GREEN

After eight days of silence, having scornfully resisted all attempts to torture the secret out of her, all stratagems of the interrogatory, Catherine, accused of having poisoned her mistress, Lady W., spoke and said:

“Very well, yes, I’m the one, yet I am not to blame. I lived alone with her and she had such a bad nature that nobody, after six months, stayed with her more than two hours at a time, and then only in the morning. I alone may be accused; I’ve thought it over and understood that. At first I imagined I would save myself by saying nothing, by remaining before you and before all the judges mute and as if dead; but then I saw that my silence would condemn me. It is only this morning, upon awakening, that things became clear to me; up to that time I seemed to be living in a dense darkness, and I imagined that perhaps I should be left there, that I should be forgotten. When you summoned me, I heard your words without understanding them, but I smiled, I believe, because I was glad to hear the sounds of a voice. This past night, no doubt, everything was clarified in my mind, without my being aware of it. I’ll tell you the story, then, exactly as it is. I am not guilty.”

There was nothing common about Catherine except the equivocal position whence she had risen. Her situation was mid-way between that of lady companions and that of a servant. She had been a tutor. Her origin was modest, but worthy. She was tall, pale beneath brown hair with reddish glints, and her eyes were green. When she raised her head in an attitude of defiance the judge regarded these green eyes with a certain fear.

“Green eyes,” he said to himself. “Cat’s eyes, the eyes of a monster!”

She drooped her eyelids, awaiting a reply; then she raised them with a questioning air.

“Green eyes, but a beautiful green, tender and deep,” mused the judge. “The eyes of a passionate woman.... Of a surety there’s a man in this case.... She wishes to save her lover. That she is in love, her eyes proclaim; that she is beloved is witnessed by her beauty. What a wretched travesty is justice, and what does the disappearance of that old woman matter if it has filled with happiness these distant eyes! How beautiful they must be when they are mad with desire.... Ah! But it’s I who am going mad....”

He frowned and said, simply:

“I am listening to you.”

But Catherine was very well aware of the effect produced by her female attitude and she became more the female than ever.

“It’s two years since I came to Mme. W’s as a lady companion, but at once I saw that I’d be expected, at least most of the time, to fill a humbler position. The maids rarely remained more than a week; a quarrel, suspicions, the mistress’s constant ill humor, discouraged these girls. As I received my share of this testy treatment, I intended at first to leave the place likewise, when I noticed that she was a trifle afraid of me and that, after all, with a little tact I could manage her. So I remained. Toward the end I had a poor neighbor come to do the more menial tasks for me and I ran the house alone, without the help of any domestic. Thus I managed to get some peace, finally even smiling at the peevish words she spoke to me. She’d never address me except in violent, insolent tones, but I never answered, so that took care of itself. I would have endured such a life, in hope of better things, for I went out frequently....”

“To see your lover?”

“Yes, sir, I went to see my lover every day, and I will resume seeing him every day as soon as you permit me to....”

The green eyes had become so tender as she spoke and so ardent that the judge did not dare to brave their brilliancy. He lowered his head and said:

“Go on, please.”

He was playing with a pencil, scribbling aimless designs upon a large sheet of white paper.

“I had reached,” resumed Catherine tranquilly, “up to the chapter of suspicions. Our food was sent in, but it was I, naturally, who saw to its preparation; it passed through my hands and I was responsible for it. As we did not have the same tastes, she allowed me to choose my own. This is the cause of my unhappiness—and hers,” she added cruelly.

“How is that?”

“Eh! Because she took it into her head that, that....”

“That what happened would happen,” said the judge.

“Yes, sir, that what happened would inevitably happen,—what she herself was preparing, not with her own hands, but with her own words. All at once she would shove back her plate and cry: ‘Catherine, are you trying to poison me?’ I would answer, calmly: ‘I’ve never thought of such a thing, Madame, and you know it.’ Then she’d say: ‘Prove it by eating this.’ And I’d resign myself to sipping a bit of the rejected plate. Thus satisfied, Mme. W. would resume her meal, murmuring, ‘Well, I guess today isn’t yet the day.’ These words, so often repeated, worked upon me like a command. I heard them at night, in my dreams and at times even not sleeping. I should have fled. Alas! I remained. Toward this same time I suffered the severest worriment. My lover fell ill and had to be taken away from Paris. I went mad, if obsession is madness, and one morning I began to repeat, like a litany: ‘This is the day! This is the day!’”

The judge pulled out his watch and arose abruptly.

“Later, we’ll resume later.... Calm yourself.... Say no more.”

Two hours later, alone with Catherine in her cell, the judge was saying to her:

“My child, there are no proofs against you other than your possible confession. So I’ll question you no further. Later on you will tell me everything.”

“Later on?” asked Catherine. “Are you sure you will see me again?”

“I wish very much to see you again. Shall I not have been kind to you? My child, I don’t say this to give me any right to you; but if I do not save you from death, I save you surely from a prison sentence, and certainly from deep disgrace. Shall you not feel grateful to me for that?”

“My life,” said Catherine, “was worth so little! And now? Prison frightened me, and freedom frightens me no less.”

She hid her face in her hands and wept.

“Your lover awaits you,” said the judge, in a voice that quivered a little.

“Would I be crying,” asked Catherine, “if a lover were awaiting me?”

“I can love you, then! Would you have me love you?”

“Can I forbid it?”

“Thanks, but you,—will you love me?”

“I? I?... I should have loved you, perhaps, if, through jealousy, you had had me convicted so as to separate me from a lover....”

“But I knew that you no longer had a lover. Court judges know a great many things.”

“He is dead, and his death taught me that he had been deceiving me.... Leave me, leave me to myself....”

“I will come to see you, and you’ll tell me the end of the story.... But here,” he continued in a low voice, “not a word more. Tomorrow you’ll receive the address of the house where you’ll be expected.”

The judge possessed the smile of those eyes that had encompassed him, and the white pure body of Catherine with its red flowers and its russet shadows. She proved to be an agreeable mistress, but so dreamy at times that she seemed to have become the very statue of dreams. Awakened, she would take the hand that had touched her shoulder and would kiss it.

The end of the story never came up between them. The judge knew it; he knew that the poison had been poured; he knew that the crime had been commanded by the word that need not be uttered.

One day he asked for something to drink.

“Never,” said Catherine. “You’ll never drink here, you’ll never eat here. Never.”

“You don’t love me?” asked the judge.

“Perhaps I don’t love you enough to believe in your love.”

“What do you want, then, my child?”

“To forget.... Will you have a drink now?” He made no reply.

“Do you see?” said Catherine.