An Officer and a Spy

21

The next evening I occupy the familiar corner table in the café of the gare Saint-Lazare. It is a Sunday, a quiet time, a lonely place. I am one of only a handful of customers. I have taken precautions getting here—diving into churches, leaving by side doors, doubling back on myself, dodging down alleys—with the result that I am fairly sure no one has followed me. I read my paper, smoke a cigarette and manage to make my beer last until a quarter to eight, by which time it is obvious Desvernine is not coming. I am disappointed but not surprised: given the change in my circumstances since we last met, one can hardly blame him.

I walk outside to catch an omnibus home. The lower deck is crowded. I climb up to the top, where the chill through the open sides is enough to deter my fellow passengers. I sit about halfway down the central bench, my chin on my chest and my hands in my pockets, looking out at the darkened upper storeys of the shops. I have not been there a minute when I am joined by a man in a heavy overcoat and muffler. He leaves a space between us.

He says, “Good evening, Colonel.”

I turn in surprise. “Monsieur Desvernine.”

He continues to stare straight ahead. “You were followed from your apartment.”

“I thought I’d lost them.”

“You lost two of them. The third is sitting downstairs. Fortunately, he works for me. I don’t think there’s a fourth, but even so, I suggest we keep our conversation brief.”

“Yes, of course. It was good of you to come at all.”

“What is it you want?”

“I need to speak to Lemercier-Picard.”

“Why?”

“There’s been a lot of forgery in the Dreyfus case: I suspect he may have had a hand at least in some of it.”

“Oh.” Desvernine sounds pained. “Oh, that won’t be easy. Can you be more specific?”

“Yes, I’m thinking in particular of the document mentioned in the Zola trial the other day, the so-called absolute proof that General Boisdeffre vouched for. If it’s what I think it is, it consists of about five or six lines of writing. That’s a lot for an amateur to forge, and there’s plenty of original material to compare it with. So I suspect they must have brought in a professional.”

“ ‘They’ being who in particular, Colonel—if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The Statistical Section. Colonel Henry.”

“Henry? He’s acting chief!” Now he looks at me.

“I’m sure I can get access to money, if that’s what your man wants.”

“It will be what he wants: I can tell you that now—and a lot of it. When do you need to see him?”

“As soon as possible.”

Desvernine huddles down in his coat, thinking it over. I can’t see his face. Eventually he says, “Leave it with me, Colonel.” He stands. “I’ll get off here.”

“I’m not a colonel anymore, Monsieur Desvernine. There is no need to call me that. And you aren’t obliged to help me. It’s a risk for you.”

“You forget how much time I spent investigating Esterhazy, Colonel—I know that bastard inside out. It sickens me to see him walking free. I’ll help you, if only because of him.”

For my duel against Henry I need two witnesses to make the arrangements and ensure fair play. I travel out to Ville-d’Avray to ask Edmond Gast to be one of them. We sit on his terrace after lunch with a blanket across our knees, smoking cigars. He says, “Well, if you’re dead set on it, then of course I should be honoured. But I beg you to reconsider.”

“I’ve issued the challenge in public, Ed. I can’t possibly withdraw. Besides, I don’t want to.”

“What weapons will you choose?”

“Swords.”

“Come on, Georges—you haven’t fenced for years!”

“Neither has he, by the look of him. In any case, I have a cool head and a little physical agility.”

“But surely you’re a better shot than you are a swordsman? And with pistols there’s a healthy convention of deliberately missing.”

“Yes, except that if we use pistols and he wins the draw and chooses to go first, he may not try to miss. It would certainly solve all their problems if he put a bullet through my heart. No, that’s too much of a risk.”

“And who will be your other witness?”

“I wondered if you’d ask your friend Senator Ranc.”

“Why Ranc?”

I puff on my cigar before I reply. “When I was in Tunisia, I made a study of the marquis de Morès. He killed a Jewish officer in a duel by using a heavier sword than was allowed by regulations—pierced him through his armpit and severed his spinal cord. I think it would be good life insurance for me to have a senator on hand. It might deter Henry from trying any similar tricks.”

Edmond looks at me in alarm. “Georges, I’m sorry, but really this is madness. Never mind yourself—you owe it to the cause of freeing Dreyfus not to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“He called me a liar in open court. My honour demands a duel.”

