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By Root 2181 0

houses in the rue de Lille and the rue du Bac other buildings must be burning, for columns of sparks were going up from the Croix-Rouge crossroads, and still further away in the rue Vavin and rue Notre-Dame des Champs. Quite near, to the right, the fires in the rue Saint-Honoré were burning themselves out and to the left, at the Palais-Royal and new Louvre, later fires lit in the small hours were petering out. But the thing they could not understand at first was dense black smoke that the west wind was blowing right under their window. Since three in the morning the Ministry of Finance had been burning, but without any high flames, in thick clouds of soot, because there were such enormous masses of paper in low-ceilinged rooms in a rough-cast building. It was true that the great city, awakening to a new day, no longer gave the tragic impression of the night, the horror of total destruction, with the Seine a river of blazing fire and Paris lit up from end to end, but now a hopeless, dreary misery hovered over the districts that had been spared, with this continual thick smoke in an ever-widening cloud. Soon the sun, which had come up clear and bright, was hidden by it, leaving nothing but gloom in the menacing sky.

Maurice, who looked as if his delirium was coming back, took in the endless horizon with a sweeping gesture and murmured:

‘Is it all burning? Oh, what a long time it’s taking!’

Henriette’s eyes filled with tears, as if her sorrow had been still more deepened by these immense disasters in which her brother had had a share. Jean dared not take her hand again, nor embrace his friend, but rushed away wild-eyed.

‘I’ll be seeing you again soon!’

It was evening, at about eight and dark, before he could come back. Although he was so worried he felt happy because his regiment was out of the fighting and had been put on the reserve, with orders to guard this district, so that as he was camping with his company in the Place du Carrousel he hoped to be able to come up every evening for news of the sick man. And he was not alone this time, for by chance he had run into the former medical officer of the 106th, and he brought him in desperation, not having been able to find any other doctor, telling himself that this terrible man with the leonine head was a good chap really.

When Bouroche, not knowing for whom the soldier had disturbed his peace, and grumbling about how far he had to climb, realized that he was looking at a Communard he first fell into a furious rage.

‘Good God, what do you take me for?… A lot of criminals sated with plunder, murder and arson! Your thug’s case is clear, and I’ll see that he’s cured, that I will, with three bullets through the head!’

But seeing Henriette there, so pale in her black dress, with her beautiful fair hair falling on her shoulders, he suddenly relented.

‘It’s my brother, sir, one of your soldiers at Sedan.’

Without answering he took off the bandages and silently examined the wounds, took some phials out of his pocket and made a fresh dressing, showing her how to set about it. Then in his rough way he suddenly asked the patient:

‘Why did you side with those hooligans, why did you do such a vile thing?’

Maurice had watched him with glittering eyes all the time he had been there but had said nothing. Now, in his feverish state, he said with blazing conviction:

‘Because there’s too much suffering, too much iniquity and shame!’

At that Bouroche made a grand gesture suggesting that when you went in for those kinds of ideas you went too far. He was on the point of saying something else, but decided not to. So he left, just adding:

‘I’ll be back.’

On the landing he told Henriette that he could not guarantee anything. The lung had been gravely affected and there might be a haemorrhage which would finish him.

Coming back Henriette forced herself to smile in spite of the blow her heart had received. Would she not save him yet, wasn’t she going to prevent this awful thing, the eternal separation of the three of them who were now still united in their ardent longing for life? She