Chapter Fifty-Three
The diary of Dr Ferrand
Why am I so affected by the recent denouement of the sad affair of the blood-written wall that I have to write these diary notes in broad daylight? Is it because the drama’s emotional force is so compelling? Is it because Alexandre Lefasse broke into tears, wringing his hands imploringly, when we took the seven fingers he had hacked off Madeleine Devaux’s hands out of the drawer of his bedside cabinet? His sorrow for the loss of the fingers was bottomless and didn’t abate when the policemen took him to Lyon where a judge will give him the death penalty. Michel, who remembered the children’s chant Alexandre used to hum all day, summed up the sad affair well. “The poor sod needed seven fingers to go to heaven. Without that talisman, the devil wou
