Derues | Page 7

an incorrigible thief, a
consummate hypocrite, and a cold-blooded assassin, was predestined to
an immortality of crime, and was to find a place among the most
execrable monsters for whom humanity has ever had to blush; his name
was Antoine-Francois Derues.
Twenty years had gone by since this horrible and mysterious event,
which no one sought to unravel at the time it occurred. One June
evening, 1771, four persons were sitting in one of the rooms of a
modestly furnished, dwelling on the third floor of a house in the rue

Saint-Victor. The party consisted of three women and an ecclesiastic,
who boarded, for meals only, with the woman who tenanted the
dwelling; the other two were near neighbours. They were all friends,
and often met thus in the evening to play cards. They were sitting round
the card-table, but although it was nearly ten o'clock the cards had not
yet been touched. They spoke in low tones, and a half-interrupted
confidence had, this evening, put a check on the usual gaiety.
Someone knocked gently at the door, although no sound of steps on the
creaking wooden staircase had been heard, and a wheedling voice
asked for admittance. The occupier of the room, Madame Legrand, rose,
and admitted a man of about six-and-twenty, at whose appearance the
four friends exchanged glances, at once observed by the new-comer,
who affected, however, not to see them. He bowed successively to the
three women, and several times with the utmost respect to the abbe,
making signs of apology for the interruption caused by his appearance;
then, coughing several times, he turned to Madame Legrand, and said
in a feeble voice, which seemed to betoken much suffering--
"My kind mistress, will you and these other ladies excuse my
presenting myself at such an hour and in such a costume? I am ill, and I
was obliged to get up."
His costume was certainly singular enough: he was wrapped in a large
dressing-gown of flowered chintz; his head was adorned by a nightcap
drawn up at the top and surmounted by a muslin frill. His appearance
did not contradict his complaint of illness; he was barely four feet six in
height, his limbs were bony, his face sharp, thin, and pale. Thus attired,
coughing incessantly, dragging his feet as if he had no strength to lift
them, holding a lighted candle in one hand and an egg in the other, he
suggested a caricature-some imaginary invalid just escaped from M.
Purgon. Nevertheless, no one ventured to smile, notwithstanding his
valetudinarian appearance and his air of affected humility. The
perpetual blinking of the yellow eyelids which fell over the round and
hollow eyes, shining with a sombre fire which he could never entirely
suppress, reminded one of a bird of prey unable to face the light, and
the lines of his face, the hooked nose, and the thin, constantly quivering,
drawn-in lips suggested a mixture of boldness and baseness, of cunning
and sincerity. But there is no book which can instruct one to read the
human countenance correctly; and some special circumstance must

have roused the suspicions of these four persons so much as to cause
them to make these observations, and they were not as usual deceived
by the humbug of this skilled actor, a past master in the art of
deception.
He continued after a moment's silence, as if he did not wish to interrupt
their mute observation--
"Will you oblige me by a neighbourly kindness?"
"What is it, Derues?" asked Madame Legrand. A violent cough, which
appeared to rend his chest, prevented him from answering immediately.
When it ceased, he looked at the abbe, and said, with a melancholy
smile--
"What I ought to ask in my present state of health is your blessing, my
father, and your intercession for the pardon of my sins. But everyone
clings to the life which God has given him. We do not easily abandon
hope; moreover, I have always considered it wrong to neglect such
means of preserving our lives as are in our power, since life is for us
only a time of trial, and the longer and harder the trial the greater our
recompense in a better world. Whatever befalls us, our answer should
be that of the Virgin Mary to the angel who announced the mystery of
the Incarnation: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to Thy word.'"
"You are right," said the abbe, with a severe and inquisitorial look,
under which Derues remained quite untroubled; "it is an attribute of
God to reward and to punish, and the Almighty is not deceived by him
who deceives men. The Psalmist has said, 'Righteous art Thou, O Lord,
and upright are Thy judgments.'"
"He has said also, 'The judgments of the