Jean Blaise went on with an air of superior complacency:
‘You live in a dream; I see life as it is. Believe me, my friend, the Revolution’s become a bore: it’s lasted too long. Five years of rapture, five years of brotherly love, of massacres, of endless speeches, of the Marseillaise, of bells ringing to man the barricades, of aristocrats hanging from lamp-posts, of heads stuck on pikes, of women with cannons between their legs, of little girls and old men in white robes on flower-bedecked chariots, the prisoners, the guillotine; semi-starvation, proclamations, cockades, plumes, swords, carmagnoles, it’s all gone on too long! Nobody knows any more what it’s all about! We’ve seen too much, we’ve seen too many of these great patriots raised up for us to worship only for them to be hurled from your Tarpeian Rock – Necker, Mirabeau, La Fayette, Bailly, Pétion, Manuel and all the rest of them. How do we know you’re not preparing the same fate for your new heroes?… Nobody knows any more!’
‘Name them, Citizen Blaise! Name them! These heroes we’re preparing to sacrifice!’ Gamelin’s tone of voice recalled the print-dealer to a sense of prudence.
‘I’m a Republican and a patriot,’ he replied, putting his hand over his heart. ‘I’m as good a Republican as you, I’m as patriotic as you, Citizen Évariste Gamelin. I do not suspect your good citizenship nor do I accuse you of opportunism. But do not forget that my good citizenship and my devotion to the public cause are proved by my deeds. As for what I believe: I believe in giving my confidence to any person who is capable of serving the country. I doff my hat to men such as Marat, such as Robespierre, who are elevated to the dangerous honour of legislative power. I am ready to support them as far as my poor means allow and to give them the humble assistance of a good citizen. The Committees can bear witness to my zeal and devotion. In conjunction with true patriots, I’ve supplied oats and fodder to our brave cavalry and boots for our soldiers. Only today, I’ve had sixty cattle sent from Vernon to the army of the Midi through countryside infested with brigands and alive with messengers of Pitt and Condé. I do not talk, I act.’
Gamelin calmly put his water-colours back into his portfolio, tied the string and put it under his arm.
Through clenched teeth he forced out the words:
‘It is a strange contradiction to help our soldiers carry the flag of liberty across the world and yet betray that liberty in one’s own home by trying to arouse discontent and alarm in one of its defenders. Good day to you, Citizen Blaise.’
Aflame with love and with anger, Gamelin turned before he entered the alley alongside the Oratoire to look up at the window-sill with red carnations.
He had no doubts about the future of his country. Against the unpatriotic sentiments expressed by Jean Blaise he set his faith in the Revolution. Yet he had to admit that the print-dealer’s assertions appeared reasonable to the extent that the people were no longer as interested in events as they had been. It was only too obvious that the enthusiasm of the early days had been replaced by a widespread indifference; that never again would one see the huge crowds of 1789, never again the thousands united in heart, mind and soul who had thronged thick in 1790 around the altar, to commemorate the Fall of the Bastille. But that simply meant that good citizens must redouble their zeal and boldness, must reawaken the people from their apathy, summoning them to choose between liberty and death.
Thus Gamelin deliberated, and the thought of Élodie upheld his courage.
Reaching the Quais, he saw above the setting sun dark heavy clouds which gleamed like mountains of glowing lava; all the roofs of the city were bathed in golden light; all the window panes flashed dazzlingly. And Gamelin thought of the Titans forging Dike, the city of brass, out of the burning debris of worlds past and gone.
Without possessing a scrap of bread for his mother or himself, he walked in a dream of being seated at a table, laden with food, which would be endless since it would encompass the whole world and at which there would be room for all regenerated mankind. In the meantime, he persuaded himself, his country like a good mother would feed her faithful child. Forcing the gibes of the print-dealer from his mind, he convinced himself that his idea of a pack of Revolutionary playing-cards was both a good one and a new one and that he was carrying a fortune in the portfolio under his arm. ‘Desmahis will engrave them,’ he told himself. ‘We’ll publish this new patriotic game by ourselves and we’ll be sure to sell ten thousand a month at twenty sols a pack.’
