The exercise yard for this section is enclosed in vast walls across which the sun shines obliquely when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf of spiritual and physical ugliness. It is on these stones that, from dawn onwards, careworn, wild-eyed and wan, like ghosts, those men wander whose necks justice has bent beneath the sharpening blade.
They can be seen crouching, hugging whichever wall holds most warmth. There they remain, talking in pairs, but more often alone, constantly glancing towards the door which opens to call one or other inhabitant forth from this grim place, or to fling into the gulf some new piece of detritus thrown out of the melting pot of society.
St Bernard’s Court has its own visiting-room: a long rectangle, divided in two by two parallel grilles set three feet apart, so that the visitor cannot shake hands with the prisoner or pass him anything. The interview room is dark, dank and in every way repellent, especially when one considers the appalling secrets that have passed between the grilles and rusted the iron bars. But this place, ghastly though it is, is a paradise in which men whose days are numbered come to recall a society that they long for and savour: so rare is it for anyone to emerge from the Lions’ Pit to go anywhere except to the Barrière Saint-Jacques,2 to the penal colony or to the padded cell!
In the courtyard we have just described, dripping with dank humidity, a young man was walking, with his hands in the pockets of his coat – a young man who was looked on by the inhabitants of the pit with a good deal of curiosity.
He would have passed for something of a dandy, thanks to the cut of his clothes, if these clothes had not been in rags. However, they were not worn out: the cloth, fine and silken where it still remained intact, would soon regain its lustre when the prisoner stroked it with his hand, trying to restore his coat.
He applied the same care to holding together a lawn shirt that had considerably faded in colour since he entered the prison, and rubbed his polished boots with the corner of a handkerchief which was embroidered with initials under a heraldic crown.
Some detainees in the Lions’ Pit showed a marked interest in the prisoner’s attention to his dress.
‘Look there: the prince is smartening himself up,’ one of the thieves said.
‘He is naturally very smart-looking,’ another said. ‘If only he had a comb and some pomade, he would outshine all those gentlemen in white gloves.’
‘His coat must have been brand new and his boots have a lovely polish on them. It’s an honour for us to have such respectable colleagues; and the gendarmes are a real bunch of hooligans. What envy! To destroy a set of clothes like that!’
‘They do say he’s a celebrity,’ another added. ‘He’s done the lot, and in style. And he’s come in so young. Oh, it’s marvellous!’
The object of this frightful admiration seemed to be savouring the praise – or the whiff of praise, because he could not hear the words.
His toilet complete, he went over to the window of the canteen against which a warder was leaning. ‘Come, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘Lend me twenty francs. I’ll return them very soon: you need not worry about me. Just think: some of my relatives have more millions than you have farthings. So, a matter of twenty francs, if you please, so that I can get a pistol and buy a dressing-gown. I can’t bear always being in a coat and boots. And what a coat! Monsieur! For Prince Cavalcanti!’
The warder turned his back on him and shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t even laugh at these words, which would have brought a smile to anyone’s lips, because he had heard many variations on the theme; or, rather, the same thing over and over.
‘Very well,’ Andrea said. ‘You are a man without feeling and I shall get you sacked.’
The last remark made the warder turn around, and this time he did respond, with a huge burst of laughter. At that, the other prisoners gathered around.
‘I am telling you,’ Andrea said, ‘that with this paltry sum I could buy myself a coat and dressing-gown, so that I shall be able to receive the illustrious visitor I am expecting, any day now, in an appropriate manner.’
‘He’s right! He’s right!’ the prisoners cried. ‘Damnation! You can see he’s a proper gentleman.’
‘Well, then, you lend him the twenty francs,’ said the warder, shifting his weight to his other, enormous shoulder. ‘Don’t you owe that to a comrade?’
‘I am not the comrade of these people,’ the young man said proudly. ‘Don’t insult me. You have no right to do that.’
The thieves looked at one another, muttering under their breath; and a storm, raised by the warder’s provocation even more than by Andrea’s words, began to rumble around the aristocratic prisoner.
