The Downfall Part 62

Again Jean, in stammering, disconnected sentences, besought him to be quiet. No, no, it was not right to wish evils to anyone! And if they invoked destruction, would not they themselves perish in the general ruin? His sole desire was to find a landing place so that he might no longer have that horrid spectacle before his eyes. He considered it best not to attempt to land at the Pont de la Concorde, but, rounding the elbow of the Seine, pulled on until they reached the Quai de la Conference, and even at that critical moment, instead of shoving the skiff out into the stream to take its chances, he wasted some precious moments in securing it, in his instinctive respect for the property of others. While doing this he had seated Maurice comfortably on the bank; his plan was to reach the Rue des Orties through the Place de la Concorde and the Rue Saint-Honore. Before proceeding further he climbed alone to the top of the steps that ascended from the _quai_ to explore the ground, and on witnessing the obstacles they would have to surmount his courage was almost daunted. There lay the impregnable fortress of the Commune, the terrace of the Tuileries bristling with cannon, the Rues Royale, Florentin, and Rivoli obstructed by lofty and ma.s.sive barricades; and this state of affairs explained the tactics of the army of Versailles, whose line that night described an immense arc, the center and apex resting on the Place de la Concorde, one of the two extremities being at the freight depot of the Northern Railway on the right bank, the other on the left bank, at one of the bastions of the ramparts, near the gate of Arcueil. But as the night advanced the Communards had evacuated the Tuileries and the barricades and the regular troops had taken possession of the quartier in the midst of further conflagrations; twelve houses at the junction of the Rue Saint-Honore and the Rue Royale had been burning since nine o'clock in the evening.

When Jean descended the steps and reached the river-bank again he found Maurice in a semi-comatose condition, the effects of the reaction after his hysterical outbreak.

"It will be no easy job. I hope you are going to be able to walk, youngster?"

"Yes, yes; don't be alarmed. I'll get there somehow, alive or dead."

It was not without great difficulty that he climbed the stone steps, and when he reached the level ground of the _quai_ at the summit he walked very slowly, supported by his companion's arm, with the shuffling gait of a somnambulist. The day had not dawned yet, but the reflected light from the burning buildings cast a lurid illumination on the wide Place.

They made their way in silence across its deep solitude, sick at heart to behold the mournful scene of devastation it presented. At either extremity, beyond the bridge and at the further end of the Rue Royale, they could faintly discern the shadowy outlines of the Palais Bourbon and the Church of the Madeleine, torn by shot and sh.e.l.l. The terrace of the Tuileries had been breached by the fire of the siege guns and was partially in ruins. On the Place itself the bronze railings and ornaments of the fountains had been chipped and defaced by the b.a.l.l.s; the colossal statue of Lille lay on the ground shattered by a projectile, while near at hand the statue of Strasbourg, shrouded in heavy veils of c.r.a.pe, seemed to be mourning the ruin that surrounded it on every side. And near the Obelisk, which had escaped unscathed, a gas-pipe in its trench had been broken by the pick of a careless workman, and the escaping gas, fired by some accident, was flaring up in a great undulating jet, with a roaring, hissing sound.

Jean gave a wide berth to the barricade erected across the Rue Royale between the Ministry of Marine and the Garde-Meuble, both of which the fire had spared; he could hear the voices of the soldiers behind the sand bags and casks of earth with which it was constructed. Its front was protected by a ditch, filled with stagnant, greenish water, in which was floating the dead body of a federate, and through one of its embrasures they caught a glimpse of the houses in the carrefour Saint-Honore, which were burning still in spite of the engines that had come in from the suburbs, of which they heard the roar and clatter. To right and left the trees and the kiosks of the newspaper venders were riddled by the storm of bullets to which they had been subjected. Loud cries of horror arose; the firemen, in exploring the cellar of one of the burning houses, had come across the charred bodies of seven of its inmates.

