The Will to Live (Les Roquevillard) by Henry Bordeaux

THE girls entered. It was a little more than half-past two o'clock: Mr. Porterieux, venomous and insolent, was finishing his argument. In the galleries and on the floor the public was crowded; people of fashion and from the lower ranks confused together, eager to seize upon the warm quarry of which this lawyer, like an expert and cruel hunter, was laying bare for them the palpitating heart. People noticed the presence of the young girls, who hesitated to come further forward, once inside the door.

"They are on the lookout for husbands," explained the lawyer Coulanges, who, assisted by Mr. Paillet in the first row of the balcony, did the honours of the trial to several ladies of society. It was an occasion on which he believed that a certain show of wit was expected of him.

"Dear me! " cried one of the ladies, choking with indignation. "Just look at that brazen girl."

While Margaret was approaching her father and handing him Hubert's letter, her companion, Jeanne, with a quiet boldness, had the satisfaction of defying the whole town by turning ostentatiously toward Maurice Roquevillard, in his seat of shame, and waving her hand to him with the most gracious smile.

She was immediately rewarded for her courage by the look of gratitude that lighted up the young man's face, a face that had grown thin and drawn and as if contracted by the impassiveness which he had forced himself to wear under his injuries and calumnies. The little incident was over in a moment, but already excited the commentaries of the entire room. Margaret, with her head bent, had no suspicion of it. She, too, had saluted her brother, but more discreetly, and now murmured in her friend's ear:

"Let's go."

"Oh, no, I'm going to stay," replied the latter, only too eager to be present and hear the speeches.

Mr. Roquevillard, with a brief gesture, indicated some empty places on the witness bench for them. The sun came in through the windows, leaving the jurors, who were seated facing the light, in shadow, but it lit up especially the court, the advocate-general, the lawyers and the prisoner, as if it were a light thrown on the stage during some performance in a theatre. Mr. Porterieux appeared in a full blaze as he was summing up and condensing in a final charge the various items of his argument. He repeated and reaffirmed the list of his accumulated presumptions, and still another time paraded as indisputable avowals the silence of the accused as to Mrs. Frasne and the payment of the one hundred thousand francs. Finally he called loudly, as if it were some right due him, for a severe and withering sentence on this young man who practised such a utilitarian love, who, like a new Cherubino in a practical epoch, did not hesitate to make off at one and the same time with the husband's funds and the wife's honour. His peroration, delivered with a complete semblance of anger and indignation, provoked a numerous and mysterious murmur in the room as he sat down, coming from the lips of all the crowd, without anything to show where it had begun, like the sound of waves. His argument had been a perfect volley of poisoned arrows, following each other directly and incessantly.

One would even have said that across the son he aimed at the father, too, whom he represented as driven by shame to make his restitution; that through the son and father he sought to attaint the whole race and sink it in the mire with the unhappy Maurice. He had shown himself more incensed against his victims than was necessary, a too implacable enemy, ready to trample their dead bodies under foot. Of a verity the notary had chosen his spokesman well. He could not have desired more gall and venom in a single mouth. Mr. Roquevillard, now and then during this speech, when the worst thrusts were delivered, turned quietly toward his son or son-in-law, reassuring them by his calm and even countenance, and showing that his soul was not distressed by this tempest that waged about him.

"I call upon the advocate-general to speak," articulated the presiding judge, in a mournful voice, as much as to say, What use is there in a second charge?

Mr. Vallerois, attracted by curiosity, had come into court and seated himself behind the advocate-general, Mr. Barré, who was in the section reserved for the public minister. He bent forward to address some words to his colleague on the floor. But the latter seemed to scorn his advice as importunate, and confined his remarks to saying that he relied upon the good sense of the jurors to find for the plaintiff, the case being already adjudged against the defendant by default.

"I call upon the defence," began the president more briskly, evidently pleased to have escaped a long harangue.

"Are you ready? " asked Mr. Hamel of Mr. Roquevillard, who was seated by his side.

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Then you speak first. If necessary, I'll supplement you."

Mr. Roquevillard saw that the old gentleman was still reeling beneath an attack whose methods, according to his old-time traditions, were inadmissible, and proposed to reserve his efforts in case his colleague should be overcome by emotion in his speech or his argument be inferior or incomplete.

During these special conferences, bits of conversation broke out again here and there among the audience, rising and spreading like dust in the wake of a procession.

"The Roquevillards," remarked the lawyer Coulanges, who ranged himself on Mr. Frasne's side, "will never raise their heads again after such a drubbing."

"Oh, well, now," objected Mr. Paillet, who was always in a good humour, "wait till you hear the father's reply, and then look out for Mr. Porterieux."

A man of the people, a frequenter of court trials, overheard him.