The warder, sure of doing a quos ego3 when the waves began to rise too high, let the storm brew a little to play a trick on the man who had been importuning him and to give himself a little light relief in a tedious day’s work.
The thieves had already come close to Andrea, and some were shouting: ‘The slipper! The slipper!’
This is a cruel game which consists in attacking a colleague who has fallen foul of these gentlemen, not with a slipper, but with a hobnailed boot.
Others suggested the eel: this is a different type of entertainment, consisting in filling a twisted handkerchief with sand, pebbles or coins (when they have any), and beating the victim around the head and shoulders with it.
‘Let’s whip the fine fellow,’ some said. ‘The real gent!’
But Andrea, turning around towards them, winked, put his tongue in his cheek and gave a clicking of the lips that meant a host of things to these bandits, who fell silent. These were masonic signs that Caderousse had shown him, and the hooligans recognized one of their own.
The handkerchiefs dropped at once and the hobnailed slipper went back on the head executioner’s foot. Some voices muttered that the gentleman was right, that he could be honest in his own way and that the prisoners ought to set an example of freedom of thought.
The riot receded. The warder was so amazed that he immediately took Andrea’s hands and began to search him, attributing this sudden change in the inhabitants of the Lions’ Pit to something other than mere hypnotism. Andrea let him, but not without protest.
Suddenly there was a shout from the gates. ‘Benedetto!’ an inspector called. The warder gave up his prey.
‘Someone wants me?’ said Andrea.
‘In the visitors’ room,’ said the voice.
‘You see, someone to visit me. Oh, my dear friend, you’ll soon see if a Cavalcanti is to be treated like an ordinary man!’
Hurrying across the courtyard like a black shadow, Andrea swept through the half-open door, leaving his fellow-prisoners and even the warder looking after him admiringly.
He had indeed been called in to the visitors’ room, and one should not be any less surprised at this than Andrea himself, because the clever young man, since he had first been put in La Force, instead of following the custom of ordinary prisoners and taking advantage of the opportunity to write to have visitors come and see him, had kept the most stoical silence.
‘Obviously,’ he thought, ‘I have some powerful protector. Everything goes to prove it: my sudden fortune, the ease with which I overcame every obstacle, a ready-made family, an illustrious name which was mine to use, the gold showered upon me, the splendid matches offered to satisfy my ambition. My good luck unfortunately failed me and my protector was away, so I was lost, but not entirely, not for ever! The hand was withdrawn for a moment, but it must now reach out to me again and catch me just as I feel myself about to fall into the abyss.
‘Why should I risk doing something unwise? Perhaps I would alienate my protector. There are two ways to get out of this spot: a mysterious escape, expensively paid for, or pressure on the judges to dismiss the case. Let’s wait before speaking or acting, until it is proved that I have been utterly abandoned, then…’
Andrea had worked out a plan which some might consider clever; the rascal was bold in attack and tough in defence. He had put up
with the wretchedness of prison and every form of deprivation. But, little by little, nature (or, rather, habit) regained the upper hand. He was suffering from being naked, dirty and hungry, and time was hanging heavy on his hands. It was when he had reached this point of boredom that the inspector called him to the visitors’ room.
Andrea felt his heart leap with joy. It was too early for a visit from the investigating magistrate and too late for a call from the prison director or the doctor. It must therefore be the visit he was expecting.
He was introduced into the visiting-room. There, behind the grille, his eyes wide with hungry curiosity, he saw the dark and intelligent face of M. Bertuccio, who was also looking, though with painful astonishment, at the iron bars, the bolted doors and the shadow moving behind the iron lattice.
‘Ah!’ Andrea exclaimed, deeply touched.
‘Good day, Benedetto,’ Bertuccio said, in his resounding, hollow voice.
‘You!’ the young man exclaimed, looking around in terror. ‘You!’
‘You don’t recognize me,’ said Bertuccio. ‘Wretched child!’
