Les Dieux ont soif. English Read online

  IV

  It was ten o'clock in the forenoon. The April sun bathed the tenderleafage of the trees in light. A storm had cleared the air during thenight and it was deliciously fresh and sweet. At long intervals ahorseman passing along the Allee des Veuves broke the silence andsolitude. On the outskirts of the shady avenue, over against a rusticcottage known as _La Belle Lilloise_, Evariste sat on a wooden benchwaiting for Elodie. Since the day their fingers had met over theembroidery and their breaths had mingled, he had never been back to the_Amour peintre_. For a whole week his proud stoicism and his timidity,which grew more extreme every day, had kept him away from Elodie. He hadwritten her a letter conceived in a key of gravity, at once sombre andardent, in which, explaining the grievance he had against the _citoyen_Blaise, but saying no word of his love and concealing his chagrin, heannounced his intention of never returning to her father's shop, and wasnow showing greater steadfastness in keeping this resolution than awoman in love was quite likely to approve.

  A born fighter whose bent was to defend her property under allcircumstances, Elodie instantly turned her mind to the task of winningback her lover. At first she thought of going to see him at the studioin the Place de Thionville. But knowing his touchy temper and judgingfrom his letter that he was sick and sore, she feared he might come toregard daughter and father with the same angry displeasure and make apoint of never seeing her again; so she deemed it wiser to invite him toa sentimental, romantic rendezvous which he could not well decline,where she would have ample time to cajole and charm him and wheresolitude would be her ally to fascinate his senses and overcome hisscruples.

  At this period, in all the English gardens and all the fashionablepromenades, rustic cottages were to be found, built by cleverarchitects, whose aim it was to flatter the taste of the city folk for acountry life. The _Belle Lilloise_ was occupied as a house of lightrefreshment; its exterior bore a look of poverty that was part of the_mise en scene_ and it stood on the fragments, artistically imitated, ofa fallen tower, so as to unite with the charm of rusticity themelancholy appeal of a ruined castle. Moreover, as though a peasant'scot and a shattered donjon were not enough to stir the sensibilities ofhis customers, the owner had raised a tomb beneath a weeping-willow,--acolumn surmounted by a funeral urn and bearing the inscription:"Cleonice to her faithful Azor." Rustic cots, ruined keeps, imitationtombs,--on the eve of being swept away, the aristocracy had erected inits ancestral parks these symbols of poverty, of decadence and of death.And now the patriot citizen found his delight in drinking, dancing,making love in sham hovels, under the broken vaults, a sham in theirvery ruin, of sham cloisters and surrounded by a sham graveyard; for wasnot he too, like his betters, a lover of nature, a disciple ofJean-Jacques? was not his heart stuffed as full as theirs withsensibility and the philosophy of humanity?

  Reaching the rendezvous before the appointed time, Evariste waited,measuring the minutes by the beating of his heart as by the pendulum ofa clock. A patrol passed, guarding a convoy of prisoners. Ten minutesafter a woman dressed all in pink, carrying a bouquet as the fashionwas, escorted by a gentleman in a three-cornered hat, red coat, stripedwaistcoat and breeches, slipped into the cottage, both so very like thegallants and dames of the ancien regime one was bound to think with the_citoyen_ Blaise that mankind possesses characteristics Revolutionscannot change.

  A few minutes later, coming from Rueil or Saint-Cloud, an old womancarrying a cylindrical box, painted in brilliant colours, arrived andsat down beside Gamelin, on his bench. She put down her box in front ofher, and he saw that the lid had a turning needle fixed on it; the poorwoman's trade was to hold a lottery in the public gardens for thechildren to try their luck at. She also dealt in "ladies' pleasures," anold-fashioned sweetmeat which she sold under a new name; whether becausethe time-honoured title of "forget-me-nots" called up inappropriateideas of unhappiness and retribution or that folks had just got tired ofit in course of time, "forget-me-nots" were now yclept "ladies'pleasures."

  The old dame wiped the sweat from her forehead with a corner of herapron and broke out into railings against heaven, upbraiding God forinjustice when he made life so hard for his creatures. Her husband kepta tavern on the river-bank at Saint-Cloud, while she came in every dayto the Champs Elysees, sounding her rattle and crying: "_Ladies'pleasures_, come buy, come buy!" And with all this toil the old couplecould not scrape enough together to end their days in comfort.

