II.THE GRESLON AFFAIR.
THE celebrated philosopher was in everything methodically punctual. Among the maxims which he had adopted at the beginning, in imitation of Descartes, was this: “Order enfranchises the mind.”
He arrived, therefore, at the Palais de Justice five minutes before the time appointed. He had to wait a half-hour in the corridor before the judge called him. In this long passage, with its long, bare, white walls, and furnished with a few chairs and tables for the use of the messengers, all voices were lowered, as is usual in all official antechambers.
There were six or seven other persons. The savants companions were an honest bourgeois and his wife, some shopkeepers of the neighborhood who were very much out of their element. The sight of this person, with his smoothly-shaven face, his eyes hidden behind the dark, round glasses of his spectacles, with his long redingote and his inexplicable physiognomy made these people so uneasy that they left the place where they were whispering together:
“He is a detective,” whispered the husband to his wife.
“Do you think so?” asked the woman regarding the enigmatic and immovable figure in terror. “Dieu! but he has a false look!”
While this profoundly comic scene was being acted, without the professional observer of the human heart suspecting for a moment the effect he was producing, nor even noticing that there was any one beside him awaiting audience, the Judge of Instruction was talking with a friend in a small room adjoining his office.
Adorned with the autographs and portraits of some famous criminals, this apartment served M. Valette for toilet-room, smoking-room, and also a place of retreat when he wished to chat out of the inevitable presence of his clerk.
The judge was a man less than forty years of age, with a handsome profile, clothes cut in the latest fashion and with rings on his fingers, in fact, a magistrate of the new school. He held in his hand the paper on which the savant had written his name in a clear, running hand and passed it to his friend, a simple man of leisure, with one of those physiognomies at once nervous and expressionless which are only seen in Paris. Would you try to read their tastes, habits, or character? It is impossible, so manifold and contradictory are the sensations which have passed over the countenance. Thisviveurwas one of those men who are always present at first representations, who visit painters’ studios, who attend sensational trials, and who pride themselves on beingau courantwith the affairs of the day, “in the swim,” as they say to-day.
After reading the name of Adrien Sixte, he exclaimed:
“Well, old fellow, have you the chance of talking with that man! You remember his chapter on love in some old book or other. Ah! he’s a lascar who knows all about the women. But what the devil are you going to question him about?”
“About this Greslon case,” replied the judge; “the young man has often been to his house, and the defense has summoned him as witness for the prisoner. A commission of examination has been issued, nothing more.”
“I wish I could see him,” said the other.
“Would it give you pleasure? Nothing easier. I am going to have him called. You will go out as he comes in. Well, it is settled that we will meet at Durand’s at eight o’clock, is it? Will Gladys be there?”
“Of course. Do you know Gladys’ latest?” We were reproaching Christine in her presence for deceiving Jacques, when she said:
“But she must have two lovers, for she spends in one year twice what each one gives her!”
“Faith,” said Valette, “I believe that she surpasses, in the philosophy of love, all the Sixtes in the world and in the demi-world too.”
The two friends laughed gayly, then the judge gave the order to call the philosopher. The curious one, while shaking hands with Vilette and saying: “Good-by till evening, precisely at eight o’clock,” winked his eye behind his single eyeglass in order the better to unmask the illustrious writer whom he knew from having read the piquant extracts from the “Theory of the Passions,” in the newspapers.
The appearance of the good man, at once timid and eccentric, who entered the judge’s office with the most visible embarrassment, contradicted so plainly the idea of the biting misanthrope, cruel and disillusioned, who was outlined in their imagination, that the man-about-town and the magistrate exchanged a look of astonishment. A smile came irresistibly to their lips, but only for a moment. The friend was already gone. The other motioned to the witness to take a seat in one of the green velvet arm chairs with which the room was furnished, a luxury completed, in the administrative manner, by a green moquette carpet and a mahogany writing desk. The face of the judge had resumed its gravity.
These changes from one attitude to another are much more sincere than those imagine who observe these contrasts of bearing between the private man and the functionary. The perfect social comedian, who holds his profession in perfect contempt, is happily a very rare monster. We have not this strength of scepticism in the service of our hypocrisies. The witty M. Valette, so popular in the demi-monde, the friend of sporting men, emulated by journalists in witticisms, and who had just now commented gayly upon the remark of a bold woman with whom he should dine in the evening, found no trouble to give place to the severe and coolly skillful magistrate whose business it was to find out the truth in the name of the law. If his eye became suddenly acute it was that he might penetrate to the bottom of the consciousness of the newcomer.