Although the barricade that closed the entrance to the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Rue de Rivoli by its skilled construction and great height appeared even more formidable than the other, Jean's instinct told him they would have less difficulty in getting by it. It was completely evacuated, indeed, and the Versailles troops had not yet entered it. The abandoned guns were resting in the embrasures in peaceful slumber, the only living thing behind that invincible rampart was a stray dog, that scuttled away in haste. But as Jean was making what speed he could along the Rue Saint-Florentin, sustaining Maurice, whose strength was giving out, that which he had been in fear of came to pa.s.s; they fell directly into the arms of an entire company of the 88th of the line, which had turned the barricade.

"Captain," he explained, "this is a comrade of mine, who has just been wounded by those bandits. I am taking him to the hospital."

It was then that the capote which he had thrown over Maurice's shoulders stood them in good stead, and Jean's heart was beating like a trip-hammer as at last they turned into the Rue Saint-Honore. Day was just breaking, and the sound of shots reached their ears from the cross-streets, for fighting was going on still throughout the quartier.

It was little short of a miracle that they finally reached the Rue des Frondeurs without sustaining any more disagreeable adventure. Their progress was extremely slow; the last four or five hundred yards appeared interminable. In the Rue des Frondeurs they struck up against a communist picket, but the federates, thinking a whole regiment was at hand, took to their heels. And now they had but a short bit of the Rue d'Argenteuil to traverse and they would be safe in the Rue des Orties.

For four long hours that seemed like an eternity Jean's longing desire had been bent on that Rue des Orties with feverish impatience, and now they were there it appeared like a haven of safety. It was dark, silent, and deserted, as if there were no battle raging within a hundred leagues of it. The house, an old, narrow house without a concierge, was still as the grave.

"I have the keys in my pocket," murmured Maurice. "The big one opens the street door, the little one is the key of my room, way at the top of the house."

He succ.u.mbed and fainted dead away in Jean's arms, whose alarm and distress were extreme. They made him forget to close the outer door, and he had to grope his way up that strange, dark staircase, bearing his lifeless burden and observing the greatest caution not to stumble or make any noise that might arouse the sleeping inmates of the rooms. When he had gained the top he had to deposit the wounded man on the floor while he searched for the chamber door by striking matches, of which he fortunately had a supply in his pocket, and only when he had found and opened it did he return and raise him in his arms again. Entering, he laid him on the little iron bed that faced the window, which he threw open to its full extent in his great need of air and light. It was broad day; he dropped on his knees beside the bed, sobbing as if his heart would break, suddenly abandoned by all his strength as the fearful thought again smote him that he had slain his friend.

Minutes pa.s.sed; he was hardly surprised when, raising his eyes, he saw Henriette standing by the bed. It was perfectly natural: her brother was dying, she had come. He had not even seen her enter the room; for all he knew she might have been standing there for hours. He sank into a chair and watched her with stupid eyes as she hovered about the bed, her heart wrung with mortal anguish at sight of her brother lying there senseless, in his blood-stained garments. Then his memory began to act again; he asked:

"Tell me, did you close the street door?"

She answered with an affirmative motion of the head, and as she came toward him, extending her two hands in her great need of sympathy and support, he added:

"You know it was I who killed him."

She did not understand; she did not believe him. He felt no flutter in the two little hands that rested confidingly in his own.

"It was I who killed him--yes, 'twas over yonder, behind a barricade, I did it. He was fighting on one side, I on the other--"

There began to be a fluttering of the little hands.

"We were like drunken men, none of us knew what he as about--it was I who killed him."

Then Henriette, shivering, pale as death, withdrew her hands, fixing on him a gaze that was full of horror. Father of Mercy, was the end of all things come! was her crushed and bleeding heart to know no peace for ever more! Ah, that Jean, of whom she had been thinking that very day, happy in the unshaped hope that perhaps she might see him once again!

And it was he who had done that abominable thing; and yet he had saved Maurice, for was it not he who had brought him home through so many perils? She could not yield her hands to him now without a revolt of all her being, but she uttered a cry into which she threw the last hope of her tortured and distracted heart.