  Seeing the young man beside her disposed to commiserate with her, sheexpounded at great length the origin of her misfortunes. It was all theRepublic; by robbing the rich, it was taking the bread out of poorpeople's mouths. And there was no hoping for a better state of affairs.Things would only go from bad to worse,--she knew that from many tokens.At Nanterre a woman had had a baby born with a serpent's head; thelightning had struck the church at Rueil and melted the cross on thesteeple; a were-wolf had been seen in the woods of Chaville. Masked menwere poisoning the springs and throwing plague powders in the air tocause diseases....

  Evariste saw Elodie spring from a carriage and run forward. The girl'seyes flashed in the clear shadow cast by her straw hat; her lips, as redas the carnations she held in her hand, were wreathed in smiles. A scarfof black silk, crossed over the bosom, was knotted behind the back. Heryellow gown displayed the quick movements of the knees and showed a pairof low-heeled shoes below the hem. The hips were almost entirelyunconfined; the Revolution had enfranchised the waists of its_citoyennes_. For all that, the skirts, still puffed out below theloins, marked the curves by exaggerating them and veiled the realitybeneath an artificial amplitude of outline.

  He tried to speak but could not find his voice, and was chagrined at hisfailure, which Elodie preferred to the most eloquent greeting. Shenoticed also and looked upon it as a good omen, that he had tied hiscravat with more than usual pains.

  She gave him her hand.

  "I wanted to see you," she began, "and talk to you. I did not answeryour letter; I did not like it and I did not think it worthy of you. Itwould have been more to my taste if it had been more outspoken. It wouldbe to malign your character and common sense to suppose you do not meanto return to the _Amour peintre_ because you had a trifling altercationthere about politics with a man many years your senior. Rest assured youhave no cause to fear my father will receive you ill whenever you cometo see us again. You do not know him; he has forgotten both what he saidto you and what you said in reply. I do not say there is any great bondof sympathy between you two; but he bears no malice; I tell you franklyhe pays no great heed to you ... nor to me. He thinks only of his ownaffairs and his own pleasures."

  She stepped towards the shrubberies surrounding the _Belle Lilloise_,and he followed her with something of repugnance, knowing it to be thetrysting-place of mercenary lovers and amours of a day. She selected thetable furthest out of sight.

  "How many things I have to tell you, Evariste. Friendship has itsrights; you do not forbid me to exercise them? I have much to say aboutyou ... and something about myself, if you will let me."

  The landlord having brought a carafe of lemonade, she filled theirglasses herself with the air of a careful housewife; then she began totell him about her childhood, described her mother's beauty, which sheloved to dilate upon both as a tribute to the latter's memory and asthe source of her own good looks, and boasted of her grandparents'sturdy vigour, for she was proud of her bourgeois blood. She related howat sixteen she had lost this mother she adored and had entered on a lifewithout anyone to love or rely upon. She painted herself as she was, avehement, passionate nature, full of sensibility and courage, andconcluded:

  "Oh, Evariste, my girlhood was so sad and lonely I cannot but know whata prize is a heart like yours, and I will not surrender, I give you fairwarning, of my own free will and without an effort to retain it, asympathy on which I trusted I might count and which I held dear."

  Evariste gazed at her tenderly.

  "Can it be, Elodie, that I am not indifferent to you? Can I reallythink..
.?"

  He broke off, fearing to say too much and thereby betray so trusting afriendliness.

  She gave him a little confiding hand that half-peeped out of the longnarrow sleeve with its lace frillings. Her bosom rose and fell inlong-drawn sighs.

  "Credit me, Evariste, with all the sentiments you would have me feel foryou, and you will not be mistaken in the dispositions of my heart."

  "Elodie, Elodie, you say that? will you still say it when you know..."--he hesitated.

  She dropped her eyes; and he finished the sentence in a whisper:

  "... when you know I love you?"

  As she heard the declaration, she blushed,--with pleasure. Yet, whileher eyes still spoke of a tender ecstasy, a quizzical smile flickered inspite of herself about one corner of her lips. She was thinking:

  "And he imagines he proposed first!... and he is afraid perhaps ofoffending me!..."

  Then she said to him fondly:

  "So you had never seen, dear heart, that I loved you?"

  They seemed to themselves to be alone, the only two beings in theuniverse. In his exaltation, Evariste raised his eyes to the firmamentflashing with blue and gold:

  "See, the sky is looking down at us! It is benign; it is adorable, asyou are, beloved; it has your brightness, your gentleness, your smile."

