Bousquier was startled. The longer he reflected, the more profoundly was he impressed by what he had heard. His face blanched and he grew cold all over. It was as if a disordered dream were suddenly turned into a waking reality, or as if a person in a state of semi-intoxication, recounting the fictitious story of some misfortune and becoming more and more enmeshed in a web of falsehoods with every new detail, suddenly learned that everything had actually taken place as he had related. A peculiar depression took possession of him, he had a horror of the solitude of his cell, a dread of sleep.
All Rodez had listened to Bousquier's statements with feverish avidity. Finally the form of the stranger with the double-barreled gun obtained distinctness and tangibility. That he had the air of a gentleman spurred the rage of the people, and the Legitimist party, which was composed in great part of the rich and the aristocracy, began to tremble. It was probably among them that a person was first mentioned whose name ran, first cautiously, then boldly, then accusingly, from mouth to mouth, and over whose head a thunder-cloud, born of a wreath of mist, hung arrested, quivering with lightning. It was well known that Bastide Grammont, the tenant of La Morne, in spite of his relationship to the lawyer Fualdes, lived in a state of animosity, or at least of the oppressive dependence of a debtor, with the old man. Every one knew, or thought he knew, that stormy scenes had often taken place between uncle and nephew. Was not that enough? Moreover, Bastide's domineering temperament and harsh nature, the sudden sale of La Morne, and a well connected chain of little suspicious signs—who still dared to doubt?
The unwearied architect who was at work somewhere there, in the earth below or the air above, took care that the circle of ruin should be complete, and enlisted associates with malicious pleasure in every street, among high and low. In the forenoon of the nineteenth of March, Fualdes and Grammont were walking up and down the promenade of Rodez. A woman who dealt in second-hand things had heard the young fellow say to the old man: "This evening, then, at eight o'clock." A mason who was shoveling sand for a new building had heard Monsieur Fualdes exclaim: "You will keep your word, then?" Whereupon Grammont replied: "Set your mind at rest, this evening I shall settle my account with you." The music-teacher Lacombe remembered distinctly how Bastide, with a wrathful countenance, had called to the old man: "You drive me to extremity." The idle talk of a chatterbox gained, in the buzz of hearsay, the same importance as well established observations, and what had been said before and after was blended and combined with audacious arbitrariness. Thus, Professor Vignet, one of the heads of the Royalists, alleged that he had gone into a fruit store about seven in the evening, shortly before the murder, and met one of his colleagues there. He related that he had seen Bastide Grammont, who was walking rather rapidly on passing him. He declared that he exclaimed: "Don't you find that Grammont has an uncanny face?" To which the other answered affirmatively and said that one must be on one's guard against him. Witnesses came forward who confirmed this conversation. Witnesses came forward who claimed to have seen Bastide in front of the Bancal house; he had emitted a shrill whistle a number of times and then dodged into the shadow.
Bastide Grammont had lived at La Morne for five years. He was perhaps the only man in the entire district who never concerned himself about politics, and kept aloof from all party activity, and this proud independence exposed him to the ill will, nay, the hatred, of his fellow-citizens. When upon one occasion a demonstration in favor of the Bourbons was to take place in Rodez, and the streets were filled with an excited crowd, he rode with grave coolness on his dapple-gray horse through the inflamed throng and returned the wild, angry glances directed at him with a supercilious smile.
It was related of him that he had wasted his youth and a considerable fortune in Paris, and had returned home from there sick and tired of mankind. His mode of life pointed to a love of the singular. In former years a learned father from the neighboring Benedictine abbey had often been his guest; it seemed as if the quiet student of human nature took a secret pleasure in the unbridled spirit and the pagan fervor of Nature-worship of the hermit, Bastide; but when he forcibly abducted a seamstress, pretty Charlotte Arlabosse, from Alby, and lived with her in unlawful union, the Benedictine, in obedience to the command of his superiors, was obliged to break off the intercourse. Thenceforth, Bastide renounced all intimate human contact. He had no friend; he wished for none. He secluded himself with disdainful pride; the sight of a new face turned his distant and cold; people in society he treated with insulting indifference. Perhaps it was only from a fear of disappointment that he harshly withstood even the most friendly advances, for there lay at times a vague yearning for love in the depths of his eyes. To grow hard because unfulfilled claims afflict and darken the soul, to retire into solitude because overweening pride shuns to lay bare the glowing heart, to be unjust from a feeling of shame and misunderstood defiance—that was perhaps his lot, and certainly his shortcoming.
For days at a time he would roam about with his dogs in the valleys of the Cévennes. He gathered stones, mushrooms, flowers, caught birds and snakes, hunted, sang, and fished. If something went wrong and his blood was up, he mounted the fieriest horse in his stable and rode over the most dangerous paths across the rocks, to Rieux. In winter, in the early cold hours, he was seen bathing in the river; in sultry summer nights he lay naked and feverish under the open sky. He declared then that he saw the stars dance and the earth tremble. At vintage time he was, without ever drinking, as if intoxicated; he organized festivals with music and torch-light processions, and was the patron of all the love-affairs among the workers in the vineyards. In case of long-continued bad weather he grew pale, languid, and supersensitive, lost sleep and appetite, and was subject to sudden fits of rage which were the dread of his servants; on one such occasion he cut down half a dozen of the grandest trees in the garden, which, as everybody knew, he loved as passionately as if they were his brothers.
That with such an irregular management the income of the estate diminished year by year, astonished no one but himself. He fell into debt, but to speak or think about it caused him the greatest annoyance, and his resource against it was a regular participation in various lotteries, to whose dates of payment he always looked forward with childish impatience.
* * * * *
When the court, in compliance with the opinion and accusation of the people, which could not be ignored, ordered Bastide's arrest, he already knew the forces at work against him. He was sitting under a huge plane-tree, occupied with some wood-carving, when the constables appeared in the yard. Charlotte Arlabosse rushed up to him and seized his arm, but he shook her off, saying: "Let them have their way, the abscess has been ripe a long time." Stepping forward to meet the gendarmes with satirical pomposity, he cried: "Your servant, gentlemen."
The occupants of La Morne were subjected to a rigorous examination. According to Bastide's own statement, he had ridden to Rodez on the afternoon of the nineteenth of March; at seven in the evening he was already with his sister in the village of Gros; there he remained over night, returned in the morning to La Morne, then upon the news of his uncle's death, he had ridden to Rodez once more and spent about half an hour in Fualdes' house. His sister confirmed his statement that he had passed the night in her house, and added that he had been particularly cheerful and amiable. The maid, too, who had waited on him and prepared his bed, declared that he had retired at ten o'clock. As to the domestics at La Morne, they babbled of one thing and another. In order to say something and not stand there like simpletons or accomplices, they involved themselves in speeches of significant obscurity; thus one of the servants remarked that if the master's gray mare could but speak he could tell of some hard riding that night. The maids spoke incoherently or shed tears; Charlotte Arlabosse even fled, but was captured in the vineyards and incarcerated in the town prison.