"At him, Chouette!" cried Tortillard. "At him! And reply boldly! Why, you don't know your part. Tell the 'old one' to prompt you, my worthy elderly damsel."
"It is useless for you to struggle and bite me," said the Schoolmaster, after another pause. "You shall not escape me,—you have bitten my fingers to the bone; but I will pull your tongue out, if you stir. Let us continue our discourse. When I have been alone—alone in the night and silence—I have begun to experience fits of furious, impotent rage; and, for the first time, my senses wandered. Oh! though I was awake, I again dreamed the dream—you know—the dream. The little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer, and you—soaring over these phantoms! I tell you it was horrible! I am blind, and my thoughts assume a form, a body, in order to represent to me incessantly, and in a visible, palpable manner, the features of my victims. I should not have dreamed this fearful vision, had not my mind, continually absorbed by the remembrance of my past crimes, been troubled with the same fantasies. Unquestionably, when one is deprived of sight, the ideas that beset us form themselves into images in the brain. Yet sometimes, by dint of viewing them with resigned terror, it would appear that these menacing spectres have pity on me,—they grow dim—fade away—vanish. Then I feel myself awakened from my horrid dream, but so weak—cast down—prostrated—that—would you believe it? ah, how you will laugh, Chouette!—that I weep! Do you hear? I weep! You don't laugh? Laugh! Laugh! Laugh, I say!"
The Chouette gave a dull and stifled groan.
"Louder," said Tortillard; "can't hear."
"Yes," continued the Schoolmaster, "I weep, for I suffer and rage in vain. I say to myself, 'To-morrow, next day, for ever, I shall be a prey to the same attacks of delirium and gloomy desolation. 'What a life! Oh, what a life! And I would not choose death rather than be buried alive in this abyss which incessantly pervades my thoughts! Blind, alone, and a prisoner,—what can relieve me from my remorse? Nothing, nothing! When the fantasies disappear for a moment, and do not pass and repass the black veil constantly before my eyes, there are other tortures,—other overwhelming reflections. I say to myself, 'If I had remained an honest man, I should be at this moment free, tranquil, happy, beloved, and honoured by my connections, instead of being blind and chained in this dungeon at the mercy of my accomplices.' Alas! the regret of happiness lost from crime is the first step towards repentance; and when to repentance is joined an expiation of fearful severity,—an expiation which changes life into a long, sleepless night, filled with avenging hallucinations or despairing reflections,—perhaps then man's pardon succeeds to remorse and expiation."
"I say, old chap," exclaimed Tortillard, "you are borrowing a bit from M. Moissard's part! Come, no cribbing—gammon!"
The Schoolmaster did not hear Bras-Rouge's son.
"You are astonished to hear me speak thus, Chouette? If I had continued to imbrue myself either in bloody crimes or the fierce drunkenness of the life of the galleys, this salutary change would never have come over me I know full well. But alone, blind, stung with remorse, which eats into me, of what else could I think? Of new crimes,—how to commit them? Escape,—how to escape? And, if I escaped, whither should I go? What should I do with my liberty? No; I must henceforth live in eternal night, between the anguish of repentance and the fear of formidable apparitions which pursue me. Sometimes, however, a faint ray of hope comes to lighten the depth of my darkness, a moment of calm succeeds to my torments,—yes, for sometimes I am able to drive away the spectres which beset me by opposing to them the recollections of an honest and peaceable past, by ascending in thought to my youthful days, to my hours of infancy. Happily, the greatest wretches have, at least, some years of peace and innocence to oppose to their criminal and blood-stained years. None are born wicked; the most infamous have had the lovely candour of infancy,—have tasted the sweet joys of that delightful age. And thus, I again say, I sometimes find a bitter consolation in saying to myself, 'I am, at this hour, doomed to universal execration, but there was a time when I was beloved, protected, because I was inoffensive and good. Alas! I must, indeed, take refuge in the past, when I can, for it is there only that I can find calm.'"
As he uttered these last words, the tones of the Schoolmaster lost their harshness; this man of iron appeared deeply moved, and he added:
"But now the salutary influence of these thoughts is such that my fury is appeased; courage, power will fail me to punish you. No, it is not I who will shed your blood."