Victor Hugo - The Last Day of a Condemned Man

It was a beautiful morning in August. For three days my trial had been going on; for three days my name and my crime had called together a crowd of spectators, who swooped down upon the benches of the court-room like so many crows around a corpse; for three days the phantasmagoria of judges, witnesses, lawyers, and public prosecutors had been coming and going before me, now grotesque, now bloody, but always dark and dreadful. The first two nights I had not been able to sleep from anxiety and fright; but weariness, physical and mental, brought me rest on the third. At midnight I had left the judges, who were to come to a decision. I was taken back to the straw of my dungeon; and I fell into a deep sleep, a sleep of forgetfulness. That was the first peaceful moment I had had for many a day.

I was still sleeping soundly when they came to waken me. This time the heavy step and the iron shoes of the turnkey, the rattle of his bunch of keys, and the hoarse grinding of the locks, were not enough to rouse me from my lethargy. It needed his rough voice in my ear, and his heavy hand upon my arm. Get up, will you? I opened my eyes, and sat up in terror. Just at that instant there fell through the high narrow grating of my cell, upon the ceiling of the adjoining corridor, the only ray of light I had seen for a long time, the yellow reflection, which eyes accustomed to the shade of a prison easily recognize as the sun. I love the sun.

It is a fair day, I said to the jailer.

For a moment he did not answer, as if doubtful whether it were worth while to waste a word; then with an effort he muttered roughly:

Perhaps it is.

I was silent, my mind seemed half asleep, but my lips were smiling, and my eyes were fixed upon the soft ray of gold which illuminated the ceiling.

It is a beautiful day, I said again.

Yes, the man returned; and they are waiting for you.

The words, like a thread which breaks the flight of an insect, brought me violently back to reality. I saw again, like a flash of lightning, the dreary court-room, the horseshoe of the judges which was covered with bloody rags, the three rows of stupid-looking witnesses, the two gendarmes on either side of me, and the swaying black gowns; then, the billowy sea of heads at the farther end of the room, and the fixed gaze of the dozen jurors, who had kept watch while I slept!

I rose; my teeth chattered, my hands trembled, my limbs shook, I could not find my clothes. At my first step I swayed like a man carrying too heavy a burden. But I followed the jailer.

The two gendarmes were waiting at the door of my cell. They put handcuffs on my wrists, and carefully closed the complicated little padlocks. I let them do it; they were machines on a machine.

We crossed an inner court. The brisk morning air revived me. I raised my head. The sky was blue; and the warm rays of the sun, falling across the long chimneys, marked great angles of light on the topmost walls of the dark prison. It was a beautiful day indeed.

We ascended a spiral staircase, crossed a corridor, then another, and still a third, and finally reached a low door that stood open. A heavy odor and the confused murmuring voices came to me; it was the crowd in the court-room. I entered.

At sight of me there rose a clashing of arms and of voices. The benches were hastily moved back, the boards creaked; and as I crossed the room, between two crowds of people, flanked by soldiers, I felt that I was the centre to which were attached the threads which pulled every gaping, staring face.

Suddenly I noticed that I was without irons; but when or where they had been removed I had no idea.

Then a great hush fell upon the room. I was in my place. As the noise and tumult of the crowd ceased, my mind also grew calm; and all at once I saw clearly, what up to then I had realized only in a dazed way, that the decisive moment had come, that I was there to hear my sentence.

Explain it as you will, this thought caused me no terror. The windows were open; the air and the noise of the city fell upon my ears; the room was as bright as if there were to be a wedding there; the suns rays fell here and there in shining crosses, upon the floor, on the tables, broken by the angles of the wall; and from the shining mouldings of the windows each beam hung in the air, a great prism of shimmering gold.