A Parricide
Counsel for the defence had pleaded insanity. How else was this strange crime to be accounted for?
One morning, in the reeds near Chaton, two bodies had been found locked in each other’s arms, those of a man and his wife. They were a couple well known in society, wealthy, no longer young, and only married the previous year, the woman having lost her first husband three years before.
They were not known to have any enemies, and they had not been robbed. They had apparently been thrown into the river from the bank, after having been struck, one after the other, with a long iron spike.
The inquest did not lead to any discovery. The watermen who were questioned knew nothing; the affair was on the point of being abandoned, when a young joiner from a neighbouring village, named Georges Louis, known as The Gentleman, gave himself up.
To all interrogation he refused to make any other answer than:
“I had known the man for two years, the woman for six months. They often came to me to have old furniture mended, because I am good at the work.”
And when he was asked: “Why did you kill them?” he would reply obstinately:
“I killed them because I wanted to kill them.”
Nothing more could be got out of him.
The man was doubtless an illegitimate child, formerly put out to nurse in the district and afterwards abandoned. He had no name except Georges Louis, but since, as he grew up, he had shown himself unusually intelligent, with tastes and a natural delicacy quite foreign to his comrades, he had been nicknamed “The Gentleman,” and was never called anything else. He was known to be remarkably clever as a joiner, the profession he had adopted. He even did a little carving in wood. He was also said to have ideas about his station, to be a follower of communistic doctrines, even of nihilism, a great reader of novels of adventure and bloodthirsty romances, an influential elector and a clever speaker at the workingmen’s or peasants’ debating-club.
Counsel for the defence had pleaded insanity.
How, in truth, could it be supposed that this workman should have killed his best clients, clients who were both rich and generous (he admitted this), who in two years had given him work which had brought in three thousand francs (his books testified to it)? There was only one explanation: insanity, the obsession of a man who has slipped out of his class and avenges himself on society as a whole by the murder of two gentlefolk; and counsel made a neat allusion to his nickname of “The Gentleman,” given to this outcast by the whole neighbourhood.
“Consider the irony of the situation!” he exclaimed. “Was it not capable of still more violently exciting this unhappy youth with no father nor mother? He is an ardent republican; nay, he even belongs to that political party whose members the State was once wont to shoot and deport, but which today she welcomes with open arms, the party to whom arson is a first principle and murder a perfectly simple expedient.
“These lamentable doctrines, nowadays acclaimed in debating-societies, have ruined this man. He has listened to men of the republican party, yes! and even women too, demanding the blood of Monsieur Gambetta, the blood of Monsieur Grévy; his diseased brain has succumbed, he has thirsted for blood, the blood of nobility!
“It is not this man, gentlemen, whom you should condemn, it is the Commune!”
Murmurs of approval ran to and fro. It was generally felt that counsel for the defence had won his case. The public prosecutor did not reply.
Then the judge asked the prisoner the customary question:
“Prisoner at the bar, have you nothing to add in your defence?”
The man rose.
He was small in stature, with flaxen hair and grey eyes, steady and bright. A strong, frank, sonorous voice came from the throat of this slender youth, and his very first words altered at once the view that had been formed of him.
He spoke loudly, in a declamatory tone, but so clearly that his slightest words carried to the ends of the large court:
“Your Worship, as I do not wish to go to a madhouse, and even prefer the guillotine, I will tell you all.
“I killed the man and the woman because they were my parents.
“Now hear me and judge me.
“A woman, having given birth to a son, sent him out to nurse. It had been well if she had known to what district her accomplice had carried the little creature, innocent, but condemned to lasting misery, to the shame of illegitimate birth, to worse than that: to death, since he was abandoned, since the nurse, no longer receiving the monthly allowance, might well have left him, as such women often do, to pine away, to suffer from hunger, to perish of neglect.
“The woman who suckled me was honest, more honest, more womanly, greater of soul, a better mother, than my own mother. She brought me up. She was wrong to do her duty. It is better to leave to their death the wretches who are flung out into provincial villages, as rubbish is flung out at the roadside.
“I grew up with the vague impression that I was the bearer of some dishonour. One day the other children called me ‘bastard.’ They did not know the meaning of the word, which one of them had heard at home. Neither did I know its meaning, but I sensed it.
“I was, I can honestly say, one of the most intelligent children in the school. I should have been an honest man, Your Worship, perhaps a remarkable man, if my parents had not committed the crime of abandoning me.
“And it was against me that this crime was committed. I was the victim, they were the guilty ones. I was defenceless, they were pitiless. They ought to have loved me: they cast me out.
“I owed my life to them—but is life a gift? Mine, at any rate, was nothing but a misfortune. After their shameful desertion of me, I owed them nothing but revenge. They committed against me the most inhuman, the most shameful, the most monstrous crime that can be committed against a human being.
“A man insulted strikes; a man robbed takes back his goods by force. A man deceived, tricked, tormented, kills; a man whose face is slapped, kills; a man dishonoured, kills. I was more grievously robbed, deceived, tormented, morally slapped in the face, dishonoured, than all the men whose anger you condone.
