KELLER BEY, INSURGENT
Among the panelled mirrors and gilt splendours of the Hotel de Ville of
Aramon I opened my eyes. A doctor had been attending me. My head was
tightly bandaged and my left hand was also bound up. From many aches and
pains I judged that in my quality of detected spy I had been somewhat
severely dealt with, by the crowd, or perhaps my own man had remembered
the taste of the gag and had perpetrated some little personal atrocities
on his own account, before delivering me up to justice, in order to
square the account.
The doctor was talking to Keller Bey. It was broad day, and abundant
light, filtering through the plane trees, flooded the great room. It was
usually the Salle des Mariages, but for the time being it had been
converted into a lounging place for the people of Aramon. I had in fact
awakened on election day, and in the new Commune my vote was as good as
that of any other man. At one end was a space boarded off in the regular
way, into which one elector after another passed with his voting ticket,
and having deposited it under the eyes of the four watchful questors,
walked immediately out by the opposite door.
Presently Keller Bey passed into an inner room, which, from the gilding
upon the door and the allegorical figures above holding swords of
justice and ill-adjusted balances, I took to be a court room. It was in
fact the mayoral parlour, and the comfortable office coat and even the
dressing-gown of the late occupant still hung on the pegs behind the
door.
Keller Bey gave an order and I was immediately brought in and laid upon
a wide and springy sofa which furnished one whole side of the apartment.
I noticed the device of the crossed red and black flags had been removed
from his tie, and was now worn upon the lapel of his coat like a
decoration.
As soon as the room was clear he came over and sat down beside me. At
sight of me his grim face softened almost as it was wont to do when Linn
or Alida spoke to him.
"All this may seem very strange to you," he said, with a faint feeling
of apology in his voice, "you who have only seen me going about the
house like a tame cat. But since I was raised to high place and
consideration in the Internationale, the old fighting spirit rose within
me. I could not deny the appeal of my brothers to stand by them, and so
you find me here, at the head of the Commune of Aramon--at least till
the will of the voters is ascertained. The men who are with me are
honest fellows, but, so far as I see, quite incapable of leadership. I
do not believe that the vote will strip me of any authority or
responsibility."
I thought that he was talking straight on without stopping in order to
escape the question which he must have seen on my lips.
"And your duty to Linn and Alida?" I demanded abruptly. I could see him
flush and pale.
"Personal and private interests must give way at such times," he
answered firmly enough, but his tones did not carry conviction, not
even, I think, to himself.
"Besides," he added, after a pause, "Linn knew that it would have to
come. I dare not refuse a call of duty because of the danger."
"It is lucky for Linn and Alida," I said with the studied cruelty only
attained by boys, "that they have friends who put them before all public
duties."
"Sir," said Keller Bey, his cheek blanching to a kind of cadaveric
rigidity, so great was the intensity of his anger, "I do not allow
anyone to call my actions into question."
"Call in your soldiers, Monsieur of the Internationale," I said
tauntingly, "you can soon get even with me. There are many walls between
here and the cottage in my father's garden. My shooting will not have
the _eclat_ of the assassination of the Paris generals, but it will come
as blithe news for the three left wondering in the garden of Gobelet."
I spoke like a bad, spiteful boy, conscious of a power to wound to the
quick and thoroughly enjoying my triumph.
Keller Bey did not answer directly to my railings. He felt instinctively
that he could not meet me along these lines.
"How did you come here?" he demanded abruptly, "and why in the coat of a
Garde Nationale?"
"Because," I said, looking at him with my bandaged head lifted on my
hand, "_I_ do not forget old kindnesses. Nor yet new ones--though _my_
house had not been set in order and largely furnished by the kindness of
the Deventers. I crossed the river in a boat and was going to find
them--to help them if I could, if necessary to fight and die with them,
if your people should besiege them as they have done before."
Keller Bey threw out his arms suddenly with the gesture of a tortured
man who seeks something to grip in his agony.
