The travelers alighted, Henriette among the first, alarmed by the glare they had beheld8 from the windows of the cars as they rushed onward9 across the darkling fields. The soldiers of a Prussian detachment, moreover, that had been sent to occupy the station, went through the train and compelled the passengers to leave it, while two of their number, stationed on the platform, shouted in guttural French:
"Paris is burning. All out here! this train goes no further. Paris is burning, Paris is burning!"
Henriette experienced a terrible shock. _Mon Dieu!_ was she too late, then? Receiving no reply from Maurice to her two last letters, the alarming news from Paris had filled her with such mortal terror that she determined10 to leave Remilly and come and try to find her brother in the great city. For months past her life at Uncle Fouchard's had been a melancholy11 one; the troops occupying the village and the surrounding country had become harsher and more exacting12 as the resistance of Paris was protracted13, and now that peace was declared and the regiments15 were stringing along the roads, one by one, on their way home to Germany, the country and the cities through which they passed were taxed to their utmost to feed the hungry soldiers. The morning when she arose at daybreak to go and take the train at Sedan, looking out into the courtyard of the farmhouse16 she had seen a body of cavalry17 who had slept there all night, scattered18 promiscuously19 on the bare ground, wrapped in their long cloaks. They were so numerous that the earth was hidden by them. Then, at the shrill20 summons of a trumpet21 call, all had risen to their feet, silent, draped in the folds of those long mantles23, and in such serried24, close array that she involuntarily thought of the graves of a battlefield opening and giving up their dead at the call of the last trump22. And here again at Saint-Denis she encountered the Prussians, and it was from Prussian lips that came that cry which caused her such distress25:
"All out here! this train goes no further. Paris is burning!"
Henriette, her little satchel26 in her hand, rushed distractedly up to the men in quest of information. There had been heavy fighting in Paris for the last two days, they told her, the railway had been destroyed, the Germans were watching the course of events. But she insisted on pursuing her journey at every risk, and catching28 sight upon the platform of the officer in command of the detachment detailed29 to guard the station, she hurried up to him.
"Sir, I am terribly distressed30 about my brother, and am trying to get to him. I entreat31 you, furnish me with the means to reach Paris." The light from a gas jet fell full on the captain's face she stopped in surprise. "What, Otto, is it you! Oh, _mon Dieu_, be good to me, since chance has once more brought us together!"
It was Otto Gunther, the cousin, as stiff and ceremonious as ever, tight-buttoned in his Guard's uniform, the picture of a narrow-minded martinet32. At first he failed to recognize the little, thin, insignificant-looking woman, with the handsome light hair and the pale, gentle face; it was only by the brave, honest look that filled her eyes that he finally remembered her. His only answer was a slight shrug33 of the shoulders.
"You know I have a brother in the army," Henriette eagerly went on. "He is in Paris; I fear he has allowed himself to become mixed up with this horrible conflict. O Otto, I beseech34 you, assist me to continue my journey."
At last he condescended35 to speak. "But I can do nothing to help you; really I cannot. There have been no trains running since yesterday; I believe the rails have been torn up over by the ramparts somewhere. And I have neither a horse and carriage nor a man to guide you at my disposal."
She looked him in the face with a low, stifled37 murmur38 of pain and sorrow to behold39 him thus obdurate40. "Oh, you will do nothing to aid me. My God, to whom then can I turn!"
It was an unlikely story for one of those Prussians to tell, whose hosts were everywhere all-powerful, who had the city at their beck and call, could have requisitioned a hundred carriages and brought a thousand horses from their stables. And he denied her prayer with the haughty41 air of a victor who has made it a law to himself not to interfere42 with the concerns of the vanquished43, lest thereby44 he might defile45 himself and tarnish46 the luster47 of his new-won laurels49.
"At all events," continued Henriette, "you know what is going on in the city; you won't refuse to tell me that much."
He gave a smile, so faint as scarce to be perceptible. "Paris is burning. Look! come this way, you can see more clearly."
Leaving the station, he preceded her along the track for a hundred steps or so until they came to an iron foot-bridge that spanned the road. When they had climbed the narrow stairs and reached the floor of the structure, resting their elbows on the railing, they beheld the broad level plain outstretched before them, at the foot of the slope of the embankment.
"You see, Paris is burning."
It was in the neighborhood of ten o'clock. The fierce red glare that lit the southern sky was ever mounting higher. The blood-red clouds had disappeared from where they had floated in the east; the zenith was like a great inverted51 bowl of inky blackness, across which ran the reflections of the distant flames. The horizon was one unbroken line of fire, but to the right they could distinguish spots where the conflagration52 was raging with greater fury, sending up great spires53 and pinnacles54 of flame, of the most vivid scarlet55, to pierce the dense56 opacity57 above, amid billowing clouds of smoke. It was like the burning of some great forest, where the fire bridges intervening space, and leaps from tree to tree; one would have said the very earth must be calcined and reduced to ashes beneath the heat of Paris' gigantic funeral pyre.
"Look," said Otto, "that eminence58 that you see profiled in black against the red background is Montmartre. There on the left, at Belleville and la Villette, there has not been a house burned yet; it must be they are selecting the districts of the wealthy for their work; and it spreads, it spreads. Look! there is another conflagration breaking out; watch the flames there to the right, how they seethe59 and rise and fall; observe the shifting tints60 of the vapors61 that rise from the blazing furnace. And others, and others still; the heavens are on fire!"
He did not raise his voice or manifest any sign of feeling, and it froze Henriette's blood that a human being could stand by and witness such a spectacle unmoved. Ah, that those Prussians should be there to see that sight! She saw an insult in his studied calmness, in the faint smile that played upon his lips, as if he had long foreseen and been watching for that unparalleled disaster. So, Paris was burning then at last, Paris, upon whose monuments the German shells had scarce been able to inflict62 more than a scratch! and he was there to see it burn, and in the spectacle found compensation for all his grievances63, the inordinate64 length to which the siege had been protracted, the bitter, freezing weather, the difficulties they had surmounted66 only to see them present themselves anew under some other shape, the toil67 and trouble they had had in mounting their heavy guns, while all the time Germany from behind was reproaching them with their dilatoriness68. Nothing in all the glory of their victory, neither the ceded50 provinces nor the indemnity69 of five milliards, appealed to him so strongly as did that sight of Paris, in a fit of furious madness, immolating70 herself and going up in smoke and flame on that beautiful spring night.
"Ah, it was sure to come," he added in a lower voice. "Fine work, my masters!"
It seemed to Henriette as if her heart would break in presence of that dire71 catastrophe72. Her personal grief was lost to sight for some minutes, swallowed up in the great drama of a people's atonement that was being enacted73 before her eyes. The thought of the lives that would be sacrificed to the devouring74 flames, the sight of the great capital blazing on the horizon, emitting the infernal light of the cities that were accursed and smitten75 for their iniquity76, elicited77 from her an involuntary cry of anguish78. She clasped her hands, asking:
"Oh, merciful Father, of what have we been guilty that we should be punished thus?"
Otto raised his arm in an oratorical79 attitude. He was on the point of speaking, with the stern, cold-blooded vehemence80 of the military bigot who has ever a quotation81 from Holy Writ82 at his tongue's end, but glancing at the young woman, the look he encountered from her candid83, gentle eyes checked him. Besides, his gesture had spoken for him; it told his hatred85 for the nation, his conviction that he was in France to mete86 out justice, delegated by the God of Armies, to chastise87 a perverse88 and stiff-necked generation. Paris was burning off there on the horizon in expiation89 of its centuries of dissolute life, of its heaped-up measure of crime and lust48. Once again the German race were to be the saviors of the world, were to purge90 Europe of the remnant of Latin corruption91. He let his arm fall to his side and simply said:
"It is the end of all. There is another quartier doomed92, for see, a fresh fire has broken out there to the right. In that direction, that line of flame that creeps onward like a stream of lava93--"
Neither spoke84 for a long time; an awed94 silence rested on them. The great waves of flame continued to ascend95, sending up streamers and ribbons of vivid light high into the heavens. Beneath the sea of fire was every moment extending its boundaries, a tossing, stormy, burning ocean, whence now arose dense clouds of smoke that collected over the city in a huge pall96 of a somber97 coppery hue4, which was wafted98 slowly athwart the blackness of the night, streaking99 the vault100 of heaven with its accursed rain of ashes and of soot101.
Henriette started as if awaking from an evil dream, and, the thought of her brother flowing in again upon her mind, once more became a supplicant103.
"Can you do nothing for me? won't you assist me to get to Paris?"
With his former air of unconcern Otto again raised his eyes to the horizon, smiling vaguely104.
"What would be the use? since to-morrow morning the city will be a pile of ruins!"
