In the mean time, at the other extremity of this human sea, in the midst of the crushing crowd, another man was forcing a passage, with a perseverance almost amounting to ferocity. Nothing impeded his indefatigable exertions,—neither the blows of those he left behind, the fearful imprecations of those he almost stifled in passing, nor the wails of the women, for there were many females in this crowd.
To blows he responded with blows; to imprecations, by a look before which the most courageous quailed; to complaints, by a carelessness bordering on disdain.
At last he arrived behind the powerful young man who, so to speak, closed the entrance to the hall. In the midst of the general expectation—for all were anxious to see how the contest between two such rude antagonists would terminate—he essayed his peculiar method, which consisted in planting like wedges his elbows between two spectators, and thus breaking through the thickest of the crowd.
He was, notwithstanding, a short young man, whose wan face and emaciated appearance betokened latent illness.
His elbows had scarcely touched the young man before him, when he, indignant at the aggression, turned sharply round, at the same moment raising his clinched fist, which threatened, in falling, to crush the slender form of the intruder.
The two antagonists now found themselves face to face, when a cry of recognition escaped from each.
"Ah, Citizen Maurice," said the delicate young man, with an accent of inexpressible anguish, "permit me to pass; only let me see her, I entreat you; you may kill me afterward."
Maurice—for it was indeed he—felt himself affected by admiration and compassion for this ceaseless devotion, this adventurous daring.
"You here!" murmured he. "How imprudent!"
"Yes; but I am exhausted—O God! she speaks. Let me see her; let me hear her!"