swept the palace, Nicole had remained outside, joining the hundreds of
women who visited the wounded or sought, in agony, among the dead. She
also, with a new anxiety, sped among the slain with a sinking dread
before each upturned face.
All at once a familiar voice cried at her side:
"Help! help!"
The cry came from beneath the body of a Marseillais. With the aid of a
fishwife she pulled away the corpse, discovering the shaken, limp form
of the mountebank Cramoisin.
"Ah, mon Dieu," she cried, forgetting the rancor of the woman in the
patriot, "are you wounded?"
"I--I think so."
"Where?"
"I don't know," he stammered, rising weakly to his feet. "Is it ended?"
"In thy stomach, I guess, my brave fellow!" the fishwife cried with
rough scorn. "It seems to have failed thee!"
"You do not know him: he is a hero!" Nicole cried, ironically. "Wait a
moment; we'll find the wound!"
With a laugh, the two sought to seize him; but Cramoisin, having
recovered the use of his legs, escaped in a ludicrous, snarling flight.
Suddenly Nicole beheld Barabant stumbling forth from the vestibule. All
coquetry forgot, she sprang to him with the cry:
"Barabant, you are wounded!"
He looked at his arm and saw it was covered with blood. He passed
his hand over his face; a scalp-wound trickled a red stream down
his forehead. He sat down while she hurriedly washed the wounds and
bandaged them. When he essayed to rise, a dizziness made his step so
unsteady that Nicole drew his arm over her shoulder, laughing at his
feeble resistance.
"Allons, this is the hour of the women. I'll bring you back. Don't be
afraid to lean on me!"
She put her arm about his waist and impelled him gently. He resisted
no longer, and together slowly they moved homeward over the stricken
field, amid the groaning and the silent.
He had a misty recollection of a phantasmagoric passage, of rapidly
moving figures hideous with blood, of heads dancing on pikes above him,
of stretchers bearing inanimate things, of rushing, floating women,
of the sudden rumbling of drums, of companies swinging past him, of
interminable streets, and of cliffs, mountains high, that gave forth
shrieks of triumph. Then in the city, delirious with joy and sorrow,
delirium, too, rushed through his brain, his head fell heavily upon
Nicole's bare shoulder, and the will deserting his limbs, he slipped
from her arms heavily to the ground.
VI
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
When at last Nicole had brought Barabant to his room, she was very
tired. Goursac, whom she had summoned to help her, knelt by the bed
to examine the unconscious form. Every now and then he turned a
questioning look upon the girl, as though to penetrate the indifferent
attitude she maintained.
"Why don't you say something?" Nicole cried at last, her anxiety
mastering her prudence. "Is it so serious?"
"A mere scratch," he grumbled; "nothing to make such a fuss over. If he
hadn't been as weak as a woman--"
Nicole, reassured, smiled at his ill-humor, knowing the mood of old.
Goursac, furious at such a reception of his sarcasm, turned on her
angrily.
"You are like all the rest--just as stupid. Because a young fellow gets
a scratch and you pilot him home, you call that a romance. You know
well enough what that leads to!"
"That may be true; why shouldn't I have my romance as well as another?"
"You say that to plague me. You know that is not so!" he said
impatiently. "Now give me a bandage."
Stooping, Nicole seized her petticoat; but finding it stained with
traces of the combat, she dropped it, and calling to him to wait,
passed through the window and across the gutter, swaying lithely
against the roof. In a moment she returned with half of a sheet, which
they quickly tore into bandages.
"There; with a little rest--a chance to recover some blood--the fever
will abate!" Preparing a sling, Goursac jerked his head toward the bed
and demanded: "You are not going to watch?"
"Certainly I am!"
"Then say at once," he cried point-blank, "that you imagine you are in
love!"
"Goursac, my friend, you are ridiculous with your ideas," Nicole
answered impatiently. "You know that the Citoyen Barabant arrived only
yesterday. We are good comrades. That's all!"
"Yes, yes, yes!"
He wrinkled his lips in scornful unbelief, raised his shoulders to his
ears, and disappeared, heavily, down the stairs, grumbling ironically,
"A man lies to deceive others; a woman lies to deceive herself!"
A moment later he called back:
"Hé, above there!"
Nicole went to the landing.
"Is that you, the comrade?"
"Yes, old cynic."
"If you need me, stamp twice on the floor."