And, impatient to realize his project, he turned and hurried along the Quai de la Ferraille, where Desmahis lodged above a glazier’s shop.
There the glazier’s wife informed Gamelin that Desmahis was not in, which did not greatly surprise the artist since he knew his friend’s dissipated, vagabond nature and never ceased to marvel that a man with so little perseverance was able to produce so many engravings so finely done. Gamelin decided to wait for a while. The glazier’s wife offered him a chair. She was in a bad temper and grumbled about the poor state of business despite everybody saying that the Revolution, by breaking windows, was making the fortune of glaziers.
Night began to fall: giving up waiting, Gamelin took his leave. Whilst crossing the Pont-Neuf, he saw coming along the Quai des Morfondus, carrying torches and driving back the crowds, a mounted detachment of the National Guard escorting, with a great clattering of their sabres, a cart in which a man was being driven slowly to the guillotine – a man nobody knew, some ci-devant aristocrat, the first to be condemned by the new Revolutionary Tribunal. He could be glimpsed now and then between the Guards’ hats, seated facing the rear of the cart, his hands tied behind his back, his bare head swaying. The executioner was standing beside him, leaning against the rail of the cart. The passers-by, who had now formed a large crowd of onlookers, were telling each other he was probably one of those who had been trying to starve people, and they stood watching indifferently. As he came closer, Gamelin suddenly recognized Desmahis amongst them. He was trying to push his way through the crowd to run across the Quai in front of the procession. Gamelin called out and grasped him by the shoulder; Desmahis turned his head.
He was a young sturdily built, handsome man. At the Academy of Arts they had used to say that Desmahis possessed the head of Bacchus and the body of Hercules. His friends had called him ‘Barbaroux’ on account of his resemblance to that deputy of the people.
‘Wait,’ Gamelin said. ‘I’ve something important to say to you.’
‘Don’t bother me now!’ Desmahis replied roughly.
And, watching for an opportunity to cross quickly, he muttered over his shoulder:
‘I was following a girl, a marvellous creature, in a straw hat, a milliner’s assistant, fair hair right down her back; this damned cart got in the way… She’ll be at the other end of the bridge by now.’
Gamelin tried again to hold him back, swearing that the matter was of great importance.
But Desmahis had already slipped across in between horses, guards, sabres and torches, and was fast in pursuit of the young girl from the milliner’s shop.
IV
IT was ten o’clock in the morning. The light of the April sunshine glistened on the wet leaves of the trees. The air, freshened by the previous night’s storm, smelt deliciously sweet. The solitude’s gentle stillness was broken only at long intervals by a horseman passing along the Allée des Veuves. On a wooden bench beside a thatched cottage in this shady Allée, Évariste sat waiting for Élodie. Since the day their hands had met over her embroidery and their breath had touched each other’s cheeks, he had not returned to the Amour Peintre. For an entire week his proud stoicism and his timidity, which was becoming more and more pronounced, had kept him away from Élodie. He had written her a grave, seriously ardent letter, in which he had explained his grievances against the Citizen Blaise, and, making no mention of his love and concealing his sadness, had announced his determination never to return to the print-dealer’s shop, a determination he was maintaining with a firmness greater than was likely to be a
pproved by a woman in love.
Contentious by nature, Élodie’s first instinct was always to defend her property under all circumstances, and she had now set about winning back her lover with all possible speed. She had first considered going to see him in his studio at the Place de Thionville. But, knowing his touchiness and judging from his letter that he was both hurt and angry, she was frightened lest his bitterness be turned against her as well as her father, and he would decide not to see her again also. She thought it better therefore to arrange a sentimental, romantic rendezvous with him, one which he could not well refuse and at which she would have ample time to charm and cajole him, since the solitude of the meeting-place would conspire to help her fascinate and conquer him.
