I have gazed so long on what was passing around me that my eyes are
weary. I have watched the slow decline of joy, of comfort and luxury,
almost without knowing how everything has been dying around me, as a
man in a ball-room where the candles are put out, one by one, may not
perceive at first the gathering gloom. To see Paris, as it is at the
present moment, as the Commune has made it, requires an effort. Let me
shut my eyes, and evoke the vision of Paris as it was, living, joyous,
happy even in the midst of sadness. I have done so—I have brought it
all back to me; now I will open my eyes and look around me.
In the street that I inhabit not a vehicle of any kind is visible. Men
in the uniform of National Guards pass and repass on the pavement; a
lady is talking with her _concierge_ on the threshold of one of the
houses. They talk low. Many of the shops are closed; some have only the
shutters up; a few are quite open. I see a woman at the bar of the
wine-shop opposite, drinking.
Some quarters still resist the encroachments of silence and apathy.
Some arteries continue to beat. Some ribbons here and there brighten up
the shop-windows: bare-headed shopgirls pass by with a smile on their
lips; men look after them as they trip along. At the corner of the
Boulevards a sort of tumult is occasioned by a number of small boys and
girls, venders of Communal journals, who screech out the name and title
of their wares at the top of their voices. But even there where the
crowd is thickest, one feels as if there were a void. The two contrary
ideas of multitude and solitude seem to present themselves at once in
one’s mind. A weird impression! Imagine a vast desert with a crowd in
it.
The Boulevards look interminable. There used to be a hundred obstacles
between you and the distance; now there is nothing to prevent your
looking as far as you like. Here and there a cab, an omnibus or two,
and that is all. The passers-by are no longer promenaders. They have
come out because they were obliged: without that they would have
remained at home. The distances seem enormous now, and people who used
to saunter about from morning till night will tell you now that “the
Madeleine is a long way off.” Very few men in black coats or blouses
are to be seen; only very old men dare show themselves out of uniform.
In front of the café’s are seated officers of the Federal army,
sometimes seven or eight around a table. When you get near enough, you
generally find they are talking of the dismissal of their last
commander. Here and there a lady walks rapidly by, closely veiled,
mostly dressed in black, with an unpretending bonnet. The gallop of a
horse is distinctly audible—in other times one would never have noticed
such a thing; it is an express with despatches, a Garibaldian, or one
of the _Vengeurs de Flourens_, who is hoisted on a heavy cart-horse
that ploughs the earth with its ponderous forefeet. Several companies
of Federals file up towards the Madeleine, their rations of bread stuck
on the top of their bayonets. Look down the side-streets, to the right
or the left, and you will see the sidewalks deserted, and not a vehicle
from one end to the other of the road. Even on the Boulevards there are
times when there is no one to be seen at all. However, beneath it all
there is a longing to awaken, which is crushed and kept down by the
general apathy.
In the evening one’s impulses burst forth; one must move about; one
must live. Passengers walk backwards and forwards, talking in a loud
voice. But the crowd condenses itself between the Rue Richelieu and the
Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Solitude has something terrible about it
just now. People congregate together for the pleasure of elbowing each
other, of trying to believe they are in great force. Quite a crowd
collects round a little barefooted girl, who is singing at the corner
of a street. A man seated before a low table is burning _pastilles_;
another offers barley-sugar for sale; another has portraits of
celebrities. Everybody tries hard to be gay; but the shops are closed,
and the gas is sparingly lighted, so that broad shadows lie between the
groups.
Some few persons go to the theatres; the playbills, however, are not
seductive. If you go in, you will find the house nearly empty; the
actors gabble their parts with as little action as possible. You see
they are bored, and they bore us. Sometimes when some actor, naturally
comic, says or does something funny, the audience laughs, and then
suddenly leaves off and looks more serious than before. Laughter seems
out of place. One does not know how to bear it; so one walks up and
down the corridors, then instead of returning to the play, wanders out
again on to the Boulevard. It is ten o’clock—dreadfully late. Many of
the cafés are already closed for the night. At Tortoni’s and the Café
Anglais, not a glimmer is visible. The crowd has nearly disappeared.
Only a few officers remain, who have been drinking all the evening in
an _estaminet_. They call to each other to hurry on; perhaps one of
them is drunk, but even he is not amusing. Let us go home. Scarcely
anyone is left in the street. A bell is rung here and there, as the
last of us reach our respective homes.
That, Commune de Paris, is what you have made of Paris! The Prussians
came, Paris awaited them quietly with a smile; the shells fell on its
houses, it ate black bread, it waited hours in the cold to obtain an
ounce of horse-flesh or thirty pounds of green wood; it fought, but was
vanquished; it was told to surrender, and “it was given up,” as they
say at the Hôtel de Ville; and yet through all, Paris had not ceased to
smile. And this, they say, constitutes its greatness; it was the last
protestation against unmerited misfortunes; it was the remembrance of
having once been proud and happy, and the hope of becoming so again; it
was, in a word, Paris declaring it was Paris still. Well, what neither
defeats, nor famine, nor capitulation could do, thou hast done! And
accursed be thou, O Commune; for, as Macbeth murdered sleep, thou hast
murdered our smiles!