'I am Monsieur Simon's friend,' Marc resumed, 'and I have come on his behalf about what has happened. You have heard of the crime, have you not?'
Most certainly they had heard of it. Their anxious faces suddenly became impenetrable, in such wise that one could read on them neither feeling nor thought. Why had that stranger come to question them in this fashion? Their ideas about things concerned nobody. Besides, it was necessary to be prudent in matters in which a word too much often suffices to bring about a man's sentence.
'And so,' Marc continued, 'I should like to know if your little boy ever saw in his class a copy-slip like this.'
Marc himself on a slip of paper had written the words 'Aimez vous les uns les autres' in a fine round-hand of the proper size. Having explained matters, he showed the paper to Fernand, who looked at it in a dazed fashion, for his mind worked slowly and he did not yet understand what was asked him.
'Look well at it, my little friend,' said Marc; 'did you ever see such a copy at the school?'
But before the lad had made up his mind, Bongard, in his circumspect manner, intervened: 'The child doesn't know, how can he know?'
And La Bongard, like her husband's shadow, added: 'Why of course a child, it can never know.'
Without listening to them, however, Marc insisted, and placed the copy in the hands of Fernand, who, fearing that he might be punished, made an effort, and at last responded: 'No, monsieur, I never saw it.'
As he spoke he raised his head, and his eyes met his father's, which were fixed on him so sternly that he hastened to add, stammering as he did so: 'Unless all the same I did see it; I don't know.'
That was all that could be got out of him. When Marc pressed him, his answers became incoherent, while his parents themselves said yes or no chancewise, according to what they deemed to be their interest. It was Bongard's prudent habit to jog his head in approval of every opinion expressed by those who spoke to him, for fear of compromising himself. Yes, yes, it was a frightful crime, and if the culprit should be caught it would be quite right to cut off his head. Each man to his trade, the gendarmes knew theirs, there were rascals everywhere. As for the priests, there was some good in them, but all the same one had a right to follow one's own ideas. And at last, as Marc could learn nothing positive, he had to take himself off, watched inquisitively by the children, and pursued by the shrill voice of little Angèle, who began chattering with her brother as soon as the gentleman could no longer detect what she said.