The Secret of the Night Page 16

  XVI. BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL

  Only, Rouletabille refused to be put into the basket. He would not letthem disarm him until they promised to call a carriage. The Vehiclerolled into the court, and while Pere Alexis was kept back in his shopat the point of a revolver, Rouletabille quietly got in, smoking hispipe. The man who appeared to be the chief of the band (the gentleman ofthe Neva) got in too and sat down beside him. The carriage windows wereshuttered, preventing all communication with the outside, and only atiny lantern lighted the interior. They started. The carriage was drivenby two men in brown coats trimmed with false astrakhan. The dvornickssaluted, believing it a police affair. The concierge made the sign ofthe cross.

  The journey lasted several hours without other incidents than thosebrought about by the tremendous jolts, which threw the two passengersinside one on top of the other. This might have made an opening forconversation; and the "gentleman of the Neva" tried it; but in vain.Rouletabille would not respond. At one moment, indeed, the gentleman,who was growing bored, became so pressing that the reporter finally saidin the curt tone he always used when he was irritated:

  "I pray you, monsieur, let me smoke my pipe in peace."

  Upon which the gentleman prudently occupied himself in lowering one ofthe windows, for it grew stifling.

  Finally, after much jolting, there was a stop while the horseswere changed and the gentleman asked Rouletabille to let himself beblindfolded. "The moment has come; they are going to hang me withoutany form of trial," thought the reporter, and when, blinded with thebandage, he felt himself lifted under the arms, there was revolt of hiswhole being, that being which, now that it was on the point of dying,did not wish to cease. Rouletabille would have believed himselfstronger, more courageous, more stoical at least. But blind instinctswept all of this away, that instinct of conservation which had noconcern with the minor bravadoes of the reporter, no concern with thefine heroic manner, of the determined pose to die finely, becausethe instinct of conservation, which is, as its rigid name indicates,essentially materialistic, demands only, thinks of nothing but, to live.And it was that instinct which made Rouletabille's last pipe die outunpuffed.

  The young man was furious with himself, and he grew pale with the fearthat he might not succeed in mastering this emotion, he took fiercehold of himself and his members, which had stiffened at the contactof seizure by rough hands, relaxed, and he allowed himself to be led.Truly, he was disgusted with his faintness and weakness. He had seen mendie who knew they were going to die. His task as reporter had led himmore than once to the foot of the guillotine. And the wretches he hadseen there had died bravely. Extraordinarily enough, the most criminalhad ordinarily met death most bravely. Of course, they had had leisureto prepare themselves, thinking a long time in advance of that suprememoment. But they affronted death, came to it almost negligently, foundstrength even to say banal or taunting things to those around them. Herecalled above all a boy of eighteen years old who had cowardly murderedan old woman and two children in a back-country farm, and had walked tohis death without a tremor, talking reassuringly to the priest and thepolice official, who walked almost sick with horror on either side ofhim. Could he, then, not be as brave as that child?

  They made him mount some steps and he felt that he had entered thestuffy atmosphere of a closed room. Then someone removed the bandage.He was in a room of sinister aspect and in the midst of a rather largecompany.

  Within these naked, neglected walls there were about thirty young men,some of them apparently quite as young as Rouletabille, with candid blueeyes and pale complexions. The others, older men, were of the physicaltype of Christs, not the animated Christs of Occidental painters, butthose that are seen on the panels of the Byzantine school or fastened onthe ikons, sculptures of silver or gold. Their long hair, deeply partedin the middle, fell upon their shoulders in curl-tipped golden masses.Some leant against the wall, erect, and motionless. Others were seatedon the floor, their legs crossed. Most of them were in winter coats,bought in the bazaars. But there were also men from the country, withtheir skins of beasts, their sayons, their touloupes. One of them hadhis legs laced about with cords and was shod with twined willow twigs.The contrast afforded by various ones of these grave and attentivefigures showed that representatives from the entire revolutionary partywere present. At the back of the room, behind a table, three young menwere seated, and the oldest of them was not more than twenty-five andhad the benign beauty of Jesus on feast-days, canopied by consecratedpalms.

  In the center of the room a small table stood, quite bare and withoutany apparent purpose.

  On the right was another table with paper, pens and ink-stands. It wasthere that Rouletabille was conducted and asked to be seated. Then hesaw that another man was at his side, who was required to keep standing.His face was pale and desperate, very drawn. His eyes burned somberly,in spite of the panic that deformed his features Rouletabille recognizedone of the unintroduced friends whom Gounsovski had brought with him tothe supper at Krestowsky. Evidently since then the always-threateningmisfortune had fallen upon him. They were proceeding with his trial. Theone who seemed to preside over these strange sessions pronounced a name:

  "Annouchka!"

  A door opened, and Annouchka appeared.

  Rouletabille hardly recognized her, she was so strangely dressed,like the Russian poor, with her under-jacket of red-flannel and thehandkerchief which, knotted under her chin, covered all her beautifulhair.

