An Officer and a Spy

tortures I have been made to undergo.’ He prefers the army’s hatred to its pity. What seems to be coldness, I realise, is partly a determination not to be a victim; I respect him for it.
    On Thursday, I am called to give evidence.
    I walk to the front of the court, and climb the two steps to the raised platform, conscious of the silence that has fallen behind me in the crowded court. I feel no nervousness, just a desire to get it done. Before me is a railing with a shelf, on which witnesses can place their notes or military caps; beyond that the stage and the row of judges – two colonels, three majors and two captains – and to my left, sitting barely two metres away, Dreyfus. How curious it is to stand there close enough to shake his hand, and yet not to be able to speak to him! I try to forget his presence as I stare firmly ahead and swear to tell the complete truth.
    Jouaust begins, ‘Did you know the accused before the events for which he is charged?’
    ‘Yes, Colonel.’
    ‘How did you know him?’
    ‘I was a professor at the École Supérieure de Guerre when Dreyfus was a pupil.’
    ‘Your relations went no further than that?’
    ‘Correct.’
    ‘You were not his mentor, or his ally?’
    ‘No, Colonel.’
    ‘You were not in his service, nor he in yours?’
    ‘No, Colonel.’
    Jouaust makes a note.
    Only now do I risk a brief sidelong glance at Dreyfus. He has been so long at the centre of my existence, has changed my destiny so utterly, has grown so large in my imagination, that I suppose it would be impossible for the man to be the equal of all he represents. Even so, it is strange to contemplate this quiet stranger who, if I had to guess, I would say was a retired minor official from the Colonial Service, blinking at me through his pince-nez as if we have just happened to find ourselves in the same railway compartment on a very long journey.
    I am recalled to the present by Jouaust’s dry voice saying, ‘Describe the events as you know them . . .’ and I look away.
    My evidence takes up the whole of the day’s session, and most of the next. There is no point in my describing it again – petit bleu , Esterhazy, bordereau  . . . I deliver it, once more, as if it were a lecture, which in a sense it is. I am the founder of the school of Dreyfus studies: its leading scholar, its star professor – there is nothing I can be asked about my specialist field that I do not know: every letter and telegram, every personality, every forgery, every lie. Occasionally, officers of the General Staff rise like sweaty students to challenge me on specific points; I flatten them with ease. From time to time as I speak, I scan the furrowed faces of the judges in the same way that I used once to survey those of my pupils, and wonder how much of this is sinking in.
    When at last Jouaust tells me to stand down and I turn and walk back to my seat, it seems to me – I may be mistaken – that Dreyfus gives me the briefest of nods and a half-smile of thanks.
    Labori’s recovery continues, and in the middle of the following week, with the bullet still lodged in the muscles of his shoulder, he returns to court. He enters accompanied by Marguerite to loud applause. He acknowledges his reception with a wave and walks to his place, where he has been provided with a large and comfortable armchair. The only obvious sign of his injury, apart from his damp and chalky pallor, is the stiffness of his left arm, which he can hardly move. Dreyfus stands as he passes and warmly shakes his good hand.
    Privately, I am not convinced that he is as fit to return to his duties as he insists he is. Gunshot injuries are something I know about. They take longer to get over than one imagines. Labori should have had an operation to have the bullet removed, in my opinion – but that would have taken him out of the trial altogether. He is in a lot of pain and isn’t sleeping. And there is also a mental trauma he is refusing to acknowledge. I can see it when he goes out into the street – the way he slightly recoils every time a stranger approaches with his hand extended, or flinches when he hears hurrying footsteps behind him. Professionally it expresses itself in a certain irritability and shortness of temper, particularly with the president of the court, whom Labori delights in goading:
    JOUAUST: I urge you to speak with moderation.
    LABORI: I have not said a single immoderate word.
    JOUAUST: But your tone is not