The Wicker Work Woman by Anatole France

Author:Anatole France [France, Anatole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

XI

seems that it is fixed for to-morrow,” said M. de Terremondre as he entered Paillot’s shop.

Everyone understood the allusion: he was referring to the execution of Lecœur, the butcher’s assistant, who had been sentenced to death on the 27th of November, for the murder of Madame Houssieu. This young criminal supplied the entire township with an interest in life. Judge Roquincourt, who had a reputation in society as a ladies’ man, had courteously admitted Madame Dellion and Madame de Gromance to the prison and allowed them a glimpse of the prisoner through the barred grating of the cell where he was playing cards with a gaoler. In his turn, the governor of the prison, M. Ossian Colot, an officer of the Academy, gladly did the honours of his condemned prisoner to journalists as well as to prominent townsmen. M. Ossian Colot had written with the knowledge of an expert on various questions of the penal code. He was proud of his establishment, which was run on the most up-to-date lines, and he by no means despised popularity. The visitors cast curious glances at Lecœur, while they speculated on the relationship between this youth of twenty and the nonagenarian widow who had become his victim. They stood stupefied by astonishment before this monstrous brute. Yet Abbé Tabarit, the prison chaplain, told with tears in his eyes how the poor lad had expressed the most edifying sentiments of repentance and piety. Meanwhile, from morning to night throughout three whole months, Lecœur played cards with his gaolers and disputed the points in their own slang, for they were of the same class. His darkened soul never revealed its sufferings in words, but the rosy, chubby lad who, only ten months before, was to be met whistling in the street with his basket on his head, and his white apron knotted round his muscular loins, now shivered in his strait waistcoat with pale, cadaverous face and looked like a sick man of forty. His herculean neck was wasted and now protruded from his drooping shoulders, thin and disproportionately long. By this time it was agreed on all sides that he had exhausted the abhorrence, the pity and the curiosity of his fellow-citizens, and that it was high time to put an end to him.

“For six o’clock to-morrow. I heard it from Surcouf himself,” added M. de Terremondre. “They’ve got the guillotine at the station.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Dr. Fornerol. “For three nights the crowd has been congregating at the cross-roads of les Évées and there have been several accidents. Julien’s son fell from a tree on his head and cracked his skull. I’m afraid it’s impossible to save him.

“As for the condemned,” continued the doctor, “nobody, not even the President of the Republic, could prolong his life. For this young lad who was vigorous and sound up to the time of his arrest is now in the last stage of consumption.”

“Have you seen him in his cell, then?” asked Paillot.

“Several times,” answered Dr.

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