Max Ehrmann

“ Instead of retarding Joseph's steps, Madeline kept steadily by his side, holding his arm with a firm grip. They reached the Hôtel de Ville, where people were saying good-by, and last embraces, kisses and farewells were being given, as in the days of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. They passed friends and were passed by them, but the excitement was such that nobody knew anybody else. Each one had his burden of sorrow, that after scarcely a generation of peace, the human carnival was again to begin, that the blood of the sons of France was again to be shed in fratricidal strife. ”

“ The small figure closed the cellar door, busied himself for a time about the room in the dark, and disappeared again through the rear door.
There was no change for several hours: the dim light, the chemical fumes, and the mysterious muttering talk continued; the small dark person did not enter again, but lay asleep on a couch in the back room; and from without, in the shadow of the starless night, the old stone house looked as dark, gloomy and lifeless as ever. ”

“ Some of the women who had seen Madeline every day of her life, and who had something of the feeling of a mother for her, began to weep at the sight of this living death; and when the doctor turned away from the couch, they looked beseechingly at him, as if he were to decide according to his pleasure whether or not Madeline should be restored.
"I shall do what I can," said Satiani, answering their looks.
"What is it?" asked the father.
"If there is anything beyond suspension of consciousness, it cannot yet be told. Allow her to lie undisturbed where she is." ”

“ The father turned toward him, and the sharp eyes of the doctor stared unpleasantly.
"There is war in Paris—an outbreak—'revolution,' they say; and we go thither in an hour. I have come to say good-by."
"You are going to join the king?" demanded the father, with gathering indignation and astonishment, while Madeline stood in bewilderment looking at the three men, each of whose faces betrayed a different emotion.
"Never, we join the People against a tyrant!" ”

“ It was fully an hour before Monsieur succeeded in pacifying Irène; and then only after she had extracted from him a promise to return with her to Paris in the morning. At eleven o'clock all retired; but for some time only Irène, evercome by physical exhaustion, slept. Monsieur Le Blanc knew human nature well enough to understand that such certainty and persistence are not often born of illusion. "The body can be disinterred," he thought, "that would satisfy all doubt." ”

“ All around, those long dead turned in their graves; the later ones arose, sat on their tombs, and moved about; but none spoke or smiled. Some came and watched the digging from sockets that had no eyes, their bones rattling with every step. A few only had withered hearts, the resthad none. A mourning sound now issued from their lips and tongueless mouths. Satiani stopped, looked about, and the dead shrank back. He descended into the grave, and continued to dig. ”

“ The doors broke open; the father, priest, and others entered.
"O Madeline!" cried the father,
"She is dying," said Satiani.
The women began to cry and the priest to pray. The father ran to the wife, who was lying in an up-stairs room; and Irène helped Satiani from his knees and led him to a seat, where he lay seemingly exhausted. Another candle was placed beside Madeline 's head, and before long there was no other sound in the darkened room save the prayer of her good father confessor and the echoes of thunder from the vanishing storm. ”

“ I never dreamed there were so many people on earth—thousands! I felt bewildered. Lights, rolling carriages, brilliant windows, horses, people—it was like a dream. Now I come to the point! [She grew almost white in the face, arose, and walked to the center of the room.] As I stand here now, my aunt and uncle behind me, so we walked along. Presently there was a clear place on the sidewalk; and from the crowd going before us—God forbid me from saying falsely!—what do you think I saw emerge? [She stares sharply into their faces.] Monsieur, Madame! what do you think I saw?"
"Irène!" ”

“ Irène was one of those abiding creatures who are only to be found, perhaps, in her own sex, to whom vicissitude is a power that strengthens devotion and love. She would have given her life for Madeline. There was no red in her cheeks now as she hastened through the deserted streets toward the doctor's office ”

“ Monsieur wandered alone to the cottage beside the garden, where there awaited one to hear what he had to tell; and Joseph walked home with Irène. He had bought the rosary of the laborer, and as he was about to turn away to his own abode, he gave it to her, saying: "You keep it. It can remind me of nothing save what I must forget in order to live." ”

“ Madame!"
"Here, here," they answered, coming to him, followed by Irène from the side room,
"She is gone!" cried Joseph; and for a moment the four stood like stone, staring into one another's faces. Madame sank into a chair, Monsieur and Joseph were speechless, Irène alone was self-possessed.
"En route tout le monde pour Paris," she called, with joy in her voice. "Madeline still lives!"
*****
At nightfall while the strange news was being told under every roof in the town, Monsieur Le Blanc, Joseph and Irène were approaching Paris. ”