  He felt himself one with all nature, it formed part and parcel of hisjoy and triumph. To his eyes, it was to celebrate his betrothal that thechestnut blossoms lit their flaming candles, the poplars burned aloftlike giant torches.

  He exulted in his strength and stature. She, with her softer as well asfiner nature, more pliable and more malleable, rejoiced in her veryweakness and, his subjection once secured, instantly bowed to hisascendancy; now she had brought him under her slavery, she acknowledgedhim for the master, the hero, the god, burned to obey, to admire, tooffer her homage. In the shade of the shrubbery he gave her a long,ardent kiss, which she received with head thrown back and, clasped inEvariste's arms, felt all her flesh melt like wax.

  They went on talking a long time of themselves, forgetful of theuniverse. Evariste abounded mainly in vague, high thoughts, which filledElodie with ecstasy. She spoke sweetly of things of practical utilityand personal interest. Then, presently, when she felt she could stay nolonger, she rose with a decided air, gave her lover the three redcarnations from the flower in her balcony and sprang lightly into thecabriolet in which she had driven there. It was a hired carriage,painted yellow, hung on very high wheels and certainly had nothing outof the common about it, or the coachman either. But Gamelin was not inthe habit of hiring carriages and his friends were hardly more used tosuch an indulgence. To see the great wheels whirling her away gave him astrange pang and a painful presentiment assailed him; by a sort ofhallucination of the mind, the hack horse seemed to be carrying Elodieaway from him beyond the bounds of the actual world and present timetowards a city of wealth and pleasure, towards abodes of luxury andenjoyment, which he would never be able to enter.

  The carriage disappeared. Evariste recovered his calm by degrees; but adull anguish remained and he felt that the hours of tender abandonmenthe had just lived would never be his again.

  He returned by the Champs Elysees, where women in light summer dresseswere sitting on wooden chairs, talking or sewing, while their childrenplayed under the trees. A woman selling "ladies' pleasures,"--_her_ boxwas shaped like a drum--reminded him of the one he had spoken to in theAllee des Veuves, and it seemed as if a whole epoch of his life hadelapsed between the two encounters. He crossed the Place de laRevolution. In the Tuileries gardens he caught the distant roar of ahost of men, a sound of many voices shouting in accord, so familiar inthose great days of popular enthusiasm which the enemies of theRevolution declared would never dawn again. He quickened his pace as thenoise grew louder and louder, reached the Rue Honore and found itthronged with a crowd of men and women yelling: "Vive la Republique!Vive la Liberte!" The walls of the gardens, the windows, the balconies,the very roofs were black with lookers-on waving hats and handkerchiefs.Preceded by a sapper, who cleared a way for the procession, surroundedby Municipal Officers, National Guards, gunners, gendarmes, huzzars,advanced slowly, high above the backs of the citizens, a man of abilious complexion, a wreath of oak-leaves about his brow, his bodywrapped in an old green surtout with an ermine collar. The women threwhim flowers, while he cast about him the piercing glance of hisjaundiced eyes, as though, in this enthusiastic multitude he was stillsearching out enemies of the people to denounce, traitors to punish. Ashe went by, Gamelin bent his head and joining his voice to a hundredthousand others, shouted his:

  "Vive Marat!"

  The triumphant hero entered the Hall of the Convention like Fatepersonified. While the crowd slowly dispersed Gamelin sat on a stonepost in the Rue Honore and pressed his hand over his heart to check itswild beating. What he had seen filled him with high emotion and burningenthusiasm.

  He loved and worshipped Marat, who, sick and fevered, his veins on fire,eaten up by ulcers, was wearing out the last remnants of his strength inthe service of the Republic, and in his own poor house, closed to noman, welcomed him with open arms, conversed eagerly with him of publicaffairs, questioned him sometimes on the machinations of evil-doers. Herejoiced that the enemies of _the Just_, conspiring for his ruin, hadprepared his triumph; he blessed the Revolutionary Tribunal, whichacquitting the Friend of the People had given back to the Conventionthe most zealous and most immaculate of its legislators. Again his eyescould see the head racked with fever, garlanded with the civic crown,the features instinct with virtuous pride and pitiless love, the worn,ravaged, powerful face, the close-pressed lips, the broad chest, thestrong man dying by inches who, raised aloft in the living chariot ofhis triumph, seemed to exhort his fellow-citizens: "Be ye likeme,--patriots to the death!"

  The street was empty, darkening with the shadows of approaching night;the lamplighter went by with his cresset, and Gamelin muttered tohimself:

  "Yes, to the death!"