Inside the lodge, Lily left Madame Gigon to the curé. He assured her
that she was right. It was impossible for the old woman to live much
longer. It would have been useless to have secured a physician even if
one had been available.
“She has been dying a long while,” said the old man. “I fancy she would
prefer not to be hindered in her going.”
As Lily closed the door upon the two old friends, she saw M. Dupont
kneel down in the lamplight and begin to pray.
Wearily she climbed the narrow winding stairway which led to the upper
floor and, finding herself unable to sleep, she went to the window above
the gateway and sat down to watch the column of cavalry on its way into
battle. The men had been riding for hours and now they rode silently,
white with dust, the black plumes of horsehair swaying as the horses
moved. It was impossible to distinguish one from another. They were
simply black figures, units of a body, mysterious and without
personality. There was not even the sound of a voice, nothing but the
faint rattle of sabers and the ghostly breathing of the horses. Jean
might have been among them ... even Césaire himself. It was impossible
to say. They were each like the other, no longer individuals, now only
units, cogs in a vast machine. No one of them counted any longer for
anything.
Presently the column came to an end and a battery of artillery, caissons
rattling, men upright upon the cartridge boxes, followed in its place.
And at last it too passed, swallowed up by the questioning darkness. The
silence became unreal, terrifying. From below stairs arose the droning
sound of M. Dupont’s voice conducting the service that would lead Madame
Gigon safely into the world beyond ... the world beyond. To-night in all
the lonely breathless quiet, the world beyond was very near. One might
almost enter it simply by closing one’s eyes, by stepping through a
doorway into the night.
Lily sat motionless and upright, watching. A second column passed and
then a third; and at last, a man riding a black horse whose chest was
white with froth turned in at the gateway. He was a man like the others
... a unit, a being without individuality save that he rode alone a
little in the rear of the other horsemen. Under the archway he
dismounted from his horse, and in the next moment he performed an act
which at once restored to him his identity. He walked directly to the
iron ring which hung concealed among the ivy leaves and there fastened
the black horse. Thus he betrayed himself. Only one person could have
known the exact place where the ring lay hidden among the leaves. There
could be no longer any doubt.
When he had fastened the black horse, he stepped out a little way from
the house and called softly, “Lily ... Lily.”