  She immediately testified in Russian against the man, who protesteduntil they compelled him to be silent. She drew from her pocket paperswhich were read aloud, and which appeared to crush the accused. Hefell back onto his seat. He shivered. He hid his head in his hands, andRouletabille saw the hands tremble. The man kept that position whilethe other witnesses were heard, their testimony arousing murmurs ofindignation that were quickly checked. Annouchka had gone to take herplace with the others against the wall, in the shadows which more andmore invaded the room, at this ending of a lugubrious day. Two windowsreaching to the floor let a wan light creep with difficulty throughtheir dirty panes, making a vague twilight in the room. Soon nothingcould be seen of the motionless figures against the wall, much as thefaces fade in the frescoes from which the centuries have effaced thecolors in the depths of orthodox convents.

  Now someone from the depths of the shadow and the appalling silence readsomething; the verdict, doubtless.

  The voice ceased.

  Then some of the figures detached themselves from the wall and advanced.

  The man who crouched near Rouletabille rose in a savage bound and criedout rapidly, wild words, supplicating words, menacing words.

  And then--nothing more but strangling gasps. The figures that had movedout from the wall had clutched his throat.

  The reporter said, "It is cowardly."

  Annouchka's voice, low, from the depths of shadow, replied, "It isjust."

  But Rouletabille was satisfied with having said that, for he had provedto himself that he could still speak. His emotion had been such, sincethey had pushed him into the center of this sinister and expeditiousrevolutionary assembly of justice, that he thought of nothing but theterror of not being able to speak to them, to say something to them, nomatter what, which would prove to them that he had no fear. Well, thatwas over. He had not failed to say, "That is cowardly."

  And he crossed his arms. But he soon bad to turn away his head in ordernot to see the use the table was put to that stood in the center of theroom, where it had seemed to serve no purpose.

  They had lifted the man, still struggling, up onto the little table.They placed a rope about his neck. Then one of the "judges," one of theblond young men, who seemed no older than Rouletabille, climbed on thetable and slipped the other end of the rope through a great ring-boltthat projected from a beam of the ceiling. During this time the manstruggled futilely, and his death-rattle rose at last though thecontinued noise of his resistance and its overcoming. But his lastbreath came
with so violent a shake of the body that the wholedeath-apparatus, rope and ring-bolt, separated from the ceiling, androlled to the ground with the dead man.

  Rouletabille uttered a cry of horror. "You are assassins!" he cried.But was the man surely dead? It was this that the pale figures with theyellow hair set themselves to make sure of. He was. Then they broughttwo sacks and the dead man was slipped into one of them.

  Rouletabille said to them:

  "You are braver when you kill by an explosion, you know."

  He regretted bitterly that he had not died the night before in theexplosion. He did not feel very brave. He talked to them bravely enough,but he trembled as his time approached. That death horrified him. Hetried to keep from looking at the other sack. He took the two ikons,of Saint Luke and of the Virgin, from his pocket and prayed to them. Hethought of the Lady in Black and wept.

  A voice in the shadows said:

  "He is crying, the poor little fellow."

  It was Annouchka's voice.

  Rouletabille dried his tears and said:

  "Messieurs, one of you must have a mother."

  But all the voices cried:

  "No, no, we have mothers no more!"

  "They have killed them," cried some. "They have sent them to Siberia,"cried others.

  "Well, I have a mother still," said the poor lad. "I will not have theopportunity to embrace her. It is a mother that I lost the day of mybirth and that I have found again, but--I suppose it is to be said--onthe day of my death. I shall not see her again. I have a friend; I shallnot see him again either. I have two little ikons here for them, and Iam going to write a letter to each of them, if you will permit it. Swearto me that you will see these reach them."

  "I swear it," said, in French, the voice of Annouchka.

  "Thanks, madame, you are kind. And now, messieurs, that is all I ask ofyou. I know I am here to reply to very grave accusations. Permit meto say to you at once that I admit them all to be well founded.Consequently, there need be no discussion between us. I have deserveddeath and I accept it. So permit me not to concern myself with what willbe going on here. I ask of you simply, as a last favor, not to hastenyour preparations too much, so that I may be able to finish my letters."

  Upon which, satisfied with himself this time, he sat down again andcommenced to write rapidly. They left him in peace, as he desired. Hedid not raise his head once, even at the moment when a murmur louderthan usual showed that the hearers regarded Rouletabille's crimes withespecial detestation. He had the happiness of having entirely completedhis correspond once when they asked him to rise to hear judgmentpronounced upon him. The supreme communion that he had just had with hisfriend Sainclair and with the dear Lady in Black restored all his spiritto him. He listened respectfully to the sentence which condemned him todeath, though he was busy sliding his tongue along the gummed edge ofhis envelope.

  These were the counts on which he was to be hanged:

  1. Because he had come to Russia and mixed in affairs that did not concern his nationality, and had done this in spite of warning to remain in France.

  2. Because he had not kept the promises of neutrality he freely made to a representative of the Central Revolutionary Committee.

  3. For trying to penetrate the mystery of the Trebassof datcha.

  4. For having Comrade Matiew whipped and imprisoned by Koupriane.

  5. For having denounced to Koupriane the identity of the two "doctors" who had been assigned to kill General Trebassof.

  6. For having caused the arrest of Natacha Feodorovna.

  It was a list longer than was needed for his doom. Rouletabille kissedhis ikons and handed them to Annouchka along with the letters. Thenhe declared, with his lips trembling slightly, and a cold sweat on hisforehead, that he was ready to submit to his fate.