DEVILS' TALK
The black day which was coming upon Aramon was not long in dawning.
Barres and Imbert were the leaders of the anarchist party, which had
always secretly opposed the Marxian communism of Keller Bey and his
adherents.
These were the men of the opposition, dark-browed cub-engineers and
piece-workers, not high in their professions--being far too careless and
off-hand for regular work, but with a dashing strain in them, and a way
of putting the matter which imposed upon the younger men.
Were they hungry? There was food in the shops. Was their miserable
fifteen pence a day insufficient? Yonder were the villas of the traders
who had sucked and grown rich on the money they had earned, inadequate
as it was. Had any man a wrong? The Government had put arms in his
hands--let him go and right it!--It may be imagined what was the outcome
of this kind of talk. So long as Keller Bey kept his hold there was no
night plundering, and several men caught playing at "individual
expropriation" were first threatened with the provost marshal and then
with a firing party. Instead they were sent to the care of Calvi in the
prison of Monsieur le Duc because the heart of Keller was tender.
This gloomy, four-square hulk of a mediaeval keep had been built in the
thirteenth century by the Duke of Burgundy, to awe the riotous Frankish
burghers of Aramon le Vieux, and stands still, machicolated and fossed,
much as he left it.
It was difficult now to think of the Aramon with its strong guild of
hammer men, its coppersmiths swarming from their clattering toil, its
tanners and booth-men pouring out of these same _ruelles_ and squares,
now grey with mistral or dreamy in the white sunshine. To-day not a cat
would jump for a dozen Dukes of Burgundy, but seven hundred years ago
Aramon le Vieux had a fierce _elan_ of its own and knew how to singe the
beard of an oppressor, especially if he were at some considerable
distance.
After the building of the great feudal keep on the opposite bank, we
hear little more of the turbulent traders, and the likelihood is that
they paid their dues and gave no trouble ever afterwards, especially
after the Duke constructed a bridge of boats which opened at both sides
to allow of traffic.
Now, however, the lofty walls of the fortress of Monsieur le Duc became
the rallying place of revolt. Every evening in front of the grand
entrance, or upon the _fosse_ bridge, Georges Barres preached the
doctrine of plunder and petroleum. There were in Aramon a certain number
of "haves"--let those who heard him see to it that there were ten times
that number of "takes"! For what were their brethren shut up there (he
pointed to the Loches-like cliff of masonry above him, nearly twice the
height of Rochester Castle), and answered, "For retaking their own--for
redressing the wrongs of the poor!"
"For plain theft--they stole hens!" proclaimed a voice in the crowd.
"Down with the spy--kill the royalist--dismember the traitor!" howled
the mob. And to show their honesty they fell upon a good citizen of
Aramon, a respectable apothecary, come there almost at random. He had
been discreetly silent. It was not he who had made the outcry, but wore
he not a black frock-coat and looked he not sleek and well fed? If he
were not a spy, what was he doing there? So they threw him in the Rhone.
He was fished out half a mile below, where for a long distance the
workshop wall skirts the river. Jack Jaikes did the job with grumbling
thoroughness and the man of drugs was brought to with a science and
celerity unknown in his own pharmacy.
Having thus asserted its power, the crowd turned with self-approval to
listen to its favourite orator.
"Here in Aramon we have a Government, and over it presides a Great
Shadow which has been sent us from the Internationale. What did ever the
Internationale do for us? Did it stop this war? Did it force back the
Germans? You tell me that we owe to this shadow the thirty sous a day on
which we starve. What of that? It is a bribe to keep us from taking all
they possess. Every day in that Chateau yonder the silver gleams on the
white table-cloth, the red wine mantles in the glass, the champagne
foams, and--my great God! you can hear them laughing--from the miserable
lairs where your children are clamouring for bread, and your wives are
weeping because there is none to give them!"
Now the soul of such crowds is most strange. In all that listening
assembly there was no single man who did not know that every word was
false. There was a special grant for families, and if any worker's
children had not enough bread, it was because the patriot himself had
spent the money on absinthe! Every worker knew this. Yet tears started
to their eyes, and a deep-throated roar of anger went out against the
Government which had arranged such a monstrous iniquity.
"Yonder lie the workshops--the place where money is spun--money such as
you have no idea of--millions a week--all the fruit of your toil. Do not
break the machinery. We will set it spinning money on our own
account--but first we must be quit of Dennis Deventer and his foreign
gang. Keller Bey will tell you that they are workers like
yourselves--citizens, of equal rights before the Internationale. Why
then did they collect together yonder, these brave citizens, these
honest workers, these noble revolutionaries? Why are they not walking
about these streets and taking their turn at mounting guard? I will tell
you. Because they are the guardians of the treasures of the
masters--they are keeping locked in Dennis Deventer's safes the millions
which have been wrung from you in cruelty and blood and tears!"
Such a roar as went up from that black assembly in which the white caps
of women were dotted and the massed blue knots of the National Guard
could be seen! It reached the council, drearily debating in the town
house, and there was a general desire to adjourn. The air was electric
with coming trouble. These duly elected members of the Commune felt
themselves caught between two great unknown forces--the Government of
Versailles, which was represented by the pushing surveyors of the
engineers' corps, the first skirmishers of an army which was certain to
come upon them from the north, and this uprising of the idlers and
workspoilers of their own kind.
