Memoirs of a Physician (43 page)

f Come, come ! enough of this, Dame Grivette.”

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” Ah ! I thought that you suspected me when you went out.”

” I have suspected you ever since the top of my cane disappeared.”

“Well, Monsieur Marat, I will tell you something, in my turn.”

“What will you tell me?”

” While you were away I have consulted my neighbors.”

” Your neighbors ! For what purpose ? “

” Respecting your suspicions.”

” I had said nothing of them to you at the time.”

” But I saw them plainly.”

” And the neighbors ? I am curious to know what they said.”

” They said that if you suspect me, and have even gone so far as to impart your suspicions to another person, you must pursue the affair to the end.”

“Well?”

” That is to say, you must prove that the watch has been taken.”

”” It has been taken, since it was there, and is now gone.”

” Yes ; but taken by me taken by me ; do you understand ? Oh, justice requires proofs ; your word will not be sufficient, Monsieur Marat; you are no more than ourselves, Monsieur Marat.”

Balsamo, calm as ever, looked on during this scene. He saw that though Marat’s conviction was not altered, he had, nevertheless, lowered his tone.

” Therefore,” continued the portress, ” if you do not render justice to my probity if you do not make some reparation to my character it is I who will send for the police, as our landlord just now advised me to do.”

Marat bit his lips. He knew there was a real danger in this. The landlord was an old, rich, retired merchant. He lived on the third story; and the scandal-mongers of the quarter did not hesitate to assert that, some ten years before, he had not been indifferent to the charms of the portress, who was then kitchen-maid to his wife.

Xow, Marat attended mysterious meetings. Marat was a young man of not very settled habits, besides being ad-

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dieted to concealment and suspected by the police; and, for all these reasons, he was not anxious to have an affair with the commissary, seeing that it might tend to place him in the hands of M. de Sartines, who liked much to read the papers of young men such as Marat, and to send the authors of such noble writings to houses of meditation, such as Vincennes, the Bastile, Charenton, and Bicetre. V ;

Marat, therefore, lowered his tone; but in proportion as he did so, the portress raised hers. The result was, that this nervous and hysterical woman raged like a flame which suddenly meets with a current of fresh air.

Oaths, cries, tears she employed all in turn; it was a regular tempest.

Then Balsamo judged that the time had come for him to interfere. He advanced toward the woman, and looking at her with an ominous and fiery glance, he stretched two fingers toward her, uttering, not so much with his lips as with his eyes, his thought, his whole will, a word which Marat could not hear.

Immediately Dame Grivette became silent, tottered, and, losing her equilibrium, staggered backward, her eyes fearfully dilated, and fell upon the bed without uttering a word.

After a short interval, her eyes closed and opened again, but this time the pupil could not be seen ; her tongue moved convulsively, but her body was perfectly motionless, and yet her hands trembled as if shaken by fever*

” Ha ! ” said Marat, ” like the wounded man in the hospital.”

” Yes.”

” Then she is asleep ? “

” Silence ! ” said Balsamo.

Then addressing Marat:

” Sir,” said he, ” the moment has now come when all your incredulity must cease. Pick up that letter which this woman was bringing you, and which she dropped when she fell.”

Marat obeyed.

“Well?” he asked.

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” Wait.”

And taking the letter from Marat’s hands :

” You know from whom this letter comes ? ” asked Bal-eamo of the somnambulist.

” Xo, sir,” she replied.

Balsamo held the sealed letter close to the woman.

” Read it to Monsieur Marat, who wishes to know the contents.”

” She cannot read,” said Marat.

” Yes, but you can read ? “

” Of course.”

” Well, read it, and she will read it after you in proportion as the words are engraven upon your mind.”

Marat broke the seal of the letter and read it, while Dame Grivette, standing, and trembling beneath the all-powerful will of Balsamo, repeated word for word, as Marat read them to himself, the following words:

” MY DEAR HIPPOCRATES, Appelles has just finished his portrait ; he has sold it for fifty francs, and those fifty francs are to be eaten to-day at the tavern in the Rue St. Jacques. Will you come ?

” P.S. It is understood that part is to be drunk.

” Your friend, L. DAVID.”

It was word for word what was written.

Marat let the paper fall from his hand.

“Well,” said Balsamo, “you see that Dame Grivette also has a soul, and that this soul wakes while she sleeps.”

” And a strange soul,” said Marat ; ” a soul which can read when the body cannot.”

“Because the soul knows everything because the soul can reproduce by reflection. Try to make her read this when she is awake that is to say, when the body has wrapped the soul in its shadow and you will see.”

Marat was dumb; his whole material philosophy rebelled within him, but he could not find a reply.

” Now,” continued Balsamo, ” we shall pass on to what interests you most : that is to say, as to what has become of

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your watch. Dame Grivette,” said he, turning to her ” who has taken Monsieur Marat’s watch ? “

The somnambulist made a violent gesture of denial.

” I do not know ‘ said she.

” You know perfectly well ‘ persisted Balsamo, ” and you shall tell me.”

Then, with more decided exertion of his will:

” Who has taken Monsieur Marat’s watch speak ? “

” Dame Grivette has not stolen Monsieur Marat’s watch. Why does Monsieur Marat believe she has ? “

” If it is not she who has taken it, tell me who has ? “

” I do not know.”

” You see,” said Marat, ” conscience is an impenetrable refuge.”

” Well, since you have only this last doubt,” said Balsamo, “you shall be convinced.”

Then turning again to the portress:

” Tell me who took the watch ; I insist upon it.”

“Come, come,” said Marat, ” do not ask an impossibility.”

” You heard ? ” said Balsamo. ” I have said you must tell it.”

Then, beneath the pressure of this imperious command, the unhappy woman began to wring her hands and arms as if she were mad; a shudder like that of an epileptic fit ran through her whole body; her mouth was distorted with a hideous expression of terror and weakness; she threw herself back rigid, as if she were in a painful convulsion, and fell upon the bed.

” No, no,” said she ; ” I would rather die ! “

” Well,” said Balsamo, with a burst of anger which made the fire flash from his eyes, “you shall die if necessary, but you shall speak. Your silence and your obstinacy are sufficient indications for us; but for an incredulous person we must have irrefragable proofs. Speak ! I will it ; who has taken the watch ? “

The nervous excitement was at its height ; all the strength and power of the somnambulist struggled against Balsamo’s will; inarticulate cries escaped from her lips, which were stained with a reddish foam.

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” She will fall into an epileptic fit,” said Marat.

” Fear nothing ; it is the demon of falsehood who is in her, and who refuses to come out.”

Then, turning toward the woman, and throwing in her face as much fluid as his hands could contain:

” Speak ‘ said he ; ” who has taken the watch ? “

“Dame Grivette,” replied the somnambulist, in an al-most inaudible voice.

“When did she take it?”

” Yesterday evening.”

“Where was it?”

” Underneath the candlestick.”

” What has she done with it ? “

” She has taken it to the Rue St. Jacques.”

” Where in the Eue St. Jacques ? “

” To No. 29.”

“Which story?”

” The fifth.”

” To whom did she give it ? “

” To a shoemaker’s apprentice.”

” What is his name ? “

” Simon.”

” What is this man to her ? “

The woman was silent.

” What is this man to her? “

The somnambulist was again silent.

” What is this man to her ? ” repeated Balsamo.

The same silence.

Balsamo extended toward her his hand, impregnated with the fluid, and the unfortunate woman, overwhelmed by this terrible attack, had only strength to murmur: . ” Her lover.”

Marat uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

” Silence ! ” said Balsamo ; ” allow consicence to speak.”

Then, continuing to address the woman, who was trembling all over, and bathed in perspiration:

“And who advised Dame Grivette to steal the watch?” asked he.

” Xo one. She raised the candlestick by accident, she saw the watch, and the demon tempted her.”

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” Did she do it from want ? “

” No ; for she did not sell the watch.”

“She gave it away, then?”

” Yes.”

” To Simon ? “

The somnambulist made a violent effort.

” To Simon ‘ said she.

Then she covered her face with her hands, and burst into a flood of tears.

