Chapter 12 three

I can say that one summer after another is actually very fast.I know that the weather has just turned hot, and my affairs will have new trends.My case is scheduled for the final felony court session, which ends at the end of June.During the debate, the sun was hot outside.My lawyer told me the debate would not last more than two or three days.He also said: "Besides, the court is busy, and your case is not the most important one this time. After you, there will be a patricide case immediately." At 7:30 in the morning, someone came to pick me up, and the prison van took me to the court.Two bailiffs escorted me into a small back room.We sat and waited by the door, through which we heard voices, yelling, and chairs being moved, a din that reminded me of those mass festivals where, after a concert, the place is cleared for dancing.The bailiffs told me the court would have to wait a while, and one of them offered me a cigarette, which I declined.After a while, he asked me "are you scared", and I said no.I even found it interesting to watch a lawsuit in a way that I never had the chance to watch in my life. "True," said the second bailiff, "but it's exhausting to see too much."

After a while, a small electric bell rang in the house.They took off my handcuffs, opened the door, and let me go to the dock.The hall was full of people.Even though the curtains were hung, the sun was still shining in some places, and the air was already stifling.The windows are all shut.I sat down, one on each side of the two bailiffs.At this moment, I saw a row of faces in front of me, all looking at me, and I understood that these were the jurors.But I cannot tell what distinguishes these faces from each other.I only had the impression that I was on a tram, and the passengers on the opposite row of seats stared at the newcomers, trying to find something ridiculous.I know it's absurd to think, because what they're looking for here isn't the ridiculous, it's the sin.Not a big difference, though, anyway, that's how I think about it.

Also, the number of people in the hall with closed doors and windows made me dizzy.I looked at the court again, but I still couldn't see a single face clearly.I think, first of all, I didn't expect everyone to be eager to see me.Usually, no one pays attention to me.Today, it took me a while to realize that I was the cause of all this commotion.I said to the bailiff, "So many people!" He replied that it was because of the newspaper, and he pointed me to a group of people sitting at a table under the jury seats, and said, "There they are." I asked, "Who? "He said: "People from the newspaper." He knew one of the reporters, and that person saw him at this time and walked towards us.This man is not young anymore, and his appearance is kind, but his face is a bit funny.He shook the bailiff's hand affectionately.I noticed then that everyone was shaking hands, saying hello, talking, as happy as meeting people from the same circle at a club.I understand why I had such a strange feeling just now, as if I was an extra, a trespasser.However, the reporter spoke to me with a smile and wished me well.I thanked him, and he said, "You know, we exaggerated your case a little bit. Summer, it's a slow season for newspapers. Just you and that parricide case and what." He went on to point out Show me a short man in the group he just left, a fat weasel-like man with big black-rimmed glasses.He said it was a special correspondent of a Paris newspaper: "However, he didn't come for you. Because he came to report the parricide case, he was asked to send back your case at the same time." Speaking of which, I almost wanted to thank him again.But I thought it would be ridiculous.He raised his hand and waved to me kindly, and left us.We waited a few more minutes.

My lawyer is here.He was in cassock and surrounded by many of his peers.He walked towards the reporters and shook their hands.They joked, laughed, and seemed perfectly at ease until the court bell rang.Everyone take their places.My lawyer came up to me, shook my hand, and told me to answer questions briefly, not to speak up, and he would do the rest. To the left, I heard the sound of a chair being moved, and I saw a tall, slender man in a red surplice and pince-nez sit down with his robe carefully folded.This is the prosecutor.The bailiff announced the opening of the court.At the same time, two large electric fans hummed together.Three judges, two in black and one in red, came in with files between them, and quickly walked towards the high platform overlooking the hall.The man in red sat on the chair in the middle, put his hat in front of him, wiped his small bald head with a handkerchief, and announced the start of the interrogation.

Reporters have picked up their pens.They were both indifferent and kind of goofy.One of them, however, was much younger, dressed in gray flannel and a blue tie.He put his pen down in front of him and looked at me.On that uneven face, I only saw two faint eyes, looking at me intently, with an unfathomable expression.And I had a strange impression, as if I was looking at myself.Perhaps because of this, and of course because I didn't know the rules of the occasion, I didn't quite understand what happened afterwards, such as the jury's drawing of lots, the president's questioning of the lawyers, the prosecutor and the jury (every day). Once, all the jurors turned their heads to the judge at the same time), quickly read the indictment (I recognized some places and people), and then asked my lawyer questions.

