The History of a Crime Part 57

He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends meant to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the Societies had not yet been settled, but that they would be during the evening, that my presence was desired, and that if I would be under the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men would be there, and would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to make himself known, the messenger, when accosting me, should give the pa.s.sword, "What is Joseph doing?"

I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,--

"After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At a time like this one distrusts everybody."

"On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."

And I left him.

I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers are gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw the dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two mouths: one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not made, however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I started: "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind up my watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely, the shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking (probably from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few moments I was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No one was under the Arcade.

I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and the patrols were pa.s.sing every moment. I plunged into the street. I found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman pa.s.sed me, and said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"

I recognized the last-maker.

"Come," he said to me.

We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he walking some steps before me.

We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.

"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if, perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.

We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets.

We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made, and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at that epoch enc.u.mbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however, narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow, winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to me,--

"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."

Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones, not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a ruined wall. A narrow pa.s.sage had been formed at one end. We pa.s.sed through it. There was no one behind the barricade.

"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting near."

The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode, and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement, something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was almost in the att.i.tude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it disappeared.

This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.

We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know him."

We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.

A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness, and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"

"Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar whistle.

"Come on," resumed the voice.

It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels; planks and beams were intermingled. A pa.s.sage had been contrived still narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.

"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how many of you are there here?"

The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,--

"There are two of us."

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

They were in truth two,--two men who alone during that night, in that solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the onslaught of a regiment.

Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.

"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends have not yet come!"

"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."

The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm here shortly."

"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."

It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in water.

"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would do well to go farther off."

The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the ambulance."

"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to go farther off."

"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.

The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the barricade on the left, on the side where the pa.s.sage was, could be seen a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and which was under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light issuing from between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted up an old torn placard, on which could be read, "Asnieres. Water tournaments. Grand ball."

"Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two workmen.

"If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.

The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."

By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a shop. The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The door seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and pushed it gently. It was open.

"Let us go in," he said.

I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in a room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and white, could be dimly distinguished.

A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only the plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.

This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons'

tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years old--the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of old linen--were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.