[Chapter III]
THE EMPTY COFFIN
Thérèse, do you remember how we were taken to the Assembly, there to pass the day within a grated tribunal and led thence to prison? How from that prison we were afterwards transferred to another more gloomy still? O the tower, the tower! The impressions of sorrow are deeper than those of happiness. Tell me, Thérèse, my companion in that captivity, has greater suffering ever been endured than in that tower? If those walls, so soon after demolished, (for all traces of my history have been obliterated), if those stones that once were walls had a voice, that voice would be a sob. If they might writhe, they would wring out tears. Even their name is a wail. There is no elegy so sad as the towers.
The agonies of our family,—you know them as well as I, for they are your own. But what you do not know are mine,—a child torn from his mother's arms as she was led to the guillotine. And though you seek to drive them from your knowledge, you shall hear them.
Let me describe this prison to you, that you may realize 'tis your brother who speaks. What detail could I forget of that damp tower flanked by four smaller ones of arched roofs? The roof of the first was sustained in the centre by a heavy pillar and its doors were of strong boards fastened together by nails and guarded by heavy bolts; the interior door was of cast iron; the walls were grey and black, in imitation of a tomb; the white border was garnished with the tricolor on which were traced the words: RIGHTS OF MAN. This was the only decoration of the filthy apartment wherein vulgar and malevolent people constantly watched us.
On first entering the tower, I believed myself to be dreaming and that soon I should be rescued from the nightmare, as my mother had snatched me from the wolves. This conviction was doubtless due to the contrast between my past and present condition. My childhood had glided by so sweetly and placidly; my senses had been stimulated by such great beauty and elegance; the epoch upon which my mother stamped her refinement was so poetic and artistic; the gardens in which I had played were so beautiful; my material wants anticipated with so much adulation, that I had grown to comprehend only smiles and beauty. It was considered an honor to touch me, to be near me. No wonder, then, that the transition from palace to prison affected my nervous system to the extent of causing the obsession to possess me that I was two persons in one.
I might describe our incarceration to the minutest particular; I might tell you the exact position of your bed and mine and the armchair of white-painted wood in which our father dozed before dinner. Only listen to me, Thérèse, and you will open your arms.
You will remember that I was taken away from our father and mother after their condemnation to death, and delivered to two creatures who scarcely seemed to pertain to the human species,—a pair of brutes who had doubtless received instructions to render me idiotic through vile treatment. But I must tell the truth. My guardians were indeed cruel, but not to the extent which is usually believed. The inhumanity of that cobbler and his wife has been greatly exaggerated, possibly with the object of establishing my supposed death. Were the account true which has obtained currency, I should not have survived. No child could have withstood an unremitting martyrdom of hunger, blows, nakedness, and deprivation of sleep. These hardships, indeed, I endured, but with intervals of respite. Husband and wife were not equally brutal; he was crafty and cruel, she gross and stupid, but possessing a heart of some tenderness. Unhappy woman! I caused her ruin among that of many others. For maintaining that I was not dead, she was declared insane and placed in confinement. In her clumsy manner, she had protected me and often smuggled into my couch candy and cheap toys.
On being taken from the custody of this couple, I was placed in the cell in which our father's valet had been imprisoned. Here my condition was worse than ever before. The windows, always closed, shut out light and air. The doors opened only to those who, in silence, brought me food. The furniture consisted of a table, a jug of water and the bed,—shelf, rather,—on which I slept. Noxious odors slowly poisoned my blood.