AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
BY ALPHONSE DAUDET
Translated by Mrs. Dallas Bache.
Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
I know not if it be from lack of habit, but I can never enter the Palais de Justice without an uneasiness, an inexplicable heart pang. That grating, those great courts, that stone staircase so vast that every one mounts it in isolation, enveloped in his individual torment. The antiquity of the structures, the melancholy clock, the height of the windows, and also the mist of the quay, that moisture that clings to walls that skirt the water, all give you a foretaste of the neighboring prison. In the halls the impression is the same, or more vivid still, because of the peculiar company which peoples them, because of those long black robes which make the solemn gestures, because of those who accuse, and the unintelligible records, the eternal records spread out everywhere on the tables, carried under the arms in enormous bundles, overflowing—
There are great green doors, noiseless and mysterious, from whence escape—when they are ajar—gusts of voices severe or weeping, and visions of school benches, platforms black with caps, and great crucifixes leaning forward. Muskets ring out on the flags. Sinister rumblings of carriages pass shaking the arches. All these noises blended together are like a respiration, the panting breath of a factory, the apparatus of justice at work. And hearing this terrible machine at labor, one desires to shrink within himself, to dwindle for fear of being caught, even by a hair, in this formidable gearing which one knows to be so complicated, tenacious, destructive—
I was thinking of this the other morning, in going to see an examining magistrate before whom I had, in behalf of a poor devil, to recommend a stay of proceedings. The hall of witnesses, where I was waiting, was full of people, sheriff’s officers, clerks engrossing behind a glass partition, witnesses whispering to each other in advance of their depositions, women of the people, impressive and garrulous who were telling the officers their entire lives in order to arrive at the affair that had brought them there. Near me, an open door lit the sombre lobby of the examining magistrate, a lobby which leads everywhere, even to the scaffold, and from which the prisoners issue as accused. Some of these unfortunates, brought there under a strong escort by way of the staircase of la Conciergerie, lay about on the benches awaiting their turn to be interrogated, and it is in this ante-chamber of the convict prison that I overheard a lovers’ dialogue, an idyl of the faubourg, as impassioned as “l’Oarystis,” but more heartbreaking—Yes, in the midst of this shadow, where so many criminals have left something of their shuddering, of their hopes, and of their rages, I saw two beings love, and smile; and however lowly was this love, however faded was this smile, the old lobby must have been as astonished by it as would a miry and black street of Paris, if penetrated by the cooing of a turtle-dove.
In a listless attitude, almost unconscious, a young girl was seated at the end of a bench, quiet as a working woman who waits the price of her day’s labor. She wore the calico bonnet, and the sad costume of Saint-Lazare with an air of repose and of well-being, as though the prison régime were the best thing she had found in all her life. The guard, who sat beside her, seemed to find her much to his taste, and they laughed together softly. At the other end of the lobby, wholly in the shadow, was seated, handcuffs on wrists, the Desgrieux of this Manon. She had not seen him at first; but as soon as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she perceived him and trembled: “Why, that’s Pignou—hé! Pignou!”—
The guard silenced her. The prisoners are expressly forbidden to talk to each other.