He paused, smiling round at the listening and attentive faces. He was speaking like a peasant to peasants, and he had his hand on their hearts.
“Let me tell you that I have visited many villages. What happens? The people crowd round me; they say: ‘Monsieur, when will the Government help us? We have no material. What are we to do? It is sad, it is tragic.’ And I say to them, ‘Work, children, work. Do not wait for the bureaucrats and for indemnities. The world is a selfish world, and officials do not hurry, but I will hurry them with all the strength that is left to me. Our sufferings are not yet over, but let us suffer a little longer for France. Work; look about you, do not sit still and wait. Clear the ground—gather together what you can; we will see to it that you have food and fuel. During the war we gave blood; now—we must give our sweat.’ And they are good people; they see that I cannot promise miracles and they forgive me.”
Paul Brent was lying in the little room listening to Monsieur Clemenceau’s voice. His face was turned to the window that opened on the garden, and he could see the line of the stone wall and the branches of the lime trees making a broken pattern against the blue of the sky. Beaucourt seemed very silent, extraordinarily silent, and yet Brent knew that nothing but a brick wall separated him from all those people. The street below the Café de la Victoire was as quiet as a court of justice, and the voice of Clemenceau was the voice of a judge.
Marie Castener sat on the chair beside the bed, a big, blond, patient woman, who listened intently to all that the great man said. Now and again she nodded her head and made some comment. “Yes, that’s sound sense.” “This man gets to the heart of things.” “We make our own miracles.” “Listen, Manon is speaking.”
They heard Manon’s voice coming out of that same silence, the profound silence of men and women whose sympathies are challenged by some drama of life that stirs their emotions, their loves, and their hates. They had listened to Clemenceau with stolidity and interest, but when Manon Latour began to speak to them their eyes lit up with living passion. Into the open space where Bibi and Ledoux were standing someone had pushed Pompom Crapaud, and at the sight of this sinister little devil still carrying his tin of petroleum, the crowd uttered its first cry of anger. These peasants looked meaningly at each other. Mouths and eyes hardened. A house had become a sacred object in Beaucourt, and Crapaud had been caught in an act of sacrilege.
Manon was standing beside her chair. The sight of Crapaud angered her as it angered the crowd.
“What had we done to you that you should wish to burn our home?”
Crapaud giggled. He found himself between Bibi and Ledoux and facing Clemenceau, that grim old badger with the white moustache. Fear made him impudent and vicious. He leered up at the blind and sullen face of Louis Blanc, and at the uncertain and flickering eyes of Lazare Ledoux.
“You look cheerful—you two!”
He nudged Bibi with his elbow and was shrugged aside by an angry jerk of Blanc’s big body. Bibi was sulky and furious; these “roughs” were of no more use to him.