The Mystery of Orcival, Émile Gaboriau [fiction novels to read TXT] 📗

to a sad resignation. He was suffering; his head was heavy, and he was cold.

“If I shouldn’t die tonight,” he thought, “I shall have a terrible cold in the morning.”

This mental sally did not make him smile, but it gave him the consciousness of being firm and determined. He went into the Rue Dauphine and looked about for a hotel. Then it occurred to him that it was not yet seven o’clock, and it might arouse suspicions if he asked for a room at that early hour. He reflected that he still had over one hundred francs, and resolved to dine. It should be his last meal. He went into a restaurant and ordered it. But he in vain tried to throw off the anxious sadness which filled him. He drank, and consumed three bottles of wine without changing the current of his thoughts.

The waiters were surprised to see him scarcely touch the dishes set before him, and growing more gloomy after each potation. His dinner cost ninety francs; he threw his last hundred-franc note on the table, and went out. As it was not yet late, he went into another restaurant where some students were drinking, and sat down at a table in the farther corner of the room. He ordered coffee and rapidly drank three or four cups. He wished to excite himself, to screw up his courage to do what he had resolved upon; but he could not; the drink seemed only to make him more and more irresolute.

A waiter, seeing him alone at the table, offered him a newspaper. He took it mechanically, opened it, and read:

“Just as we are going to press, we learn that a well-known person has disappeared, after announcing his intention to commit suicide. The statements made to us are so strange, that we defer details till tomorrow, not having time to send for fuller information now.”

These lines startled Hector. They were his death sentence, not to be recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had always been⁠—public opinion.

“They will never cease talking about me,” he muttered angrily. Then he added, firmly, “Come, I must make an end of this.”

He soon reached the Hotel Luxembourg. He rapped at the door, and was speedily conducted to the best room in the house. He ordered a fire to be lighted. He also asked for sugar and water, and writing materials. At this moment he was as firm as in the morning.

“I must not hesitate,” he muttered, “nor recoil from my fate.”

He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm hand a declaration which he destined for the police.

“No one must be accused of my death,” he commenced; and he went on by asking that the hotelkeeper should be indemnified.

The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his pistols on the mantel.

“I will shoot myself at midnight,” thought he. “I have yet an hour to live.”

The count threw himself in an armchair and buried his face in his hands. Why did he not kill himself at once? Why impose on himself this hour of waiting, of anguish and torture? He could not have told. He began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on the headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to that wretched room. How time had passed! It seemed but yesterday that he first began to borrow. It does little good, however, to a man who has fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes why he fell.

The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.

He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read. Who furnished the information? Doubtless it was Jenny. She had come to her senses, tearfully hastened after him. When she failed to find him on the boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to his club, then to some of his friends. So that tonight, at this very moment, the world was discussing him.

“Have you heard the news?”

“Ah, yes, poor Trémorel! What a romance! A good fellow, only⁠—”

He thought he heard this “only” greeted with laughter and innuendoes. Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour had come.

The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the bed, so as not to fall on the floor.

The first stroke of twelve; he did not fire.

Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high. He had fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground had always been admiringly remarked. One day he had killed a man, and that night he slept very soundly.

But he did not fire.

There are two kinds of courage. One, false courage, is that meant for the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the stimulus of rage, and the applause of lookers-on. The other, true courage, despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion; success does not sway it, it does its work noiselessly.

Two minutes after twelve⁠—Hector still held the pistol against his forehead.

“Am I going to be afraid?” he asked himself.

He was afraid, but would not confess it to himself. He put his pistols back on the table and returned to his seat near the fire. All his limbs were trembling.

“It’s nervousness,” he muttered. “It’ll pass off.”

He gave himself till one o’clock. He tried to convince himself of the necessity of committing suicide. If he did not, what would become of him? How would he live? Must he make up his mind to work? Besides, could he appear in the world, when all Paris knew of his intention? This thought goaded him to fury; he had a sudden courage, and grasped his pistols. But the sensation which the touch of the cold steel gave him, caused him to drop his arm and draw away shuddering.

“I cannot,” repeated he, in his anguish. “I cannot!”

The idea of the physical pain of shooting himself filled