The citizens readied themselves for the event as if for a high holiday. That there would be no work that day went without saying. The women ironed their holiday dresses, the men dusted off their frock coats and had their boots polished to a high gloss. Whoever held military rank or occupied public office, whoever was a guild master, an attomey-at-law, a notary, a head of a fraternal order, or held any other position of importance, donned his uniform or official garb, along with his medals, sashes, chains, and periwig powdered to a chalky white. Pious folk intended to assemble immediately afterwards for religious services, the disciples of Satan planned a hearty Luci-ferian mass of thanksgiving, the educated aristocracy were going to gather for magnetic seances at the manors of the Cabris, Villeneuves, and Fontmichels. The roasting and baking had begun in the kitchens, the wine had been fetched from the cellars, the floral displays from the market, and the organist and choir were practicing in the cathedral.

In the Richis household on the rue Droite everything remained quiet. Richis had forbidden any preparations for the “Day of Liberation,” as people were calling the murderer’s execution day. It all disgusted him. The sudden eruption of renewed fear among the populace had disgusted him, their feverish joy of anticipation disgusted him. The people themselves, every one of them, disgusted him. He had not participated in the presentation of the culprit and his victims in the cathedral square, nor in the trial, nor in the obscene procession of sensation seekers filing past the cell of the condemned man. He had requested that the court come to his home for him to identify his daughter’s hair and clothing, had given his testimony briefly and calmly, and had asked that they leave him those items as keepsakes, which they did. He carried them to Laure’s room, laid the shredded nightgown and undershirt on her bed, spread the red hair over the pillow, sat down beside them, and did not leave the room again day or night, as if by pointlessly standing guard now, he could make good what he had neglected to do that night in La Napoule. He was so full of disgust, disgust at the world and at himself, that he could not weep.

He was also disgusted by the murderer. He did not want to regard him as a human being, but only as a victim to be slaughtered. He did not want to see him until the execution, when he would be laid on the cross and the twelve blows crashed down upon him— then he would want to see him, want to see him from up close, and he had had a place reserved for himself in the front row. And when the crowd had wandered off after a few hours, he wanted to climb up onto the bloody scaffold and crouch next to him, keeping watch, by night, by day, for however long he had to, and look into the eyes of this man, the murderer of his daughter, and drop by drop to trickle the disgust within him into those eyes, to pour out his disgust like burning acid over the man in his death agonies-until the beast perished…

And after that? What would he do after that? He did not know. Perhaps resume his normal life, perhaps get married, perhaps father a son, perhaps do nothing at all, perhaps die. It made no difference whatever to him. To think about it seemed to him as pointless as to think about what he would do after his own death: nothing, of course. Nothing that he could know at this point.

Forty-nine

THE EXECUTION was scheduled for five in the afternoon. The first spectators had arrived by morning and secured themselves places. They brought chairs and footstools with them, pillows, food, wine, and their children. Around noon, masses of country people streamed in from all directions, and the parade grounds were soon so packed that new arrivals had to camp along the road to Grenoble and on the terracelike gardens and fields that rose at the far end of the area. Vendors were already doing a brisk business-people ate, people drank, everything hummed and simmered as at a country fair. Soon there were a good ten thousand people gathered, more than for the crowning of the Queen of the Jasmine, more than for the largest guild procession, more than Grasse had ever seen before. They stood far up on the slopes. They hung in the trees, they squatted atop walls and on the roofs, they pressed together ten or twelve to a window. Only in the center of the grounds, protected by the fence barricade, as if stamped and cut from the dough of the crowd, was there still an open space for the grandstand and the scaffold, which suddenly appeared very small, like a toy or the stage of a puppet theater. And one pathway was left open, leading from the place of execution to the Porte du Cours and into the rue Droite.

Shortly after three, Monsieur Papon and his henchmen appeared. The applause swept forward like thunder. They carried two wooden beams forming a St. Andrew’s cross to the scaffold and set it at a good working height by propping it up on four carpenter’s horses. A journeyman carpenter nailed it down. Every move, every gesture of the deputy executioners and the carpenter was greeted by the crowd’s applause. And when Papon stepped forward with his iron rod, walked around the cross, measuring his steps, striking an imaginary blow now on one side, now on the other, there was an eruption of downright jubilation.

At four, the grandstand began to fill. There were many fine folk to admire, rich gentlemen with lackeys and fine manners, beautiful women, big hats, shimmering clothes. The whole of the nobility from both town and country was on hand. The gentlemen of the council appeared in closed rank, the two consuls at their head. Richis was dressed in black, with black stockings and a black hat. Behind the council the magistrates marched in, led by the presiding judge of the court. Last of all, in an open sedan chair came the bishop, wearing gleaming purple vestments and a little green hat. Whoever still had his cap on doffed it now to be sure. This was awe-inspiring.

Then nothing happened for about ten minutes. The lords and ladies had taken their places, the common folk waited impassively; no one was eating now, they all waited. Papon and his henchmen stood on the scaffold platform as if they too had been nailed down. The sun hung large and yellow over the Esterel. From the valley of Grasse a warm wind came up, bearing with it the scent of orange blossoms. It was very warm and almost implausibly still.

Finally, when it seemed the tension could last no longer without its bursting into a thousand-voiced scream, into a tumult, a frenzy, or some other mob scene, above the stillness they heard the clatter of horses and the creaking of wheels.

Down the rue Droite came a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, the police lieutenant’s carriage. It drove through the city gate and reappeared for all to see in the narrow path leading to the scaffold. The police lieutenant had insisted on this manner of arrival, since otherwise he could not guarantee the safety of the convicted man. It was certainly not the customary practice. The prison was hardly five minutes away from the place of execution, and if a condemned man, for whatever reason, could not have managed the short distance on foot, then he would have traveled it in an open donkey cart. That a man should be driven to his own execution in a coach, with a driver, liveried footmen, and a mounted guard-no one had ever seen anything like that.

And nevertheless, there was no sign of unrest or displeasure among the crowd-on the contrary. People were satisfied that at least something was happening, considered the idea of the coach a clever stroke, just as at the theater people enjoy a familiar play when it is presented in some surprisingly new fashion. Many even thought the grand entrance appropriate. Such an extraordinarily abominable criminal deserved extraordinary treatment. You couldn’t drag him to the scaffold in chains like a common thief and kill him. There would have been nothing sensational about that. But to lead him from his upholstered equipage to the St. Andrew’s cross-that was an incomparably imaginative bit of cruelty.