The president said it was time to call witnesses.The bailiff called out some names, which caught my attention.Among the group of people whom I hadn't seen clearly just now, I saw several people stand up one by one and go out through the side door. Ramano, Mary.Mary also looked at me anxiously.I'm still wondering why I didn't see them sooner, when Celeste finally hears his name and stands up.Beside him, I recognized the little woman I had seen in the restaurant, still in the short coat, with a determined, exacting air.She stared at me closely.But I don't have time to think about it because the President has spoken.He said the real debate was about to begin, and he believed there was no need to ask the audience to keep quiet.His job, he said, was to lead the debate impartially on a case he wanted to treat objectively.The verdict brought up by the jury was to be delivered in the spirit of justice, and in any case, for the slightest disturbance, he would remove the audience from the courtroom.

The hall was getting hotter and hotter, and I saw the judges fanning themselves with newspapers, and there was a continuous sound of rattling papers.The chief judge signaled that the bailiff sent three straw cattail fans, and the three judges immediately started to use them. Interrogation begins immediately.The President asked me the question calmly and, I think, even with some affection.No matter how annoying I was, he still let me declare my family first, and I think this is indeed quite natural. It would be too serious if one person is taken for another.Then, the judge began to narrate what I had done, and asked me every three sentences: "Is that so?" Every time, I answered according to the lawyer's instructions: "Yes, Mr. Judge." It went on for a long time, because the president described it in detail.At this point, the reporters kept writing.I felt the eyes of the youngest of them and the little automaton.The row of people on the trolley benches all faced the President.The judge coughed, flipped through the materials, and turned to me while fanning himself.

He said he was now going to raise a few questions that had nothing to do with my case, but which might actually have a lot to do with it.I knew he was going to talk about mom again, and I felt how bored I was.He asked me why I put my mom in a nursing home.I replied that I had no money for someone to look after her and see her doctor.He asked me if it bothered me personally, and I replied that neither mom nor I needed anything from the other, let alone anyone, and we were both used to it new life.So the President said he didn't want to stress this point, and he asked the prosecutor if he had any other questions for me.

This half-turned his back to me, without looking at me, and said, with the permission of the judge, that he would like to know whether I had returned alone to the fountain with the intention of killing the Arabs. "No," I said. "Then why did you come back to this place alone, armed with your arms?" I said it was accidental."That's it for now," the prosecutor said in a sinister tone. What happened next was a little unclear, at least to me.However, after some private consultations, the president announced an adjournment and the hearing was rescheduled for the afternoon.

I don't have time to think.They took me away, put me in a van, and sent me back to the prison for dinner.Soon, when I was just tired, someone came to pick me up.It all started again, and I was sent to the same hall with the same faces in front of me.It's just that the hall got hotter. As if by a miracle, the jurors, prosecutors, my lawyer, and a few reporters all held a fan in their hands.The young reporter and the little woman are still there.But they didn't fan the fans, and looked at me silently. I wiped the sweat from my face, and it wasn't until I heard the call to the director of the nursing home that I became a little more aware of where I was and who I was.They asked his mother if she blamed me, and he said yes, but it is almost a common problem for the elderly in the courtyard to complain about their relatives.The judge asked him to clarify whether my mother blamed me for sending her to the nursing home, and he said yes again.But this time, he didn't add anything.To another question, he replied that he was amazed at the calmness I displayed on the day of my burial.At this time, the dean looked at the toes of his shoes and said, "I don't want to see my mother. I haven't cried once. I left immediately after the burial. I didn't mourn in silence at her grave."Another thing that surprised him was when a man from the funeral home told him that I didn't know my mother's age.There was silence in the hall, and the president asked him if he was really referring to me.The president didn't understand the question and said, "This is the law." Then the president asked the prosecutor if he had any questions for the witnesses, and the prosecutor said loudly, "Oh! No, that's enough." His voice was like this Loud, he looked at me with such triumphant eyes that for the first time in years I had the stupid desire to cry because I felt how much these people hated me.

After asking the jury and my attorney if they had any questions, the President heard the porter's testimony.The porter, like everyone else, repeated the same ritual.He walked up to me, glanced at me, and turned away.He answered their questions.He said that I didn't want to see my mother, but I smoked, slept, and drank coffee with milk.At this moment, I felt something irritate the whole hall, and I realized for the first time that I was guilty.They made the porter repeat the coffee with milk and the smoking.The prosecutor looked at me with a mocking gleam in his eye.At this point my lawyer asked the porter if he had been smoking with me.But the prosecutor jumped up and objected to the question: "Who is the criminal here? What is this practice of falsely accusing a witness in order to weaken the force of the testimony? But the testimony does not lose its irresistible force!" "Nevertheless, the President asked the porter to answer the question.The old man said embarrassingly: "I know I was wrong, but I didn't dare to refuse the cigarettes that my husband gave me." Finally, they asked me if I had anything to add.I said, "No, it's just that the witness was right. I did give him a cigarette." At this point the porter looked at me with a mixture of surprise and gratitude.He hesitated for a moment, and said that he invited me to drink the coffee with milk.My lawyer exclaimed triumphantly, and said the jurors would take that seriously.But the prosecutor thundered over our heads and said, "Yes, the gentlemen of the jury will take it seriously. And their conclusion will be that an outsider can buy coffee and a son, face to face with his The body of that man should be refused." The porter returned to his seat. It was Thomas Perez's turn, and a bailiff helped him to the witness stand.Velez said he mainly knew my mother, and he only saw me once, on the day of the burial.They asked him what I was doing that day, and he replied, "You know, I was so sad myself. So, I didn't see anything. The pain kept me from seeing anything. Because to me, it was very Great pain. I even fainted. So, I couldn't see what sir did." The prosecutor asked him if he had at least seen me cry.Perez said he hadn't seen it.So the prosecutor said, "Gentlemen of the jury will take this seriously." But my lawyer got mad.He asked Perez in a tone that I found excessive.Does he see that I don't cry.Perez said, "I didn't see it." There was a burst of laughter.My lawyer rolled up one sleeve and said in an indisputable tone: "Look, this is what this lawsuit looks like. Everything is true and nothing is true!" The prosecutor scowled. , with ulterior motives, prodding the titles of archival material with a pencil. During the five-minute break in the interrogation, my lawyers told me that everything was going as well as they could, and then they heard Celeste's defense, which came from the defendant's side.The so-called defendant, of course, is me.Celeste looked in my direction now and then, fiddling with a Panama hat.He was wearing a new suit, which he wore when he went to the races with me some Sundays.But I now think he didn't wear a collar at that time, because he only had a brass button on it.They asked him if I was his customer and he said, "Yes, but also a friend." Asked what he thought of me, he said I was a man.Ask him what that means, and he says everyone knows what that means.Asked him if he noticed that I was a withdrawn person, and he only admitted that I didn't talk nonsense.Prosecutors asked him if I paid my bills on time, and he laughed and said, "It's a private matter between the two of us." They then asked him what he thought of my crime.At this time, he put his hand on the railing, and it was obvious that he was prepared.He said, "I see it as a misfortune. Everyone knows what misfortune is. It makes you irresistible. So, as I see it, it's a misfortune." He would go on, but The President said that was very good, thank him.Celeste was a little taken aback.But he said he still had something to say.They told him to keep it short.He repeated that it was unfortunate."Yes, of course," said the President. We are here to judge misfortunes of this kind. Thank you. As if he had done his best and shown his kindness, he turned to me .I thought his eyes were shining and his lips were trembling.He seemed to be asking me what else he could do.As for me, I didn't say anything, I didn't show anything, but, for the first time in my life, I wanted to hug a man.The President again asked him to leave the defense bench.Celeste returned to the gallery.He stayed there the rest of the time, leaning forward a little, with his elbows on his knees, straw hat in hand, listening to everyone talking.Mary comes in.She is still beautiful with a hat on.But I like her hair loose.From where I sat, I could feel the lightness of her breasts, and I could see that her lower lip was always a little swollen.She seems tense.As soon as I came up, people asked her since when she knew me.She said it started when she was working in our company.The President wanted to know what was the relationship between her and me.She said she was my friend.In response to another question, she said she did want to marry me.The prosecutor flipped through a volume of materials and suddenly asked her when she had sex with me.She said a day.The prosecutor pointed out with an air of nonchalance that it appeared to be the day after Mom died.Then he said, rather ironically, that he did not want to stress a delicate situation, and that he understood Mary's concerns well, but (here his tone hardened) that his duties obliged him to go beyond the usual decorum.He therefore asked Mary to tell the story of the day I met her.Mary was reluctant to tell, but at the insistence of the prosecutor, she told us to swim, watch a movie, and then go back to me.Prosecutors said that based on what Mary provided during the preliminary hearing, he consulted the film titles for that day.He asked Mary to tell herself what movie was playing that day.Her voice changed, and she said it was a Fernandale film.After she finished speaking, the hall was silent.At this time, the prosecutor stood up with a very solemn expression, pointed at me, and said slowly, word by word, in a voice that I thought was indeed very excited: "Gentlemen of the jury, this man died at his mother's house." The day after I died, I went swimming, I started having illicit relationships, I watched funny movies and laughed. As for the rest, I don't need to say more." He sat down, and the hall was still silent .Suddenly, Mary burst into tears, and said that this was not the case, and there were other things, that what she just said was not what she was thinking, but that she was forced to say it, that she knew me well, and that I had done nothing wrong.But the bailiff dragged her out at the sign of the presiding judge.The interrogation continued. Then Masson spoke, and people didn't listen very much. He said that I was a decent person, and he "even went so far as to say that I was an honest person."As for Salamano, no one even listened.He said I was nice to his dog.When asked about my mother and me, he said that I have nothing to say to my mother, so I put my mother in a nursing home.He said, "Should understand, should understand." But no one seemed to understand. He was taken out. It was Raymond's turn, and he was the last witness.Raymond nodded to me and immediately said I was innocent.However, the President said that what the court wanted was not judgment but evidence.He told him to wait to ask questions before answering.They wanted him to clarify his relationship to the victim.Lemon took the opportunity to say that the victim hated him because he had humiliated his sister.But the president asked him if the victim had no reason to hate me.Lemon said I went to the beach by accident.The prosecutor asked him how the letter that was the source of the tragedy could have been written by me.Lemon said it was by chance.The prosecutor countered that chance had done too much to harm one's conscience in this case.He wondered if it was by chance that I did not interfere when Raymond humiliated his mistress; By chance.Finally, he asked Lymon what he did for a living, and Lymon said "warehousekeeper."The prosecutor said to the jurors that the witnesses were known to be turtles.I am his accomplice and friend.It was a most indecent incident, aggravated by the addition of a moral devil.Lemon wanted to plead, and my lawyer protested5 but they were told to let the prosecutor finish.He said, "I don't have much to say. Is he your friend?" he asked Lemon.Lemon said, "Yes, he's my friend." The prosecutor asked me the same question again, and I looked at Lemon, and he was looking at me.I said, "Yes." Then the prosecutor, turning to the jury, said, "It's the same man who, the day after his mother's death, went off to the most insincere deeds, to settle a vile affair. casually kill He sat down.My lawyer couldn't help it anymore. He raised his arms, the sleeves of his cassock fell down, revealing the starched white shirt underneath, and shouted: "After all, is he accused of burying his mother or accused of burying his mother?" Accused of killing someone?" The audience burst into laughter.But the Prosecutor rose again, put on his cassock, and said that it took the ingenuity of the venerable defender to fail to feel that there was a deep, moving, essential relationship between the two events."Yes, I accuse this man of burying a mother with a murderer's heart," he exclaimed forcefully, and the words seemed to have had a great effect on the audience.My lawyer shrugged and wiped sweat from his brow.But he himself seemed shaken, and I realized that things were wrong with me. The interrogation is over.As I walked out of the courthouse and boarded the car, for a split second, I smelled and saw the colors of a summer evening again.In this moving, dark cell, I hear, as if from the abyss of weariness, the familiar sounds of a moment that I sometimes find satisfying in the city I love.In the already relaxed air are the shouts of newspaper sellers, the chirping of birds lingering in street parks, the shouts of vendors selling sandwiches, the groaning of trams turning high in the city, above the port The noise in the air before night fell, and all this drew in my mind a line I knew so well before I went to prison, when I ran around the city at will.Yes, this is that moment long ago when I was satisfied.Back then, what awaited me was always easy, dreamless sleep.However, something has changed as I am back in my cell, waiting for the next day.Familiar paths, as if drawn in the summer sky, lead both to prison cells and to quiet sleep.