you, they will kill you again. I don’t want them to—Send them away,
tell them I won’t; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like
that—”
Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she was
talking. And after an interval of silence, she continued: “You are near
me, my child, aren’t you? You must not leave me. I thought I was going
to die just now. We did wrong to make an opening in the wall. I have
suffered ever since. I was certain that door would bring us further
misfortune—Oh! the innocent darlings, what sorrow! They will kill them
as well, they will be shot down like dogs.”
Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of
Silvère’s presence. Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the
foot of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.
“Why didn’t you send them away?” she cried, hiding her white head
against the young man’s breast. “They are still there. The one with the
gun is making signs that he is going to fire.”
Shortly afterwards she fell into the heavy slumber that usually
terminated these attacks. On the next day, she seemed to have forgotten
everything. She never again spoke to Silvère of the morning on which
she had found him with a sweetheart behind the wall.
The young people did not see each other for a couple of days. When
Miette ventured to return to the well, they resolved not to recommence
the pranks which had upset aunt Dide. However, the meeting which had
been so strangely interrupted had filled them with a keen desire to
meet again in some happy solitude. Weary of the delights afforded by
the well, and unwilling to vex aunt Dide by seeing Miette again on the
other side of the wall, Silvère begged the girl to meet him somewhere
else. She required but little pressing; she received the proposal with
the willing smile of a frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil. What
made her smile was the idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin. When
the lovers had come to agreement, they discussed at length the choice
of a favourable spot. Silvère proposed the most impossible
trysting-places. He planned regular journeys, and even suggested
meeting the young girl at midnight in the barns of the Jas-Meiffren.
Miette, who was much more practical, shrugged her shoulders, declaring
she would try to think of some spot. On the morrow, she tarried but a
minute at the well, just time enough to smile at Silvère and tell him
to be at the far end of the Aire Saint-Mittre at about ten o’clock in
the evening. One may be sure that the young man was punctual. All day
long Miette’s choice had puzzled him, and his curiosity increased when
he found himself in the narrow lane formed by the piles of planks at
the end of the plot of ground. “She will come this way,” he said to
himself, looking along the road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud
shaking of boughs behind the wall, and saw a laughing head, with
tumbled hair, appear above the coping, whilst a joyous voice called
out: “It’s me!”
And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of
the mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of
the Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half
buried in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvère watched her
descend with delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping
her. As soon as she had alighted, however, he took both her hands in
his, and said: “How nimble you are!—you climb better than I do.”
It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner
where they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening
forward they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only
used the well to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their
meetings, of a change of time, and of all the trifling little news that
seemed important in their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It sufficed
for the one who had a communication to make to set the pulley in
motion, for its creaking noise could be heard a long way off. But
although, on certain days, they summoned one another two or three times
in succession to speak of trifles of immense importance, it was only in
the evening in that lonely little passage that they tasted real
happiness. Miette was exceptionally punctual. She fortunately slept
over the kitchen, in a room where the winter provisions had been kept
before her arrival, and which was reached by a little private
staircase. She was thus able to go out at all hours, without being seen
by Rebufat or Justin. Moreover, if the latter should ever see her
returning she intended to tell him some tale or other, staring at him
the while with that stern look which always reduced him to silence.
Ah! how happy those warm evenings were! The lovers had now reached the
first days of September, a month of bright sunshine in Provence. It was
hardly possible for them to join each other before nine o’clock. Miette
arrived from over the wall, in surmounting which she soon acquired such
dexterity that she was almost always on the old tombstone before
Silvère had time to stretch out his arms. She would laugh at her own
strength and agility as, for a moment, with her hair in disorder, she
remained almost breathless, tapping her skirt to make it fall. Her
sweetheart laughingly called her an impudent urchin. In reality he much
admired her pluck. He watched her jump over the wall with the
complacency of an older brother supervising the exercises of a younger
one. Indeed, there was yet much that was childlike in their growing
love. On several occasions they spoke of going on some bird’s-nesting
expedition on the banks of the Viorne.
“You’ll see how I can climb,” said Miette proudly. “When I lived at
Chavanoz, I used to go right up to the top of old Andre’s walnut-trees.
Have you ever taken a magpie’s nest? It’s very difficult!”
Then a discussion arose as to how one ought to climb a poplar. Miette
stated her opinions, with all a boy’s confidence.
However, Silvère, clasping her round the knees, had by this time lifted
her to the ground, and then they would walk on, side by side, their
arms encircling each other’s waist. Though they were but children, fond
of frolicsome play and chatter, and knew not even how to speak of love,
yet they already partook of love’s delight. It sufficed them to press
each other’s hands. Ignorant whither their feelings and their hearts
were drifting, they did not seek to hide the blissful thrills which the
slightest touch awoke. Smiling, often wondering at the delight they
experienced, they yielded unconsciously to the sweetness of new
feelings even while talking, like a couple of schoolboys, of the
magpies’ nests which are so difficult to reach.
And as they talked they went down the silent path, between the piles of
planks and the wall of the Jas-Meiffren. They never went beyond the end
of that narrow blind alley, but invariably retraced their steps. They
were quite at home there. Miette, happy in the knowledge of their safe
concealment, would often pause and congratulate herself on her
discovery.
“Wasn’t I lucky!” she would gleefully exclaim. “We might walk a long
way without finding such a good hiding-place.”
The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps. They were steeped
in gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of dark
sky, spangled with stars, was visible above their heads. And as they
stepped along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream flowing
beneath the black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled with
undefinable emotion, and lowered their voices, although there was
nobody to hear them. Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent
waves of night, over which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one
another, with lovers’ rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.
