Part 2 — VII THE MADNESS OF JEALOUSY

The victory was to the woman, but it was a victory fraught with menace. Nicole understood her danger, but in her anxiety she adopted the wrong defense. On the stairway she infolded Barabant with her arm, seeking to communicate to his depressed body the gaiety and relief in hers, while with all the artifices of the woman who feels herself menaced she sought to belittle the importance of the scene, little realizing the deep wound to the pride of Barabant.

"It was for me you did it," she whispered. "You would not leave me. I alone understood."

He did not answer, and once in their room, fell into a chair, burying his head in his hands. Alarmed at his obstinate silence, Nicole, groping for the right attitude, began to reason, walking the floor in her earnestness.

"After all, mon ami, that is what the Terrorists want—to guillotine the Moderates. Goursac was foolish; he played into the hands of his enemies. You are wise. The duty of the Moderates is to keep silent, to preserve themselves for the good of the Nation. How can you serve the Nation without your head? The times will change, mon ami, and you'll be here to help set things aright."

"Oh, that voice," cried Barabant, "I hear it always."

"Mon ami, you are suffering!" she exclaimed. "I know. I understand."

She threw herself at his feet, trying to separate his hands, seeking to take his head upon her shoulder; but Barabant resisted, saying:

"No, Nicole, no; leave me to myself."

"Don't put me away," she begged. "You are suffering; let me share it."

He took her hands from his neck and compelled her to rise. She went to the window, twice turning to look at the dejected figure that remained unaware of her glances.

"I have made a blunder. Yes, I have made a blunder," she said to herself, pressing her hand against her lips to quell the rising sob. "He blames me."

The next morning she received another shock when he informed her that he wished to be alone all day.

"Then we don't lunch together?" she cried, frightened.

"Not to-day."

Not daring to contradict him, she let him go without a word.

"He blames me. He blames me," she told herself, until all at once, like a thunderclap, came the thought: "Or is it only a pretext?"

Her judgment tumbled before the suggestion, and on the moment she was surrounded by the old doubts. She hurried out, morbidly sensitive to the glances of the concierge, of the loiterers before the cabaret, of the bouquetières her comrades; seeing everywhere mocking glances or looks of sympathy. Despite Barabant's wish and her better judgment, she scoured his haunts with the one desire to know what he was doing.

After a day of agony spent in fruitless travel, she returned to their room, without a glimpse of Barabant. Having prepared the meal, she sat down before the fire to wait impatiently the hour of seven, when he would return. Beside her chair she placed a redingote of his and sewing-material. In the disorder of her mind all her naturalness had departed, and seeking everything with artifices, she wished him to come upon her as she watched their supper and busied herself with his wardrobe.

"That will soften his resentment, perhaps," she thought. "And that everything may be cheerful, I must be singing."

So, when later the stairs gave out the sounds of footsteps, she hurriedly possessed the mending, humming as she sewed; but the steps ceased two flights below. The redingote slipped from her hands, the song stopped, and, overcome with disappointment, she cried:

"Oh, mon Dieu, it is not he!"

When seven arrived and she began to be anxious, she consoled herself with the thought that the effect would be better if he found her waiting without complaint. A burning smell warned her that the dinner was spoiling. She removed the pots from the fire, placing them for warmth in the ashes, and, abandoning all thought of the picture she had imagined, went to the window, where she remained, pressing her hands against her temples, staring into the misty night.

At nine o'clock she returned into the middle of the room, and looking about at the scene of her happiness, she said with conviction:

"It is ended!"

Traveling ceaselessly back and forth like a panther, she cried: "Yes, yes, it is ended!" Still, as long as she repeated it, she continued to hope, and at each fancied creak she ran to the landing, leaning over to catch his first footfall. But when she returned, she still said:

"No, no; I knew it. It is ended—ended!"

At ten she ceased to repeat it,—she was convinced. She collapsed on the bed, brain and body incapable of effort, while the cruel minutes, in their inexorable procession, inflicted each a separate torture.

When midnight announced itself, the last thread of hope snapped within her. She bounded up, lit a candle, descended the flight, and entered the room, calling, "Goursac!"

She had forgotten the arrest. The fact appeared to her as an evil omen, presaging calamity.

In fear of the sepulchral stillness, she fled back, rushing in a panic to her room, where she gazed about helplessly, asking herself what she was to do. All at once, at the window, staring at her old room, she cried:

"If it is Louison!" And emitting an "Ah!" that had in it the note of murder, she passed out of the window.

The night was filled with fog, out of which descended the sharp sting of rain. She moved slowly, her body pressed to the roof, seeing with her fingers until the dormer-window struck against her foot. Once into Louison's room, she crept to the bed, stretching out her hand. It was empty.

"Oh! oh! oh!"

