“That’s enough, that’s enough!” he replied, lighting a cigarette.
A frightful uproar of oaths and shouts now took the place of the deafening sound of the orchestra, and the incorrigible Southerner half opened the door.
I could see the officer giving orders to two sub-officers, who in their turn separated the groups, seizing the stoker, the engine-driver, and the other men belonging to the train, so roughly that I was sorry for them. They were kicked in the back, they received blows with the flat of the sword on the shoulder; a blow with the butt end of a gun knocked the guard of the train down. He was the ugliest brute, though, that I have ever seen. All these people were sobered in a few seconds, and went back towards our carriage with a hang-dog look and a threatening mien.
We followed them, but I did not feel any too satisfied as to what might happen to us on the way with this queer lot. The officer evidently had a similar idea, for he ordered one of the sub-officers to accompany us as far as Amiens. This sub-officer got into our carriage, and we set off again. We arrived at Amiens at six in the morning. Daylight had not yet succeeded in piercing through the night clouds. Light rain was falling, which was hardened by the cold. There was not a carriage to be had, not even a porter. I wanted to go to the Hôtel du Cheval-Blanc, but a man who happened to be there said to me: “It’s no use, my little lady; there’s no room there, even for a lath like you. Go to the house over there with a balcony; they can put some people up.”
With these words he turned his back on me. Villaret had gone off without saying a word. M. Gerson and his grandson had disappeared silently in a covered country cart hermetically closed. A stout, ruddy, thick-set matronly woman was waiting for them, but the coachman looked as though he were in the service of well-to-do people. General Pelissier’s son, who had not uttered a word since we had left Gonesse, had disappeared like a ball from the hands of a conjurer.
Théodore Joussian politely offered to accompany us, and I was so weary that I accepted his offer. He picked up our bag and began to walk at full speed, so that we had difficulty in keeping up with him. He was so breathless with the walk that he could not talk, which was a great relief to me.
Finally we arrived at the house and entered, but my horror was great on seeing that the hall of the hotel had been transformed into a dormitory. We could scarcely walk between the mattresses laid down on the ground, and the grumbling of the people was by no means promising.
When once we were in the office a young girl in mourning told us that there was not a room vacant. I sank down on a chair, and Mlle. Soubise leaned against the wall with her arms hanging down, looking most dejected.
The odious Joussian then yelled out that they could not let two women as young as we were be out in the street all night. He went to the proprietress of the hotel and said something quietly about me. I do not know what it was, but I heard my name distinctly. The young woman in mourning then looked up with moist eyes.
“My brother was a poet,” she said. “He wrote a very pretty sonnet about you after seeing you play in Le Passant more than ten times. He took me, too, to see you, and I enjoyed myself so much that night. It is all over, though.” She lifted her hands towards her head and sobbed, trying to stifle back her cries. “It’s all over!” she repeated. “He is dead! They have killed him! It is all over! All over!”