Paris: The Novel

anyone.
    “Tell him I will wait,” replied Roland. But there was no need: for a moment later, drawn by curiosity, Jacques Le Sourd appeared in the doorway.
    At the sight of de Cygne, he froze. So, thought Roland, he knows me. But after a brief hesitation, Le Sourd regained his composure.
    “Do I know you, monsieur?”
    “Captain Roland de Cygne.” Roland gazed at him evenly.
    “I have nothing to say to you, monsieur.”
    “There I must disagree. You can help me solve a mystery. It will only take ten minutes of your time. After that we may each of us return to our business. Or I can wait here until you are free at the end of the day.”
    Jacques Le Sourd looked at the bald man, who shrugged. Then he signaled Roland to follow him into the street.
    A hundred yards to the left there was a small bar. Apart from the owner, it was empty. They moved to a table and Roland ordered two cognacs. As they waited for the cognacs to arrive, Roland kept his right hand in his coat pocket. Le Sourd noticed it.
    “You carry a gun,” he remarked.
    “Merely a precaution, in case I am attacked,” Roland answered calmly. “I have a dinner engagement this evening, and it would be impolite not to appear.”
    The cognacs arrived. Roland raised the small glass with his left hand, took a sip and put it down.
    “And now, Monsieur Le Sourd—of whom, until recently, I had never heard in my life—be so good as to tell me: Why do you wish to kill me?”
    Le Sourd’s face was impassive.
    “Why do you think that I do?”
    “Because some ten years ago you waited for me with a pistol in the rue des Belles-Feuilles. I have no idea why, but you can hardly blame me for being curious.”
    Jacques Le Sourd was silent. For a moment it looked as if he in turn might ask a question. Then he seemed to think better of it.
    “We are not far from the cemetery of Père Lachaise,” he said finally. “There is a wall there called the Mur des Fédérés, where a number of Communards were shot.”
    “So I have heard. What of it?”
    “They were shot out of hand, without trial. Murdered.”
    “They say that the last week of the Commune saw many terrible deeds, by both sides.”
    “My father was one of the men shot against that wall.”
    “I am sorry to hear it.”
    “Do you know the name of the officer who directed that firing squad?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “De Cygne. Your father.” Le Sourd was watching him carefully.
    “My father? You are sure of this?”
    “I am certain.”
    Roland gazed at Le Sourd. There was no reason for him to invent such a thing. He stared away, into the middle distance.
    Was it possible that this was the reason his father had always been unwilling to discuss that period in his life? Had the memory of the execution haunted him? Might it even have caused him, ultimately, to resign his commission? If so, his father had taken that secret to the grave.
    But even if such thoughts entered his mind, Roland was far too proud to share them with Le Sourd.
    “And this would give you the right to murder me?”
    “Tell me, Monsieur de Cygne, do you believe in God?”
    “Of course.”
    “Well, I do not,” said Le Sourd. “So I have not the luxury of imagining that there is an afterlife. When your father murdered mine, he took away everything he had. Everything.”
    “Then I am glad I believe in God, monsieur. And I assume, not being a Christian, that you believe in revenge.”
    “Isn’t it true that many Christian officers, men of honor, believe their duty is to avenge the loss of Alsace-Lorraine?”
    “Some.”
    “What’s the difference? Call my wish to kill you a debt of honor.”
    “But you have not come out into the open and done it, as a man of honor would.”
    “I will not put more important matters at risk just to secure your death. You are not significant enough.”
    “How fortunate,” said Roland drily. “I assume that the important matters you speak of are political in nature.”
    “Of course.”
    “Yet in the last thirty years,” Roland remarked, “the radical parties have achieved so many of their aims.” He ticked some of them off. “There is little chance of either a monarchy or a Bonapartist military government. Every man has the vote. There is free public education for every boy and girl—I may not see the necessity, but it is so. And education is in the hands of the state, not of the Church. Even the traditional independence of the ancient regions of France, it seems to me, is being