And that was all; she left the bridge, without even bidding him good-by, flying, she knew not whither, with her little satchel, while he remained yet a long time at his post of observation, a motionless figure, rigid105 and erect106, lost in the darkness of the night, feasting his eyes on the spectacle of that Babylon in flames.
Almost the first person that Henriette encountered on emerging from the station was a stout107 lady who was chaffering with a hackman over his charge for driving her to the Rue108 Richelieu in Paris, and the young woman pleaded so touchingly109, with tears in her eyes, that finally the lady consented to let her occupy a seat in the carriage. The driver, a little swarthy man, whipped up his horse and did not open his lips once during the ride, but the stout lady was extremely loquacious110, telling how she had left the city the day but one before after tightly locking and bolting her shop, but had been so imprudent as to leave some valuable papers behind, hidden in a hole in the wall; hence her mind had been occupied by one engrossing111 thought for the two hours that the city had been burning, how she might return and snatch her property from the flames. The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to pass without much difficulty, the worthy112 lady allaying113 their scruples114 with a fib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris to assist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese. It was not until they commenced to make their way along the paved streets that they encountered serious obstacles; they were obliged at every moment to turn out in order to avoid the barricades116 that were erected117 across the roadway, and when at last they reached the boulevard Poissoniere the driver declared he would go no further. The two women were therefore forced to continue their way on foot, through the Rue du Sentier, the Rue des Jeuneurs, and all the circumscribing118 region of the Bourse. As they approached the fortifications the blazing sky had made their way as bright before them as if it had been broad day; now they were surprised by the deserted119 and tranquil120 condition of the streets, where the only sound that disturbed the stillness was a dull, distant roar. In the vicinity of the Bourse, however, they were alarmed by the sound of musketry; they slipped along with great caution, hugging the walls. On reaching the Rue Richelieu and finding her shop had not been disturbed, the stout lady was so overjoyed that she insisted on seeing her traveling companion safely housed; they struck through the Rue du Hazard, the Rue Saint-Anne, and finally reached the Rue des Orties. Some federates, whose battalion121 was still holding the Rue Saint-Anne, attempted to prevent them from passing. It was four o'clock and already quite light when Henriette, exhausted122 by the fatigue123 of her long day and the stress of her emotions, reached the old house in the Rue des Orties and found the door standing124 open. Climbing the dark, narrow staircase, she turned to the left and discovered behind a door a ladder that led upward toward the roof.
Maurice, meantime, behind the barricade115 in the Rue du Bac, had succeeded in raising himself to his knees, and Jean's heart throbbed125 with a wild, tumultuous hope, for he believed he had pinned his friend to the earth.
"Oh, my little one, are you alive still? is that great happiness in store for me, brute126 that I am? Wait a moment, let me see."
He examined the wound with great tenderness by the light of the burning buildings. The bayonet had gone through the right arm near the shoulder, but a more serious part of the business was that it had afterward127 entered the body between two of the ribs128 and probably touched the lung. Still, the wounded man breathed without much apparent difficulty, but the right arm hung useless at his side.
"Poor old boy, don't grieve! We shall have time to say good-by to each other, and it is better thus, you see; I am glad to have done with it all. You have done enough for me to make up for this, for I should have died long ago in some ditch, even as I am dying now, had it not been for you."
But Jean, hearing him speak thus, again gave way to an outburst of violent grief.
"Hush129, hush! Twice you saved me from the clutches of the Prussians. We were quits; it was my turn to devote my life, and instead of that I have slain130 you. Ah, _tonnerre de Dieu!_ I must have been drunk not to recognize you; yes, drunk as a hog131 from glutting132 myself with blood."
Tears streamed from his eyes at the recollection of their last parting, down there, at Remilly, when they embraced, asking themselves if they should ever meet again, and how, under what circumstances of sorrow or of gladness. It was nothing, then, that they had passed toilsome days and sleepless133 nights together, with death staring them in the face? It was to bring them to this abominable134 thing, to this senseless, atrocious fratricide, that their hearts had been fused in the crucible135 of those weeks of suffering endured in common? No, no, it could not be; he turned in horror from the thought.
"Let's see what I can do, little one; I must save you."
The first thing to be done was to remove him to a place of safety, for the troops dispatched the wounded Communists wherever they found them. They were alone, fortunately; there was not a minute to lose. He first ripped the sleeve from wrist to shoulder with his knife, then took off the uniform coat. Some blood flowed; he made haste to bandage the arm securely with strips that he tore from the lining136 of the garment for the purpose. After that he staunched as well as he could the wound in the side and fastened the injured arm over it, He luckily had a bit of cord in his pocket, which he knotted tightly around the primitive137 dressing138, thus assuring the immobility of the injured parts and preventing hemorrhage.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes, I think so."
But he did not dare to take him through the streets thus, in his shirt sleeves. Remembering to have seen a dead soldier lying in an adjacent street, he hurried off and presently came back with a capote and a _kepi_. He threw the greatcoat over his friend's shoulders and assisted him to slip his uninjured arm into the left sleeve. Then, when he had put the _kepi_ on his head:
"There, now you are one of us--where are we to go?"
That was the question. His reviving hope and courage were suddenly damped by a horrible uncertainty139. Where were they to look for a shelter that gave promise of security? the troops were searching the houses, were shooting every Communist they took with arms in his hands. And in addition to that, neither of them knew a soul in that portion of the city to whom they might apply for succor140 and refuge; not a place where they might hide their heads.
"The best thing to do would be to go home where I live," said Maurice. "The house is out of the way; no one will ever think of visiting it. But it is in the Rue des Orties, on the other side of the river."
Jean gave vent27 to a muttered oath in his irresolution141 and despair.
"_Nom de Dieu!_ What are we to do?"
It was useless to think of attempting to pass the Pont Royal, which could not have been more brilliantly illuminated142 if the noonday sun had been shining on it. At every moment shots were heard coming from either bank of the river. Besides that, the blazing Tuileries lay directly in their path, and the Louvre, guarded and barricaded143, would be an insurmountable obstacle.
"That ends it, then; there's no way open," said Jean, who had spent six months in Paris on his return from the Italian campaign.
An idea suddenly flashed across his brain. There had formerly144 been a place a little below the Pont Royal where small boats were kept for hire; if the boats were there still they would make the venture. The route was a long and dangerous one, but they had no choice, and, further, they must act with decision.
"See here, little one, we're going to clear out from here; the locality isn't healthy. I'll manufacture an excuse for my lieutenant145; I'll tell him the communards took me prisoner and I got away."
Taking his unhurt arm he sustained him for the short distance they had to traverse along the Rue du Bac, where the tall houses on either hand were now ablaze146 from cellar to garret, like huge torches. The burning cinders147 fell on them in showers, the heat was so intense that the hair on their head and face was singed148, and when they came out on the _quai_ they stood for a moment dazed and blinded by the terrific light of the conflagrations149, rearing their tall crests150 heavenward, on either side the Seine.
"One wouldn't need a candle to go to bed by here," grumbled151 Jean, with whose plans the illumination promised to interfere. And it was only when he had helped Maurice down the steps to the left and a little way down stream from the bridge that he felt somewhat easy in mind. There was a clump152 of tall trees standing on the bank of the stream, whose shadow gave them a measure of security. For near a quarter of an hour the dark forms moving to and fro on the opposite _quai_ kept them in a fever of apprehension153. There was firing, a scream was heard, succeeded by a loud splash, and the bosom154 of the river was disturbed. The bridge was evidently guarded.
"Suppose we pass the night in that shed?" suggested Maurice, pointing to the wooden structure that served the boatman as an office.
"Yes, and get pinched to-morrow morning!"
Jean was still harboring his idea. He had found quite a flotilla of small boats there, but they were all securely fastened with chains; how was he to get one loose and secure a pair of oars155? At last he discovered two oars that had been thrown aside as useless; he succeeded in forcing a padlock, and when he had stowed Maurice away in the bow, shoved off and allowed the boat to drift with the current, cautiously hugging the shore and keeping in the shadow of the bathing-houses. Neither of them spoke a word, horror-stricken as they were by the baleful spectacle that presented itself to their vision. As they floated down the stream and their horizon widened the enormity of the terrible sight increased, and when they reached the bridge of Solferino a single glance sufficed to embrace both the blazing _quais_.