"I had not thought youth so cruel," he moaned. "Do you not understand
that I am here to prevent all that? I stand between the hotheads and
Dennis Deventer. His wife and family are as safe here as mine in your
father's garden, of which you are so good as repeatedly to remind me!"
I am afraid that my expression expressed unbelief.
"You must pardon me," I said suavely and still provocatively, "but I
have been among the chimneys of the Chateau Schneider when the
mitrailleuses were talking. You intend to rule justly and love mercy,
but what of the men about you? I have seen them streaming across the
open court wrecking and destroying."
"Exactly," said Keller Bey, with suddenly recovered dignity, "but then I
was not at the direction of affairs. If any man now disobeys he shall be
made to feel the vengeance of the Internationale! We shall sow fear
among them as corn is sown on a windy day."
At this moment Keller was summoned outside, and I could hear his voice
dominating and allaying a quarrel between functionaries, as I lay back
listening and determined to find out what he intended to do with myself
as soon as he came back. But one thing and another was referred to him
for judgment, and it was the better part of an hour before he came in
holding a sheaf of telegrams in his hand. A secretary accompanied him,
and I had perforce to put off my demand.
Keller Bey had evidently regained some of the old military readiness
which had made him the favourite lieutenant of the great Emir. He
dictated telegrams and dispatches to Paris, to St. Etienne, to Narbonne,
and especially a long communication to Gaston Cremieux at Marseilles.
There were (he said) certainly men at Aramon and to spare, but for the
moment each Commune in revolt must depend upon itself. When the
provisional Government of Aramon, of which he was the head, had handed
over its powers to a properly elected Commune, then would be the time to
speak of sending reinforcements to a greater neighbour. It was true that
there were no troops belonging to the expelled Government of Versailles
in the city of Aramon itself, but to the north the ancient, highly
clerical Avignon offered an excellent centre for collecting an army
corps. The Government of the Assembly, exiled to Versailles, had its
hands tied by the marvellous success of the Paris revolt. But save that
the Commune of Paris was sending a pair of delegates to arrange terms of
association, no help need be looked for from that quarter.
At last Keller Bey made an end and dismissed the secretary. Then he sat
a while with his head upon his hands in deep thought.
I interrupted his meditation with my question.
"And now, Keller Bey, what do you mean to do with me?"
He did not reply instantly, but continued his meditations in silence. I
was compelled to put the question three times, and the third time with
some heat, before he raised his head to answer.
"In the meantime I shall keep you by me as a hostage. The voting is not
yet over, and, though I do not anticipate any violent change, there is
always a possibility that the fiery spirits may urge violent measures.
In that case I shall use you for a messenger to our friends at Chateau
Schneider. In any case, you have come to me and here you had better
stay. It may be necessary also to communicate with my family and in that
matter I could trust only you."
This was a great disappointment to me, who had thought that an hour
would see me inside the walls of the Chateau Schneider, talking with
Mrs. Deventer or sneaking off into the conservatory or out upon the roof
with Rhoda Polly for one of our long talks about everything in heaven
above and on the earth beneath.
But it was very evident that Keller Bey had made up his mind, and, at
any rate, I had galled him too bitterly in the beginning of our
conversation to admit of my finishing it by asking a favour. I only
shrugged my shoulders and said mockingly:
"Perhaps you would like me to lead your thousand men to Marseilles as
well?"
"Indeed," he replied unexpectedly, "I am not sure but that it is an
excellent idea--you are a friend of Gaston Cremieux. I could send you as
civil delegate without awakening any jealousy among the chiefs of
battalion. It is a suggestion which will bear thinking over--certainly
not to be lost sight of."
* * * * *
I had many and excellent opportunities of watching Keller Bey in his new
character of insurrectional leader during the days which followed. As
every one anticipated, his name led the list of the new Commune by many
thousands majority. The others came meekly behind, even the Pere Felix
only emerging from the crowd by a head.
What specially gratified Keller Bey was that no member of the noisy gang
of wreckers had been chosen.
"What did I tell you?" he cried, patting me on the shoulder; "our
Government is to be a model of firmness and sobriety."
