Chapter 30 Twenty-eight

After this important testimony, the court adjourned for a moment, and when the full justices returned to their seats, Edmee was brought in again.Pale and frail, she managed to walk with difficulty to the arm-chair provided for her, but she showed great perseverance and great composure. "Are you confident that you can answer calmly and unambiguously the questions that are about to be put to you?" asked the President. "I hope so, sir," she answered. "It is true that I have been recovering from a serious illness, and my memory has only been restored for a few days; but I believe it is fully recovered, and my mind is not confused."

"Your Name?" "Solange-Edmond de Mauprat," she said, adding softly: "Edmey Silvestris." My heart trembled.When she said this inappropriate sentence, her eyes showed a strange expression.I thought she was going to go further.My lawyer was taken aback, too, and looked at me in bewilderment.Edmee, early and late in her illness, had developed the habit of repeating the word frequently, but no one but me understood the meaning of the name.Thankfully, this was the last of her faculties.She shook her pretty head, as if to drive away some lingering thoughts; and when the presiding judge asked her to explain the two incomprehensible words, she replied with kindness and dignity:

"Nothing, sir; please continue with your questions." "Your age, miss?" "Twenty-four years old." "Are you a relative of the defendant?" "I am his father's cousin. He is my cousin's son, my father's grandnephew." "What you have sworn to say is the truth and no lies?" "Yes, sir." "Raise your hand." Edmee smiled miserably, and turned to Arthur.He took off Edmee's gloves and helped her lift her limp, barely moving arm.I feel myself tearing up. Edmee relates, with great detail and simplicity, how she was lost in the woods with me; how I thought she was carried away by a frightened horse, and that, in trying to hold her with great concern, she fell from the horse; A little quarrel arose from this, and she, in a rather false girlishness, wanted to remount alone; she even spoke harshly to me, quite inadvertently, because she loved me as a brother; Deeply hurt by her rudeness, she submissively walked away a few steps, annoyed by our childish quarrel herself, and was about to follow me when she suddenly felt a violent shock in her chest and fell down just as she heard the gunshot.She couldn't say in which direction she had looked, or where the shot had come from.

"That is the whole truth of what happened," she added: "I am the last person to be able to explain this accident to you. In my conscience I can only attribute it to the carelessness of one of our hunters, who I dare not admit it. The law is so strict, and the truth is hard to prove!" "So, miss, you don't think your cousin was responsible for the murder?" "I don't think so, sir, of course I don't think so! I'm not talking nonsense; I wouldn't allow myself to be brought before you if I were feeling sick in my head." "It seems that you ascribe to a state of insanity the denunciations you have made against Paccience, your lady companion Mlle LeBlanc, and perhaps the Abbe Aubert."

"I have made no denunciations," she replied firmly, "neither to the noble Patience, nor to the venerable abbe, nor to the maid LeBlanc. A nonsense word is called 'reveal,' and anyone who frightens us in a dream deserves the death penalty. What kind of revelation can I make about what I don't know!" "But when you were wounded and fell from your horse, you said: 'Bernard, Bernard, I never believe that you will kill me!'" "I don't remember saying it; and even if I did, I can't imagine anyone taking seriously the impression of a man nearly insane by an accidental blow. All I know is that Bernard de Maupraken Giving his life for my father or me, so it's unlikely he wanted to kill me. And what motive? My God!"

At this moment, in order to embarrass Edmee, the President made use of all the arguments which could be drawn from Mademoiselle Leblanc's statement.Some of them did embarrass her.Edmee was astonished to find that the court had so many details which she thought no one else knew, yet when it was suggested, in the terms both refined and vulgar, used in such interrogations, that she had been the victim of my violence at Mopra Rock. , she regained her courage and self-respect, and it was then that she vehemently defended my character and her reputation, declaring that I behaved in a manner which, so far as my education had been concerned, had greatly unexpected.Edmee, however, had to explain her whole life since that time, the annulment of her engagement to M. de La Marche, her frequent quarrels with me, my sudden departure to America, and her refusal of all proposals.

