A shudder passed through the Nut. He had a great liking for Chéri-Bibi. This affection of a young man like the Nut for a convict built on the lines of Chéri-Bibi—a man who seemed the embodiment of crime in this world—was extraordinary. And yet it was not entirely incomprehensible. The monster had shown him a compassion for his misfortunes which he had sought in vain from anyone else in jail or out of jail. Beneath his frightful exterior Chéri-Bibi proved that he was possessed of feelings of an unsuspected degree of refinement. He treated and protected the Nut like a younger brother.
The Nut had often thought that there was something beyond mere defiance of fate in the use of the word Fatalitas that the convict so frequently hurled at the heavens. Chéri-Bibi's life was a secret whose depths no one had ever plumbed but himself. What did anyone know of him? . . . An arm that was upraised and struck home. But between the two gleams of the knife which left behind it two pools of blood all was darkness; as mysterious as the abyss of his soul. . . . Why was his path stained with blood?
He explained to the Nut in a few words, with what terrible irony fate had compelled him to strike down the man whose life he was trying to save. That was the beginning of it all.
The beginning of it all? The Nut sometimes felt an inclination to fathom the mystery of that word all.
"Don't look into it," Chéri-Bibi answered. "It would be hell let loose."
And then he stood up and with a fierce cynicism said:
"You can't want me to account for all my murders. There are too many of them." And he added with a boisterous laugh: "Take it from me that I am past all forgiveness."
* * * * *
"Spot the Nut blubbing because he thinks Chéri-Bibi is dead," went on "Monsieur Désiré" bent on making mischief.
The Nut wished only to remember Chéri-Bibi as the man who liked him and often saved him from an act of desperation; as the man who by a memorable action had saved himself from the guillotine. It seems that after certain adventures of which one of the most sensational was the capture of the vessel which was commissioned to take convicts to the penal settlement in Guiana, he was rearrested in France, brought to trial, and this time sentenced to death.