“Is it your honour you’re trying to avenge, or Pauline’s?”

I do not reply.

The following evening, on my behalf, Edmond and Ranc call at Henry’s apartment in the avenue Duquesne, directly opposite the École Militaire, to issue the formal challenge. Afterwards Edmond says, “He was plainly at home—we could see his boots in the passage, and I could hear his little boy crying ‘Papa,’ and then a man’s voice trying to hush the lad. But he sent his wife out to talk to us. She took the letter and said he would respond to it tomorrow. I get the feeling he’s anxious to avoid a fight.”

Wednesday passes without any reply from Henry. At about eight o’clock in the evening there is a knock at the door and I get up to answer it, assuming it will be his witnesses bringing me his answer, but instead standing on the landing is Desvernine. He comes in briefly without taking off his hat or coat.

“Everything is fixed,” he says. “Our man is staying at a lodging house, the hôtel de la Manche, in the rue de Sèvres. He’s using one of his aliases—Koberty Dutrieux. Do you have a weapon, Colonel?”

I open my jacket to show him my shoulder holster. Since my service revolver was taken from me, I have bought myself a British gun, a Webley.

“Good,” he says. “Then we should go.”

“Now?”

“He doesn’t stay long in one place.”

“And we won’t be followed?”

“No, I swapped shifts and made sure I’m in charge of your surveillance this evening. As far as the Sûreté are concerned, Colonel, you will be tucked up in your apartment all night.”

We take a taxi across the river and I pay off the driver just south of the École Militaire. The remainder of the journey we complete on foot. The section of the rue de Sèvres in which the hotel stands is narrow and poorly lit; the Manche is easy to miss. It occupies a narrow, tumbledown house, hemmed in between a butcher’s shop and a bar: the sort of place where commercial travellers might lay their heads for a night and assignations can no doubt be paid for by the hour. Desvernine goes in first; I follow. The concierge is not at his desk. Through a curtain of beads I can see people eating supper in the little dining room. There is no elevator. The narrow stairs creak with every tread. We come out onto the third floor and Desvernine knocks at a bedroom door. No answer. He tries the handle: locked. He puts his finger to his lips and we stand listening. A muffled conversation comes from the room next door.

Desvernine fishes in his pocket and produces a set of lock-picking tools, identical to the one he lent me. He kneels and goes to work. I unbutton my coat and jacket and feel the reassuring pressure of the Webley against my breast. After a minute the lock clicks. Desvernine stands, calmly folds away his tools and returns them to his pocket. He looks at me as he quietly opens the door. The room is dark. He feels for the light switch and turns it on.

My first instinct is that it is a large ebony doll—a tailor’s mannequin perhaps, made of black plaster, folded into a sitting position and propped up just beneath the window. Without turning round or saying anything, Desvernine holds up his left hand, warning me not to move; in the other he has a gun. He crosses the floor to the window in three or four strides, looks down at the object and whispers, “Close the door.”

Once I am in the room, I can just about tell it is Lemercier-Picard, or whatever his name was. His face is purplish-black and has fallen forward onto his chest. His eyes are open, his tongue protrudes, there is dried mucus all down the front of his shirt. Buried deep in the folds of his neck is a thin cord which runs up behind him, tight as a harp string, and is tied to the window casement. Now that I am closer I can see that his feet and the lower part of his legs, which are bare and bruised, are in contact with the floor but his hips are suspended just above it. His arms hang at his sides, fists tightly balled.

Desvernine reaches out his hand to the swollen neck and feels for a pulse, then squats on his haunches and quickly frisks the corpse.

I say, “When did you last speak to him?”

“This morning. He was standing at this very window, as alive as you are now.”

“Was he depressed? Suicidal?”

“No, just frightened.”

“How long has he been dead?”

“He’s cold, but no stiffness yet—two hours; perhaps three.”

He straightens and goes over to the bed. A suitcase lies open. He turns it upside down and shakes out the contents, then sifts through the pathetic little heap of belongings, extracting pens, nibs, pencils, bottles of ink. A tweed jacket hangs on the back of a chair. He tugs a note case from the inside pocket and flips through it, then checks the side pockets: coins in one, the room key in the other.

I watch him. “No note?”