At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined
the wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvère would romp about
with all the carelessness of children. The path stretched out, alight
with white rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young
people laughed and chased each other like boys at play, at times
venturing even to climb upon the piles of timber. Silvère was
occasionally obliged to frighten Miette by telling her that Justin
might be watching her from over the wall. Then, quite out of breath,
they would stroll side by side, and plan how they might some day go for
a scamper in the Sainte-Claire meadows, to see which of the two would
catch the other.
Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.
Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to
sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This
dearly-loved retreat—so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling in
the gloom—seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent
emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town dropped
off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg went out one
by one.
They were never disturbed in their solitude. At that late hour children
were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of planks.
Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance—the
singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation
coming from the neighbouring sidewalks—they would cast stealthy glances
over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard stretched out, empty of
all, save here and there some falling shadows. On warm evenings they
sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men
sitting on the big beams by the roadside. When the evenings grew
colder, all that they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was
some gipsy fire, before which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to
and fro. Through the still night air words and sundry faint sounds were
wafted to them, the “good-night” of a townsman shutting his door, the
closing of a window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the
parting sounds of a provincial town retiring to rest. And when Plassans
was slumbering, they might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies
and the crackling of their fires, amidst which suddenly rose the
guttural voices of girls singing in a strange tongue, full of rugged
accents.
But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the
Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy,
and again walked along their favourite retired path. Little did they
care for others, or for the town itself! The few planks which separated
them from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an
insurmountable rampart. They were so secluded, so free in this nook,
situated though it was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty
paces from the Rome Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves far
away in some hollow of the Viorne, with the open country around them.
Of all the sounds which reached them, only one made them feel uneasy,
that of the clocks striking slowly in the darkness. At times, when the
hour sounded, they pretended not to hear, at other moments they stopped
short as if to protest. However, they could not go on for ever taking
just another ten minutes, and so the time came when they were at last
obliged to say good-night. Then Miette reluctantly climbed upon the
wall again. But all was not ended yet, they would linger over their
leave-taking for a good quarter of an hour. When the girl had climbed
upon the wall, she remained there with her elbows on the coping, and
her feet supported by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served
her as a ladder. Silvère, perched on the tombstone, was able to take
her hands again, and renew their whispered conversation. They repeated
“till to-morrow!” a dozen times, and still and ever found something
more to say. At last Silvère began to scold.
“Come, you must get down, it is past midnight.”
But Miette, with a girl’s waywardness, wished him to descend first; she
wanted to see him go away. And as he persisted in remaining, she ended
by saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps: “Look! I am going to
jump down.”
Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of
Silvère. He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter
with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu.
For some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it
disappeared in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the
Impasse Saint-Mittre.
During two years they came to the path every day. At the time of their
first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights. They might
almost have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of
seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades
the warm air. This _renouveau_, this second spring, was like a gift
from heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten
their bonds of affection.
At last came rain, and snow, and frost. But the disagreeableness of
winter did not keep them away. Miette put on her long brown pelisse,
and they both made light of the bad weather. When the nights were dry
and clear, and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their
footsteps and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they
refrained from sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in
the pelisse, their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and
they laughed heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of
their march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they
amused themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled
into a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them fresh
astonishment each time they met in the path. Nor did the rain frighten
them. They came to see each other through the heaviest downpours,
though they got wet to the skin in doing so. Silvère would hasten to
the spot, saying to himself that Miette would never be mad enough to
come; and when Miette arrived, he could not find it in his heart to
scold her. In reality he had been expecting her. At last he sought some
shelter against the inclement weather, knowing quite well that they
would certainly come out, however much they might promise one another
not to do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had to disturb
one of the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of wood and
arranging them so that they would move easily, in such wise that he
could displace and replace them at pleasure.
From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them
closely squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom
of the little cell. Whenever it rained, the first to arrive would take
shelter here; and on finding themselves together again they would
listen with delight to the rain beating on the piles of planks. Before
and around them, through the inky blackness of the night, came a rush
of water which they could not see, but which resounded continuously
like the roar of a mob. They were nevertheless quite alone, as though
they had been at the end of the world or beneath the sea. They never
felt so happy, so isolated, as when they found themselves in that
timber-stack, in the midst of some such deluge which threatened to
carry them away at every moment. Their bent knees almost reached the
opening, and though they thrust themselves back as far as possible, the
spray of the rain bathed their cheeks and hands. The big drops, falling
from the planks, splashed at regular intervals at their feet. The brown
pelisse kept them warm, and the nook was so small that Miette was
compelled to sit almost on Silvère’s knees. And they would chatter and
then lapse into silence, overcome with languor, lulled by the warmth of
their embrace and the monotonous beating of the shower. For hours and
hours they remained there, with that same enjoyment of the rain which
prompts little children to stroll along solemnly in stormy weather with
open umbrellas in their hands. After a while they came to prefer the
rainy evenings, though their parting became more painful on those
occasions. Miette was obliged to climb the wall in the driving rain,
and cross the puddles of the Jas-Meiffren in perfect darkness. As soon
as she had left his arms, she was lost to Silvère amidst the gloom and
the noise of the falling water. In vain he listened, he was deafened,
blinded. However, the anxiety caused by this brusque separation proved
an additional charm, and, until the morrow, each would be uneasy lest
anything should have befallen the other in such weather, when one would
not even have turned a dog out of doors. Perchance one of them had
slipped, or lost the way; such were the mutual fears which possessed
them, and rendered their next interview yet more loving.
At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the
grass in the green alley sprouted up wildly. Amidst the stream of life
flowing from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the
intoxication of the budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes regretted
their winter solitude, the rainy evenings and the freezing nights,
during which they had been so isolated so far from all human sounds. At
present the days did not draw to a close soon enough, and they grew
impatient with the lagging twilights. When the night had fallen
sufficiently for Miette to climb upon the wall without danger of being
seen, and they could at last glide along their dear path, they no
longer found there the solitude congenial to their shy, childish love.
