The President strode up and down the entrance-hall awhile, his thoughts chasing each other like a fleeing troop of wild animals. As the echo of his footsteps struck him unpleasantly, he stepped out into the garden, and, strolling in the winding paths, he inhaled the fresh night air with a feeling of relief. As lie was leaving the avenue of yews, a streak of light fell across the path; Monsieur Seguret stepped upon the low wall encircling a small fountain and could thus look into Clarissa's room, the windows of which stood open. With difficulty he refrained from crying out in astonishment on beholding Clarissa in a loose nightdress, dancing with an expression of ecstasy and with passionate movements. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if they were sealed, her eyebrows lifted in coquettish anxiety, her shoulders rocked in a stream of inaudible tones whose tempo seemed now hurried, now excessively slow. Suddenly she seized something and held it before her,—it was a mirror; glancing into it, she recoiled with a shudder and let it fall, so that the listener could hear the clinking of the broken glass; then she went up to the window, tore her dress from her bosom, laid her hand upon her bare breast and looked straight in the direction where Monsieur Seguret was standing. He crouched down as if a gun had been aimed at him; Clarissa, however, did not see him; she fixed her gaze awhile upon the sweeping clouds and then closed the window. The President remained standing at his post some time longer and was unable to divert the current of his thoughts. Whom is she deceiving? he pondered, distressed—herself, or people in general, or God?
For the first time in many days Clarissa enjoyed a peaceful sleep once more. Yet when she laid herself in her white bed the pillows seemed to assume a purple hue and she fell into slumber as into an abyss. She dreamed of landscapes, of weird old houses, and of a sky that looked like clotted blood. She herself wandered in the silvery light, and without feeling any touch or seeing any human form, she nevertheless had a sensation of passionate kisses being pressed upon her lips, and there was a stirring in her body as of life taking shape.
This strange mood and agitation endured for days afterward. A silvery veil lay between her and the world. For fear of rending it, she spoke in low tones and walked with measured steps; beyond it, the sun had no more illuminating power than the moon. When, on the evening before the trial, she was returning from a stroll in the fields, she saw two women standing in the gateway of the château. One of them hurried forward to meet her, threw herself on her knees and seized her hands. It was Charlotte Arlabosse. "What have you done?" murmured the beautiful girl, panting. "He is innocent, by Christ's Passion, he is innocent! Have mercy, Madame, even if not upon me, at least upon his old mother!"
The crimson of the setting sun lit up her features, distorted by grief. Behind Charlotte there stood a lady of portly build, with great warts on her hands; yet her face was thin, and her countenance as motionless as that of the dead. She resembled a tree exuberant in strength, whose crown is blighted.
Clarissa made a deprecatory gesture, yet she retained a friendly and calm air. A second later, she thought she beheld herself in the kneeling figure, beheld her double; and a cruel triumph filled her heart. "Have no care, my child," said she, smiling, in a low voice; "as far as Bastide is concerned, everything is already settled." Thereupon she opened the gate and walked into the house. Charlotte arose and gazed motionless through the grating.
That night Clarissa retired early, but she awoke at four o'clock and began dressing. She selected a black velvet dress, and, as her only ornament, she fastened a diamond star in the edge of it at her bare neck. Her heart beat faster the nearer the hour approached. At eight o'clock the carriage drew up; it was a long drive to Alby, where the Court of Assizes sat. Monsieur Seguret had ridden away early in the morning, nobody knew whither.
The walls of the old town had hardly come in sight before such a mass of people was to be seen on the road that the horses were obliged to slacken their pace. They surrounded the carriage and gazed with strained attention into the open windows; women lifted up their children that they, too, might see the famous Madame Mirabel. She did not seek to escape the general curiosity; with the happy smile of a bride she sat there, her fine black brows lifted high on her forehead.
On the stroke of ten President Enjalran, who was to preside at the trial, appeared in the overcrowded hall, and after the reading of the lengthy indictment Bastide was summoned to the hearing.
Firm as if cast in bronze he stood before the judge's table. His answers were cool, terse, and clear. From beginning to end he now saw through the senseless fable, woven of stupidity and malice. By a biting sarcasm he showed his unutterable contempt of all the accusations against him, thus placing the counsel assigned to him at the last moment, with whom he stubbornly refused to confer, in no slight embarrassment.
Now and then he turned his glance toward the tall, church-like windows, and when he caught sight of a bird that had alighted on the sill and dug his yellow bill into the feathers on his breast, he lost his self-command for a moment and his lips parted in pain.