There were not lacking signs by the wayside, as Dunoisse was whirled
along the iron road to Paris, of the bloody drama that had begun upon
the previous morning, and was being played to the bitter end.
Troops and bodies of police lined the platforms of the
railway-stations. Pale faces, downcast looks, and mourning attire
distinguished those members of the public whom business or necessity
compelled to travel at this perilous time. Glimpses of towns or
villages, seen as the train rushed over bridges or in and out of
stations, showed closed shops and jealously shut-up houses, many of
them with bullet-pocked walls and shattered windows; more police and
soldiers patroling the otherwise deserted thoroughfare; and agents in
blouses, with rolls of paper, ladders, brushes, and paste-pots, posting
the proclamations of Monseigneur upon walls, or trees, or hoardings,
or wherever these had not already broken out like pale leprous sores.
And upon many country roads significant-looking black vans, surrounded
by Dragoons or Municipal Guards, and drawn by muddy, sweat-drenched
post-horses, traveled at high speed, followed by open laudaus
containing lounging, cigar-smoking Commissaries of Police. And in the
roaring, cinder-flavored blackness of tunnels, or in the cold glare
of chalky, open cuttings, huge locomotives would flash and thunder
past, whirling yet other prison-vans, placed upon trucks, guarded by
soldiers or mobilized gendarmerie, and packed with Representatives,
Judges, Editors, Chiefs of secret societies, public leaders, and
popular orators, to destinations unknown. And as the dusk day-brow sank
over the red wintry sunset, the roll of musketry and the thunder of
cannon, answered by the dropping, irregular fire from seventy-and-seven
barricades, betokened that the train was nearing Paris; and then--the
flaring gaslights of the Northern Station were reflected in the
polished surfaces of steel or brazen helmets and gleaming blades of
sabers; and winked and twinkled from shako-badges and musket-barrels,
and the thirsty points of bayonets that had drunk the life-blood of
harmless women, and innocent children, and decent, law-abiding men.
Paris had never seemed to Dunoisse so crowded and so empty as when, on
foot--for no public conveyance was obtainable--he returned to his rooms
in the Rue du Bac. Entire regiments of cavalry, riding at a foot’s pace
in close column, flowed in slow, resistless rivers of flesh and steel,
along the boulevards. And brigades, with their batteries of artillery,
were drawn up in the great squares and public places, waiting the
signal to roll down and overwhelm any organized attempt at resistance,
under cataclysms of disciplined force.
No street but had its silent menace of cannon posted at the mouth of
it, waiting, in case Liberty and Equality should lift their heads up
from the blood-smeared asphalte, to decapitate them with a discharge
of grape. But no head was lifted, and no Red Flag was raised; the iron
heel of the Friend of Labor and the Lover of Humanity bore with such
paralyzing, crushing weight upon the necks of men.
Save for curt words of command, the jingling of bridles, and the
snorting of wearied horses, the silence in this city of shot-riddled
walls and splintered windows was like a heavy hand upon the public
mouth. Street-lamps were few--nearly all had been shattered by
bullets--but when dusk had given place to darkness, the immense
bivouac-fires of the troops reddened the lowering sky, and Paris might
have been Tophet, she so reeked of smoke and furnace-heat. And by that
lurid glare in the heavens dark, furtive shapes might have been seen
hurrying by in the shadow of walls and hoardings, that were spies of
the police, or agents of the National Printing-Office, charged with
the posting of yet more proclamations; or Revolutionists speeding to
join their comrades on the barricades, and share with them the last
crust, and the few remaining cartridges, before drinking with them of
the strong black wine that brims the cup of Death. Or they were men and
women crazed with anxiety, or frantic with grief; dragging by the hand
pale, frightened children, as they went to search for missing friends
or relatives at that universal Lost Property Office, the Cemetery of
Montmartre; crying with that dumb voice of anguish that echoes in the
chambers of the desolate heart, and which the most stringent decrees of
Monseigneur were powerless to silence.
“Oh, my father!... Oh, my mother!... Alas! my husband! lover! sister!
brother! friend!... Am I despairing--searching by the flickering
light of the tallow candle in the broken lantern, or the uncertain
match-flare, amongst all these ghastly unburied heads of staring
corpses, starting like monstrous fungi from the trodden, bloody soil of
this consecrated place of murder--to find the face beloved?...”
More corpses, and yet more, were being made, to the echoing roll of the
drums in the Champ de Mars, and piled in carts under the scared eye of
the pale, sickened moon, and rattled away to Golgotha.
* * * * *
Turning the corner of one of the narrower thoroughfares, where a
single unbroken oil-lamp made a little island of yellow light upon
the murkiness, Dunoisse came upon two persons who were, for a wonder,
conversing so earnestly that neither paid attention to the light,
quick, even footstep drawing near. Said one of the couple, a bloused,
shaggy-headed man of the artisan type, whose lantern-jawed, sallow face
was lighted from below with rather demoniacal effect, by the flare of
the match he had struck and sheltered between his hollowed hands, for
the kindling of his short, blackened pipe:
“They made no resistance--they were butchered like sheep.... That was
at midday, on the boulevard opposite the Café Vachette. Before dark,
when I passed that way, the bodies were lying piled up anyhow.... The
blood still smoked as it ran down the kennels--my shoes were wet with
it, and the bottoms of my trousers. See for yourself the state they are
in!”
