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“Yes, we’ll keep looking,” chimed the soldiers, “but before we go …”

And with that, one of them chucked his torch under the shed where the chopped wood was piled along with stacks of kindling.

“Come away,” said Lorin. “Come.”

Maurice put up no resistance. He followed Lorin like a child; they both ran as far as the bridge without exchanging a single word further. There they stopped and Maurice turned around. The sky was red at the horizon of the faubourg, and thousands of sparks could be seen dancing over the houses.

32

FAITH SWORN

Maurice shuddered from head to toe and pointed to the rue Saint-Jacques.

“Fire!” he cried. “Fire!”

“Well, yes,” said Lorin. “Fire. So?”

“Oh, my God! My God! What if she came back?”

“If who came back?”

“Geneviève.”

“Geneviève: that’s Madame Dixmer, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“There’s no danger of that, she didn’t leave just to come back again.”

“Lorin, I’ve got to find her, I’ve got to avenge myself.”

“Oh, no!” said Lorin.

“Love, tyrant of gods and mortals,

It’s no longer incense you need on your altars.”

“You’ll help me find her, won’t you, Lorin?”

“Good heavens! That won’t be hard

How do you mean?”

“Obviously, if you’re so interested in the fate of citizeness Dixmer, and it certainly looks like you are from where I’m standing, you must know her; and if you know her, you must know who her closest friends are. She won’t have left Paris; they’re all desperate to stay in town. She’s taken refuge with some confidante, and tomorrow morning you’ll receive via some Rose or some Chrysanthemum a little note more or less along these lines:

“If Mars wants to see Cythera again

Let him borrow Night’s azured shawl.

And let him present himself at the concierge’s office at such and such a number of such and such a street and ask for Madame Trois-Etoiles. Voilà.”

Maurice shrugged his shoulders. He knew only too well that Geneviève had nowhere to go.

“We won’t find her,” he murmured.

“Allow me to tell you something, Maurice,” said Lorin.

“What?”

“That it may not be such a bad thing if we don’t find her.”

“If we don’t find her, Lorin,” said Maurice bleakly, “I will die.”

“Oh, Christ!” said the young man. “So this is the woman you nearly died of love for?”

“Yes,” answered Maurice.

Lorin thought for a moment.

“Maurice,” he said, “it must be about eleven o’clock, the place is deserted, there’s a bench over there that looks as though it was made for a couple of pals like us to sit on. Grant me the favor of an intimate interview, as they used to say under the ancien régime. I give you my word I’ll speak only in prose.”

Maurice looked around him and finally plunked down next to his friend.

“Speak,” said Maurice, dropping his heavy head into his hands.

“Listen, dear friend, without exordium, without periphrasis, without commentary, I’ll tell you something: we are sinking, or rather you are sinking us.”

“How do you mean?”

“There is, tenderhearted friend,” Lorin went on, “a certain decree of the Committee of Public Safety that declares a traitor to the nation anyone who maintains relations with the enemies of said nation. Eh? You are familiar with this decree?”

“Naturally,” said Maurice.

“You’re sure you know the one?”

“Yes.”

“Well then! It seems to me you’re not a bad candidate as a traitor to your nation. What do you say to that, as Manlius Capitolinus would say?”

“Lorin!”

“Seems fairly cut and dried—unless you regard as idolizing the nation those who give bed and board to Monsieur the Knight of Maison-Rouge, who is not quite the zealous republican, it would seem; not actually accused, for the moment at least, of having carried out the September massacres.”

“Ah, Lorin!” Maurice sighed.

“So it looks to me,” the moralist continued, “like you have been, and still are, a little too chummy with the enemy of the nation. Wake up, Maurice, don’t give up the fight, dear friend. You’re like old Enceladus1—you’d move a mountain if you rolled over. So I repeat, don’t give up the fight, just admit openly you’re no longer