People began to flock to the Aire Saint-Mittre, the urchins of the
Faubourg remained there, romping about the beams, and shouting, till
eleven o’clock at night. It even happened occasionally that one of them
would go and hide behind the piles of timber, and assail Miette and
Silvère with boyish jeers. The fear of being surprised amidst that
general awakening of life as the season gradually grew warmer, tinged
their meetings with anxiety.
Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it
throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the
last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such
oppressive and disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish
the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled
with fever. The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with
difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots,
sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with
strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as though
entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with
half-closed eyes, unable to move a step. All the soft languor from the
skies seemed to penetrate them.
With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this sudden
faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and decided
to ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh frolics.
Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and
then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the open
country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full strength,
like the waves at high tide. And here they no longer felt stifled; they
recovered all their youthfulness, free from the giddy intoxication born
of the tall rank weeds of the Aire Saint-Mittre.
During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock ledge,
every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of trees, a
hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They realized
their dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows of
Sainte-Claire, and Miette ran so well that Silvère had to put his best
foot forward to catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of
magpies’ nests. Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed
trees at Chavanoz, would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and
ascend the highest poplars; while Silvère stood trembling beneath, with
his arms outstretched to catch her should she slip. These frolics so
turned them from thoughts of love that one evening they almost fought
like a couple of lads coming out of school. But there were nooks in the
country side which were not healthful for them. So long as they rambled
on they were continually shouting with laughter, pushing and teasing
one another. They covered miles and miles of ground; sometimes they
went as far as the chain of the Garrigues, following the narrowest
paths and cutting across the fields. The region belonged to them; they
lived there as in a conquered territory, enjoying all that the earth
and the sky could give them. Miette, with a woman’s lack of scruple,
did not hesitate to pluck a bunch of grapes, or a cluster of green
almonds, from the vines and almond-trees whose boughs brushed her as
she passed; and at this Silvère, with his absolute ideas of honesty,
felt vexed, although he did not venture to find fault with the girl,
whose occasional sulking distressed him. “Oh! the bad girl!” thought
he, childishly exaggerating the matter, “she would make a thief of me.”
But Miette would thereupon force his share of the stolen fruit into his
mouth. The artifices he employed, such as holding her round the waist,
avoiding the fruit trees, and making her run after him when they were
near the vines, so as to keep her out of the way of temptation, quickly
exhausted his imagination. At last there was nothing to do but to make
her sit down. And then they again began to experience their former
stifling sensations. The gloomy valley of the Viorne particularly
disturbed them. When weariness brought them to the banks of the
torrent, all their childish gaiety seemed to disappear. A grey shadow
floated under the willows, like the scented crape of a woman’s dress.
The children felt this crape descend warm and balmy from the voluptuous
shoulders of the night, kiss their temples and envelop them with
irresistible languor. In the distance the crickets chirped in the
meadows of Sainte-Claire, and at their feet the ripples of the Viorne
sounded like lovers’ whispers—like the soft cooing of humid lips. The
stars cast a rain of sparkles from the slumbering heavens. And, amidst
the throbbing of the sky, the waters and the darkness, the children
reposing on the grass sought each other’s hands and pressed them.
Silvère, who vaguely understood the danger of these ecstasies, would
sometimes jump up and propose to cross over to one of the islets left
by the low water in the middle of the stream. Both ventured forth, with
bare feet. Miette made light of the pebbles, refusing Silvère’s help,
and it once happened that she sat down in the very middle of the
stream; however, there were only a few inches of water, and she escaped
with nothing worse than a wet petticoat. Then, having reached the
island, they threw themselves on the long neck of sand, their eyes on a
level with the surface of the river whose silvery scales they saw
quivering far away in the clear night. Then Miette would declare that
they were in a boat, that the island was certainly floating; she could
feel it carrying her along. The dizziness caused by the rippling of the
water amused them for a moment, and they lingered there, singing in an
undertone, like boatmen as they strike the water with their oars. At
other times, when the island had a low bank, they sat there as on a bed
of verdure, and let their bare feet dangle in the stream. And then for
hours they chatted together, swinging their legs, and splashing the
water, delighted to set a tempest raging in the peaceful pool whose
freshness cooled their fever.
These footbaths suggested a dangerous idea to Miette. Nothing would
satisfy her but a complete bath. A little above the bridge over the
Viorne there was a very convenient spot, she said, barely three or four
feet deep and quite safe; the weather was so warm, it would be so nice
to have the water up to their necks; besides which, she had been dying
to learn to swim for such a long time, and Silvère would be able to
teach her. Silvère raised objections; it was not prudent at night time;
they might be seen; perhaps, too they might catch cold. However,
nothing could turn Miette from her purpose. One evening she came with a
bathing costume which she had made out of an old dress; and Silvère was
then obliged to go back to aunt Dide’s for his bathing drawers. Their
proceedings were characterised by great simplicity. Miette disrobed
herself beneath the shade of a stout willow; and when both were ready,
enveloped in the blackness which fell from the foliage around them,
they gaily entered the cool water, oblivious of all previous scruples,
and knowing in their innocence no sense of shame. They remained in the
river quite an hour, splashing and throwing water into each other’s
faces; Miette now getting cross, now breaking out into laughter, while
Silvère gave her her first lesson, dipping her head under every now and
again so as to accustom her to the water. As long as he held her up she
threw her arms and legs about violently, thinking she was swimming; but
directly he let her go, she cried and struggled, striking the water
with her outstretched hands, clutching at anything she could get hold
of, the young man’s waist or one of his wrists. She leant against him
for an instant, resting, out of breath and dripping with water; and
then she cried: “Once more; but you do it on purpose, you don’t hold
me.”
At the end of a fortnight, the girl was able to swim. With her limbs
moving freely, rocked by the stream, playing with it, she yielded form
and spirit alike to its soft motion, to the silence of the heavens, and
the dreaminess of the melancholy banks. As she and Silvère swam
noiselessly along, she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken
and hang over them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When the
moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and
phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes. Miette
felt no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she
followed the play of the shadows. As she went onward with slower
motion, the calm water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror,
rippled at her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened
and lost themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging
willow branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke
she perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened
to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were
continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following
her from the summit of the bank. And when she threw herself on her
back, the depths of the heavens affected her still more. From the
fields, from the distant horizon, which she could no longer see, a
solemn lingering strain, composed of all the sighs of the night, was
wafted to her.
She was not of a dreamy nature; it was physically, through the medium
of each of her senses, that she derived enjoyment from the sky, the
river, and the play of light and shadow. The river, in particular, bore
her along with endless caresses. When she swam against the current she
was delighted to feel the stream flow rapidly against her bosom and
limbs. She dipped herself in it yet more deeply, with the water
reaching to her lips, so that it might pass over her shoulders, and
envelop her, from chin to feet, with flying kisses. Then she would
float, languid and quiescent, on the surface, whilst the ripples glided
softly between her costume and her skin. And she would also roll over
in the still pools like a cat on a carpet; and swim from the luminous
patches where the moonbeams were bathing, to the dark water shaded by
the foliage, shivering the while, as though she had quitted a sunny
plain and then felt the cold from the boughs falling on her neck.
She now remained quite silent in the water, and would not allow Silvère
to touch her. Gliding softly by his side, she swam on with the light
rustling of a bird flying across the copse, or else she would circle
round him, a prey to vague disquietude which she did not comprehend. He
himself darted quickly away if he happened to brush against her. The
river was now but a source of enervating intoxication, voluptuous
languor, which disturbed them strangely. When they emerged from their
bath they felt dizzy, weary, and drowsy. Fortunately, the girl declared
one evening that she would bathe no more, as the cold water made the
blood run to her head. And it was in all truth and innocence that she
said this.
Then their long conversations began anew. The dangers to which the
innocence of their love had lately been exposed had left no other trace
in Silvère’s mind than great admiration for Miette’s physical strength.
She had learned to swim in a fortnight, and often, when they raced
together, he had seen her stem the current with a stroke as rapid as
his own. He, who delighted in strength and bodily exercises, felt a
thrill of pleasure at seeing her so strong, so active and adroit. He
entertained at heart a singular admiration for her stout arms. One
evening, after one of the first baths that had left them so playful,
they caught each other round the waist on a strip of sand, and wrestled
for several minutes without Silvère being able to throw Miette. At
last, indeed, it was the young man who lost his balance, while the girl
remained standing. Her sweetheart treated her like a boy, and it was
those long rambles of theirs, those wild races across the meadows,
those birds’ nests filched from the tree crests, those struggles and
violent games of one and another kind that so long shielded them and
their love from all impurity.
Then, too, apart from his youthful admiration for his sweetheart’s
dashing pluck, Silvère felt for her all the compassionate tenderness of
a heart that ever softened towards the unfortunate. He, who could never
see any forsaken creature, a poor man, or a child, walking barefooted
along the dusty roads, without a throb of pity, loved Miette because
nobody else loved her, because she virtually led an outcast’s hard
life. When he saw her smile he was deeply moved by the joy he brought
her. Moreover, the child was a wildling, like himself, and they were of
the same mind in hating all the gossips of the Faubourg. The dreams in
which Silvère indulged in the daytime, while he plied his heavy hammer
round the cartwheels in his master’s shop, were full of generous
enthusiasm. He fancied himself Miette’s redeemer. All his reading
rushed to his head; he meant to marry his sweetheart some day, in order
to raise her in the eyes of the world. It was like a holy mission that
he imposed upon himself, that of redeeming and saving the convict’s
daughter. And his head was so full of certain theories and arguments,
that he did not tell himself these things in simple fashion, but became
lost in perfect social mysticism; imagining rehabilitation in the form
of an apotheosis in which he pictured Miette seated on a throne, at the
end of the Cours Sauvaire, while the whole town prostrated itself
before her, entreating her pardon and singing her praises. Happily he
forgot all these fine things as soon as Miette jumped over the wall,
and said to him on the high road: “Let us have a race! I’m sure you
won’t catch me.”
However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made
her weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the softening
effect which Silvère’s friendship had had upon her, she still at times
gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and
rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and
tightly-drawn lips. She would then contend that her father had done
quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody,
and that one has the right to fire a gun when and where one likes.
Thereupon Silvère, in a grave voice, explained the law to her as he
understood it, with strange commentaries which would have startled the
whole magistracy of Plassans. These discussions took place most often
in some remote corner of the Sainte-Claire meadows. The grassy carpet
of a dusky green hue stretched further than they could see, undotted
even by a single tree, and the sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare
horizon with the stars. It seemed to the young couple as if they were
being rocked on a sea of verdure. Miette argued the point obstinately;
she asked Silvère if her father should have let the gendarme kill him,
and Silvère, after a momentary silence, replied that, in such a case,
it was better to be the victim than the murderer, and that it was a
great misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate
defence. The law was something holy to him, and the judges had done
right in sending Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl grew
angry, and almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as
heartless as the rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of
justice, she finished by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was
doubtless ashamed of her, since he was always reminding her of her
father’s crime. These discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion.
But although the child cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps
wrong, she still retained deep within her a wild resentful temper. She
once related, with hearty laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall
off his horse and break his leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for
Silvère. When he asked her about her uncle and cousin, she replied that
“She did not know;” and if he pressed her, fearing that they were
making her too unhappy at the Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that
she worked hard, and that nothing had changed. She believed, however,
that Justin had at last found out what made her sing in the morning,
and filled her eyes with delight. But she added: “What does it matter?
