LIV
There were not lacking signs by the wayside, as Dunoisse was whirled along the iron road to Paris, of the bloody drama that had begun upon the previous morning, and was being played to the bitter end.
Troops and bodies of police lined the platforms of the railway-stations. Pale faces, downcast looks, and mourning attire distinguished those members of the public whom business or necessity compelled to travel at this perilous time. Glimpses of towns or villages, seen as the train rushed over bridges or in and out of stations, showed closed shops and jealously shut-up houses, many of them with bullet-pocked walls and shattered windows; more police and soldiers patroling the otherwise deserted thoroughfare; and agents in blouses, with rolls of paper, ladders, brushes, and paste-pots, posting the proclamations of Monseigneur upon walls, or trees, or hoardings, or wherever these had not already broken out like pale leprous sores. And upon many country roads significant-looking black vans, surrounded by Dragoons or Municipal Guards, and drawn by muddy, sweat-drenched post-horses, traveled at high speed, followed by open laudaus containing lounging, cigar-smoking Commissaries of Police. And in the roaring, cinder-flavored blackness of tunnels, or in the cold glare of chalky, open cuttings, huge locomotives would flash and thunder past, whirling yet other prison-vans, placed upon trucks, guarded by soldiers or mobilized gendarmerie, andpacked with Representatives, Judges, Editors, Chiefs of secret societies, public leaders, and popular orators, to destinations unknown. And as the dusk day-brow sank over the red wintry sunset, the roll of musketry and the thunder of cannon, answered by the dropping, irregular fire from seventy-and-seven barricades, betokened that the train was nearing Paris; and then—the flaring gaslights of the Northern Station were reflected in the polished surfaces of steel or brazen helmets and gleaming blades of sabers; and winked and twinkled from shako-badges and musket-barrels, and the thirsty points of bayonets that had drunk the life-blood of harmless women, and innocent children, and decent, law-abiding men.
Paris had never seemed to Dunoisse so crowded and so empty as when, on foot—for no public conveyance was obtainable—he returned to his rooms in the Rue du Bac. Entire regiments of cavalry, riding at a foot’s pace in close column, flowed in slow, resistless rivers of flesh and steel, along the boulevards. And brigades, with their batteries of artillery, were drawn up in the great squares and public places, waiting the signal to roll down and overwhelm any organized attempt at resistance, under cataclysms of disciplined force.
No street but had its silent menace of cannon posted at the mouth of it, waiting, in case Liberty and Equality should lift their heads up from the blood-smeared asphalte, to decapitate them with a discharge of grape. But no head was lifted, and no Red Flag was raised; the iron heel of the Friend of Labor and the Lover of Humanity bore with such paralyzing, crushing weight upon the necks of men.
Save for curt words of command, the jingling of bridles, and the snorting of wearied horses, the silence in this city of shot-riddled walls and splintered windows was like a heavy hand upon the public mouth. Street-lamps were few—nearly all had been shattered by bullets—but when dusk had given place to darkness, the immense bivouac-fires of the troops reddened the lowering sky, and Paris might have been Tophet, she so reeked of smoke and furnace-heat. And by that lurid glare in the heavens dark, furtive shapes might have been seen hurrying by in the shadow of walls and hoardings, that were spies of the police, or agents of the National Printing-Office, chargedwith the posting of yet more proclamations; or Revolutionists speeding to join their comrades on the barricades, and share with them the last crust, and the few remaining cartridges, before drinking with them of the strong black wine that brims the cup of Death. Or they were men and women crazed with anxiety, or frantic with grief; dragging by the hand pale, frightened children, as they went to search for missing friends or relatives at that universal Lost Property Office, the Cemetery of Montmartre; crying with that dumb voice of anguish that echoes in the chambers of the desolate heart, and which the most stringent decrees of Monseigneur were powerless to silence.
“Oh, my father!... Oh, my mother!... Alas! my husband! lover! sister! brother! friend!... Am I despairing—searching by the flickering light of the tallow candle in the broken lantern, or the uncertain match-flare, amongst all these ghastly unburied heads of staring corpses, starting like monstrous fungi from the trodden, bloody soil of this consecrated place of murder—to find the face beloved?...”
More corpses, and yet more, were being made, to the echoing roll of the drums in the Champ de Mars, and piled in carts under the scared eye of the pale, sickened moon, and rattled away to Golgotha.
Turning the corner of one of the narrower thoroughfares, where a single unbroken oil-lamp made a little island of yellow light upon the murkiness, Dunoisse came upon two persons who were, for a wonder, conversing so earnestly that neither paid attention to the light, quick, even footstep drawing near. Said one of the couple, a bloused, shaggy-headed man of the artisan type, whose lantern-jawed, sallow face was lighted from below with rather demoniacal effect, by the flare of the match he had struck and sheltered between his hollowed hands, for the kindling of his short, blackened pipe:
“They made no resistance—they were butchered like sheep.... That was at midday, on the boulevard opposite the Café Vachette. Before dark, when I passed that way, the bodies were lying piled up anyhow.... The blood still smoked as it ran down the kennels—my shoes were wet with it, and the bottoms of my trousers. See for yourself the state they are in!”
