame Duparque, and the last public appearance of the impudent Gorgias. But amid all the matter woven into the narrative one never loses sight of the chief theme—the ignominy and even the futility of falsehood, the debasing effects of credulity and ignorance, the health and power that come from knowledge—this being the stepping-stone to truth, which ends by triumphing over all things.

Let me add that the book is the longest as well as the last of my dear master's writings. While translating it I have pruned it slightly here and there in order to get rid of sundry repetitions. In so long a work some repetition is perhaps necessary; and it must be remembered that with Émile Zola repetition was more or less a method. One blow seldom, if ever, sufficed him; he was bent on hammering his points into his reader's skull. With the last part of 'Vérité' I have had some little difficulty, the proofs from which my translation has been made containing some scarcely intelligible passages, as well as various errors in names and facts, which I have rectified as best I could. These, however, are matters of little moment, and can hardly affect the work as a whole, though, of course, it is unfortunate that Zola should not have been spared to correct his last proofs.

And now as this is, in all likelihood, the last occasion on which I shall be privileged to present one of his works in an English dress, may I tender to all whom my translations have reached—the hundreds of reviewers and the many thousands of readers in the lands where the English language is spoken—my heartfelt thanks for the courtesy, the leniency, the patience, the encouragement, the favour they have shown to me for several years? As I said in a previous preface, I am conscious of many imperfections in these renderings of mine. I can only regret that they should not have been better; but, like others, I have my limitations. At the same time I may say that I have never undertaken any of these translations in a perfunctory or a mere mercantile spirit. Such as they are, they have been to me essentially a labour of love. And now that I am about to lay down my pen, that I see a whole period of my life closing, I think it only right to express my gratitude to all whose support has helped me to accomplish my self-chosen task of placing the great bulk of Émile Zola's writings within the reach of those Anglo-Saxons who, unfortunately, are unable to read French. My good friend once remarked that it was a great honour and privilege to be, if only for one single hour, the spokesman of one's generation. I feel that the great honour and privilege of my life will consist in having been—imperfectly no doubt, yet not I hope without some fidelity—his spokesman for ten years among many thousands of my race.

E. A. V.

Merton, Surrey, England
January, 1903

TRUTH

[BOOK I]

[I]

On the previous evening, that of Wednesday, Marc Froment, the Jonville schoolmaster, with Geneviève his wife and Louise his little girl, had arrived at Maillebois, where he was in the habit of spending a month of his vacation, in the company of his wife's grandmother and mother, Madame Duparque and Madame Berthereau—'those ladies,' as folk called them in the district. Maillebois, which counted two thousand inhabitants and ranked as the chief place of a canton, was only six miles distant from the village of Jonville, and less than four from Beaumont, the large old university town.

The first days of August were oppressively hot that year. There had been a frightful storm on the previous Sunday, during the distribution of prizes; and again that night, about two o'clock, a deluge of rain had fallen, without, however, clearing the sky, which remained cloudy, lowering, and oppressively heavy. The ladies, who had risen at six in order to be ready for seven o'clock Mass, were already in their little dining-room awaiting the younger folk, who evinced no alacrity to come down. Four cups were set out on the white oilcloth table-cover, and at last Pélagie appeared with the coffee-pot. Small of build and red-haired, with a large nose and thin lips, she had been twenty years in Madame Duparque's service, and was accustomed to speak her mind.

'Ah! well,' said she, 'the coffee will be quite cold, but it will not be my fault.'

When she had returned, grumbling, to her kitchen, Madame Duparque also vented her displeasure. 'It is unbearable,' she said; 'one might think that Marc took pleasure in making us late for Mass whenever he stays here.'

Madame Berthereau, who was more indulgent, ventured to suggest an excuse. 'The storm must have prevented them from sleeping,' she replied; 'but I heard them hastening overhead just now.'

Three and sixty years of age, very tall, with hair still very dark, and a frigid, symmetrically wrinkled face, severe eyes, and a domineering nose, Madame Duparque had long kept a draper's shop, known by the sign of 'The Guardian Angel,' on the Place St. Maxence, in front of the cathedral of Beaumont. But after the sudden death of her husband, caused, it was said, by the collapse of a Catholic banking-house, she had sensibly disposed of the business, and retired, with an income of some six thousand francs a year, to Maillebois, where she owned a little house. This had taken place about twelve years previously, and her daughter, Madame Berthereau, being also left a widow, had joined her with her daughter Geneviève, who was then entering her eleventh year. To Madame Duparque, the sudden death of her son-in-law, a State revenue employé, in whose future she had foolishly believed but who died poor, leaving his wife and child on her hands, proved another bitter blow. Since that time the two widows had resided together in the dismal little house at Maillebois, leading a confined, almost claustral, life, limited in an increasing degree by the most rigid religious practices. Nevertheless Madame Berthereau, who had been fondly adored by her husband, retained, as a memento of that awakening to love and life, an affectionate gentleness of manner. Tall and dark, like her mother, she had a sorrowful, worn, and faded countenance, with submissive eyes and tired lips, on which occasionally appeared her secret despair at the thought of the happiness she had lost.

It was by one of Berthereau's friends, Salvan, who, after being a schoolmaster at Beaumont, became an Inspector of Elementary Schools and, subsequently, Director of the Training College, that the marriage of Marc and Geneviève was brought about. He was the girl's surrogate-guardian. Berthereau, a liberal-minded man, did not follow the observances of the Church, but he allowed his wife to do so; and with affectionate weakness he had even ended by accompanying her to Mass. In a similarly affectionate way, Salvan, whose freedom of thought was yet greater than his friend's, for he relied exclusively on experimental certainty, was imprudent enough to foist Marc into a pious family, without troubling himself about any possibility of conflict. The young people were very fond of each other, and in Salvan's opinion they would assuredly arrange matters between them. Indeed, during her three years of married life, Geneviève, who had been one of the best pupils of the Convent of the Visitation at Beaumont, had gradually neglected her religious observances, absorbed as she was in her love for her husband. At this Madame Duparque evinced deep affliction, although the young woman, in her desire to please her, made it a duty to follow her to church whenever she stayed at Maillebois. But this was not sufficient for the terrible old grandmother, who in the first instance had tried to prevent the marriage, and who now harboured a feeling of dark rancour against Marc, accusing him of robbing her of her grandchild's soul.

'A quarter to seven!' she muttered as she heard the neighbouring church clock strike. 'We shall never be ready!'

Then, approaching the window, she glanced at the adjacent Place des Capucins. The little house was built at a corner of that square and the Rue de l'Église. On its ground floor, to the right and the left of the central passage, were the dining and drawing rooms, and in the rear came the kitchen and the scullery, which looked into a dark and mouldy yard. Then, on the first floor, on the right hand were two rooms set apart for Madame Duparque, and, on the left, two others occupied by Madame Berthereau; whilst under the tiles, in front of Pélagie's bed-chamber and some store places, were two more little rooms, which had been furnished for Geneviève during her girlhood, and of which she gaily resumed possession whenever she now came to Maillebois with her husband. But how dark was the gloom, how heavy the silence, how tomblike the chill which fell from the dim ceilings! The Rue de l'Église, starting from the apse of the parish church of St. Martin, was too narrow for vehicular traffic; twilight reigned there even at noontide; the house-fronts were leprous, the little paving-stones were mossy, the atmosphere stank of slops. And on the northern side the Place des Capucins spread out treeless, but darkened by the lofty front of an old convent, which had been divided between the Capuchins, who there had a large and handsome chapel, and the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who had installed a very prosperous educational establishment in some of the conventual dependencies.

Madame Duparque remained for a moment in contemplation of that deserted space, across which flitted merely the shadowy figures of the devout; its priestly quietude being enlivened at intervals only by the children attending the Brothers' school. A bell rang slowly in the lifeless air, and the old lady was turning round impatiently, when the door of the room opened and Geneviève came in.

'At last!' the grandmother exclaimed. 'We must breakfast quickly: the first bell is ringing.'

Fair, tall, and slender, with splendid hair, and a face all life and gaiety inherited from her father, Geneviève, childlike still, though two and twenty, was laughing with a laugh which showed all her white teeth. But Madame Duparque, on perceiving that she was alone, began to protest: 'What! is not Marc ready?'

'He's following me, grandmother; he is coming down with Louise.'

Then, after kissing her silent mother, Geneviève gave expression to the amusement she felt at finding herself once more, as a married woman, in the quiet home of her youth. Ah! she knew each paving-stone of that Place des Capucins; she found old friends in the smallest tufts of weeds. And by way of evincing amiability and gaining time, she was going into raptures over the scene she viewed from the window, when all at once, on seeing two black figures pass, she recognised them.

'Why, there are Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence!' she said. 'Where can they be going at this early hour?'

The two clerics were slowly crossing the little square, which, under the lowering sky, the shadows of their cassocks seemed to fill. Father Philibin, forty years of age and of peasant origin, displayed square shoulders and a course, round, freckled face, with big eyes, a large mouth, and strong jaws. He was prefect of the studies at the College of Valmarie, a magnificent property which the Jesuits owned in the environs of Maillebois. Brother Fulgence, likewise a man of forty, but little, dark, and lean, was the superior of the three Brothers with whom he carried on the neighbouring Christian School. The son of a servant girl and a mad doctor, who had died a patient in a madhouse, he was of a nervous, irritable temperament, with a disorderly overweening mind; and it was he who was now speaking to his companion in a very loud voice and with sweeping gestures.

'The prizes are to be given at the Brothers' school this afternoon,' said Madame Duparque by way of explanation. 'Father Philibin, who is very fond of our good Brothers, has consented to preside at the distribution. He must have just arrived from Valmarie; and I suppose he is going with Brother Fulgence to settle certain details.'

But she was interrupted, for Marc had at last made his appearance, carrying his little Louise, who, scarcely two years old, hung about his neck, playing and laughing blissfully.

'Puff, puff, puff!' the young man exclaimed as he entered the room. 'Here we are in the railway train. One can't come quicker than by train, eh?'

Shorter than his three brothers, Mathieu, Luc, and Jean, Marc Froment had a longer and a thinner face, with the lofty towerlike family forehead greatly developed. But his particular characteristics were his spell-working eyes and voice, soft clear eyes which dived into one's soul, and an engaging conquering voice which won both mind and heart. Though he wore moustaches and a slight beard, one could see his rather large, firm, and kindly mouth. Like all the sons of Pierre and Marie Froment,[1] he had learned a manual calling, that of a lithographer, and, securing his bachelor's degree when seventeen years of age, he had come to Beaumont to complete his apprenticeship with the Papon-Laroches, the great firm which supplied maps and diagrams to almost every school in France. It was at this time that his passion for teaching declared itself, impelling him to enter the Training College of Beaumont, which he had quitted in his twentieth year as an assistant-master, provided with a superior certificate. Having subsequently secured that of Teaching Capacity, he was, when seven and twenty, about to be appointed schoolmaster at Jonville when he married Geneviève Berthereau, thanks to his good friend Salvan, who introduced him to the ladies, and who was moved by the sight of the love which drew the young folk together. And now, for three years past, Marc and Geneviève, though their means were scanty and they experienced all manner of pecuniary straits and administrative worries, had been leading a delightful life of love in their secluded village, which numbered barely eight hundred souls.

[1] See M. Zola's novel, Paris.

But the happy laughter of the father and the little girl did not dissipate the displeasure of Madame Duparque. 'That railway train is not worth the coaches of my youth,' said she. 'Come, let us breakfast quickly, we shall never get there.'

She had seated herself, and was already pouring some milk into the cups. While Geneviève placed little Louise's baby-chair between herself and her mother, in order to keep a good watch over the child, Marc, who was in a conciliatory mood, tried to secure the old lady's forgiveness.

'Yes, I have delayed you, eh?' he said. 'But it is your fault, grandmother; one sleeps too soundly in your house, it is so very quiet.'

Madame Duparque, who was hurrying over her breakfast, with her nose in her cup, did not condescend to answer. But a pale smile appeared on the face of Madame Berthereau after she had directed a long look at Geneviève, who seemed so happy between her husband and her child. And in a low voice, as if speaking involuntarily, the younger widow murmured, glancing slowly around her: 'Yes, very quiet, so quiet that one cannot even feel that one is living.'

