The Debacle - Emile Zola [273]
Jean avoided the barricade across the rue Royale, between the Ministry of Marine and the Garde-Meuble, which had escaped the fire. He could hear loud voices of soldiers behind the sandbags and barrels of earth. In front of it there was a ditch full of stagnant water with the corpse of a Federal floating in it, and through a breach could be seen buildings at the crossing with the rue Saint-Honoré still burning in spite of pumps brought in from the suburbs that could be heard throbbing. On either side the little trees and news kiosks were broken and riddled with shot. There was a lot of shouting, the firemen had discovered in a cellar the half-charred remains of seven tenants of one of the buildings.
Although the barricade cutting off the rue Saint-Florentin and the rue de Rivoli looked still more daunting, with its well-constructed high defences, Jean felt that it would be less dangerous to get through that way. And indeed it was quite deserted, and so far the army had not ventured to enter into occupation. Abandoned cannons lay there in a heavy slumber. There was not a soul behind this invincible rampart – nothing but a stray dog that ran off. But as Jean was hurrying along the rue Saint-Florentin, supporting Maurice who was losing strength, what he had dreaded happened, and they ran into a whole company of the 88th infantry which had gone round the barricade.
‘Sir,’ he explained to the captain, ‘this is a comrade of mine those buggers have wounded, and I’m taking him to an ambulance station.’
The greatcoat thrown over Maurice’s shoulders was his salvation, and Jean’s heart was beating wildly as at last they were going together down the rue Saint-Honoré. It was hardly light and shots could be heard in side streets, for there was still fighting going on all over the district. It was a miracle that they managed to reach the rue des Frondeurs without any other unfortunate encounter. Now they were only getting along very slowly, and the three or four hundred metres left to do seemed endless. In the rue des Frondeurs they came upon a post of Communards but the latter, thinking a whole company was on the way, took fright and ran off. Only a bit of the rue d’Argenteuil to do and they would be in the rue des Orties.
How impatiently Jean had been longing for four endless hours to see that rue des Orties! What a deliverance when they had turned into it! It was dark, empty and silent and might have been a hundred leagues away from the battle. The house, an old and narrow one with no concierge, was sleeping the deep sleep of death.
‘The keys are in my pocket,’ Maurice managed to say. ‘The big one is the street door and the little one my room, right up top.’
Then he collapsed fainting in Jean’s arms, which worried and embarrassed him terribly, so much so that he forgot to shut the street door behind them, and had to grope his way up this unknown staircase, trying not to bump into anything for fear of attracting attention. At the top he was quite lost and had to put the wounded man down on a step and look for the door by striking some matches which fortunately he had on him, and it was only when he had found it that he came down again and picked him up. At last he laid the boy on the little iron bed opposite the window with its view over Paris, and he opened it wide, wanting some light and air. Day was now breaking, and he fell down beside the bed, weeping and utterly broken and exhausted, as the dreadful thought came back that he had killed his friend.
Some minutes must have gone by and he was scarcely surprised when he saw Henriette. Nothing was more