THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF WILKIE COLLINS. Уилки КоллинзЧитать онлайн книгу.
said he. “Is there anybody in court,” he added, looking at the persons behind his chair, “who knows where the mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant are now?”
Lomaque came forward at the appeal, and placed himself by the table.
“Why, citizen agent!” continued the president, looking hard at him, “are you overcome by the heat, too?”
“The fit seemed to take him, citizen president, when the female prisoner had made an end of her statement,” exclaimed Magloire, pressing forward officiously.
Lomaque gave his subordinate a look which sent the man back directly to the shelter of the official group; then said, in lower tones than were customary with him:
“I have received information relative to the mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant, and am ready to answer any questions that may be put to me.”
“Where are they now?” asked the president.
“She and the servant are known to have crossed the frontier, and are supposed to be on their way to Cologne. But, since they have entered Germany, their whereabouts is necessarily a matter of uncertainty to the republican authorities.”
“Have you any information relative to the conduct of the old servant while he was in Paris?”
“I have information enough to prove that he was not an object for political suspicion. He seems to have been simply animated by servile zeal for the woman’s interests; to have performed for her all the menial offices of a servant in private; and to have misled the neighbours by affected equality with her in public.”
“Have you any reason to believe that Superintendent Danville was privy to his mother’s first attempt at escaping from France?”
“I infer it from what the female prisoner has said, and for other reasons which it would be irregular to detail before the tribunal. The proofs can no doubt be obtained if I am allowed time to communicate with the authorities at Lyons and Marseilles.”
At this moment Danville reentered the court; and, advancing to the table, placed himself close by the chief agent’s side. They looked each other steadily in the face for an instant.
“He has recovered from the shock of Trudaine’s answer,” thought Lomaque, retiring. “His hand trembles, his face is pale, but I can see regained self-possession in his eye, and I dread the consequences already.”
“Citizen president,” began Danville, “I demand to know if anything has transpired affecting my honour and patriotism in my absence?”
He spoke apparently with the most perfect calmness, but he looked nobody in the face. His eyes were fixed steadily on the green baize of the table beneath him.
“The female prisoner has made a statement, referring principally to herself and her brother,” answered the president, “but incidentally mentioning a previous attempt on your mother’s part to break existing laws by emigrating from France. This portion of the confession contains in it some elements of suspicion which seriously affect you — ”
“They shall be suspicions no longer — at my own peril I will change them to certainties!” exclaimed Danville, extending his arm theatrically, and looking up for the first time. “Citizen president, I avow it with the fearless frankness of a good patriot; I was privy to my mother’s first attempt at escaping from France.”
Hisses and cries of execration followed this confession. He winced under them at first; but recovered his self-possession before silence was restored.
“Citizens, you have heard the confession of my fault,” he resumed, turning with desperate assurance toward the audience; “now hear the atonement I have made for it at the altar of my country.”
He waited at the end of that sentence, until the secretary to the tribunal had done writing it down in the report book of the court.
“Transcribe faithfully to the letter!” cried Danville, pointing solemnly to the open page of the volume. “Life and death hang on my words.”
The secretary took a fresh dip of ink, and nodded to show that he was ready. Danville went on:
“In these times of glory and trial for France,” he proceeded, pitching his voice to a tone of deep emotion, “what are all good citizens most sacredly bound to do? To immolate their dearest private affections and interests before their public duties! On the first attempt of my mother to violate the laws against emigration, by escaping from France, I failed in making the heroic sacrifice which inexorable patriotism demanded of me. My situation was more terrible than the situation of Brutus sitting in judgment on his own sons. I had not the Roman fortitude to rise equal to it. I erred, citizens — erred as Coriolanus did, when his august mother pleaded with him for the safety of Rome! For that error I deserved to be purged out of the republican community; but I escaped my merited punishment — nay, I even rose to the honour of holding an office under the Government. Time passed; and again my mother attempted an escape from France. Again, inevitable fate brought my civic virtue to the test. How did I meet this second supremest trial? By an atonement for past weakness, terrible as the trial itself. Citizens, you will shudder; but you will applaud while you tremble. Citizens, look! and while you look, remember well the evidence given at the opening of this case. Yonder stands the enemy of his country, who intrigued to help my mother to escape; here stands the patriot son, whose voice was the first, the only voice, to denounce him for the crime!” As he spoke, he pointed to Trudaine, then struck himself on the breast, then folded his arms, and looked sternly at the benches occupied by the spectators.
“Do you assert,” exclaimed the president, “that at the time when you denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your mother’s escape?”
“I assert it,” answered Danville.
The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that reply; his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank silence.
A murmur of “Monster! monster!” began with the prisoners on the platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and echoed it again; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches joined cause at last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the platform. Even in that sphere of direst discords, in that age of sharpest enmities, the one touch of Nature preserved its old eternal virtue, and roused the mother-instinct which makes the whole world kin.
Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of Danville’s answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners’ platform.
“They are lost,” he murmured to himself, moving out of the group in which he had hitherto stood. “Lost! The lie which has saved that villain’s head leaves them without the shadow of a hope. No need to stop for the sentence — Danville’s infamous presence of mind has given them up to the guillotine!” Pronouncing these words, he went out hurriedly by a door near the platform, which led to the prisoners’ waiting-room.
Rose’s head sank again on her brother’s shoulder. She shuddered, and leaned back faintly on the arm which he extended to support her. One of the female prisoners tried to help Trudaine in speaking consolingly to her; but the consummation of her husband’s perfidy seemed to have paralyzed her at heart. She murmured once in her brother’s ear, “Louis! I am resigned to die — nothing but death is left for me after the degradation of having loved that man.” She said those words and closed her eyes wearily, and spoke no more.
“One other question, and you may retire,” resumed the president, addressing Danville. “Were you cognizant of your wife’s connection with her brother’s conspiracy?”
Danville reflected for a moment, remembered that there were witnesses in court who could speak to his language and behavior on the evening of his wife’s arrest, and resolved this time to tell the truth.
“I was not aware of it,” he answered. “Testimony in my favor can be called which will prove that when my wife’s