my aunt--Aunt Berthe. What a woman!" She shook her head grimly. "When I
came in late she beat me,--oh, but solidly, firmly." She grimaced and,
with the instinct of acting that is of the people, drew her hand across
her shoulder, as though still smarting under the sting. "And do you
know how it ended?"
"Well, how?"
"It ended by my taking the cane from her one night and laying it over
her. Oh, such a beating! I was striking for old scores. Aïe! aïe! After
that, you understand, I couldn't return."
"I understand."
"So I took a room next to Louison."
Barabant raised his eyebrows in question.
"Louison? She's a comrade. You will see her." She stopped. "We are
good friends, only I--well--I don't know." Nicole, who conversed
abundantly with her shoulders, raised them again. "When you're rich you
can choose; but with us, we take what's nearest. We must have some one
to gossip with, to weep with, to laugh with, to confide a little in,
and so we take what we can get. That's how it is." Suddenly she halted
suspiciously. "Are you a patriot?" she asked point-blank.
"You'd have thought so last night." Barabant, remembering the drubbing
he had escaped the night before, grinned and nodded. At his description
of the café Nicole showed great interest.
"You said that, and escaped with your life from that den of
aristocrats!" she exclaimed, in horror, for she had the popular idea
that aristocrats were ogres and inhuman monsters. At the first words
descriptive of his rescue she cried:
"Dossonville; beyond a doubt, Dossonville!"
"What, do you know him?" said Barabant. "Who and what is he?"
"Now you have asked me a question. What is Dossonville?" Suddenly she
became serious. "He is a mystery to me and to more than me. Frankly, I
do not know his party, and don't believe any one else does. He is here
and there, with the patriots one moment and the court the next; but
whether he is acting for one side or for neither, no one knows. And he
rescued you!" She meditated a moment. "That sounds like a patriot; but
then, what was he doing in such a place?"
The crowd became more boisterous as the wine-jugs grew lighter; seeing
which, Nicole rose and made a sign to him to follow. In the front room
she stopped before a vat on which, his huge body astride, Santerre was
bandying jests with the crowd. Nicole, approaching, whispered:
"Is it for to-night?"
The brewer affected not to understand her.
"Look here, my big fellow," she said, with the familiarity of the day,
"do you want me to cry it from the housetops? Will you understand me
now?"
"I don't know when it is to be, or if it will ever be." He sank his
voice. "The leaders are wavering; only the tocsin can tell."
"We assemble by sections?"
Santerre nodded.
Nicole, only half satisfied, turned away.
Barabant, who had overheard enough to form a conjecture, kept his
counsel; but Nicole, approving his discretion, imparted the information.
"They say we are to storm the Tuileries. But every one hangs back. They
are in a panic at the last moment."
"Why, it is folly; think of the National Guard!" Barabant exclaimed.
"I see well you have just arrived. The National Guard, indeed! We are
the National Guard. It is only the Swiss we have to fear."
They had gained the right bank of the Seine, and paused from time to
time to watch the water-carriers filling their casks in the river, and
the loiterers angling sleepily in the shadow of the boats.
Barabant, despite the fires of patriotic fervor, had for some time
forgotten his mission in the contemplation of the fresh cheeks and the
free carriage of his companion, more and more beguiled from his task
of righting the wrongs of the nation by this gipsy of the streets who
traversed the rough paths of fortune with such perfect bonhomie.
Nicole, happening to look up, met an unmistakable fixture of gaze,
and divined the workings of his mind. She withdrew slightly and said
reprovingly: "Not too fast, Citoyen Barabant; we are not in the
provinces."
Barabant defended himself.
"My dear Nicole, I have committed no offense. I have done nothing but
wish. Judge my acts; my thoughts are not offenses."
"You are not slow at an answer, citoyen," said Nicole, amused. "There,
take my hand if you wish. Only, not too fast."
He took her hand, and together they went joyfully through Paris,
laughing like two children of the people.
"Barabant, I like you," she said from time to time. "You are a good
fellow." Once she added naïvely, "You know, all the same, it is lonely
at times." Then, with a laugh, "Allons, comrade!"
She led him through the boulevards, pointing out celebrities at
every step, showing him the cafés, Feuillantes or Jacobin. They were
constantly halted by the sudden assembly of a crowd to listen to some
singer perched on a chair above their shoulders, intoning his ballads.
Presently Nicole said: "Barabant, do you not feel something in the
atmosphere--something extraordinary?"