On their left the palace of the Tuileries was burning. It was not yet dark when the Communists had fired the two extremities156 of the structure, the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de Marsan, and with rapid strides the flames had gained the Pavilion de l'Horloge in the central portion, beneath which, in the Salle des Marechaux, a mine had been prepared by stacking up casks of powder. At that moment the intervening buildings were belching158 from their shattered windows dense volumes of reddish smoke, streaked159 with long ribbons of blue flame. The roofs, yawning as does the earth in regions where volcanic160 agencies prevail, were seamed with great cracks through which the raging sea of fire beneath was visible. But the grandest, saddest spectacle of all was that afforded by the Pavilion de Flore, to which the torch had been earliest applied161 and which was ablaze from its foundation to its lofty summit, burning with a deep, fierce roar that could be heard far away. The petroleum162 with which the floors and hangings had been soaked gave the flames an intensity163 such that the ironwork of the balconies was seen to twist and writhe164 in the convolutions of a serpent, and the tall monumental chimneys, with their elaborate carvings165, glowed with the fervor166 of live coals.
Then, still on their left, were, first, the Chancellerie of the Legion of Honor, which was fired at five o'clock in the afternoon and had been burning nearly seven hours, and next, the Palace of the Council of State, a huge rectangular structure of stone, which was spouting167 torrents168 of fire from every orifice in each of its two colonnaded169 stories. The four structures surrounding the great central court had all caught at the same moment, and the petroleum, which here also had been distributed by the barrelful, had poured down the four grand staircases at the four corners of the building in rivers of hellfire. On the facade170 that faced the river the black line of the mansard was profiled distinctly against the ruddy sky, amid the red tongues that rose to lick its base, while colonnades171, entablatures, friezes172, carvings, all stood out with startling vividness in the blinding, shimmering173 glow. So great was the energy of the fire, so terrible its propulsive174 force, that the colossal175 structure was in some sort raised bodily from the earth, trembling and rumbling176 on its foundations, preserving intact only its four massive walls, in the fierce eruption177 that hurled178 its heavy zinc179 roof high in air. Then, close at one side were the d'Orsay barracks, which burned with a flame that seemed to pierce the heavens, so purely180 white and so unwavering that it was like a tower of light. And finally, back from the river, were still other fires, the seven houses in the Rue du Bac, the twenty-two houses in the Rue de Lille, helping181 to tinge3 the sky a deeper crimson182, profiling their flames on other flames, in a blood-red ocean that seemed to have no end.
Jean murmured in awed tone:
"Did ever mortal man look on the like of this! the very river is on fire."
Their boat seemed to be sailing on the bosom of an incandescent183 stream. As the dancing lights of the mighty184 conflagrations were caught by the ripples185 of the current the Seine seemed to be pouring down torrents of living coals; flashes of intensest crimson played fitfully across its surface, the blazing brands fell in showers into the water and were extinguished with a hiss187. And ever they floated downward with the tide on the bosom of that blood-red stream, between the blazing palaces on either hand, like wayfarers188 in some accursed city, doomed to destruction and burning on the banks of a river of molten lava.
"Ah!" exclaimed Maurice, with a fresh access of madness at the sight of the havoc189 he had longed for, "let it burn, let it all go up in smoke!"
But Jean silenced him with a terrified gesture, as if he feared such blasphemy190 might bring them evil. Where could a young man whom he loved so fondly, so delicately nurtured191, so well informed, have picked up such ideas? And he applied himself more vigorously to the oars, for they had now passed the bridge of Solferino and were come out into a wide open space of water. The light was so intense that the river was illuminated as by the noonday sun when it stands vertically192 above men's heads and casts no shadow. The most minute objects, such as the eddies193 in the stream, the stones piled on the banks, the small trees along the _quais_, stood out before their vision with wonderful distinctness. The bridges, too, were particularly noticeable in their dazzling whiteness, and so clearly defined that they could have counted every stone; they had the appearance of narrow gangways thrown across the fiery stream to connect one conflagration with the other. Amid the roar of the flames and the general clamor a loud crash occasionally announced the fall of some stately edifice194. Dense clouds of soot hung in the air and settled everywhere, the wind brought odors of pestilence195 on its wings. And another horror was that Paris, those more distant quarters of the city that lay back from the banks of the Seine, had ceased to exist for them. To right and left of the conflagration that raged with such fierce resplendency was an unfathomable gulf196 of blackness; all that presented itself to their strained gaze was a vast waste of shadow, an empty void, as if the devouring element had reached the utmost limits of the city and all Paris were swallowed up in everlasting197 night. And the heavens, too, were dead and lifeless; the flames rose so high that they extinguished the stars.
Maurice, who was becoming delirious198, laughed wildly.
"High carnival199 at the Consoil d'Etat and at the Tuileries to-night! They have illuminated the facades200, women are dancing beneath the sparkling chandeliers. Ah, dance, dance and be merry, in your smoking petticoats, with your chignons ablaze--"
And he drew a picture of the feasts of Sodom and Gomorrah, the music, the lights, the flowers, the unmentionable orgies of lust and drunkenness, until the candles on the walls blushed at the shamelessness of the display and fired the palaces that sheltered such depravity. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. The fire, approaching from either extremity201 of the Tuileries, had reached the Salle des Marechaux, the casks of powder caught, the Pavilion de l'Horloge was blown into the air with the violence of a powder mill. A column of flame mounted high in the heavens, and spreading, expanded in a great fiery plume202 on the inky blackness of the sky, the crowning display of the horrid203 _fete_.
"Bravo!" exclaimed Maurice, as at the end of the play, when the lights are extinguished and darkness settles on the stage.
Again Jean, in stammering204, disconnected sentences, besought205 him to be quiet. No, no, it was not right to wish evils to anyone! And if they invoked206 destruction, would not they themselves perish in the general ruin? His sole desire was to find a landing place so that he might no longer have that horrid spectacle before his eyes. He considered it best not to attempt to land at the Pont de la Concorde, but, rounding the elbow of the Seine, pulled on until they reached the Quai de la Conference, and even at that critical moment, instead of shoving the skiff out into the stream to take its chances, he wasted some precious moments in securing it, in his instinctive207 respect for the property of others. While doing this he had seated Maurice comfortably on the bank; his plan was to reach the Rue des Orties through the Place de la Concorde and the Rue Saint-Honore. Before proceeding208 further he climbed alone to the top of the steps that ascended209 from the _quai_ to explore the ground, and on witnessing the obstacles they would have to surmount65 his courage was almost daunted210. There lay the impregnable fortress211 of the Commune, the terrace of the Tuileries bristling212 with cannon213, the Rues214 Royale, Florentin, and Rivoli obstructed215 by lofty and massive barricades; and this state of affairs explained the tactics of the army of Versailles, whose line that night described an immense arc, the center and apex216 resting on the Place de la Concorde, one of the two extremities being at the freight depot217 of the Northern Railway on the right bank, the other on the left bank, at one of the bastions of the ramparts, near the gate of Arcueil. But as the night advanced the Communards had evacuated218 the Tuileries and the barricades and the regular troops had taken possession of the quartier in the midst of further conflagrations; twelve houses at the junction219 of the Rue Saint-Honore and the Rue Royale had been burning since nine o'clock in the evening.
When Jean descended36 the steps and reached the river-bank again he found Maurice in a semi-comatose condition, the effects of the reaction after his hysterical220 outbreak.
"It will be no easy job. I hope you are going to be able to walk, youngster?"
"Yes, yes; don't be alarmed. I'll get there somehow, alive or dead."
It was not without great difficulty that he climbed the stone steps, and when he reached the level ground of the _quai_ at the summit he walked very slowly, supported by his companion's arm, with the shuffling221 gait of a somnambulist. The day had not dawned yet, but the reflected light from the burning buildings cast a lurid222 illumination on the wide Place. They made their way in silence across its deep solitude223, sick at heart to behold the mournful scene of devastation224 it presented. At either extremity, beyond the bridge and at the further end of the Rue Royale, they could faintly discern the shadowy outlines of the Palais Bourbon and the Church of the Madeleine, torn by shot and shell. The terrace of the Tuileries had been breached225 by the fire of the siege guns and was partially226 in ruins. On the Place itself the bronze railings and ornaments227 of the fountains had been chipped and defaced by the balls; the colossal statue of Lille lay on the ground shattered by a projectile228, while near at hand the statue of Strasbourg, shrouded229 in heavy veils of crape, seemed to be mourning the ruin that surrounded it on every side. And near the Obelisk230, which had escaped unscathed, a gas-pipe in its trench231 had been broken by the pick of a careless workman, and the escaping gas, fired by some accident, was flaring232 up in a great undulating jet, with a roaring, hissing233 sound.
Jean gave a wide berth234 to the barricade erected across the Rue Royale between the Ministry235 of Marine236 and the Garde-Meuble, both of which the fire had spared; he could hear the voices of the soldiers behind the sand bags and casks of earth with which it was constructed. Its front was protected by a ditch, filled with stagnant237, greenish water, in which was floating the dead body of a federate, and through one of its embrasures they caught a glimpse of the houses in the carrefour Saint-Honore, which were burning still in spite of the engines that had come in from the suburbs, of which they heard the roar and clatter238. To right and left the trees and the kiosks of the newspaper venders were riddled239 by the storm of bullets to which they had been subjected. Loud cries of horror arose; the firemen, in exploring the cellar of one of the burning houses, had come across the charred240 bodies of seven of its inmates241.
Although the barricade that closed the entrance to the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Rue de Rivoli by its skilled construction and great height appeared even more formidable than the other, Jean's instinct told him they would have less difficulty in getting by it. It was completely evacuated, indeed, and the Versailles troops had not yet entered it. The abandoned guns were resting in the embrasures in peaceful slumber242, the only living thing behind that invincible243 rampart was a stray dog, that scuttled244 away in haste. But as Jean was making what speed he could along the Rue Saint-Florentin, sustaining Maurice, whose strength was giving out, that which he had been in fear of came to pass; they fell directly into the arms of an entire company of the 88th of the line, which had turned the barricade.
"Captain," he explained, "this is a comrade of mine, who has just been wounded by those bandits. I am taking him to the hospital."
It was then that the capote which he had thrown over Maurice's shoulders stood them in good stead, and Jean's heart was beating like a trip-hammer as at last they turned into the Rue Saint-Honore. Day was just breaking, and the sound of shots reached their ears from the cross-streets, for fighting was going on still throughout the quartier. It was little short of a miracle that they finally reached the Rue des Frondeurs without sustaining any more disagreeable adventure. Their progress was extremely slow; the last four or five hundred yards appeared interminable. In the Rue des Frondeurs they struck up against a communist picket245, but the federates, thinking a whole regiment14 was at hand, took to their heels. And now they had but a short bit of the Rue d'Argenteuil to traverse and they would be safe in the Rue des Orties.
For four long hours that seemed like an eternity246 Jean's longing247 desire had been bent248 on that Rue des Orties with feverish249 impatience250, and now they were there it appeared like a haven251 of safety. It was dark, silent, and deserted, as if there were no battle raging within a hundred leagues of it. The house, an old, narrow house without a concierge252, was still as the grave.
"I have the keys in my pocket," murmured Maurice. "The big one opens the street door, the little one is the key of my room, way at the top of the house."
He succumbed253 and fainted dead away in Jean's arms, whose alarm and distress were extreme. They made him forget to close the outer door, and he had to grope his way up that strange, dark staircase, bearing his lifeless burden and observing the greatest caution not to stumble or make any noise that might arouse the sleeping inmates of the rooms. When he had gained the top he had to deposit the wounded man on the floor while he searched for the chamber254 door by striking matches, of which he fortunately had a supply in his pocket, and only when he had found and opened it did he return and raise him in his arms again. Entering, he laid him on the little iron bed that faced the window, which he threw open to its full extent in his great need of air and light. It was broad day; he dropped on his knees beside the bed, sobbing255 as if his heart would break, suddenly abandoned by all his strength as the fearful thought again smote257 him that he had slain his friend.
Minutes passed; he was hardly surprised when, raising his eyes, he saw Henriette standing by the bed. It was perfectly258 natural: her brother was dying, she had come. He had not even seen her enter the room; for all he knew she might have been standing there for hours. He sank into a chair and watched her with stupid eyes as she hovered259 about the bed, her heart wrung260 with mortal anguish at sight of her brother lying there senseless, in his blood-stained garments. Then his memory began to act again; he asked:
"Tell me, did you close the street door?"
She answered with an affirmative motion of the head, and as she came toward him, extending her two hands in her great need of sympathy and support, he added:
"You know it was I who killed him."
She did not understand; she did not believe him. He felt no flutter in the two little hands that rested confidingly261 in his own.
"It was I who killed him--yes, 'twas over yonder, behind a barricade, I did it. He was fighting on one side, I on the other--"
There began to be a fluttering of the little hands.
"We were like drunken men, none of us knew what he as about--it was I who killed him."
Then Henriette, shivering, pale as death, withdrew her hands, fixing on him a gaze that was full of horror. Father of Mercy, was the end of all things come! was her crushed and bleeding heart to know no peace for ever more! Ah, that Jean, of whom she had been thinking that very day, happy in the unshaped hope that perhaps she might see him once again! And it was he who had done that abominable thing; and yet he had saved Maurice, for was it not he who had brought him home through so many perils262? She could not yield her hands to him now without a revolt of all her being, but she uttered a cry into which she threw the last hope of her tortured and distracted heart.
"Oh! I will save him; I _must_ save him, now!"
She had acquired considerable experience in surgery during the long time she had been in attendance on the hospital at Remilly, and now she proceeded without delay to examine her brother's hurt, who remained unconscious while she was undressing him. But when she undid264 the rude bandage of Jean's invention, he stirred feebly and uttered a faint cry of pain, opening wide his eyes that were bright with fever. He recognized her at once and smiled.
"You here! Ah, how glad I am to see you once more before I die!"
She silenced him, speaking in a tone of cheerful confidence.
"Hush, don't talk of dying; I won't allow it! I mean that you shall live! There, be quiet, and let me see what is to be done."
However, when Henriette had examined the injured arm and the wound in the side, her face became clouded and a troubled look rose to her eyes. She installed herself as mistress in the room, searching until she found a little oil, tearing up old shirts for bandages, while Jean descended to the lower regions for a pitcher265 of water. He did not open his mouth, but looked on in silence as she washed and deftly266 dressed the wounds, incapable267 of aiding her, seemingly deprived of all power of action by her presence there. When she had concluded her task, however, noticing her alarmed expression, he proposed to her that he should go and secure a doctor, but she was in possession of all her clear intelligence. No, no; she would not have a chance-met doctor, of whom they knew nothing, who, perhaps, would betray her brother to the authorities. They must have a man they could depend on; they could afford to wait a few hours. Finally, when Jean said he must go and report for duty with his company, it was agreed that he should return as soon as he could get away, and try to bring a surgeon with him.
He delayed his departure, seemingly unable to make up his mind to leave that room, whose atmosphere was pervaded268 by the evil he had unintentionally done. The window, which had been closed for a moment, had been opened again, and from it the wounded man, lying on his bed, his head propped269 up by pillows, was looking out over the city, while the others, also, in the oppressive silence that had settled on the chamber, were gazing out into vacancy270.
From that elevated point of the Butte des Moulins a good half of Paris lay stretched beneath their eyes in a vast panorama271: first the central districts, from the Faubourg Saint-Honore to the Bastille, then the Seine in its entire course through the city, with the thickly-built, densely-populated regions of the left bank, an ocean of roofs, treetops, steeples, domes272, and towers. The light was growing stronger, the abominable night, than which there have been few more terrible in history, was ended; but beneath the rosy273 sky, in the pure, clear light of the rising sun, the fires were blazing still. Before them lay the burning Tuileries, the d'Orsay barracks, the Palaces of the Council of State and the Legion of Honor, the flames from which were paled by the superior refulgence274 of the day-star. Even beyond the houses in the Rue de Lille and the Rue du Bac there must have been other structures burning, for clouds of smoke were visible rising from the carrefour of la Croix-Rouge, and, more distant still, from the Rue Vavin and the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Nearer at hand and to their right the fires in the Rue Saint-Honore were dying out, while to the left, at the Palais-Royal and the new Louvre, to which the torch had not been applied until near morning, the work of the incendiaries was apparently275 a failure. But what they were unable to account for at first was the dense volume of black smoke which, impelled276 by the west wind, came driving past their window. Fire had been set to the Ministry of Finance at three o'clock in the morning and ever since that time it had been smoldering277, emitting no blaze, among the stacks and piles of documents that were contained in the low-ceiled, fire-proof vaults278 and chambers279. And if the terrific impressions of the night were not there to preside at the awakening280 of the great city --the fear of total destruction, the Seine pouring its fiery waves past their doors, Paris kindling281 into flame from end to end--a feeling of gloom and despair, hung heavy over the quartiers that had been spared, with that dense, on-pouring smoke, whose dusky cloud was ever spreading. Presently the sun, which had risen bright and clear, was hid by it, and the golden sky was filled with the great funeral pall.
Maurice, who appeared to be delirious again, made a slow, sweeping282 gesture that embraced the entire horizon, murmuring:
"Is it all burning? Ah, how long it takes!"
Tears rose to Henriette's eyes, as if her burden of misery283 was made heavier for her by the share her brother had had in those deeds of horror. And Jean, who dared neither take her hand nor embrace his friend, left the room with the air of one crazed by grief.
"I will return soon. _Au revoir_!"
