Part 42 (1/2)

If his present a.s.sociates were the 'best of the bad' around him, they were still far from being to his taste. They were the lowest emissaries of every party--the agents employed for all purposes of espionage and corruption. They affected a sort of fidelity to the cause they served while sober, but once filled with wine, avowed their utter indifference to every party, as they avowed that they took bribes from each in turn.

Many, it is true, had moved in the better cla.s.ses of society, were well-mannered and educated; but even through these there ran the same vein of profligacy, a tone of utter distrust, and a scepticism as to all good here and hereafter.

One or two of these remembered to have seen Gerald in his days of Garde du Corps, and were more than disposed to connect him with the scandals circulated about the Queen; others inclined to regard him as a revolutionist in the garb of the court party; none trusted him, and he lived in a kind of haughty estrangement from all. The Prevot, indeed, liked him, and would talk with him for hours long; and to the old man himself the companions.h.i.+p seemed a boon. He now learned for the first time a true account of the great changes 'without,' as he called the world, and heard with an approach to accuracy the condition in which France then stood.

The sense of indignation at a groundless charge, the cruelty of an imprisonment upon mere suspicion, had long ceased to weigh upon Fitzgerald, and a dreamy apathy, the true lethargy of the prison, stole over him. To lie half sleeping on his hard bed, to sit crouched down, gazing listlessly at the small patch of sky seen through the window, to spell over the names scratched by former prisoners on the plaster, to count for the thousandth time the fissures in the damp walls--these filled his days. His nights were drearier still, tormented with distressing dreams, to be dispelled only by the gloom of awaking in a dungeon.

At intervals of a week or two, orders would come for this or that prisoner to be delivered to the care of the Marshal of the Temple--none knew for what, though all surmised the worst, since not one was seen to return; and so time sped on, month after month, death and removal doing their work, till at last Gerald was the oldest _detenu_ in the section of 'L'Opinion.'

The fatuous vacuity of his mind was such that though he heard the voices around him, and even tried at times to follow what they said, he could collect nothing of it: sometimes the sounds would simply seem to weary and fatigue him--they acted as some deep monotonous noise might have done on a tired brain; sometimes they would cause the most intense irritation, exciting him to a sense of anger he could with difficulty control; and at others, again, they would overcome him so thoroughly with sorrow, that he would weep for hours. How time pa.s.sed, what he had himself been in former years, where and how and with whom he lived, only recurred to him in short fitful pa.s.sages, like the scenes of some moving panorama, present for a moment and then lost to view. He would fancy, too, that he had many distinct and separate existences, as many deaths; and then marvel to himself in which of these states he was at that moment.

His wild talk; his absurd answers when questioned; the incoherent things he would say, stamped him among his fellow-prisoners as one bereft of reason; nor was there, to all seeming, much injustice in the suspicion.

If the chance mention of some name he once knew would start and arouse him, his very observations would appear those of a wandering intellect, since he seemed to have been acquainted with persons the most opposite and incongruous; and it even became a jest--a sort of prison 'plaisanterie'--to ask him whether he was not intimate with this man or that, mentioning persons the least likely for him ever to have met.

'There goes another of your friends, Maitre,' said one to him: 'they have guillotined Brissot this morning; you surely knew him, he edited the _Droit du Peuple_.'

'Yes, I knew him. Poor Brissot!' said Gerald, with a sigh.

'What was he like, Maitre? was he short and thick, with a beard like mine?'

'No, he was fair and gentle-looking.'

'_Parbleu!_ that was a good guess: so he was.'

'And kind-hearted as he looked,' muttered Gerald.

'He died with Gaudet, Gensonne, Louvet, and four other Maratists. You have seen most of them, I 'm sure.'

'Yes. Gaudet and Gensonne I remember; I forget Louvet. Had he a scar on his temple?'

'That he had; it was a sabre-cut in a duel,' cried one, who added in a whisper, 'he's not the mad fool you take him for.'

'You used to be Gabriel Riquetti in times past?' asked another gravely.

'No--that is--not I; but--I forget how it was--we were--I'll remember it by and by.'

'Why, you told me a few days back that you were Mirabeau.'

'No, no,' said another, 'he said he was Alfieri; I was present.'

'Mirabeau's hair was long and wiry. It was not soft like mine,' said Gerald. 'When he shook it back, he used to say, ”I'll show them the boar's head.”'

'Yes. He's right, that was a favourite saying of Mirabeau's,' whispered another.

'And they are all gone now,' said Gerald with a deep sigh.

'Ay, Maitre, every man of them. All the Girondins; all the friends of liberty; all the kind spirits who loved men as their brothers; and the guillotine better than the men.'

'And Vergniaud and Fonfrede, you surely knew them?'