"Agreed."
"Return now to your--acquaintance."
Nicole, laughing, returned to the bedside. She placed her hand on
the heated forehead, frowned, smoothed down the covers, arranged the
discarded clothes, and, after a moment's reflection, departed over the
roof to her room.
When she again appeared, she had removed all traces of the battle. She
pulled a chair near the bed, loosened her hair, scattering it over her
shoulders, and began to comb it out, unraveling the tangle with many
grimaces and an oft-wrung "Aïe! aïe!"
Occasionally she consulted a pocket-mirror, then resumed the combing,
humming to herself. Barabant, his forehead enveloped in white, his arm
in a sling, lay with his head turned toward her, one arm escaping bare
above the covers. She regarded approvingly the lithe muscles suggested
under the soft skin, and, ceasing her humming, pronounced:
"He is well made!"
She leaned over the bed and opened the collar of his shirt, revealing
the full throat.
"Tiens, he's as white as a woman."
She withdrew, and resumed her humming.
"But, Dieu merci, it's not a woman." She was taking up another strand
when the stairs cried out and Louison entered. Nicole frowned and said
curtly:
"Ah, it's you, is it? Who told you?"
"La Mère Corniche. How goes it?" she asked, indicating Barabant.
"Well."
"Are you coming to eat something?"
"No, I'm staying here."
"Is it so serious?"
"I don't know," she said, continuing her combing. "He pleases me."
Louison stood at the bed, looking down. "Not bad; he's interesting. I
noticed he had good eyes."
Nicole stopped her combing, and a frown gathered above the childish
cheeks, as she cried impetuously:
"Louison, no interference, do you hear? Or--"
"Or what?" The dark eyebrows arched slightly, but the deep eyes
remained cold. Nicole did not answer. Louison returned to the
contemplation of the young man a moment longer, then reluctantly
rousing herself from her reverie, turned on her heel. Her eye, falling
on Nicole, regarded her with a trace of amusement.
"Child!" she said, standing in the doorway, her face relaxing into a
smile. "You have chosen the best moment, my dear: you are adorable!"
Nicole listened, immovable, until the last footstep had grown silent.
Then drawing her lips together, she seized her knees with her hands,
and thus curbed, her eyes fixed themselves in intense contemplation,
while several times a sudden anger knit her features before she shook
off the disagreeable emotions and sought the cool of the window.
At a rustling from the bed she returned quickly. Barabant had stirred
slightly, but so as to throw his weight upon the wounded arm. She
slipped her arm under him and moved him to a more comfortable position.
This maternal solicitude, slight as it was, awakened a new emotion
in her. She arranged his hair, and seeking hungrily for any further
service, began to bathe the hot eyelids.
Barabant, under the gentle stroking, opened his eyes. The confines
appeared to him vast and silent, the window far removed and small. The
long August twilight invaded the room with the delicious promise of
a quieter night, while from without the distant, scattered sounds of
rejoicing reached his ears, through the corridors of insensibility,
like the tinkle of soft music. He sighed contentedly and closed his
eyes again.
Presently he said, turning his head a trifle, but without opening his
eyes:
"Thou art really there, Nicole?"
The accent and the caress pierced to the depths the heart of the young
girl, already stirred by the maternal impulse of the woman.
"Really here, yes."
But almost immediately, as though regretting the softness of the
response, she added, in remonstrance:
"I have not given you permission to call me thou!"
"It is my gratitude that--that permits me."
"Ah, that is nice." She smiled with pleasure. "That was very prettily
said."
"Nicole?"
"Yes."
"Place your ear to my lips; I cannot talk so far."
The girl, with a smile, divining the ruse, leaned over him. But
Barabant making no sound, she withdrew, scrutinizing anxiously the hot
face.
"Nicole."
"I am here."
Again she stooped, and this time so close that her hair swept his
forehead.
"You are there?"
"Yes."
"I love you," he said drowsily.
"Oh, oh!" Nicole started back, blushing and amused; but looking down,
she saw he had dropped again into the wanderings of delirium.
"He does not know what he says," she said, shaking her head. "Poor
fellow!"
She watched him in his helplessness, and all at once she sighed; but it
was a sigh that rose from the soul, and while it filled her heart, it
passed on and awakened in her a famine of tenderness, leaving a longing
for tears.