He sharpened his wits and gradually began to distinguish currents
in the crowd, and it seemed to him that there was some subtle
communication by furtive glances of inquiry and nods of intelligence.
"I believe it will be for to-night," she whispered.
He felt in her hand something nervous and exalted.
"Were you at the taking of the Bastille?" he asked.
"Yes. Wait till you see the women of Paris!" Her eyes grew large as
they lost themselves in recollection. Then suddenly she added: "But you
haven't seen the gardens of the Palais Royal, and the tree of the green
cockades from which Desmoulins called us to arms!"
Leading him into the historic garden, she showed him the chestnut-tree
surrounded by a crowd of curious seekers, many of whom snatched up the
leaves for mementos.
Everywhere were swarms of children, shrieking high, shrill notes,
running and leaping, dodging in and out of the most sedate groups, and
stopping occasionally to mimic the swollen front and bombastic arm
of the hundred and one orators about whom swirled a hundred and one
eddies. Newsboys, racing ahead of their competitors, cried hoarsely
the latest bulletins; while in their wake improvised orators mounted
on tables and announced the news amid a gale of comments. Through
the throng a score of flower-girls twisted their way, calling their
patriotic cockades, nodding familiarly to Nicole, who from all sides
received salutations of deputies and orators.
"You are well known," said Barabant, surprised at the range of her
acquaintance.
"Pardi, I should hope so," she answered, with a proud toss of her
head. "Bouquetières are useful. We go everywhere, see everything. We
are the scouts of the Republic. I have influence, Barabant; I'll push
you ahead," she added, with a determined nod. "Can you speak from the
tribune?"
"I have done so."
"Good. You must go to the club. Speak out. Do not be afraid. I adore
fire and spirit!" She looked at him critically. "You have the eyes and
the lips of the orator. Yes, I'm sure you can speak."
Barabant thrilled at the inspiration in her eyes, and some of the
fierce, exulting spirit, the unconquerable gaiety and daring of this
gamine, passed swiftly into his soul. Filled with the bombastic daring
and sublime confidence of the patriot, he cried: "Give me the chance;
give but the chance! They shall hear me--and listen!"
Nicole had a wild impulse to embrace him, but, restraining her
enthusiasm, she contented herself with passing from his hand to his arm.
"How old are you?" she asked all at once.
"I am twenty-four," Barabant said, with importance.
"Why, you are a child."
"Camille Desmoulins is not thirty."
"True."
"And what is six years?"
"I hadn't thought of it," admitted Nicole. "I am eighteen; but in Paris
at eighteen there is not much unlearned. Allons, les enfants." She drew
up to his side, hanging a little on his arm. "Barabant, you are a lucky
fellow," she said mischievously.
Barabant, who perfectly understood her allusion to mean lucky in
meeting her, drew her closer as they elbowed their way out of the
throng. He bent his head to scrutinize her, while Nicole not too
consciously accepted the gaze, confident in herself: she was young and
she was a Parisian. Her features were rather saucy than regular; her
figure, though full and graceful, was perhaps too perfect for eighteen,
when a certain slenderness is a future guaranty. But the eyes of the
young man do not look into the future. Barabant saw only--giving color
to her cheeks, a glow to the eye, and a spring to the foot--that bloom
which is of youth and which speaks of eagerness and impatience to
embrace life.
Suddenly Nicole, seeking an interruption to this scrutiny, which,
though delightful, had become embarrassing, exclaimed, "There's Louison
now." She made a movement as though to free her arm, immediately
checking it.
Barabant, looking up, beheld the high eyebrows, the starting eyes, and
the curious, thin smile of the flower-girl who had spoken to him the
night before.
She sent Nicole a greeting from her fingertips, and then perceiving
Barabant, she accosted him with a smile of tolerant amusement.
"Why, it's my little man from the country!" Nodding, she passed, with
the exclamation, "Bien vrai, you don't lose any time!"
"What, you have already met her?" Nicole exclaimed, disengaging her
arm, suddenly quieted and sobered.
"In the Rue St. Honoré, last night."
A frown, swift as a thunderbolt, passed over Nicole's forehead. She
stopped, extended her hand, and said curtly, "I must go; good day."
Barabant looked at her in dismay.
"What has happened? What have I done?"
She shook her head, and without further explanation disappeared.