And so it was, as far as Keller Bey could make it. But there remained
dangerous elements of which he was ignorant, but which were very clear
to Dennis Deventer, who had seen the leaven of evil at work for many
years.
On the morrow began the organisation of the services of the new
Government. It was a strange installation, and I sat there like a
spectator in a good seat at a theatre and watched the play. None of
those who were on the stage seemed to have any idea of the
ridiculousness of the performance. Only I, outside all wire-pulling, saw
the truth. The rest were hypnotised by the wonderful thing which had
happened--a Commune at Aramon!
Hour by hour I saw Aramon being cut off from the world. At the first
news of the election of a Commune the officials of the post office had
disappeared. Piles of letters accumulated on the desks and before the
ranged pigeon-holes. Sacks arrived by train so long as these were
running, and were heaped in corners. The telegraphic machines were set
down where the operators had abandoned them. I amused myself by calling
up the different towns in our neighbourhood, but received answers only
from Marseilles and Narbonne. The rest had nothing to say to a revolted
city like ours. By and by Narbonne was abruptly cut off, probably at
Cette or some intervening town favourable to the Government of
Versailles.
Half of Keller Bey's time was taken up with such matters as the choice
of a new post office staff. Where they came from I cannot imagine, these
seekers after office. And their credentials! One highly recommended
claimant for the office of receiver of contributions had been expelled
by the brutal tyranny of Napoleon from a Tobacco Bureau. He had
thereafter languished in prison, not, as he gave Keller to understand,
as a political victim, but as a good, solid embezzler of Government
money. Yet he was supported by a Commandant of the National Guards, a
relative of his own, and but for my chance recognition of him, would
doubtless have been appointed.
The post office staff was soon complete--director, assistants,
money-order clerks, telegraph clerks, and messengers--postmen for the
district town deliveries, postmen for the rural rounds--but after the
first solemn sorting of the _debris_ left behind by the old staff, not
so much as a letter or a newspaper, to pass from hand to hand, even as a
curiosity!
The civil services, the mayoral staff, the judges of the tribunal,
judges of the commercial court, Procureur of the Republic and so forth
gave a little more trouble. Pere Felix was appointed President of the
Tribunal, and his good nature and popularity promised easy sentences for
the malefactors of Aramon. But they gave him for public prosecutor one
Raoux, a little wizened wisp of a man, a shoemaker and bold orator of
the bars, who in his readiness of denunciation threw Fouquier-Tinville
into the shade, and in irreverence and insolence approached Raoul
Rigault himself. Raoux was high in the National Guards, which Keller Bey
had not yet begun to recognise as the power behind his throne.
Consequently he had a real influence and soon aspired to nothing less
than a ministry of justice, both making denunciations and by his
authority sending the denounced to prison.
The officers of the city gaol were almost the only ones who remained of
the civil servants of the Empire. They were mostly Corsicans, and as
their chief Calvi said: "They had come to France to keep prisoners
safely." He would give a receipt for each on arrival, and exact a
similar receipt on his leaving the Chateau du Monsieur le Duc. But he
would take the same pains with the prisoners of the new Government as
with those of the old--and so, since, in fact, no Communard wished to
become a turnkey, a _garde-chiourme_, Calvi and his staff were left in
undisputed possession of the Central Prison and House of correction of
the department of Rhone-et-Durance.
Some of the happenings were curious. The prisoners within, sentenced to
various terms of reclusion and imprisonment under the Empire, found
themselves on their release walking about in a world which knew not
Joseph. Some were rearrested as spies, but even the vibrant little
cobbler Raoux could not break down the excellence of the alibi which
they had ready to hand.