'All the same, there was some noise on the square at ten o'clock,' Marc retorted. 'Geneviève was amazed. The idea of a disturbance at night on the Place des Capucins!'

He had blundered badly in his desire to make the others laugh. This time it was the grandmother who, with an offended air, replied: 'It was the worshippers leaving the Capuchin Chapel. The offices of the Adoration of the Holy Sacrament were celebrated yesterday evening at nine o'clock. The Brothers took with them those of their pupils who attended their first Communion this year, and the children were rather free in talking and laughing as they crossed the square. But that is far better than the abominable pastimes of the children who are brought up without moral or religious guidance!'

Silence, deep and embarrassing, fell immediately. Only the rattle of the spoons in the cups was to be heard. That accusation of abominable pastimes was directed against Marc's school, with its system of secular education. But, as Geneviève turned on him a little glance of entreaty, he did not lose his temper. Before long he even resumed the conversation, speaking to Madame Berthereau of his life at Jonville, and also of his pupils, like a master who was attached to them and who derived from them pleasure and satisfaction. Three, said he, had just obtained the certificate awarded for successful elementary studies.

But at this moment the church bell again rang out slowly, sending a wail through the heavy atmosphere above the mournful, deserted district.

'The last bell!' cried Madame Duparque. 'I said that we should never get there in time!'

She rose, and had already begun to hustle her daughter and her granddaughter, who were finishing their coffee, when Pélagie, the servant, again appeared, this time trembling, almost beside herself, and with a copy of Le Petit Beaumontais in her hand.

'Ah! madame, madame, how horrible! The newspaper boy has just told me——'

'What? Make haste!'

The servant was stifling.

'That little Zéphirin, the schoolmaster's nephew, has just been found murdered, there, quite near, in his room.'

'Murdered!'

'Yes, madame; strangled in his nightdress. It is an abominable affair!'

A terrible shudder swept through the room; even Madame Duparque quivered.

'Little Zéphirin?' said she. 'Ah! yes, the nephew of Simon, the Jew schoolmaster, a child with a pretty face but infirm. For his part the lad was a Catholic; he went to the Brothers' school, and he must have been at the ceremony last night, for he took his first Communion lately.... But what can you expect? Some families are accursed!'

Marc had listened, chilled and indignant. And careless now whether he gave offence or not, he answered: 'Simon, I know Simon! He was at the Training College with me; he is only two years older than myself. I know nobody with a firmer intellect, a more affectionate heart. He had given shelter to that poor child, that Catholic nephew, and allowed him to attend the Brothers' school, from conscientious scruples which are seldom found. What a frightful blow has fallen on him!'

Then the young man rose, quivering: 'I am going to him,' he added; 'I want to hear everything, I want to sustain him in his grief.'

But Madame Duparque no longer listened. She was pushing Madame Berthereau and Geneviève outside, scarcely allowing them time to put on their hats. The ringing of the last bell had just ceased, and the ladies hastened towards the church, amidst the heavy, storm-laden silence of the deserted square. And Marc, after entrusting little Louise to Pélagie, in his turn went out.

The elementary schools of Maillebois, newly built and divided into two pavilions, one for boys and one for girls, stood on the Place de la République, in front of the town hall, which was also a new building of corresponding architecture, and only the High Street, really a section of the road from Beaumont to Jonville running across the square, separated the two edifices, which with their chalky whiteness were the pride of the district. The High Street, which the parish church of St. Martin likewise faced, a little further down, was, as became a centre of trade, a populous thoroughfare, animated by the constant coming and going of pedestrians and vehicles. But silence and solitude were found again behind the schools, and weeds sprouted there between the little paving-stones. A street, the Rue Courte, in which one found but the parsonage and a stationer's shop kept by Mesdames Milhomme, connected the sleepy end of the Place de la République with the Place des Capucins, in such wise that Marc had few steps to take.

The school playgrounds faced the Rue Courte, and were separated by two little gardens set apart for the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress. On the ground floor of the boys' pavilion, at a corner of the playground, was a tiny room, which Simon had been able to give to little Zéphirin on taking charge of him. The boy was a nephew of his wife, Rachel Lehmann, and a grandson of the old Lehmanns, who were poor Jew tailors, dwelling in the Rue du Trou, the most wretched street of Maillebois. Zéphirin's father, Daniel Lehmann, a mechanician, had contracted a love-match with a Catholic girl, an orphan named Marie Prunier, who had been reared by the Sisters, and was a dressmaker. The young couple adored each other, and at first their son Zéphirin was not baptised nor indeed brought up in any religious faith, neither parent desiring to grieve the other by rearing the child according to his or her particular creed. But after the lapse of six years a thunderbolt fell: Daniel met with a frightful death, being caught and crushed to pieces in some machinery before the very eyes of his wife, who had come to the works, bringing his lunch with her. And Marie, terrified by the sight, won back to the religion of her youth, picturing the catastrophe as the chastisement of Heaven, which thereby punished her for her guilt in having loved a Jew, soon caused her son to be baptised, and sent him to the Brothers' school. Unhappily, through some hereditary taint or flaw, the lad's frame became distorted, he grew gradually humpbacked; in which misfortune the mother imagined she could trace the implacable wrath of God pursuing her relentlessly, because she was unable to pluck from her heart the fond memory of the husband she had adored. That anguish, combined with excessive toil, ended by killing her about the time when little Zéphirin, having reached his eleventh birthday, was ready to take his first Communion. It was then that Simon, though poor himself, gave the boy shelter, in order that he might not become a charge on his wife's relations. At the same time the schoolmaster, who was tolerant as well as kind-hearted, contented himself with lodging and feeding his nephew, allowing him to communicate as a Catholic and to complete his studies at the Brothers' school.

The little room in which Zéphirin slept—formerly a kind of lumber-room, but tidily arranged for him—had a window opening almost on a level with the ground, behind the school, the spot being the most secluded of the square. And that morning, about seven o'clock, as young Mignot, the assistant-master, who slept on the first floor of the building, went out, he noticed that Zéphirin's window was wide open. Mignot was passionately fond of fishing, and, profiting by the arrival of the vacation, he was about to start, in a straw hat and a linen jacket, and with his rod on his shoulder, for the banks of the Verpille, a streamlet which ran through the industrial quarter of Maillebois. A peasant by birth, he had entered the Beaumont Training College, even as he might have entered a seminary, in order to escape the hard labour of the fields. Fair, with close-cut hair, he had a massive pock-marked face, which gave him an appearance of sternness, though he was not hardhearted, being indeed rather kindly disposed; but his chief care was to do nothing which might impede his advancement. He was five and twenty years of age, but showed no haste to get married, waiting in that respect as in others, and destined to become such as circumstances might decree. That morning he was greatly struck by the sight of Zéphirin's open window, although there was nothing very extraordinary in such a thing, for the lad usually rose at an early hour. However, the young master drew near and glanced into the room. Then stupefaction rooted him to the spot, and his horror found vent in cries.

'O God, the poor boy! O God, God, what can have happened? What a terrible misfortune!'

The tiny room, with its light wall paper, retained its wonted quietude, its suggestion of happy boyhood. On the table was a coloured statuette of the Virgin with a few books and little prints of a religious character, carefully arranged and classified. The small white bed was in no wise disarranged, the lad had not slept in it that night. The only sign of disorder was an overturned chair. But on the rug beside the bed Zéphirin was lying strangled, his face livid, his bare neck showing the imprint of his murderer's cruel fingers. His rent garment allowed a glimpse of his misshapen spine, the hump, that jutted out below his left arm, which was thrown back across his head. In spite of its bluish pallor his face retained its charm; it was the face of a fair curly-haired angel, delicately girlish, with blue eyes, a slender nose, and a small sweet mouth, whose gentle laugh in happy hours had brought delightful dimples to the child's cheeks.

But Mignot, quite beside himself, did not cease to cry his horror aloud. 'Ah! God, God, how frightful! For God's sake help, help! Come quickly!'

Then Mademoiselle Rouzaire the schoolmistress, who heard the cries, hastened to the spot. She had been paying an early visit to her garden, being anxious about some lettuces which the stormy weather was helping to go to seed. She was a red-haired woman of two and thirty, tall and strongly built, with a round freckled face, big grey eyes, pale lips, and a pointed nose, which denoted cunning and avaricious harshness. Ugly though she was, her name had been associated with that of the handsome Mauraisin, the Elementary Inspector, whose support ensured her advancement. Moreover she was devoted to Abbé Quandieu, the parish priest, the Capuchins, and even the Christian Brothers, and personally conducted her pupils to the catechism classes and the church ceremonies.

As soon as she beheld the horrid sight, she also raised an outcry: 'Good Lord, take pity on us! It is a massacre; it is the devil's work, O God of Mercy!'

Then, as Mignot was about to spring over the window-bar, she prevented him: 'No, no, don't go in, one must ascertain, one must call——'

As she turned round, as if seeking somebody, she perceived Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence emerging from the Rue Courte, on their way from the Place des Capucins, across which Geneviève had seen them pass. She recognised them, and raised her arms to heaven, as if at the sight of Providence.

'Oh, Father! oh, Brother! come, come at once, the devil has been here!'

The two clerics drew near and experienced a terrible shock. But Father Philibin, who was energetic and of a thoughtful bent, remained silent, whereas impulsive Brother Fulgence, ever prompt to throw himself forward, burst into exclamations: 'Ah! the poor child, ah! what a horrid crime! So gentle and so good a lad, the best of our pupils, so pious and fervent too! Come, we must investigate this matter, we cannot leave things as they are.'

This time Mademoiselle Rouzaire did not dare to protest as the Brother sprang over the window-bar followed by Father Philibin, who, having perceived a ball of paper lying near the boy, at once picked it up. From fear or rather prudence the schoolmistress did not join the others; indeed, she even detained Mignot outside for another moment. That which the ministers of the Deity might venture to do was not fit perhaps for mere teachers. Meantime, while Brother Fulgence bent over the victim without touching him, but again raising tumultuous exclamations, Father Philibin, still silent, unrolled the paper ball, and, to all appearance, examined it carefully. He was turning his back to the window, and one could only see the play of his elbows, without distinguishing the paper, the rustling of which could be heard. This went on for a few moments; and when Mignot, in his turn, sprang into the room he saw that the ball which Father Philibin had picked up had been formed of a newspaper, in the midst of which a narrow, crumpled, and stained slip of white paper appeared.

The Jesuit looked at the assistant-master, and quietly and slowly remarked: 'It is a number of Le Petit Beaumontais dated yesterday, August 2; but the singular thing is that, crumpled up in it, there should be this copy-slip for a writing lesson. Just look at it.'

As the slip had been noticed by Mignot already, Father Philibin could not do otherwise than show it; but he kept it between his big fingers so that the other only distinguished the words, 'Aimez vous les uns les autres' ('Love one another') lithographed in a well-formed 'English' round-hand. Rents and stains made this copy-slip a mere rag of paper, and the assistant-master gave it only a brief glance, for fresh exclamations now arose at the window.

They came from Marc, who had just arrived, and who was filled with horror and indignation at the sight of the poor little victim. Without listening to the schoolmistress's explanations, he brushed her aside and vaulted over the window-bar. The presence of the two clerics astonished him; but he learnt from Mignot that he and Mademoiselle Rouzaire had summoned them as they were passing, immediately after the discovery of the crime.

'Don't touch or disturb anything!' Marc exclaimed. 'One must at once send to the mayor and the gendarmerie.'

People were collecting already; and a young man, who undertook the suggested commission, set off at a run, while Marc continued to inspect the room. In front of the body he saw Brother Fulgence distracted with compassion, with his eyes full of tears, like a man of nervous temperament unable to control emotion. Marc was really touched by the Brother's demeanour. He himself shuddered at the sight of what he beheld, for the abominable nature of the crime was quite evident. And a thought, which was to return later on as a conviction, suddenly flitted through his mind, then left him, in such wise that he was only conscious of the presence of Father Philibin, who, full of deep distressful calm, still held the newspaper and the writing-copy. For a moment the Jesuit had turned round as if to look under the bed; then, however, he had stepped back.