It was dark, however, nearly eight o'clock, before he was able to redeem284 his promise. Notwithstanding his great distress he was happy; his regiment had been transferred from the first to the second line and assigned the task of protecting the quartier, so that, bivouacking with his company in the Place du Carrousel, he hoped to get a chance to run in each evening to see how the wounded man was getting on. And he did not return alone; as luck would have it he had fallen in with the former surgeon of the 106th and had brought him along with him, having been unable to find another doctor, consoling himself with the reflection that the terrible, big man with the lion's mane was not such a bad sort of fellow after all.
When Bouroche, who knew nothing of the patient he was summoned with such insistence285 to attend and grumbled at having to climb so many stairs, learned that it was a Communist he had on his hands he commenced to storm.
"God's thunder, what do you take me for? Do you suppose I'm going to waste my time on those thieving, murdering, house-burning scoundrels? As for this particular bandit, his case is clear, and I'll take it upon me to see he is cured; yes, with a bullet in his head!"
But his anger subsided286 suddenly at sight of Henriette's pale face and her golden hair streaming in disorder287 over her black dress.
"He is my brother, doctor, and he was with you at Sedan."
He made no reply, but uncovered the injuries and examined them in silence; then, taking some phials from his pocket, he made a fresh dressing, explaining to the young woman how it was done. When he had finished he turned suddenly to the patient and asked in his loud, rough voice:
"Why did you take sides with those ruffians? What could cause you to be guilty of such an abomination?"
Maurice, with a feverish luster in his eyes, had been watching him since he entered the room, but no word had escaped his lips. He answered in a voice that was almost fierce, so eager was it:
"Because there is too much suffering in the world, too much wickedness, too much infamy288!"
Bouroche's shrug of the shoulders seemed to indicate that he thought a young man was likely to make his mark who carried such ideas about in his head. He appeared to be about to say something further, but changed his mind and bowed himself out, simply adding:
"I will come in again."
To Henriette, on the landing, he said he would not venture to make any promises. The injury to the lung was serious; hemorrhage might set in and carry off the patient without a moment's warning. And when she re-entered the room she forced a smile to her lips, notwithstanding the sharp stab with which the doctor's words had pierced her heart, for had she not promised herself to save him? and could she permit him to be snatched from them now that they three were again united, with a prospect289 of a lifetime of affection and happiness before them? She had not left the room since morning, an old woman who lived on the landing having kindly290 offered to act as her messenger for the purchase of such things as she required. And she returned and resumed her place upon a chair at her brother's bedside.
But Maurice, in his febrile excitation, questioned Jean, insisting on knowing what had happened since the morning. The latter did not tell him everything, maintaining a discreet291 silence upon the furious rage which Paris, now it was delivered from its tyrants292, was manifesting toward the dying Commune. It was now Wednesday. For two interminable days succeeding the Sunday evening when the conflict first broke out the citizens had lived in their cellars, quaking with fear, and when they ventured out at last on Wednesday morning, the spectacle of bloodshed and devastation that met their eyes on every side, and more particularly the frightful293 ruin entailed294 by the conflagrations, aroused in their breasts feelings the bitterest and most vindictive295. It was felt in every quarter that the punishment must be worthy of the crime. The houses in the suspected quarters were subjected to a rigorous search and men and women who were at all tainted296 with suspicion were led away in droves and shot without formality. At six o'clock of the evening of that day the army of the Versaillese was master of the half of Paris, following the line of the principal avenues from the park of Montsouris to the station of the Northern Railway, and the remainder of the braver members of the Commune, a mere297 handful, some twenty or so, had taken refuge in the _mairie_ of the eleventh arrondissement, in the Boulevard Voltaire.
They were silent when he concluded his narration298, and Maurice, his glance vaguely wandering over the city through the open window that let in the soft, warm air of evening, murmured:
"Well, the work goes on; Paris continues to burn!"
It was true: the flames were becoming visible again in the increasing darkness and the heavens were reddened once more with the ill-omened light. That afternoon the powder magazine at the Luxembourg had exploded with a frightful detonation299, which gave rise to a report that the Pantheon had collapsed300 and sunk into the catacombs. All that day, moreover, the conflagrations of the night pursued their course unchecked; the Palace of the Council of State and the Tuileries were burning still, the Ministry of Finance continued to belch157 forth301 its billowing clouds of smoke. A dozen times Henriette was obliged to close the window against the shower of blackened, burning paper that the hot breath of the fire whirled upward into the sky, whence it descended to earth again in a fine rain of fragments; the streets of Paris were covered with them, and some were found in the fields of Normandy, thirty leagues away. And now it was not the western and southern districts alone which seemed devoted302 to destruction, the houses in the Rue Royale and those of the Croix-Rouge and the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs: the entire eastern portion of the city appeared to be in flames, the Hotel de Ville glowed on the horizon like a mighty furnace. And in that direction also, blazing like gigantic beacon-fires upon the mountain tops, were the Theatre-Lyrique, the _mairie_ of the fourth arrondissement, and more than thirty houses in the adjacent streets, to say nothing of the theater of the Porte-Saint-Martin, further to the north, which illuminated the darkness of its locality as a stack of grain lights up the deserted, dusky fields at night. There is no doubt that in many cases the incendiaries were actuated by motives303 of personal revenge; perhaps, too, there were criminal records which the parties implicated304 had an object in destroying. It was no longer a question of self-defense305 with the Commune, of checking the advance of the victorious306 troops by fire; a delirium307 of destruction raged among its adherents308: the Palace of Justice, the Hotel-Dieu and the cathedral of Notre-Dame escaped by the merest chance. They would destroy solely309 for the sake of destroying, would bury the effete310, rotten humanity beneath the ruins of a world, in the hope that from the ashes might spring a new and innocent race that should realize the primitive legends of an earthly paradise. And all that night again did the sea of flame roll its waves over Paris.
"Ah; war, war, what a hateful thing it is!" said Henriette to herself, looking out on the sore-smitten city.
Was it not indeed the last act, the inevitable311 conclusion of the tragedy, the blood-madness for which the lost fields of Sedan and Metz were responsible, the epidemic312 of destruction born from the siege of Paris, the supreme313 struggle of a nation in peril263 of dissolution, in the midst of slaughter314 and universal ruin?
But Maurice, without taking his eyes from the fires that were raging in the distance, feebly, and with an effort, murmured:
"No, no; do not be unjust toward war. It is good; it has its appointed work to do--"
There were mingled317 hatred and remorse318 in the cry with which Jean interrupted him.
"Good God! When I see you lying there, and know it is through my fault-- Do not say a word in defense of it; it is an accursed thing, is war!"
The wounded man smiled faintly.
"Oh, as for me, what matters it? There is many another in my condition. It may be that this blood-letting was necessary for us. War is life, which cannot exist without its sister, death."
And Maurice closed his eyes, exhausted by the effort it had cost him to utter those few words. Henriette signaled Jean not to continue the discussion. It angered her; all her being rose in protest against such suffering and waste of human life, notwithstanding the calm bravery of her frail319 woman's nature, with her clear, limpid320 eyes, in which lived again all the heroic spirit of the grandfather, the veteran of the Napoleonic wars.
Two days more, Thursday and Friday, passed, like their predecessors321, amid scenes of slaughter and conflagration. The thunder of the artillery322 was incessant323; the batteries of the army of Versailles on the heights of Montmartre roared against those that the federates had established at Belleville and Pare-Lachaise without a moment's respite324, while the latter maintained a desultory325 fire on Paris. Shells had fallen in the Rue Richelieu and the Place Vendome. At evening on the 25th the entire left bank was in possession of the regular troops, but on the right bank the barricades in the Place Chateau326 d'Eau and the Place de la Bastille continued to hold out; they were veritable fortresses327, from which proceeded an uninterrupted and most destructive fire. At twilight328, while the last remaining members of the Commune were stealing off to make provision for their safety, Delescluze took his cane329 and walked leisurely330 away to the barricade that was thrown across the Boulevard Voltaire, where he died a hero's death. At daybreak on the following morning, the 26th, the Chateau d'Eau and Bastille positions were carried, and the Communists, now reduced to a handful of brave men who were resolved to sell their lives dearly, had only la Villette, Belleville, and Charonne left to them, And for two more days they remained and fought there with the fury of despair.