He held up a foot, supporting himself with a hand against the wall
behind him. His companion, a shorter, stouter figure, whose back was
towards Dunoisse, stooped to look, and said in an astonished tone, as
he straightened himself again:
“There seems no end to the killing, sacred name of a pig! One wonders
how many they have polished off?”
The first man rejoined:
“No newspaper estimates will be published. Nor will there be any
official list of killed, you may depend upon that!”
The shorter man put in, jerking his thumb towards the dusky sky
that was smeared in long streaks with the red reflections of the
bivouac-fires:
“Unless He up there has kept one!...”
The first man said, throwing down his burnt-out match-end on the muddy
pavement:
“Fool! Do you still believe in Him when this Napoleon says He is a
friend of his--when the cemeteries are stuffed with corpses, and the
beds in the hospitals of St. Louis and of the Val de Grace are full of
wounded men and women?” He added: “General Magnan went there in full
fig with all his staff to visit them to-day.... It is like the public
executioner calling to know how the guillotined are feeling without
their heads!...”
The stout man cackled at this; and Dunoisse, perhaps for the sake of
lingering a little in the neighborhood of one who found it possible to
be merry under the circumstances, paused, and drew out his cigar-case,
and said, addressing himself to the mechanic with the pipe:
“Monsieur, have the goodness to oblige me with a light!”
The haggard workman answered, tossing him a grimy matchbox:
“Here, take the last! If it does not strike, your _coup d’État_ is a
failure--you must turn out of the Élysée.”
The reckless daring of the speaker, in combination with the
alcohol-taint upon his reeking breath, proved him to be drunk. His
sober companion, glancing over his shoulder, and mentally pronouncing
Dunoisse to be no spy or police-agent, said, as he looked back at his
companion:
“They kept up the ball at the palace last night with a vengeance!...
Champagne flowed in rivers; I had it from François.”
The sallow, taller man laughed in an ugly way, and said, spitting on
the pavement:
“And women were to be had for the asking. Such women!...”
Envy and scorn were strangely mingled in his tone as he said, again
spitting:
“Such women! Not only stunners like Kate Harvey and that red-haired,
blue-eyed wench they call Cora Pearl, that drives the team of
mouse-gray ponies in the Bois, and curses and swears like a trooper;
but real aristocrats, like the Marquise de Baillay and Madame de Kars,
playing the prostitute for political ends--you twig? There was one
whose name I do not know--an ivory-skinned creature, with ropes of
black hair and eyes like emeralds.... She was half-naked and covered
with jewels.... The Secretary-Chancellor of the Ministry of the
Interior received a warning--that was at four o’clock in the morning,
when they were still supping.... Word came to him that the Ministry was
to be seized ... he rose from the table, saying that his place was in
the office of his Department.... And she put her arms round him before
them all.... She kissed him full upon the mouth, and said ‘_Stay!_!”
“And he stayed?” asked the stout man eagerly.
“By my faith, my friend!” rejoined the tall man, “he did as you or I
should have done in his place, you may be sure!”
The echo of the speaker’s ugly laugh was in Dunoisse’s ears as he
passed on, and the image of the black-haired, cream-skinned woman
whose kiss had stifled the voice of conscience upon the lips of the
Government official rose up in resistless witchery before his mental
vision; and would not be banished or exorcised by any means he knew....
So like!--so like!... Thus would Henriette have tempted and triumphed,
provided that Hector Dunoisse had not been absolute master of her
heart, and supposing that to tempt and triumph had been to serve
that idol of hers, the Empire.... He drove away the thought, but
it returned, bringing yet another bat-winged, taunting demon, who
reminded him in a shrill, thin, piercing whisper that de Moulny was
Secretary-Chancellor of the Ministry of the Interior....
To suspect ... oh, base! Did not Dunoisse know--had not Madame de Roux
assured him over and over that intercourse between herself and Alain
was limited to the merest, slightest civilities that may be exchanged
between acquaintances? Had she not pledged her word--had she not kept
her vow? Anger, and shame, and horror at his own disloyalty burned in
Dunoisse like some corrosive poison; killing the wholesome appetite for
food, banishing weariness and the desire for rest. And thus, reaching
his rooms in the Rue du Bac, and dismissing to bed the sleepy valet
who had waited up for him, Dunoisse bathed and changed, and instead of
lying down, went out, haggard, and hot-eyed, and headachy, into the
soldier-ridden streets again, in the clear, pale, frosty sunshine of
the December morning; barely feeling the slippery asphalte pavement
underneath his feet; hardly cognizant of faces and shapes that passed
him; answering mechanically when challenged by sentries or stopped by
patrols, and hastening on again, driven--though he would have died
rather than own it--by the demon that had been conjured up by the tall,
grimy, sneering workman who had chatted with his mate on the previous
night, at the street-corner....
