with a cabby to take her immediately to the rue de Richelieu in Paris; and Henriette begged so hard and her tears were so touching that the lady agreed to take her as well. The cabby, a dark little man, whipped up his horse and never said a word all through the journey, but the lady never stopped talking about how, when she had left her shop two days previously and locked it up, she had been silly enough to leave some bonds there in a hiding-place in a wall. So for the past two hours, since the city had been on fire, she had been obsessed with the one idea of going back and recovering her property even though it meant going through the fire. At the barrier there was only a sleepy guard, and the cab went through with little trouble, especially as the lady made up a tale about having gone to fetch her niece so that the two of them could nurse her husband who had been wounded by the Versailles troops. The real obstacles began in the streets, where barricades blocked the roadway at every point and they had to make continual detours. Finally at the Boulevard Poissonnière the cabby refused to go any further, and the two women had to continue on foot through the rue du Sentier, rue des Jeûneurs and the Bourse area. As they were approaching the fortifications the fiery glow in the sky had lighted them up as if it were broad daylight. Now they were amazed at the emptiness of this part of the city, where the only sound to reach them was a distant pulsating roar. But by the time they reached the Bourse they heard shots and had to slip along close to the buildings. Having found her shop in the rue de Richelieu intact the large lady was delighted and insisted on showing her friend the way along the rue du Hasard and rue Sainte-Anne right to the rue des Orties. For a moment some Federals, still occupying the rue Sainte-Anne, tried to prevent their passing. It was four in the morning and already light when at last Henriette, worn out with emotion and fatigue, found the door of the old house in the rue des Orties wide open. After climbing the narrow, dark stairs she had to go through a door and up a ladder that led to the roof.
At the barricade in the rue du Bac Maurice, between the two sandbags, had managed to get himself on to his knees, and Jean was filled with hope, for he thought he had pinned him to the ground.
‘Oh my dear boy, you’re still alive then! Is it possible I could be so lucky, foul brute that I am?… Just a moment, let’s have a look.’
With very great care he examined the wound by the light from the fires. The bayonet had gone through the arm near the right shoulder, and the worst thing about it was that it had then penetrated between two ribs and probably involved the lung. Yet the wounded man was breathing without too much trouble. But the arm hung down, inert.
‘Poor old chap, don’t be so upset! I’m glad, really. I’d rather get it over… You did enough for me long ago, and without you I should have pegged out at the side of some road.’
But hearing him talk like this, Jean’s bitter grief came back.
‘Shut up, do! Twice you got me out of the Prussians’ clutches. We were quits, and it was my turn to give my life, and then I go and kill you… Oh, God Almighty, I must have been loaded to the eyeballs through having drunk too much blood already!’
Tears ran down from his eyes as he thought of their separation back at Remilly when they had parted wondering whether they would see each other some day, and where and in what circumstances of joy or sorrow. Was there no point, then, in their having lived days together without food, nights without sleep and with death ever present? Had their hearts been as one for those few weeks of heroic life shared together, and all to lead them to this abomination, this monstrous, stupid fratricide? No, no, he refused to think of it.
‘Leave it to me, boy, I’ve got to save you.’
First he had to get him away from there, because the soldiers were finishing off the wounded. By great good fortune they happened to be alone, and there was not a minute to lose. Using his knife he quickly slit the sleeve