There Are Crimes and Crimes Part 13

MME. CATHERINE. I don't know any longer what to believe. What the heart thinketh the tongue speaketh. And your tongue has spoken evil words.

MAURICE. She doesn't believe me!

ADOLPHE. But explain your words, man! Explain what you meant by saying that "your love would kill everything that stood in its way."

MAURICE. So they know that too--Are you willing to explain it, Henriette?

HENRIETTE. No, I cannot do that.

ABBE. There is something wrong behind all this and you have lost our sympathy, my friend. A while ago I could have sworn that you were innocent, and I wouldn't do that now.

MAURICE. [To JEANNE] What you have to say means more to me than anything else. JEANNE. [Coldly] Answer a question first: who was it you cursed during that orgie out there?

MAURICE. Have I done that too? Maybe. Yes, I am guilty, and yet I am guiltless. Let me go away from here, for I am ashamed of myself, and I have done more wrong than I can forgive myself.

HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] Go with him and see that he doesn't do himself any harm.

ADOLPHE. Shall I--?

HENRIETTE. Who else?

ADOLPHE. [Without bitterness] You are nearest to it--Sh! A carriage is stopping outside.

MME. CATHERINE. It's the Commissaire. Well, much as I have seen of life, I could never have believed that success and fame were such short-lived things.

MAURICE. [To HENRIETTE] From the triumphal chariot to the patrol wagon!

JEANNE. [Simply] And the a.s.s--who was that?

ADOLPHE. Oh, that must have been me.

COMMISSAIRE. [Enters with a paper in his hand] A summons to Police Headquarters--to-night, at once--for Monsieur Maurice Gerard--and for Mademoiselle Henrietta Mauclerc--both here?

MAURICE and HENRIETTE. Yes.

MAURICE. Is this an arrest?

COMMISSAIRE. Not yet. Only a summons.

MAURICE. And then?

COMMISSAIRE. We don't know yet.

(MAURICE and HENRIETTE go toward the door.)

MAURICE. Good-bye to all!

(Everybody shows emotion. The COMMISSAIRE, MAURICE, and HENRIETTE go out.)

EMILE. [Enters and goes up to JEANNE] Now I'll take you home, sister.

JEANNE. And what do you think of all this?

EMILE. The man is innocent.

ABBE. But as I see it, it is, and must always be, something despicable to break one's promise, and it becomes unpardonable when a woman and her child are involved.

EMILE. Well, I should rather feel that way, too, now when it concerns my own sister, but unfortunately I am prevented from throwing the first stone because I have done the same thing myself.

ABBE. Although I am free from blame in that respect, I am not throwing any stones either, but the act condemns itself and is punished by its consequences.

JEANNE. Pray for him! For both of them!

ABBE. No, I'll do nothing of the kind, for it is an impertinence to want to change the counsels of the Lord. And what has happened here is, indeed, not the work of man.

(Curtain.)

SECOND SCENE

(The Auberge des Adrets. ADOLPHE and HENRIETTE are seated at the same table where MAURICE and HENRIETTE were sitting in the second act. A cup of coffee stands in front of ADOLPHE. HENRIETTE has ordered nothing.)

ADOLPHE. You believe then that he will come here?

HENRIETTE. I am sure. He was released this noon for lack of evidence, but he didn't want to show himself in the streets before it was dark.

ADOLPHE. Poor fellow! Oh, I tell you, life seems horrible to me since yesterday.

HENRIETTE. And what about me? I am afraid to live, dare hardly breathe, dare hardly think even, since I know that somebody is spying not only on my words but on my thoughts.

ADOLPHE. So it was here you sat that night when I couldn't find you?

HENRIETTE. Yes, but don't talk of it. I could die from shame when I think of it. Adolphe, you are made of a different, a better, stuff than he or I---

ADOLPHE. Sh, sh, sh!

HENRIETTE. Yes, indeed! And what was it that made me stay here? I was lazy; I was tired; his success intoxicated me and bewitched me--I cannot explain it. But if you had come, it would never have happened. And to-day you are great, and he is small--less than the least of all.

Yesterday he had one hundred thousand francs. To-day he has nothing, because his play has been withdrawn. And public opinion will never excuse him, for his lack of faith will be judged as harshly as if he were the murderer, and those that see farthest hold that the child died from sorrow, so that he was responsible for it anyhow.

ADOLPHE. You know what my thoughts are in this matter, Henriette, but I should like to know that both of you are spotless. Won't you tell me what those dreadful words of yours meant? It cannot be a chance that your talk in a festive moment like that dealt so largely with killing and the scaffold.

HENRIETTE. It was no chance. It was something that had to be said, something I cannot tell you--probably because I have no right to appear spotless in your eyes, seeing that I am not spotless.

ADOLPHE. All this is beyond me.