“No paper of any sort. Curious for a forger, wouldn’t you say?” He puts everything back in the suitcase. Then he lifts the mattress and pats underneath it, opens the drawer of the nightstand, looks in the shabby cupboard, rolls back the square of matting. Finally he stands defeated with his hands on his hips. “It’s all been gone through thoroughly. They haven’t left a scrap. You should go now, Colonel. The last thing you need is to be caught in a room with a corpse—especially this one.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll lock the door and leave everything as we found it. Maybe wait around outside for an hour or two, see who shows up.” He gazes at the corpse. “This’ll be booked straight through as a suicide—just you wait—and you won’t find a policeman or a crook in Paris who’ll say anything different, the poor bastard.” He passes his hand tenderly across the contorted face and closes the staring eyes.

The next day two colonels turn up at my apartment: Parès and Boissonnet, both noted sportsmen and old drinking companions of Henry’s. They inform me grandly that Colonel Henry refuses to fight me on the grounds that I, as a cashiered officer, am a “disreputable person,” with no honour to lose: therefore there can have been no insult.

Parès gives me a look of cold contempt. “He suggests, Monsieur Picquart, that you seek satisfaction from Major Esterhazy instead. He understands that Major Esterhazy is anxious to challenge you to a duel.”

“No doubt he is. But you may inform Colonel Henry—and Major Esterhazy too—that I have no intention of stepping down into the gutter to fight a traitor and embezzler. Colonel Henry accused me in public of being a liar, at a time when I was still a serving officer. That is when I issued the challenge, and in those circumstances he is bound by honour to give me satisfaction. If he refuses to do so, the world will note the fact and draw the obvious conclusion: that he is both a slanderer and a coward. Good day, gentlemen.”

After I close the door on them I realise I am trembling, whether from nerves or fury I cannot tell.

Later that night Edmond comes round with the news that Henry has decided to accept my challenge after all. The duel will take place the day after tomorrow, at ten-thirty in the morning, at the indoor riding school of the École Militaire. The weapons will be swords. Edmond says, “Henry will automatically have an army surgeon in attendance. We need to nominate a doctor of our own to accompany us. Is there anyone you would prefer?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll find someone. Now pack a bag.”

“Why?”

“Because I have my carriage outside and you’re coming home to practise fencing with me. I don’t want to be a witness to your being killed.”

I debate whether or not to tell him about Lemercier-Picard and decide against it: he is anxious enough as it is.

Friday is passed in Edmond’s barn, where he puts me through my paces for hour after hour, relearning the basic principles of compound attack and circular parry, riposte and remise. The next morning, we leave Ville-d’Avray soon after nine to drive back into Paris. Jeanne kisses me fervently all over my face as if she doesn’t expect to see me again. “Goodbye, dearest Georges! I shall never forget you. Farewell!”

“My dear Jeanne, this is not good for my morale …”

An hour later we turn into the avenue de Lowendal to find a crowd of several hundred waiting outside the entrance to the riding school, many of them cadets from the École Militaire—the sort of young men I used to teach but who now jeer me as I emerge from the carriage in my civilian clothes. A line of troopers guards the door. Edmond knocks, a bolt is drawn and we are admitted into that familiar grey-lit chilly space, with its stink of horse shit, ammonia and straw. Trapped birds beat their wings against the skylights. A trestle table has been set up in the middle of the vast manège against which Arthur Ranc rests his bulky frame. He comes over to me with his hand outstretched. He may be nearer seventy than sixty but his beard is full and black and the eyes behind his pince-nez are bright with interest. “I’ve fought plenty of duels in my time, my dear fellow,” he says, “and the thing to remember is that two hours from now you’ll be sitting down to lunch with the keenest appetite you’ll ever enjoy in your life. It’s worth the fight just for the pleasure of the meal!”

I am introduced to the adjudicator, a retired sergeant major of the Republican Guard, and to my doctor, a hospital surgeon. We wait for fifteen minutes, our conversation becoming increasingly strained, until a burst of cheering from the street signals the arrival of Henry. He enters followed by the two colonels, ignores us and strides directly to the table, pulling off his gloves. Then he removes his cap and sets it down and begins unbuttoning his tunic, as if preparing for a medical procedure he is anxious to get over with as quickly as possible. I take off my own jacket and waistcoat and hand them to Edmond. The adjudicator chalks a thick line in the centre of the stone floor, paces off a position to either side of it and marks each with a cross, then summons us over to him. “Gentlemen,” he says, “if you please, unbutton your shirts,” and we expose our chests briefly to prove we are wearing no protection; Henry’s is pink and hairless, like the belly of a pig. Throughout this procedure he looks at his hands, the floor, the rafters—anywhere except at me.

