The sun was setting and it was the hour of which I’d rather not speak—“the nameless hour,” I called it—when evening sounds were creeping up from all the floors of the prison in a sort of stealthy procession.
I went to the barred window and in the last rays looked once again at my reflected face. It was as serious as before; and that wasn’t surprising, as just then I was feeling serious. But, at the same time, I heard something that I hadn’t heard for months.
It was the sound of a voice; my own voice, there was no mistaking it.
And I recognized it as the voice that for many a day of late had been sounding in my ears. So I knew that all this time I’d been talking to myself.
And something I’d been told came back; a remark made by the nurse at Mother’s funeral.
No, there was no way out, and no one can imagine what the evenings are like in prison.
III
ON THE whole I can’t say that those months passed slowly; another summer was on its way almost before I realized the first was over.
And I knew that with the first really hot days something new was in store for me.
My case was down for the last sessions of the Assize Court, and those sessions were due to end some time in June.
The day on which my trial started was one of brilliant sunshine.
My lawyer assured me the case would take only two or three days.
“From what I hear,” he added, “the court will dispatch your case as quickly as possible, as it isn’t the most important one on the Cause List.
There’s a case of parricide immediately after, which will take them some time.”
They came for me at half-past seven in the morning and I was conveyed to the law courts in a prison van.
The two policemen led me into a small room that smelled of darkness.
We sat near a door through which came sounds of voices, shouts, chairs scraping on the floor; a vague hubbub which reminded me of one of those small-town “socials” when, after the concert’s over, the hall is cleared for dancing.
One of my policemen told me the judges hadn’t arrived yet, and offered me a cigarette, which I declined.
After a bit he asked me if I was feeling nervous.
I said, “No,” and that the prospect of witnessing a trial rather interested me; I’d never had occasion to attend one before.
“Maybe,” the other policeman said. “But after an hour or two one’s had enough of it.”
After a while a small electric bell purred in the room.
They unfastened my handcuffs, opened the door, and led me to the prisoner’s dock.
There was a great crowd in the courtroom.
Though the Venetian blinds were down, light was filtering through the chinks, and the air stiflingly hot already.
The windows had been kept shut.
I sat down, and the police officers took their stand on each side of my chair.
It was then that I noticed a row of faces opposite me.
These people were staring hard at me, and I guessed they were the jury.
But somehow I didn’t see them as individuals.
I felt as you do just after boarding a streetcar and you’re conscious of all the people on the opposite seat staring at you in the hope of finding something in your appearance to amuse them.
Of course, I knew this was an absurd comparison; what these people were looking for in me wasn’t anything to laugh at, but signs of criminality.
Still, the difference wasn’t so very great, and, anyhow, that’s the idea I got.
What with the crowd and the stuffiness of the air I was feeling a bit dizzy.
I ran my eyes round the courtroom but couldn’t recognize any of the faces.
At first I could hardly believe that all these people had come on my account.
It was such a new experience, being a focus of interest; in the ordinary way no one ever paid much attention to me.
“What a crush!” I remarked to the policeman on my left, and he explained that the newspapers were responsible for it. He pointed to a group of men at a table just below the jury box.
“There they are!”
“Who?” I asked, and he replied,
“The press.”
One of them, he added, was an old friend of his. A moment later the man he’d mentioned looked our way and, coming to the dock, shook hands warmly with the policeman. The journalist was an elderly man with a rather grim expression, but his manner was quite pleasant.
Just then I noticed that almost all the people in the courtroom were greeting each other, exchanging remarks and forming groups—behaving, in fact, as in a club where the company of others of one’s own tastes and standing makes one feel at ease.
That, no doubt, explained the odd impression I had of being de trop here, a sort of gate-crasher.
However, the journalist addressed me quite amiably, and said he hoped all would go well for me.
I thanked him, and he added with a smile:
“You know, we’ve been featuring you a bit.
We’re always rather short of copy in the summer, and there’s been precious little to write about except your case and the one that’s coming on after it. I expect you’ve heard about it; it’s a case of parricide.”
He drew my attention to one of the group at the press table, a plump, small man with huge black-rimmed glasses, who made me think of an overfed weasel.
“That fellow’s the special correspondent of one of the Paris dailies.