第 20 页

And then Pierre for a moment felt that his brother was above all base

anxiety, above the guilty fear of the man who trembles for himself. In

lieu thereof he seemed to be carried away by the passion of some great

design, the noble thought of concealing some sovereign idea, some secret

which it was imperative for him to save. But, alas! this was only the

fleeting vision of a vague hope; for all vanished, and again came the

doubt, the suspicion, of a mind dealing with one that it knew nothing of.

And all at once a souvenir, a frightful spectacle, arose before Pierre's

eyes and distracted him: "Did you see, brother," he stammered, "did you

see that fair-haired girl lying under the archway, ripped open, with a

smile of astonishment on her face?"

Guillaume in his turn quivered, and in a low and dolorous voice replied:

"Yes, I saw her! Ah, poor little thing! Ah! the atrocious necessities,

the atrocious errors, of justice!"

Then, amidst the frightful shudder that seemed to sweep by, Pierre, with

his horror of all violence, succumbed, and let his face sink upon the

counterpane at the edge of the bed. And he sobbed distractedly: a sudden

attack of weakness, overflowing in tears, cast him there exhausted, with

no more strength than a child. It was as if all his sufferings since the

morning, the deep grief with which universal injustice and woe inspired

him, were bursting forth in that flood of tears which nothing now could

stay. And Guillaume, who, to calm his little brother, had set his hand

upon his head, in the same way as he had often caressingly stroked his

hair in childhood's days, likewise felt upset and remained silent, unable

to find a word of consolation, resigned, as he was, to the eruption which

in life is always possible, the cataclysm by which the slow evolution of

nature is always liable to be precipitated. But how hard a fate for the

wretched ones whom the lava sweeps away in millions! And then his tears

also began to flow amidst the profound silence.

"Pierre," he gently exclaimed at last, "you must have some dinner. Go, go

and have some. And screen the lamp; leave me by myself, and let me close

my eyes. It will do me good."

Pierre had to content him. Still, he left the dining-room door open; and,

weak for want of food, though he had not hitherto noticed it, he ate

standing, with his ears on the alert, listening lest his brother should

complain or call him. And the silence seemed to have become yet more

complete, the little house sank, as it were, into annihilation, instinct

with all the melancholy charm of the past.

At about half-past eight, when Sophie returned from her errand to

Montmartre, Guillaume heard her step, light though it was. And he at once

became restless and wanted to know what news she brought. It was Pierre,

however, who enlightened him. "Don't be anxious. Sophie was received by

an old lady who, after reading your note, merely answered, 'Very well.'

She did not even ask Sophie a question, but remained quite composed

without sign of curiosity."

Guillaume, realising that this fine serenity perplexed his brother,

thereupon replied with similar calmness: "Oh! it was only necessary that

grandmother should be warned. She knows well enough that if I don't

return home it is because I can't."

However, from that moment it was impossible for the injured man to rest.

Although the lamp was hidden away in a corner, he constantly opened his

eyes, glanced round him, and seemed to listen, as if for sounds from the

direction of Paris. And it at last became necessary for the priest to

summon the servant and ask her if she had noticed anything strange on her

way to or from Montmartre. She seemed surprised by the question, and

answered that she had noticed nothing. Besides, the cab had followed the

outer boulevards, which were almost deserted. A slight fog had again

begun to fall, and the streets were steeped in icy dampness.

By the time it was nine o'clock Pierre realised that his brother would

never be able to sleep if he were thus left without news. Amidst his

growing feverishness the injured man experienced keen anxiety, a haunting

desire to know if Salvat were arrested and had spoken out. He did not

confess this; indeed he sought to convey the impression that he had no

personal disquietude, which was doubtless true. But his great secret was

stifling him; he shuddered at the thought that his lofty scheme, all his

labour and all his hope, should be at the mercy of that unhappy man whom

want had filled with delusions and who had sought to set justice upon

earth by the aid of a bomb. And in vain did the priest try to make

Guillaume understand that nothing certain could yet be known. He

perceived that his impatience increased every minute, and at last

resolved to make some effort to satisfy him.