'You see,' he said, without waiting to be questioned, 'this is what I found on the floor, rolled into a ball, which the murderer certainly tried to thrust into the child's mouth as a gag, in order to stifle his cries. As he did not succeed he strangled him. On this writing-copy, soiled by saliva, one can see the marks left by the poor little fellow's teeth. The ball was lying yonder, near that leg of the table. Is that not so, Monsieur Mignot? You saw it?'

'Oh! quite so,' replied the assistant-master, 'I noticed it at once.'

As he drew near again and examined the copy, he felt vaguely surprised on noticing that the right-hand corner of the slip of paper was torn off. It seemed to him that he had not remarked that deficiency when the Jesuit had first shown him the slip; but perhaps it had then been hidden by Father Philibin's big fingers. However, Mignot's memory grew confused; it would have been impossible for him to say whether that corner had been torn away in the first instance or not.

Marc, however, having taken the slip from the Jesuit, was studying it and expressing his thoughts aloud: 'Yes, yes, it has been bitten. But it won't be much of an indication, for such slips are sold currently; one can find them everywhere. Oh! but there is a kind of flourish down here, I see, some initialling which one cannot well decipher.'

Without any haste, Father Philibin stepped up to him. 'Some initialling? Do you think so? It seemed to me a mere blot, half effaced by saliva and by the bite which pierced the slip, close by.'

'A blot, no! These marks are certainly initials, but they are quite illegible.' Then, noticing that a corner of the slip was deficient, Marc added: 'That, no doubt, was done by another bite. Have you found the missing piece?'

Father Philibin answered that he had not looked for it; and he again unfolded the newspaper and examined it carefully, while Mignot, stooping, searched the floor. Nothing was found. Besides, the matter was regarded as being of no importance. Marc agreed with the two clerics that the murderer, seized with terror, must have strangled the boy after vainly endeavouring to stifle his cries by stuffing the paper gag into his mouth. The extraordinary circumstance was that the copy-slip should have been found rolled up with the newspaper. The presence of a number of Le Petit Beaumontais could be understood, for anybody might have one in his pocket. But whence had that slip come, how did it happen to be crumpled, almost kneaded, with the newspaper? All sorts of suppositions were allowable, and the officers of the law would have to open an investigation in order to discover the truth.

To Marc it seemed as if a calamitous gust had just swept through the dim tragedy, suddenly steeping everything in horrid night. 'Ah!' he murmured involuntarily, 'it is Crime, the monster, in the depths of his dark pit.'

Meantime people continued to assemble before the window. On perceiving the throng the Mesdames Milhomme, who kept the neighbouring stationery business, had hastened from their shop. Madame Alexandre, who was tall, fair, and gentle in appearance, and Madame Edouard, who was also tall but dark and somewhat rough, felt the more concerned as Victor, the latter's son, went to the Brothers' school, while Sébastien, the former's boy, attended Simon's. Thus they listened eagerly to Mademoiselle Rouzaire, who, standing in the middle of the group, was giving various particulars, pending the arrival of the mayor and the gendarmes.

'I went myself,' she said, 'to that touching Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at the Capuchin Chapel last evening, and poor Zéphirin was there with a few schoolfellows—those who took their first Communion this year. He edified us all, he looked a little angel.'

'My son Victor did not go, for he is only nine years old,' Madame Edouard answered. 'But did Zéphirin go alone? Did nobody bring him back?'

'Oh! the chapel is only a few yards distant,' the schoolmistress explained. 'I know that Brother Gorgias had orders to escort the children whose parents could not attend, and whose homes are rather distant. But Madame Simon asked me to watch over Zéphirin, and it was I who brought him back. He was very gay; he opened the shutters, which were simply pushed to, and sprang into his room through the open window, laughing and saying that it was the easiest and shortest way. I stayed outside for a moment, waiting until he had lighted his candle.'

Marc, drawing near, had listened attentively. 'What time was it?' he now inquired.

'Exactly ten,' Mademoiselle Rouzaire replied. 'St. Martin's clock was striking.'

The others shuddered, moved by that account of the lad springing so gaily into the room where he was to meet such a tragic death. And Madame Alexandre gently gave expression to a thought which suggested itself to all: 'It was hardly prudent to let the lad sleep by himself in this lonely room, so easily reached from the square. The shutters ought to have been barred at night.'

'Oh! he fastened them,' said Mademoiselle Rouzaire.

'Did he do so last night while you were here?' inquired Marc, intervening once more.

'No, when I left him to go to my rooms he had lighted his candle and was arranging some pictures on his table, with the window wide open.'

Mignot, the assistant-master, now joined in the conversation. 'This window made Monsieur Simon anxious,' he said; 'he wished he could have given the lad another room. He often recommended him to fasten the shutters carefully. But I fear that the child paid little heed.'

The two clerics in their turn had now decided to quit the room. Father Philibin, after laying the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip on the table, had ceased speaking, preferring to look and listen; and he followed very attentively each word and gesture that came from Marc, while Brother Fulgence, for his part, continued to relieve himself with lamentations. Eventually, the Jesuit, who seemed to read the young schoolmaster's thoughts in his eyes, remarked to him: 'So you think that some tramp, some night prowler, seeing the boy alone in this room, may have got in by the window?'

From prudence Marc would express no positive opinion. 'Oh! I think nothing,' said he; 'it is for the law to seek and find the murderer. However, the bed has not been opened, the boy was certainly about to get into it, and this seems to show that, the crime must have been committed shortly after ten o'clock. Suppose that he busied himself for half an hour at the utmost with his pictures, and that he then saw a stranger spring into his room. In that case he would have raised a cry, which would certainly have been heard. You heard nothing, did you, mademoiselle?'

'No, nothing,' the schoolmistress replied. 'I myself went to bed about half-past ten. The neighbourhood was very quiet. The storm did not awaken me until about one o'clock this morning.'

'Very little of the candle has been burnt,' Mignot now observed. 'The murderer must have blown it out as he went off by the window, which he left wide open, as I found it just now.'

These remarks, which lent some weight to the theory of a prowler springing into the room, ill-using and murdering the boy, increased the horror-fraught embarrassment of the bystanders. All wished to avoid being compromised, and therefore kept to themselves their thoughts respecting the impossibilities or improbabilities of the theory which had been propounded. After a pause, however, as the mayor and the gendarmes did not appear, Father Philibin inquired: 'Is not Monsieur Simon at Maillebois?'

Mignot, who had not recovered from the shock of his discovery, gazed at the Jesuit with haggard eyes. To bring the assistant-master to his senses, Marc himself had to express his astonishment: 'But Simon is surely in his rooms! Has he not been told?'

'Why no!' the assistant answered, 'I must have lost my head. Monsieur Simon went to attend a banquet at Beaumont yesterday evening, but he certainly came home during the night. His wife is rather poorly; they must be still in bed.'

It was now already half-past seven, but the stormy sky remained so dark and heavy that one might have thought dawn was only just appearing in that secluded corner of the square. However, the assistant-master made up his mind and ascended the stairs to fetch Simon. What a happy awakening it would be for the latter, he muttered sarcastically, and what an agreeable commission for himself was that which he had to fulfil with his chief!

Simon was the younger son of a Jew clockmaker of Beaumont; he had a brother, David, who was his elder by three years. When he was fifteen and David eighteen their father, ruined by lawsuits, succumbed to a sudden attack of apoplexy; and three years later their mother died in very straitened circumstances. Simon had then just entered the Training College, while David joined the army. The former, quitting the college at an early age, became assistant-master at Dherbecourt, a large bourg of the district, where he remained nearly ten years. There also, in his twenty-sixth year, he married Rachel Lehmann, the daughter of the little tailor of the Rue du Trou, who had a fair number of customers at Maillebois. Rachel, a brunette with magnificent hair and large caressing eyes, was very beautiful. Her husband adored her, encompassed her with passionate worship. Two children had been born to them, a boy, Joseph, now four, and a girl, Sarah, two years of age. And Simon, duly provided with a certificate of Teaching Capacity, was proud of the fact that at two and thirty he should be schoolmaster at Maillebois—where he had now dwelt a couple of years—for this was an instance of rapid advancement.

Marc, though he disliked the Jews by reason of a sort of hereditary antipathy and distrust, the causes of which he had never troubled to analyse, retained a friendly recollection of Simon, whom he had known at the Training College. He declared him to be extremely intelligent, a very good teacher, full of a sense of duty. But he found him too attentive to petty details, too slavishly observant of regulations, which he followed to the very letter, ever bending low before discipline, as if fearful of a bad report and the dissatisfaction of his superiors. In this Marc traced the terror and humility of the Jewish race, persecuted for so many centuries, and ever retaining a dread of outrage and iniquity. Moreover, Simon had good cause for prudence, for his appointment at Maillebois, that clerical little town with its powerful Capuchin community and its Brothers' school, had caused almost a scandal. It was only by dint of correctitude and particularly of ardent patriotism among his pupils, such as the glorification of France as a military power, the foretelling of national glory and a supreme position among the nations, that Simon obtained forgiveness for being a Jew.

He now suddenly made his appearance, accompanied by Mignot. Short, thin, and sinewy, he had red, closely-cropped hair and a sparse beard. His blue eyes were soft, his mouth was well shaped, his nose of the racial type, long and slender; yet his physiognomy was scarcely prepossessing, it remained vague, confused, paltry; and at that moment he was so terribly upset by the dreadful tidings that, as he appeared before the others, staggering and stammering, one might have thought him intoxicated.

'Great God! is it possible?' he gasped. 'Such villainy, such monstrosity!'

But he reached the window, where he remained like one overwhelmed, unable to speak another word, and shuddering from head to foot, his glance fixed meanwhile on the little victim. Those who were present, the two clerics, the lady stationers, and the schoolmasters, watched him in silence, astonished that he did not weep.

Marc, stirred by compassion, took hold of his hands and embraced him: 'Come, you must muster your courage; you need all your strength,' he said to him.

But Simon, without listening, turned to his assistant. 'Pray go back to my wife, Mignot,' he said; 'I do not want her to see this. She was very fond of her nephew, and she is too poorly to be able to bear such a horrible sight.'

Then, as the young man went off, he continued in broken accents: 'Ah! what an awakening! For once in a while we were lying late in bed. My poor Rachel was still asleep, and, as I did not wish to disturb her, I remained by her side, thinking of our holiday pleasures. I roused her late last night when I came home, and she did not get to sleep again till three in the morning, for the storm upset her.'

'What time was it when you came home?' Marc inquired.

'Exactly twenty minutes to twelve. My wife asked me the time and I looked at the clock.'

This seemed to surprise Mademoiselle Rouzaire, who remarked: 'But there is no train from Beaumont at that hour.'

'I didn't come back by train,' Simon explained. 'The banquet lasted till late, I missed the 10.30 train, and rather than wait for the one at midnight I decided to walk the distance. I was anxious to join my wife.'

Father Philibin still preserved silence and calmness; but Brother Fulgence, unable to restrain himself any longer, began to question Simon.

'Twenty minutes to twelve! Then the crime must have been committed already. You saw nothing? You heard nothing?'

'Nothing at all. The square was deserted, the storm was beginning to rumble in the distance. I did not meet a soul. All was quiet in the house.'

'Then it did not occur to you to go to see if poor Zéphirin had returned safely from the chapel, and if he were sleeping soundly? Did you not pay him a visit every evening?'

'No, he was already a very shrewd little man, and we left him as much liberty as possible. Besides, the place was so quiet, there was nothing to suggest any reason for disturbing his sleep. I went straight upstairs to my room, making the least possible noise. I kissed my children, who were asleep, then I went to bed; and, well pleased to find my wife rather better, I chatted with her in an undertone.'

Father Philibin nodded as if approvingly, and then remarked: 'Evidently everything can be accounted for.'