* * * * *
Motionless and perplexed, she stood staring down at the dim bed, her
lips parted, her breast filling with deep breaths, until at last
she turned reluctantly and sought the window, still uncertain, nor
comprehending what was germinating within her.
The night was beginning; in the clear heavens the high moon was
strengthening in luster at every moment. Across the stretch of window
lights the sounds of revelry and rejoicing persisted faintly to her
ears. The courtyard, deserted by the men, was hushed with the silence
of fatigue. The laugh of a girl mounted at times, clear and playful,
mingling with the deeper, good-humored protests of her companion. From
a window a hag, chin in hand, followed the lovers with due interest.
In another room a weary mother had fallen asleep with her baby still
feeding at her breast. At other windows the women waited patiently
the return of the men, bending mechanically over their knitting or
crooning to the sleepy children. There, under the enduring, tedious
night, Nicole stayed from minute to minute, pressing her clenched hand
tensely against her lips; while within her breast beat tumult and a
revolt against the slavery of women. She returned to the bedside,
rebelling against this helpless man who drew her irresistibly from her
independence.
"Nicole--"
It was Goursac calling, and she sprang furiously to the landing,
rebuking him with a low: "Silence! he is asleep. What do you want?"
"If you are tired, I'll watch."
"No, no!" she answered angrily. The cry seemed to burst from her heart,
threatened by the very thought of such exile.
She knelt at the bed hungrily, waiting jealously for an opportunity
to ease the restless body, her revolt forgotten in the defense of her
right to soothe and minister. She slipped her arm under his body, and
drew his head upon her shoulder. A sigh of contentment rewarded her.
He grew more quiet, breathing gentle breaths that disturbed her hair
and fanned her throat. In the half-darkness she remained, with aching
shoulder, holding him in her arms as though to defend him from all
who would separate them. Several times, in an access of tenderness,
she approached her lips to the unconscious forehead, but each time
instinctively drew back from the surrender. She had a desire for tears,
for laughter, for swift anger, that he should wake at last. She would
have kept him there forever, weak and helpless, turning to her in trust
and necessity. At times, with a sudden alarm, she asked herself what
had happened, what could be these new emotions, until at last, in the
disturbance and bewilderment of her soul, she saw the utter loneliness
of her life, and the cry went up from her:
"Ah, mon Dieu, how unhappy I am!"
The full sun was beating into the room when Barabant awoke. His
forehead was cold, his senses were sharp; but his memory struggled
in vain to reconstruct the events of the afternoon. His arm confined
in a sling brought back his wound, and Nicole, and the beginning of
the tedious journey; beyond that a black wall rose up and shut out
all vision. He turned over, calculating his strength, when, his eye
traveling over the bedside, what was his stupefaction to behold Nicole
stretched upon the floor. Her hands were pillowed under her cheek,
where the long eyelashes showed sharply against the heightened color.
She slept easily, the lips slightly parted as though smiling under
happy dreams. Barabant watched her breathlessly, jealously putting off
the awakening. But at this moment, as though aware of the intensity
of his gaze, the girl opened her eyes, met the enraptured glance of
Barabant a moment only, then sprang to her feet with a confusion which
she sought to cover with a laughing "Good morning!"
"You have been here all night?" Barabant said, in astonishment.
"Why not?" Nicole noticed that he did not address her as "thou." She
rearranged her dress and said with forced naturalness, "Do you think
that is much to do for a patriot who is wounded?"
Barabant, displeased with the answer, made no reply.
"So you have decided to return to this world, citoyen?"
"Have I been delirious?"
"Do you remember nothing?"
"Nothing since--since the Place de la Grève." As this answer seemed to
plunge Nicole into silence, he asked, "How did you get me here?"
"It wasn't difficult," she began more gaily. "I begged your way from
block to block. Let me see; two water-carriers brought you half-way,
then a coachman a block on his route, then another block on a litter,
and finally a fishwife helped me to the end."
"You carried me?"
"Indeed, I am not a weakling; look at that." She extended her arms,
laughing. "They are solid."
"And this?" Barabant touched the sling.
"Oh, that was the Citoyen Goursac."
"Who?"
"Your neighbor below, a brown man who buries his chin like this, and
scowls. That reminds me, it is time he should see you."
"Nicole!"
"Well, what?"
"Not now; not just yet."
"Why not?"
"I wish to talk with you."