"This kind of interrogation is really uncomfortable," she said, standing up suddenly, recovering her physical strength under the influence of mental strength. "You want me to report my most secret feelings, you probe the secrets of my heart, you torment my shame, you assert rights that belong only to God. I declare to you that if my own life and no Life, you don't even try to take a word out of my mouth. But I will overcome my aversion to save the life of the humblest of men; let alone for the accused before you. Since you forced me Confession, contrary to my feminine reserve and self-respect, then you understand, whatever in my behavior you find inexplicable, whatever you attribute to Bernard's fault, to my resentment, to attribute Whatever is attributable to his threats, whatever is attributable to my fear, can be explained in one sentence: I love him!"

Edmee, flushed with shame, uttered the words, in the most passionate, proudest, and most engrossed voice, and sat down again, covering her face with her hands.At this moment, I was so excited that I couldn't help crying out: "Let them guillotine me now, I am the king of the world!" "To the guillotine! You!" said Edmee, and stood up again. "You might as well send me there. Poor man, for seven years I have kept the secret of my feelings from you, and I will wait until you are as learned and wise as you are already the most courageous." Is it your fault that I told you this secret like a human being? You paid dearly for my desire, which was met with contempt and loathing. You should hate me, for it was my pride that made you Into the dock. But I will clear your shame with a public apology; even if they guillotine you tomorrow, you can go as my husband."

"Edme de Mauprat, you are very lenient," said the President, "in order to save the lives of your relatives, you have almost agreed to reproach yourself for coquettishness and ruthlessness; for seven years you have rejected this young man instead. How do you account for the fact that it aroused his enthusiasm?" "Perhaps, sir," replied Edmee slyly, "the courts have no jurisdiction in this matter. Many women do not consider it a great crime to be petty to the man they love. Having sacrificed all for him Other men, we have this right; after all, it is an unimpeachable and perfectly natural desire for our chosen men to feel our worth, and to feel that we are worthy of their long courtship and pursuit. If such coquettishness should result in the death sentence of one's lover, we shall immediately correct it. But, gentlemen, you certainly do not want to comfort the poor young man in this way, and save him from my exactions. "

Edmee spoke these words in a mocking, excited tone, and burst into tears.Impulsive and irresistible, all the virtues of her heart and mind are expressed in words: sentimental, brave, witty, noble, chaste, while her facial expressions are so fleeting that they are breathtaking in every way, even the solemn and gloomy ones. The judges also feel that they have let go of the heavy burden of ruthless indifference and hypocritical morality.Even if Edmee did not succeed in defending me by her confession, at least she had attracted a great deal of attention in my favour.Whenever a man is loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman, it is like carrying a talisman with him against harm; he feels that his own life is worth more than the lives of others.

