D. Cartier

Twenty minutes before, Count Felipone was arriving back from the hunt and dismounted his horse in the courtyard of Kerloven.

The staff of the castle were few in number, it consisted of about ten at the most, including a hunting assistant and two kennel-men. These three remained in the courtyard, occupied in the kennels and stable. The rest were scattered throughout the castle.

The Count was therefore able to climb the great staircase of the manor without meeting anyone on his passage and arrival at the long gallery which extended throughout the first floor. It led to various apartments on the right and left, finally opening on the balcony through a glass door.

That balcony was the Italian’s favorite promenade. He came there regularly, after lunch or dinner, to smoke a cigar and cast a dreamy gaze over the sea.

The glass door was slightly ajar. Felipone mechanically passed through.

It was almost night. The last twilight ray sliding on the horizon still separated the vague extremes of the ocean from the last cloud in the sky. The sound of the ocean colliding with the foot of the cliff climbing up to the balcony until it was just a dull murmur.

The count took three steps and stumbled. His foot met an object that made a dry clunk on contact. It was the wooden horse the child played with.

Felipone took a few steps more, and, in the final light of evening, he saw the child leaning against the railing of the balcony, in a corner and perfectly immobile.

Armand, tired from play with the wooden horse, had sat down for a moment to rest, then sleep had come, that invincible sleep that seizes one in childhood, and he was in a deep slumber.

At the sight of the child, the Count stopped suddenly.

He had been hunting alone all day. Solitude is bad counsel for those tormented by a criminal thought.

For five or six hours, Felipone rode through the flowing greens of the vast forests of Brittany, where the silence is profound and the isolation is complete.

He had lost the hunt, he had stopped hearing the barks of the hounds, and little by little, was prey to a vague but persistent thought, he let the bridle float off the neck of his horse.

So it returned, ardent and tenacious, that thought that had obsessed him since the countess had become pregnant.

“The young Armand,” He said to himself “will be twenty-one years old, and all of his father’s fortune will be returned to him. If he died, his mother would inherit from him, and my child would inherit from his mother.”

And, once again, the Italian was caressing the vile dream of the death of the child. Yet, upon his return the first being he would come across would be that child. That child sleeping there. In that lonely place, far from everyone. At that nocturnal hour when criminal thoughts sprout easily in an evil soul.

The Count made a point not to awaken the child but rested his own elbow on the balcony railing and tilted his head.

Down below, more than a hundred fathoms, the white capped waves, crowned with foam, these waves could serve as a coffin.

Felipone turned and with a rapid look explored the balcony.

The balcony was deserted and the darkness of night was beginning to envelop it.

The grand voice of the sea rose up to him and seemed to say:

“The ocean does not return what it is given”

An infernal flash passed through the spirit of that man. A terrible temptation had bitten into his heart.

“He could have,” He murmured “that child, wanting to look at the sea, climbed up on the railing. He’s not even three feet tall. He could have sat down on the railing, most imprudently, and had fallen asleep. Like how he’s fallen asleep down on the floor. Then, while sleeping, could have lost his balance…”

A sinister smile slithered across the pallid lips of the Italian.

“And then” He finished “my child will not have a brother, and I will not have to give up control of this child’s fortune.”

On saying these last words, the Count leaned towards the sea.

The waves roared dully and seemed to say:

“Send us that child that bothers you so, we will guard him faithfully and give him a happy veil of green algae.”

Then he threw another look around him. A rapid and investigative look of the criminal who is afraid of being spied on. The silence, the darkness, the solitude, told him:

“No one will see you, no one to stand witness in front of a human tribunal that you have murdered a poor child!”

And then the Count was overcome with giddiness and no longer hesitated.

He took another step forward, took the sleeping child in his arms, and launched the frail creature over the railing.

Two seconds after, a dull noise came up from the ocean below, indicating that the waves had received and engulfed his prey.

The child hadn’t even let out a cry upon waking up in the void.

Over several minutes, Felipone remained immobile and seized by a strange fever in the same place where he had committed his heinous crime. Then the wretch had become afraid and wanted to flee. Then, again, the cold-bloodedness that characterizes great criminals came back to him, and he knew he would be betraying himself if he fled. So, with some confidence, but already calm faced, he left the balcony on tip-toe. He headed towards his wife’s apartment, and once he was there he let his spurs and heels of his hard boots resonate on the flagstones of the gallery.