Chapter 36

MADAME VAGRET. What is it?

VAGRET. Nothing.

MADAME VAGRET. Nothing? You are so depressed--and yet you've just had such a success as will tell on your career.

VAGRET. It is that success which alarms me.

MADAME VAGRET. Alarms you?

VAGRET. Yes, I'm afraid--

MADAME VAGRET. Afraid of what?

VAGRET. Of having gone too far.

MADAME VAGRET. Too far! Doesn't the murderer deserve death ten times over?

VAGRET [_after a pause_] Are you quite certain, yourself, that he is a murderer?

MADAME VAGRET. Yes.

VAGRET [_in a low voice_] Well--for myself--

MADAME VAGRET. You?

VAGRET. I--I don't know. I know nothing.

MADAME VAGRET. My God!

VAGRET. A dreadful thing happened to me in the course of my indictment. While I, the State Attorney, the official prosecutor, was exercising my function, another self was examining the case calmly, in cold blood; an inner voice kept reproaching me for my violence and insinuating into my mind a doubt, which has gone on increasing. A painful struggle has been going on in my mind, a cruel struggle--and if, as I was finishing, I labored under that emotion of which the President was speaking, if when I demanded the death penalty my voice was scarcely audible, it was because I was at the end of my struggle; because my conscience was on the point of winning the battle, and I made haste to finish, because I was afraid it would speak out against my will. When I saw the advocate remain seated and that he was not going to resume his speech in order to tell the jury the things I would have had him tell them--then I was really afraid of myself, afraid of my actions, of my words, of their terrible consequences, and I wanted to gain time.

MADAME VAGRET. But, my dear, you have done your duty; if the advocate has not done his, that does not concern you.

VAGRET. Always the same reply. If I were an honest man I should tell the jury, when the hearing is resumed, of the doubts that have seized me. I should explain how those doubts arose in me; I should call their attention to a point which I deliberately concealed from them, because I believed the counsel for the defence would point it out to him.

MADAME VAGRET. You know, my dear, how thoroughly I respect your scruples, but allow me to tell you all the same that it won't be you who will declare Etchepare guilty or not guilty; it will be the jury. If anyone ought to feel disturbed, it is Maitre Placat, not you--

VAGRET. But I ought to represent justice!

MADAME VAGRET. Here is a prisoner who comes before you with previous convictions, with a whole crushing series of circumstances establishing his guilt. He is defended by whom? By one of the ornaments of the Bar, a man famed for his conscience as much as for his ability and his oratorical skill. You expound the facts to the jury. If the jury agrees with you, I cannot see that your responsibility as a magistrate is involved.

VAGRET. I don't think about my responsibility as a magistrate--but my responsibility as a man is certainly involved! No! No! I have not the right. I tell you there is a series of circumstances in this case of which no one has spoken and the nature of which makes me believe in the innocence of the accused.

MADAME VAGRET. But--these circumstances--how was it you knew nothing of them until now?

VAGRET [_his head drooping_] Do you think I did know nothing of them? My God! Shall I have the courage to tell you everything? I am not a bad man, am I? I wouldn't wish anyone to suffer for a fault of mine--but--oh, I am ashamed to admit it, to say it aloud, even, when I have admitted it to myself! Well, when I was studying the brief, I had got it so firmly fixed in my mind, to begin with, that Etchepare was a criminal, that when an argument in his favor presented itself to my mind, I rejected it utterly, shrugging my shoulders. As for the facts of which I am speaking, and which gave rise to my doubts--at first I simply tried to prove that those facts were false, taking, from the depositions of the witnesses, only that which would militate against their truth and rejecting all the rest, with a terrible simplicity of bad faith. And in the end, in order to dissipate my last scruples, I told myself, just as you told me, "That is the business of the defence; it isn't mine!" Listen, and you'll see to what point the exercise of the magistrate's office distorts our natures, makes us unjust and cruel. At first I had a feeling of delight when I saw that the President, in his cross-examination, was throwing no light whatever on this series of little facts. It was my profession speaking in me, my profession, do you see? Oh, what poor creatures we are, what poor creatures!

MADAME VAGRET. Perhaps the jury won't find him guilty?

VAGRET. It will find him guilty.

MADAME VAGRET. Or it may find there are extenuating circumstances.

VAGRET. No. I adjured them too earnestly to refuse to do so. I was zealous enough, wasn't I? Violent enough?

MADAME VAGRET. That's true. Why did you make your indictment so passionately?

VAGRET. Ah, why, why? Long before the hearing of the case it was so clearly understood by everybody that the prisoner was the criminal! And then it all went to my head, it intoxicated me--the way they talked. I was the spokesman of humanity, I was to reassure the countryside, I was to restore tranquillity to the family, and I don't know what else! So then--I felt I must show myself equal to the part intrusted to me. My first indictment was relatively moderate--but when I saw the celebrated counsel making the jurymen weep, I thought I was lost; I felt the verdict would escape me. Contrary to my habit, I replied. When I rose to my feet for the second time I was like a man fighting, who has just had a vision of defeat, and who therefore fights with the strength of despair. From that moment Etchepare, so to speak, no longer existed. I was no longer concerned to defend society or sustain my accusation; I was contending against the advocate; it was a trial of orators, a competition of actors; I had to be the victor at all costs. I had to convince the jury, resume my hold on it, wring from it the double "yes" of the verdict. I tell you, Etchepare no longer counted; it was I who counted, my vanity, my reputation, my honor, my future. It's shameful, I tell you, shameful. At any cost I wanted to prevent the acquittal which I felt was certain. And I was so afraid of not succeeding that I employed every argument, good and bad, even that of representing to the terrified jurymen their own houses in flames, their own flesh and blood murdered. I spoke of the vengeance of God falling on judges without severity. And all this in good faith--or rather unconsciously, in a burst of passion, in an access of anger against the advocate, whom I hated at that moment with all my might. My success was greater than I hoped; the jury is ready to obey me; and I, my dear, I have allowed myself to be congratulated, I have grasped the hands held out to me. That is what it is to be a magistrate!

MADAME VAGRET. Never mind. Perhaps there aren't ten in all France who would have acted otherwise.

VAGRET. You are right. Only--if one reflects--it's precisely that that's so dreadful.

RECORDER [_entering_] Monsieur le Procureur, the President is asking when the sitting can be resumed.

VAGRET. At once.

MADAME VAGRET. What are you going to do?

VAGRET. My duty as an honest man. [_He makes ready to go_]

CURTAIN.