"Oh! I will save him; I _must_ save him, now!"

She had acquired considerable experience in surgery during the long time she had been in attendance on the hospital at Remilly, and now she proceeded without delay to examine her brother's hurt, who remained unconscious while she was undressing him. But when she undid the rude bandage of Jean's invention, he stirred feebly and uttered a faint cry of pain, opening wide his eyes that were bright with fever. He recognized her at once and smiled.

"You here! Ah, how glad I am to see you once more before I die!"

She silenced him, speaking in a tone of cheerful confidence.

"Hush, don't talk of dying; I won't allow it! I mean that you shall live! There, be quiet, and let me see what is to be done."

However, when Henriette had examined the injured arm and the wound in the side, her face became clouded and a troubled look rose to her eyes.

She installed herself as mistress in the room, searching until she found a little oil, tearing up old shirts for bandages, while Jean descended to the lower regions for a pitcher of water. He did not open his mouth, but looked on in silence as she washed and deftly dressed the wounds, incapable of aiding her, seemingly deprived of all power of action by her presence there. When she had concluded her task, however, noticing her alarmed expression, he proposed to her that he should go and secure a doctor, but she was in possession of all her clear intelligence. No, no; she would not have a chance-met doctor, of whom they knew nothing, who, perhaps, would betray her brother to the authorities. They must have a man they could depend on; they could afford to wait a few hours.

Finally, when Jean said he must go and report for duty with his company, it was agreed that he should return as soon as he could get away, and try to bring a surgeon with him.

He delayed his departure, seemingly unable to make up his mind to leave that room, whose atmosphere was pervaded by the evil he had unintentionally done. The window, which had been closed for a moment, had been opened again, and from it the wounded man, lying on his bed, his head propped up by pillows, was looking out over the city, while the others, also, in the oppressive silence that had settled on the chamber, were gazing out into vacancy.

From that elevated point of the b.u.t.te des Moulins a good half of Paris lay stretched beneath their eyes in a vast panorama: first the central districts, from the Faubourg Saint-Honore to the Bastille, then the Seine in its entire course through the city, with the thickly-built, densely-populated regions of the left bank, an ocean of roofs, treetops, steeples, domes, and towers. The light was growing stronger, the abominable night, than which there have been few more terrible in history, was ended; but beneath the rosy sky, in the pure, clear light of the rising sun, the fires were blazing still. Before them lay the burning Tuileries, the d'Orsay barracks, the Palaces of the Council of State and the Legion of Honor, the flames from which were paled by the superior refulgence of the day-star. Even beyond the houses in the Rue de Lille and the Rue du Bac there must have been other structures burning, for clouds of smoke were visible rising from the carrefour of la Croix-Rouge, and, more distant still, from the Rue Vavin and the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Nearer at hand and to their right the fires in the Rue Saint-Honore were dying out, while to the left, at the Palais-Royal and the new Louvre, to which the torch had not been applied until near morning, the work of the incendiaries was apparently a failure. But what they were unable to account for at first was the dense volume of black smoke which, impelled by the west wind, came driving past their window. Fire had been set to the Ministry of Finance at three o'clock in the morning and ever since that time it had been smoldering, emitting no blaze, among the stacks and piles of doc.u.ments that were contained in the low-ceiled, fire-proof vaults and chambers. And if the terrific impressions of the night were not there to preside at the awakening of the great city--the fear of total destruction, the Seine pouring its fiery waves past their doors, Paris kindling into flame from end to end--a feeling of gloom and despair, hung heavy over the quartiers that had been spared, with that dense, on-pouring smoke, whose dusky cloud was ever spreading. Presently the sun, which had risen bright and clear, was hid by it, and the golden sky was filled with the great funeral pall.

Maurice, who appeared to be delirious again, made a slow, sweeping gesture that embraced the entire horizon, murmuring:

"Is it all burning? Ah, how long it takes!"