If ever he comes to disturb us we’ll receive him in such a way that he
won’t be in a hurry to meddle with our affairs any more.”
Now and again the open country, their long rambles in the fresh air,
wearied them somewhat. They then invariably returned to the Aire
Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane, whence they had been driven by the
noisy summer evenings, the pungent scent of the trodden grass, all the
warm oppressive emanations. On certain nights, however, the path proved
cooler, and the winds freshened it so that they could remain there
without feeling faint. They then enjoyed a feeling of delightful
repose. Seated on the tombstone, deaf to the noise of the children and
gipsies, they felt at home again. Silvère had on various occasions
picked up fragments of bones, even pieces of skulls, and they were fond
of speaking of the ancient burial-ground. It seemed to them, in their
lively fancies, that their love had shot up like some vigorous plant in
this nook of soil which dead men’s bones had fertilised. It had grown,
indeed, like those wild weeds, it had blossomed as blossom the poppies
which sway like bare bleeding hearts at the slightest breeze. And they
ended by fancying that the warm breaths passing over them, the
whisperings heard in the gloom, the long quivering which thrilled the
path, came from the dead folk sighing their departed passions in their
faces, telling them the stories of their bridals, as they turned
restlessly in their graves, full of a fierce longing to live and love
again. Those fragments of bone, they felt convinced of it, were full of
affection for them; the shattered skulls grew warm again by contact
with their own youthful fire, the smallest particles surrounded them
with passionate whispering, anxious solicitude, throbbing jealousy. And
when they departed, the old burial-ground seemed to groan. Those weeds,
in which their entangled feet often stumbled on sultry nights, were
fingers, tapered by tomb life, that sprang up from the earth to detain
them and cast them into each other’s arms. That pungent and penetrating
odour exhaled by the broken stems was the fertilising perfume, the
mighty quintessence of life which is slowly elaborated in the grave,
and intoxicates the lovers who wander in the solitude of the paths. The
dead, the old departed dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and
Silvère.
They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not
understand what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in their
innocent love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned cemetery, whose
rich soil teemed with life, and imperiously demanded their union. They
still remained ignorant of the meaning of the buzzing voices which they
heard ringing in their ears, the sudden glow which sent the blood
flying to their faces.
They often questioned each other about the remains which they
discovered. Miette, after a woman’s fashion, was partial to lugubrious
subjects. At each new discovery she launched into endless suppositions.
If the bone were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl a prey to
consumption, or carried off by fever on the eve of her marriage; if the
bone were large, she pictured some big old man, a soldier or a judge,
some one who had inspired others with terror. For a long time the
tombstone particularly engaged their attention. One fine moonlight
night Miette distinguished some half-obliterated letters on one side of
it, and thereupon she made Silvère scrape the moss away with his knife.
Then they read the mutilated inscription: “Here lieth . . . Marie . . .
died . . .” And Miette, finding her own name on the stone, was quite
terror-stricken. Silvère called her a “big baby,” but she could not
restrain her tears. She had received a stab in the heart, she said; she
would soon die, and that stone was meant for her. The young man himself
felt alarmed. However, he succeeded in shaming the child out of these
thoughts. What! she so courageous, to dream about such trifles! They
ended by laughing. Then they avoided speaking of it again. But in
melancholy moments, when the cloudy sky saddened the pathway, Miette
could not help thinking of that dead one, that unknown Marie, whose
tomb had so long facilitated their meetings. The poor girl’s bones were
perhaps still lying there. And at this thought Miette one evening had a
strange whim, and asked Silvère to turn the stone over to see what
might be under it. He refused, as though it were sacrilege, and his
refusal strengthened Miette’s fancies with regard to the dear phantom
which bore her name. She positively insisted that the girl had died
young, as she was, and in the very midst of her love. She even began to
pity the stone, that stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which
they had sat so often, a stone which death had chilled, and which their
love had warmed again.
“You’ll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune,” she added. “If
you were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to
have this stone set over my body.”
At this, Silvère, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of
such mournful things.
And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow
pathway and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling
rains of December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all
touch of impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek
love-tale, all the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows
not. In vain did the long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They
carried nothing away from the old cemetery but emotional melancholy and
a vague presentiment of a short life. A voice seemed to whisper to them
that they would depart amidst their virginal love, long ere the bridal
day would give them wholly to each other. It was there, on the
tombstone and among the bones that lay hidden beneath the rank grass,
that they had first come to indulge in that longing for death, that
eager desire to sleep together in the earth, that now set them
stammering and sighing beside the Orcheres road, on that December
night, while the two bells repeated their mournful warnings to one
another.
Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvère’s chest
while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out
clearly under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but a
stream of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from
the pale horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin
ribbon, disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a
boundless vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that
looked like huge pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was
magnified by the clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold.
However, sharp gusts of wind chilled the young people’s faces. And
thereupon they sprang to their feet, cheered by the sight of the clear
morning. Their melancholy forebodings had vanished with the darkness,
and they gazed with delight at the immense expanse of the plain, and
listened to the tolling of the two bells that now seemed to be joyfully
ringing in a holiday.
“Ah! I’ve had a good sleep!” Miette cried. “I dreamt you were kissing
me. Tell me now, did you kiss me?”
“It’s very possible,” Silvère replied laughing. “I was not very warm.
It is bitterly cold.”
“I only feel cold in the feet,” Miette rejoined.
“Well! let us have a run,” said Silvère. “We have still two good
leagues to go. You will get warm.”
Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high
road. When they were below they raised their heads as if to say
farewell to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned
their lips. But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which
had thrilled them so strongly with vague, unknown desire. Under the
pretext of walking more quickly they did not even take each other’s
arm. They experienced some slight confusion when they looked at one
another, though why they could not tell. Meantime the dawn was rising
around them. The young man, who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by
his master, knew all the shortest cuts. Thus they walked on for more
than two leagues, along dingle paths by the side of interminable ledges
and walls. Now and again Miette accused Silvère of having taken her the
wrong way; for, at times—for a quarter of an hour at a stretch—they
lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above the walls and
hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose slender branches
showed sharply against the pale sky.
All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres. Loud
cries of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid
air. The insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town. Miette
and Silvère went in with the stragglers. Never had they seen such
enthusiasm. To judge from the streets, one would have thought it was a
procession day, when the windows are decked with the finest drapery to
honour the passage of the Canopy. The townsfolk welcomed the insurgents
as though they were deliverers. The men embraced them, while the women
brought them food. Old men were to be seen weeping at the doors. And
the joyousness was of an essentially Southern character, pouring forth
in clamorous fashion, in singing, dancing, and gesticulation. As Miette
passed along she was carried away by a _farandole_[*] which spread
whirling all round the Grand’ Place. Silvère followed her. His thoughts
of death and his discouragement were now far away. He wanted to fight,
to sell his life dearly at least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated
him afresh. He dreamed of victory to be followed by a happy life with
Miette, amidst the peacefulness of the universal Republic.
[*] The _farandole_ is the popular dance of Provence.
The fraternal reception accorded them by the inhabitants of Orcheres
proved to be the insurgents’ last delight. They spent the day amidst
radiant confidence and boundless hope. The prisoners, Commander
Sicardot, Messieurs Garconnet, Peirotte and the others, who had been
shut up in one of the rooms at the mayor’s, the windows of which
overlooked the Grand’ Place, watched the _farandoles_ and wild
outbursts of enthusiasm with surprise and dismay.
“The villains!” muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as
though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a theatre:
“To think that there isn’t a battery or two to make a clean sweep of
all that rabble!”
Then he perceived Miette, and addressing himself to Monsieur Garconnet,
he added: “Do you see, sir, that big girl in red over yonder? How
disgraceful! They’ve even brought their mistresses with them. If this
continues much longer we shall see some fine goings-on.”
Monsieur Garconnet shook his head, saying something about “unbridled
passions,” and “the most evil days of history.” Monsieur Peirotte, as
white as a sheet, remained silent; he only opened his lips once, to say
to Sicardot, who was still bitterly railing: “Not so loud, sir; not so
loud! You will get us all massacred.”
As a matter of fact, the insurgents treated the gentlemen with the
greatest kindness. They even provided them with an excellent dinner in
the evening. Such attentions, however, were terrifying to such a quaker
as the receiver of taxes; the insurgents he thought would not treat
them so well unless they wished to make them fat and tender for the day
when they might wish to devour them.
At dusk that day Silvère came face to face with his cousin, Doctor
Pascal. The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the
workmen who held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven
to dissuade them from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their
arguments, he had said to them with his kindly smile: “Well, perhaps
you are right, my friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch
up your arms and legs.”
Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the
high road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist’s hammer
and botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones
that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered
forth from the surgeon’s case which he carried under his arm.
“Hallo! You here, my lad?” he cried, as he perceived Silvère. “I
thought I was the only member of the family here.”
He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the
intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvère was very glad to
meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who ever
shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere
friendship. Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the
march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause,
and was much delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful
magniloquence, of the people’s rights, their holy cause, and their
certain triumph. Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth’s
gestures and the ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though
he were studying a patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain
what might be at the bottom of it.
“How you run on! How you run on!” he finally exclaimed. “Ah! you are
your grandmother’s true grandson.” And, in a whisper, he added, like
some chemist taking notes: “Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness or
sublime madness. It’s always those terrible nerves!” Then, again
speaking aloud, as if summing up the matter, he said: “The family is
complete now. It will count a hero among its members.”
Silvère did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic.
Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large
red pelisse. She and Silvère had traversed the town arm-in-arm. The
sight of this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again
interrupting his cousin, he asked him: “Who is this child with you?”
“She is my wife,” Silvère gravely answered.
The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was very
shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went away.
The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over
the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening
seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy
faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence.
Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders
had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though
nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of that
invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic.
According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had
offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that
a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command of
Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the department,
was advancing by forced marches to disperse the insurrectionary bands.
This news came like a thunderbolt, at once awakening rage and despair.
These men, who on the previous evening had been all aglow with
patriotic fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to their hearts by the
shameful submissiveness of prostrate France. They alone, then, had had
the courage to do their duty! And now they were to be left to perish
amidst the general panic, the death-like silence of the country; they
had become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild beasts;
they, who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt, and
of the glorious conquest of the people’s rights! Miserably baffled and
betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and
their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting
France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the
roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the
troops, and show how Republicans could die.
Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them,
there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against
their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes
had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or
discipline, barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command
of irresolute men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers
that might arrive.
They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus
losing time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with
the sabre, whom Silvère had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road,
vacillated and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed
upon him. On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of
Orcheres was a decidedly dangerous one; so towards one o’clock he gave
orders to march, and led his little army to the heights of
Sainte-Roure. That was, indeed, an impregnable position for any one who
knew how to defend it. The houses of Sainte-Roure rise in tiers along a
hill-side; behind the town all approach is shut off by enormous rocks,
so that this kind of citadel can only be reached by the Nores plain,
which spreads out at the foot of the plateau. An esplanade, converted
into a public walk planted with magnificent elms, overlooks the plain.
