Just about this time there happened to them the worst of all possible adventures. The son, whom the father had not seen for several weeks, one fine day attacked a peaceful citizen and, with a terrible knife thrust in the stomach, despatched him to a better world; as to which event circumstances seemed so contrary that the son allowed himself to be arrested.
The old man was in the habit of reading his gazette religiously, from the first line to the last; thus he learned the news. And it was through the same newspaper that he followed the trial and learned of his son's conviction. This made him furious, not so much because of the sentence as because of a special circumstance. The policeman who had arrested his son was--just think of it!--Bernardo,--yes, Bernardo, his own neighbor--the same chap who would greet him daily with the ironic words: "How are things, Felix old boy? And when will you be ready for a waltz?"
Even on the day of imprisonment and during those that followed Bernardo had permitted himself these witty remarks.
Bernardo was a _cabra_ of Bahai, a pretentious mulatto whose enormous head of hair, carefully parted in the middle into two flourishing masses, was kept so only through the services of odorous pomade that cost four sous a pot. He had been, in his day, a dishonest political henchman, well-known for his exploits; then, supported by the liberal leader whose election he had worked for, he escaped prison and entered the police service. At that time police officers were called "bats",--a sobriquet that troubled Bernardo very little. And it had been he--what anger flashed in old Felix's eyes as he thought of it!--he, whose past activities would well bear examination, he who had arrested Felix's son!...
From that moment one preoccupation alone filled Felix's hours--vengeance! This hatred dominated his existence and became the only power that could vanquish the ever-growing misery of his broken-down body. The mere thought that he could not grow well, while the _cabra_ would daily continue to live in insolent impunity, was enough to give him convulsions of rage; he would foam at the mouth, gnash his teeth and, in that obtuse brain of his, concoct scheme upon scheme of vengeance, almost all of them impracticable, for he was chained to the spot in stupid impotence.