The countenance of Aramis darkened as the young man spoke.
“Light!” continued the prisoner,- “I have what is better than light! I have the sun,- a friend who comes to visit me every day without the permission of the governor or the jailer’s company. He comes in at the window, and traces in my room a quadrilateral which starts from the window and reaches to the hangings of my bed. This luminous figure increases from ten o’clock till midday, and decreases from one till three slowly, as if, having hastened to come, it sorrowed at leaving me. When its last ray disappears, I have enjoyed its presence for four hours. Is not that sufficient? I have been told that there are unhappy beings who dig in quarries, and laborers who toil in mines, who never behold the sun at all.”
Aramis wiped the drops from his brow.
“As to the stars which are so delightful to view,” continued the young man, “they all resemble one another save in size and brilliancy. I am a favored mortal; for if you had not lighted that candle, you would have been able to see the beautiful star which I was gazing at from my couch before your arrival, and whose rays were playing over my eyes.”
Aramis lowered his head; he felt himself overwhelmed by the bitter flow of that sinister philosophy which is the religion of the captive.
“So much, then, for the flowers, the air, the daylight, and the stars,” tranquilly continued the young man; “there remains freedom of movement. Do I not walk all day in the governor’s garden if it is fine; here, if it rains; in the fresh air, if it is warm; in the warm, thanks to my fireplace, if it be cold? Ah, Monsieur, do you fancy,” continued the prisoner, not without bitterness, “that men have not done everything for me that a man can hope for or desire?”
“Men!” said Aramis, raising his head; “be it so! But it seems to me you forget Heaven.”
“Indeed, I have forgotten Heaven,” murmured the prisoner, without emotion; “but why do you mention it? Of what use is it to talk to a prisoner of Heaven?”
Aramis looked steadily at this singular youth, who possessed the resignation of a martyr with the smile of an atheist. “Is not God in everything?” he murmured in a reproachful tone.
“Say, rather, at the end of everything,” answered the prisoner, firmly.
“Be it so,” said Aramis; “but let us return to our starting-point.”
“I desire nothing better,” returned the young man.
“I am your confessor.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, you ought, as a penitent, to tell me the truth.”
“All that I wish is to tell it to you.”
“Every prisoner has committed some crime for which he has been imprisoned. What crime, then, have you committed?”
“You asked me the same question the first time you saw me,” returned the prisoner.
“And then, as now, you evaded giving me an answer.”
“And what reason have you for thinking that I shall now reply to you?”
“Because this time I am your confessor.”
“Then, if you wish me to tell what crime I have committed, explain to me in what a crime consists; for as my conscience does not accuse me, I aver that I am not a criminal.”
“We are often criminals in the sight of the great of the earth, not alone for having ourselves committed crimes, but because we know that crimes have been committed.”
The prisoner manifested the deepest attention. “Yes, I understand you,” he said, after a pause; “yes, you are right, Monsieur. It is very possible that in that light I am a criminal in the eyes of the great.”
“Ah! then you know something,” said Aramis, who thought he had pierced not merely through a defect in the harness, but through the joints of it.
“No, I am not aware of anything,” replied the young man; “but sometimes I think, and I say to myself in those moments-”
“What do you say to yourself?”
“That if I were to think any further, I should either go mad or I should divine a great deal.”
“And then- and then-” said Aramis, impatiently.