At that time, little thatched cottages, built by shrewd architects to flatter the rustically inclined tastes of city people, were to be found in all the pseudo-English gardens and along all the fashionable country walks. The owner of this particular thatched cottage, La Belle Lilloise, had made it into a café, and to enhance its rustic charm had had it built on top of the artistically imitated remains of a ruined castle. And, as if a thatched cottage on a ruined castle were not enough to attract sensitive-natured customers, he had erected a tomb beside it beneath a weeping willow: a column surmounted by a funeral urn bearing the inscription: ‘Cleonice to her faithful Azor’. Cottages, ruins, tombs: on the brink of its own extinction, the aristocracy had erected in its ancestral parks these symbols of poverty, decadence and death. And now the patriotic citizens took their pleasures – drinking, dancing, making love – in sham thatched cottages, in the shade of sham ruins, and amongst sham tombs; citizens and aristocrats, all were loving disciples of Rousseau and of Nature, all throbbed to the same pulse of philosophic sensitivity.
Having arrived at the rendez-vous before the appointed time, Évariste sat waiting, measuring the time by the beating of his heart as if it were the pendulum of a clock. A patrol passed, conducting a convoy of prisoners. Ten minutes later, a woman dressed entirely in pink, the fashionable bouquet of flowers in her hand and accompanied by a gallant in a three-cornered hat, red coat, striped waistcoat and breeches, slipped into the cottage, both looking so like the ladies and gentlemen of the old régime it made one think, like the Citizen Blaise, that there must be something in mankind which Revolutions will never change.
A few more moments passed and an old woman appeared from the direction of Rueil or Saint-Cloud, carrying before her in her outstretched arms a cylindrical box painted in bright colours, and sat on the bench beside Gamelin. She put her box down in front of her and he saw that the lid had a revolving needle fixed to it. The poor woman played a lottery game for the little children who came to the gardens. She also sold an old-fashioned sweetmeat which had once been called ‘forget-me-not’, but whether this name had conveyed too much the importune ideas of unhappiness and retribution or whether it had been abandoned by chance, the ‘forget-me-nots’ were now called ‘pleasures’.
The old woman wiped the sweat from her forehead with the corner of her apron and gave vent to complaints against heaven, accusing God of injustice for having made life so hard for His creatures. Her man kept a tavern on the river bank at Saint-Cloud, and she came up every day to the Champs-Élysées, whirling her rattle and shouting: ‘Pleasures for sale, mesdames!’ And with all this work they could not earn enough to support them in their old age.
Seeing the young man on the bench disposed to sympathize with her, she expounded at great length the cause of her misfortunes. It was the Republic which, by robbing the wealthy, was taking the bread out of the mouths of the poor. And there was no use hoping for a better state of affairs. She knew, on the contrary, from many signs that things would only get worse. At Nanterre, a woman had given birth to a baby with the head of a serpent; lightning had struck the church at Rueil and melted the cross on the steeple; a werewolf had been seen in the woods at Chaville; masked men were poisoning water supplies and throwing powder into the air which spread diseases…
Évariste saw Élodie jumping out of a carriage. He ran towards her. The young woman’s eyes were shining beneath the faint shadow of her straw hat; her lips, as red as the carnations she held in her hand, were smiling. A scarf of black silk, crossed between her breasts, was tied behind her back. The quick movements of her knees could be discerned beneath her yellow gown and on her feet were a pair of low-heeled shoes. Her hips were almost entirely free, for the Revolution had released the waists of its citizenesses; her skirts, however, still flaired out below the loins, concealed the curves of her legs only by exaggerating them and veiled the reality only by dilating its likeness.
He wanted to speak but could not find words, and reproached himself for this inadequacy which was preferred by Élodie to the most eloquent of welcomes. She noticed also and took it to be a good sign that he had tied his cravate with more than usual care. She gave him her hand.
‘I wanted to see you to have a talk with you,’ she said. ‘I haven’t replied to your letter: it upset me; it didn’t sound like you. It would have been far nicer if you had written it more naturally. As it is, it would be an injustice to your character and your commonsense to conclude that you don’t want to return to the Amour Peintre just because you had a trifling argument there about politics with a man much older than yourself. Rest assured you need have no fear that my father will receive you ill when you visit us again. You do not know him: he will remember neither what he said to you nor what you replied. I don’t say there is any great bond of sympathy between you both; but he bears no malice. I tell you frankly, he doesn’t concern himself much over you… nor over me. He thinks only of his own affairs and his own pleasures.’
She led the way towards the shrubberies around the cottage, where he followed her with some distaste, knowing them to be the meeting-place for quick love affairs and paid assignments. She chose the most secluded table.
‘What a lot of things I’ve got to talk to you about, Évariste! Friendship has its rights: you’ll allow me to use them? I’ll speak mostly about you… and a little about myself, if you don’t mind.’
The landlord having brought a carafe and some glasses, she poured the lemonade into the glasses herself, like a good housewife; then she told him about her childhood, she spoke of her mother’s beauty, which she loved to extol from filial piety and as the origin of her own beauty; she boasted of the vigour of her grandparents, for she was proud of her bourgeois blood. She told how, having lost this adored mother when she was sixteen, she had lived without anyone to love or rely on. She painted herself as she was, passionate, sensitive, courageous, and she added:
‘Évariste, when I was a girl I spent too many melancholy and lonely years not to know the value of a heart like yours, and I warn you I will not willingly or easily give up a sympathy on which I believed I could rely and which was dear to me.’
Évariste looked at her tenderly:
‘Can it be, Élodie, that I am not unimportant to you? May I believe…’
He stopped, fearing to say too much and thereby take advantage of so trusting a friendship.
She held out to him a little confiding hand that half peeped out of the long narrow sleeve with its lace frillings. Her bosom rose and fell with long-drawn sighs.
‘Credit me, Évariste, with all the feelings you would like me to have for you, and you will not be mistaken about how my heart truly feels.’
‘Élodie, Élodie, what you’ve just said, will you still repeat it when you know…’
He hesitated.
She lowered her eyes.
He concluded very softly:
‘… that I love you?’
On hearing these last few words, she blushed: out of pleasure. And, whilst her eyes expressed a voluptuous tenderness, there flickered in spite of herself about one corner of her lips a quizzical smile. She was thinking:
And he believes it was he was the first to declare him self!… and he’s frightened he’s perhaps upset me!…
An
d she said to him fondly:
‘You’d never seen, my dear, that I loved you?’
They felt as if they alone existed in all the world. In his exaltation Évariste raised his eyes to the sky gloriously blue and full of light:
‘Look, the sky is watching us! It is good and kind and adorable, like you, my beloved. It has your sparkling brightness, your softness, your smile.’
He felt himself one with all nature, he associated it with his joy, with his triumph. To his eyes it was in order to celebrate their betrothal that the chestnust blossoms were alight like flaming candles and the poplars blazed on high like gigantic torches.
He exulted in his strength and his power. She, with her gentler and also finer nature, more supple and more pliable, knew that her weakness was her strength and, as soon as he was conquered, submitted herself to him; now that she had him under her domination, she acknowledged in him the master, the hero, the god, and burned to obey, to admire and to offer herself. Under the shade of the shrubbery, he gave her a long, ardent kiss beneath which she bent back her head and, in Évariste’s arms, she felt all her flesh soften and melt like warmed wax.
For a long time they talked on and on about themselves, everything else forgotten. Évariste was full of vague, elevated ideas, which threw Élodie into ecstasies. Élodie spoke of ordinary things, practical and personal. Then, when she judged there would be no advantage to her in staying longer, she stood up with a decisive movement, gave him the three red carnations from her balcony and jumped lightly back into the cabriolet which had brought her. It was a hired carriage, painted yellow, hung very high on its wheels, and it certainly had nothing of the ordinary about it, nor the coachman either. But Gamelin was not accustomed to hiring carriages, nor were those with whom he mixed. And at the sight of her being whirled away on those great wheels, he had a shrinking feeling in his heart and was assailed by a presentiment of overwhelming sorrow: by a kind of mental hallucination, it seemed to him that that hired carriage was carrying Élodie away from him far beyond the present world of everyday things towards a rich and joyous city, towards abodes of luxury and pleasure which he would never be able to enter.
The Gods Will Have Blood Page 6