He held up a foot, supporting himself with a hand against the wall behind him. His companion, a shorter, stouter figure, whose back was towards Dunoisse, stooped to look, and said in an astonished tone, as he straightened himself again:
“There seems no end to the killing, sacred name of a pig! One wonders how many they have polished off?”
The first man rejoined:
“No newspaper estimates will be published. Nor will there be any official list of killed, you may depend upon that!”
The shorter man put in, jerking his thumb towards the dusky sky that was smeared in long streaks with the red reflections of the bivouac-fires:
“Unless He up there has kept one!...”
The first man said, throwing down his burnt-out match-end on the muddy pavement:
“Fool! Do you still believe in Him when this Napoleon says He is a friend of his—when the cemeteries are stuffed with corpses, and the beds in the hospitals ofSt.Louis and of the Val de Grace are full of wounded men and women?” He added: “General Magnan went there in full fig with all his staff to visit them to-day.... It is like the public executioner calling to know how the guillotined are feeling without their heads!...”
The stout man cackled at this; and Dunoisse, perhaps for the sake of lingering a little in the neighborhood of one who found it possible to be merry under the circumstances, paused, and drew out his cigar-case, and said, addressing himself to the mechanic with the pipe:
“Monsieur, have the goodness to oblige me with a light!”
The haggard workman answered, tossing him a grimy matchbox:
“Here, take the last! If it does not strike, yourcoup d’Étatis a failure—you must turn out of the Élysée.”
The reckless daring of the speaker, in combination with the alcohol-taint upon his reeking breath, proved him to be drunk. His sober companion, glancing over his shoulder, and mentally pronouncing Dunoisse to be no spy or police-agent, said, as he looked back at his companion:
“They kept up the ball at the palace last night with a vengeance!... Champagne flowed in rivers; I had it from François.”
The sallow, taller man laughed in an ugly way, and said, spitting on the pavement:
“And women were to be had for the asking. Such women!...”
Envy and scorn were strangely mingled in his tone as he said, again spitting:
“Such women! Not only stunners like Kate Harvey and that red-haired, blue-eyed wench they call Cora Pearl, that drives the team of mouse-gray ponies in the Bois, and curses and swears like a trooper; but real aristocrats, like the Marquise de Baillay and Madame de Kars, playing the prostitute for political ends—you twig? There was one whose name I do not know—an ivory-skinned creature, with ropes of black hair and eyes like emeralds.... She was half-naked and covered with jewels.... The Secretary-Chancellor of the Ministry of the Interior received a warning—that was at four o’clock in the morning, when they were still supping.... Word came to him that the Ministry was to be seized ... he rose from the table, saying that his place was in the office of his Department.... And she put her arms round him before them all.... She kissed him full upon the mouth, and said ‘Stay!!”
“And he stayed?” asked the stout man eagerly.
“By my faith, my friend!” rejoined the tall man, “he did as you or I should have done in his place, you may be sure!”
The echo of the speaker’s ugly laugh was in Dunoisse’s ears as he passed on, and the image of the black-haired, cream-skinned woman whose kiss had stifled the voice of conscience upon the lips of the Government official rose up in resistless witchery before his mental vision; and would not be banished or exorcised by any means he knew....
So like!—so like!... Thus would Henriette have tempted and triumphed, provided that Hector Dunoisse had not been absolute master of her heart, and supposing that to tempt and triumph had been to serve that idol of hers, the Empire.... He drove away the thought, but it returned, bringing yet another bat-winged, taunting demon, who reminded him in a shrill, thin, piercing whisper that de Moulny was Secretary-Chancellor of the Ministry of the Interior....
To suspect ... oh, base! Did not Dunoisse know—had not Madame de Roux assured him over and over that intercourse between herself and Alain was limited to the merest, slightest civilities that may be exchanged between acquaintances? Had she not pledged her word—had she not kept her vow? Anger, and shame, and horror at his own disloyalty burned in Dunoisse like some corrosive poison; killing the wholesome appetite for food, banishing weariness and the desire for rest. And thus, reaching his rooms in the Rue du Bac, and dismissing to bed the sleepy valet who had waited up for him, Dunoisse bathed and changed, and instead of lying down, went out, haggard, and hot-eyed, and headachy, into the soldier-ridden streets again, in the clear, pale, frosty sunshine of the December morning; barely feeling the slippery asphalte pavement underneath his feet; hardly cognizant of faces and shapes that passed him; answering mechanically when challenged by sentries or stopped by patrols, and hastening on again, driven—though he would have died rather than own it—by the demon that had been conjured up by the tall, grimy, sneering workman who had chatted with his mate on the previous night, at the street-corner....