‘Be quiet!’ said Andrea, knowing that these walls had very sharp ears. ‘Do be quiet! My God, don’t talk so loudly!’
‘You would like to speak to me, wouldn’t you?’ said Bertuccio. ‘A tête-à-tête?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ said Andrea.
‘Very well.’ After feeling around in his pocket, Bertuccio motioned to a warder who could be seen in his box behind a glass screen. ‘Read this,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ Andrea asked.
‘An order to take you into a room, to leave you there, and to let me converse with you.’
‘Oh!’ Andrea said, leaping for joy. And immediately, in his inner thoughts, he told himself: ‘Once more, my unknown protector! I have not been forgotten! He is trying to keep it quiet because we are to talk alone in a room. I’ve got them! Bertuccio has been sent by my protector.’
The warder briefly consulted his superior, then opened the two barred doors and led Andrea, beside himself with joy, to a room on the first floor with a view over the courtyard.
The room was whitewashed, as prison rooms usually are. It had a pleasant appearance, which seemed delightful to the prisoner: a stove, a bed, a chair and a table made up its luxurious furnishings.
Bertuccio sat down on the chair; Andrea threw himself on the bed. The warder left the room.
‘Now, then,’ said the steward. ‘What have you to say to me?’
‘And you?’
‘You speak first…’
‘Oh, no. You have a lot to tell me, since you came to find me.’
‘Very well. You have continued to pursue your criminal career: you have stolen, you have committed murder…’
‘Pooh! If it was to tell me that that you had me brought to a private room, you might have saved yourself some time. I know all those things; but there are others that I do not know. Let’s start with those, if you don’t mind. Who sent you?’
‘Oh! You’re going very fast, Monsieur Benedetto.’
‘I am, and straight to the point. Let’s not waste words. Who sent you?’
‘No one.’
‘How did you know that I was in prison?’
‘I recognized you a long time ago in the insolent dandy who was so elegantly driving his horse down the Champs-Elysées.’
‘The Champs-Elysées! Ah, we’re getting warm, as they say in hunt the slipper. The Champs-Elysées… So, let’s talk about my father, shall we?’
‘Who am I, then?’
‘You, my good sir, are my adoptive father. But I don’t suppose it was you who put at my disposal some hundred thousand francs, which I spent in four or five months. I don’t suppose it was you who forged an Italian father for me – and a nobleman. I don’t suppose you were the one who introduced me to society and invited me to a certain dinner, which I can still taste, in Auteuil, with the best company in Paris, including a certain crown prosecutor whose acquaintance I was mistaken not to cultivate; he could be useful to me at this moment. In short, you are not the one who stood guarantor for me for two million when I suffered the fatal accident of the revelation of the truth. Come, my fine Corsican, say something…’
‘What can I say?’
‘I’ll help you. You were talking about the Champs-Elysées just now, my dear adoptive father.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, in the Champs-Elysées lives a rich, a very rich man.’
‘You committed burglary and murder at his house?’
‘I do believe I did.’
‘The Count of Monte Cristo?’
‘You were the one who mentioned him, as Monsieur Racine says.4 Well, should I throw myself into his arms, press him to my heart and cry: “Father, father!!” as Monsieur Pixérécourt does?’
‘Don’t joke,’ Bertuccio answered. ‘Such a name should not be spoken here in the tone in which you dare to speak it.’
‘Huh!’ said Andrea, a little stunned by the gravity of Bertuccio’s demeanour. ‘Why not?’
‘Because the man who bears that name is too favoured by heaven to be the father of a wretch like yourself.’
‘Fine words!’
‘With fine consequences, if you are not careful.’
‘Threats! I’m not afraid of them… I’ll say…’
‘Do you imagine you are dealing with pygmies like yourself?’ Bertuccio said, so calmly and with such a confident look that Andrea was shaken to the core. ‘Do you imagine you are dealing with one of your ordinary convicts or your weak-minded society gulls? Benedetto, you are in dreadful hands. These hands are ready to open for you: take advantage of it. But don’t play with the lightning that they may put down for a moment but will pick up again if you try to hamper their freedom of movement.’
‘My father! I want to know who my father is,’ Andrea said obstinately. ‘I’ll die in the attempt if I must, but I will find out. What does a scandal mean to me? Good, reputation, “publicity”, as Beauchamp the journalist says. But the rest of you, who belong to society, always have something to lose by scandal, for all your millions and your coats of arms… So, who is my father?’
‘I have come to tell you.’
‘Ah!’ Benedetto cried, his eyes shining.
At that moment the door opened and the keeper said to Bertuccio: ‘Excuse me, Monsieur, but the investigating magistrate is waiting for the prisoner.’
‘That’s the end of the enquiry into my case,’ Andrea told the good steward. ‘Damn him for disturbing us.’
‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ said Bertuccio.
‘Very well,’ Andrea replied. ‘Gentlemen of the watch, I am all yours. Oh, my good sir, please leave the guard ten écus or so, for them to give me what I need in here.’
‘It will be done,’ Bertuccio replied.
Andrea offered his hand. Bertuccio kept his in his pocket and merely jingled a few coins with it.
‘That’s what I meant,’ Andrea said, forcing a smile, but in fact quite overwhelmed by Bertuccio’s calm manner.
‘Could I have been wrong?’ he wondered, getting into the oblong vehicle with its barred windows, which is called the Black Maria. ‘We’ll see! So, until tomorrow,’ he added, turning to Bertuccio.
‘Until tomorrow!’ said the steward.
CVIII
THE JUDGE
It will be recalled that Abbé Busoni had remained alone with Noirtier in the funerary chamber and that it was the old man and the priest who had taken on the task of watching over the young girl’s body.
Perhaps the abbé’s Christian exhortations, or his gentle charity, or his winning words had restored the old man’s courage because, as soon as he had the opportunity to confer with the priest, instead of the despair that had at first overwhelmed him, everything in Noirtier spoke of great resignation; and this calm was all the more surprising to those who remembered the deep affection that he felt for Valentine.
M. de Villefort had not seen the old man sinc
e the morning of her death. The whole household had been renewed: another valet was hired for himself, another servant for Noirtier; two women had come into Mme de Villefort’s service; and all of them, right down to the concierge and the chauffeur, provided new faces which had, so to speak, risen up between the different masters in this accursed household and interposed themselves in the already quite cold relationships between them. In any case, the assizes opened in three days and Villefort, shut up in his study, was feverishly working on the indictment against Caderousse’s murderer. This affair, like all those in which the Count of Monte Cristo was involved, had caused a great stir in Paris. The evidence was not conclusive, since it relied on a few words written by a dying convict, a former fellow-inmate of the man he was accusing, who might be acting out of hatred or for revenge. The magistrate was morally certain, but nothing more. The crown prosecutor had eventually succeeded in acquiring for himself the dreadful certainty that Benedetto was guilty, and this difficult victory was to reward him with one of those satisfactions to his vanity which were the only pleasures that still touched the fibres of his icy heart.
So the trial opened, thanks to Villefort’s unending work. He wanted to make it the first case to be heard at the next assizes, so he had been obliged to hide himself away even more than usual in order to avoid answering the huge number of demands for tickets to the hearing that were addressed to him.
Moreover, so little time had passed since poor Valentine had been laid to rest. The family’s grief was still so recent that no one was surprised to see the father so totally absorbed in his duties, that is to say in the only thing that might take his mind off his sorrow.
Only once, the day after Benedetto had received a second visit from Bertuccio, the one when he was to tell him the name of his father, in fact the day after that, which was Sunday – only once, as we say, did Villefort notice his father. This was at a moment when the magistrate, overcome with tiredness, had gone down into the garden of his house and, dark, bent beneath some implacable thought, like Tarquin1 cutting the heads off the tallest poppies with his cane, M. de Villefort was knocking down the long, dying stems of the hollyhocks that rose on either side of the path like the ghosts of those flowers that had been so brilliant in the season that had just passed away.