The bystanders seemed convinced; the theory of a prowler committing the crime about half-past ten o'clock, entering and leaving the room by the window, seemed more and more probable. Simon's statement confirmed the information given by Mignot and Mademoiselle Rouzaire. Moreover, the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers, asserted that they had seen an evil-looking man roaming about the square at nightfall.

'There are so many rascals on the roads!' said the Jesuit Father by way of conclusion. 'We must hope that the police will set hands on the murderer, though such a task is not always an easy one.'

Marc alone experienced a feeling of uncertainty. Although he had been the first to think it possible that some stranger might have sprung on Zéphirin, he had gradually realised that there was little probability of such an occurrence. Was it not more likely that the man had been acquainted with the boy and had at first approached him as a friend? Then, however, had come the abominable impulse, horror and murder, strangulation as a last resource to stifle the victim's cries, followed by flight amidst a gust of terror. But all this remained very involved; and after some brief perception of its probability Marc relapsed into darkness, into the anxiety born of contradictory suppositions. He contented himself with saying to Simon, by way of calming him: 'All the evidence agrees: the truth will soon be made manifest.'

At that moment, just as Mignot returned after prevailing on Madame Simon to remain in her room, Darras, the Mayor of Maillebois, arrived with three gendarmes. A building contractor, on the high road to a considerable fortune, Darras was a stout man of forty-two, with a fair, round, pinky, clean-shaven face. He immediately ordered the shutters to be closed and placed two gendarmes outside the window, while the third, entering the house passage, went to guard the door of the room, which Zéphirin never locked. From this moment the orders were that nothing should be touched, and that nobody should even approach the scene of the crime. On hearing of it the mayor had immediately telegraphed to the Public Prosecution Office at Beaumont, and the magistrates would surely arrive by the first train.

Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence now spoke of having to attend to various matters connected with the distribution of prizes which was to take place in the afternoon, and Darras advised them to make haste and then return, for, said he, the Procureur de la République, otherwise the Public Prosecutor, would certainly wish to question them about the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip found near the body. So the two clerics took their departure; and while the gendarmes, stationed on the square outside the window, with difficulty restrained the now increasing crowd, which became violent and raised threatening cries, demanding the execution of the unknown murderer, Simon again went into the building with Darras, Marc, Mademoiselle Rouzaire, and Mignot, the whole party waiting in a large classroom lighted by broad windows which faced the playground.

It was now eight o'clock, and after a sudden stormy rainfall, the sky cleared, and the day became a splendid one. An hour elapsed before the magistrates arrived. The Procureur de la République, Raoul de La Bissonnière, came in person, accompanied by Daix, the Investigating Magistrate. Both were moved by the magnitude of the crime and foresaw a great trial. La Bissonnière, a dapper little man with a doll-like face, and whiskers of a correct legal cut, was very ambitious. Not content with his rapid advancement to the post he held—he was only forty-five—he was ever on the watch for some resounding case which would launch him in Paris, where, thanks to his suppleness and address, his complaisant respect for the powers of the day, whatever they might be, he relied on securing a high position. On the other hand, Daix, tall and lean, with a sharp-cut face, was a type of the punctilious Investigating Magistrate, devoted to his professional duties. But he was also of an anxious and timid nature, for his ugly but coquettish and extravagant wife, exasperated by the poverty of their home, terrorised and distressed him with her bitter reproaches respecting his lack of ambition.

On reaching the schools the legal functionaries, before taking any evidence, desired to visit the scene of the crime. Simon and Darras accompanied them to Zéphirin's bed-chamber while the others, who were soon joined by Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence, waited in the large classroom. When the magistrates returned thither, they had verified all the material features of the crime, and were acquainted with the various circumstances already known to the others. They brought with them the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip, to which they seemed to attach extreme importance. At once seating themselves at Simon's table, they examined those two pieces of evidence, exchanging impressions concerning them, and then showing the copy-slip to the two schoolmasters, Simon and Marc, as well as to the schoolmistress and the clerics. But this was only done by way of eliciting some general information, for no clerk was present to record a formal interrogatory.

'Oh! those copies,' Marc replied, 'are used currently in all the schools, in the secular ones as well as in those of the religious orders.'

This was confirmed by Brother Fulgence. 'Quite so,' said he; 'similar ones would be found at our school, even as there must be some here.'

La Bissonnière, however, desired more precise information. 'But do you remember having placed this one in the hands of any of your pupils?' he asked Simon. 'Those words "Love one another" must have struck you.'

'That copy was never used here,' Simon answered flatly. 'As you point out, monsieur, I should have recollected it.'

The same question was then addressed to Brother Fulgence, who at first evinced some little hesitation. 'I have three Brothers with me—Brothers Isidore, Lazarus, and Gorgias,' he replied, 'and it is difficult for me to avouch anything.'

Then, in the deep silence which was falling, he added: 'But no, no, that copy was never used at our school, for it would have come before me.'

The magistrates did not insist on the point. For the time being they did not wish the importance which they attached to the slip to become too manifest. They expressed their surprise, however, that the missing corner of it had not been found.

'Do not these slips sometimes bear in one corner a stamp of the school to which they belong?' Daix inquired. Brother Fulgence had to admit that it was so, but Marc protested that he had never stamped any copy-slips used in his school.

'Excuse me,' declared Simon in his tranquil way, 'I have some slips here on which a stamp would be found. But I stamp them down below—here!'

Perceiving the perplexity of the magistrates, Father Philibin, hitherto silent and attentive, indulged in a light laugh. 'This shows,' he said, 'how difficult it is to arrive at the truth.... By the way, Monsieur le Procureur de la République, matters are much the same with the stain which you are now examining. One of us fancied it to be some initialling, a kind of flourish. But, for my part, I believe it to be a blot which some pupil tried to efface with his finger.'

'Is it usual for the masters to initial the copy-slips?' asked Daix.

'Yes,' Brother Fulgence acknowledged, 'that is done at our school.'

'Ah! no,' cried Simon and Marc in unison, 'we never do it in the Communal schools.'

'You are mistaken,' said Mademoiselle Rouzaire, although I do not stamp my copies, I have sometimes initialled them.'

With a wave of the hand La Bissonnière stopped the discussion, for he knew by experience what a muddle is reached when one enters into secondary questions of personal habits. The copy-slip, the missing corner of it, the possible existence of a stamp and a paraph would all have to be studied in the course of the investigation. For the moment he now contented himself with asking the witnesses to relate how the crime had been discovered. Mignot had to say that the open window had attracted his attention and that he had raised an outcry on perceiving the victim's body. Mademoiselle Rouzaire explained how she had hastened to the spot and how, on the previous evening, she had brought Zéphirin home from the Capuchin Chapel, when he had sprung into the room by the window. Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence in their turn related how chance had connected them with the tragedy, in what condition they had found the room, and in what particular spot they had discovered the paper gag, which they had merely unfolded before placing it on the table. Finally, Marc indicated a few observations which he had made on his arrival, subsequent to that of the others.

La Bissonnière thereupon turned to Simon and began to question him: 'You have told us that you came home at twenty minutes to twelve, and that the whole house then seemed to you to be perfectly quiet. Your wife was asleep——'

At this point Daix interrupted his superior: 'Monsieur le Procureur,' said he, 'is it not advisable that Madame Simon should be present? Could she not come down here a moment?'

La Bissonnière nodded assent, and Simon went to fetch his wife, who soon made her appearance.

Rachel, attired in a plain morning wrap of unbleached linen, looked so beautiful as she entered the room amidst the deep silence, that a little quiver of admiration and tender sympathy sped by. Hers was the Jewish beauty in its flower, a delightfully oval face, splendid black hair, a gilded skin, large caressing eyes, and a red mouth with speckless, dazzling teeth. And one could tell that she was all love, a trifle indolent, living in seclusion in her home, with her husband and her children, like a woman of the East in her little secret garden. Simon was about to close the door behind her, when the two children, Joseph and Sarah, four and two years old respectively, and both of them strong and flourishing, ran in, although they had been forbidden to come downstairs. And they sought refuge in the folds of their mother's wrap, where the magistrates, by a gesture, intimated they might remain.

The gallant La Bissonnière, moved by the sight of such great beauty, imparted a flute-like accent to his voice as he asked Rachel a few questions: 'It was twenty minutes to twelve, madame, was it not, when your husband came home?'

'Yes, monsieur, he looked at the clock. And he was in bed and we were still chatting in an undertone and with the light out, in order that the children might not be roused, when we heard midnight strike.'

'But before your husband's arrival, madame, between half-past ten and half-past eleven, did you hear nothing, no footsteps nor talking, no sounds of struggling, nor stifled cries?'

'No, absolutely nothing, monsieur. I was asleep. It was my husband's entry into our room which awoke me. He had left me feeling poorly, and he was so pleased to find me better that he began to laugh as he kissed me, and I made him keep quiet for fear lest the others should be disturbed, so deep was the silence around us. Ah! how could we have imagined that such a frightful misfortune had fallen on the house!'

She was thoroughly upset, and tears coursed down her cheeks, while she turned towards her husband as if for consolation and support. And he, weeping now at the sight of her grief, and forgetting where he was, caught her passionately in his arms, and kissed her with infinite tenderness. The two children raised their heads anxiously. There was a moment of deep emotion and compassionate kindliness, in which all participated.

'I was rather surprised at the time because there is no train at that hour,' resumed Madame Simon of her own accord. 'But when my husband was in bed he told me how it happened.'

'Yes,' Simon explained, 'I could not do otherwise than attend that banquet; but when, on reaching the station at Beaumont, I saw the half-past ten o'clock train steaming away before my eyes, I felt so annoyed that I would not wait for the train at midnight, but set out on foot at once. A walk of less than four miles is nothing to speak of. The night was very beautiful, very warm.... About one o'clock, when the storm burst, I was still talking softly to my wife, telling her how I had spent my evening, for she could not get to sleep again. It was that which kept us late in bed this morning, ignorant of the dreadful blow that had fallen on us.'

Then, as Rachel began to weep again, he once more kissed her, like a lover and like a father. 'Come, my darling, calm yourself. We loved the poor little fellow with all our hearts, and we have no cause for self-reproach in this abominable catastrophe.'

That was also the opinion of the onlookers. Darras, the mayor, professed great esteem for the zealous and honest schoolmaster Simon. Mignot and Mademoiselle Rouzaire, although by no means fond of the Jews, shared the opinion that this one at all events strove by irreproachable conduct to obtain forgiveness for his birth. Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence on their side, in presence of the general sentiment of the others, affected neutrality, remaining apart and preserving silence, while with keen eyes they scrutinised people and things. The magistrates, thrown back on the theory of some stranger who must have entered and left the boy's room by the window, had to rest content with this first verification of the facts. Only one point as yet was clearly established, the hour of the crime, which must have been perpetrated between half-past ten and eleven o'clock. As for the crime itself it remained engulfed in darkness.

Leaving the authorities, who had certain details to settle, Marc, after embracing Simon in brotherly fashion, was desirous of going home to lunch. The scene between the husband and the wife had taught him nothing, for he well knew how tenderly they loved each other. But tears had come to his eyes, he had been deeply stirred by the sight of such dolorous affection.

Noon was about to strike at St. Martin's Church when he again found himself on the square, which was now blocked by such an increasing crowd that it was difficult for him to open a way. As the news of the crime spread, folk arrived from all directions, pressing towards the closed window, which the two gendarmes could hardly defend; and the horribly exaggerated accounts of the affair which circulated through the crowd raised its indignation to fever heat and made it growl wrathfully. Marc had just freed himself from the throng when a priest approached him and inquired:

'Have you come from the school, Monsieur Froment? Are all these horrible things which people are repeating true?'

The questioner was Abbé Quandieu, priest of St. Martin's, the parish church. Forty-three years old, tall and robust, the Abbé had a gentle, kindly face, with light blue eyes, round cheeks, and a soft chin. Marc had met him at Madame Duparque's, for he was the old lady's confessor and friend. And though the schoolmaster was not fond of priests he felt some esteem for this one, knowing that he was tolerant and reasonable—possessed, too, of more feeling than real mental ability.

In a few words Marc recounted the facts of the case, which were already sufficiently horrid.

