The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo (android pdf ebook reader txt) 📖

and denoting the centre of the surrounding paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons' tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years old—the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of old linen—were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.

"It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.

The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively, and then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up and came towards us.

The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have seen nobody."

Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."

Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.

The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach. He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with a candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only see the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this into his stomach."

She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead to-morrow morning."

The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The young man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in blood-stained linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in the mouth, which had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed at us with lustrous eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm towards a basin full of water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the sponge, carried it to his face, and himself moistened his bandages.

It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure of the hand which went to my heart.

The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of getting a gun."

He added,—

"Would you like one for yourself?"

"No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."

I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared that he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought to have arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there should be twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,—

"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."

"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."

He left me.

The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's," and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the pavement at a few paces distant.

A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It was the P——, the rest of the title had been torn off. A blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:—

"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and assassination."

In these terms the journal of the Elysée described the proclamation which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of this History.

As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the barricade entered. It was the short man.

"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.

Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on to the pavement.

The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside, "It is beginning."

"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.

"Yes," said the other.

The little one then turned to me.

"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."

I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."

"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a gun, I should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."

"I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."

He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.

"Let me do as I like," said I.

He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.

There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It is the cannon!"

"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one hand against the other, and went out.

In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.

"Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us be off at once."

I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean? Will they not come?"

"No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."

Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the societies, that they would not come down, that what had been done during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified, that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could do nothing further there, that we must be off, that this house was "stupidly chosen," that there was no outlet in the rear, that perhaps we should already find it difficult to get out of the street, and that we had only just time.

He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and to think that I have no gun!"

As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and almost immediately a shot was fired.

A violent discharge replied to this shot.

Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several broken windows falling noisily into the street.

"There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is attacked."

He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a pause.

"Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the double!" said a voice in the barricade.

The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired. Then a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden wall. It was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun when going away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the ambulance. We heard the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran off.

Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of muskets striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.

"It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.

To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the houses with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.

A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt the little girl pressing herself against my legs.

A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,—

"Here is something to make a fire with to-night."

Another resumed,—

"Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the houses."

We heard one raising objections to this,—

"Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder. They have taken refuge there."

"All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."

At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.

This shot saved us.

In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order to draw off their attention from us.

"That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!" and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had been fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top of their speed.

The last-maker and myself got up.

"They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."

"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"

"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband has not yet come back!"

We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker