Conscience Part 39

"I will try and find one."

What he did try to find on leaving was whether or no he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable, for he could not trust to this experience, weakened by the fact that this old friend was a photographer. With him it was a matter of business to note the typical traits that distinguish one face from another, and in a long practice he had acquired an accuracy Madame Dammauville could not possess.

Among the persons he knew, it seemed to him that the one in the best condition to give certainty to the proof was Madame Cormier. He knew at this hour she would be alone, and as she had not been, a.s.suredly, warned by her daughter that he intended to shave, the experiment would be presented in a way to give a result as exact as possible.

In answer to his ring Madame Cormier opened the door, and he saluted her without being recognized; but as the hall was dark this was not of great significance. His hat in his hand, he followed her into the dining-room without speaking, in order that his voice should not betray him.

Then, after she had looked at him a moment, with uneasy surprise at first, she began to smile.

"It is Doctor Saniel!" she cried. "Mon Dieu! How stupid of me not to recognize you; it changes you so much to be shaved! Pardon me."

"It is because I am shaved that I come to ask a favor."

"Of us, my dear sir? Ah! Speak quickly; we should be so happy to prove our grat.i.tude."

"I would ask Mademoiselle Phillis to give me, if she has it, a photograph that I gave her about a year ago."

As Phillis wished the liberty to expose this photograph frankly, in order to have it always before her, she had asked for it, and Saniel had given it to her, in her mother's presence.

"If she has it!" exclaimed Mme. Cormier. "Ah! my dear sir, you do not know the place that all your goodness, and the services that you have rendered us, have made for you in our hearts."

And pa.s.sing into the next room, she brought a small velvet frame in which was the photograph. Saniel took it out, on explaining the study for which he wanted it, and after promising to bring it back soon, he returned to his rooms.

Decidedly, everything was going well. The plate was destroyed, Phillis's proof in his hands; he had nothing more to fear from this side. As to the experiment made on the mother, it was decisive enough to inspire him with confidence. If Madame Cormier, who had seen him so often and for so long a time, and who thought of him at every instant, did not recognize him, how was it possible that Madame Dammauville, who had only seen him from a distance and for a few seconds, could recognize him after several months?

Would he never accustom himself to the idea that his life could not have the tranquil monotony of a bourgeois existence, that it would experience shocks and storms, but that if he knew how to remain always master of his force and will, it would bring him to a safe port?

The calm that was his before this vexation came back to him, and when the last proofs of his concours, confirming the success of the first, had given him the two t.i.tles that he so ardently desired and pursued at the price of so many pains, so many efforts and privations, he could enjoy his triumph in all security.

He held the present in his strong hands, and the future was his.

Now he could walk straight, boldly, his head high, jostling those who annoyed him, according to his natural temperament.

Although these last months had been full of terrible agitation for him, on account of everything connected with the affair of Caffie and Florentin, and above all, on account of the fatigue, emotion, and the fever of his 'concours', yet he had not interrupted his special works for a day or even an hour, and his experiments followed for so many years had at length produced important results, that prudence alone prevented him from publis.h.i.+ng. In opposition to the official teaching of the school, these discoveries would have caused the hair to stand upright on the old heads; and it was not the time, when he asked permission to enter, to draw upon himself the hostility of these venerable doorkeepers, who would bar the way to a revolutionist. But, now that he was in the place for ten or twelve years, he need take no precautions, either for persons or for ideas, and he might speak.

CHAPTER x.x.x. PHILLIS PRECIPITATES MATTERS

Saniel saw his colleague, the solemn Balzajette, and so adroitly as not to provoke surprise or suspicion, he spoke of Madame Dammauville, in whom he was interested incidentally; without persisting, and only to justify his question, he explained the nature of this interest.

Although solemn, Balzajette was not the less a gossip, and it was his solemnity that made him gossip. He listened to himself talk, and when, his chest bulging, his pink chin freshly shaved resting on his white cravat, his be-ringed hand describing in the air n.o.ble and demonstrative gestures, one could, if one had the patience to listen to him, make him say all that one wished; for he was convinced that his interlocutor pa.s.sed an agreeable moment, whose remembrance would never be forgotten.

His patients might wait in pain or anguish, he did not hasten the majestic delivery of his high-sounding phrases with choice adjectives; and unless it was to go to a dinner-party, which he did at least five days in the week, he could not leave you until after he had made you partake of the admiration that he professed for himself.

It was to an affection of the spinal cord that Mme. Dammauville's paralysis was due, and consequently it was perfectly curable; even Balzajette was astonished that with his treatment and his care the cure was delayed.

"But what shall I say to you, young 'confrere'? You know better than I that with women everything is possible--above all the impossible."

And during a half-hour he complaisantly related the astonishment that the fas.h.i.+onable women under his care had caused him, in spite of his knowledge and experience.

"Well, to resume, what shall I tell you, young 'confrere'?"

And he repeated and explained what he had already said and explained.

Although Balzajette read only a morning paper, and never opened a book, he had heard of Saniel's reputation, and because he was young he thought he might manage this 'confrere', who seemed destined to make a good position. In spite of the high esteem that he professed for his own merits and person, he vaguely felt that the doctors of his generation who were eminent did not treat him with all the consideration that he accorded himself, and in order to teach his ancient comrades a lesson, he was glad to enter into friendly relations with a young one 'dans le mouvement'. He would speak of his young confrere Saniel: "You know the one who was appointed 'agrege'," and he would relate the advice that he, Balzajette, had given him.

That Madame Dammauville would be well enough to go to court Saniel doubted, above all, after Balzajette had explained his treatment; and as far as he was concerned, he could not but rejoice. Doubtless, it would be hard for Florentin not to have this testimony, and not to profit by the 'coup de theatre' prepared by Nougarede; but for himself, he could only feel happy over it. In spite of all the precautions he had taken, it would be better not to expose himself to a meeting with Madame Dammauville in the witness-chamber, or even in court. They must depend upon a letter supported by Balzajette's deposition, and Florentin would be not the less acquitted. Only Nougarede would have to regret his 'coup de theatre'. But the satisfaction or disappointment of Nougarede was nothing to him.

But he did not tell Phillis the ideas suggested by his interview with Balzajette; he summed up the conclusions of this interview. Balzajette said that Madame Dammauville would soon be on her feet, and one might have faith in his word; Florentin would be saved, and there was nothing to do but to let things go on as they were going.

Phillis, Madame Cormier, Nougarede, Florentin himself, whom the Mazas cell had reconciled neither with hope nor with providential justice, were all delighted with this idea.

Also, when the chamber of the prosecution sent Florent to the a.s.sizes, the emotion of Madame Cormier and Phillis would not be too violent.

Madame Dammauville would be in a state to make her deposition, since the evening before she had been able to leave her bed; and although she left it for only an hour, and then to go from her bedroom to her parlor, that was enough. Nougarede said that the affair would come on at the second session in April; between then and now Madame Dammauville would be solid enough on her legs to appear before the jury and carry the acquittal.

To Phillis, Saniel repeated that the cure was certain, and to her, also, he rejoiced aloud. But he was troubled about this cure. This meeting, only the idea of which had alarmed him to the point of losing his head, would be brought about, and under conditions that could not but affect him. Truly, the precautions he had taken should rea.s.sure him, but after all there remained no less a troublesome uncertainty. Who could tell? He preferred that she should not leave her room, and that Nougarede should find a way to obtain her deposition without taking her to court; he would then feel more rea.s.sured, more calm in mind, and with a more impa.s.sive face he could go to court.

Was he really unrecognizable? This was the question that beset him now.

Many times he compared his reflection in the gla.s.s with the photograph that he had given Phillis. The hair and beard were gone, but his eyes of steel, as his friend said, still remained, and nothing could change them. He might wear blue eyegla.s.ses, or injure himself in a chemical experiment and wear a bandage. But such a disguise would provoke curiosity and questions just so much more dangerous, because it would coincide with the disappearance of his hair and beard.

But these fears did not torment him long, for Phillis, who now pa.s.sed a part of every day in the Rue Sainte-Anne with Madame Dammauville, came one evening in despair, and told him that that day the invalid had been able to leave her bed for a few minutes only.

Then she would not go to court.

This apprehension of meeting Madame Dammauville face to face had begun to exasperate him; he felt like a coward in yielding to it, and since he had not the force to shake it off, he was happy to be relieved from it by the intervention of chance, which, after having been against him so long, now became favorable. The wheel turned.

"See Madame Dammauville often," he said to Phillis, "and note all that she feels; perhaps I shall find some way to repair this impediment, something that I may suggest to Balzajette without his suspecting it.

Besides, it is reasonable to believe that the recrudescence of cold that we are suffering from now may have something to do with the change in her condition; it is probable that with the mild spring weather she may improve."

He hoped by this counsel to quiet Phillis's uneasiness and to gain time.

But it had the opposite effect. In her anguish, which increased as the time for the trial approached, it was not probabilities, any more than the uncertain influence of the spring, that Phillis could depend on; she must have something more and better; but fearing a refusal, she forbore to tell him what she hoped to obtain.

It was only when she had succeeded that she spoke.

Every day, on leaving Madame Dammauville, she came to tell him what she had learned, and for three successive days her story was the same:

"She was not able to leave her bed."

And each day he made the same reply:

"It is the cold weather. Surely, we shall soon have a change; this frost and wind will not continue beyond the end of March."

He was pained at her desolation and anguish, but what could he do? It was not his fault that this relapse occurred at a decisive moment; fate had been against him long enough, and he was not going to counteract it at the time when it seemed to take his side, by yielding to the desire that Phillis dared not express, but which he divined, and by going to see Madame Dammauville.

When she entered his office on the fourth day, he knew at once by her manner that something favorable to Florentin had happened.

"Madame Dammauville is up," he said.