IV
BREWINGS OF THE STORM
When Barabant had groped his way up the tortuous ascent, he wassurprised to find his door open, sending a feeble glow over theremainder of his journey. He crossed the threshold on tiptoe, and, tohis amazement, beheld a man, in the uniform of the National Guard,stretched out upon his bed, and two lank legs that, over-lapping, wereperched on the footboards. He came forward, advanced another step, andrecognized Dossonville.
Barabant, believing him to be shamming, went softly to the farthercorner and installed himself to wait. But the steady, tranquilbreathing of the sleeper soon convinced him. With a sudden inspiration,he stole to the threshold, grasping the handle of the door. The nextmoment there thundered upon the slumberer the cry:
"Arrest him! The aristocrat!"
As though propelled from a catapult, the lank form in one bound shotover the end of the bed, threw two chairs in front of him as arampart, snatched out his sword, and beheld, in this bellicose posture,no horrid band of Jacobins, but the lithe figure of Barabant, laughingsilently, with folded arms.
"Tonnerre de Dieu! Why did you do that?"
Dossonville returned the sword to the scabbard, pushed aside therampart, and extended his hand, saying, "I was asleep; serves me right;but you have a rude manner of jesting."
"I did not suspect your conscience was so uneasy," Barabant said,retaining the quizzical smile.
"Oho!"
With his lips in this startled oval, Dossonville halted. His eyescontracted into slits as he said dryly, "So that was a ruse."
"If you like."
"Hello! it was well conceived. Tiens, tiens, tiens!" His eyes continuedtheir scrutiny. "I have, perhaps, not done justice to your acumen. Mycompliments and my excuses."
He swung his bonnet in a long, awkward, trailing swoop across his feet.Barabant executed a bow of equal assurance.
Dossonville returned to uprightness with a snap of his heels, and acertain asperity rang in the next question.
"And why did you deem the experiment necessary?"
"Before intrusting my safety I prefer to reassure myself."
"You saw that at the cry of 'aristocrats' I sprang to my guard."
"I said 'the aristocrat.'"
"I understood, 'Arrest him, aristocrats!'"
The two men, Dossonville cool, Barabant amused, measured looks, until,dismissing the subject with a motion of his arm, Dossonville seatedhimself.
"Well, what do they say of me?"
Barabant, who did not intend to surrender his vantage, straddled hischair, rested his arms on the back, and, looking him magisterially incountenance, answered:
"Citoyen Dossonville, you seem to be a mystery. No one knows where toplace you. You consort with patriots and traitors alike."
Dossonville, facing this accusation, appeared to reflect a moment.
"That's true. I do not hide it--from patriots." His voice gave ameaning inflection to the ending; then he added, irritably: "There aremore ways than one of serving the nation. I repeat, leave me mine." Hebroke off. "Have you written anything? Give it to me."
Barabant extended the precious manuscript. He took it, but beforespreading it upon his knee, he said: "After all, you are right. I havea way to convince you. You shall see. But first for this."
He began to read, with approval. "Good--good"; "very good"; "excellent."
At the end he brought his hand down upon his knee with a slap."Tonnerre de Dieu, that is well put!"
Barabant, who was soaring in the seventh heaven, made a superhumaneffort and forced back a smile. Dossonville, much amused, tapped him onthe shoulder.
"Come, it is not a crime to be pleased with one's self."
"You think it will do?" Barabant stammered.
"Splendid! And now to convince this suspicious republican." He eyed hima moment, enjoying the surprise his next words would cause. "Supposeyou return with me to Santerre."
Barabant, astounded at this acquaintance with his doings, dropped hisjaw.
"So, do you think I would employ you without some knowledge of youractions?" He enjoyed for a moment Barabant's embarrassment. "Come,and Santerre shall reassure you." At the door he paused, cast arapid glance at the impoverished fittings, and drew out his purse."Republican or not, the essential thing is to dine." Then evading theyoung fellow's thanks, he led the way into the city.