* * * * *
His destination was the Rue de Sèvres, for Madame de Roux still
retained her apartments in the outer buildings of the Abbaye-aux-Bois,
where cloistered Princesses once gave instruction in housekeeping,
deportment, and diplomacy to the daughters of the noblest families
of France, and stars of the Comédie Française drilled the youthful
performers in the dramas of “Esther” and the ballets of “Orpheus and
Eurydice.”
The Abbaye has nearly all been swept away; the last wheelbarrowful of
rubbish has been carted from the cat-haunted desert where once the
stately chapel stood: they have built upon the lovely gardens where
Marie de Rochechouart, beautiful, pure, and saintly, once walked with
Hélène Massalska clinging to her arm. But at this date the gardens,
though sadly curtailed, were still beautiful.... Nowhere in all Paris
were such chestnuts and acacias, such lilacs, and laburnums, and
hawthorns to be found. The branches of the loftier trees--leafless, and
bare, and wintry now--seemed to Dunoisse to nod and beckon pleasantly
over the high iron-spiked walls and great grilled gates that shut in
the stately pile of ancient masonry.
And with the sight of these familiar things his mood changed.... His
demon quitted him,--he knew infinite relief of mind when the portress,
a buxom peasant of Auvergne, roused from her morning slumbers by
the Colonel’s ring at the gate-bell, at length made her appearance;
apologizing with volubility for her nightcap; for the red woolen shawl
and short, striped petticoat, bundled on over a lengthier garment of
dubious whiteness; and the stout, bare feet thrust into the baggy list
slippers that completed her disarray.... And Dunoisse greeted her
pleasantly, responding in gallant vein to her profuse excuses, failing
to notice the sharp glances with which she scanned him; unobservant of
the avid curiosity that her verbosity would have concealed, while his
wearied eyes drank in the scene about him; the blackbird, and thrush,
and robin-haunted shrubberies of frosted laurels, and myrtles, and
veronicas glimpsed through the arched carriage-way, piercing the more
modern right wing of the ancient building: the beds starring the rimy
grass-plat in the center of the great courtyard, gay with such flowers
as the rigorous season admitted: clumps of mauve, and pink-and-white
Japanese anemones; hardy red chrysanthemums; frost-nipped bachelor’s
buttons; and even a pinched, belated dahlia here and there....
Here at least no grisly shadow of the Élysée brooded, or it seemed so
to Dunoisse. Into this quiet haven the blue official documents, the
brass-bound shakos, and clanking swords of Military Authority had not
intruded, bringing disorder, confusion, and terror in their train....
Lead, and Steel, and Fire--that trio of malignant forces--obedient
to the potent nod of Monseigneur, had swept past the Abbaye, without
pausing to exact their toll of human life. And the robin’s breast,
burning like a crimson star amidst the rich dark foliage of a yew-tree,
the short, sweet, sudden song of the bird seemed to answer, “Happily,
yes!” And the wintry yellow sunshine drew a pleasant smell from the
chilled blossoms, and the wood-smoke of the portress’s crackling,
newly-lighted fire came fragrantly to the nostrils of the returned
traveler, as he passed under the portico of the stately block of
building where were the apartments rented by Madame de Roux, and rang
the ground-floor bell.
The thought of seeing Henriette again absorbed and dominated him
completely. And yet, even to his slight passing observation, the
servant who answered the door seemed flustered and embarrassed. The
man opened his mouth to speak, shut it hurriedly, and awkwardly drew
back to let the Colonel pass in. But a moment later, as Dunoisse’s
eager footsteps were hurrying in the direction of the gray boudoir, he
arrested them by saying:
“Pardon, Monsieur the Colonel! but Madame is not at home!...”
“Indeed? Madame went out early?”
Thus interrogated, the man showed confusion. He explained, after some
floundering, that Madame had gone out, and had not yet returned.
“Not yet returned?...” Dunoisse repeated.
It seemed to him that the servant must be absurdly mistaken; for in
the inner breast-pocket of his coat, just above his heart, nestled a
little note, penned in violet ink, in Henriette’s clear, delicate,
characteristic handwriting. It had lain upon the vestibule-table in the
Rue du Bac. He had read it and kissed it, and known assuagement of his
burning torture for ten minutes, ere the twin-demons of jealousy and
suspicion had swooped down on him again. It said, under the date of the
day of his departure from Paris:
“DEAREST,
“_Take care of yourself upon that horrible railroad. I have been
miserable all day, thinking about you. It is now six o’clock. My head
aches. I am denied to all visitors--I have refused all invitations.
I am going to dine early and betake myself to bed.--Another day--one
more night of loneliness, and then--may my Hector’s guardian spirit
guide him back in safety to his fond_
’RIETTE.”