'Ah, poor Monsieur Simon!' said the priest compassionately, 'how deeply grieved he must be, for he was very much attached to his nephew and behaved very well in regard to him! I have had proof of it.'

This spontaneous testimony pleased Marc, who remained conversing with the priest for another minute. But a Capuchin Father drew near, Father Théodose, the Superior of the little community attached to the neighbouring chapel. Superbly built, having also a handsome face with large ardent eyes, and a splendid dark beard, which rendered him quite majestic, Father Théodose was a confessor of repute, and a preacher of a mystical turn, whose glowing accents attracted all the devout women of Maillebois. Though he was covertly waging war against Abbé Quandieu, he affected in his presence the deferential manner of a younger and more humbly situated servant of Providence. He immediately gave expression to his emotion and his grief, for he had noticed the poor child, he said, at the chapel on the previous evening. So pious a child he was, a little angel with a cherub's fair curly locks. But Marc did not tarry to listen, for the Capuchin inspired him with unconquerable distrust and antipathy. So he turned his steps homeward; but all at once he was again stopped, this time by a friendly tap on the shoulder.

'What! Férou, are you at Maillebois?' he exclaimed. The man whom he addressed by the name of Férou was schoolmaster at Le Moreau, a lonely hamlet, some two and a half miles from Jonville. The little place had not even a priest of its own, but was looked after, from the religious standpoint, by the Jonville priest, Abbé Cognasse. Férou there led a life of black misery with his wife and his children, three girls. He was a big loosely-built fellow of thirty, whose clothes always seemed too short for him. His dark hair bristled on his long and bony head, he had a bumpy nose, a wide mouth, and a projecting chin, and knew not what to do with his big feet and his big hands.

'You know very well that my wife's aunt keeps a grocery shop here,' he answered. 'We came over to see her. But, I say, what an abominable business this is about the poor little hunchback! Won't it just enable those dirty priests to belabour us and say that we pervert and poison the young!'

Marc regarded Férou as a very intelligent, well-read man, whom a confined life full of privations had embittered to the point of violence and inspired with ideas of revenge. The virulence of the remark he had just made disturbed Marc, who rejoined: 'Belabour us? I don't see what we have to do with it.'

'Then you are a simpleton,' Férou retorted. 'You don't understand that species, but you will soon see the good Fathers and the dear Brothers, all the black gowns, hard at work. Haven't they already allowed it to be surmised that Simon himself strangled his nephew?'

At this Marc lost his temper. Férou's hatred of the Church led him too far.

'You are out of your senses,' said Marc. 'Nobody suspects, nobody for one moment would dare to suspect, Simon. All acknowledge his integrity and kindliness. Even Abbé Quandieu told me a moment ago that he had had proof of his fatherly treatment of the poor victim.'

Férou's lean and lanky figure was shaken by a convulsive laugh, his hair seemed to bristle yet higher on his equine head. 'Ah! it's too amusing,' he replied. 'So you fancy they will restrain themselves when a dirty Jew is in question? Does a dirty Jew deserve to have the truth told about him? Your friend Quandieu and all the others will say whatever may be desirable if it is necessary that the dirty Jew should be found guilty, thanks to the complicity of us others, the scamps who know neither God nor country, and who corrupt the children of France. For that is what the priests say of us—you know it well!'

Then as Marc, chilled to the heart, continued to protest, Férou resumed yet more vehemently: 'But you know what goes on at Le Moreux! I starve there, I'm treated with contempt, pressed down even lower than the wretched road-menders. When Abbé Cognasse comes over to say Mass he'd spit on me if he met me. And if I don't eat bread every day it's simply because I refused to sing in the choir and ring the church bell! You know Abbé Cognasse yourself. You have managed to check him at Jonville, since you contrived to get the mayor over to your side; but, none the less, you are always at war; he would devour you if you only gave him the chance. A village schoolmaster indeed! Why, he's everybody's beast of burden, everybody's lackey, a man without caste, an arrant failure; and the peasants distrust him, and the priests would like to burn him alive in order to ensure the undivided reign of the Church Catechism throughout the country!'

He went on bitterly, enumerating the sufferings of those damned ones, as he called the elementary teachers. He himself, a shepherd's son, successful at the village school which he had attended, and afterwards a student at the Training College, which he had quitted with excellent certificates, had always suffered from lack of means; for in a spirit of rectitude after some trouble with a shop girl at Maillebois, when he was assistant-master there, he had foolishly married her, although she was as poor as himself. But was Marc any happier at Jonville, even though his wife received frequent presents from her grandmother? Was he not always struggling with indebtedness, struggling too with the priest, in order to retain dignity and independence? True, he was seconded by Mademoiselle Mazeline, the mistress of the girls' school, a woman of firm sense, with an inexhaustible heart, who had helped him to win over the parish council and gradually the whole commune. But circumstances had been in his favour, and the example was perhaps unique in the department. On the other hand, the state of affairs at Maillebois completed the picture. There, on one side, one found Mademoiselle Rouzaire won over to the cause of the priests and the monks, learning to take her pupils to church, and fulfilling so well the office of the nuns that it had been considered unnecessary to install a nuns' school in the little town. Then, on the other hand, there was that poor fellow Simon, an honest man certainly, but one who, from fear of being treated as a dirty Jew, tried circumspection with everybody, allowing his nephew to be educated by the dear Brothers, and bowing down to the ground before all the rooks who infested the country.

'A dirty Jew!' cried Férou with emphasis, by way of conclusion. 'He is, and always will be, a dirty Jew. And to be both a schoolmaster and a Jew beats everything.... Ah! well, you'll see, you'll see!'

Then, with impetuous gestures which shook the whole of his big loose frame he took himself off and mingled with the crowd.

Marc had remained on the kerb of the footway, shrugging his shoulders and regarding Férou as a semi-lunatic, for the picture which he had drawn seemed to him full of exaggeration. But of what use was it to answer that poor fellow whose brain would soon be turned by ill luck? Yet Marc was haunted by what he had heard, and grew vaguely anxious as he resumed his walk towards the Place des Capucins.

It was a quarter past twelve when he reached the little house, and for a quarter of an hour the ladies had been awaiting him in the dining-room, where the table was already laid. This fresh delay had quite upset Madame Duparque. She said nothing, but the brusqueness with which she sat down and nervously unfolded her napkin denoted how culpable she considered this lack of punctuality.

'I must apologise,' the young man explained, 'but I had to wait for the magistrates, and there was such a crowd on the square afterwards that I could not pass.'

At this, although the grandmother was resolved on silence, she could not restrain an exclamation: 'I hope that you are not going to busy yourself with that abominable affair!'

'Oh!' Marc merely answered, 'I certainly hope I sha'n't have to do so—unless it be as a matter of duty.'

When Pélagie had served an omelet and some slices of grilled mutton with mashed potatoes, the young man related all that he had learnt. Geneviève listened to his story, quivering with horror and pity, while Madame Berthereau, who was also greatly moved, battled with her tears and glanced furtively at Madame Duparque, as if to ascertain how far she might allow her sensibility to go. But the old lady had relapsed into silent disapproval of everything which seemed to her contrary to her rule of life. She ate steadily, and it was only after a time that she remarked, 'I remember very well that a child disappeared at Beaumont during my youth. It was found under the porch of St. Maxence. The body was cut in quarters, and there was only the heart missing. It was said that the Jews required the heart for the unleavened bread of their Passover.'

Marc looked at her in amazement. 'You are not serious, grandmother: you surely don't believe such a stupid and infamous charge?'

She turned her cold, clear eyes on him, and, instead of giving a direct answer, she said: 'It is simply an old recollection which came back to me.... Of course I accuse nobody.'

At this Pélagie, who had just brought the dessert, ventured to join in the conversation with the familiarity of an old servant: 'It is quite right of madame to accuse nobody, and others ought to follow madame's example. The neighbourhood has been in a state of revolution since this morning. You can have no idea of the frightful stories which are being told. Just now, too, I heard a workman say that the Brothers' school ought to be burnt down.'

Deep silence followed those words. Marc, struck by them, made a gesture, then restrained himself, like one who prefers to keep his thoughts to himself. And Pélagie continued: 'Madame will let me go to the distribution of prizes this afternoon, I hope? I don't think my nephew Polydor will have a prize; but it would please me to be present. Those good Brothers! It won't be a happy festival for them, falling on the very day when one of their best pupils has been killed!'

Madame Duparque nodded assent to the servant's request, and the conversation was then turned into another channel. Indeed the end of the meal was brightened somewhat by the laughter of little Louise, who gazed in astonishment at the grave faces of her father and her mother, who usually smiled so brightly. This led to some relaxation of the tension, and for a moment they all chatted in a cordial, intimate way.

The distribution of prizes at the Brothers' school that afternoon roused great emotion. Never before had the ceremony attracted such a throng. True, the circumstance that it was presided over by Father Philibin, the prefect of the studies at the College of Valmarie, made it particularly notable. The rector of that College, Father Crabot, who was famous for his society influence and the powerful part he was said to play in contemporary politics, also attended, desirous as he was of giving the Brothers a public mark of his esteem. Further, there was a reactionary deputy of the department, Count Hector de Sanglebœuf, the owner of La Désirade, a splendid estate of the environs, which, with a few millions, had formed the marriage portion of his wife, a daughter of Baron Nathan, the great Jew banker. However, that which excited everybody, and which drew to the usually quiet and deserted Place des Capucins such a feverish crowd, was the monstrous crime discovered in the morning, the murder of one of the Brothers' pupils under the most abominable circumstances.

And it seemed as if the murdered boy were present, as if only he were there, in the shady courtyard where the platform was set up beyond the serried rows of chairs, while Father Philibin spoke in praise of the school, of its director, the distinguished Brother Fulgence, and of his three assistants, Brothers Isidore, Lazarus, and Gorgias. The haunting sensation became yet more intense when the prize-list was read by the last-named, a thin, knotty man, showing a low, harsh brow under his frizzy black hair, a big nose projecting like an eagle's beak between his prominent cheek-bones, and thin lips which in parting revealed wolf-like teeth. Zéphirin had been the best scholar of his class, every prize of which he had won. Thus his name recurred incessantly, and Brother Gorgias, in his long black cassock, on which the ends of his neck-band showed like a splotch of white, let that name fall from his lips in such slow lugubrious fashion that on each occasion a quiver of growing intensity sped through the assembled throng. Every time the poor little dead boy was called he seemed to rise up to receive his crown and his gilt-edged book. But, alas! crowns and books alike formed an increasing pile on the table; and nothing could be more poignant than the silence and the void to which so many prizes were cast, the prizes of that model pupil who had vanished so tragically, and whose lamentable remains were lying only a few doors away. At last the emotion of the onlookers became too great to be restrained; sobs burst forth while Brother Gorgias continued to call that name with a twitching of the upper-lip, habitual to him, which disclosed some of the teeth on the left side of his mouth amid an involuntary grimace-like grin, suggestive of both scorn and cruelty.

The function ended amid general uneasiness. However fine might be the assembly which had hastened thither to exalt the Brothers, anxiety increased, disquietude swept over all, as if some menace had come from afar. But the worst was the departure amid the murmurs and the covert curses of numerous groups of artisans and peasants gathered on the square. The abominable stories of which Pélagie had spoken circulated through that quivering crowd. A horrid story which had been stifled the previous year, the story of a Brother whom his superiors had conjured away to save him from the Assize Court, was repeated. All sorts of rumours had been current since that time, rumours of abominations, of terrified children who dared not speak out. Naturally there had been much enlargement of those mysterious rumours as they passed from mouth to mouth; and the indignation of the folk assembled on the square came from the revival of them which was prompted by the murder of one of the Brothers' pupils. Accusations were already taking shape, words of vengeance spread around. Would the guilty one again be allowed to escape? Would that vile and bloody den never be closed? Thus, as the fine folk departed, and particularly when the robes of the monks and the cassocks of the priests were seen, fists were stretched out, and menaces of death arose: the whole of one group of onlookers pursuing with hisses Fathers Crabot and Philibin as they hurried away, pale and anxious; while Brother Fulgence ordered the school-gates to be strongly bolted.

Marc, out of curiosity, had watched the scene from a window of Madame Duparque's little house, and, becoming keenly interested in it, he had even gone for a moment to the threshold, in order that he might see and hear the better. How ridiculous had been Férou's prophecy that the Jew would be saddled with the crime, that the rancorous black gowns would make a scapegoat of the secular schoolmaster! Far from things taking that course, it seemed as though they might turn out very badly for the good Brothers. The rising wrath of the crowd, those menaces of death, indicated that matters might go very far indeed, that the popular anger might spread from the one guilty man to the whole of his congregation, and shake the very Church itself in the region, if indeed the guilty man were one of its ministers. Marc questioned himself on that point but could form no absolute conviction; indeed, even suspicion seemed to him hazardous and wrong. The demeanour of Father Philibin and Brother Fulgence had appeared quite natural, full of perfect tranquillity. And he strove to be very tolerant and just, for fear lest he might yield to his impulses as a freethinker delivered from belief in dogmas. All was dark in that terrible tragedy, and he resolved to wait until he should learn more.

But while he stood there he saw Pélagie returning in her Sunday-best, accompanied by her nephew, Polydor Souquet, a lad of eleven, who carried a handsomely bound book under his arm.

'It's the good conduct prize, monsieur!' exclaimed the servant proudly. 'That is even better than a prize for reading or writing, is it not?'

The truth was that Polydor, sly but torpid, astonished even the Brothers by his prodigious idleness. He was a pale, sturdy boy, with very light hair and a long dull face. The son of a road-mender addicted to drink, he had lost his mother at an early age, and lived chancewise nowadays while his father broke stones on the roads. Hating every kind of work, terrified particularly by the idea of having to break stones in his turn, he allowed his aunt to indulge in the dream of seeing him become a Brother, invariably agreeing with everything she said, and often visiting her in her kitchen, in the hope thereby of securing some dainty morsel.

Pélagie, however, in spite of her delight, was affected by the uproar on the square. She at last looked round, quivering, and cast a glance of fury and defiance at the crowd. 'You hear them, monsieur!' she exclaimed. 'You hear those anarchists! The idea of it! Such devoted Brothers, who are so fond of their pupils, who look after them with such motherly care! For instance, there's Polydor. He lives with his father on the road to Jonville, nearly a mile away. Well, last night, after that ceremony, for fear of a mishap, Brother Gorgias accompanied him to his very door. Is that not so, Polydor?'

'Yes,' the boy answered laconically in his husky voice.

'Yet folk insult and threaten the Brothers!' the servant resumed. 'How wicked! You can picture poor Brother Gorgias taking that long walk in the dark night, in order that nothing might befall this little man! Ah! it's enough to disgust one of being prudent and kind!'

Marc, who had been scrutinising the boy, was struck by his resolute taciturnity, by the hypocritical somnolence in which he seemed to find a pleasant refuge. He listened no further to Pélagie, to whose chatter he never accorded much attention. But on returning to the little drawing-room, where he had left his wife reading while Madame Duparque and Madame Berthereau turned to their everlasting knitting for some religious charities, he felt anxious, for he perceived that Geneviève had laid her book aside, and was gazing with much emotion at the tumult on the square. She came to him, and with an affectionate impulse, fraught with alarm, looking extremely pretty in her agitation, she almost threw herself upon his neck.

'What is happening?' she asked. 'Are they going to fight?'

He began to reassure her; and all at once Madame Duparque, raising her eyes from her work, sternly gave expression to her will: 'Marc, I hope that you will not mix yourself up in that horrid affair. What madness it is to suspect and insult the Brothers! God will end by avenging His ministers!'

[II]

Marc was unable to get to sleep that night, for he was haunted by the events of the day—by that monstrous, mysterious, puzzling crime. Thus, while Geneviève, his wife, reposed quietly beside him, he dwelt in thought upon each incident of the affair, classified each detail, striving to pierce the darkness and establish the truth.

Marc's mind was one that sought logic and light. His clear and firm judgment demanded in all things a basis of certainty. Thence came his absolute passion for truth. In his eyes no rest of mind, no real happiness, was possible without complete, decisive certainty. He was not very learned, but such things as he knew he wished to know completely, in order that he might have no doubt of the possession of the truth, experimental truth, established for ever. All unrest came to an end when doubt ceased; he then fully recovered his spirits, and to his passion for the acquirement of truth was added one for imparting it to others, for driving it into the brains and hearts of all. His marvellous gifts then became manifest; he brought with him a methodical power which simplified, classified, illumined everything. His quiet conviction imposed itself on his hearers, light was shed on dim notions, things seemed easy and simple. He instilled life into the driest subjects. He succeeded in imparting a passionate interest even to grammar and arithmetic, rendering them as interesting as stories to his pupils. In him one really found the born teacher.

He had discovered that he possessed that teaching gift at the time when, already possessed of a bachelor's degree, he had come to Beaumont to finish his apprenticeship as a lithographic draughtsman in the establishment of Messrs. Papon-Laroche. Entrusted with the execution of many school diagrams, he had exercised his ingenuity in simplifying them, creating perfect masterpieces of clearness and precision, which had revealed to him his true vocation, the happiness that he found in teaching the young.

It was at Papon-Laroche's establishment also that he had first met Salvan, now Director of the Training College, who, observing his bent, had approved of the course he took in yielding to it completely, and becoming what he was to-day—a humble elementary schoolmaster who, convinced of the noble usefulness of his duties, was happy to discharge them even in a small and lonely village. Marc's affection for those whose narrow and slumbering minds required awakening and expansion had decided his career. And, in the discharge of his modest functions, his passion for truth increased, becoming a more and more imperious craving. It ended indeed by constituting the ratio of his health, his very life, for it was only by satisfying it that he enjoyed normal life. When it escaped him, he fell into anguish of spirit, consumed by his desire to acquire and possess it wholly, in order that he might communicate it to others, failing which he spent his days in intolerable suffering, often physical as well as mental.

From this passion assuredly sprang the torment which kept Marc awake that night by the side of his sleeping wife. He suffered from his ignorance, his failure to penetrate the truth respecting the murder of that child. He was not confronted merely by an ignoble crime; he divined behind it the existence of dark and threatening depths, some dim but yawning abyss. Would his sufferings continue then as long as he should not know the truth, which perchance he might never know? for the shadows seemed to increase at each effort that he made to dissipate them. Mastered by uncertainty and fear, he ended by longing for daybreak, in order that he might resume his investigations. But his wife laughed lightly in her sleep; some happy dream, no doubt, had come to her; and then the terrible old grandmother seemed to rise up before the young man's eyes, and repeat that he must on no account meddle in that horrible affair. At this the certainty of a conflict with his wife's relations appeared to him, and brought his hesitation and unhappiness to a climax.

Hitherto he had experienced no serious trouble with that devout family whence he, who held no religious belief whatever, had taken the young girl who had become his wife, his life's companion. He did not carry tolerance so far as to follow his wife to Mass, as Berthereau had done, but he had allowed his daughter Louise to be baptised, in order that he might have some peace with the ladies. Besides, as his wife in her adoration for him had ceased to follow the religious observances of her Church soon after the marriage, no quarrel had yet arisen between them. Occasionally he remarked in Geneviève some revival of her long Catholic training, ideas of the absolute which clashed with his own, superstitions which sent a chill to his heart. But these were merely passing incidents; he believed that the love which bound him to his wife was strong enough to triumph over such divergencies; for did they not soon find themselves in each other's arms again, even when they had momentarily felt themselves to be strangers, belonging to different worlds?

Geneviève had been one of the best pupils of the Sisters of the Visitation; she had quitted their establishment with a superior certificate, in such wise that her first idea had been to become a teacher herself. But there was no place for her at Jonville, where the excellent Mademoiselle Mazeline managed the girls' school without assistance; and, naturally enough, she had been unwilling to quit her husband. Then household duties had taken possession of her; now, also, she had to attend to her little girl; and thus all thought of realising her early desire was postponed, perhaps for ever. But did not this very circumstance make their life all happiness and perfect agreement, far from the reach of storms?

If, from concern for their future happiness, the worthy Salvan, Berthereau's faithful friend, to whom the marriage was due, had for a moment thought of trying to check the irresistible love by which the young people were transported, he must have felt reassured on finding them still tenderly united after three years of matrimony. It was only now while the wife dreamt happily in her slumber that the husband for the first time experienced anxiety at the thought of the case of conscience before him, foreseeing, as he did, that a quarrel might well arise with his wife's relations, and that all sorts of unpleasant consequences might ensue in his home, should he yield to his imperative craving for truth.

At last, however, he dozed off and ended by sleeping soundly. In the morning, when his eyes opened to the clear bright light, he felt astonished at having passed through such a nightmare-like vigil. It had assuredly been caused by the haunting influence of that frightful crime, to which, as it happened, Geneviève, still full of emotion and pity, was the first to refer again.

'Poor Simon must be in great distress,' she said. 'You cannot abandon him. I think that you ought to see him this morning and place yourself at his disposal.'

Marc embraced her, delighted to find her so kind-hearted and brave. 'But grandmother will get angry again,' he replied, 'and our life here will become unbearable.'

Geneviève laughed lightly, and gently shrugged her shoulders. 'Oh! grandmother would quarrel with the very angels,' she retorted. 'When one does half what she desires, one does quite enough.'

This sally enlivened them both, and, Louise having awoke, they spent a few delightful moments in playing with her in her little cot.

Then Marc resolved to go out and resume his inquiry directly after breakfast. While he was dressing, he thought the matter over quietly and sensibly. He was well acquainted with Maillebois and the characteristics of its two thousand inhabitants, divided into petty bourgeois, petty shopkeepers, and workmen; the latter, some eight hundred in number, being distributed through the workshops of some four or five firms, all of which were prosperous, thanks to the vicinity of Beaumont. Being nearly equally divided, the two sections of the population fought strenuously for authority, and the Municipal Council was a faithful picture of their differences, one half of it being Clerical and Reactionary, while the other was Republican and Progressive. As yet only a very few Socialists figured in the population, lost among all the folk of other views, and they were quite without influence. Darras, the Mayor and building contractor, was certainly a declared Republican, and even made a profession of anti-clericalism. But, owing to the almost equal strength of the two parties in the council, it was only by a majority of two votes that he, rich and active, with about a hundred workpeople under his orders, had been preferred to Philis, a retired tilt and awning maker, with an income of from ten to twelve thousand francs a year, who led the stern confined life of a militant Clerical, interested in nothing beyond the observance of the narrowest piety. Thus Darras was compelled to observe extreme prudence, for the displacement of a few votes would unseat him. Ah! if there had been only a substantial Republican majority behind him, how bravely he would have supported the cause of liberty, truth, and justice, instead of practising, as he was reduced to do, the most diplomatic 'opportunism.'

Another thing known to Marc was the increasing power of the Clerical party, which seemed likely to conquer the whole region. For ten years the little community of Capuchins established in the old convent, a part of which it had surrendered to the Brothers of the Christian Schools, had carried on the worship of St. Antony of Padua with ever-increasing audacity, and also with such great success that the profits were enormous.[1] While the Brothers, on their side, derived advantage from this success, which brought them many pupils and thus increased the prosperity of the schools, the Capuchins worked their chapel as one may work a distillery, and sent forth from it every kind of moral poison. The Saint stood on a golden altar, ever decked with flowers and ablaze with lights, collection boxes appeared on all sides, and a commercial office was permanently installed in the sacristy, where the procession of clients lasted from morn till night. The Saint did not merely find lost things,—his specialty in the early days of his cultus,—he had extended his business. For a few francs he undertook to enable the dullest youths to pass their examinations, to render doubtful business affairs excellent, to exonerate the rich scions of patriotic families from military service, to say nothing of performing a multitude of other equally genuine miracles, such as healing the sick and the maimed, and according a positive protection against ruin and death, in the last respect going indeed so far as to resuscitate a young girl who had expired two days previously. Naturally enough, as each new story circulated, more and more money flowed in, and the business spread from the bourgeois and shopkeepers of Reactionary Maillebois to the workmen of Republican Maillebois, whom the poison ended by infecting.

[1] The Protestant reader may be informed that this Saint (1195-1231) was a Portuguese Franciscan, famous for the eloquence of his sermons. The practices of which M. Zola speaks are not inventions. The so-called worship of St. Antony has become widespread in France of recent years. Such is superstition!—Trans.

It is true that, in his Sunday sermons, Abbé Quandieu, priest of St. Martin's, the parish church, forcibly pointed out the danger of low superstition; but few people listened to him. Possessed of a more enlightened faith than that of many priests, he deplored the harm which the rapacity of the Capuchins was doing to religion. In the first place they were ruining him; the parish church was losing many sources of revenue, all the alms and offerings now going to the convent chapel. But his grief came largely from a higher cause; he experienced the sorrow of an intelligent priest who was not disposed to bow to Rome in all things, but who still believed in the possible evolution amid the great modern democratic movement of an independent and liberal Church of France. Thus he waged war against those 'dealers of the Temple' who betrayed the cause of Jesus; and it was said that Monseigneur Bergerot,[2] the Bishop of Beaumont, shared his views. But this did not prevent the Capuchins from increasing their triumphs, subjugating Maillebois and transforming it into a holy spot, by dint of their spurious miracles.

Marc also knew that, if Monseigneur Bergerot was behind Abbé Quandieu, the Capuchins and the Brothers possessed the support of Father Crabot, the all-powerful Rector of the College of Valmarie. If Father Philibin, the Prefect of the Studies there, had presided at the recent prize-giving at the Brothers' school, it had been by way of according to the latter a public mark of esteem and protection. The Jesuits had the affair in hand, as folk of evil mind were wont to say. And Simon, the Jew schoolmaster, found himself caught amid those inextricable quarrels, alone in a region swept by religious passion, at a dangerous moment, when the victory would be won by the most impudent. Men's hearts were perturbed; a spark would suffice to fire and devastate all minds. Nevertheless the Communal school had not lost a pupil as yet; its attendances and successes equalled those of the Brothers' school; and this comparative victory was undoubtedly due to the prudent skill displayed by Simon, who behaved cautiously with everybody, and who moreover was supported openly by Darras, and covertly by Abbé Quandieu. But the rivalry of the two schools would undoubtedly lead to the real battle, the decisive assault which must come sooner or later; for these two schools could not possibly live side by side, one must end by devouring the other. And the Church would be unable to subsist should she lose the privilege of teaching and enslaving the humble.

[2] Frequently referred to in M. Zola's Lourdes and Rome as a liberal prelate at variance with the Vatican.—Trans.

That morning, during breakfast with the ladies in the dismal little dining-room, Marc, already oppressed by his reflections, felt his discomfort increase. Madame Duparque quietly related that if Polydor had secured a prize the previous day, he owed it to a pious precaution taken by his aunt Pélagie, who had thoughtfully given a franc to St. Antony of Padua. On hearing this, Madame Berthereau nodded as if approvingly, and even Geneviève did not venture to smile, but seemed interested in the marvellous stories related by her grandmother. The old lady recounted a number of extraordinary incidents, how lives and fortunes had been saved, thanks to presents of two and three francs bestowed on the Saint by the medium of the Capuchins' Agency. And one realised how—one little sum being added to another—rivers of gold ended by flowing to their chapel, like so much tribute levied on public suffering and imbecility.

However, that morning's number of Le Petit Beaumontais, printed during the night, had arrived, and Marc was well pleased when, at the end of a long article on the crime of Maillebois, he found a paragraph containing a very favourable mention of Simon. The schoolmaster, who was esteemed by everybody, had received, it was said, the most touching assurances of sympathy in the great misfortune which had befallen him. This note had evidently been penned by some correspondent the previous evening, after the tumultuous departure from the distribution of prizes which had indicated in which direction the wind was likely to blow. Indeed, nobody could have mistaken the public hostility against the Brothers; and all the vague rumours, all the horrid stories hushed up in the past, aggravated that hostility, in such wise that one was threatened with some abominable scandal in which the whole Catholic and Reactionary party might collapse.

Thus Marc was surprised at the lively and even triumphant demeanour of Pélagie when she came in to clear the breakfast table. He lingered there on purpose to draw her out.

'Ah! there's good news, monsieur,' said she; 'I learnt something, and no mistake, when I went on my errands this morning! I knew very well that those anarchists who insulted the Brothers yesterday were liars.'

Then she recounted all the tittle-tattle of the shops, all the gossip she had picked up on the foot-pavements whilst going from door to door. Amid the oppressive horror, the disturbing mystery that had weighed upon the town for four and twenty hours, the wildest fancies had been gradually germinating. It seemed as if some poisonous vegetation had sprung up during the night. At first there were only the vaguest suppositions; then explanations, suggested chancewise, became certainties, and doubtful coincidences were transformed into irrefutable proofs. And a point to be remarked was that all these stealthy developments, originating nobody knew how or where, but spreading hour by hour, and diffusing doubt and uneasiness, turned in favour of the Brothers and against Simon.

'It is quite certain, you know, monsieur,' said Pélagie, 'that the schoolmaster cared very little for his nephew. He ill-treated him; he was seen doing so by people who will say it. Besides, he was vexed at not having him in his school. He was in no end of a passion when the lad took his first Communion; he shook his fist at him and blasphemed.... And, at all events, it is very extraordinary that the little angel should have been killed only a little while after he had left the Holy Table, and when God was still within him.'

A pang came to Marc's heart; he listened to the servant with stupefaction. 'What do you mean?' he at last exclaimed. 'Are people accusing Simon of having killed his nephew?'

'Well, some don't scruple to think it. That story of going to enjoy himself at Beaumont, then missing the train at half-past ten, and coming back on foot seems a strange one. He reached home at twenty minutes to twelve, he says. But nobody saw him, and he may very well have returned by train an hour earlier, at the very moment when the crime was committed. And when it was over he only had to blow out the candle, and leave the window wide open in order to make people suppose that the murderer had come from outside. At about a quarter to eleven Mademoiselle Rouzaire, the schoolmistress, distinctly heard a sound of footsteps in the school, moans and calls too, and the opening and shutting of doors——'

'Mademoiselle Rouzaire!' cried Marc. 'Why, she did not say a word of that in her first evidence. I was present!'

'Excuse me, monsieur, but at the butcher's just now Mademoiselle Rouzaire was telling it to everybody, and I heard her.'

The young man, quite aghast, allowed the servant to continue:

'Monsieur Mignot, the assistant-master, also says that he was greatly surprised at the head-master's sound sleep in the morning. And, indeed, it is extraordinary that one should have to go and awaken a man on the day when a murder is committed in his house. It seems too that he wasn't the least bit touched; he merely trembled like a leaf, when he saw the little body.'

Marc again wished to protest; but Pélagie, in a stubborn, malicious way, went on: 'Besides, it was surely he, for a copy-slip which came from his class was found in the child's mouth. Only the master could have had that slip in his pocket—is that not so? It is said that it was even signed by him. At the greengrocer's too I heard a lady say that the police officials had found a number of similar slips in his cupboard.'

This time Marc retorted by stating the facts, speaking of the illegible initials on the slip, which Simon declared had never been in his hands; though, as it was of a pattern in common use, one might have found it in any school. However, when Pélagie declared that overwhelming proofs had been discovered that very morning during the search made by the officials in Simon's rooms, the young man began to feel exceedingly disturbed, and ceased to protest, for he realised that in the frightful confusion which was spreading through people's minds all arguments would be futile.

'You see, monsieur,' Pélagie continued, 'one can expect anything when one has to deal with a Jew. As the milkman said to me just now, those folk have no real family ties, no real country; they carry on dealings with the devil, they pillage people, and kill just for the pleasure of doing evil. And you may say what you like, you won't prevent people from believing that that Jew needed a child's life for some dirty business with the devil, and cunningly waited till his nephew had taken his first Communion in order that he might pollute and murder him while he was stainless and full of perfume from the presence of the Host.'

It was the charge of ritual murder reappearing, that haunting charge transmitted through the ages and reviving at each catastrophe, relentlessly pursuing those hateful Jews who poisoned wells and butchered little children.

On two occasions Geneviève, who suffered when she saw how Marc was quivering, had felt desirous of interrupting and joining in his protests. But she had restrained herself from fear of irritating her grandmother, who was evidently well pleased with the servant's gossip, for she nodded approval of it. In fact, Madame Duparque regarded it as a victory; and, disdaining to lecture her son-in-law, whom she deemed already vanquished, she contented herself with saying to the ever-silent Madame Berthereau: 'It is just like that dead child who was found many years ago in the porch of St. Maxence. A woman in the service of some Jews narrowly escaped being sentenced in their place, for only a Jew could have been the murderer. When one frequents such folk one is always exposed to the wrath of God.'

Marc preferred to make no rejoinder; and almost immediately afterwards he went out. But his perturbation was extreme, and a doubt came to him. Could Simon really be guilty? The suspicion attacked him like some evil fever contracted in a pernicious spot; and he felt a need of reflecting and recovering his equilibrium before he called upon his colleague. So he went off along the deserted road to Valmarie, picturing, as he walked, all the incidents of the previous day, and weighing men and things. No, no! Simon could not be reasonably suspected. Certainties presented themselves on all sides. First of all, such a horrible crime on his part was utterly illogical, impossible. He was assuredly healthy in body and mind, he had no physiological flaws, his gentle gaiety denoted the regularity of his life. And he had a wife of resplendent beauty whom he adored, beside whom he lived in loving ecstasy, grateful to her for the handsome children who had sprung from their affection and had become their living love and worship. How was it possible to imagine that such a man had yielded to a fit of abominable madness a few moments before rejoining his well-loved spouse and his little children slumbering in their cots? Again, how simple and truthful on the previous day had been the accents of that man who was exposed to the scrutiny of so many enemies, who loved his calling to the point of heroism, who made the best of his poverty without ever uttering a word of complaint!

The account he had given of his evening had been very clear, his wife had confirmed his statements respecting the time of his return, none of the information that he had furnished seemed open to doubt. And if some obscure points remained, if that crumpled copy-slip found with a number of Le Petit Beaumontais constituted an enigma as yet unravelled, reason at least indicated that the culprit must be sought elsewhere; for Simon's nature and life, the very conditions in which he lived, showed that he could have had nothing to do with the crime. On that point Marc experienced a feeling of certainty, based on reason, on truth itself, which remains unshakable when once it is established by observation and the deductions that facts supply.

Thus the young man's conviction was formed; there were certain ascertained facts to which he would bring everything else back, and, although every error and falsehood might be launched, he would brush all assertions aside if they did not agree with such truths as were already known and demonstrated.

Serene once more, relieved of the burden of his doubts, Marc returned to Maillebois, passing the railway station at the moment when some passengers were alighting from a train which had just arrived. Among those who emerged from the station he perceived the Elementary Education Inspector of the arrondissement, handsome Mauraisin, as he was called, a very dark, foppish little man of thirty-eight, whose thin lips and whose chin were hidden by a carefully kept moustache and beard, while glasses screened his eager eyes. Formerly a professor at the Beaumont Training College, Mauraisin belonged to that new generation, the Arrivistes, who are ever on the lookout for advancement, and who always place themselves on the stronger side. He, it was said, had coveted the directorship of the Training College, which had fallen to Salvan, whom he pursued with covert hatred, but very prudently, for he was aware of Salvan's great credit with Le Barazer, the Academy Inspector,[3] on whom he himself depended. Besides, in presence of the equality of the forces which were contending for supremacy in his arrondissement, Mauraisin, in spite of his personal preferences for the clericals, the priests, and monks, whom he regarded as 'devilish clever,' had been skilful enough to refrain from declaring himself too openly. Thus, when Marc perceived the Elementary Inspector, it was allowable for him to fancy that Le Barazer, with whose good nature he was acquainted, had despatched his subordinate to the assistance of Simon in the terrible catastrophe which threatened to sweep the schoolmaster of Maillebois and his school away.