Tears rose to Henriette's eyes, as if her burden of misery was made heavier for her by the share her brother had had in those deeds of horror. And Jean, who dared neither take her hand nor embrace his friend, left the room with the air of one crazed by grief.

"I will return soon. _Au revoir_!"

It was dark, however, nearly eight o'clock, before he was able to redeem his promise. Notwithstanding his great distress he was happy; his regiment had been transferred from the first to the second line and a.s.signed the task of protecting the quartier, so that, bivouacking with his company in the Place du Carrousel, he hoped to get a chance to run in each evening to see how the wounded man was getting on. And he did not return alone; as luck would have it he had fallen in with the former surgeon of the 106th and had brought him along with him, having been unable to find another doctor, consoling himself with the reflection that the terrible, big man with the lion's mane was not such a bad sort of fellow after all.

When Bouroche, who knew nothing of the patient he was summoned with such insistence to attend and grumbled at having to climb so many stairs, learned that it was a Communist he had on his hands he commenced to storm.

"G.o.d's thunder, what do you take me for? Do you suppose I'm going to waste my time on those thieving, murdering, house-burning scoundrels? As for this particular bandit, his case is clear, and I'll take it upon me to see he is cured; yes, with a bullet in his head!"

But his anger subsided suddenly at sight of Henriette's pale face and her golden hair streaming in disorder over her black dress.

"He is my brother, doctor, and he was with you at Sedan."

He made no reply, but uncovered the injuries and examined them in silence; then, taking some phials from his pocket, he made a fresh dressing, explaining to the young woman how it was done. When he had finished he turned suddenly to the patient and asked in his loud, rough voice:

"Why did you take sides with those ruffians? What could cause you to be guilty of such an abomination?"

Maurice, with a feverish l.u.s.ter in his eyes, had been watching him since he entered the room, but no word had escaped his lips. He answered in a voice that was almost fierce, so eager was it:

"Because there is too much suffering in the world, too much wickedness, too much infamy!"

Bouroche's shrug of the shoulders seemed to indicate that he thought a young man was likely to make his mark who carried such ideas about in his head. He appeared to be about to say something further, but changed his mind and bowed himself out, simply adding:

"I will come in again."

To Henriette, on the landing, he said he would not venture to make any promises. The injury to the lung was serious; hemorrhage might set in and carry off the patient without a moment's warning. And when she re-entered the room she forced a smile to her lips, notwithstanding the sharp stab with which the doctor's words had pierced her heart, for had she not promised herself to save him? and could she permit him to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from them now that they three were again united, with a prospect of a lifetime of affection and happiness before them? She had not left the room since morning, an old woman who lived on the landing having kindly offered to act as her messenger for the purchase of such things as she required. And she returned and resumed her place upon a chair at her brother's bedside.

But Maurice, in his febrile excitation, questioned Jean, insisting on knowing what had happened since the morning. The latter did not tell him everything, maintaining a discreet silence upon the furious rage which Paris, now it was delivered from its tyrants, was manifesting toward the dying Commune. It was now Wednesday. For two interminable days succeeding the Sunday evening when the conflict first broke out the citizens had lived in their cellars, quaking with fear, and when they ventured out at last on Wednesday morning, the spectacle of bloodshed and devastation that met their eyes on every side, and more particularly the frightful ruin entailed by the conflagrations, aroused in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s feelings the bitterest and most vindictive. It was felt in every quarter that the punishment must be worthy of the crime. The houses in the suspected quarters were subjected to a rigorous search and men and women who were at all tainted with suspicion were led away in droves and shot without formality. At six o'clock of the evening of that day the army of the Versaillese was master of the half of Paris, following the line of the princ.i.p.al avenues from the park of Montsouris to the station of the Northern Railway, and the remainder of the braver members of the Commune, a mere handful, some twenty or so, had taken refuge in the _mairie_ of the eleventh arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, in the Boulevard Voltaire.

They were silent when he concluded his narration, and Maurice, his glance vaguely wandering over the city through the open window that let in the soft, warm air of evening, murmured: