She had become very expert in nursing and dressing wounds during her long vigils at the ambulance of Remilly. And she at once wished to examine her brother, whom she undressed without rousing him from his fainting fit. But while she was unfastening the rude bandage, which Jean had devised, the young fellow began to stir, raising a faint cry as he opened his big feverish eyes. He at once recognised her and smiled at her: 'So you are here! Ah! how glad I am to see you again before I die!'
She silenced him with a loving gesture of confidence. 'Die, no, I won't let you die, I mean you to live. Don't talk, let me attend to you.'
Her face became clouded, however, and her eyes grew dim when she had examined his transpierced arm and injured ribs. Then, taking possession of the room, she searched about till she found a little oil, and began tearing some old shirts into bands, whilst Jean went down to fill a pitcher with water. He, poor fellow, no longer spoke a word, but watched her whilst she washed the wounds and skilfully dressed them, quite incapable of helping her, altogether annihilated as it were since her arrival. However, he observed her anxiety, and when she had finished he offered to go and fetch a doctor. But she had an acute perception of the position: no, no, not the first chance doctor, who might perhaps betray her brother. Then at last, upon Jean talking of rejoining his regiment, it was agreed that he should return as soon as he could manage and endeavour to bring a doctor with him.
Nevertheless, he did not take himself off; it was as though he could not make up his mind to leave that room, where all told of his unhappy deed. After being closed for a moment, the window had again been opened, and the wounded man, lying in bed, with his head propped up by pillows, could gaze out upon the roofs of Paris, whither the glances of the others also strayed, in the heavy silence which oppressed them.
From that height of the Butte des Moulins one half of the city lay stretched out below them—first, the central districts from the Faubourg St. Honoré to the Bastille, then the long sweep of the Seine and the distant buildings swarming on its left bank, a sea of roofs, tree-tops, steeples, domes and towers. The light was now growing stronger; the abominable night, one of the most frightful in history, was ended. But in the pure light of the rising sun, under the rosy sky, the fires continued blazing. In front of them they could see the Tuileries, which was still burning, the Orsay barracks, the palaces of the Council of State and the Legion of Honour, the flames from which, paling in the broad light, imparted a great quivering as it were to the heavens. And beyond the houses of the Rue de Lille and the Rue du Bac, other houses must now be flaring, for pillars of flakes were rising from the crossway of the Croix-Rouge, and from the Rue Vavin and the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, yet farther away. Close by, on the right, the conflagrations of the Rue St. Honoré were running their course, whilst on the left the fires tardily kindled at the Palais-Royal and the new Louvre, where the torch had not been applied until near morning, were prematurely dying out. And, at first, neither Maurice nor Jean could account for some thick black smoke which the westerly breeze was slowly driving past the window. Since three in the morning, however, the Ministry of Finances in the Rue de Rivoli had also been burning. No lofty flames shot up from it, everything was turning into dense, whirling masses of soot, so prodigious was the collection of papers of all kinds gathered together there, under the low ceilings of the lath-and-plaster partitioned rooms. And thus, if the tragic impression of the night—the fear of total destruction, the Seine rolling live embers and Paris blazing at its four corners—had passed away when the great city awoke, there was in lieu thereof a dreary, despair-fraught gloominess hanging over the districts that had yet been spared, a gloominess which slowly travelled along with that dense, continuous, ever-spreading smoke-cloud from the Ministry of Finances. And presently, the sun, which had risen bright and clear, was hidden by the cloud, and only that pall of mourning could be seen aloft in the tawny sky.
With a slow wave of the hand which embraced the boundless horizon, Maurice, again delirious, muttered: 'Is everything burning? Ah! how long it takes!'
Tears were welling in Henriette's eyes as though her burden of misery were rendered yet heavier by those immense disasters in which her brother had his share. And Jean, who dared neither take her hand again, nor even embrace his friend, thereupon hurried off like one who is losing his senses. 'Good-bye; I will be back soon.'
He was only able to return, however, in the evening at about eight o'clock, after night had fallen. In spite of his great anxiety he was in some measure happy, for his regiment was no longer taking any part in the fighting, but had been transferred from the first to the second line, with orders to guard this very district. His company camping on the Place du Carrousel, he hoped that he would be able to run up every evening to see how Maurice was getting on. And he did not come back alone; as luck would have it, he had met the surgeon-major of his old regiment, the 106th, and having failed to find any other doctor he brought this one with him, reflecting that this terrible man with the lion's head was, after all, a good and worthy fellow.
When Bouroche, not knowing what wounded man it was whom the corporal so pressingly begged him to succour, and growling at having had to climb so many flights of stairs, realised that he had a Communard before him, he at first flew into a violent passion: 'Thunder! Are you playing the fool with me? Brigands who are weary of thieving, murdering, and burning! That bandit's affair is clear enough; I'll cure him precious quick, yes, with three bullets in his head!'