Our weapons are weighed and measured. The sergeant major explains, “Gentlemen, if one of you is wounded, or a wound is perceived by one of your witnesses, the combat will be stopped unless the wounded man indicates he wishes to continue fighting. After the wound has been inspected, if the injured man desires, the fight may resume.” He gives us our swords. “Prepare yourselves.”

I flex my knees and make a few practice thrusts and parries, then turn to face Henry, who stands about six paces away, and now at last he looks at me, and I see the hatred in his eyes. I know at once he will try to kill me if he can.

“En garde,” says the sergeant major, and we take up our positions. He checks his watch and raises his cane, then brings it down. “Allez!”

Henry rushes at me immediately, flashing his sword with such speed and force that mine is almost knocked from my hand. I have no choice but to retreat under the flail of blows, parrying as best I can by instinct rather than method. My feet become entangled, I stumble slightly, and Henry slashes at my neck. Both Ranc and Edmond cry out in protest at such an illegal stroke. I sway backwards and feel the wall behind my shoulders. Already Henry must have driven me twenty paces from my marker and I have to duck and twist away from him, darting to the side and taking up a fresh defensive posture, yet still he comes on.

I hear Ranc complain to the adjudicator, “But this is ridiculous, monsieur!” and the adjudicator calls out, “Colonel Henry, the purpose is to settle a dispute between gentlemen!” but I can see in Henry’s eyes that he hears nothing except the pumping of his own blood. He lunges at me once again and this time I feel his blade on the tendon of my neck, which is as close as I have come to death since the day I was born. Ranc calls out, “Stop!” just as the tip of my sword catches Henry on the forearm. He glances down at it and lowers his weapon, and I do the same as the witnesses and doctors hurry across to us. The sergeant major consults his watch. “The first engagement lasted two minutes.”

My surgeon stands me directly beneath a skylight and turns my head to inspect my neck. He says, “You’re fine: he must have missed you by a hair.”

Henry, though, is bleeding from his forearm—not a serious cut, merely a graze, but enough for the adjudicator to say to him, “Colonel, you may refuse to continue.”

Henry shakes his head. “We’ll carry on.”

While he is rolling back his sleeve and wiping the blood away Edmond says to me quietly, “This fellow is a homicidal lunatic. I’ve never seen such a display.”

“If he tries it again,” adds Ranc, “I shall have the thing stopped.”

“No,” I say, “don’t do that. Let’s fight it to the end.”

The adjudicator calls, “Gentlemen, to your places!”

“Allez!”

Henry tries to start the reengagement where he left it, with the same aggression as before, driving me back towards the wall. But the lower part of his arm is braided with blood. His grip is slippery. The slashing strokes no longer carry the old conviction—they are slowing, weakening. He needs to finish me quickly or he will lose. He throws everything into one last lunge at my heart. I parry the blow, turn his blade, thrust, and catch the edge of his elbow. He bellows in pain and drops his sword. His seconds shout, “Stop!”

“No!” he shouts, wincing and clutching his elbow. “I can continue!” He stoops and retrieves his sword with his left hand and attempts to fit the hilt into his right, but his bloodied fingers won’t close on it. He tries repeatedly, but each time he attempts to raise it, the sword drops to the floor. I watch him without pity. “Give me a minute,” he mutters, and turns his back to me to hide his weakness.

Eventually the two colonels and his doctor persuade him to go over to the table to allow the wound to be examined. Five minutes later Colonel Parès approaches where I am waiting with Edmond and Ranc and announces, “The cubital nerve is damaged. The fingers will be unable to grip for several days. Colonel Henry must withdraw.” He salutes and walks away.

I put on my waistcoat and my jacket and glance across to where Henry sits slumped on a chair, staring at the floor. Colonel Parès stands behind him and guides his arms into the sleeves of his tunic, then Colonel Boissonnet kneels at his feet and fastens his buttons.