Personally their Socialism was not deep-rooted. They had the national
respect for small property-holders, and even if they possessed none
themselves, Oncle Jean Marie or Tante Frizade were _proprietaires_ in
their own right. When these heritages fell in none of their loving
nephews and nieces would fight harder for their share than the
red-begirt members of the Commune of Aramon.
Only men like Keller Bey and Gaston Cremieux lived in a world beyond
such things--and on the other hand were those who, like Barres and
Imbert, had nothing to gain or to lose however fortune's wheel might
turn.
Pere Felix pushed his way into the dense masses about the entrance of
the prison keep. He was sure of himself, but very indignant at those of
the Commune who had allowed him to come alone. Of course it was not
fitting that Keller Bey should expose his person, but if the twenty of
Aramon had marched together in a body, each with his crimson scarf of
office girding him, they might have dominated the mob and silenced the
hair-brained Barres. Still, all the more honour to himself, when he
should go back to twit them with their fears and tell them the story of
his triumph!
"We don't want to hear Pere Felix! Down with the traitor! Trample him,
spit upon him!"
He could not believe his ears. For then began a din such as he had never
heard. The young men on the outskirts had seized the instruments of the
band of the National Guard and were now blowing, bellowing, and clanging
upon them. He stood beside Barres, who looked at him contemptuously,
tossing the light fall of hair off his brow with a regular movement, as
a challenged bull tosses his horns.
"Comrades and citizens, in the name of the Commune of Aramon, elected by
you, I address you----"
Brazen horns brayed, tin trays and kettles were beaten, the big drum
thundered just underneath. Words issued from the mouth of Pere Felix.
They must have done so, for his lips were moving, but not even himself
heard a word, and the sardonic smile on the face of the Catalan Barres
became a grin.
The old orator, who had swayed all meetings of the plebs in Aramon ever
since '48, threw up his hands in hopeless misery.
"They will not hear me," he cried, so that this time the words reached
the ear of Barres. "Why will they not hear me?"
Now Barres was by this time content with his triumph, and he put his
hand to the old man's ear and shouted, "Because your day is past--you
are down, you and all your gang. You silenced me at the Riding School
meeting three months ago, but then you had Gaston Cremieux to help you.
You had better go home. I shall see to it that you do go home, and let
not Aramon see your face again. Keep on the farther side of the Durance
and no man shall meddle with you. But from this day forth take notice
that Aramon means to do without you!"
He beckoned a few determined-looking fellows from the crowd, each armed
with a rifle and cartridge-belt. A few instructions, a determined push
through the crowd which divided to right and left, shouting hateful
words all the time he was passing, and Pere Felix found himself thrust
ignominiously out of the northern gate of Aramon. His captors had
treated him with a certain hasty roughness, but had up till now
refrained from insult. Now they tore the red scarf of office from about
his body and trampled it in the dust. The rule of the Twenty was over in
Aramon.
Slowly and mournfully Pere Felix took the way under the beautiful trees
of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going.
His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had
been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the
glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken
pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the
blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the
Sambre-et-Meuse.
When he saw it his heart gave a sudden throb, as if he had recognised
suddenly the face of a friend unseen and neglected for years.
"This is mine," he muttered, "and what have I been caring for? The
popular applause! Mariana told me they would turn upon me and kick me at
the last. Then perhaps I would remember that I had a home. They trampled
my red sash in the dust. It was they who gave it to me--it was their own
authority vested in me. They ought to have remembered!"
There were tears in the eyes of Pere Felix. The tribune of the people
could not all at once bring himself to accept a final defeat. But as he
looked a different feeling gathered warm about his heart. Yonder was
Jeanne bringing back a boat-load of firewood gathered from the flood
mark. How tall she was, and how beautiful! He had not noticed these
things before. How nobly and regularly she stood in the stern and poled
the boat with the current--a splash or two and she was safe within the
little backwater. Beyond was Mariana, busy with her fowls, scattering
feed for them with the shrill _chook_--_chook-chookychooks_ used on such
occasions by the hen-wives of all nations. Pere Felix could see the
birds running stumblingly with wings outspread to the feast. Mariana
turned, glanced across the water, put on her spectacles, and called
aloud to Jeanne without any surprise.
"There is your father, Jeanne--go, fetch him home!"
And suddenly, as his daughter leaped lightly out of the boat and kissed
him on both cheeks, the colour flushing to her face and her bosom
heaving, Pere Felix felt himself no more ashamed and outcasted.
"Father," said Jeanne, "I have found such a nest of logs--fine burning
wood. You are just in time to cut it into faggots for me. Then I can go
and bring away the rest while you are at work."
"Felix, you are just in time for dinner," his wife cried out at sight of
him. "There is roast lamb and green peas from Les Cabannes. You old
gourmand, I'll wager you knew and came home on purpose!"
No, Pere Felix had not known, but he certainly did come on purpose and
on purpose he meant to stay.