IV
BREWINGS OF THE STORM
When Barabant had groped his way up the tortuous ascent, he was
surprised to find his door open, sending a feeble glow over the
remainder of his journey. He crossed the threshold on tiptoe, and, to
his amazement, beheld a man, in the uniform of the National Guard,
stretched out upon his bed, and two lank legs that, over-lapping, were
perched on the footboards. He came forward, advanced another step, and
recognized Dossonville.
Barabant, believing him to be shamming, went softly to the farther
corner and installed himself to wait. But the steady, tranquil
breathing of the sleeper soon convinced him. With a sudden inspiration,
he stole to the threshold, grasping the handle of the door. The next
moment there thundered upon the slumberer the cry:
"Arrest him! The aristocrat!"
As though propelled from a catapult, the lank form in one bound shot
over the end of the bed, threw two chairs in front of him as a
rampart, snatched out his sword, and beheld, in this bellicose posture,
no horrid band of Jacobins, but the lithe figure of Barabant, laughing
silently, with folded arms.
"Tonnerre de Dieu! Why did you do that?"
Dossonville returned the sword to the scabbard, pushed aside the
rampart, and extended his hand, saying, "I was asleep; serves me right;
but you have a rude manner of jesting."
"I did not suspect your conscience was so uneasy," Barabant said,
retaining the quizzical smile.
"Oho!"
With his lips in this startled oval, Dossonville halted. His eyes
contracted into slits as he said dryly, "So that was a ruse."
"If you like."
"Hello! it was well conceived. Tiens, tiens, tiens!" His eyes continued
their scrutiny. "I have, perhaps, not done justice to your acumen. My
compliments and my excuses."
He swung his bonnet in a long, awkward, trailing swoop across his feet.
Barabant executed a bow of equal assurance.
Dossonville returned to uprightness with a snap of his heels, and a
certain asperity rang in the next question.
"And why did you deem the experiment necessary?"
"Before intrusting my safety I prefer to reassure myself."
"You saw that at the cry of 'aristocrats' I sprang to my guard."
"I said 'the aristocrat.'"
"I understood, 'Arrest him, aristocrats!'"
The two men, Dossonville cool, Barabant amused, measured looks, until,
dismissing the subject with a motion of his arm, Dossonville seated
himself.
"Well, what do they say of me?"
Barabant, who did not intend to surrender his vantage, straddled his
chair, rested his arms on the back, and, looking him magisterially in
countenance, answered:
"Citoyen Dossonville, you seem to be a mystery. No one knows where to
place you. You consort with patriots and traitors alike."
Dossonville, facing this accusation, appeared to reflect a moment.
"That's true. I do not hide it--from patriots." His voice gave a
meaning inflection to the ending; then he added, irritably: "There are
more ways than one of serving the nation. I repeat, leave me mine." He
broke off. "Have you written anything? Give it to me."
Barabant extended the precious manuscript. He took it, but before
spreading it upon his knee, he said: "After all, you are right. I have
a way to convince you. You shall see. But first for this."
He began to read, with approval. "Good--good"; "very good"; "excellent."
At the end he brought his hand down upon his knee with a slap.
"Tonnerre de Dieu, that is well put!"
Barabant, who was soaring in the seventh heaven, made a superhuman
effort and forced back a smile. Dossonville, much amused, tapped him on
the shoulder.
"Come, it is not a crime to be pleased with one's self."
"You think it will do?" Barabant stammered.
"Splendid! And now to convince this suspicious republican." He eyed him
a moment, enjoying the surprise his next words would cause. "Suppose
you return with me to Santerre."
Barabant, astounded at this acquaintance with his doings, dropped his
jaw.
"So, do you think I would employ you without some knowledge of your
actions?" He enjoyed for a moment Barabant's embarrassment. "Come,
and Santerre shall reassure you." At the door he paused, cast a
rapid glance at the impoverished fittings, and drew out his purse.
"Republican or not, the essential thing is to dine." Then evading the
young fellow's thanks, he led the way into the city.
It was now toward twilight. The streets were choked with laborers
returning home. In the air was an unwonted stir, a muttering, defiant
and eager, as the crowd discussed openly, with impassioned questions,
the prospective attack on the Tuileries.
"It is for to-night, sure?"
"For to-night, yes, at the tocsin."
"It's true, is it, the National Guards are coming over?"
"They've armed the Marseillais."
"Who?"
"Pétion."
"Vive Pétion!"
Hundreds of National Guards fraternized with the crowd, reassuring
them. Occasionally was to be seen the glimmer of a weapon, a scythe, a
cutlass, or a half-concealed dagger. Questioners stopped them from time
to time.