“Look at him,” says Ranc contemptuously, “like a great big baby. He’s completely finished.”

“Yes,” I say. “I believe he is.”

We do not observe the usual custom following a duel and shake hands. Instead, as word filters out into the avenue de Lowendal that their hero has been wounded, I am hurried away through a rear exit to avoid the hostile crowd. According to the front pages the next day, Henry leaves to the cheers of his supporters, his arm in a sling, and is driven in an open landau around the corner to his apartment, where General Boisdeffre waits in person to offer him the best wishes of the army. I go out to lunch with Edmond and Ranc, and discover that the old senator is indeed correct: I have seldom had a better appetite nor more enjoyed a meal.

This buoyant mood persists, and for the next three months I wake each morning with a curious sense of optimism. On the face of it, my situation could hardly be worse. I have nothing to do, no career to go to, an inadequate income, and little capital to draw on. I still cannot see Pauline while her divorce is pending in case we are observed by the press or the police. Blanche has gone away: it was only after much string-pulling by her brother and various subterfuges (including the pretence that she was a fifty-five-year-old spinster with a heart condition) that she managed to avoid being called as a witness at the Zola trial. I am hissed at in public and libelled in various newspapers, which are tipped off by Henry that I have been seen meeting Colonel von Schwartzkoppen in Karlsruhe. Louis is removed as deputy mayor of the seventh arrondissement and sanctioned by the Order of Advocates for “improper conduct.” Reinach and other prominent supporters of Dreyfus lose their seats in the national elections. And while Lemercier-Picard’s death creates a great sensation, it is officially declared a suicide and the case is closed.

Everywhere the forces of darkness are in control.

But I am not entirely ostracised. Parisian society is divided, and for each door that is now slammed in my face, another opens. On Sundays I begin regularly to go for lunch at the home of Madame Geneviève Straus, the widow of Bizet, on the rue de Miromesnil, along with such new comrades-in-arms as Zola, Clemenceau, Labori, Proust and Anatole France. On Wednesday evenings it is often dinner for twenty in the salon of Monsieur France’s mistress, Madame Léontine Arman de Caillavet, “Our Lady of the Revision,” in the avenue Hoche—Léontine is an extravagant grande dame with carmine-rouged cheeks and orange-dyed hair on which sits a rimless hat of stuffed pink bullfinches. And on Thursdays I might walk a few streets west, towards the porte Dauphine, for the musical soirées of Madame Aline Ménard-Dorian, in whose scarlet reception rooms decorated with peacock feathers and Japanese prints I turn the pages for Cortot and Casals and the three ravishing young sisters of the trio Chaigneau.

“Ah! You are always so cheerful, my dear Georges,” these grand hostesses say to me. They flutter their fans and their eyelashes at me in the candlelight, and touch my arm consolingly—for a gaolbird is always a trophy for a smart table—and call across to their fellow guests to take note of my serenity. “You are a wonder, Picquart!” their husbands exclaim. “Either that or you are mad. I am sure I should not retain my good humour in the face of so much trouble.”

I smile. “Well, one must always wear the mask of comedy for society …”

And yet the truth is I am not wearing a mask: I do feel quite confident about the future. I am sure in my bones that sooner or later, although by what means I cannot foresee, this great edifice the army has constructed—this mouldering defensive fortress of worm-eaten timber—will collapse all around them. The lies are too extensive and ramshackle to withstand the pressures of time and scrutiny. Poor Dreyfus, now entering his fourth year on Devil’s Island, may not live to see it, and nor for that matter may I. But vindication will come, I am convinced.

And I am proved right, even sooner than I expected. That summer, two events occur that change everything.

First, in May, I receive a note from Labori summoning me urgently to his apartment in the rue de Bourgogne, just around the corner from the Ministry of War. I arrive within the hour to find a nervous young man of twenty-one, obviously up from the provinces, waiting in the drawing room. Labori introduces him as Christian Esterhazy.

“Ah,” I say, shaking his hand somewhat warily, “now that is an infamous name.”

“You mean my cousin?” he responds. “Yes, he has made it so, and a blacker rogue never drew breath!”

His tone is so vehement I am taken aback. Labori says, “You need to sit down, Picquart, and listen to what Monsieur Esterhazy has to tell us. You won’t be disappointed.”

