Jean looked at him, thunderstruck, abruptly sobered. They were alone; the other soldiers had already started in pursuit of some runaways. All around them the conflagrations were flaring yet higher, the windows were vomiting great red flames, and one could hear the crash of the burning ceilings as they sank inside the houses. Then Jean fell down near Maurice, sobbing, feeling him, trying to raise him up so as to ascertain whether he might not still be able to save him.
'Oh! my poor youngster, my poor youngster!'
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE BURNING OF BABYLON—THE BITTER END
When after innumerable stoppages the train coming from Sedan at last reached the St. Denis station at about nine o'clock, a great red blaze was already lighting up the sky towards the south, as though all Paris were on fire. This glow had begun to spread as the night fell and was now slowly covering the horizon, ensanguining a flight of little clouds which were travelling eastward into the gloom which the contrast rendered more intense.
Henriette was the very first to spring out of the train, all anxiety at sight of those fiery reflections, which the passengers had perceived across the black fields, from the windows of their carriages, as they came nearer and nearer to the capital. Moreover, some Prussian soldiers who had occupied the station were compelling everybody to alight, whilst a couple of them continued shouting in guttural French: 'Paris is burning! The train goes no farther, all out here—Paris is burning! Paris is burning!'
Henrietta's anguish was terrible. Good Heavens! had she arrived too late, then? Maurice not having answered her last two letters, the alarming reports from Paris had filled her with mortal anxiety, and she had abruptly made up her mind to leave Remilly. She had been growing sadder and sadder during the last few months at uncle Fouchard's; the soldiery occupying the district had become more and more harsh and exacting as Paris prolonged its resistance; and now that the regiments were one by one returning to Germany, the constant passage of troops again sorely tried both the towns and the villages. That morning, on rising at daybreak to go and take the train at Sedan, she had found the courtyard of the farm full of cavalry soldiers who had slept there, lying pell-mell on the ground, wrapped in their long cloaks. They were so numerous that it was hardly possible to cross the yard. Then, as a bugle suddenly sounded, they all rose up in silence, draped in the long folds of their mantles and in such serried array that she fancied she was witnessing some resurrection on a battlefield in response to the call of the last trump. And now she found more Prussians at St. Denis distressing her with their repeated shouts: 'All out here, the train goes no farther; Paris is burning, Paris is burning!'
Quite beside herself, Henriette darted out of the carriage carrying her little valise, and asked for information. For two days past fighting had been going on in Paris, the railway line was cut, and the Prussians were posted on the look-out. Nevertheless she was determined to reach the city, and noticing, on the platform, the Prussian captain in command of the company which occupied the station, she ran up to him and said: 'I wish, to join my brother, whom I am very anxious about, sir. Enable me to continue my journey I beg of you——' And then she stopped short in surprise, for she had just recognised the captain, on whose face the light of a gas lamp was falling. 'What! is it you, Otto? Help me, I beg of you, since chance has again brought us together.'
Otto Gunther—Weiss's cousin—had not changed. Tightly buttoned up in his captain's uniform, he was still the same stern, well-groomed, smart officer. On his side, he did not at first recognise that slight, little woman with the fair hair and gentle face partially hidden by a crape bonnet. But at last, by the brave, frank light of her eyes, he remembered her and made a gesture of surprise.