Edmee endured many more questions, and recovered the truth which had been distorted by Miss Leblanc.She did take good care of me; but she managed to tactfully avoid certain questions so as not to have to lie or accuse me.She graciously took upon herself all my faults; claimed that if we had quarreled, it was because of her secret pleasure in it, because she saw the strength of my love; and that she sent me to America. , was to test my virtue, and thought that the war would not exceed one year at most, as everyone speculated at the time, and later she regarded my acceptance of this infinitely protracted war as being bound by an oath, but because she separated from me, and suffered more than I; at last she fully recognized the letter found in her body, and taking it up, she filled in the missing passages with astonishing powers of memory, and asked the clerk of the court to join her in deciphering the blurred Clear words. "This letter was not a threatening letter at all," she said. "It left me with far more feelings than fear and disgust, which is why I found it in my heart; I had the letter with me for a week, but I just refused Just acknowledge receipt to Bernard." "However, you have not explained," said the President, "why you provided yourself with a knife when your cousin came to live with you seven years ago, and put it under your pillow every night, so that it can be sharpened quickly." , so as to protect yourself in an emergency?" "Our family," she answered, flushing, "had a rather romantic spirit and a very haughty character. Indeed, I contemplated suicide several times because I felt a growing dislike for my cousin." Suppressed love. I thought I was bound to M. de La Marche by an irrevocable engagement, and I would rather die than break my promise to Bernard to marry anyone but Bernard. Later, de La Marche Mr. Shi is very noble and upright to give me back my freedom, and I no longer want to seek death." Amidst the admiration, Edmee was watched by the crowd to leave the court.She had barely stepped out of the courtroom doors when she fainted again.But this attack had no serious consequences and healed after a few days. I was so bewildered and intoxicated by what she had just said that I could hardly see what was going on around me anymore.I was preoccupied with my love, and still doubted it; for, if Edmee kept silent about some of my conduct, she might well have exaggerated her affection for me, in order to lessen my fault.I can't believe that she fell in love with me before I left for America, and especially since I first lived near her.So much was there in my mind that I could no longer even recall the cause or purpose of my trial.It seemed to me that the only exciting question in this cold criminal courtroom was: did she love him, or did she not love him?For me, success or failure, life or death depends on this alone. The voice of the Abbe Aubert awakened me from this meditation.He was thin and listless, but perfectly composed.He had been locked in a cell, and had endured all the hardships of prison life with the resignation of a martyr.Despite the security of the gates, the clever Marcus, accustomed to wandering about like a ferret, managed at last to forward to him a letter from Arthur, with a few postscripts from Edmee.The letter allowed him to tell everything truthfully.He made a statement which matched that of Patience, and admitted that he at first believed me guilty on the basis of Edmee's first words after the accident; My irreproachable character, inspired by the last court argument and the public talk that Antoine Mauprat was still alive, was convinced of my innocence and would not testify against me.The reason for his statement now is that he believes that the court has clarified the truth through further proceedings, and his words will no longer cause serious consequences that may have occurred a month ago. Asked about Edmee's feelings for me, he rejected all the nonsense of Mademoiselle Leblanc, asserting that Edmee not only loved me passionately, but had developed a love for me from the first few days of our meeting.He swears it to be true, though at the same time emphasizing my past wrongs a little more than Edmee did.He admitted that he was worried many times that my cousin would be stupid to marry me, but he never worried about her life, since he always saw her subdue me with a word or a look, even in my most stupid The same is true of time. The court immediately decided to continue the trial after multiple parties searched and arrested the murderer.As soon as my case was likened to that of Callas, and this comparison became the stuff of general discourse, my judges saw themselves the butt of countless tongues, and learned that dislike and prejudice are bad counselors and judges. Dangerous guide.The proconsul, declaring himself defender of my case and knight of Edmee, sent her back to her father himself.He used the entire mounted police force.They took decisive action and arrested John de Maupra.Seeing that he was in prison, he confessed his brother, and said that they could find Antoine every night hiding in the Rock of Maupra, and that Bernon's wife hid him from her husband in a secret room. . ① John Callas (1698-1762), a French Protestant businessman.His eldest son committed suicide because of his debts, but the church accused Karas of killing him in order to prevent his son from believing in Catholicism, and sentenced Karas to the death penalty.After protests by Voltaire and others, this unjust case was finally brought to light in 1765. They led the Dervish back to Maupra Rock under close guard to reveal the secret chamber, which Marcus, a veteran hunter of weasels and moles, never found, despite his genius for searching walls and trusses. .They took me with them, so that in case the Penitentiary repented and behaved dishonestly, I could help find the room, or identify the passage leading to it.And so I saw again the hideous little castle, and the ex-captain of the bandits, turned ascetic.His servility and flattery before me, his servitude to my brother's life, and his obedience to me disgusted me