Some alarmed good women by asking news of the Emperor, or loudly
expressing disbelief in a _cafe_ when the disasters of the war were
hinted at. A ruffianly fellow, excited by his first cup of spirits for
some years, offered to fight any man who dared to say that the Germans
had entered Paris. So fiercely did he assault the original patriot who
had mentioned the fact, that the rest of the party, gathered over their
cards and mulled wine in the Cafe Jacquard, denied one by one that they
had ever heard of such a thing. Finally the tyranny of the "nervi" or
ticket-of-leave man became so overbearing that it took half a company of
National Guards with fixed bayonets to convey him to the "gendarmerie,"
and from thence, after due committal, to the gloomy prison-house of
Monsieur le Duc, from which he had been but three hours released. He had
struggled gallantly against bayonet prick and rifle butt. The escort,
amateurs at this kind of work, had pitied the few wardens who must
handle such a desperado.
But when the first policeman appeared he merely bade the "nervi" lay his
thumbs together, and in an instant he was leading the formidable warrior
whither he would as submissive and obedient as a child. Calvi was called
and came hastily in, donning a uniform coat, and leaving a half-played
game of "dames" behind him.
He examined the order of the new Procureur. The stamp was as usual. The
signature mattered nothing to Calvi, who looked up at the rioter with a
kind of reproach.
"Number 333," he said, with severity, "if you had told us that we were
to be honoured with your custom so soon again, you would have saved us
the trouble of whitewashing your cell. Take care not to overturn the
materials which have been left, make yourself as comfortable as you can
to-night, and you can do the rest of the work to-morrow. Good night,
gentlemen of the National Guard!"
He should have said "citizens," and every man knew it; but after all he
was a miserable child of the Isle of Despots, and besides, no citizen,
however loyal, objects to being called a gentleman once in a way.
Keller gave me work to do occasionally. I drafted proclamations and,
after rounding the sentences to make them more sonorous, I carried them
to the Communal printing office, which did not differ from other
printing offices, save that, in the absence of a master, each printer
lounged and smoked about the cases, or took himself off to the nearest
grog-shop in the intervals of labour. Often I had to work Keller Bey's
name for all it was worth, and threaten a guard and the Bastille of
Aramon before I could get anything done.
Sometimes, during my long hours of waiting at the printing office of the
Commune, I strolled up to the Aramon station. Only a stray lamp-cleaner
sat with his legs dangling from the platform and spat upon the quickly
rusting rails, looking over his shoulder occasionally to throw a remark
to the single Garde National, who, though on duty, had laid his rifle
and cartridge-belt upon a luggage-barrow, sought out a pile of "returned
empty" sacks of coarse jute, arranged these to his mind, and finally had
laid himself down on them, only rolling over occasionally to refill his
pipe or to wheel his couch into a shady place or one more convenient for
a friendly gossip. On the whole this was the man I liked best. His
"relief," a burly fellow from the Hard Stone Quarries above the town,
calmly divested himself of his coat, wrapped his feet in his cloak, drew
his coat loosely over him, put his head on his knapsack, and slept his
watch out on the green velvet cushions of the first-class waiting-room.
Above, the man really responsible, the station-master of Aramon
Junction, was supposed to be busying himself with a report of the
reopening of the line between Lyons and Marseilles. This news had been
brought to Keller Bey by my friend of the travelling bed on the luggage
truck. He considered it hard that Monsieur Weyse never came down to
patrol the platform and pass the time of day. He yearned for society,
and one of the comfortable arm-chairs in the station-master's room would
have appealed to him strongly. It was the unseen official's own fault if
a man so naturally companionable as he of the luggage-barrow were driven
by neglect to prefer a complaint against him.
The expanse of empty quays and innumerable parallels of iron rails
preyed on his spirits. He tired of the man who cleaned lamps and sat
upon the stone parapet. He had already heard all his opinions, knew
where he was going to place his oaths, and scented his grotesque and
improper anecdotes afar off--with a sense of loathing because, in
addition to all, the lamp-man spat with a regularity and vigour
singularly disgustful to a Frenchman, who does not use his tobacco in
the "plug" form.