But where could he go, of whom could he inquire? Guillaume, while talking

and trying to guess with whom Salvat might have sought refuge, had

mentioned Janzen, the Princess de Harn's mysterious lover; and for a

moment he had even thought of sending to this man for information. But he

reflected that if Janzen had heard of the explosion he was not at all the

individual to wait for the police at home.

Meantime Pierre repeated: "I will willingly go to buy the evening papers

for you--but there will certainly be nothing in them. Although I know

almost everyone in Neuilly I can think of nobody who is likely to have

any information, unless perhaps it were Bache--"

"You know Bache, the municipal councillor?" interrupted Guillaume.

"Yes, we have both had to busy ourselves with charitable work in the

neighbourhood."

"Well, Bache is an old friend of mine, and I know no safer man. Pray go

to him and bring him back with you."

A quarter of an hour later Pierre returned with Bache, who resided in a

neighbouring street. And it was not only Bache whom he brought with him,

for, much to his surprise, he had found Janzen at Bache's house. As

Guillaume had suspected, Janzen, while dining at the Princess de Harn's,

had heard of the crime, and had consequently refrained from returning to

his little lodging in the Rue des Martyrs, where the police might well

have set a trap for him. His connections were known, and he was aware

that he was watched and was liable at any moment to arrest or expulsion

as a foreign Anarchist. And so he had thought it prudent to solicit a few

days' hospitality of Bache, a very upright and obliging man, to whom he

entrusted himself without fear. He would never have remained with

Rosemonde, that adorable lunatic who for a month past had been exhibiting

him as her lover, and whose useless and dangerous extravagance of conduct

he fully realised.

Guillaume was so delighted on seeing Bache and Janzen that he wished to

sit up in bed again. But Pierre bade him remain quiet, rest his head on

the pillows, and speak as little as possible. Then, while Janzen stood

near, erect and silent, Bache took a chair and sat down by the bedside

with many expressions of friendly interest. He was a stout man of sixty,

with a broad, full face, a large white beard and long white hair. His

little, gentle eyes had a dim, dreamy expression, while a pleasant,

hopeful smile played round his thick lips. His father, a fervent St.

Simonian, had brought him up in the doctrines of that belief. While

retaining due respect for it, however, his personal inclinations towards

orderliness and religion had led him to espouse the ideas of Fourier, in

such wise that one found in him a succession and an abridgment, so to

say, of two doctrines. Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied

himself with spiritualism. Possessed of a comfortable little fortune, his

only adventure in life had been his connection with the Paris Commune of

1871. How or why he had become a member of it he could now scarcely tell.

Condemned to death by default, although he had sat among the Moderates,

he had resided in Belgium until the amnesty; and since then Neuilly had

elected him as its representative on the Paris Municipal Council, less by

way of glorifying in him a victim of reaction than as a reward for his

worthiness, for he was really esteemed by the whole district.

Guillaume, with his desire for tidings, was obliged to confide in his two

visitors, tell them of the explosion and Salvat's flight, and how he

himself had been wounded while seeking to extinguish the match. Janzen,

with curly beard and hair, and a thin, fair face such as painters often

attribute to the Christ, listened coldly, as was his wont, and at last

said slowly in a gentle voice: "Ah! so it was Salvat! I thought it might

be little Mathis--I'm surprised that it should be Salvat--for he hadn't

made up his mind." Then, as Guillaume anxiously inquired if he thought

that Salvat would speak out, he began to protest: "Oh! no; oh! no."

However, he corrected himself with a gleam of disdain in his clear, harsh

eyes: "After all, there's no telling. Salvat is a man of sentiment."

Then Bache, who was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to

think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be

extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And

Guillaume, at sight of Janzen's contemptuous coldness, must have suffered

keenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured by

the one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could he

reveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish without betraying

the secret which he had hidden even from his brother?