It was now toward twilight. The streets were choked with laborersreturning home. In the air was an unwonted stir, a muttering, defiantand eager, as the crowd discussed openly, with impassioned questions,the prospective attack on the Tuileries.
"It is for to-night, sure?"
"For to-night, yes, at the tocsin."
"It's true, is it, the National Guards are coming over?"
"They've armed the Marseillais."
"Who?"
"Petion."
"Vive Petion!"
Hundreds of National Guards fraternized with the crowd, reassuringthem. Occasionally was to be seen the glimmer of a weapon, a scythe, acutlass, or a half-concealed dagger. Questioners stopped them from timeto time.
"Is it true, we are to attack to-night?"
Dossonville shrugged his shoulders.
"If the tocsin sounds you are. That is all I know."
From time to time there were new accessions in the streets; until, asthe two approached the Rue St. Antoine, they were forced to beg theirway at every step.
Dossonville, his head flung back, reviewed the throng from his greatheight.
"What a people! Is there anything they will not dare?" he exclaimed."Brave people! Sublime people!"
They passed through a side street, deserted except for some stragglerhastening toward the human torrent. Dossonville, in a burst ofconfidence, laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.
"That was good to see. I, Citoyen Barabant--I take nothing seriously.Men, individuals, are but blind little animals wriggling for a day orso. I have seen too much of selfishness, of wickedness, of deceitsand hypocrisy, to be moved by human motives. Nothing really matters,nothing is serious. But when I see such a sight as that, a whole peoplerising with one accord, ah, then that thrills me; yes, I am moved!"
Barabant was silent, more perplexed concerning his companion thanever, and in this reflective mood he persevered, resolving to be onhis watch for artifices and tricks. About the brasserie of the famousbrewer the throng was massed so tightly that the two companions wouldhave stuck thirty feet away, unable to turn, had not Santerre, from anupper window, perceived the lanky form of Dossonville. The moment hiseye fell upon that appealing figure, he started up, as though awaitinghim, and hurrying down-stairs, appeared at the entrance, where, by dintof command and abuse, he managed to open a passage, through which thecrowd disgorged them.
Barabant, at a nod from Dossonville, remained in an anteroom listeningto the compressed rumble of the crowd, that reached him through theopen window on the warm, suffocating air. He did not have long to wait.Santerre soon reappeared, excited and red with the emotion communicatedto his fleshy head. Dossonville, more tranquil, called him to them.
"I must take a message to the Bonnet Rouge," he said. "It is urgent.So I must leave you--only, I do not forget." He glanced at him, addingslyly: "Is there anything you care to ask of the Citoyen Santerre?"
Barabant, gulping down his confusion, cried: "Nothing."
"Good. Then you are no longer afraid you are dealing with an agent ofthe perfidious Pitt?"
Barabant seized the occasion to vanish through the side exit, carryingwith him the memory of a chuckle.
* * * * *
Nicole no sooner had dismissed Barabant than she regretted the act.Her intuition had warned her that caprice was necessary to counteracther bonhomie, which might have produced in the young man an assuranceof facile conquest. But, left to her own devices, to her astonishmentshe found the solitude oppressive. She made an effort to dispel theennui by seeking Gou
rsac; but no sooner had she perceived him than,apprehending the banter in which he was privileged to indulge, shehalted and then turned away.
Toward evening, according to her custom, she joined Louison in searchof supper.
"What have you done with your companion?" the girl asked at once.
"I dismissed him long ago," Nicole answered carelessly: from thatquarter she welcomed attack. "A man interferes with the business."
"How did you meet him?"
"Why, I thought you knew! He has taken the room across from us!"
"Ah, indeed. He seems interesting." She took her companion's arm andsaid abruptly, "I have taken a fancy to him, so garde a toi!"
Nicole, not certain whether she spoke in jest or in earnest, abandoneduneasily the conversation, saying, "Where do we dine to-night?"