On Friday evening, as Jean was on his way from the Place du Carrousel to the Rue des Orties, he witnessed a summary execution in the Rue Richelieu that filled him with horror. For the last forty-eight hours two courts-martial had been sitting, one at the Luxembourg, the other at the Theatre du Chatelet; the prisoners convicted by the former were taken into the garden and shot, while those found guilty by the latter were dragged away to the Lobau barracks, where a platoon of soldiers that was kept there in constant attendance for the purpose mowed331 them down, almost at point-blank range. The scenes of slaughter there were most horrible: there were men and women who had been condemned332 to death on the flimsiest evidence: because they had a stain of powder on their hands, because their feet were shod with army shoes; there were innocent persons, the victims of private malice333, who had been wrongfully denounced, shrieking334 forth their entreaties335 and explanations and finding no one to lend an ear to them; and all were driven pell-mell against a wall, facing the muzzles336 of the muskets337, often so many poor wretches338 in the band at once that the bullets did not suffice for all and it became necessary to finish the wounded with the bayonet. From morning until night the place was streaming with blood; the tumbrils were kept busy bearing away the bodies of the dead. And throughout the length and breadth of the city, keeping pace with the revengeful clamors of the people, other executions were continually taking place, in front of barricades, against the walls in the deserted streets, on the steps of the public buildings. It was under such circumstances that Jean saw a woman and two men dragged by the residents of the quartier before the officer commanding the detachment that was guarding the Theatre Francais. The citizens showed themselves more bloodthirsty than the soldiery, and those among the newspapers that had resumed publication were howling for measures of extermination339. A threatening crowd surrounded the prisoners and was particularly violent against the woman, in whom the excited bourgeois340 beheld one of those _petroleuses_ who were the constant bugbear of terror-haunted imaginations, whom they accused of prowling by night, slinking along the darkened streets past the dwellings341 of the wealthy, to throw cans of lighted petroleum into unprotected cellars. This woman, was the cry, had been found bending over a coal-hole in the Rue Sainte-Anne. And notwithstanding her denials, accompanied by tears and supplications, she was hurled, together with the two men, to the bottom of the ditch in front of an abandoned barricade, and there, lying in the mud and slime, they were shot with as little pity as wolves caught in a trap. Some by-passers stopped and looked indifferently on the scene, among them a lady hanging on her husband's arm, while a baker's boy, who was carrying home a tart102 to someone in the neighborhood, whistled the refrain of a popular air.
As Jean, sick at heart, was hurrying along the street toward the house in the Rue des Orties, a sudden recollection flashed across his mind. Was not that Chouteau, the former member of his squad342, whom he had seen, in the blouse of a respectable workman, watching the execution and testifying his approval of it in a loud-mouthed way? He was a proficient343 in his role of bandit, traitor344, robber, and assassin! For a moment the corporal thought he would retrace345 his steps, denounce him, and send him to keep company with the other three. Ah, the sadness of the thought; the guilty ever escaping punishment, parading their unwhipped infamy in the bright light of day, while the innocent molder in the earth!
Henriette had come out upon the landing at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, where she welcomed Jean with a manner that indicated great alarm.
"'Sh! he has been extremely violent all day long. The major was here, I am in despair--"
Bouroche, in fact, had shaken his head ominously346, saying he could promise nothing as yet. Nevertheless the patient might pull through, in spite of all the evil consequences he feared; he had youth on his side.
"Ah, here you are at last," Maurice said impatiently to Jean, as soon as he set eyes on him. "I have been waiting for you. What is going on --how do matters stand?" And supported by the pillows at his back, his face to the window which he had forced his sister to open for him, he pointed315 with his finger to the city, where, on the gathering347 darkness, the lambent flames were beginning to rise anew. "You see, it is breaking out again; Paris is burning. All Paris will burn this time!"
As soon as daylight began to fade, the distant quarters beyond the Seine had been lighted up by the burning of the Grenier d'Abondance. From time to time there was an outburst of flame, accompanied by a shower of sparks, from the smoking ruins of the Tuileries, as some wall or ceiling fell and set the smoldering timbers blazing afresh. Many houses, where the fire was supposed to be extinguished, flamed up anew; for the last three days, as soon as darkness descended on the city it seemed as if it were the signal for the conflagrations to break out again; as if the shades of night had breathed upon the still glowing embers, reanimating them, and scattering348 them to the four corners of the horizon. Ah, that city of the damned, that had harbored for a week within its bosom the demon349 of destruction, incarnadining the sky each evening as soon as twilight fell, illuminating350 with its infernal torches the nights of that week of slaughter! And when, that night, the docks at la Villette burned, the light they shed upon the huge city was so intense that it seemed to be on fire in every part at once, overwhelmed and drowned beneath the sea of flame.
"Ah, it is the end!" Maurice repeated. "Paris is doomed!"
He reiterated351 the words again and again with apparent relish352, actuated by a feverish desire to hear the sound of his voice once more, after the dull lethargy that had kept him tongue-tied for three days. But the sound of stifled sobs353 causes him to turn his head.
"What, sister, you, brave little woman that you are! You weep because I am about to die--"
She interrupted him, protesting:
"But you are not going to die!"
"Yes, yes; it is better it should be so; it must be so. Ah, I shall be no great loss to anyone. Up to the time the war broke out I was a source of anxiety to you, I cost you dearly in heart and purse. All the folly354 and the madness I was guilty of, and which would have landed me, who knows where? in prison, in the gutter--"
Again she took the words from his mouth, exclaiming hotly:
"Hush! be silent!--you have atoned355 for all."
He reflected a moment. "Yes, perhaps I shall have atoned, when I am dead. Ah, Jean, old fellow, you didn't know what a service you were rendering356 us all when you gave me that bayonet thrust."
But the other protested, his eyes swimming with tears:
"Don't, I entreat you, say such things! do you wish to make me go and dash out my brains against a wall?"
Maurice pursued his train of thought, speaking in hurried, eager tones.
"Remember what you said to me the day after Sedan, that it was not such a bad thing, now and then, to receive a good drubbing. And you added that if a man had gangrene in his system, if he saw one of his limbs wasting from mortification357, it would be better to take an ax and chop off that limb than to die from the contamination of the poison. I have many a time thought of those words since I have been here, without a friend, immured358 in this city of distress and madness. And I am the diseased limb, and it is you who have lopped it off--" He went on with increasing vehemence, regardless of the supplications of his terrified auditors359, in a fervid360 tirade361 that abounded362 with symbols and striking images. It was the untainted, the reasoning, the substantial portion of France, the peasantry, the tillers of the soil, those who had always kept close contact with their mother Earth, that was suppressing the outbreak of the crazed, exasperated363 part, the part that had been vitiated by the Empire and led astray by vain illusions and empty dreams; and in the performance of its duty it had had to cut deep into the living flesh, without being fully186 aware of what it was doing. But the baptism of blood, French blood, was necessary; the abominable holocaust364, the living sacrifice, in the midst of the purifying flames. Now they had mounted the steps of the Calvary and known their bitterest agony; the crucified nation had expiated365 its faults and would be born again. "Jean, old friend, you and those like you are strong in your simplicity366 and honesty. Go, take up the spade and the trowel, turn the sod in the abandoned field, rebuild the house! As for me, you did well to lop me off, since I was the ulcer367 that was eating away your strength!"
After that his language became more and more incoherent; he insisted on rising and going to sit by the window. "Paris burns, Paris burns; not a stone of it will be left standing. Ah! the fire that I invoked, it destroys, but it heals; yes, the work it does is good. Let me go down there; let me help to finish the work of humanity and liberty--"
Jean had the utmost difficulty in getting him back to bed, while Henriette tearfully recalled memories of their childhood, and entreated368 him, for the sake of the love they bore each other, to be calm. Over the immensity of Paris the fiery glow deepened and widened; the sea of flame seemed to be invading the remotest quarters of the horizon; the heavens were like the vaults of a colossal oven, heated to red heat. And athwart the red light of the conflagrations the dense black smoke-clouds from the Ministry of Finance, which had been burning three days and given forth no blaze, continued to pour in unbroken, slow procession.
The following, Saturday, morning brought with it a decided369 improvement in Maurice's condition: he was much calmer, the fever had subsided, and it afforded Jean inexpressible delight to behold a smile on Henriette's face once more, as the young woman fondly reverted370 to her cherished dream, a pact371 of reciprocal affection between the three of them, that should unite them in a future that might yet be one of happiness, under conditions that she did not care to formulate372 even to herself. Would destiny be merciful? Would it save them all from an eternal farewell by saving her brother? Her nights were spent in watching him; she never stirred outside that chamber, where her noiseless activity and gentle ministrations were like a never-ceasing caress373. And Jean, that evening, while sitting with his friends, forgot his great sorrow in a delight that astonished him and made him tremble. The troops had carried Belleville and the Buttes-Chaumont that day; the only remaining point where there was any resistance now was the cemetery374 of Pere-Lachaise, which had been converted into a fortified375 camp. It seemed to him that the insurrection was ended; he even declared that the troops had ceased to shoot their prisoners, who were being collected in droves and sent on to Versailles. He told of one of those bands that he had seen that morning on the _quai_, made up of men of every class, from the most respectable to the lowest, and of women of all ages and conditions, wrinkled old bags and young girls, mere children, not yet out of their teens; pitiful aggregation376 of misery and revolt, driven like cattle by the soldiers along the street in the bright sunshine, and that the people of Versailles, so it was said, received with revilings and blows.