However, at this moment Sophie came to tell her master that M. Theophile

Morin had called with another gentleman. Much astonished by this visit at

so late an hour, Pierre hastened into the next room to receive the new

comers. He had become acquainted with Morin since his return from Rome,

and had helped him to introduce a translation of an excellent scientific

manual, prepared according to the official programmes, into the Italian

schools.* A Franc-Comtois by birth, a compatriot of Proudhon, with whose

poor family he had been intimate at Besancon, Morin, himself the son of a

journeyman clockmaker, had grown up with Proudhonian ideas, full of

affection for the poor and an instinctive hatred of property and wealth.

Later on, having come to Paris as a school teacher, impassioned by study,

he had given his whole mind to Auguste Comte. Beneath the fervent

Positivist, however, one might yet find the old Proudhonian, the pauper

who rebelled and detested want. Moreover, it was scientific Positivism

that he clung to; in his hatred of all mysticism he would have naught to

do with the fantastic religious leanings of Comte in his last years. And

in Morin's brave, consistent, somewhat mournful life, there had been but

one page of romance: the sudden feverish impulse which had carried him

off to fight in Sicily by Garibaldi's side. Afterwards he had again

become a petty professor in Paris, obscurely earning a dismal livelihood.

* See M. Zola's "Rome," Chapters IV. and XVI.

When Pierre returned to the bedroom he said to his brother in a tone of

emotion: "Morin has brought me Barthes, who fancies himself in danger and

asks my hospitality."

At this Guillaume forgot himself and became excited: "Nicholas Barthes, a

hero with a soul worthy of antiquity. Oh! I know him; I admire and love

him. You must set your door open wide for him."

Bache and Janzen, however, had glanced at one another smiling. And the

latter, with his cold ironical air, slowly remarked: "Why does Monsieur

Barthes hide himself? A great many people think he is dead; he is simply

a ghost who no longer frightens anybody."

Four and seventy years of age as he now was, Barthes had spent nearly

half a century in prison. He was the eternal prisoner, the hero of

liberty whom each successive Government had carried from citadel to

fortress. Since his youth he had been marching on amidst his dream of

fraternity, fighting for an ideal Republic based on truth and justice,

and each and every endeavour had led him to a dungeon; he had invariably

finished his humanitarian reverie under bolts and bars. Carbonaro,

Republican, evangelical sectarian, he had conspired at all times and in

all places, incessantly struggling against the Power of the day, whatever

it might be. And when the Republic at last had come, that Republic which

had cost him so many years of gaol, it had, in its own turn, imprisoned

him, adding fresh years of gloom to those which already had lacked

sunlight. And thus he remained the martyr of freedom: freedom which he

still desired in spite of everything; freedom, which, strive as he might,

never came, never existed.

"But you are mistaken," replied Guillaume, wounded by Janzen's raillery.

"There is again a thought of getting rid of Barthes, whose uncompromising

rectitude disturbs our politicians; and he does well to take his

precautions!"

Nicholas Barthes came in, a tall, slim, withered old man, with a nose

like an eagle's beak, and eyes that still burned in their deep sockets,

under white and bushy brows. His mouth, toothless but still refined, was

lost to sight between his moustaches and snowy beard; and his hair,

crowning him whitely like an aureola, fell in curls over his shoulders.

Behind him with all modesty came Theophile Morin, with grey whiskers,

grey, brush-like hair, spectacles, and yellow, weary mien--that of an old

professor exhausted by years of teaching. Neither of them seemed

astonished or awaited an explanation on finding that man in bed with an

injured wrist. And there were no introductions: those who were acquainted

merely smiled at one another.

Barthes, for his part, stooped and kissed Guillaume on both cheeks. "Ah!"

said the latter, almost gaily, "it gives me courage to see you."

However, the new comers had brought a little information. The boulevards

were in an agitated state, the news of the crime had spread from cafe to