"At the Bonnet Rouge."
"Why there?"
"It is the rendezvous for the Marseillais. If there is to be an attack,we'll have the news."
"Do you think it will be for to-night?"
"Yes; there is something in the air that makes me think so."
Their way soon involved them in a network of dusky, gaping streets. Oneach side somber walls, peopled with dim, curious flecks of headgear,strained upward and back in a bulging effort to draw down a little moreof the allotted strip of sky. The windows of taverns, on the groundfloor, were beginning to redden and to cast faint streaks across theblack, oozing streets; but the frugal inhabitants of upper stories, indeference to the price of candles, still hung on the sills, causingthe evening to resound with the nervous chatter of window-to-windowspeculation.
At times the tension of conjecture and discussion would be broken bythe bass voice of a passing laborer thundering forth,
"Ca ira! Ca ira! Ca ira!"
Above the soprano of women's voices and the thin piping of childrenresponded feverishly:
"La liberte s'etablira: Malgre les tyrans tout reussira!"
They found the cabaret beginning to fill up by twos andthrees--workingmen for the most part: water-carriers divestingthemselves of their barrels at the door with a sigh of contentment;wood-carriers, with relaxed limbs, slipping gratefully into the hardwooden benches; women of the markets, corpulent, quick-tongued,smelling of onion and garlic; erstwhile actors still with the strut ofthe stage; an occasional bourgeois in misfortune; a handful of gamins,impudent and witty--all discussing feverishly the projected attack.
The two girls, perceiving the congestion in the outer room, elbowedtheir way to where, by an inner door, a waiter of exceptional butbroken height was scanning the crowd with an eye to orders.
"Well, Citoyen Boudgoust, what news?"
At Louison's question, he showed the palms of his hands, finallyvolunteering:
"Santerre is to send us word."
"There's room beyond?"
"You are going to eat?"
"Of course," Louison said impatiently, as he barred the way. "Besides,mon ami, don't you think we know what's going on?"
He allowed them to pass, grumbling, "Every one comes to talk; no one toeat."
In the farther hall the crowd was thinner and composed mostly ofMarseillais and the National Guard, who looked up furtively, until halfa dozen greetings removed their suspicions.
"Good evening, Citoyenne Nicole."
In her astonishment, she turned to find Genevieve.
"What are you doing here, child?" she cried.
"I am listening."
"You are no longer afraid?"
"We are to attack," the girl said proudly, and her eyes snapped withdefiant ardor.
"Bravo, little one!" laughed Nicole. "Sit with us, then."
She turned to Louison in explanation.
"She is my protegee who is coming to me for lessons."
Louison nodded without surprise and turned her slow, restrained gazeon the room, while the eyes of Nicole, full of enthusiasm, leaped fromgroup to group in rapid, eager scrutiny, resting finally on a knot ofMarseillais near by. One man dominated these uncouth, bristling, livingarsenals--a squat figure, sprawling under the grotesque shadows ofthe lamp, which further distorted his huge bulk and bullet head. Oneungainly, crooked hand leaned in ponderous support upon the table; theother was flourished above him in frantic gestures, magnetic, absurd,comic, and terrible, as he harangued his comrades, who acclaimed hisexhortations with shouts that burst above the ceaseless roar of theroom.
"They are not very coquette," Nicole said critically, "and not veryclean."
"Ah, but think how they have marched, all the way from Marseilles!"Genevieve cried, in protest.
"You know them, then?" Nicole asked, astonished at this side of thegirl.
"Yes."
"And that bear of a man in the center, do you know his name?"
"Yes," she answered, with a slight disconcertion. "He is the CitoyenJavogues."
"He looks like an ogre."
"Wait till you hear him."
"Really!" answered Nicole, with a smile which threw the girl intoconfusion.
