XV LOVE, LIFE, AND DEATH

From above there came the shrill, rebellious cry of a woman. Below, in the court, the tenants were gathered, seeking refuge from the heat of the night. A few lights upon the sheer walls and the faint glow of the descended moon illuminated the dim groups: the men against the wall, the women clustered in the center. The cry was repeated, rising shriller. From the wall the exclamations arose:

"It isn't gay!"

"Sangdieu, two in a week! There's no peace left!"

"Eh, citoyen, if we're to fight all Europe, we must have soldiers!"

A peddler, a transient from la Mère Corniche's cellar, added in high tones:

"Thank God, just the same, we're men!"

The crones listened critically, without emotion, resuming their old wives' tales when the cry had ceased. Once a child, more keenly responsive to suffering, burst into a frightened whimper; but the mother, with an exclamation of impatience, sprang up and with a slap silenced the child, crying:

"Little brat, who told you to do that!"

Under the torch that lighted the entrance to the stairs the ghoulish figure of la Mère Corniche hobbled forth, returning from her inspection.

"Well, what news?" a voice cried.

"Eh, it'll be all night now," she answered peevishly. "I'm going to get some sleep."

The women, hearing this, broke up and departed to their rooms; the men began to grumble:

"What the devil's to be done?"

"I'm for the cabaret."

"You can't stay here."

"There's no sleep to-night. Come on to the cabaret."

"You'll join us, Citoyen Goursac?"

"No; I'm remaining here."

"And you, Citoyen Barabant?"

"I also."

"Morbleu, you've strange tastes!"

They shuffled away, leaving Barabant and Goursac, with their backs to the maple-tree, in possession of the empty darkness.

Presently lights began to splotch the walls, and at the windows appeared the silhouettes of feminine forms, while a running comment resounded:

"Where are the men?"

"Gone to the cabaret, probably."

"They are, if my man's among them."

"They're all weak-kneed."

"The cowards!"

The cry of the woman returned.

"Aïe, what lungs!"

"I yelled so, the police came up."

"You were right."

"Pardi!"

"Let's hope she'll give us some rest."

"Amen!"

The lights, one by one, flattened into the darkness. A single window, under the eaves, continued bright, from which ever descended the cry of battle.

"Does that affect you?" Goursac asked, following the momentary shadows across the panes.

"I don't like to hear it."

"You get accustomed to it, as to all things. Tiens! I was forgetting. I heard to-day that Dossonville had escaped."

"Absurd."

"They said he had been seen with Louison."

"But Nicole says she saw him cut to pieces."

"Then doubtless it was a mistake."

"No news of Javogues?" Barabant took up.

"None."

"That makes three days. You see, he's left the city."

"I doubt it." Goursac added after a moment: "I'll tell you something curious. You know Geneviève?"

"That child who lives with Nicole?"

"She's in love with him."

"What! that little ogre?"

"Eh, the ogre has the spark of the woman in her!" He jerked his head toward the lighted window. "Who's with her?"

"Nicole and Geneviève."

"Much good it'll do them."

"Hanh?"

"Good night. I'm going to philosophize! Are you staying?"

"Yes."

Scarcely had Goursac departed before the form of a young girl emerged from the stairs, and Nicole's voice said softly:

"Barabant, are you there?"

"Here I am."

He sprang eagerly to meet her, but Nicole, retreating before the decisive word, hastened to say:

"Poor girl, it is not going well. Geneviève is staying with her. Have you been waiting long?"

"I? No. I was talking with Goursac. He has just left." Barabant, determined to bring matters to an issue, added relentlessly, "I was just leaving for the cabaret."

"What! you were not waiting for me?"

"I could not count on your coming."

Nicole's eyes filled with tears, and, unable any longer to bear the unequal contest, she cried bitterly:

"Barabant, you are cruel!"

"I?" he answered, with a last effort. "I who have offered you everything? I whom you will not believe when I tell you I love you?"

"I do! I do!"

Barabant, no longer resisting her weakness, cried:

"But I adore thee, Nicole. I am out of my mind with love for thee!"

He seized her in his arms and kissed her on the cheeks, on the forehead, on the wet eyelids, with all the overpowering, reason-consuming flame of love.

She withdrew from his grasp, and looking him anxiously in the face, said:

"You thought me heartless and capricious, didn't you?"

"I have forgotten."

"But you did."

"Perhaps."

"Ah, Barabant, it was because I loved thee that I avoided thee."

"Why?"

His face expressed so much bewilderment that Nicole passed her hand gently over his eyes.

"No, that thou wilt never understand. If I could only tell thee how I love thee!" She wanted him to know the deep maternal longings that he had stirred within her, but all she found to say was, "I feared to love thee too much, and so I fought against myself." Then, with the first awakening of coquetry, she nestled on his shoulder and said confidently, "Forgive me."

"But why? Why?"

"It absorbed all that was in me, and I was afraid."

"Of what?"

She did not want to tell him of her doubts, so she said:

"Women have foolish ideas, Barabant; you must not try to understand them."

She joined her arms around his neck and laid her head upon his shoulder. Suddenly the silence was rent by the inexorable cry. In the heart of Nicole something penetrated like a knife. She began to tremble.

"Why do you shake so?" he asked.

"It is from joy."

"You love me so, then?"

When the silence returned, she said:

"Barabant, promise me but one thing."

"I promise it."

"When the day comes that you are leaving me for another woman, tell me first." She added low, as though she did not want him to hear: "I can kill myself without seeing her in his arms!"

Barabant, recoiling before such a picture of the future, cried from the bottom of a heart of pity:

"Never! Never!"

"No—I could not leave thee, even so," she said, weeping herself at the thought she had conjured. "Let me always be thy servant. I am only an ignorant girl, not fit to be thy companion. Let me take care of thee, though, whatever happens!"

"No, never that! Never! Nicole, it is for life, forever!" he cried with the sincerity of the moment, which is the sincerity of the lover. He was young, generous, quick to pity, and he adored her. "You do believe me?"

"Almost."

He redoubled his protestations, while Nicole, laughing through her tears, cried gaily:

"Go on, Barabant. It is good to hear. Don't stop—more, more!" At last she herself arrested his protestations: "Yes, Barabant, I believe thee. Oh, anything you can say to me I'll believe at this moment!"

"That I want thee while I live?"

"Yes."

"Forever?"

"For—ever." She drew herself up to his lips. "I have been so miserable waiting for thee."

Their lips met and they stood in the darkness as one body, while above, unheeded, from the darkness broke out the cry of life and death.

"Thou wilt not leave me, Nicole, again, neither now nor ever?"

"Do I not love thee?" she said simply.

They passed from the shadow and moved, tightly enlaced, through the dim region of the dwindling torch, slowly up the steep, hard steps into the enveloping darkness beyond. Again was lifted up the cry of anguish and rebellion, the cry of Prometheus, heritage of woman, and again came silence.