I was sent to interview the station-master as to the famous report. I
found him comfortably ensconced at his fireside, his legs embracing one
side and the other of the hearth, a huge pile of the complete works of
Victor Hugo, the Brussels edition, on a chair by his side. He was
fathoms deep in the third volume of "Les Miserables." I never saw a man
more enraptured nor one more enviable. I stood and looked at him, a
broad, beefy man with a shrewd Scottish countenance. His uniformed coat
and gold-broidered cap were neatly placed on a chair behind him. But the
man himself, in a long blouse drawn well above his knees, so that he
might feel the comforting of the fire, continued his reading without a
pause, stirring the logs occasionally with his toe.
I was sorry to interrupt him, but I was resolved to make a friend, for
here was a man with a set of Hugo. I had already been at the Municipal
Library, but there, the collection dating entirely from the times of the
Empire, it of course contained nothing of Hugo's later than "Hernani."
"Your servant, sir!"
Already at a mere waft of my entrance he had sprung to his feet and laid
down his book.
"You take me a little by surprise--ah--from Keller Bey? Are you a
Communard, young man?"
I reassured him. Keller Bey's family lived with my father across the
water in Languedoc. I had been captured and had given my parole, but I
was no partisan. I acted as occasional secretary to Keller Bey, that was
all.
He shook his head sorrowfully, for I think the verdancy of my youth
appealed to him.
"Do not run with the wolves too long or the wolf-hunters may not stop to
ask the difference. There is a fable about that--which I have read
somewhere--in Perrault or La Fontaine. Take back your parole and get out
of Aramon. All this foolishness will go like that----" (he snapped his
finger and thumb in the air), "and I only hope that I shall have time to
read Hugo once through before I have again to think of a train every
five minutes pouring north and south, east and west, through Aramon
Junction!"
I put the question of the report as delicately as possible. I have
rarely seen a Frenchman laugh more boisterously.
"But I have made no report. Why should I? I have received none and
written none. The wires are cut in all directions. I have not a
telegraphist on the place. There are my files if you want to look.
Everything is going by the branch lines on the other side, but even of
that I know only what I can see from my bedroom window, the white steam
of trains trailing off among the green woods, and sometimes the dull
rumble of a heavily laden goods convoy crossing a bridge. Of positive
knowledge concerning railway affairs I have none. I sit and read Hugo
and wait for the end of things. The old life will come back soon enough.
Meanwhile I am earning my salary, and when traffic opens a pretty sum
will be owing to me on the books of the company.
"See here," he said, chuckling, "this is my only report. I will write it
before your eyes."
He pointed to a folio which lay open with the day and date, but all else
blank. He took a pen and wrote:
"As yesterday--no change. Guards--Caspar and Nolli. Both quiet.
Messenger from Communal Government to ask about a report I am supposed
to be making. Exhibit this."
"There you are--you can copy that if you like. I give you my word of
honour that is all the report I ever write, and that is just enough to
prove me on the spot, able for duty, and to claim my pay!"
I told Monsieur Weyse that I would not trouble him further. I should
explain the foolish rumour to Keller Bey, and in all things he might
count upon me. At the same time _if_ there happened to be any volume of
Hugo he was not using----! Well, he might imagine my gratitude.
He sprang to his feet with a kind of smothered whoop and began to delve
among the pile which occupied the chair and slopped over upon the floor.
"Here--here," he explained, "take the first two volumes of "Les
Miserables." It is the best of all. I shall read faster than you, for I
have nothing else to do, and I keep it up far into the night. Why, my
friend, if you come to-morrow, I shall have the third volume ready for
you. No, no, don't thank me, but go instead and get your head clear of
this noose. This Communist Aramon is going to be no safe place to play
unpaid secretary in after a week or two. Those white wreaths of smoke
against the Cevennes tell me that. The Company and the Government are
working together over there, and when they are ready--it will be good
not to be here and in your shoes!"
"But, Monsieur Weyse, you will be here!"
"Ah, that is different! I am a lonely man, and a servant in the way of
his duty. Nothing can come amiss to me. Even if either side fortifies
the junction buildings--why, I am the station-master acting for the
Company. I sit and write my report once a day, and for the rest I read
Hugo. Nothing is more simple. But as for you, take an old man's word.
You are better anywhere than where you are!"