“I have avenged myself, I have killed. It was my lawful right. I took their happy lives in exchange for the horrible life which they imposed on me.
“You will call it parricide! Were they my parents, those people to whom I was an abominable burden, a terror, a mark of infamy; to whom my birth was a calamity and my life a threat of shame? They sought their selfish pleasure; they brought forth the child they had not counted on. They suppressed that child. My turn has come to repay them in kind.
“And yet, even at the eleventh hour, I was prepared to love them.
“It is now two years, as I have already told you, since the man, my father, came to my house for the first time. I suspected nothing. He ordered two articles of furniture. I learnt later that he had obtained information from the village priest, under the seal of a secret compact.
“He often came; he gave me work and paid me well. Sometimes he even chatted with me on various subjects. I felt some affection for him.
“At the beginning of this year he brought his wife, my mother. When she came in she was trembling so violently that I thought she was the victim of a nervous disorder. Then she asked for a chair and a glass of water. She said nothing; she stared at my stock with the expression of a lunatic, and to all the questions he put to her she answered nothing but yes and no, quite at random! When she had gone, I thought her not quite right in the head.
“She came back the following month. She was calm, mistress of herself. They remained talking quite a long time that day, and gave me a big order. I saw her again three times without guessing anything; but one day, lo and behold! she began to talk to me about my life, my childhood, and my parents. I answered: ‘My parents, madame, were wretches who abandoned me.’ At that she set her hand to her heart and dropped senseless. I thought at once: ‘This is my mother!’ but was careful not to give myself away. I wanted her to go on coming.
“So I in my turn made inquiries. I learned that they had been married just the previous July, my mother having been only three years a widow. There had been rumours enough that they had been lovers during her first husband’s lifetime, but no proof had been forthcoming. I was the proof, the proof they had first hidden, and hoped ultimately to destroy.
“I waited. She reappeared one evening, accompanied, as always, by my father. She seemed to be in a very agitated state that day, I do not know why. Then, just as she was going, she said to me:
“ ‘I wish you well, because I believe you are an honest lad and a good worker; doubtless you will be thinking of getting married some day; I have come to make it possible for you to choose freely any woman you prefer. I myself married the first time against the desires of my heart, and I know how much suffering it brings. Now I am rich, childless, free, mistress of my fortune. Here is your marriage portion.’
“She held out to me a large envelope.
“I stared fixedly at her, then said:
“ ‘Are you my mother?’
“She drew back three paces and hid her eyes in her hand, so that she could see me no more. He, the man, my father, supported her in his arms and shouted at me:
“ ‘You are mad!’
“ ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I know very well that you are my parents. I am not to be deceived so easily. Admit it, and I will keep your secret; I will bear no malice, I will remain what I am now, a joiner.’
“He recoiled towards the door, still supporting his wife, who was beginning to sob. I ran and locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and continued:
“ ‘Look at her, then, and continue to deny that she is my mother!’
“At that he lost his self-control and turned very pale, terrified by the thought that the scandal hitherto avoided might suddenly come out; that their position, their good name, their honour would be lost at a blow.
“ ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ he stammered, ‘trying to get money out of us. And yet they tell us to be good to the common people, the louts, to help them and succour them!’
“My mother, bewildered, was repeating over and over again:
“ ‘Let us go. Let us go.’
“Then, as the door was locked, he exclaimed:
“ ‘If you don’t open the door immediately, I’ll have you jailed for blackmail and assault!’
“I had kept my self-control; I opened the door, and saw them disappear in the darkness.
“At that I felt suddenly as though I had just been orphaned, abandoned, cast into the gutter. A dreadful sadness, mingled with rage, hatred, and disgust overwhelmed me. I felt a swollen rush of emotion through my whole being, a rising tide of justice, righteousness, honour, and spurned affection. I set off running in order to catch them up on the bank of the Seine, which they must follow in order to reach Chaton station.
“I overtook them before long. The night became pitch-dark. I slunk along on the grass, so that they did not hear me. My mother was still crying. My father was saying:
“ ‘It is your own fault. Why did you insist on seeing him? It was madness, in our position. We might have done him kindness by stealth, without showing ourselves. Seeing that we could not hope to recognise him, what was the use of these perilous visits?’
“Then I threw myself in their path, a suppliant.
“ ‘Clearly you are my parents,’ I stammered. ‘You have already cast me off once; will you reject me second time?’
“At that, Your Worship, he raised his hand to me, I swear it on my honour, on the law, on the State. He struck me, and as I seized him by his coat-collar, he drew a revolver from his pocket.
“I saw red, I no longer knew what I did. I had my callipers in my pocket; I struck him, struck him with all my force.
“Then the woman began to cry: ‘Help! Murder!’ and tore at my beard. Apparently I killed her too. How can I know what I did at that moment?
“Then, when I saw them both lying on the ground, I threw them into the Seine, without thinking.
“That is all. Now judge me.”
The prisoner sat down again. After this revelation the trial was postponed until the following session. It will soon come on again. If you and I were the jury, what should we do with this parricide?