Marguerite brings in tea and leaves us to it.

“My father died eighteen months ago,” says Christian, “at our home in Bordeaux, very unexpectedly. The week after he passed over, I received a letter of condolence from a man I’d never met before: my father’s cousin, Major Walsin Esterhazy, expressing his sympathy and asking if he could be of any practical assistance in terms of financial advice.”

I exchange glances with Labori; Christian notices. “Well, Monsieur Picquart, I can see that you know what must be coming! But please bear in mind that I had no experience in these matters and my mother is a most unworldly and religious person—two of my sisters are nuns, in fact. To tell the tale briefly, I wrote back to my chivalrous relative and explained that I had an inheritance of five thousand francs, and my mother would receive one hundred and seventy thousand through the sale of property, and that we would welcome advice in making sure it was safely invested. The major replied, offering to intercede with his intimate friend Edmond de Rothschild, and naturally we thought, ‘What could be safer than that?’ ”

He sips his tea, gathering his thoughts before continuing. “For some months all went well, and we would receive regular letters from the major enclosing cheques which he said were the dividends from the money the Rothschilds had invested on our behalf. And then last November he wrote to me asking me to come to Paris urgently. He said he was in trouble and needed my help. Naturally I came at once. I found him in a terrible state of anxiety. He said he was about to be denounced in public as a traitor, but that I was not to believe any of the stories. It was all a plot by the Jews, to put him in Dreyfus’s place, and that he could prove this because he was being helped by officers from the Ministry of War. He said it had become too dangerous for him to meet his principal contact, and therefore he asked if I would meet him on his behalf and relay messages between them.”

“And who was this contact?” I ask.

“His name was Colonel du Paty de Clam.”

“You met du Paty?”

“Yes, often. Usually at night, in public places—parks, bridges, lavatories.”

“Lavatories?”

“Oh yes, although the colonel would take care to be disguised, in dark glasses or a false beard.”

“And what sort of messages did you relay between du Paty and your cousin?”

“All sorts. Warnings of what might be about to appear in the newspapers. Advice on how to respond. I remember there was once an envelope containing a secret document from the ministry. Some messages concerned you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, for example there were two telegrams. They’ve stayed in my mind because they were very odd.”

“Can you remember what they said?”

“I remember one was signed ‘Blanche’—that was written by du Paty. The other—a foreign name …”

“Speranza?”

“Speranza—that’s it! Mademoiselle Pays—she wrote that one out, on the colonel’s instructions, and took it to the post office in the rue Lafayette.”

“Did they give a reason why they were doing this?”

“To compromise you.”

“And you helped because you believed your cousin was innocent?”

“Absolutely—at least I did then.”

“And now?”

Christian takes his time replying. He finishes his tea and replaces the cup and saucer on the table—slow and deliberate gestures that do not quite conceal the fact that he is quivering with emotion. “A few weeks ago, after my cousin stopped paying my mother her monthly money, I checked with the Rothschilds. There is no bank account. There never was. She is ruined. I believe that if a man could betray his own family in such a fashion, he could betray his country without any conscience. That is why I have come to you. He must be stopped.”

It is obvious what should be done with the information, once it has been verified: it must be passed to Bertulus, the dapper magistrate with the red carnation in his buttonhole, whose slow investigation into the forged telegrams is still proceeding. Because I am the one who laid the original complaint, it is agreed that I should write to him, alerting him to the crucial new witness. Christian agrees to testify, then changes his mind when his cousin discovers he has been to see Labori, and then changes it back again when it is pointed out that he can be subpoenaed in any case.

Esterhazy, obviously aware now that disaster is closing in on him, renews his demands that I should fight him in a duel. He lets it be known in the press that he is prowling the streets near to my apartment in the hopes of meeting me, carrying a heavy cane made of cherry wood and painted bright red with which he proposes to stove in my brains. He claims to be an expert in the art of savate, or kickboxing. Finally he sends me a letter and releases it to the newspapers:

In consequence of your refusal to fight, dictated solely by your fear of a serious meeting, I vainly looked for you for several days as you know, and you fled like the coward that you are. Tell me what day and where you will finally dare to find yourself face-to-face with me in order to receive the castigation which I have promised you. As for me I shall, for three days in succession, from tomorrow evening at 7 p.m., walk in the rues de Lisbonne and Naples.

