But she gazes beyond the salon, back into the big dining hall, where
the white crèpe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has circled. It
has struck Ma'ame Pélagie full on the breast. She does not know it.
She is beyond there in the dining hall, where her father sits with a
group of friends over their wine. As usual they are talking politics.
How tiresome! She has heard them say "la guerre" oftener than once. La
guerre. Bah! She and Félix have something pleasanter to talk about, out
under the oaks, or back in the shadow of the oleanders.
But they were right! The sound of a cannon, shot at Sumter, has rolled
across the' Southern States, and its echo is heard along the whole
stretch of Côte Joyeuse.
Yet Pélagie does not believe it. Not till La Ricaneuse stands before
her with bare, black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile abuse and
of brazen impudence. Pélagie wants to kill her. But yet she will not
believe. Not till Félix comes to her in the chamber above the dining
hall--there where that trumpet vine hangs--comes to say good-by to
her. The hurt which the big brass buttons of his new gray uniform
pressed into the tender flesh of her bosom has never left it. She sits
upon the sofa, and he beside her, both speechless with pain. That room
would not have been altered. Even the sofa would have been there in the
same spot, and Ma'ame Pélagie had meant all along, for thirty years,
all along, to lie there upon it some day when the time came to die.
But there is no time to weep, with the enemy at the door. The door has
been no barrier. They are clattering through the halls now, drinking
the wines, shattering the crystal and glass, slashing the portraits.
One of them stands before her and tells her to leave the house. She
slaps his face. How the stigma stands out red as blood upon his
blanched cheek!
Now there is a roar of fire and the flames are bearing down upon her
motionless figure. She wants to show them how a daughter of Louisiana
can perish before her conquerors. But little Pauline clings to her
knees in an agony of terror. Little Pauline must be saved.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal à Pauline."