At this moment a rumble reached them from the outer room. Boudgoust,profoundly dejected, appeared, followed by the insouciant figure ofDossonville. Instantly the room was filled with cries.
"What news?"
"What news from Santerre?"
"We attack?"
"For to-night?"
Dossonville, facing the eager, breathless gallery, shrugged hisshoulders, uttering but one word:
"Postponed."
A roar of rage and disappointment drowned his voice.
"Citoyens!" he cried, "I am but announcing the decision; I did notmake it. The tyrants are intrenched. Mandat is in ambush at the PontNeuf and the Arcade St. Jean. The leaders have decided the moment isunfavorable."
The storm of protests increased.
"More delay! Enough of waiting!"
"Mon Dieu, we are not cowards!"
"And the Prussians?"
"He, yes, are we to wait for the foreign bandits?"
"Javogues! Javogues!"
"Javogues, lead us!"
"Lead us, Javogues!"
Nicole felt through the child at her side a sudden trembling anddrawing of breath. Then into the center of the suddenly quiet roomlurched the squat figure, bareheaded, bare-armed, bare-chested butfor a tattered shirt. He seemed rooted to the floor, like a moundtransformed to human shape, quivering in the primeval mold and passions.
"Well, yes, I'll lead you!" The huge fist, describing a circle, crashedupon a table. "We're here to fight. We'll wait no longer. Hesitate andbandy words and deliberate whoever wants--we are not such! We havesuffered and ached. We have been crushed to the ground, saddled to theearth,--we, human beings, like cattle, and we remember our wrongs.Fear? Neither God nor men do we fear. We came here, we, marching fromMarseilles,--all the way from Marseilles,--to wipe out the accursedtyrants, to make things go faster, and, by God, they shall go!"
Nicole saw the hideous face transformed, lighted up with the glow ofmartyrdom. From lungs of leather there burst a welcoming response.Dossonville, facing the fanatic without a change of position, waitedimperturbably the lull. Genevieve was breathing hard, in her excitementseizing the hand of her protectress.
"Bravo, patriot, you are eloquent!" came at last the calm answer ofDossonville. "But what can you do? March and be made into beefsteaks?The people, it is true, are hungry, but not a step will the sectionsmove without Santerre. Will you march alone? What say you?"
"I say they are traitors who would halt us!" burst forth Javogues,glancing at the man who dared to jest with him.
"Meaning Santerre?"
"Meaning those who bear false messages. I don't like these manners. Whoare you?"
"My friend," Dossonville said, with cool scorn of the threateningthrong, "you are curious."
"Aristocrat!"
"Am I?"
"I say you are!"
"Indeed!"
"You will not answer?"
"Certainly! Citoyen Dossonville, at present lieute
nant of the Sectiondes Bonnes Nouvelles, in the past soldier, sailor, actor, innkeeper, abit of everything except the law and the church. Citoyen Boudgoust,"he continued, shifting his head just enough to bring into range theapathetic waiter, "before this fire-eater is at my throat, come, vouchfor me!"
The hang-down head wabbled a moment on the bent shoulders.
"Yes, yes, a good patriot, Citoyen Javogues, and an eater of littlearistocrats."
"As all good patriots should be!" retorted Dossonville, gravely."There, citoyen, good patriots should not quarrel when there are somany tyrants to be digested. There is my hand--touch!"
Javogues stared at the proffered hand a moment stolidly, drunkenly,then deliberately folded his arms. A murmur of dissent gathered volume.
"Comrade, you are wrong!"
"Give him your hand!"
"Aye, touch together!"
Above the outburst the voice of Dossonville rose acridly.
"Dame! mon ami, you bring strange manners from Marseilles."
"I bring something else."
"And that is--"
"The way to tell a traitor."
"And that is--"
"By the look in his eyes!" Raising his fist, the Marseillais lurchedforward with the angry shout of "Spy!"