But Sunday was to Jean a day of terror. It rounded out and fitly ended that accursed week. With the triumphant377 rising of the sun on that bright, warm Sabbath morning he shudderingly378 heard the news that was the culmination379 of all preceding horrors. It was only at that late day that the public was informed of the murder of the hostages; the archbishop, the cure of the Madeleine and others, shot at la Roquette on Wednesday, the Dominicans of Arcueil coursed like hares on Thursday, more priests and gendarmes380, to the number of forty-seven in all, massacred in cold blood in the Rue Haxo on Friday; and a furious cry went up for vengeance381, the soldiers bunched the last prisoners they made and shot them in mass. All day long on that magnificent Sunday the volleys of musketry rang out in the courtyard of the Lobau barracks, that were filled with blood and smoke and the groans382 of the dying. At la Roquette two hundred and twenty-seven miserable383 wretches, gathered in here and there by the drag-net of the police, were collected in a huddle384, and the soldiers fired volley after volley into the mass of human beings until there was no further sign of life. At Pere-Lachaise, which had been shelled continuously for four days and was finally carried by a hand-to-hand conflict among the graves, a hundred and forty-eight of the insurgents385 were drawn386 up in line before a wall, and when the firing ceased the stones were weeping great tears of blood; and three of them, despite their wounds, having succeeded in making their escape, they were retaken and despatched. Among the twelve thousand victims of the Commune, who shall say how many innocent people suffered for every malefactor387 who met his deserts! An order to stop the executions had been issued from Versailles, so it was said, but none the less the slaughter still went on; Thiers, while hailed as the savior of his country, was to bear the stigma388 of having been the Jack389 Ketch of Paris, and Marshal MacMahon, the vanquished of Froeschwiller, whose proclamation announcing the triumph of law and order was to be seen on every wall, was to receive the credit of the victory of Pere-Lachaise. And in the pleasant sunshine Paris, attired390 in holiday garb391, appeared to be _en fete_; the reconquered streets were filled with an enormous crowd; men and women, glad to breathe the air of heaven once more, strolled leisurely from spot to spot to view the smoking ruins; mothers, holding their little children by the hand, stopped for a moment and listened with an air of interest to the deadened crash of musketry from the Lobau barracks.
When Jean ascended the dark staircase of the house in the Rue des Orties, in the gathering obscurity of that Sunday evening, his heart was oppressed by a chill sense of impending392 evil. He entered the room, and saw at once that the inevitable end was come; Maurice lay dead on the little bed; the hemorrhage predicted by Bouroche had done its work. The red light of the setting sun streamed through the open window and rested on the wall as if in a last farewell; two tapers393 were burning on a table beside the bed. And Henriette, alone with her dead, in her widow's weeds that she had not laid aside, was weeping silently.
At the noise of footsteps she raised her head, and shuddered394 on beholding395 Jean. He, in his wild despair, was about to hurry toward her and seize her hands, mingle316 his grief with hers in a sympathetic clasp, but he saw the little hands were trembling, he felt as by instinct the repulsion that pervaded all her being and was to part them for evermore. Was not all ended between them now? Maurice's grave would be there, a yawning chasm396, to part them as long as they should live. And he could only fall to his knees by the bedside of his dead friend, sobbing softly. After the silence had lasted some moments, however, Henriette spoke:
"I had turned my back and was preparing a cup of bouillon, when he gave a cry. I hastened to his side, but had barely time to reach the bed before he expired, with my name upon his lips, and yours as well, amid an outgush of blood--"
Her Maurice, her twin brother, whom she might almost be said to have loved in the prenatal state, her other self, whom she had watched over and saved! sole object of her affection since at Bazeilles she had seen her poor Weiss set against a wall and shot to death! And now cruel war had done its worst by her, had crushed her bleeding heart; henceforth her way through life was to be a solitary397 one, widowed and forsaken398 as she was, with no one upon whom to bestow399 her love.
"Ah, _bon sang_!" cried Jean, amid his sobs, "behold my work! My poor little one, for whom I would have laid down my life, and whom I murdered, brute that I am! What is to become of us? Can you ever forgive me?"
At that moment their glances met, and they were stricken with consternation400 at what they read in each other's eyes. The past rose before them, the secluded401 chamber at Remilly, where they had spent so many melancholy yet happy days. His dream returned to him, that dream of which at first he had been barely conscious and which even at a later period could not be said to have assumed definite shape: life down there in the pleasant country by the Meuse, marriage, a little house, a little field to till whose produce should suffice for the needs of two people whose ideas were not extravagant402. Now the dream was become an eager longing, a penetrating403 conviction that, with a wife as loving and industrious404 as she, existence would be a veritable earthly paradise. And she, the tranquillity405 of whose mind had never in those days been ruffled406 by thoughts of that nature, in the chaste407 and unconscious bestowal408 of her heart, now saw clearly and understood the true condition of her feelings. That marriage, of which she had not admitted to herself the possibility, had been, unknown to her, the object of her desire. The seed that had germinated409 had pushed its way in silence and in darkness; it was love, not sisterly affection, that she bore toward that young man whose company had at first been to her nothing more than a source of comfort and consolation410. And that was what their eyes told each other, and the love thus openly expressed could have no other fruition than an eternal farewell. It needed but that frightful sacrifice, the rending411 of their heart-strings by that supreme parting, the prospect of their life's happiness wrecked412 amid all the other ruins, swept away by the crimson tide that ended their brother's life.
With a slow and painful effort Jean rose from his knees.
"Farewell!"
Henriette stood motionless in her place.
"Farewell!"
But Jean could not tear himself away thus. Advancing to the bedside he sorrowfully scanned the dead man's face, with its lofty forehead that seemed loftier still in death, its wasted features, its dull eyes, whence the wild look that had occasionally been seen there in life had vanished. He longed to give a parting kiss to his little one, as he had called him so many times, but dared not. It seemed to him that his hands were stained with his friend's blood; he shrank from the horror of the ordeal413. Ah, what a death to die, amid the crashing ruins of a sinking world! On the last day, among the shattered fragments of the dying Commune, might not this last victim have been spared? He had gone from life, hungering for justice, possessed414 by the dream that haunted him, the sublime415 and unattainable conception of the destruction of the old society, of Paris chastened by fire, of the field dug up anew, that from the soil thus renewed and purified might spring the idyl of another golden age.
His heart overflowing416 with bitter anguish, Jean turned and looked out on Paris. The setting sun lay on the edge of the horizon, and its level rays bathed the city in a flood of vividly417 red light. The windows in thousands of houses flamed as if lighted by fierce fires within; the roofs glowed like beds of live coals; bits of gray wall and tall, sober-hued monuments flashed in the evening air with the sparkle of a brisk fire of brushwood. It was like the show-piece that is reserved for the conclusion of a _fete_, the huge bouquet418 of gold and crimson, as if Paris were burning like a forest of old oaks and soaring heavenward in a rutilant cloud of sparks and flame. The fires were burning still; volumes of reddish smoke continued to rise into the air; a confused murmur in the distance sounded on the ear, perhaps the last groans of the dying Communists at the Lobau barracks, or it may have been the happy laughter of women and children, ending their pleasant afternoon by dining in the open air at the doors of the wine-shops. And in the midst of all the splendor419 of that royal sunset, while a large part of Paris was crumbling420 away in ashes, from plundered421 houses and gutted422 palaces, from the torn-up streets, from the depths of all that ruin and suffering, came sounds of life.
Then Jean had a strange experience. It seemed to him that in the slowly fading daylight, above the roofs of that flaming city, he beheld the dawning of another day. And yet the situation might well be considered irretrievable. Destiny appeared to have pursued them with her utmost fury; the successive disasters they had sustained were such as no nation in history had ever known before; defeat treading on the heels of defeat, their provinces torn from them, an indemnity of milliards to be raised, a most horrible civil war that had been quenched423 in blood, their streets cumbered with ruins and unburied corpses424, without money, their honor gone, and order to be re-established out of chaos425! His share of the universal ruin was a heart lacerated by the loss of Maurice and Henriette, the prospect of a happy future swept away in the furious storm! And still, beyond the flames of that furnace whose fiery glow had not subsided yet, Hope, the eternal, sat enthroned in the limpid serenity426 of the tranquil heavens. It was the certain assurance of the resurrection of perennial427 nature, of imperishable humanity; the harvest that is promised to him who sows and waits; the tree throwing out a new and vigorous shoot to replace the rotten limb that has been lopped away, which was blighting428 the young leaves with its vitiated sap.
