'Bring him close to the edge of the table with his head well over the tub so as not to stain the floor.'
They drew him forward, and Sambuc then set about his task in a quiet, cleanly fashion. With one stroke of the large bacon knife he slit the wretched man's throat crosswise, and the blood from the severed carotid at once began dripping into the tub with a gentle plashing like that of a fountain. He had made but a small incision, so that only a few drops spurted forth, impelled by the action of the heart. If, in this way, death came more slowly, none of its convulsions were seen, for the ropes were strong and the body remained quite motionless. There was not a start, not a groan. It was only by the dying man's face that one could observe the progress of his agony—his face furrowed by fright, whence the blood departed drop by drop, leaving the skin quite colourless, as white as linen. And the eyes were emptying also. They became dim and at last their light departed from them.
'I say, Silvine, we shall want a sponge all the same.'
She gave no answer, however. She stood there as though rooted to the tiled floor, with her arms all unconsciously folded across her bosom, and with her throat gripped as by an iron collar. But all at once she noticed that Charlot was there, hanging to her skirts. No doubt he had awakened and managed to open the doors, and nobody had seen or heard him creep into the kitchen like the inquisitive child he was. How long had he been there, half hidden behind his mother? He also was looking on. From under his shock of yellow hair, those big blue eyes of his were watching the dripping blood, the little red streamlet which was slowly filling the tub. Possibly the sight amused him. Perhaps he had at first failed to understand it; and then, maybe, some sense of horror had dawned upon him, an instinctive consciousness that he was witnessing an abomination. At all events, he suddenly raised a wild cry of affright: 'Oh! mammy, mammy, I'm afraid—take me away!'
And this cry gave Silvine a shock of such violence that she reeled. This was the last straw; something gave way, crumbled to pieces within her; horror was at last sweeping away that strength and excitement, born of her fixed idea, which had buoyed her up for two days past. She became a woman once more, burst into tears, and made a mad, wild gesture as she took up Charlot and distractedly pressed him to her heart. And then she rushed away with him at a terrified gallop, unable to see or hear more, feeling nought but an imperious need to go and annihilate herself, it mattered not where, in the first secluded hole that she might fall into.
At that same moment Jean had just made up his mind to open his door. Although as a rule he never troubled himself about the sounds wafted to him from in and around the house, he had ended, that evening, by feeling surprised at all the comings and goings and bursts of shouting that he heard. And it was into his quiet room that Silvine now swept, dishevelled, sobbing, shaken by such a paroxysm of wretchedness that he could not at first catch the disjointed words which she stammered through her clenched teeth. And again and again did she make the same wild gesture as though to drive away the atrocious scene. At last, however, Jean understood her, and then he also—in his mind's eye—beheld the ambuscade, the slaughtering, the mother standing by with the little one among her skirts, both gazing at the father, whose blood was trickling from his cut throat; and at the thought of so much horror he felt icy cold, his heart was fairly overturned with anguish.
Ah! War, abominable War, which transformed all these poor folks into ferocious wild beasts, which sowed the seed of such fearful hatred—the son bespattered with his father's blood, perpetuating the enmity of races, growing up in execration of the paternal family which some day or other he might perhaps help to exterminate! Ah! the villainous seeds whence only frightful harvests could spring!
Silvine, who had fallen on a chair, covered Charlot, who clung, sobbing, to her neck, with frantic kisses, again and again repeating the same phrase, the one cry that rose from her bleeding heart: 'Ah! my poor little one, nobody will say any more that you are a Prussian! Ah! my poor little one, nobody will say any more that you are a Prussian!'
Meantime old Fouchard had arrived and was in the kitchen. He had rapped on the door like the master he was, and the others had decided they must let him in. And, truly, the surprise he experienced was scarcely a pleasant one—that corpse lying upon his table, with the tub full of blood underneath. He was of anything but an enduring nature, and naturally he waxed wrathful at the sight.
'Couldn't you do your dirty work out of doors, you filthy beasts?' he shouted. 'Do you take my house for a manure pit, that you come here and spoil my furniture in that style?' Then as Sambuc began to apologise and explain matters, the old fellow, growing alarmed and more and more irritated, continued: 'What the —— can I do with your corpse? Do you think it at all reasonable to stick a corpse in a man's house like that, without knowing if he can dispose of it? Suppose a patrol came in, I should be in a nice fix! But you fellows don't care a rap, you never considered that this business might cost me my skin. Well, curse you, you'll have to deal with me if you don't carry your corpse away at once! You hear me! So make haste, take it up by the head, or by the legs, or in whatever way you like, but don't dawdle, and mind that there's not so much as a hair of that fellow's head left here in three minutes from now!'