A dozen men rushed to separate them, while the Marseillais, echoingthe accusation of their leader, surged furiously forward. Louisonand Nicole, with a common impulse, seized Dossonville, and in theconfusion drew him into the hall and out by a rear entrance into thecool of the night.
"Thanks, my dears!" he cried, once free of the turmoil, nonchalant andflippant as ever. "It is always difficult to find the right word onwhich to retreat with dignity. You saved me the trouble. What! it isyou, Louison and Nicole? Diable! if it were only one I could offer myeternal devotion--for a week."
"Citoyen," cried Nicole, reprovingly, "you were wrong to bait him. Youhave gained an enemy."
"On the contrary," Louison interposed, and strangely on her coldface there was a flash of admiration. "Citoyen Dossonville, you weresplendid!"
"No, I was a fool," he said. "It is very stupid that some men must beat each other's throats from the first glance. Diable! I have a feelingthis fellow will bother me some day. However, it will add a littleinterest to these quiet times. Au revoir--I must be off. If I stay Ishall be falling in love with both of you. What good would that do?Thanks, and good night!"
In the distance his footsteps grew faint, while for a time the gaychorus of the Carmagnole told of his passage.
Nicole, leaving Louison, sought Genevieve, and, with a desire toreconnoiter, struck out through the now quiet Faubourg toward the Hotelde Ville. There, all was animation with the arrival of the delegatesfrom the forty-eight sections, assembling to deliberate upon a plan ofaction, while from time to time messengers passed like streaks down thesteps and across the crowd, leaving the disturbance of their trail onthe surface.
They passed along the Seine, where the river, as though, too, at theend of the day it sought its rest, lay still and black, shot acrosswith faint reflections. They arrived at the Tuileries only to be barredpassage by a patrol. Everywhere as they made the rounds they foundthe palace guarded and prepared; while a hundred other scouts passedceaselessly to and fro, examining the frowning walls, grim in theshadow of night.
A dozen rumors were current: the palace was filled with Swiss andChevaliers du Poignard; there were cannons masked at every point; thewindows were protected with screens of oak; the court were dancinginside, drinking to the white cockades, as they had done at Versailles.Others affirmed that the city was to be set on fire from the fourquarters; that the king had fled; that the National Assembly was tobe arrested. Nicole, her curiosity satisfied and wearying of thesewild rumors, returned home. At the Faubourg St. Antoine they foundeverything tranquil, and retired for the night. It was then half-pastten.
In their room Genevieve hazarded the question for which Nicole hadwaited with amused patience.
"Tell me, Nicole, what did you think of him?"
"Of whom?"
"Of the Citoyen Javogues. Was I not right?"
"He frightens me," Nicole said frankly. "He had the air of a butcher--amadman. Well, how shall I express it? He made me tremble, almost with apremonition of danger."
"Ah, you cannot understand him," Genevieve protested. "To me he isheroic!"
"What a little Jacobin!" Nicole said, with a smile. Without attachingfurther importance to what she considered the whim of a child, sheadded: "Well, mon enfant, here is your room. The half of it is yoursfor as long as you want it."
She passed to the window, casting a longing glance at the dark windowopposite. Surprised at Genevieve's silence, she turned, a littleprovoked. The child was crying.
"Dear Genevieve!" she cried, springing to her side and taking her inher arms. "Don't try to thank me; I understand."
But the girl, through her sobs, murmured again and again, "Thank you,ah, thank you!"
"But it is I who am thankful," Nicole protested. "You bring mesomething to love and to care for. I was getting used to solitude,which is dangerous."
Checking her thanks, she snuffed the candle, stretching out upon thebed beside the girl.
"Yes, it is bad for one to be always alone," she said.
Genevieve timidly covered her hands with kisses.
"No, no, kiss me on the cheek," Nicole said. "And now, if you are goingto obey, go right to sleep."
The child nestled closer, drawing Nicole's arm about her. The embraceseemed strange to Nicole, and, without quite understanding why, shesought to draw her arm away.