It was on this esplanade that the insurgents encamped. The hostages
were imprisoned in the Hôtel de la Mule-Blanche, standing half-way
along the promenade. The night passed away heavy and black. The
insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon as it was morning, however, the
man with the sabre, who had neglected to take the simplest precautions,
reviewed the troops. The contingents were drawn up in line with their
backs turned to the plain. They presented a wonderful medley of
costume, some wearing brown jackets, others dark greatcoats, and others
again blue blouses girded with red sashes. Moreover, their arms were an
equally odd collection: there were newly sharpened scythes, large
navvies’ spades, and fowling-pieces with burnished barrels glittering
in the sunshine. And at the very moment when the improvised general was
riding past the little army, a sentry, who had been forgotten in an
olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating and shouting:
“The soldiers! The soldiers!”
There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false
alarm. Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of the
esplanade in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and as
the dark line of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a long
glitter of bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of olive
trees, there came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a quiver
of panic to the other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the contingents
of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in line in the
middle of the promenade, and stood there erect and fierce. A
wood-cutter, who was a head taller than any of his companions, shouted,
as he waved his red neckerchief: “To arms, Chavanoz, Graille, Poujols,
Saint-Eutrope! To arms, Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!”
Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre,
surrounded by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of
the country contingents—Vernoux, Corbière, Marsanne, and Pruinas—to
outflank the enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from
Valqueyras, Nazere, Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran,
dashed to the left, scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over
the Nores plain.
And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the wood-cutter had
called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming a
dark irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of
strategy, simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way
or die. The men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic
battalion. Amid the grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the
bluish glitter of the weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was
holding the banner with both hands, looked like a large red splotch—a
fresh and bleeding wound.
All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte’s pale face
appeared at a window of the Hôtel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to
speak, gesticulating with his hands.
“Go in, close the shutters,” the insurgents furiously shouted; “you’ll
get yourself killed.”
Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save
the regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.
A minute, that seemed an age, went by. The troops had disappeared,
hidden by an undulation of the ground; but over yonder, on the side of
the Nores plain, the insurgents soon perceived the bayonets shooting
up, one after another, like a field of steel-eared corn under the
rising sun. At that moment Silvère, who was glowing with feverish
agitation, fancied he could see the gendarme whose blood had stained
his hands. He knew, from the accounts of his companions, that Rengade
was not dead, that he had only lost an eye; and he clearly
distinguished the unlucky man with his empty socket bleeding horribly.
The keen recollection of this gendarme, to whom he had not given a
thought since his departure from Plassans, proved unbearable. He was
afraid that fear might get the better of him, and he tightened his hold
on his carbine, while a mist gathered before his eyes. He felt a
longing to discharge his gun and fire at the phantom of that one-eyed
man so as to drive it away. Meantime the bayonets were still and ever
slowly ascending.
When the heads of the soldiers appeared on a level with the esplanade,
Silvère instinctively turned to Miette. She stood there with flushed
face, looking taller than ever amidst the folds of the red banner; she
was indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous
expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to
show her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvère smiled at her. But he
had scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers,
who could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired
their first volley. It seemed to Silvère as though a great gust of wind
was passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the
bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead
branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the ground, he saw
the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others. There
was a little black hole in the middle of his forehead. And thereupon
Silvère fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and
fired again like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to
kill. He could not even distinguish the soldiers now; smoke, resembling
strips of grey muslin, was floating under the elms. The leaves still
rained upon the insurgents, for the troops were firing too high. Every
now and then, athwart the fierce crackling of the fusillade, the young
man heard a sigh or a low rattle, and a rush was made among the band as
if to make room for some poor wretch clutching hold of his neighbours
as he fell. The firing lasted ten minutes.
Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror:
“Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_” This roused shouts and
murmurs of rage, as if to say, “The cowards! Oh! the cowards!” sinister
rumours were spreading—the general had fled; cavalry were sabring the
skirmishers in the Nores plain. However, the irregular firing did not
cease, every now and again sudden bursts of flame sped through the
clouds of smoke. A gruff voice, the voice of terror, shouted yet
louder: “Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_” Some men took to
flight, throwing down their weapons and leaping over the dead. The
others closed their ranks. At last there were only some ten insurgents
left. Two more took to flight, and of the remaining eight three were
killed at one discharge.
The two children had remained there mechanically without understanding
anything. As the battalion diminished in numbers, Miette raised the
banner still higher in the air; she held it in front of her with
clenched fists as if it were a huge taper. It was completely riddled by
bullets. When Silvère had no more cartridges left in his pocket, he
ceased firing, and gazed at the carbine with an air of stupor. It was
then that a shadow passed over his face, as though the flapping wings
of some colossal bird had brushed against his forehead. And raising his
eyes he saw the banner fall from Miette’s grasp. The child, her hands
clasped to her breast, her head thrown back with an expression of
excruciating suffering, was staggering to the ground. She did not utter
a single cry, but sank at last upon the red banner.
“Get up; come quickly,” Silvère said, in despair, as he held out his
hand to her.
But she lay upon the ground without uttering a word, her eyes wide
open. Then he understood, and fell on his knees beside her.
“You are wounded, eh? tell me? Where are you wounded?”
She still spoke no word; she was stifling, and gazing at him out of her
large eyes, while short quivers shook her frame. Then he pulled away
her hands.
“It’s there, isn’t it? it’s there.”
And he tore open her bodice, and laid her bosom bare. He searched, but
saw nothing. His eyes were brimming with tears. At last under the left
breast he perceived a small pink hole; a single drop of blood stained
the wound.
“It’s nothing,” he whispered; “I’ll go and find Pascal, he’ll put you
all right again. If you could only get up. Can’t you move?”