[3] In matters of education the French territory is apportioned among a number of 'Academies,' such as those of Paris, Caen, Rennes, Bordeaux, Dijon, &c., which are each governed by Rectors, and which, combined, constitute the University of France, of which the Minister of Public Instruction for the time being is the grand-master. The Rectors communicate with him; under them, in each territorial department within their jurisdiction, they have an 'Inspecteur d'Académie,' who is provided with a general secretary, and who in turn has under him several subordinate inspectors called 'Inspecteurs de l'Instruction primaire.' There is one of these for each arrondissement into which the departments are divided.—Trans.

The young man therefore hastened his steps, desirous of paying his respects to the Inspector, but all at once an unexpected incident restrained him. A cassock had emerged from a neighbouring street, and he recognised in its wearer Father Crabot, the Rector of the Jesuit College of Valmarie. A tall, finely-built man, without a white hair at five and forty, Father Crabot had a broad and regular face, with a somewhat large nose, amiable eyes, and thick, caressing lips. The only failing with which he was reproached was a tendency to become a fashionable cleric as a result of the many aristocratic connections which he was always eager to form. But those connections simply increased the sphere of his power, and some people said, with good reason, that he was the secret master of the department, and that the victory of the Church, which was assuredly approaching, depended solely on him.

Marc felt surprised and disquieted on seeing the Jesuit at Maillebois at that hour. Had he quitted Valmarie very early in the morning then? What urgent business, what pressing visits had brought him there? Whence had he come, whither was he going, distributing bows and smiles as he passed through the streets full of the fever born by rumour and tittle-tattle? And all at once Marc saw Father Crabot stop at the sight of Mauraisin and offer the latter his hand with charming cordiality. Their conversation was not a long one; it consisted, no doubt, of the usual commonplaces, but they seemed to be on excellent terms, as if indeed they discreetly understood each other. When the Elementary Inspector quitted the Jesuit, he drew his little figure erect, evidently feeling very proud of that handshake, which had inspired him with an opinion, a resolution, which perhaps he had hitherto hesitated to form. But Father Crabot, going his way, also caught sight of Marc, and recognising him, from having seen him at Madame Duparque's, where he occasionally condescended to call, made a great show of doffing his hat by way of salutation. The young man, who stood on the kerb of the footway, was compelled to respond by a similar act of politeness, and then watched the Jesuit as the latter, filling the streets with the sweep of his cassock, betook himself through Maillebois, which felt very honoured, flattered, and subjugated by his presence.

Marc, for his part, slowly resumed his walk towards the school. The current of his thoughts had changed, he was growing gloomy again, as if he were returning to some contaminated spot where slow poison had diffused hostility. The houses did not seem to be the same as on the previous day; and, in particular, the faces of the people appeared to have changed. Thus, when he reached Simon's rooms, he was quite surprised to find his friend quietly sorting some papers in the midst of his family. Rachel was seated near the window, the two children were playing in a corner, and if it had not been for the sadness of the parents one would have thought that nothing unusual had occurred in the house.

Simon, however, stepped forward and pressed Marc's hands with keen emotion, like one who felt how friendly and bravely sympathetic was the visit. The perquisition early that morning was at once spoken of.

'Have the police been here?' Marc inquired.

'Yes, it was quite natural they should come: I expected it. Of course they found nothing, and went off with empty hands.'

Marc restrained a gesture of astonishment. What had Pélagie told him? Why had people spread rumours of crushing proofs, of the discovery among other things of copy-slips identical with the one found in the room of the crime? Were lies being told then?

'And you see,' Simon continued, 'I am setting my papers in order, for they mixed them up. What a frightful affair, my friend! We no longer know if we exist.'

Then he mentioned that the post-mortem examination of Zéphirin's remains was to take place that very day. Indeed, they were then expecting the medical officer of the Public Prosecution service. But doubtless it would only be possible to bury the body on the morrow.

'For my part,' Simon added, 'as you will well understand, I seem to be living in a nightmare. I ask myself if such a catastrophe is possible. I have been thinking of nothing else since yesterday morning; I am always beginning the same story afresh, my return on foot, so late but in great quietude, my arrival at the house which was fast asleep, and then that frightful awakening in the morning.'

These remarks gave Marc an opportunity to ask a few questions. 'Did you meet nobody on the road?' he inquired. 'Did nobody see you arrive here at the hour you named?'

'Why, no! I met nobody, and I think nobody saw me come in. At that late hour nobody is about in Maillebois.'

Silence fell. Then Marc resumed: 'But as you did not take the train back you did not use your return ticket. Have you still got it?'

'My return ticket? No! I was so furious when I saw the half-past ten o'clock train going off without me, that I threw the ticket away, in the station yard, directly I decided to return on foot.'

Silence fell again, and Simon gazed fixedly at his friend, saying: 'Why do you put these questions to me?'

Marc affectionately grasped his hands once more, and retained them for a moment in his own, whilst resolving to warn him of impending danger, indeed to tell him everything. 'I regret,' he said, 'that nobody saw you, and I regret still more that you did not keep your return ticket. There are so many fools and malicious folks about! It is being reported that this morning the police found overwhelming proofs here, copies of the writing-slip, initialled in the same way as the one which formed part of the gag. Mignot, it seems, is astonished that he should have found you so sound asleep yesterday morning; and Mademoiselle Rouzaire now remembers that about a quarter to eleven o'clock on the night of the crime, she heard voices and footsteps, as if somebody were entering the house.'

Very pale but very calm, Simon smiled and shrugged his shoulders: 'Ah! that's it, is it? They are suspecting me. Well, I now understand the expressions I have seen on the faces of the folk who have been passing the school since early this morning! Mignot, who is a good fellow at heart, will of course say as everybody else says, for fear of compromising himself with a Jew like me. As for Mademoiselle Rouzaire, she will sacrifice me ten times over, if her confessor has suggested it to her, and if she finds a chance of advancement or merely additional consideration in such a fine deed. Ah! they are suspecting me, are they? and the whole pack of clerical hounds has been let loose!'

He almost laughed as he spoke. But Rachel, whose customary indolence seemed to have been increased by her deep grief, had now suddenly risen, her beautiful countenance all aglow with dolorous revolt.

'You, you! They suspect you of such ignominy!' she exclaimed; 'you who were so kind and gentle when you came home, and clasped me in your arms, and spoke such loving words to me! They must be mad! Is it not sufficient that I should speak the truth, tell of your return, and of the night we spent together?'

Then she flung herself upon his neck, weeping and relapsing into the weakness of an adored and caressed woman. Pressing her to his heart her husband strove to reassure and calm her.

'Don't be distressed, my darling! Those stories are idiotic, they stand on nothing. I am quite at ease; the authorities may turn everything here upside down; they may search all my past life, they will find no guilt in it. I have only to speak the truth, and, do you know, nothing can stand against the truth; it is the great, the eternal victor.'

Then, turning to his friend, he added: 'Is it not so, my good Marc? is one not invincible when one has truth on one's side?'

If Marc had not been convinced already of Simon's innocence his last doubts would have fled amid the emotion of that scene. Yielding to an impulse of his heart he embraced both husband and wife, as if giving himself to them entirely, in order to help them in the grave crisis which he foresaw. Desirous as he was of taking immediate action, he again spoke of the copy-slip, for he felt that it was the one important piece of evidence on which the elucidation of the whole affair must be reared. But how puzzling was that crumpled, bitten slip of paper, soiled by saliva, with its initialling or its blot half effaced, and with one of its corners carried away, no doubt, by the victim's teeth! The very words 'Love one another,' lithographed in a fine English round-hand, seemed fraught with a terrible irony. Whence had that slip come? Who had brought it to that room—the boy or his murderer? And how could one ascertain the truth when the Mesdames Milhomme, the neighbouring stationers, sold such slips almost daily?

Simon, for his part, could only repeat that he had never had that particular one in his school. 'All my boys would say so. That copy never entered the school, never passed under their eyes.'

Marc regarded this as valuable information. 'Then they could testify to that effect!' he exclaimed. 'As it is being falsely rumoured that the police found similar copies in your rooms, one must re-establish the truth immediately,—call on your pupils at their homes, and demand their evidence before anybody tries to tamper with their memory. Give me the names of a few of them; I will take the matter in hand, and carry it through this afternoon.'

Simon, strong in the consciousness of his innocence, at first refused to do so. But eventually, among his pupils' parents, he named Bongard, a farmer on the road to La Désirade, Masson Doloir, a workman living in the Rue Plaisir, and Savin, a clerk in the Rue Fauche. Those three would suffice unless Marc should also like to call on the Mesdames Milhomme. Thus everything was settled, and Marc went off to lunch, promising that he would return in the evening to acquaint Simon with the result of his inquiries.

Once outside on the square, however, he again caught sight of handsome Mauraisin. This time the Elementary Inspector was deep in conference with Mademoiselle Rouzaire. He was usually most punctilious and prudent with the schoolmistresses, in consequence of his narrow escape from trouble, a few years previously, in connection with a young assistant-teacher who had shrieked like a little booby when he had simply wished to kiss her. Malicious people said that Mademoiselle Rouzaire did not shriek, although she was so ugly, and that this explained both the favourable reports she secured and her prospects of rapid advancement.

Standing at the gate of her little garden, she was now speaking to Mauraisin with great volubility, making sweeping gestures in the direction of the boys' school; while the Inspector, wagging his head, listened to her attentively. At last they entered the garden together, gently closing the gate behind them. It was evident to Marc that the woman was telling Mauraisin about the crime and the sounds of footsteps and voices which she now declared she had heard. At the thought of this the quiver of the early morning returned to Marc; he again experienced discomfort—a discomfort arising from his hostile surroundings, from the dark, stealthy plot which was brewing, gathering like a storm, rendering the atmosphere more and more oppressive. Singular indeed was the fashion in which that Elementary Inspector went to the help of a threatened master: he began by taking the opinions of all the surrounding folk whom jealousy or hatred inspired!

At two o'clock in the afternoon Marc found himself on the road to La Désirade, just outside Maillebois. Bongard, whose name had been given him by Simon, there owned a little farm of a few fields, which he cultivated himself with difficulty, securing, as he put it, no more than was needed to provide daily bread. Marc luckily met him just as he had returned home with a cartload of hay. He was a strong, square-shouldered, and stoutish man, with round eyes and placid silent face, beardless but seldom fresh shaven. On her side La Bongard, a long bony blonde, who was also present, preparing some mash for her cow, showed an extremely plain countenance, outrageously freckled, with a patch of colour on each cheek-bone, and an expression of close reserve. Both looked suspiciously at the strange gentleman whom they saw entering their yard.

'I am the Jonville schoolmaster,' said Marc. 'You have a little boy who attends the Communal school at Maillebois, have you not?'

At that moment Fernand, the boy in question, who had been playing on the road, ran up. He was a sturdy lad of nine years, fashioned, one might have thought, with a billhook, and showing a low brow and a dull, heavy countenance. He was followed by his sister Angèle, a lass of seven, with a similarly massive but more knowing face, for in her quick eyes one espied some dawning intelligence which was striving to escape from its fleshy prison. She had heard Marc's question, and she cried in a shrill voice: 'I go to Mademoiselle Rouzaire's, I do; Fernand goes to Monsieur Simon's.'

Bongard had sent his children to the Communal schools, first because the teaching cost him nothing, and secondly because, as a matter of mere instinct,—for he had never reasoned the question,—he was not on the side of the priests. He practised no religion, and if La Bongard went to church it was simply from habit and by way of diversion. All that the husband, who was scarce able to read or write, appreciated in his wife, who was still more ignorant than himself, was her powers of endurance, which, similar to those of a beast of burden, enabled her to toil from morn till night without complaining. And the farmer showed little or no anxiety whether his children made progress at school. As a matter of fact little Fernand was industrious and took no end of pains, but could get nothing into his head; whereas little Angèle, who proved yet more painstaking and stubborn, at last seemed likely to become a passable pupil. She was like so much human matter in the rough, lately fashioned of clay, and awaking to intelligence by a slow and dolorous effort.