The cry was of something collapsing in her soul. Without returning to her room, she sped down the stairs, through the two courts, and into the street. In her unheeding rush, she turned to the right, missing Barabant, who was at the moment returning from the opposite direction.

When she could run no longer, she dropped into a walk until, recovering her breath, she broke again into a run. At the street corners the bracketed lanterns suffused the fog with a floating radiance that guided her over the glistening, slippery stones. The mist that threatened the world with a destiny of gloom, the rain that gathered on her eyelashes and weighted her hair, she welcomed as the fitting touch to her misery; but the chill abated not a jot of the fever in her veins. Out of the blurred night occasionally long lines of watchers emerged, crouching under shawls, hugging the walls to escape the rain. A dozen brutish arms snatched at her, but eluding all, she arrived, panting and trembling, at her destination, crying to the servant who answered her knock:

"Citoyenne, is this the Committee of Safety?"

"Yes."

"I must see them."

"Do you come to denounce some one?"

"I do."

"Enter."

Nicole found herself in a hall.

"Name, citoyenne?"

"The Citoyenne Nicole, bouquetière. The Citoyen Couthon will know me."

The servant passed to a door at the back and knocked timidly. At the second repetition a voice cried:

"Come in."

The door opened on a group of men about a table littered with papers.

"What is it?"

"A citoyenne who wishes to make a denunciation."

"Name?"

"The Citoyenne Nicole, bouquetière."

"Tiens! I know her," exclaimed a voice. The spokesman, on this evidence, gave a sign of permission to the servant, who ushered in Nicole.

A voice said approvingly:

"Look—she is pretty."

"Haven't the time."

Several, attracted by the exclamation, gave her a casual glance; the rest, without raising their heads, continued the low hum of their conference. From the farther side a man wrapped in blankets, deformed, infirm, seized with sudden chills, greeted her.

"Well, Nicole, you've come to denounce some one? That's right."

"Citoyen Couthon," Nicole blurted, "I—"

At the aspect of these machine-like men industriously busy with the lists that fed the guillotine, all her anger dissolved—she could not pronounce there the name she had loved.

"Well, well," Couthon said encouragingly, "you want to denounce whom? Come, let us get at it. Not the Citoyen Eugène Barabant, at least," he said, with a good-natured leer.

The sound of that name in this spot, without pity, terrified Nicole; she now sought only an excuse to retreat.

"What name's that?" cried a little man from the table. "Eugène Barabant? Wait a moment; wait a moment. Let me search."

Couthon lounged to the side of the speaker, who, turning to his neighbor, demanded the list of suspects to be arrested, while Nicole, flattened against the wall, dazed by a sudden fear, remained trembling at the snatches of conversation that reached her.

"A man offered me one thousand livres to-day if I'd slip in the name of his wife."

"That was cheap!"

"Héron is becoming insupportable. He's sent in the name of every one in his building. To-day it's the woman above him."

"She makes too much noise, no doubt."

"What's the difference? The Nation needs the funds. We must coin money on the Place de la Revolution; the guillotine is the mint of the Nation."

"You're a financier."

"I'm proud of it. Guillotine the rich—there's my finance."

Couthon raised his head.

"That's strange; I too thought I'd seen the name."

The others, attracted by his exclamation, asked:

"What name?"

"Barabant. Eugène Barabant."

A small man spoke up.

"Denounced last night by the Citoyen Javogues and an old hag the size of a child. Do you remember?"

A chorus of assent greeted him.

"Barabant denounced!" Nicole cried. "Barabant denounced!" She extended her hand. "La Mère Corniche?"

"That's the name."

"Come, Nicole, a lover is easily replaced. I've sacrificed two already to the Nation," Couthon cried. "Don't lose your time; denounce your suspect. We are short to-night."

"A pretty patriot like that has right to a dozen suspects," cried another, amid laughter.

Overwhelmed, dizzy, and horror-stricken, she shook her head, felt with her hands until she found the door, and, backing from the room, fled from the house—fled back through the ghostly city.

Goursac's door was opened; Geneviève herself, with solemn face flushed with the light of her candle, was waiting for her.

"Tell me quick!" she cried, apprehending what had happened.

"You know, then?"

"Know what?"

"Barabant has been arrested."

She recoiled to the wall shrieking:

"Arrested!"

"An hour ago."

"Where?"

"Here."

"Here? Then he came back?"

"Yes."

Without waiting to hear more, she fled to their room. The lantern he had lighted shone over the stone floor, the cheerless walls, and the kinks in the roof. It was all empty—terribly empty. On the bed she perceived the belt and the coat he had left. Forgetting her jealousy, her anger, her mission, remembering only that he had returned, knowing only that her dream was ended, she stretched out her helpless arms and cried:

"Barabant! Barabant!"

Then, overcome with hunger, weariness, and the ravages of her emotion, she slipped to the floor in a heap.