Part 55 (1/2)
The Commissioner who had arrested him was not there. Guy found himself in the presence of what were as pieces of human machinery, working silently, without noise of wheels, and caring for his protests no more than they did for the wind that blew through the corridors.
”See, on my honor, I am not a rascal!” he said. ”What have I done? I have stupidly pa.s.sed this bit of red ribbon into my b.u.t.tonhole. Well!
that is an offence, it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that!
I will pay the fine, if fine there is! You are not going to keep me here with thieves?”
In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance as a fas.h.i.+onable elegant and an ironical man of the world, treating his misadventure in a spirit of haughty disdain; but his overstrained nerves led him to act with a sort of cold fury that gave him the desire to openly oppose, as in a duel, his many adversaries.
”I beg you to remain calm,” one of these men repeated to him from time to time in a pa.s.sionless way.
”Oh! that is easy enough for you to say,” cried Lissac. ”I ask you once more, where is Monsieur Jouvenet?--I wish to see Monsieur Jouvenet!”
”Monsieur le Prefect cannot be seen in this way,” was the reply.
”Moreover, you haven't to see any one; you have only to wait.”
”Wait for what?”
They led Guy de Lissac through the pa.s.sages to the door of a new cell, which they opened before him.
”Then,” he said, as he tried to force a troubled smile, ”I am a prisoner? Quite seriously? As in melodrama? This is high comedy!”
He asked if he would soon be examined, at least. They didn't know. They hardly replied to him. Could he write, at any rate? Notify any one?
Protest? What should he do? He heard from the lips of a keeper who had the appearance of a very honest man, the information, crus.h.i.+ng as a verdict: ”You are in close confinement, as it is called!”
_In close confinement?_ Were they mocking him? In secret, he, Lissac?
Evidently, they wanted to make fun; it was absurd, it was unlikely, such things only happened in operettas. He would heartily relish it at the Cafe Riche presently, when he went to dine. _In close confinement?_ He was no longer annoyed at the jest, so amusing had it become. For an old Parisian like him, it was a facetious romance and almost amusing.
”A climax!”
Evening pa.s.sed and night came. They brought Lissac a meal, and the _jest_, as he called it, in no way came to an end. He did not close his eyes for the whole night. He was stifled, and grew angry within the narrow cage in which they had locked him. All sorts of wild projects of revenge pa.s.sed through his brain. He would send his seconds to Monsieur Jouvenet, he would protest in the papers. He would have public opinion in his favor.
Then his scepticism came to his aid, and shrugging his shoulders, he said:
”Bah! public opinion! It will ridicule me, that's all! It will accuse me of desiring to make a stir, to cut off my dog's tail. To-day, Alcibiades would thus cut off his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would bring an action against him.”
He waited for the next morning with the feverish anxiety of those who cannot sleep. Certainly he would be examined at the first moment. They did so in the case of the vagabonds gathered in during the night and dumped into the _lions' den_. The whole day pa.s.sed without Lissac's seeing any other faces than those of his turnkeys, and these men were almost mutes. Then his irritation was renewed. He turned his useless anger against himself, as he could not insult the walls.
Night came round, and spite of himself, he slept for a short time on the wretched prison pallet. He began to find the facetious affair too prolonged and too gloomy. They took him just in time, the second day after his arrest, before a kind of magistrate or police judge, who, after having reminded him that the law was clear in respect of the wearing of foreign orders, announced that the matter was settled by a decree of _nolle prosequi_.
”That is to say,” said Lissac, in anger, ”that two nights pa.s.sed in close confinement is regarded as ample punishment? If I am guilty of a crime, I deserve much more than that. But, if only a mere peccadillo is attributable to me, I consider it too much; and I swear to you that I intend, in my turn, to summon to justice for illegal arrest--”
”Keep quiet,” curtly interrupted the magistrate. ”That is the best thing you can do!”
Lissac, meantime, felt a sort of physical delight in leaving those cold pa.s.sages and that stone dwelling.
The fresh breeze of a gray November day appeared to him to be as gentle as in spring. It seemed that he had lived in that den for weeks. He flung himself into a carriage, had himself driven home, and was received by his concierge with stupefied amazement.
”You, monsieur?” he said. ”Already!”
This _already_ was pregnant with suggestiveness, and puzzled Lissac. The rumor had, in fact, spread throughout the quarter, and probably the porter had helped it along--that Guy had been arrested for complicity in some political intrigue, though of what nature was unknown.