His destination was the Rue de Sèvres, for Madame de Roux still retained her apartments in the outer buildings of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where cloistered Princesses once gave instruction in housekeeping, deportment, and diplomacy to the daughters of the noblest families of France, and stars of the Comédie Française drilled the youthful performers in the dramas of “Esther” and the ballets of “Orpheus and Eurydice.”
The Abbaye has nearly all been swept away; the last wheelbarrowful of rubbish has been carted from the cat-haunted desert where once the stately chapel stood: they have built upon the lovely gardens where Marie de Rochechouart, beautiful, pure, and saintly, once walked with Hélène Massalska clinging to her arm. But at this date the gardens, though sadly curtailed, were still beautiful.... Nowhere in all Paris were such chestnuts and acacias, such lilacs, and laburnums, and hawthorns to be found. The branches of the loftier trees—leafless, and bare, and wintry now—seemed to Dunoisse to nod and beckon pleasantly over the high iron-spiked walls and great grilledgates that shut in the stately pile of ancient masonry.
And with the sight of these familiar things his mood changed.... His demon quitted him,—he knew infinite relief of mind when the portress, a buxom peasant of Auvergne, roused from her morning slumbers by the Colonel’s ring at the gate-bell, at length made her appearance; apologizing with volubility for her nightcap; for the red woolen shawl and short, striped petticoat, bundled on over a lengthier garment of dubious whiteness; and the stout, bare feet thrust into the baggy list slippers that completed her disarray.... And Dunoisse greeted her pleasantly, responding in gallant vein to her profuse excuses, failing to notice the sharp glances with which she scanned him; unobservant of the avid curiosity that her verbosity would have concealed, while his wearied eyes drank in the scene about him; the blackbird, and thrush, and robin-haunted shrubberies of frosted laurels, and myrtles, and veronicas glimpsed through the arched carriage-way, piercing the more modern right wing of the ancient building: the beds starring the rimy grass-plat in the center of the great courtyard, gay with such flowers as the rigorous season admitted: clumps of mauve, and pink-and-white Japanese anemones; hardy red chrysanthemums; frost-nipped bachelor’s buttons; and even a pinched, belated dahlia here and there....
Here at least no grisly shadow of the Élysée brooded, or it seemed so to Dunoisse. Into this quiet haven the blue official documents, the brass-bound shakos, and clanking swords of Military Authority had not intruded, bringing disorder, confusion, and terror in their train.... Lead, and Steel, and Fire—that trio of malignant forces—obedient to the potent nod of Monseigneur, had swept past the Abbaye, without pausing to exact their toll of human life. And the robin’s breast, burning like a crimson star amidst the rich dark foliage of a yew-tree, the short, sweet, sudden song of the bird seemed to answer, “Happily, yes!” And the wintry yellow sunshine drew a pleasant smell from the chilled blossoms, and the wood-smoke of the portress’s crackling, newly-lighted fire came fragrantly to the nostrils of the returned traveler, as he passed under the portico of the stately block of building where were the apartments rented by Madame de Roux, and rang the ground-floor bell.
The thought of seeing Henriette again absorbed anddominated him completely. And yet, even to his slight passing observation, the servant who answered the door seemed flustered and embarrassed. The man opened his mouth to speak, shut it hurriedly, and awkwardly drew back to let the Colonel pass in. But a moment later, as Dunoisse’s eager footsteps were hurrying in the direction of the gray boudoir, he arrested them by saying:
“Pardon, Monsieur the Colonel! but Madame is not at home!...”
“Indeed? Madame went out early?”
Thus interrogated, the man showed confusion. He explained, after some floundering, that Madame had gone out, and had not yet returned.
“Not yet returned?...” Dunoisse repeated.
It seemed to him that the servant must be absurdly mistaken; for in the inner breast-pocket of his coat, just above his heart, nestled a little note, penned in violet ink, in Henriette’s clear, delicate, characteristic handwriting. It had lain upon the vestibule-table in the Rue du Bac. He had read it and kissed it, and known assuagement of his burning torture for ten minutes, ere the twin-demons of jealousy and suspicion had swooped down on him again. It said, under the date of the day of his departure from Paris:
“Dearest,“Take care of yourself upon that horrible railroad. I have been miserable all day, thinking about you. It is now six o’clock. My head aches. I am denied to all visitors—I have refused all invitations. I am going to dine early and betake myself to bed.—Another day—one more night of loneliness, and then—may my Hector’s guardian spirit guide him back in safety to his fond’Riette.”
“Dearest,
“Take care of yourself upon that horrible railroad. I have been miserable all day, thinking about you. It is now six o’clock. My head aches. I am denied to all visitors—I have refused all invitations. I am going to dine early and betake myself to bed.—Another day—one more night of loneliness, and then—may my Hector’s guardian spirit guide him back in safety to his fond
’Riette.”