In these first moments of conversation with one whom it is their purpose to make talk, even against his own will, born magistrates experience a kind of awakening of their militant nature, like fencers who try the play of an unknown adversary.
The philosopher found that his presentiments had not deceived him, for he saw, written in large letters on the bundle of papers which M. Valette took up these words: “Greslon Case.”
Silence reigned in the room broken only by the rustling of paperand the scratching of the clerk’s pen. This person was preparing to take down the interrogatory with that impersonal indifference which distinguishes men accustomed to play the part of machine in the drama of judicial life. One case to them is as much like another as one death is like another to an employee of an undertaker, or one invalid like another to a hospital attendant.
“I will spare you, monsieur,” said the judge at last, “the usual questions. There are some names and some men of which we are not permitted to be ignorant.”
The philosopher did not even incline his head at this compliment. “Not used to the world,” thought the judge, “this is one of those literary men who think it their duty to despise us,” and then aloud: “I come to the fact which was the motive of the summons addressed to you. You know the crime of which young Greslon is accused?”
“Pardon, monsieur,” interrupted the philosopher, changing the position which he had instinctively taken to listen to the judge, his elbow on the chair, his chin in his hand, and his index finger on his cheek, as in his grand, solitary meditations, “I have not the least idea.”
“It was reported in all the papers with an exactness to which the gentlemen of the press have not accustomed us,” responded the judge,who thought it his duty to reply to the scorn of literature for the robe diagnostic by a little persiflage; and he said to himself: “He is dissimulating—Why? To play sharp? How stupid!”
“Pardon, monsieur,” said the philosopher again, “I never read the papers.”
The judge looked at him keenly and ejaculated an “Ah!” in which there was more irony than astonishment. “Very good,” thought he, “you want to compel me to state the case, wait a little.” There was a certain irritation in his voice as he said:
“Very well, monsieur, I will sum up the accusation in a few words, regretting that you are not better informed of an affair which may very seriously affect your moral if not your legal responsibility.” Here the philosopher raised his head with an anxiety which delighted the judge’s heart. “Caught, my good man,” said he to himself; and aloud: “In any case, you know, monsieur, who Robert Greslon is, and the position which he held in the family of the Marquis Jussat Randon. I have here among these papers copies of several letters which you addressed to him at the château, and which testify that you were—how shall I express it?—the intellectual guide of the accused.” The philosopher again made a motion of the head. “I shall ask you presently to tell me if thisyoung man ever spoke to joy of the domestic life of the family and in what terms. I give you no information probably when I tell you that the family was composed of a father, mother, a son who is a captain of dragoons now in garrison at Lunéville, a second son who was Greslon’s pupil, and a young girl of nineteen, Mlle. Charlotte.”
“The daughter was betrothed to the Baron de Plane, an officer in the same company as her brother. The marriage had been delayed some months for family reasons which have nothing to do with the affair. It had been definitely fixed for the fifteenth of last December.”
“Now, one morning of the week which preceded the arrival of thefiancéand of Count André, the brother of Mlle. de Jussat, the maid entering the room of her young mistress at the usual hour found her dead in her bed.”
The magistrate made a pause, and while continuing to turn over the papers in his packet, looked with half-closed eyes at the witness. The stupor which was depicted on the face of the philosopher, showed such sincerity that the judge himself was astonished.
“He knew nothing about it,” said he to himself, “that is very strange.”
He studied anew, without changing his preoccupied and indifferent air, the countenance of the celebrated man; but he lacked the gifts whichwould have rendered this abstracted person intelligible, this union of a brain all-powerful in the realm of ideas with an ingenuousness, a timidity almost comical in the domain of facts. He could understand nothing of it, and he resumed his recital.
“Though the physician who was hastily summoned was only a modest, country practitioner, he did not hesitate a minute in recognizing that the appearance of the body contradicted all idea of a natural death. The face was livid, the teeth set, the pupils extraordinarily dilated, and the body, bent in an arch, rested on the nape of the neck and on the heels. In brief, these were the signs of poisoning by strychnine.
“A glass upon the night-table contained the last drops of a potion which Mlle. de Jussat must have taken during the night, as was her custom, for insomnia. She had been suffering for nearly a year from a nervous malady. The doctor analyzed these drops and found traces of nux vomica. This, as you know, is one of the forms in which the terrible poison is sold as medicine. A small bottle without any label, containing some drops of a dark color, was picked up by a gardener under the window of the room. This had been thrown from the window that it might be broken, but it had fallen on the soft earth of a freshlydug flower-bed. These brownish drops were also drops of nux vomica.
“There was no doubt that Mlle. de Jussat had been poisoned. This was demonstrated at the autopsy. “Was it a suicide or a murder? If a suicide, what motive had this young girl, who was soon to be married to a charming man whom she loved, for killing herself? and in such a way, without a word of explanation, without a letter of farewell to her parents! Beside, how had she procured the poison?
“The investigation of this matter put justice on the track of the prisoner. Being questioned, the apothecary of the village deposed that six weeks before the tutor at the château had bought some nux vomica to take for a disorder of the stomach.
“Now the tutor went to Clermont under pretext of visiting his sick mother, on the very day of the discovery of the dead body, having been summoned, as he said, by a telegraphic despatch. It was shown that this telegram had never been received, that on the night of the crime a servant had seen him coming out of Mlle. de Jussat’s room; finally, that the bottle of poison which had been bought at the druggist’s, and was found again in the room of the young man, had been partly emptied and then refilled with water.
“Other witnesses reported that Robert Greslon had been very assiduous in his attentions to the young girl, without the knowledge of herparents. A letter was even discovered which he had written to her and dated eleven months before, but which might be interpreted as a skillful attempt at a beginning of courtship. The servants and even the young lad who was his pupil testified that, for the past eight days, the relations between Mlle. de Jussat and the tutor had been strained. She would scarcely respond to his salutations. From these facts the following hypothesis was deduced:
“Robert Greslon, being in love with this young girl, had courted her in vain and then poisoned her to prevent her marriage with another. This hypothesis was strengthened by the lies of which the young man had been guilty when he was questioned. He denied that he had ever written to Mlle. de Jussat; the letter was shown him, and even half of an envelope, with his handwriting upon it, was found among the remains of burned papers in the fireplace of the victim’s room. He denied going out of Mlle. Charlotte’s room on the night in question, and he was brought face to face with the footman who had seen him, and who supported his assertion with the greater energy that he confessed that he had gone to keep an appointment with one of the maids with whom he was in love, at the same hour.
“Beside, Greslon could not explain why he had bought the nux vomica.
“It was proved that he had never before complained of any stomach trouble. He could neither explain the invention of the dispatch, his sudden departure, nor his frightful agitation at the news of the discovery of the poisoning. Beside, no other motive than a lover’s vengeance was admissible, from the simple fact that the victim’s jewelry and money were not taken and her body bore no mark of violence.
“This is the way it was presumably done: Greslon entered Mlle. de Jussat’s room, knowing that she usually slept until two o’clock, when she awoke to take her potion. He put into this potion enough nux vomica to so overpower the girl that she had only time to replace the glass upon the table, but was unable to call for help. Then, fearing that his emotion would betray him, he went away before the body was discovered.
“The empty bottle which was found on the ground he had thrown from the study window which opened directly above that of Mlle. Charlotte. The other bottle he had refilled with water by one of those unskillful ruses which betray the novice in crime.
“In brief, Greslon is now confined in the jail at Riom and will appear at the assizes of that city, in February, or early in March, accused of poisoning Mlle. de Jussat Randon.
“The charge against him is made more overwhelming by his attitudesince his arrest. He has shut himself up in absolute silence, since his falsehoods were confounded, and refuses to answer any question put to him, simply saying he is innocent and has no need to defend himself. He has refused counsel and is in a state of so profound melancholy that we must believe that he is haunted by a terrible remorse.
“He reads and writes a great deal, but what seems very strange, and shows the strength of the comedy with this young man of twenty, he reads and writes only on subjects of pure philosophy, no doubt to counteract the bad impression made by his gloominess, and also to prove his entire freedom of mind. The nature of the prisoner’s occupations leads me, monsieur, after this prolonged statement, to the reason for which your evidence is desired in this case, by the mother of the young man, who naturally rebels against the evidence, and who is dying of grief, but is unable to overcome her son’s silence. Your books, with those of some English psychologists, are the only ones which the prisoner has asked for. I will add that your books were found on the shelves of his library, in a condition which show that they have been most assiduously read, and between the printed leaves there are other leaves filled with comments, sometimes more developed than the text itself. You shall judge for yourself.”
While speaking M. Valette handed the philosopher a copy of the “Psychology of God,” which the latter opened mechanically. He could see at each printed page a corresponding leaf covered with writing similar to his own, but more confused and nervous.
In the tendency of the lines to fall, a graphologue would have discovered a tendency to easy discouragement. This similarity of writing impressed the philosopher for the first time, and gave him a singularly painful sensation. He closed the book and returning it to the judge said:
“I am painfully surprised, monsieur, at the revelations you have just made to me; but I confess I do not understand what sort of relation exists between this crime and my books or my person, nor what can be the nature of the testimony I can be called upon to give.”
“That is very simple, however,” replied the judge. “However grave the charges against Robert Greslon may be they rest upon certain hypotheses. There are terrible presumptions against him, but there is no absolute certainty. So you see, monsieur, to use the language of the science in which you excel, that a question of psychology will rule the contest. What were the thoughts, what was the character of this young man? It is evident that, if he were much interested in abstract studies the chances of his guilt diminish.”
While making this assertion, in which the savant did not suspect a snare, Valette seemed more and more indifferent. He did not add that one of the arguments of the prosecution, brought forward by the old Marquis de Jussat was that Robert Greslon had been corrupted by his reading. He wished to bring M. Sixte to characterize the principles with which the young man had been impregnated.
“Question me, monsieur,” responded the savant.
“Shall we begin at the beginning?” said the judge. “In what circumstances and at what date did you make the acquaintance of Robert Greslon?”
“Two years ago,” said the savant, “in relation to a work of a purely speculative kind upon human personality, which he came to submit to me.”
“Did you see him often?”
“Twice only.”
“What impression did he make on you?”
“That of a young man admirably endowed for psychological work,” replied the philosopher, weighing his words, so that the judge felt convinced that he wished to see and speak the truth; “so well endowed even that I was almost frightened at his precocity.”
“He did not converse with you about his private life?”
“Very little,” said the philosopher; “he only told me that he livedwith his mother, and that he intended to make teaching his profession and at the same time work at some books.”
“Indeed,” replied the judge, “that was one of the articles laid down in a sort of programme of life which was found among the prisoner’s papers, among those that are left. For it is one of the charges against him that, between his examination and his written attestation, he destroyed the most of them. Could you,” he added, “give any explanation of one sentence of this programme which is very obscure to the profane who are not conversant with modern philosophy? Here is the sentence,” taking a sheet from among the others: “Multiply to the utmost psychological experiences.” “What do you think Robert Greslon understands by that?”
“I am very much puzzled to answer you, monsieur,” said M. Sixte after a silence; but the judge began to see that it was useless to use artifice with a man so simple, and he understood that his silence simply showed that he was seeking an exact expression for his thoughts. “I only know the meaning which I myself should attach to this formula, and probably this young man was too well instructed in works of psychology not to think the same. It is evident that in the other sciences of observation, such as physics or chemistry, the counter-verification ofany law whatever exacts a positive and concrete application of that law. When I have decomposed water, for example, into its elements, I ought to be able, all conditions being equal, to reconstruct water out of these same elements. That is an experience of the most ordinary kind, but which suffices to summarize the method of the modern sciences. To know by an experimental knowledge is to be able to reproduce at will such or such a phenomenon, by reproducing its conditions.”
“Is such a procedure admissible with moral phenomena? I, for my part, believe that it is, and definitely this that we call education is nothing more than a psychological experience more or less well established, since it sums up thus: having given such a phenomenon—which sometimes is called a virtue, such as patience, prudence, sincerity; sometimes an intellectual aptitude, such as a dead or a living language, orthography, calculation—to find the conditions in which this phenomenon produces itself the most easily. But this field is very limited, for if I wished, for instance, the exact conditions of the birth of such passion being once known, to produce at will this passion in a subject, I should immediately come up against insoluble difficulties of law and morals. There will come a time perhaps, when such experiments will be possible.
“My opinion is that, for the present, we psychologists must keep to the experiences established by law and by accident. With memoirs, with works of literature or art, with statistics, with law reports, with notes on forensic medicine, we have a world of facts at our service.
“Robert Greslon had, in fact, discussed thisdesideratumof our science with me. I recollect, he regretted that those condemned to death could not be placed in special conditions, which would permit of experimenting upon them certain moral phenomena. This was simply a hypothetical opinion, of a very young mind, who did not consider that, to work usefully in this order of ideas, it is necessary to study one case for a very long time. It would be best to experiment on children, but how could we make any one believe that it would be useful to science to produce in them certain defects or certain vices for example?”
