As a matter of fact, he didn’t come on your account.
He was sent for the parricide case, but they’ve asked him to cover yours as well.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “That was very kind of them,” but then I thought it would sound silly.
With a friendly wave of his hand he left us, and for some minutes nothing happened.
Then, accompanied by some colleagues, my lawyer bustled in, in his gown.
He went up to the press table and shook hands with the journalists.
They remained laughing and chatting together, all seemingly very much at home here, until a bell rang shrilly and everyone went to his place.
My lawyer came up to me, shook hands, and advised me to answer all the questions as briefly as possible, not to volunteer information, and to rely on him to see me through.
I heard a chair scrape on my left, and a tall, thin man wearing pince-nez settled the folds of his red gown as he took his seat.
The Public Prosecutor, I gathered.
A clerk of the court announced that Their Honors were entering, and at the same moment two big electric fans started buzzing overhead.
Three judges, two in black and the third in scarlet, with brief cases under their arms, entered and walked briskly to the bench, which was several feet above the level of the courtroom floor.
The man in scarlet took the central, high-backed chair, placed his cap of office on the table, ran a handkerchief over his small bald crown, and announced that the hearing would now begin.
The journalists had their fountain pens ready; they all wore the same expression of slightly ironical indifference, with the exception of one, a much younger man than his colleagues, in gray flannels with a blue tie, who, leaving his pen on the table, was gazing hard at me.
He had a plain, rather chunky face; what held my attention were his eyes, very pale, clear eyes, riveted on me, though not betraying any definite emotion.
For a moment I had an odd impression, as if I were being scrutinized by myself.
That—and the fact that I was unfamiliar with court procedure—may explain why I didn’t follow very well the opening phases: the drawing of lots for the jury, the various questions put by the presiding judge to the Prosecutor, the foreman of the jury, and my counsel (each time he spoke all the jurymen’s heads swung round together toward the bench), the hurried reading of the charge sheet, in the course of which I recognized some familiar names of people and places; then some supplementary questions put to my lawyer.
Next, the Judge announced that the court would call over the witness list.
Some of the names read out by the clerk rather surprised me.
From amongst the crowd, which until now I had seen as a mere blur of faces, rose, one after the other, Raymond, Masson, Salamano, the doorkeeper from the Home, old Perez, and Marie, who gave me a little nervous wave of her hand before following the others out by a side door.
I was thinking how strange it was I hadn’t noticed any of them before when I heard the last name called, that of Celeste.
As he rose, I noticed beside him the quaint little woman with a mannish coat and brisk, decided air, who had shared my table at the restaurant.
She had her eyes fixed on me, I noticed.
But I hadn’t time to wonder about her; the Judge had started speaking again.
He said that the trial proper was about to begin, and he need hardly say that he expected the public to refrain from any demonstration whatsoever.
He explained that he was there to supervise the proceedings, as a sort of umpire, and he would take a scrupulously impartial view of the case.
The verdict of the jury would be interpreted by him in a spirit of justice. Finally, at the least sign of a disturbance he would have the court cleared.
The day was stoking up. Some of the public were fanning themselves with newspapers, and there was a constant rustle of crumpled paper.
On a sign from the presiding judge the clerk of the court brought three fans of plaited straw, which the three judges promptly put in action.
My examination began at once.
The Judge questioned me quite calmly and even, I thought, with a hint of cordiality.
For the nth time I was asked to give particulars of my identity and, though heartily sick of this formality, I realized that it was natural enough; after all, it would be a shocking thing for the court to be trying the wrong man.
The Judge then launched into an account of what I’d done, stopping after every two or three sentences to ask me,
“Is that correct?”
To which I always replied, “Yes, sir,” as my lawyer had advised me.
It was a long business, as the Judge lingered on each detail.
Meanwhile the journalists scribbled busily away.
But I was sometimes conscious of the eyes of the youngest fixed on me; also those of the queer little robot woman.
The jurymen, however, were all gazing at the red-robed judge, and I was again reminded of the row of passengers on one side of a tram.
Presently he gave a slight cough, turned some pages of his file, and, still fanning his face, addressed me gravely.
He now proposed, he said, to trench on certain matters which, on a superficial view, might seem foreign to the case, but actually were highly relevant.
I guessed that he was going to talk about Mother, and at the same moment realized how odious I would find this.
His first question was: Why had I sent my mother to an institution?
I replied that the reason was simple; I hadn’t enough money to see that she was properly looked after at home.
Then he asked if the parting hadn’t caused me distress. I explained that neither Mother nor I expected much of one another—or, for that matter, of anybody else; so both of us had got used to the new conditions easily enough.
The Judge then said that he had no wish to press the point, and asked the Prosecutor if he could think of any more questions that should be put to me at this stage.
The Prosecutor, who had his back half turned to me, said, without looking in my direction, that, subject to His Honor’s approval, he would like to know if I’d gone back to the stream with the intention of killing the Arab.
I said, “No.”
In that case, why had I taken a revolver with me, and why go back precisely to that spot?
I said it was a matter of pure chance.