Two days after a cab with a musket barrel protruding from either
window stopped before the bookbinder's shop. The two National
Guards who stumbled out of it demanded to see the citizen Jean
Servien, handed him a sealed packet and signed to him to open
the door wide and wait for them. Next minute they reappeared
carrying a full-length portrait.
It represented a woman of forty or thereabouts, with a yellow
face, very long and disproportionately large for the frail, sickly
body it surmounted, and dressed in an unpretending black gown.
She wore a sad, submissive look. Her grey eyes bespoke a contrite
and fearful heart, the cheeks were pendulous and the loose chin
almost touched the bosom. Jean scrutinized the poor, pitiful
face, but could recall no memory in connection with it. He opened
the letter and read:
"_Commune of Paris--General Staff_.
"Order to deliver to the citizen Jean Servien
the portrait of Madame Bargemont.
"Tudesco.
"Colonel commanding the Subterranean
Ways of the Commune."
Jean wanted to ask the National Guards what it all meant, but
already the cab was driving off, bayonets protruding from both
windows. The passers-by, who had long ceased to be surprised at
anything, cast a momentary glance after the retreating vehicle.
Jean, left alone with Madame Bargemont's portrait before him,
began to ask himself why his disconcerting friend Tudesco had
sent it to him.
"The wretch," he told himself, "must have arrested Bargemont and
sacked his apartments."
Meantime Madame Bargemont was gazing at him with a martyr's haunting
eyes. She looked so unhappy that Jean was filled with pity.
"Poor woman!" he ejaculated, and turning the canvas face to the
wall, he left the house.
Presently the bookbinder returned to his work and, though anything
but an inquisitive man, was tempted to look at this big picture
that blocked up his shop. He scratched his head, wondering if
this could be the actress his son was in love with. He opined she
must be mightily taken with the young man to send him so large
a portrait in so handsome a frame. He could not see anything to
capture a lover's fancy.
"At any rate," he thought, "she does not look like a bad woman."