I do not reply to him personally, as I have no desire to enter into direct correspondence with such a creature; instead I issue a statement of my own to the press:

I am surprised that M. Esterhazy has not met me if he is looking for me, as I go about quite openly. As for the threats contained in his letter, I am resolved if I fall into an ambush fully to use the right possessed by every citizen for his legitimate defence. But I shall not forget that it is my duty to respect Esterhazy’s life. The man belongs to the justice of the country, and I should be to blame if I took it upon myself to punish him.

Several weeks pass and I cease to keep my eyes open for him. But then one Sunday afternoon at the beginning of July, on the day before I am due to hand Christian’s evidence to Bertulus, I am walking along the avenue Bugeaud after lunch when I hear footsteps running up behind me. I turn to see Esterhazy’s red cane descending on my head. I duck away and put up an arm to shield my face so that the blow falls only on my shoulder. Esterhazy’s face is livid and contorted, his eyes bulging like organ stops. He is shouting insults—“Villain! Coward! Traitor!”—so close that I can smell the absinthe on his breath. Fortunately I have a cane of my own. My first strike at his head knocks his bowler hat into the gutter. My second is a jab to his stomach that sends him sprawling after it. He rolls on his side, then drags himself up onto his hands and knees and crouches, winded, on the cobbles. Then, supporting himself with his ridiculous cherry-red cane, he starts to struggle to his feet. Several passers-by have stopped to watch what is going on. I grab him in a headlock and shout for someone to fetch the police. But the promeneurs, not surprisingly, have better things to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and at once everyone moves on, leaving me holding the traitor. He is strong and wiry, twisting back and forth, and I realise that either I will have to do him serious damage to quieten him down or else let him go. I release him, and step back warily.

“Villain!” he repeats. “Coward! Traitor!” He staggers about trying to pick up his hat. He is very drunk.

“You are going to prison,” I tell him, “if not for treason, then for forgery and embezzlement. Now don’t come near me again, or next time I’ll deal with you more severely.”

My shoulder is stinging badly. I am relieved to walk away. He doesn’t try to follow, but I can hear him shouting after me—“Villain! Coward! Traitor! Jew!”—until I am out of sight.

The second event that summer is much more significant and takes place four days later.

It is early in the evening, Thursday, 7 July, and as usual at that time of the week I am at Aline Ménard-Dorian’s neo-Gothic mansion: to be exact, I am standing in the garden prior to going into the concert, sipping champagne, talking to Zola, whose appeal against his conviction is being heard in a courtroom in Versailles. A new government has just been formed and we are discussing what effect this is likely to have on his case when Clemenceau, with Labori at his heels, suddenly erupts onto the patio carrying an evening newspaper.

“Have you heard what’s just happened?”

“No.”

“My friends, it is a sensation! That little prig Cavaignac^* has just made his first speech in the chamber as Minister of War, and claims to have proved once and for all that Dreyfus is a traitor!”

“How has he done that?”

Clemenceau thrusts the paper into my hands. “By reading out verbatim three intercepted messages from the secret intelligence files.”

“It cannot be possible …!”

It cannot be possible—and yet here it is, in black and white: the new Minister of War, Godefroy Cavaignac, who replaced Billot barely a week ago, claims to have ended the Dreyfus affair with a political coup de théâtre. “I’m going to show to the Chamber three documents. Here is the first letter. It was received in March 1894, when it came into the intelligence department of the Ministry of War …” Omitting only the names of the sender and the addressee, he goes through them one by one: the infamous message from the secret file (I am enclosing twelve master plans of Nice which that lowlife D gave me for you), a second letter which I do not recognise (D has brought me many very interesting matters), and the “absolute proof” that turned the course of Zola’s trial:

I have read that a deputy is going to ask questions about Dreyfus. If someone asks in Rome for new explanations, I will say that I have never had any dealings with this Jew. If someone asks you, say the same, for no one must ever know what happened to him.

I hand the paper on to Zola. “He really declaimed all of this rubbish out loud? He must be crazy.”

“You wouldn’t have thought so if you’d been in the Chamber,” replies Clemenceau. “The entire place rose in acclamation. They think he’s settled the Dreyfus issue once and for all. They even passed a motion ordering the government to print thirty-six thousand copies of the evidence and post them in every commune in France!”

