as in the past.”
This was no time to anger his servant. M. Marambot murmured as he closed his eyes:
“I swear not to tell on you.”
Denis saved his master. He spent days and nights without sleep, never leaving the sick room, preparing drugs, broths, potions, feeling his pulse, anxiously counting the beats, attending him with the skill of a trained nurse and the devotions of a son.
He continually asked:
“Well, monsieur, how do you feel?”
M. Marambot would answer in a weak voice:
“A little better, my boy, thank you.”
And when the sick man would wake up at night, he would often see his servant seated in an armchair weeping silently.
Never had the old chemist been so cared for, so fondled, so spoiled. At first he had said to himself: “As soon as I am well I shall get rid of this rascal.”
He was now convalescing, and from day to day he would put off dismissing his murderer. He thought that no one would ever show him such care and attention, for he held this man through fear; and he warned him that he had left a document with a lawyer denouncing him to the law if any new accident should occur.
This precaution seemed to guarantee him against any future attack; and he then asked himself if it would not be wiser to keep this man near him, in order to watch him closely.
Just as formerly, when he would hesitate about taking some larger place of business, he could not make up his mind to any decision.
“There is plenty of time,” he would say to himself.
Denis continued to show himself an admirable servant. M. Marambot was well. He kept him.
One morning, just as he was finishing breakfast, he suddenly heard a great noise in the kitchen. He hastened in there. Denis was struggling with two gendarmes. An officer was taking notes on his pad.
As soon as he saw his master, the servant began to sob, exclaiming:
“You told on me, monsieur, that’s not right, after what you had promised me. You have broken your word of honour, Monsieur Marambot; that’s not right, that’s not right!”
M. Marambot, bewildered and distressed at being suspected, lifted his hand.
“I swear to you before God, my boy, that I did not tell on you. I haven’t the slightest idea how the police could have found out about your attack on me.”
The officer started:
“You say that he attacked you, M. Marambot?”
The bewildered chemist answered:
“Yes—but I did not tell on him—I haven’t said a word—I swear it—he has served me excellently from that time on—”
The officer pronounced severely:
“I will take down your testimony. The law will take notice of this new action, of which it was ignorant, Monsieur Marambot. I was commissioned to arrest your servant for the theft of two ducks surreptitiously taken by him from M. Duhamel of which act there are witnesses. I shall make a note of your information.”
Then, turning toward his men, he ordered:
“Come on, let us start!”
The two gendarmes dragged Denis out.
The lawyer used the plea of insanity, contrasting the two misdeeds in order to strengthen his argument. He had clearly proved that the theft of the two ducks came from the same mental condition as the eight knife-wounds in the body of Marambot. He had cunningly analyzed all the phases of this transitory condition of mental aberration, which could, doubtless, be cured by a few months’ treatment in a reputable sanatorium. He had spoken in enthusiastic terms of the continued devotion of this faithful servant, of the care with which he had surrounded his master, wounded by him in a moment of alienation.
Touched by this memory, M. Marambot felt the tears rising to his eyes.
The lawyer noticed it, opened his arms with a broad gesture, spreading out the long black sleeves of his robe like the wings of a bat, and exclaimed:
“Look, look, gentlemen of the jury, look at those tears. What more can I say for my client? What speech, what argument, what reasoning would be worth these tears of his master? They speak louder than I do, louder than the law; they cry: ‘Mercy, for the poor wandering mind of a while ago!’ They implore, they pardon, they bless!”
He was silent and sat down.
Then the judge, turning to Marambot, whose testimony had been excellent for his servant, asked him:
“But, monsieur, even admitting that you consider this man insane, that does not explain why you should have kept him. He was none the less dangerous.”
Marambot, wiping his eyes, answered:
“Well, your honour, what can you expect? Nowadays it’s so hard to find good servants—I could never have found a better one.”
Denis was acquitted and put in a sanatorium at his master’s expense.
He?
My dear friend, you can hardly believe it? I can see why. You think I have gone mad? It may be so, but not for the reasons which you suppose.
Yes, I am going to get married. That’s true.
My ideas and my convictions have not changed at all. I look upon all legalized cohabitation as utterly stupid, for I am certain that nine husbands out of ten are cuckolds; and they get no more than their deserts for having been idiotic enough to fetter their lives and renounce their freedom in love, the only happy and good thing in the world, and for having clipped the wings of fancy which continually drives us on toward all women. You know what I mean. More than ever I feel that I am incapable of loving one woman alone, because I shall always adore all the others too much. I should like to have a thousand arms, a thousand mouths, and a thousand-temperaments, to be able to strain an army of these charming creatures in my embrace at the same moment.
And yet I am going to get married!
I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife tomorrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that she is not distasteful to me, and that is enough for my