"Farewell!" Jean repeated with a sob256.
"Farewell!" murmured Henriette, her bowed face hidden in her hands.
The neglected field was overgrown with brambles, the roof-tree of the ruined house lay on the ground; and Jean, bearing his heavy burden of affliction with humble429 resignation, went his way, his face set resolutely430 toward the future, toward the glorious and arduous431 task that lay before him and his countrymen, to create a new France.
The End
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1
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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2
tingeing
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| vt.着色，使…带上色彩（tinge的现在分词形式） | |
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3
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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6
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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7
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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9
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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10
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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11
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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12
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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13
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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15
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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16
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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17
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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18
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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promiscuously
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| adv.杂乱地，混杂地 | |
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20
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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21
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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22
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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23
mantles
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| vt.&vi.覆盖（mantle的第三人称单数形式） | |
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24
serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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25
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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26
satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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27
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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28
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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29
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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30
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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31
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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32
martinet
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| n.要求严格服从纪律的人 | |
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33
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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34
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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35
condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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36
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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37
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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38
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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39
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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40
obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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41
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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42
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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43
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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44
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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45
defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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46
tarnish
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| n.晦暗，污点；vt.使失去光泽；玷污 | |
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47
luster
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| n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉 | |
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48
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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49
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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50
ceded
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| v.让给，割让，放弃( cede的过去式 ) | |
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51
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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53
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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54
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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55
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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56
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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57
opacity
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| n.不透明；难懂 | |
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58
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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59
seethe
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| vi.拥挤，云集；发怒，激动，骚动 | |
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60
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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61
vapors
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| n.水汽，水蒸气，无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 )；自夸者；幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁（症）v.自夸，（使）蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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62
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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63
grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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64
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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65
surmount
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| vt.克服；置于…顶上 | |
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66
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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67
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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68
dilatoriness
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| n.迟缓，拖延 | |
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69
indemnity
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| n.赔偿，赔款，补偿金 | |
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70
immolating
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| v.宰杀…作祭品( immolate的现在分词 ) | |
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71
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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72
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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73
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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75
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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76
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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77
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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79
oratorical
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| adj.演说的，雄辩的 | |
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80
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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81
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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82
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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83
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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84
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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85
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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86
mete
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| v.分配；给予 | |
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87
chastise
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| vt.责骂，严惩 | |
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88
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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89
expiation
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| n.赎罪，补偿 | |
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90
purge
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| n.整肃，清除，泻药，净化；vt.净化，清除，摆脱；vi.清除，通便，腹泻，变得清洁 | |
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91
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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92
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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93
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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94
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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95
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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96
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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97
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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98
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
streaking
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| n.裸奔（指在公共场所裸体飞跑）v.快速移动( streak的现在分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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100
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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101
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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102
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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103
supplicant
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| adj.恳求的n.恳求者 | |
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104
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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105
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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106
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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108
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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109
touchingly
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| adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地 | |
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110
loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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111
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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112
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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113
allaying
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| v.减轻，缓和( allay的现在分词 ) | |
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114
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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115
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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116
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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117
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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118
circumscribing
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| v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的现在分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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119
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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120
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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121
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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122
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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123
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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124
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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125
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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126
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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127
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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128
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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129
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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130
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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131
hog
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| n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占 | |
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132
glutting
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| v.吃得过多( glut的现在分词 )；（对胃口、欲望等）纵情满足；使厌腻；塞满 | |
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133
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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134
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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135
crucible
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| n.坩锅，严酷的考验 | |
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136
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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137
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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138
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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139
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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140
succor
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| n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助 | |
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141
irresolution
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| n.不决断，优柔寡断，犹豫不定 | |
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142
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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143
barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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144
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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145
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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146
ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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147
cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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148
singed
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| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
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149
conflagrations
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| n.大火（灾）( conflagration的名词复数 ) | |
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150
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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151
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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152
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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153
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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154
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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155
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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156
extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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157
belch
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| v.打嗝，喷出 | |
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158
belching
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| n. 喷出，打嗝 动词belch的现在分词形式 | |
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159
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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160
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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161
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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162
petroleum
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| n.原油，石油 | |
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163
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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164
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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165
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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166
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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167
spouting
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| n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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168
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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169
colonnaded
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| adj.有列柱的，有柱廊的 | |
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170
facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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171
colonnades
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| n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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172
friezes
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| n.（柱顶过梁和挑檐间的）雕带，（墙顶的）饰带( frieze的名词复数 ) | |
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173
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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174
propulsive
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| adj.推进的 | |
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175
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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176
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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177
eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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178
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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179
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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180
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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181
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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182
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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183
incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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184
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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185
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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186
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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187
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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188
wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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189
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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190
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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191
nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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192
vertically
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| adv.垂直地 | |
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193
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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194
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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195
pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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196
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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197
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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198
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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199
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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200
facades
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| n.（房屋的）正面( facade的名词复数 )；假象，外观 | |
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201
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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202
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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203
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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204
stammering
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 ) | |
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205
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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206
invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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207
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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208
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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209
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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210
daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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211
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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212
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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213
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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214
rues
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| v.对…感到后悔( rue的第三人称单数 ) | |
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215
obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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216
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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217
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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218
evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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219
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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220
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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221
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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222
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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223
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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224
devastation
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| n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤 | |
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225
breached
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| 攻破( breach的现在分词 )； 破坏，违反 | |
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226
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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227
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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228
projectile
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| n.投射物，发射体；adj.向前开进的；推进的；抛掷的 | |
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229
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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230
obelisk
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| n.方尖塔 | |
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231
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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232
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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233
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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234
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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235
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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236
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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237
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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238
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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239
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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240
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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241
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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242
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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243
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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244
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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245
picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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246
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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247
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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248
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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249
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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250
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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251
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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252
concierge
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| n.管理员；门房 | |
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253
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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254
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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255
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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256
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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257
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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258
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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259
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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260
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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261
confidingly
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| adv.信任地 | |
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262
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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263
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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264
Undid
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| v. 解开, 复原 | |
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265
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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266
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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267
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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268
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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269
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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270
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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271
panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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272
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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273
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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274
refulgence
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| n.辉煌，光亮 | |
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275
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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276
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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277
smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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278
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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279
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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280
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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281
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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282
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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283
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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284
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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285
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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286
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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287
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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288
infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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289
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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290
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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291
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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292
tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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293
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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294
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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295
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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296
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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297
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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298
narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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299
detonation
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| n.爆炸；巨响 | |
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300
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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301
forth
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|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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302
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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303
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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304
implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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305
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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306
victorious
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|
| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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307
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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308
adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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309
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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310
effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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311
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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312
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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313
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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314
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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315
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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316
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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317
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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318
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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319
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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320
limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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321
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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322
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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323
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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324
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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325
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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326
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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327
fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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328
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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329
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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330
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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331
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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332
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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333
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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334
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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335
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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336
muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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337
muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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338
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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339
extermination
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| n.消灭，根绝 | |
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340
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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341
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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342
squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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343
proficient
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| adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家 | |
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344
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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345
retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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346
ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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347
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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348
scattering
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|
| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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349
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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350
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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351
reiterated
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|
| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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352
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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353
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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354
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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355
atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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356
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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357
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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358
immured
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| v.禁闭，监禁( immure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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359
auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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360
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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361
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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362
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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363
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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364
holocaust
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| n.大破坏；大屠杀 | |
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365
expiated
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| v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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366
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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367
ulcer
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| n.溃疡，腐坏物 | |
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368
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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369
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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370
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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371
pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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372
formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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373
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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374
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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375
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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376
aggregation
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| n.聚合，组合；凝聚 | |
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377
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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378
shudderingly
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379
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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380
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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381
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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382
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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383
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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384
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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385
insurgents
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| n.起义，暴动，造反( insurgent的名词复数 ) | |
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386
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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387
malefactor
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| n.罪犯 | |
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388
stigma
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| n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头 | |
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389
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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390
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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391
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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392
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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393
tapers
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| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
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394
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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395
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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396
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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397
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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398
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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399
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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400
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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401
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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402
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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403
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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404
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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405
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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406
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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407
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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408
bestowal
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| 赠与，给与； 贮存 | |
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409
germinated
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| v.（使）发芽( germinate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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410
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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411
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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412
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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413
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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414
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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415
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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416
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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417
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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418
bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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419
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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420
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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421
plundered
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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422
gutted
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| adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏 | |
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423
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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424
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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425
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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426
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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427
perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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428
blighting
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| 使凋萎( blight的现在分词 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害 | |
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429
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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430
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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431
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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