Labori says, “It’s a disaster for us, unless we can counter it.”

Zola asks, “Can we counter it?”

All three look at me.

That evening, after the concert, which includes the two great Wagner piano sonatas, I make my excuses to Aline and instead of staying for dinner, and with the music still playing in my head, I go to find Pauline. I know that she is lodging with an elderly cousin, a spinster, who has an apartment not far away, close to the Bois de Boulogne. At first, the cousin refuses to fetch her to the door: “Have you not done her enough harm already, monsieur? Is it not time to let her be?”

“Please, madame, I need to see her.”

“It is very late.”

“It’s not yet ten, still light—”

“Good night, monsieur.”

She closes the door on me. I ring the bell again. I hear whispered voices. There is a long pause and this time when the door opens Pauline is standing in her cousin’s place. She is dressed very soberly in a white blouse and dark skirt, her hair pulled back, no makeup. She might almost be a member of a religious order; I wonder if she is still going to confession. She says, “I thought we had agreed not to meet until things were settled.”

“There may not be time to wait.”

She purses her lips, nods. “I’ll get my hat.” As she goes into her bedroom, I see on the table in the little sitting room a typewriter: typically practical, she has taken the money I gave her and invested part of it in learning a new skill—the first time she has ever had an income of her own.

Outside, when we are round the corner and safely out of sight of the apartment, Pauline takes my arm and we walk into the Bois. It is a still, clear summer evening, the temperature so perfectly poised that there seems to be no climate, no barrier between the mind and nature. There are simply the stars, and the dry scent of the grass and the trees, and the occasional faint splash from the lake, where two lovers drift in a boat in the moonlight. Their voices carry louder than they realise in the motionless air. But we have only to walk a few hundred paces, strike out from the sandy paths and enter the trees, and they, and the city, cease to exist.

We find a secluded place beneath an immense old cedar. I take off my tailcoat and spread it on the ground for us, loosen my white tie, sit down beside her and put my arm around her.

“You’ll ruin your coat,” she says. “You’ll have to get it cleaned.”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t need it for a while.”

“Are you going away?”

“You could put it that way.”

I explain to her then what I intend to do. I made my mind up listening to the concert; listening to the Wagner, in fact, which always has a heady effect on me.

“I am going to challenge the government’s version of events in public.”

I have no illusions about what will happen to me as a result—I can hardly complain that I haven’t been given fair warning. “I suppose I should regard my month in Mont-Valérien as a kind of trial run.” I put a brave face on it, for her sake. Inwardly I am less confident. What is the worst I can expect? Once the prison doors close on me, I will be in some physical jeopardy—that has to be taken into account. Incarceration will not be pleasant, and may be prolonged for weeks and months, possibly even a year or more, although I do not mention that to Pauline: it will be in the government’s interests to try to spin out legal proceedings as long as they can, if only in the hope that Dreyfus may die in the interim.

When I’ve finished explaining, she says, “You sound as though you have made up your mind already.”

“If I pull back now, I may never get a better chance. I’d be obliged to spend the rest of my life with the knowledge that when the moment came, I couldn’t rise to it. It would destroy me—I’d never be able to look at a painting or read a novel or listen to music again without a creeping sense of shame. I’m just so very sorry to have mixed you up in all of this.”

“Don’t keep apologising. I’m not a child. I mixed myself up in it when I fell in love with you.”

“And how is it, being alone?”

“I’ve discovered I can survive. It’s oddly exhilarating.”

We lie quietly, our hands interlaced, looking up through the branches to the stars. I seem to feel the turning of the earth beneath us. It will just be starting to get dark in the tropics of South America. I think of Dreyfus and try to picture what he is doing, whether they still manacle him to his bed at night. Our destinies are now entirely intertwined. I depend upon his survival as much as he depends on mine—if he endures, then so will I; if I walk free, then he will too.

I remain there with Pauline for a long time, savouring these final hours together, until the stars begin to fade into the dawn, then I pick up my coat and drape it over her shoulders, and arm in arm we walk back together into the sleeping city.

^* Godefroy Cavaignac (1853–1905), fervent Catholic, appointed Minister of War 28 June 1898.