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Book online «The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (beautiful books to read TXT) 📖». Author Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
“That is my name,” answered Victor, surprised, and not immediately recognising the sufferer.
“Hist, Jean Lebeau!—look at me: you recollect me now,—Mart le Roux, concierge to the Secret Council. Ay, I found out who you were long ago—followed you home from the last meeting you broke up. But I did not betray you, or you would have been murdered long since. Beware of the old set—beware of—of—” Here his voice broke off into shrill exclamations of pain. Curbing his last agonies with a powerful effort, he faltered forth, “You owe me a service—see to the little one at home—she is starving.” The death-rale came on; in a few moments he was no more.
Victor gave orders for the removal of the corpse, and hurried away. The surgeon, who had changed countenance when he overheard the name in which the dying man had addressed De Mauleon, gazed silently after De Mauleon’s retreating form, and then, also quitting the dead, rejoined the group he had quitted. Some of those who composed it acquired evil renown later in the war of the Communists, and came to disastrous ends: among that number the Pole Loubinsky and other members of the Secret Council. The Italian Raselli was there too, but, subtler than his French confreres, he divined the fate of the Communists, and glided from it—safe now in his native land, destined there, no doubt, to the funereal honours and lasting renown which Italy bestows on the dust of her sons who have advocated assassination out of love for the human race.
Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper post, and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in the profound sleep of intoxication.
“So,” said Loubinsky, “you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals.”
“And partly one of us,” replied the Medecin des Pauvres. “You remember poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to meet? Yonder he lies.”
“Don’t talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by that vieux gredin, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!”
Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. “So much the worse for you, if you did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!” Therewith he turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick. “Armand—Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?”
Armand turned, rose with an effort from the recumbent to the sitting posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the Medecin des Pauvres.
“I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat,” said Armand, wildly, “the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de Mauleon and Jean Lebeau.”
“Ah! there is something in dreams,” said the surgeon. “Once in a thousand times a dream comes true.”
CHAPTER V.
The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to feed and warm—there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy, and had not the heart now to dismiss to the ‘certainty of famine. True, one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land before the commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained. They supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations accorded by the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which she was attached. From the ladies associated with her she could readily have obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real state of destitution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent among the respectable classes, which Isaura shared, that concealed distress lest alms should be proffered.
The destitution of the household had been carefully concealed from the parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at the hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for a place by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only ashes, on the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had become the substitute for bread.
Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,—purposely absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to their support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still more from the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in absenting himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and pressure, both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at that absence so far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she silently asked her conscience whether she were not now absolved from a promise won from her only by an assurance that she had power to influence for good the life that now voluntarily separated itself from her own. As she had never loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference his conduct manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it as a sign that the annulment of their betrothal would be as welcome to him as to herself. And if so, she could restore to him the sort of compassionate friendship she had learned to cherish in the hour of his illness and repentance. She had resolved to seize the first opportunity he afforded to her of speaking to him with frank and truthful plainness. But, meanwhile, her gentle nature recoiled from the confession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself for the rupture of their engagement.
Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance, her husband entered with an expression of face new to him—the look of a man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta did not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, “Pardon, dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it is not our hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we could. Now it speaks for itself; ‘la fame e una bretta festin.’”
“Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!” cried Madame Rameau, bursting into tears. “So we have been all this time a burden on you,—aided to bring such want on you! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son—to leave us thus,—not even to tell us where to
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