"Is it true, we are to attack to-night?"
Dossonville shrugged his shoulders.
"If the tocsin sounds you are. That is all I know."
From time to time there were new accessions in the streets; until, as
the two approached the Rue St. Antoine, they were forced to beg their
way at every step.
Dossonville, his head flung back, reviewed the throng from his great
height.
"What a people! Is there anything they will not dare?" he exclaimed.
"Brave people! Sublime people!"
They passed through a side street, deserted except for some straggler
hastening toward the human torrent. Dossonville, in a burst of
confidence, laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.
"That was good to see. I, Citoyen Barabant--I take nothing seriously.
Men, individuals, are but blind little animals wriggling for a day or
so. I have seen too much of selfishness, of wickedness, of deceits
and hypocrisy, to be moved by human motives. Nothing really matters,
nothing is serious. But when I see such a sight as that, a whole people
rising with one accord, ah, then that thrills me; yes, I am moved!"
Barabant was silent, more perplexed concerning his companion than
ever, and in this reflective mood he persevered, resolving to be on
his watch for artifices and tricks. About the brasserie of the famous
brewer the throng was massed so tightly that the two companions would
have stuck thirty feet away, unable to turn, had not Santerre, from an
upper window, perceived the lanky form of Dossonville. The moment his
eye fell upon that appealing figure, he started up, as though awaiting
him, and hurrying down-stairs, appeared at the entrance, where, by dint
of command and abuse, he managed to open a passage, through which the
crowd disgorged them.
Barabant, at a nod from Dossonville, remained in an anteroom listening
to the compressed rumble of the crowd, that reached him through the
open window on the warm, suffocating air. He did not have long to wait.
Santerre soon reappeared, excited and red with the emotion communicated
to his fleshy head. Dossonville, more tranquil, called him to them.
"I must take a message to the Bonnet Rouge," he said. "It is urgent.
So I must leave you--only, I do not forget." He glanced at him, adding
slyly: "Is there anything you care to ask of the Citoyen Santerre?"
Barabant, gulping down his confusion, cried: "Nothing."
"Good. Then you are no longer afraid you are dealing with an agent of
the perfidious Pitt?"
Barabant seized the occasion to vanish through the side exit, carrying
with him the memory of a chuckle.
* * * * *
Nicole no sooner had dismissed Barabant than she regretted the act.
Her intuition had warned her that caprice was necessary to counteract
her bonhomie, which might have produced in the young man an assurance
of facile conquest. But, left to her own devices, to her astonishment
she found the solitude oppressive. She made an effort to dispel the
ennui by seeking Goursac; but no sooner had she perceived him than,
apprehending the banter in which he was privileged to indulge, she
halted and then turned away.
Toward evening, according to her custom, she joined Louison in search
of supper.
"What have you done with your companion?" the girl asked at once.
"I dismissed him long ago," Nicole answered carelessly: from that
quarter she welcomed attack. "A man interferes with the business."
"How did you meet him?"
"Why, I thought you knew! He has taken the room across from us!"
"Ah, indeed. He seems interesting." She took her companion's arm and
said abruptly, "I have taken a fancy to him, so garde à toi!"
Nicole, not certain whether she spoke in jest or in earnest, abandoned
uneasily the conversation, saying, "Where do we dine to-night?"
"At the Bonnet Rouge."
"Why there?"
"It is the rendezvous for the Marseillais. If there is to be an attack,
we'll have the news."
"Do you think it will be for to-night?"
"Yes; there is something in the air that makes me think so."
Their way soon involved them in a network of dusky, gaping streets. On
each side somber walls, peopled with dim, curious flecks of headgear,
strained upward and back in a bulging effort to draw down a little more
of the allotted strip of sky. The windows of taverns, on the ground
floor, were beginning to redden and to cast faint streaks across the
black, oozing streets; but the frugal inhabitants of upper stories, in
deference to the price of candles, still hung on the sills, causing
the evening to resound with the nervous chatter of window-to-window
speculation.
At times the tension of conjecture and discussion would be broken by
the bass voice of a passing laborer thundering forth,
"Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!"
Above the soprano of women's voices and the thin piping of children
responded feverishly:
"La liberté s'établira:
Malgré les tyrans tout réussira!"