“Vices!” exclaimed the judge astounded by the tranquillity with which the philosopher pronounced this phrase.
“I speak as a psychologist,” responded the savant who smiled in his turn at the exclamation of the judge; “that is just why, monsieur, our science is not susceptible of certain progress. Your exclamation proves that if I had needed any proof. Society cannot get beyond the theoryof the good and the bad which for us has no other meaning than to mark a collection of conventions sometimes useful, sometimes puerile.”
“You admit, however, that there are good actions and bad actions,” said M. Valette; then the magistrate asserting himself and turning this general discussion to the profit of his inquiry: “This poisoning of Mlle. de Jussat,” he insinuated, “for example, you will admit that this is a crime?”
“From the social point of view, without doubt,” responded M. Sixte. “But for philosophy there is neither crime nor virtue. Our volitions are facts of a certain order governed by certain laws, that is all. But, monsieur,” and here the naïve vanity of the writer showed itself, “you will find a demonstration of these theories, which I venture to think conclusive, in my ‘Anatomy of the Will.’”
“Did you sometimes approach these subjects with Robert Greslon?” asked the judge, “and do you believe that he shared your views?”
“Very probably,” said the philosopher.
“Do you know, monsieur,” asked the magistrate, unmasking his batteries, “that you come very near justifying the accusations of monsieur the Marquis de Jussat, who claims that the doctrines of contemporary materialists have destroyed all moral sense in this young man, andhave made him capable of this murder?”
“I do not know what matter is,” said M. Sixte, “so I am not a materialist. As to throwing upon a doctrine the responsibility of the absurd interpretation which a badly balanced brain gives to it, that is almost as bad as to reproach the chemist who discovered dynamite for the crimes in which this substance is employed. That is an argument which has no force.”
The tone in which the philosopher pronounced these words revealed the invincible strength of spiritual resistance which profound faith gives, as a timidity almost infantile, in the midst of the stir of material life, was revealed in the accent with which he suddenly asked:
“Do you believe that I shall be obliged to go to Riom to testify?”
“I think not, monsieur,” said the judge who could not help noticing with new astonishment the contrast between the firmness of thought in the first part of his discourse and the anxiety with which this last sentence had been uttered, “for I see that your interviews with the prisoner have been more superficial than his mother believed, if indeed they were limited to those two visits and to a correspondence which appears to have been exclusively philosophical. But have you neverreceived any confidences relating to his life with the Jussats?”
“Never; beside he ceased to write to me almost immediately after he entered that family, said M. Sixte.”
“In his last letters was there no trace of new aspirations, of inquietude of a curiosity of unknown sensations?”
“I have not noticed any,” said the philosopher.
“Well, monsieur,” replied M. Valette after a brief silence, during which he studied anew this singular witness, “I will not detain you any longer. Your time is too precious. Permit me to go over the few responses you have made, to my clerk. He is not accustomed to examinations that bear upon matters so elevated. You will sign afterward.”
While the magistrate was dictating to his clerk what he thought would be of interest to justice in the deposition of the savant, the latter, who was evidently confused by the horrible revelation of the crime of Robert Greslon and by his conversation with the judge, listened without making any remarks, almost without comprehending what was being said. He signed his name without looking, after M. Valette had read aloud to him the pages on which his answers were recorded, and once more before taking leave he said:
“Then I can be very sure that I shall not have to go down there?”
“I hope not,” said the judge, conducting him to the door; and he added: “in any case it would only be for a day or two,” feeling a secret pleasure at the childish anguish depicted on the good man’s face. Then when M. Sixte had left his office. “There are some fools that it would be well to shut up,” said he to his clerk, who assented by a nod. “It is through ideas like those of this fellow upon crime that young people are ruined. He seems to be sincere. He would be less dangerous if he were a scoundrel. Do you know that he might easily cut off his disciple’s head with his paradoxes? But that appears to be all right. He is only anxious to know if he will have to go to Riom. What a maniac!” And the judge and his clerk shrugged their shoulders and laughed. Then the former after a reverie of some minutes, in which he went over the various impressions he had received in regard to this being absolutely enigmatical to him, added:
“Faith, little did I ever suspect the famous Adrien Sixte was anything like that. It is inconceivable.”