Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (ebook reader browser TXT) 📖
- Author: Emile Gaboriau
Book online «File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (ebook reader browser TXT) 📖». Author Emile Gaboriau
But Fanferlot was too happy to waste a minute. He did not run, he flew, toward the Palais de Justice.
At last he was now able to convince someone that he, Fanferlot, was a man of wonderful perspicacity.
As to acknowledging that he was about to obtain a triumph with the ideas of another man, he never thought of it. It is generally in perfect good faith that the jackdaw struts in the peacock’s feathers.
His hopes were not deceived. If the judge was not absolutely and fully convinced, he admired the ingenuity and shrewdness of the whole proceeding, and complimented the proud jackdaw upon his brilliancy.
“This decides me,” he said, as he dismissed Fanferlot. “I will make out a favorable report to-day; and it is highly probable that the accused will be released to-morrow.”
He began at once to write out one of these terrible decisions of “Not proven,” which restores liberty, but not honor, to the accused man; which says that he is not guilty, but does not say he is innocent.
“Whereas there do not exist sufficient charges against the accused, Prosper Bertomy, in pursuance of Article 128 of the Criminal Code, we hereby declare that we find no grounds for prosecution against the aforesaid prisoner at this present time; and we order that he shall be released from the prison where he is confined, and set at liberty by the jailer,” etc.
“Well,” he said to the clerk, “here is another one of those crimes which justice cannot clear up. The mystery remains to be solved. This is another file to be stowed away among the archives of the record-office.”
And with his own hand he wrote on the cover of the bundle of papers relating to Prosper’s case, the number of the package, File No. 113.
VII
Prosper had been languishing in his private cell for nine days, when on Thursday morning the jailer came to inform him of the judge’s decision. He was conducted before the officer who had searched him when he was arrested; and the contents of his pocket, his watch, penknife, and several little pieces of jewelry, were restored to him; then he was told to sign a large sheet of paper, which he did.
He was next led across a dark passage, and almost pushed through a door, which was abruptly shut upon him.
He found himself on the quay: he was alone; he was free.
Free! Justice had confessed her inability to convict him of the crime of which he was accused.
Free! He could walk about, he could breathe the pure air; but every door would be closed against him.
Only acquittal after due trial would restore him to his former position among men.
A decision of “Not proven” had left him covered with suspicion.
The torments inflicted by public opinion are more fearful than those suffered in a prison cell.
At the moment of his restoration to liberty, Prosper so cruelly suffered from the horror of his situation, that he could not repress a cry of rage and despair.
“I am innocent! God knows I am innocent!” he cried out. But of what use was his anger?
Two strangers, who were passing, stopped to look at him, and said, pityingly, “He is crazy.”
The Seine was at his feet. A thought of suicide crossed his mind.
“No,” he said, “no! I have not even the right to kill myself. No: I will not die until I have vindicated my innocence!”
Often, day and night, had Prosper repeated these words, as he walked his cell. With a heart filled with a bitter, determined thirst for vengeance, which gives a man the force and patience to destroy or wear out all obstacles in his way, he would say, “Oh! why am I not at liberty? I am helpless, caged up; but let me once be free!”
Now he was free; and, for the first time, he saw the difficulties of the task before him. For each crime, justice requires a criminal: he could not establish his own innocence without producing the guilty man; how find the thief so as to hand him over to the law?
Discouraged, but not despondent, he turned in the direction of his apartments. He was beset by a thousand anxieties. What had taken place during the nine days that he had been cut off from all intercourse with his friends? No news of them had reached him. He had heard no more of what was going on in the outside world, than if his secret cell had been a grave.
He slowly walked along the streets, with his eyes cast down dreading to meet some familiar face. He, who had always been so haughty, would now be pointed at with the finger of scorn. He would be greeted with cold looks and averted faces. Men would refuse to shake hands with him. He would be shunned by honest people, who have no patience with a thief.
Still, if he could count on only one true friend! Yes: he was sure of one. But what friend would believe him when his father, who should have been the last to suspect him, had refused to believe him?
In the midst of his sufferings, when he felt almost overwhelmed by the sense of his wretched, lonely condition, he thought of Gypsy.
He had never loved the poor girl: indeed, at times he almost hated her; but now he felt a longing to see her. He wished to be with her, because he knew that she loved him, and that nothing would make her believe him guilty; because he knew that a woman remains true and firm in her faith, and is always faithful in the hour of adversity, although she sometimes fails in prosperity.
On entering the Rue Chaptal, Prosper saw his own door, but hesitated to enter it.
He suffered from the timidity which an honest man always feels when he knows he is viewed with suspicion.
He dreaded meeting anyone whom he knew; yet he could not remain in the street. He entered.
When the porter saw him, he uttered an exclamation of glad surprise, and said:
“Ah, here you are at last, monsieur. I told everyone you would come out as white as snow; and, when I read in the papers that you were arrested for robbery, I said, ‘My third-floor lodger a thief! Never would I believe such a thing, never!’”
The congratulations of this ignorant man were sincere, and offered from pure kindness of heart; but they impressed Prosper painfully, and he cut them short by abruptly asking:
“Madame of course has left: can you tell me where she has gone?”
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