They found the cabaret beginning to fill up by twos and
threes--workingmen for the most part: water-carriers divesting
themselves of their barrels at the door with a sigh of contentment;
wood-carriers, with relaxed limbs, slipping gratefully into the hard
wooden benches; women of the markets, corpulent, quick-tongued,
smelling of onion and garlic; erstwhile actors still with the strut of
the stage; an occasional bourgeois in misfortune; a handful of gamins,
impudent and witty--all discussing feverishly the projected attack.
The two girls, perceiving the congestion in the outer room, elbowed
their way to where, by an inner door, a waiter of exceptional but
broken height was scanning the crowd with an eye to orders.
"Well, Citoyen Boudgoust, what news?"
At Louison's question, he showed the palms of his hands, finally
volunteering:
"Santerre is to send us word."
"There's room beyond?"
"You are going to eat?"
"Of course," Louison said impatiently, as he barred the way. "Besides,
mon ami, don't you think we know what's going on?"
He allowed them to pass, grumbling, "Every one comes to talk; no one to
eat."
In the farther hall the crowd was thinner and composed mostly of
Marseillais and the National Guard, who looked up furtively, until half
a dozen greetings removed their suspicions.
"Good evening, Citoyenne Nicole."
In her astonishment, she turned to find Geneviève.
"What are you doing here, child?" she cried.
"I am listening."
"You are no longer afraid?"
"We are to attack," the girl said proudly, and her eyes snapped with
defiant ardor.
"Bravo, little one!" laughed Nicole. "Sit with us, then."
She turned to Louison in explanation.
"She is my protégée who is coming to me for lessons."
Louison nodded without surprise and turned her slow, restrained gaze
on the room, while the eyes of Nicole, full of enthusiasm, leaped from
group to group in rapid, eager scrutiny, resting finally on a knot of
Marseillais near by. One man dominated these uncouth, bristling, living
arsenals--a squat figure, sprawling under the grotesque shadows of
the lamp, which further distorted his huge bulk and bullet head. One
ungainly, crooked hand leaned in ponderous support upon the table; the
other was flourished above him in frantic gestures, magnetic, absurd,
comic, and terrible, as he harangued his comrades, who acclaimed his
exhortations with shouts that burst above the ceaseless roar of the
room.
"They are not very coquette," Nicole said critically, "and not very
clean."
"Ah, but think how they have marched, all the way from Marseilles!"
Geneviève cried, in protest.
"You know them, then?" Nicole asked, astonished at this side of the
girl.
"Yes."
"And that bear of a man in the center, do you know his name?"
"Yes," she answered, with a slight disconcertion. "He is the Citoyen
Javogues."
"He looks like an ogre."
"Wait till you hear him."
"Really!" answered Nicole, with a smile which threw the girl into
confusion.
At this moment a rumble reached them from the outer room. Boudgoust,
profoundly dejected, appeared, followed by the insouciant figure of
Dossonville. Instantly the room was filled with cries.
"What news?"
"What news from Santerre?"
"We attack?"
"For to-night?"
Dossonville, facing the eager, breathless gallery, shrugged his
shoulders, uttering but one word:
"Postponed."
A roar of rage and disappointment drowned his voice.
"Citoyens!" he cried, "I am but announcing the decision; I did not
make it. The tyrants are intrenched. Mandat is in ambush at the Pont
Neuf and the Arcade St. Jean. The leaders have decided the moment is
unfavorable."
The storm of protests increased.
"More delay! Enough of waiting!"
"Mon Dieu, we are not cowards!"
"And the Prussians?"
"Hé, yes, are we to wait for the foreign bandits?"
"Javogues! Javogues!"
"Javogues, lead us!"
"Lead us, Javogues!"
Nicole felt through the child at her side a sudden trembling and
drawing of breath. Then into the center of the suddenly quiet room
lurched the squat figure, bareheaded, bare-armed, bare-chested but
for a tattered shirt. He seemed rooted to the floor, like a mound
transformed to human shape, quivering in the primeval mold and passions.
"Well, yes, I'll lead you!" The huge fist, describing a circle, crashed
upon a table. "We're here to fight. We'll wait no longer. Hesitate and
bandy words and deliberate whoever wants--we are not such! We have
suffered and ached. We have been crushed to the ground, saddled to the
earth,--we, human beings, like cattle, and we remember our wrongs.
Fear? Neither God nor men do we fear. We came here, we, marching from
Marseilles,--all the way from Marseilles,--to wipe out the accursed
tyrants, to make things go faster, and, by God, they shall go!"