‘Don’t leave me, Jean! Listen. I’ll explain. You have to tell me. How did it happen?’
Why was she getting so worked up? Was he getting worked up? No, he was lucid, perfectly lucid. He could see all the details of the bedroom, the curtains ballooning out as if there was someone behind them. He stood up to turn down the oil lamp, which was flickering again.
‘It was in the barn, by the rabbits.’
‘Listen to me, Jean. I’m going down on my knees. Do you hear? I’m going to throw myself at your feet. I know I’m an old woman, an old creature without any hope. But if you only knew … All my life …’
She was on her knees on the floor.
‘Don’t look at me like that. Listen!’
How was he looking at her? Perfectly calmly. He had never looked at her so calmly before.
‘Just promise me not to see her again. I’ll get them to move away. I’ll find a way to do that.’
Every person condemned to death will …
He smiled faintly.
‘Why are you smiling? Am I so ridiculous? I’ll do anything you want. I’ll give you … Look! The money I told you about. Take it! You can have it. What am I saying? Don’t smile like that …’
He wasn’t smiling. It was just that his lip was curling, in spite of himself. On the contrary, he was sad. Or rather, resigned. Since this was how it was, he would accept the inevitable. She had grabbed hold of his leg and was still crawling on the floor, while he thought he could hear someone reciting:
Men sentenced to hard labour will be assigned the most arduous work. They will have a ball attached to their feet.
‘Jean! I’d rather die than …’
Yes! Yes! That was the only thing to do! He had known it for a long time. It had been fore-ordained. And wasn’t this the simplest thing too?
All murder premeditated or preceded by trickery will be classed as a capital offence …
He hadn’t premeditated it. It wasn’t his fault. And there was no trickery involved.
‘I’m in pain, Jean. Help me up, and back into bed. You just have to understand. Since the age of fourteen …’
And what about him?
‘What are you looking for? Jean! You’re frightening me. Jean, look at me! Say something!’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, Jean. Jean!’
He had found the hammer. The hammer he had brought upstairs when Tati had moved into this bedroom and he had taken down the shelves for fruit.
‘Jean! I’m begging you.’
What was the use. It would all start again. It would always start again. He’d had enough.
‘I’ve had enough! Enough! Enough!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘Do you get it, Tati? Do you all get it? That’s enough now!’
He had brought the hammer down perhaps four or five times on her already injured skull when he suddenly wondered, as Tati lay motionless on the floor, whether the people in Françoise’s house might have heard him yelling. He went over to the window, the hammer in his hand, and saw that there were no lights on in the house by the brickyard. It was raining.
Tati was still moving a little. Her eyes were open.
Wearily, he hit her two or three more times, then, picking up the pillow from the bed, he pressed it on her face.
His knees were trembling. His throat was dry, there was a vacuum in his chest.
Now he knew the Penal Code. It almost made him smile and, half aloud, he voiced Article 314, the famous article that had given Monsieur Fagonet such trouble:
Murder shall be punished with death, whenever it shall have preceded, accompanied, or followed any other crime
This time, there would be no need to lie. Unless he took the money hidden in the dressmaker’s dummy.
Who knows? Perhaps he would be put back into the same cell?
Zézette had come to see him once in the visitors’ room. Would Félicie come too?
He left the lamp on, went downstairs in the dark, and felt on the mantelpiece for the matches. His hand encountered Couderc’s pipe. He felt like smoking a pipe. But above all he needed to drink. He was thirsty. And hungry. He struck a light. He noticed that the pendulum of the clock had almost stopped and he carefully readjusted the heavy brass weight.
It would keep going for a week now.
He cut himself a slice of ham, opened the cupboard to get some bread, and frowned when he thought he heard a sound overhead.
No. She was well and truly dead!
It was over!
