The Downfall Part 27

But Henriette, in looking about the room, had caught sight of a pair of gauntlets, the gloves of a man, lying forgotten on a small table, and she started perceptibly. Gilberte blushed deeply, and extending her arms with a conscious, caressing movement, drew her friend to her and rested her head upon her bosom.

"Yes," she almost whispered, "I saw that you noticed it. Darling, you must not judge me too severely. He is an old friend; I told you all about it at Charleville, long ago, you remember." Her voice sank lower still; there was something that sounded very like a laugh of satisfaction in her tender tones. "He pleaded so with me yesterday that I would see him just once more. Just think, this morning he is in action; he may be dead by this. How could I refuse him?" It was all so heroic and so charming, the contrast was so delicious between war's stern reality and tender sentiment; thoughtless as a linnet, she smiled again, notwithstanding her confusion. Never could she have found it in her heart to drive him from her door, when circ.u.mstances all were propitious for the interview. "Do you condemn me?"

Henriette had listened to her confidences with a very grave face. Such things surprised her, for she could not understand them; it must be that she was const.i.tuted differently from other women. Her heart that morning was with her husband, her brother, down there where the battle was raging. How was it possible that anyone could sleep so peacefully and be so gay and cheerful when the loved ones were in peril?

"But think of your husband, my dear, and of that poor young man as well.

Does not your heart yearn to be with them? You do not reflect that their lifeless forms may be brought in and laid before your eyes at any moment."

Gilberte raised her adorable bare arm before her face to shield her vision from the frightful picture.

"O Heaven! what is that you say? It is cruel of you to destroy all the pleasure of my morning in this way. No, no; I won't think of such things. They are too mournful."

Henriette could not refrain from smiling in spite of her anxiety. She was thinking of the days of their girlhood, and how Gilberte's father, Captain de Vineuil, an old naval officer who had been made collector of customs at Charleville when his wounds had incapacitated him for active service, hearing his daughter cough and fearing for her the fate of his young wife, who had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from his arms by that terrible disease, consumption, had sent her to live at a farm-house near Chene-Populeux. The little maid was not nine years old, and already she was a consummate actress--a perfect type of the village coquette, queening it over her playmates, tricked out in what old finery she could lay hands on, adorning herself with bracelets and tiaras made from the silver paper wrappings of the chocolate. She had not changed a bit when, later, at the age of twenty, she married Maginot, the inspector of woods and forests. Mezieres, a dark, gloomy town, surrounded by ramparts, was not to her taste, and she continued to live at Charleville, where the gay, generous life, enlivened by many festivities, suited her better.

Her father was dead, and with a husband whom, by reason of his inferior social position, her friends and acquaintances treated with scant courtesy, she was absolutely mistress of her own actions. She did not escape the censure of the stern moralists who inhabit our provincial cities, and in those days was credited with many lovers; but of the gay throng of officers who, thanks to her father's old connection and her kinship to Colonel de Vineuil, disported themselves in her drawing-room, Captain Beaudoin was the only one who had really produced an impression.

She was light and frivolous--nothing more--adoring pleasure and living entirely in the present, without the least trace of perverse inclination; and if she accepted the captain's attentions, it is pretty certain that she did it out of good-nature and love of admiration.

"You did very wrong to see him again," Henriette finally said, in her matter-of-fact way.

"Oh! my dear, since I could not possibly do otherwise, and it was only for just that once. You know very well I would die rather than deceive my new husband."

She spoke with much feeling, and seemed distressed to see her friend shake her head disapprovingly. They dropped the subject, and clasped each other in an affectionate embrace, notwithstanding their diametrically different natures. Each could hear the beating of the other's heart, and they might have understood the tongues those organs spoke--one, the slave of pleasure, wasting and squandering all that was best in herself; the other, with the mute heroism of a lofty soul, devoting herself to a single enn.o.bling affection.

"But hark! how the cannon are roaring," Gilberte presently exclaimed. "I must make haste and dress."

The reports sounded more distinctly in the silent room now that their conversation had ceased. Leaving her bed, the young woman accepted the a.s.sistance of her friend, not caring to summon her maid, and rapidly made her toilet for the day, in order that she might be ready to go downstairs should she be needed there. As she was completing the arrangement of her hair there was a knock at the door, and, recognizing the voice of the elder Madame Delaherche, she hastened to admit her.

"Certainly, dear mother, you may come in."