Balsamo glanced at Marat, who, with gaping mouth, disordered hair, and dilated eyes, was gazing at the fearful spectacle.

” Well, sir,” said he, ” you see, at last, the struggle between the body and the soul. You see conscience forced to yield, even in a redoubt which it had believed impregnable. Do you confess now that God has forgotten nothing in this world, and that all is in everything ? Then deny no longer that there is a conscience deny no longer that there is a soul deny no longer the unknown, young man ! Above all, do not deny faith, which is power supreme; and since you are ambitious, Monsieur Marat, study; speak little, think much, and do not judge your superiors lightly. Adieu; my words have opened a vast field before you ; cultivate this field, which contains hidden treasures. Adieu ! Happy will you be if you can conquer the demon of incredulity which is in you, as I have conquered the demon of falsehood which was in this woman.”

And with these words, which caused the blush of shame to tinge the young man’s cheeks, he left the room.

Marat did not even think of taking leave of him. But after his first stupor was over, he perceived that Dame Grivette was still sleeping. This sleep struck terror to his soul. Marat would rather have seen a corpse upon his bed, even if M. de Sartines should interpret the fact after his own fashion.

He gazed on this lifeless form, these turned-up eyes, these palpitations, and ‘he felt afraid. His fear increased when the living corpse rose, advanced toward him, took his hand, and said:

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‘Come with me, Monsieur Marat.”

‘Where to?”

‘To the Rue St. Jacques.”

‘Why?”

‘ Come, come ; he commands me to take you.”

Marat, who had fallen upon a chair, rose.

Then Dame Grivette, still asleep, opened the door and descended the stairs with the stealthy pace of a cat, scarcely touching the steps.

Marat followed, fearing every moment that she would fall, and, in falling, break her neck.

Having reached the foot of the stairs, she crossed the threshold, and entered the street, still followed by the young man, whom she led in this manner to the house and the garret she had pointed out.

She knocked at the door; Marat felt his heart beat so violently that he thought it must be audible.

A man was in the garret; he opened the door. In this man Marat recognized a workman of from five-and- twenty to thirty years of age, whom he had several times seen in the porter’s lodge.

Seeing Dame Grivette followed bv Marat, he started back.

But the somnambulist walked straight to the bed, and putting her hand under the thin bolster, she drew out the watch, which she gave to Marat ; while the shoemaker Simon, pale with terror, dared not utter a word, and watched with alarmed gaze the least movement of the woman, whom he believed to be mad.

Scarcely had her hand touched Marat’s, in returning him the watch, than she gave a deep sigh and murmured:

” He awakes me ! He awakes me ! “

Her nerves relaxed like a cable freed from the capstan, the vital spark again animated her eyes, and finding herself face to face with Marat, her hand in his, and still holding the watch that is to say, the irrefragable proof of her crime she fell upon the floor of the garret in a deep swoon.

” Does conscience really exist, then ? ” asked Marat of himself, as he left the room, doubt in his heart and reverie in his eyes.

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THE MAN AND HIS WORKS.

WHILE Marat was employing his time so profitably in philosophizing on conscience and a dual existence, another philosopher in the Rue Plastriere was also busy in reconstructing, piece by piece, every part of the preceding evening’s adventures, and asking himself if he were or were not a very wicked man. Rousseau, with his elbows leaning upon the table, and his head drooping heavily on his left shoulder, was deep in thought.

His philosophical and political works, ” Emilius ” and the ” Social Contract,” were lying open before him.

From time to time, when his reflections required it, he stooped down to turn over the leaves of these books, which he knew by heart.

” Ah ! good heavens ! ” said he, reading a paragraph from ” Emilius ” upon liberty of conscience, ” what incendiary expressions ! What philosophy ! Just Heaven ! was there ever in the world a firebrand like me? “

” What ! ” added he, clasping his hands above his head, ” have I written such violent outbursts against the throne the altar of society? I can no longer be surprised if some dark and brooding minds have outstripped my sophisms, and have gone astray in the paths which I have strewn for them with all the flowers of rhetoric. I have acted as the disturber of society.”