"The idea, as though I had nothing to do!" She raised her foot and
stamped twice. "I have a desire to dine to-night, thank you."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to work." She picked up her possessions and made for the
window, while Barabant cried excitedly:
"Nicole, I have not thanked you. Wait, let me thank you."
"Why?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I'd do that for any one."
Barabant raised himself on his elbow and threatened, half angrily:
"Nicole, if you go, I'll follow you. I swear I'll follow you. I will.
Look at me. I swear I will!"
"What good will it do you? I'll be gone."
She shook her head, and, deaf to his entreaties, disappeared; while
Barabant, furious, fell back, baffled and perplexed, little suspecting
the awakening that was taking place in Nicole.
VII
THE FEAR OF HAPPINESS
When Nicole reached her room, she found Geneviève up and waiting.
"What are you doing, child?" she cried sharply, to cover her confusion.
"Why are you here?"
"I--I am waiting," Geneviève stammered, "to see if I could do anything
for you."
"There is nothing. I am going out now myself."
"What!" cried the child, opening her eyes wide. "You are not going to
stay with the poor fellow?"
"There is no need. He is well."
"But I thought--" She stopped, in confusion, and then clumsily beat a
retreat to the door. "I'll go now. I--I only _wanted_ to be of service."
Nicole waited only long enough to be sure of Geneviève's departure
before descending in turn. Her little room was too narrow; it choked
her. She had need of the open span of the sky to think over the new
emotions.
After an hour of unprofitable solitude, feeling the need of a
confidence which would lessen the tension of her thoughts, she sought
Goursac, beginning timidly with the question:
"And the Citoyen Barabant, how is he?"
"Why, he is still alive, clamoring for you like a lost child for his
mother."
"Goursac, my old friend," she said, taking his arm, "be serious and
gentle for once. I am unhappy, and I want to talk with you."
"Ah, you love him," he said bitterly.
"Yes," she said slowly, as though the revelation had just come, "I love
him."
"Then why do you avoid him?"
"I am afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of loving him too much."
"I don't understand."
She tried to tell him a little of her emotions at the bedside--the
wonder and the swift, acute joy of ministering, the longing to tend and
own. Goursac, with a few questions, led her on. They were now in the
Tuileries, a little apart from the quick throng, the swish of skirts,
the laughter and the hum. At last he said:
"My little Nicole, listen. Love is not something that comes to us from
the outside: it is a need within ourselves. We each have our functions
in this world and our needs. At the bottom, what is strongest and best
in woman is the maternal instinct. Listen to me! You fall in love when
the need within you becomes too insistent. Any one of a hundred men can
appeal to you. It is the moment and not the man. You knew the maternal
instinct for the first time when you had in your keeping the Citoyen
Barabant. You think that it is he that has awakened you. Not at all;
all these emotions have been in you, dormant; it is they, not he, which
enchant you. Voyons--you do not listen--Nicole!"
"That's true," she said, rousing herself from her reverie. Her eyes
had been deep in the bright to and fro of the promenaders, but she saw
only the room under the attic, and felt only the hot head on her aching
shoulder.
"After all, you are thinking only of him, and I am a fool," he said.
"Nothing that I can say will make any difference. You will learn, as
others have learned, on the steps of experience. Out of some curious
twist within you, in some strange way of reasoning you will decide for
yourself."
"I suppose so," she said drearily. "But I wanted to talk it out; you
are kind to me."
"I," he said calmly--"I adore you."
"Be serious."
"That is serious."
"Truly?"
"You know it."
"Why?" she said meditatively, but half believing him.
"You are young," he answered, looking steadfastly at the charming
profile. "And to see you is good for the eyes. You are youth, and I
have not been old long enough to be reconciled to age. But you don't
believe me."
"Yes."
"No; at least, you do not understand."
* * * * *
She did not return home until nightfall, and then did not cross
Barabant's window-sill, but contented herself with an inquiry as to his
condition; nor could artifice and entreaty retain her longer. The next
day she did not appear at all.
Barabant, who saw in her absence nothing but coquetry, was furious
with her, with himself, with all that kept him to his bed. The
lagging, still hours seemed doubly lagging and still with the memory
of the charm which the presence of the girl had brought to the bare
walls. Time and time his eyes sought the empty floor where he had
surprised her asleep; and, conjuring up that delightful picture, he
accused himself in his unreasoning irritation for not having simulated
insensibility throughout the day.
