4
Outside, the Opera Square, brightly lighted with many-armed, monumental lamp-posts, had at once become dark and swarming, filled with a vast mob; the whole town poured into it from every street; the alarm drew everybody thither, as though with a magnet. Detachments of hussars were already moving through the town, keeping order among the excited populace; the Duke of Mena-Doni was everywhere at once, trampling down the revolution with the military at his command in whatsoever corner it seemed to lift its head. The sky above was dark and frowning. It began to rain....
The rumour sped that the emperor had died. It was not true. Wrestling for breath, the sovereign lay in the crush-room of the opera-house, amidst the panic of his family, of his suite, of the hurrying doctors. He must not be moved, they said. He insisted. He refused to die here. He was set on returning to his Imperial. And, straining the springs of his energy, he commanded, he drew himself up, with the blood spurting from his throat; Othomar and the aides supported him....
Outside, in the square, the mob grew in numbers, the panic increased, riot seethed up from among those black clusters of people. Continual fights burst out between groups of men, dock-labourers, and the guard in front of the building, the police. The court-carriages returned empty, under escort, to the palace.
Other carriages, cabs, tried here and there to force a way through the people; they were surrounded by cuirassiers, who protected them with drawn swords. Volumes of curses and abuse spattered up against them, against the vaguely transparent windows, behind which were patches of light colours, flashing sparks of jewels. Women's scared eyes peered out fixedly, askance, without moving.
In the corridors, on the huge, monumental staircase of the opera-house, people hustled one another, fought to get through; then suddenly all eyes, staring wide, looked up above: the emperor was passing, bleeding, panting for breath, surrounded by his kin.... A feeling of awe stopped the crush for a moment; then they pressed on again.... Ladies fled till they found themselves behind the scenes, where they mingled their aristocracy with the bohemianism of the actors and actresses, all mixed up, confused, amidst the terrified, humming crowd of ballet-girls, priestesses of Isis. Gratuities were lavished: anything for a carriage, a cab....
The Duchess of Yemena stood there with her daughters; they were looking out for their carriage, which they had sent for at least ten times.... A stage-carpenter shrugged his shoulders indifferently: he did not know where to get a carriage from.
"I won't wait any longer," said the duchess, shuddering.
The girls clung to her, sobbing hysterically. She obtained a leather bag from an actress; she hastily took off her jewels, ordered the girls to do the same. They crammed them into the bag. She slipped a gold coin into a dresser's hand, asked her to pin up their trains, to pin them high, asked her to find them some black shoes. Other ladies, waiting and half-swooning with fright, looked at her, saw her thus, strangely practical. She succeeded in buying three long black cloaks and three black hats from a group of chorus-girls, flung one cloak over herself, flung the others over the sobbing little marchionesses.
"I'm frightened, mamma!" sobbed Eleonore.
The duchess was determined to get home somehow:
"Come, come along!" she urged, driving the two girls before her.
The other ladies, in alarm, watched them disappear through a back-door into a side-street....
The duchess pressed the bag with the jewels to her:
"For God's sake, don't cry; keep your heads!" she ordered her daughters. "Walk on quietly and not too fast. Wrap your cloaks well round you."
She walked on, tall and erect between the two little trembling marchionesses, in those chorus-girls' clothes; rain poured down. Clusters of people ran up against them; they mingled with them; for a moment she lost Hélène:
"Wait a moment!" she said to Eleonore.
And they remained standing amid the press of people; troops came jogging on; socialistic songs of triumph carolled up coarsely.... Then she went back with Eleonore, pushing, shoving, giving Hélène an opportunity to get back to her:
"Now both give me an arm: here!..."
They did as they were told; thus, seemingly calm, slowly, slowly, as though they were sight-seers who had also come to look, they reached the Opera Square, where the mob was swarming up against the guards. Carriages passed, at a walking-pace, escorted by soldiers. A wretched old hired growler, with a gaunt hack, pushed a muddy wheel right up against her, grazing her knees; a cuirassier of the escort raised his sword threateningly against her....
"My God!" she cried, awe-struck, clutching the children.
She had first recognized the driver, in a dirty coat: a footman from the Imperial, whose face she remembered. Then, with a swift glance into the cab, she recognized—just close to a lamp-post with a number of ornamental branches—the emperor leaning against Othomar and her own stepson, Xardi. But the marquis did not recognize her, for, startled by the great light, he quickly turned his face away and bent, sombrely, protectingly, over the emperor and the crown-prince....
The girls had seen nothing; the duchess said nothing, afraid of betraying them.... She felt all her pluck and assurance forsake her; she shuddered from head to foot. She could not restrain her tears for her poor emperor, who was dying, who was returning to his palace in such a guise. A great, dark terror took possession of her. The rain trickled over her bosom....
"Keep your cloaks round you!" she again admonished her daughters.
Then she went on, dragging herself along and the girls as well, beside her, stumbling on their feet...
But a whirl of people swept across the Opera Square; there seemed to be a fight in progress: a heap of men, surrounding a group of police-constables and soldiers, in whose midst a madman wrestled with forcible gestures; a coarse clamour rose on high. At the lighted, open windows of the opera-house, above the perystile, still decked in its bright, festal illumination, face after face, appeared, actors still in costume looked on....
"Mamma, we shall never get through!" sobbed Eleonore, softly.
The duchess thought in despair of the great Empress Avenue in which their town-house stood; it was so far away: how would they ever reach it, how would they ever get home?...
"They're murdering him, they're murdering him, they shan't murder him!" bleated the people round them.
Then the duchess understood, then she saw and the girls also saw: the mob, furious, foaming at the mouth—avengers now, though at first malcontents, perhaps even anarchists: such were the Liparians!—the mob pressing against the soldiers and constables, in the midst of whom the emperor's murderer still made fight with his large, frenzied gestures. And the avengers stormed this circle of protecting police; they dragged the man out.... They dragged him right under the eyes of the duchess, of her daughters....
"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" they roared brutally, men and women alike.
They tore the clothes from his body, they beat him; and he howled back. They struck him to the ground with cudgels and trampled on him with coarse shoes; his blood flowed; his brains spattered from his crushed skull....
Then, at the sight of blood, they became like wild beasts; they grinned and smacked their lips with delight.
Eleonore fell back fainting against the duchess, but Alexa shook her by the arm:
"Keep up, keep up, for God's sake keep up, can't you?" she cried out aloud. "I can do nothing with you if you faint!"
Her strong hands goaded the little marchioness back into life and again she dragged them on, staggering....