Truth [Vérité]. Emile Zola

'Let us go down into the street, my poor friend, and the first twelve citizens we get together will spit in your face and call you a dirty Jew. You don't read Le Petit Beaumontais, and you are ignorant of the beautiful souls and minds of your contemporaries. But all allusions would be dangerous and culpable: is that not so, Monsieur Froment?'

      Then, as Marc spoke of the disappointment he had experienced when visiting influential persons, Delbos, wishing to free his client's brother of his erroneous views, insisted on the subject. No doubt they had a friend in Salvan, but he was sorely threatened, and, instead of defending others, needed to be defended himself. Then Le Barazer would sacrifice something to the fire, suffering Simon to go to his fate and reserving all his authority and influence for the defence of secular education. Next Lemarrois, the once incorruptible Republican, was unknowingly on that path of disquietude which leads straight to reaction. Then came Marcilly, at the mention of whose name Delbos was all afire. No trust whatever was to be placed in him, he had always lied, and to-morrow he would become a renegade and a traitor. Indeed, one would obtain only fair words from all those folks; nothing in the way of deeds was to be expected, neither an act of frankness nor one of courage.

      Having thus judged the university men and the politicians, Delbos passed to the judicial world. He was convinced that Magistrate Daix had suspected the truth, but had set it on one side, terrified as he was by the perpetual quarrels which his wife stirred up in order to prevent him from releasing the dirty Jew. And in acting as he had done he had surely experienced great perturbation of conscience, for at bottom he was honest. But, apart from him, one had to fear the Procureur de la République, the frisky Raoul de La Bissonnière, whose speech to the jury would certainly prove ferocious. Vain of his petty noblesse, it seemed to La Bissonnière great condescension on his part to serve the Republic, and he meant to be rewarded for doing so by rapid advancement, which he hastened as best he could, fawning on both the Government and the Congregations, zealous too as a patriot and an anti-semite. As for President Gragnon, in him one would have a jovial judge, a hard drinker, a keen sportsman, fond of petticoats, addicted to witticisms, affecting brusqueness, not certainly sceptical, without soul or faith, and at the mercy of the stronger side. Finally, there would be the jury, the composition of which it was easy to foresee. One might expect a few representatives of the manufacturing and trading classes, some professional men, clerks, and retired officers, and all would have poisoned minds, all would tremble for their skins, and yield to the general dementia.

      'So, you see,' Delbos concluded bitterly, 'your brother, forsaken by everybody since he so awkwardly requires help when fear respecting the result of the elections paralyses even the friends of truth and justice, will have a fine collection of stupidity, egotism, and cowardice to judge him.' And, as David preserved dolorous silence, he added: 'Oh! we shall not allow ourselves to be devoured without raising an outcry. But I prefer to show you things as they are. And now let us examine the position with respect to the case itself.'

      He could tell what views would be set forth by the prosecution. Pressure had been brought to bear on the witnesses from all sides. Quite apart from public opinion in the midst of whose vitiated atmosphere they lived, they were certainly being worked upon by occult powers, caught in a skilfully contrived skein of daily exhortations which dictated to them the statements they were to make. Mademoiselle Rouzaire now declared peremptorily that she had heard Simon come home at a quarter to eleven o'clock on the night of the crime. Even Mignot now fancied that he had heard footsteps and voices about the same hour. Then influence must have been exercised on Simon's pupils, the Bongard, Doloir, Savin, and Milhomme children, with the object of extracting from them statements unfavourable to the prisoner. Little Sébastien Milhomme, for instance, had now declared, while sobbing distressfully, that he had never seen his cousin Victor with any copy-slip coming from the Brothers' school; and apropos of that affair, people spoke of an unexpected visit that Madame Edouard Milhomme had lately received from a distant cousin, General Jarousse, who commanded the division garrisoned at Beaumont. He had never previously confessed his relationship to the lady stationer, but had suddenly remembered it, and paid her that friendly call.

      Moreover, the prosecution insisted on the failure of all efforts to find any tramp who might have committed the crime, as had been originally suspected. It also asserted that it had vainly sought any witness, guard, or wayfarer, who had seen Simon returning from Beaumont to Maillebois on foot. On the other hand, it had failed to establish that he had returned by train, for no railway employé remembered having seen him; besides which several return tickets had not been given up on the night of the crime. But it seemed that the evidence of Brother Fulgence and Father Philibin would be very grave, particularly that of the latter, who would prove that the copy-slip connected with the crime had really belonged to Simon's school. And to make things complete, two handwriting experts of the prosecution, Masters Badoche and Trabut, had declared that they fully recognised Simon's initials, an E and an S intertwined, in the faint and virtually illegible paraph on the slip.

      Thus one could divine the form which the 'act of accusation' or indictment would take. It would set forth that Simon lied, and that he had assuredly returned from Beaumont by train, and must have reached his home at the very time when Mademoiselle Rouzaire declared that she had heard him. On the other hand it seemed certain that little Zéphirin, after returning from the Capuchin Chapel at ten o'clock, had not gone to bed immediately, but had amused himself by arranging some religious pictures on his table, in such wise that one might say the crime had been committed between a quarter to eleven and eleven o'clock.

      It was easy to picture the scene. Simon, seeing a light, had entered his nephew's room, and found him there, about to get into bed. Arriving from a banquet, heated by wine, he had yielded to a fit of abominable madness. Moreover, he hated the child, he was infuriated by the fact that he was a Catholic, and thus it was allowable to hint at the possibility of ritual crime, at the horrible legend fixed in the minds of the masses. But, at all events, there certainly had been abomination; and the maddened criminal, after thrusting the first thing he had at hand into the victim's mouth in order to stifle his cries, had lost his head, and, frantic with terror, had strangled the lad when the improvised gag fell out and the cries began afresh, more terrible than ever. It was not so easy to explain how it happened that the number of Le Petit Beaumontais and the copy-slip had been mingled together. Doubtless the newspaper had been in Simon's pocket, for the boy would not have had one in his possession. As for the copy-slip, the prosecution, after hesitating slightly, had adopted the view that this also must have been in Simon's pocket, for the report of the handwriting experts identifying the initials showed that it belonged to him.

      The crime accomplished, the rest was easily explained. Simon left the body on the floor, touched nothing in the room, but contented himself with opening the window widely in order to make it appear that the murderer had come from outside. In one respect he had blundered badly, he had not thought of picking up and destroying the newspaper and the copy-slip, which had rolled to the foot of the bed. This showed how great had been his perturbation. And, doubtless, he had not immediately joined his wife, as she fixed the hour of his return at twenty minutes to twelve. In all probability he had spent some time seated on the stairs, trying to recover his calmness. The prosecution did not go so far as to charge Madame Simon with complicity; nevertheless, it gave out that she did not tell the truth when she spoke of the smiling quietude, the gay affection displayed by her husband that night; and a proof of her disregard for veracity was to be found in the evidence of Mignot, who was astonished that his principal should have risen so late the next morning, and who asserted that he had found him pale and shivering, scarce able to walk, when he went to tell him the dreadful tidings. Mademoiselle Rouzaire, Brother Fulgence, and Father Philibin agreed that Simon had almost fainted at the sight of the little body, although in other respects he showed the most revolting dryness of heart. And in this again was there not an overwhelming proof of culpability? The wretched man's guilt could be doubted by none.

      Having thus explained the views of the prosecution, Delbos resumed: 'The moral impossibilities are gross; no man of good sense will think Simon guilty, and, besides, there are several material improbabilities. But this frightful tale is sufficiently well constructed to seize hold of the masses and to become one of those legendary fables which acquire the force of truth. Our weakness proceeds from the fact that, not knowing the real story, we cannot set it up in opposition to the legend now being forged.