The Rougon-Macquart: Complete 20 Book Collection. Эмиль Золя
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face to face with his cousin, Doctor Pascal. The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the workmen who held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven to dissuade them from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their arguments, he had said to them with his kindly smile: “Well, perhaps you are right, my friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch up your arms and legs.”
Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the high road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist’s hammer and botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered forth from the surgeon’s case which he carried under his arm.
“Hallo! You here, my lad?” he cried, as he perceived Silvere. “I thought I was the only member of the family here.”
He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere friendship. Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause, and was much delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful magniloquence, of the people’s rights, their holy cause, and their certain triumph. Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth’s gestures and the ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though he were studying a patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain what might be at the bottom of it.
“How you run on! How you run on!” he finally exclaimed. “Ah! you are your grandmother’s true grandson.” And, in a whisper, he added, like some chemist taking notes: “Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness or sublime madness. It’s always those terrible nerves!” Then, again speaking aloud, as if summing up the matter, he said: “The family is complete now. It will count a hero among its members.”
Silvere did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic. Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large red pelisse. She and Silvere had traversed the town arm-in-arm. The sight of this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again interrupting his cousin, he asked him: “Who is this child with you?”
“She is my wife,” Silvere gravely answered.
The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was very shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went away.
The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence. Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of that invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic. According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command of Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the department, was advancing by forced marches to disperse the insurrectionary bands. This news came like a thunderbolt, at once awakening rage and despair. These men, who on the previous evening had been all aglow with patriotic fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to their hearts by the shameful submissiveness of prostrate France. They alone, then, had had the courage to do their duty! And now they were to be left to perish amidst the general panic, the deathlike silence of the country; they had become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild beasts; they, who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt, and of the glorious conquest of the people’s rights! Miserably baffled and betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the troops, and show how Republicans could die.
Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them, there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or discipline, barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command of irresolute men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers that might arrive.
They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre, whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed upon him. On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of Orcheres was a decidedly dangerous one; so towards one o’clock he gave orders to march, and led his little army to the heights of Sainte-Roure. That was, indeed, an impregnable position for any one who knew how to defend it. The houses of Sainte-Roure rise in tiers along a hillside; behind the town all approach is shut off by enormous rocks, so that this kind of citadel can only be reached by the Nores plain, which spreads out at the foot of the plateau. An esplanade, converted into a public walk planted with magnificent elms, overlooks the plain. It was on this esplanade that the insurgents encamped. The hostages were imprisoned in the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche, standing halfway along the promenade. The night passed away heavy and black. The insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon as it was morning, however, the man with the sabre, who had neglected to take the simplest precautions, reviewed the troops. The contingents were drawn up in line with their backs turned to the plain. They presented a wonderful medley of costume, some wearing brown jackets, others dark greatcoats, and others again blue blouses girded with red sashes. Moreover, their arms were an equally odd collection: there were newly sharpened scythes, large navvies’ spades, and fowling-pieces with burnished barrels glittering in the sunshine. And at the very moment when the improvised general was riding past the little army, a sentry, who had been forgotten in an olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating and shouting:
“The soldiers! The soldiers!”
There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false alarm. Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of the esplanade in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and as the dark line of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a long glitter of bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of olive trees, there came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a quiver of panic to the other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the contingents of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in line in the middle of the promenade, and stood there erect and fierce. A woodcutter, who was a head taller than any of his companions, shouted, as he waved his red neckerchief: “To arms, Chavanoz, Graille, Poujols, Saint-Eutrope! To arms, Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!”
Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre, surrounded by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of the country contingents — Vernoux, Corbiere, Marsanne, and Pruinas — to outflank the enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from Valqueyras, Nazere, Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran, dashed to the left, scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over the Nores plain.
And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the woodcutter had called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming a dark irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of strategy, simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way or die. The men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic battalion. Amid the grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the bluish glitter of the weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was holding the banner with both hands, looked like a large red splotch — a fresh and bleeding wound.
All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte’s pale face appeared at a window of the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to speak, gesticulating with his hands.
“Go in, close the shutters,” the insurgents furiously shouted; “you’ll get yourself killed.”
Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save the regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.