The soldiers were not firing now; they had dashed to the left in
pursuit of the contingents led away by the man with the sabre. And in
the centre of the esplanade there only remained Silvère kneeling beside
Miette’s body. With the stubbornness of despair, he had taken her in
his arms. He wanted to set her on her feet, but such a quiver of pain
came upon the girl that he laid her down again, and said to her
entreatingly: “Speak to me, pray. Why don’t you say something to me?”
She could not; she slowly, gently shook her hand, as if to say that it
was not her fault. Her close-pressed lips were already contracting
beneath the touch of death. With her unbound hair streaming around her,
and her head resting amid the folds of the blood-red banner, all her
life now centred in her eyes, those black eyes glittering in her white
face. Silvère sobbed. The glance of those big sorrowful eyes filled him
with distress. He read in them bitter, immense regret for life. Miette
was telling him that she was going away all alone, and before their
bridal day; that she was leaving him ere she had become his wife. She
was telling him, too, that it was he who had willed that it should be
so, that he should have loved her as other lovers love their
sweethearts. In the hour of her agony, amidst that stern conflict
between death and her vigorous nature, she bewailed her fate in going
like that to the grave. Silvère, as he bent over her, understood how
bitter was the pang. He recalled their caresses, how she had hung round
his neck, and had yearned for his love, but he had not understood, and
now she was departing from him for evermore. Bitterly grieved at the
thought that throughout her eternal rest she would remember him solely
as a companion and playfellow, he kissed her on the bosom while his hot
tears fell upon her lips. Those passionate kisses brought a last gleam
of joy to Miette’s eyes. They loved one another, and their idyll ended
in death.
But Silvère could not believe she was dying. “No, you will see, it will
prove only a trifle,” he declared. “Don’t speak if it hurts you. Wait,
I will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite frozen.”
But the fusillade had begun afresh, this time on the left, in the olive
plantations. A dull sound of galloping cavalry rose from the plain. At
times there were loud cries, as of men being slaughtered. And thick
clouds of smoke were wafted along and hung about the elms on the
esplanade. Silvère for his part no longer heard or saw anything.
Pascal, who came running down in the direction of the plain, saw him
stretched upon the ground, and hastened towards him, thinking he was
wounded. As soon as the young man saw him, he clutched hold of him and
pointed to Miette.
“Look,” he said, “she’s wounded, there, under the breast. Ah! how good
of you to come! You will save her.”
At that moment, however, a slight convulsion shook the dying girl. A
pain-fraught shadow passed over her face, and as her contracted lips
suddenly parted, a faint sigh escaped from them. Her eyes, still wide
open, gazed fixedly at the young man.
Then Pascal, who had stooped down, rose again, saying in a low voice:
“She is dead.”
Dead! Silvère reeled at the sound of the word. He had been kneeling
forward, but now he sank back, as though thrown down by Miette’s last
faint sigh.
“Dead! Dead!” he repeated; “it is not true, she is looking at me. See
how she is looking at me!”
Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his
kindly voice: “I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let
go, my poor child; she is quite dead.”
At last Silvère released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead!
Still that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he
was alone he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be
looking at him. He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her
bosom, and watered it with his tears. He was beside himself with grief.
He pressed his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion,
all his soul, in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it might
bring her to life again. But the girl was turning cold in spite of his
caresses. He felt her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch. Then he
was seized with terror, and with haggard face and listless hanging arms
he remained crouching in a state of stupor, and repeating: “She is
dead, yet she is looking at me; she does not close her eyes, she sees
me still.”
This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death,
he still seemed to read the girl’s lament for her sad fate.
In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
clear air. Silvère was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did not
even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart’s carbine
which Silvère had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging
over aunt Dide’s chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it
from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hôtel de la
Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken,
when a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of
cattle, once more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre had
fled; it was the last contingents from the country who were being
exterminated. There was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel Masson
and the prefect, Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a
retreat. The infuriated soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and
pinning isolated fugitives to the walls with their bayonets. When they
had no more enemies before them, they riddled the façade of the
Mule-Blanche with bullets. The shutters flew into splinters; one window
which had been left half-open was torn out, and there was a loud rattle
of broken glass. Pitiful voices were crying out from within; “The
prisoners! The prisoners!” But the troops did not hear; they continued
firing. All at once Commander Sicardot, growing exasperated, appeared
at the door, waved his arms, and endeavoured to speak. Monsieur
Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his slim figure and scared face,
stood by his side. However, another volley was fired, and Monsieur
Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud, to the ground.
Silvère and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvère had
remained by the corpse, through all the fusillade and the howls of
agony, without even turning his head. He was only conscious of the
presence of some men around him, and, from a feeling of modesty, he
drew the red banner over Miette’s breast. Then their eyes still
continued to gaze at one another.
The conflict, however, was at an end. The death of the receiver of
taxes had satiated the soldiers. Some of these ran about, scouring
every corner of the esplanade, to prevent the escape of a single
insurgent. A gendarme who perceived Silvère under the trees, ran up to
him, and seeing that it was a lad he had to deal with, called: “What
are you doing there, youngster?”
Silvère, whose eyes were still fixed on those of Miette, made no reply.
“Ah! the bandit, his hands are black with powder,” the gendarme
exclaimed, as he stooped down. “Come, get up, you scoundrel! You know
what you’ve got to expect.”
Then, as Silvère only smiled vaguely and did not move, the other looked
more attentively, and saw that the corpse swathed in the banner was
that of a girl.
“A fine girl; what a pity!” he muttered. “Your mistress, eh? you
rascal!”
Then he made a violent grab at Silvère, and setting him on his feet led
him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvère submitted in
silence, as quietly as a child. He just turned round to give another
glance at Miette. He felt distressed at thus leaving her alone under
the trees. For the last time he looked at her from afar. She was still
lying there in all her purity, wrapped in the red banner, her head
slightly raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.