so much that I soon asked him to stop talking to me.We set out to find the secret room under the watchful eye of the Mounted Police.John had initially claimed that since 3/4 of the castle tower had been destroyed, he knew of a secret chamber, but did not know its exact location.When he saw me, he remembered being bumped into by me in my bedroom, and he escaped through the wall.So he was obliged to lead us there, and show us the concealed device; which is so ingeniously constructed that I will describe it to you without relish.After the door of the secret room was opened, there was no one inside.Yet the long-distance manhunt was carried out so swiftly and mysteriously that it seemed unlikely that John would have had time to inform his brother.The main tower of the castle has been surrounded by mounted police, and all exits are strictly guarded.The night was dark, and our throng made the entire population of the farm panic-stricken.The tenant farmer didn't understand what we were looking for, but his wife's flustered, anxious look seemed to assure us that Antoine was still hiding in the main tower.She was not quick-witted, and our lack of reassurance after we had searched the first chamber made Marcus think that there must be a second chamber.The ascetic monks dare to pretend not to know what they know?He played his part so well that we were all taken in.Every hidden corner and twist of the fallen part of the castle had to be searched afresh.There is a tall tower separated from the other buildings that does not seem to offer shelter to anyone.The stairs were completely destroyed in the fire, and there was no ladder long enough to get to the top of the tower. Even if all the tenant's ladders were tied together with ropes, they were still much shorter.The top floor of the tower, which appeared to be well preserved, consisted of a room illuminated by two gunshots.Markas examined the thickness of the wall and deduced that there might be a staircase within it, as is sometimes encountered in many ancient towers.But where is the exit?Maybe it is connected to a certain tunnel.We stand here, does the murderer dare to come out of his hiding place?In spite of the darkness of the night, and our silence, if he had heard wind of our coming, would he have ventured to appear in the field, with our sentries everywhere? "It's impossible," Marcas said. "I have to find a way to climb up quickly. Look, there is a way." He pointed to a soot-blackened girder that connected the tower to the top floors of nearby buildings in a span of about twenty feet at a frighteningly high point.Where the end of this beam plunged into the side wall of the tower, there was a wide crack, caused by the collapse of the adjoining part.Through this gap, Marcus seemed to catch a glimpse of the steps of a narrow stairway as he explored with his eyes, not to mention the thickness of the tower wall to accommodate it.The mole-catcher had never dared to climb this beam for the first time, not because its thinness or height frightened him, he had long been used to these risky "traversals," as he called them, but because the beam was consumed by fire. However, the middle part is very thin, and there is no way of knowing whether it can bear the weight of a person, even if the person is as light and pale as the righteous sergeant.Up to that time, no reason had arisen sufficiently urgent to warrant risking his life for such an experiment.Now that the opportunity came, Marcas did not hesitate.I happened not to be with him when he came up with the idea, or I would have stopped him anyway.I didn't discover Malcus' plan until he had climbed between the girders, where the burnt wood might be nothing more than a charred stretch.How can I describe to you the feeling I felt when I saw my faithful friend standing in mid-air, solemnly approaching his goal?Blalow walked ahead of him, as poised as he had been when he had searched the haystacks for weasels and dormouse.It was dawn, and the gray sky showed Marcus's slender silhouette and solemn and solemn posture.I covered my face with my hands and seemed to hear the damn beam snapping.I refrained from crying out in terror, lest I should discourage him at this solemn and critical moment.Suddenly two shots were fired from the tower, and I uttered a cry of terror, and could not help raising my head again.Marcus' hat fell off when the first shot fired, and the second bullet grazed his shoulder.He stopped. "Miss!" he yelled at us. Immediately, with all his strength, he ran through the towering beams in the air, entered the tower through the crack, and shouted when he jumped up the stairs: "Come with me, friends! The beam is strong enough." The five brave and strong men who accompanied him immediately jumped on the beam, and with the help of their hands, they climbed to the other end of the beam one by one.When the foremost of them rushed to the attic, he found Marcas wrestling with Antoine de Mauprat, who was hiding inside.Marcus, in a frenzy of victory, forgetting that it was not a matter of killing but of capturing alive, was ready to jabbed Antoine with his long sword like a weasel.The False Penitent, however, was a formidable adversary. He snatched the sword from Marcus, and threw the sergeant to the ground. Marcus might have been killed by him had not a mounted policeman thrown him from behind. strangled.He resisted the first three attackers with great vigor; but, aided by two others, they overpowered him at last.Seeing that he was being arrested, he stopped resisting and went down the stairs without his arms being caught.This staircase finally led to the bottom of the orange well in the center of the tower, and Antoine usually came out and down by a ladder provided by the tenant farmer's wife, who immediately removed it when it was used up.I threw myself into the sergeant's arms excitedly. "Nothing," he said, "that pleases me. I feel my legs are still on my feet and my head is still. Ha! Ha!" he said, looking at his legs. "Old sergeant, old Spanish nobleman, old mole-catcher Rat people, from now on people can no longer wantonly laugh at your calf."