With the thoughtlessness that was part of her nature, she allowed the old lady to enter without having first removed the gauntlets from the table. It was in vain that Henriette darted forward to seize them and throw them behind a chair. Madame Delaherche stood glaring for some seconds at the spot where they had been with an expression on her face as if she were slowly suffocating. Then her glance wandered involuntarily from object to object in the room, stopping finally at the great red-curtained bed, the coverings thrown back in disorder.

"I see that Madame Weiss has disturbed your slumbers. Then you were able to sleep, daughter?"

It was plain that she had had another purpose in coming there than to make that speech. Ah, that marriage that her son had insisted on contracting, contrary to her wish, at the mature age of fifty, after twenty years of joyless married life with a shrewish, bony wife; he, who had always until then deferred so to her will, now swayed only by his pa.s.sion for this gay young widow, lighter than thistle-down! She had promised herself to keep watch over the present, and there was the past coming back to plague her. But ought she to speak? Her life in the household was one of silent reproach and protest; she kept herself almost constantly imprisoned in her chamber, devoting herself rigidly to the observances of her austere religion. Now, however, the wrong was so flagrant that she resolved to speak to her son.

Gilberte blushingly replied, without an excessive manifestation of embarra.s.sment, however:

"Oh, yes, I had a few hours of refreshing sleep. You know that Jules has not returned--"

Madame Delaherche interrupted her with a grave nod of her head. Ever since the artillery had commenced to roar she had been watching eagerly for her son's return, but she was a Spartan mother, and concealed her gnawing anxiety under a cloak of brave silence. And then she remembered what was the object of her visit there.

"Your uncle, the colonel, has sent the regimental surgeon with a note in pencil, to ask if we will allow them to establish a hospital here. He knows that we have abundance of s.p.a.ce in the factory, and I have already authorized the gentlemen to make use of the courtyard and the big drying-room. But you should go down in person--"

"Oh, at once, at once!" exclaimed Henriette, hastening toward the door.

"We will do what we can to help."

Gilberte also displayed much enthusiasm for her new occupation as nurse; she barely took the time to throw a lace scarf over her head, and the three women went downstairs. When they reached the bottom and stood in the s.p.a.cious vestibule, looking out through the main entrance, of which the leaves had been thrown wide back, they beheld a crowd collected in the street before the house. A low-hung carriage was advancing slowly along the roadway, a sort of carriole, drawn by a single horse, which a lieutenant of zouaves was leading by the bridle. They took it to be a wounded man that they were bringing to them, the first of their patients.

"Yes, yes! This is the place; this way!"

But they were quickly undeceived. The sufferer rec.u.mbent in the carriole was Marshal MacMahon, severely wounded in the hip, who, his hurt having been provisionally cared for in the cottage of a gardener, was now being taken to the Sous-Prefecture. He was bareheaded and partially divested of his clothing, and the gold embroidery on his uniform was tarnished with dust and blood. He spoke no word, but had raised his head from the pillow where it lay and was looking about him with a sorrowful expression, and perceiving the three women where they stood, wide eyed with horror, their joined hands resting on their bosom, in presence of that great calamity, the whole army stricken in the person of its chief at the very beginning of the conflict, he slightly bowed his head, with a faint, paternal smile. A few of those about him removed their hats; others, who had no time for such idle ceremony, were circulating the report of General Ducrot's appointment to the command of the army. It was half-past seven o'clock.

"And what of the Emperor?" Henriette inquired of a bookseller, who was standing at his door.

"He left the city near an hour ago," replied the neighbor. "I was standing by and saw him pa.s.s out at the Balan gate. There is a rumor that his head was taken off by a cannon ball."

But this made the grocer across the street furious. "Hold your tongue,"

he shouted, "it is an infernal lie! None but the brave will leave their bones there to-day!"

When near the Place du College the marshal's carriole was lost to sight in the gathering crowd, among whose numbers the most strange and contradictory reports from the field of battle were now beginning to circulate. The fog was clearing; the streets were bright with sunshine.

A hail, in no gentle terms, was heard proceeding from the courtyard: "Now then, ladies, here is where you are wanted, not outside!"

They all three hastened inside and found themselves in presence of Major Bouroche, who had thrown his uniform coat upon the floor, in a corner of the room, and donned a great white ap.r.o.n. Above the broad expanse of, as yet, unspotted white, his blazing, leonine eyes and enormous head, with shock of harsh, bristling hair, seemed to exhale energy and determination. So terrible did he appear to them that the women were his most humble servants from the very start, obedient to his every sign, treading on one another to antic.i.p.ate his wishes.