Why did she thus avoid him? He remembered their first encounter with
Louison. Was she jealous of her comrade, or was it simply calculation?
That Nicole should think of playing the coquette annoyed him
exceedingly. He had yielded to the fascination of this gipsy from the
moment she had taken his arm in the gardens of the Palais Royal with
the mischievous "Barabant, you are a lucky fellow," with which she had
opened their comradeship. But this easy, pleasurable interest had been
fanned into a passionate flame at the storming of the Tuileries, where,
by her fire, her tempestuous beauty, and her careless laughter, she
had impressed herself imperishably on his imagination; and later the
thought of her bearing him home, of her nursing, and of her tenderness
had invaded his heart.
With the rapture of the first unfolding romance he abandoned himself
utterly to the thought of her, while retaining in his deeper
consciousness, as undebatable, that limit of common sense which must
separate the man of education and promise from a daughter of the people.
The thought was a part of his intuitions rather than his
consciousness; for in his simplicity he believed himself utterly
unselfish in seeking her, and was at a loss to understand why she
should have changed.
Neither the afternoon nor the evening brought any sign of Nicole, nor
during the next day could he obtain more than one glimpse of her, as
she departed toward the flower-market. Recovered from his exhaustion,
he set forth on the following morning, piqued and angry, resolved to
find her and force an explanation.
He searched the Palais Royal and the Tuileries without success, and it
was only after luncheon that, passing down the left bank of the Seine,
he found her near the Conciergerie.
She was a little apart from the throng, strolling meditatively by the
river, into whose swift flood her look was plunged. The half-depleted
basket, overrun with flowers, dangled from her arm, while in her
fingers she was turning a cockade without purpose. Against the hot
August foliage and the buildings weltering under the sun there was
something about her inexpressibly cool and refreshing to the eye.
The meditative abandon of her pose suggested all at once to Barabant
a reason for her absence, and with this pleasing thought his anger
yielded to the zest of the eager and confident lover.
So serious was her reverie that she was unaware of his approach until
his greeting startled her.
"Am I so terrible, Nicole," Barabant asked, smiling at her confusion,
"that you find it necessary to avoid me?"
She rallied quickly, and simulating indecision, exclaimed:
"Why, it is the Citoyen Barabant!"
Barabant brought his brows together and said, with a return of his
exasperation: "Nicole, why do you avoid me?"
She shook her head.
"I don't avoid you; I do not seek you out."
"Nicole, you are playing with me."
She again shook her head.
Barabant, taking her wrist, repeated the assertion.
"Barabant, I do not play with you," Nicole answered earnestly.
"Then why have you avoided me?"
He waited for her answer, but she said firmly: "I cannot tell you."
"Assuredly she is beginning to love me," thought Barabant, and, well
content, did not press the question. They strayed a little from the
Conciergerie, and leaning over the bank, contemplated the river scenes
below, following the fortunes of the languid fishermen, the antics
of a kitten that romped over the flat decks herded together, and the
glistening backs of boys splashing near the shore.
"Of whom were you thinking so seriously before I came?" Barabant asked,
secure in his new confidence. He sought her face, hoping to surprise
some trace of confusion.
"I was wondering how it would seem to have a mother," Nicole answered.
She crumbled a flower and scattered the petals on the wafting stir of
the air before she turned. "But then we might not agree. Perhaps I am
lucky. What do you think?"
"Such reverie for a mother?"
"Oh, there are moments when one has such moods."
"I had hoped you were thinking of me."
"Really?" She lifted her eyebrows slightly. "And why?"
Her composure routed his agreeable theories and plunged him into
perplexities. So, abandoning his confident attitude, he exclaimed
vehemently:
"Nicole, what has happened? What is there--a misunderstanding, or what?
Surely you will not tell me that it is natural for you to shun me so
persistently. I will be answered!"
"I don't; I don't. I will not have you saying that!" She seized the
opportunity of a passing party of muscadins--the dandies of the day--to
offer her cockades. On her return, Barabant said more quietly:
"Listen to me, Nicole. You misunderstand me; I do not upbraid you. I
want to thank you. I owe you much, and you give me no opportunity to
tell you of my gratitude. That is what vexes me. Voyons, Nicole, we had
begun so well!" He leaned closer and said mischievously: "Oh, if I had
known you would leave, I would have remained unconscious all the day.
I've cursed myself ever since."