The Widow by Georges Simenon Page A

wounds and blows, is justifiable if provoked by blows or violent assault against the person .”
    Maître Fagonet ran a little comb through his thick and glossy hair.
    â€œYou have joined him on the bridge without any evil intentions. All you want to do is ask him to give you back part of the money he’s won off you. You tell him about Zézette. He laughs in your face. You make a move and he thinks you mean to strike him. He strikes first. You lose your head, and in the struggle you push him over the parapet.”
    In a different tone of voice, Maître Fagonet pronounced, “They won’t believe us.”
    â€œWhat then?”
    â€œWe shall get the benefit of the doubt.”
    Sometimes he would tell the prisoner the story of the play he had seen the night before at the theater.
    The trial itself had unfolded like a play. People looked at him curiously. He’d catch himself looking at them while his thoughts were elsewhere.
    â€œGentlemen, the Court!”
    And now, suddenly, years later, lying on his paillasse with its smell of musty hay, here he was realizing at last that it was serious, that it was grave, that his head had really been at stake.
    â€œ Every person condemned to death shall …”
    He would have liked to get up, to go downstairs near Tati, not to be alone. He was afraid. He was drenched with sweat and he had the impression that something, his heart no doubt, was not functioning properly in his chest.
    â€œYou see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a youth, the victim of …”
    Of what? Of none of the things Maître Fagonet had said! And already, while the lawyer spoke and flapped his black wings, Jean wanted to shake his head.
    â€œOne … two … three … four … five …”
    The drops of water dripped from the white cheese. He would have liked to cry out, because his brain kept on working, because images kept going through his head, too sharp, super-imposed one upon another, accompanied by voices and sensations like that of the sunbeam which, in the courtroom, reached his left hand, just his left hand and no more, in a little quivering disk.
    None of it was true, any more than the story he had told Tati. The truth—the truth which he alone knew—was that it had all begun when he was fourteen and that the real culprit, really, was his English teacher.
    Jean had forgotten his name. It was odd, forgetting that, when the other details were so vivid. A man carved in wood, with a pale face, big dark eyes, and a black mustache, who wore a jacket that was too long for him and looked more like a frock coat.
    â€œMonsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur …”
    Pronouncing Jean’s name, he assumed a different voice and the pupils would all feel a cold chill down the spine. The window was open onto the school garden. A woman was beating her carpets at a second-floor window.
    â€œI imagine that it would be pointless for me to ask you a question, eh? … The son of Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur is wealthy enough to have no need to earn his living and he is not required to be intelligent…. ”
    Sharp little teeth appeared for a moment beneath the mustache. The master was satisfied. He collected a few smiles from the class.
    â€œYou may sit down, Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur. I regret that the rules do not allow me to send you out for a walk during my period. Nevertheless, I regard you as not being present.”
    And, when he collected their compositions, he’d keep Jean’s separate, walk slowly up to the fire and throw it in with affectation, making as if to warm his hands.
    Whose fault was it? His father’s: he was too elegant and the English master kept seeing him drive around in his car and seldom without some pretty girl next to him.
    He took no interest in his son. If Jean happened to get up late, he had only to go to the office.
    Dear Sir,
    May I ask you kindly to excuse my son who was unable to go to school