"There is nothing here that is needed. Get me some linen; try and see if you can't find some more mattresses; show my men where the pump is--"

And they ran as if their life was at stake to do his bidding; were so active that they seemed to be ubiquitous.

The factory was admirably adapted for a hospital. The drying-room was a particularly noticeable feature, a vast apartment with numerous and lofty windows for light and ventilation, where they could put in a hundred beds and yet have room to spare, and at one side was a shed that seemed to have been built there especially for the convenience of the operators: three long tables had been brought in, the pump was close at hand, and a small gra.s.s-plot adjacent might serve as ante-chamber for the patients while awaiting their turn. And the handsome old elms, with their deliciously cool shade, roofed the spot in most agreeably.

Bouroche had considered it would be best to establish himself in Sedan at the commencement, foreseeing the dreadful slaughter and the inevitable panic that would sooner or later drive the troops to the shelter of the ramparts. All that he had deemed it necessary to leave with the regiment was two flying ambulances and some "first aids," that were to send him in the casualties as rapidly as possible after applying the primary dressings. The details of litter-bearers were all out there, whose duty it was to pick up the wounded under fire, and with them were the ambulance wagons and _fourgons_ of the medical train. The two a.s.sistant-surgeons and three hospital stewards whom he had retained, leaving two a.s.sistants on the field, would doubtless be sufficient to perform what operations were necessary. He had also a corps of dressers under him. But he was not gentle in manner and language, for all he did was done impulsively, zealously, with all his heart and soul.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ how do you suppose we are going to distinguish the cases from one another when they begin to come in presently? Take a piece of charcoal and number each bed with a big figure on the wall overhead, and place those mattresses closer together, do you hear?

We can strew some straw on the floor in that corner if it becomes necessary."

The guns were barking, preparing his work for him; he knew that at any moment now the first carriage might drive up and discharge its load of maimed and bleeding flesh, and he hastened to get all in readiness in the great, bare room. Outside in the shed the preparations were of another nature: the chests were opened and their contents arranged in order on a table, packages of lint, bandages, compresses, rollers, splints for fractured limbs, while on another table, alongside a great jar of cerate and a bottle of chloroform, were the surgical cases with their blood-curdling array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps, bistouries, scalpels, scissors, saws, an a.r.s.enal of implements of every imaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, slice, rend, crush. But there was a deficient supply of basins.

"You must have pails, pots, jars about the house--something that will hold water. We can't work besmeared with blood all day, that's certain.

And sponges, try to get me some sponges."

Madame Delaherche hurried away and returned, followed by three women bearing a supply of the desired vessels. Gilberte, standing by the table where the instruments were laid out, summoned Henriette to her side by a look and pointed to them with a little shudder. They grasped each other's hand and stood for a moment without speaking, but their mute clasp was eloquent of the solemn feeling of terror and pity that filled both their souls. And yet there was a difference, for one retained, even in her distress, the involuntary smile of her bright youth, while in the eyes of the other, pale as death, was the grave earnestness of the heart which, one love lost, can never love again.

"How terrible it must be, dear, to have an arm or leg cut off!"

"Poor fellows!"

Bouroche had just finished placing a mattress on each of the three tables, covering them carefully with oil-cloth, when the sound of horses' hoofs was heard outside and the first ambulance wagon rolled into the court. There were ten men in it, seated on the lateral benches, only slightly wounded; two or three of them carrying their arm in a sling, but the majority hurt about the head. They alighted with but little a.s.sistance, and the inspection of their cases commenced forthwith.

One of them, scarcely more than a boy, had been shot through the shoulder, and as Henriette was tenderly a.s.sisting him to draw off his greatcoat, an operation that elicited cries of pain, she took notice of the number of his regiment.

"Why, you belong to the 106th! Are you in Captain Beaudoin's company?"

No, he belonged to Captain Bonnaud's company, but for all that he was well acquainted with Corporal Macquart and felt pretty certain that his squad had not been under fire as yet. The tidings, meager as they were, sufficed to remove a great load from the young woman's heart: her brother was alive and well; if now her husband would only return, as she was expecting every moment he would do, her mind would be quite at rest.

At that moment, just as Henriette raised her head to listen to the cannonade, which was then roaring with increased viciousness, she was thunderstruck to see Delaherche standing only a few steps away in the middle of a group of men, to whom he was telling the story of the frightful dangers he had encountered in getting from Bazeilles to Sedan.

How did he happen to be there? She had not seen him come in. She darted toward him.

"Is not my husband with you?"