“ By ten o'clock the other officers lay behind thick shrubbery on every side of the house. It was their plan that no one should be permitted to leave the house, and the entrance of no one was to be impeded. At a low whistle from the officer in the hole, the house was to be entered at every door simultaneously. The signal was to be given sufficiently long after the sound of talking had ceased in the cellar to allow the inmates to retire and fall asleep. So far as the officers lying about the house knew, this might be at any minute. Consuming with impatience, they lay several hours ”

“ The anxiety of the dwarf grew intolerable to behold. He did not close the door, and walked nervously from one side of the room to the other, pausing now and then to listen or look out the window or door. ”

“ The noises were not loud, but continuous—a mingling of heavy steps, heaving moans, and hideous giggles.
"We are caught," he thought, springing to his feet and going to the window to look out. But the night was calm and the sound came not from without. He hurried to the room above the cellar. At every step he came nearer the horrible sounds that became louder with every succeeding gasp. Someone was choking; one by one, heavy steps came thumping up the stairs; and now and then, piercing the other noises, came a shrill laugh. A heavy figure fell upon the floor, knocking him against the wall ”

“ By five o'clock the funeral line marched northward toward the cemetery. It was a sad procession. It is not so melancholy a thing to follow the remains of an aged person to the tomb, for however dear the departed may be, he had mounted a good score of years—he had fulfilled his task—he had lived. But to follow the bier of youth—hopeful, bright, ambitious youth, that was yet to flower and diffuse its fragrance ”

“ She will like Paris; and the last thing she said as I asked her to return with me, was, 'No; now that Madeline is gone, I have no desire.'"
"She loved our child," said Monsieur.
"Yes, she must have. As I turned away she broke into tears. It was the only time I ever saw Irène cry."
Presently Madame came from the house, and sat with Joseph. She looked pale, and had fallen away since their great sorrow. Her attachment to the young man was not weak; and it grew stronger now that she saw how deep his affection really was.
There was not much conversation, Of what should they talk? ”

“ At about two o'clock the dwarfish person rolled on his bed, rubbed his eyes and sat up, for he thought that something had awakened him. He listened, but could hear nothing except his own breathing. "It must have been a bad dream," he said to himself, and lay down again, when there came to his ear unmistaken sounds that filled him with terror, that froze his thin blood, and made him shake like one facing impending death. ”

“ On the north of the house lay a beautiful valley, where flocks and herds grazed, and where my friend lay in the sunshine for hours gazing at the glorious skies of southern France.
The Madame of the house was a small, slender, white-haired woman of over seventy years of age. Her daughter, who was the only other person in the house, passed her fifty-fourth year during M. de Corbière's sojourn there. She was a woman of no little intelligence ”

“ After the storming of the Bastile in July, 1789, while the coils were twining around Louis XVI., Viscount Satiani and his family fled over the frontiers with the Count of Artois, the young brother of the King, and the Charles X. of a later age. Before young Satiani saw France again there had been a States General,a Republic, a King and Queen guillotined, a Reign of Terror, pillage and massacre, a Directory, and from the ashes and smoke of desolation had risen the figure of Napoleon. ”

“ My tongue cleaved stiffly to the roof of my mouth, I felt my jaws lock, and consciousness dwindled to nothing save a sense of terror that I had gone a step too far with myself, and a kind of joy that I had at last found that for which I had searched so long. ”

“ V.
"Here is a message," said Irène to Madame Le Blanc, at two o'clock in the afternoon.
The mother sat, pale and motionless, in a large armchair near the door that faced the garden. It had stopped raining and the sun was out.
"Read it to me," she said.
"It is from Doctor Satiani." Irène read:—
"'Monsieur Le Blanc, I advise you to have your child interred today. Decay having set in a day ago, it would be unwise to keep her until to-morrow. Nothing can be done for her; and you must protect yourselves against the danger of keeping her in the house another night. ”

“ Two years after, Joseph and Irène were married.
***** *****
In 1870, forty years later, when nearly all the persons who figured in this brief episode had died, and when the old stone house had sunk further into the earth and become to several generations of children the abode of the evil spirit, and when fragments of the foregoing narrative had become a tradition, and time had spread oblivion over what once seethed and throbbed with human interest, there came to the town two women: one, small, slender and white with age; the other, younger, but already passed the meridian of life. ”

“ Earth—fresh earth! His hand sank into it, with the other he could reach the fence, along which he walked to the shovel, counting his steps; and in a few minutes he was back on the spot. After feeling the dimensions of the mound, he began to dig. Each shovelful of earth that fell to the ground roared like the discharge of a cannon between intervals of death-like silence in the still night. The dead awaked in their graves ”

“ I think perhaps from the very room in the cellar beside which I lay. Once or twice I thought I heard talking on the ground floor; but being some feet below the ground, I could not be sure. That the house is occupied is positive."
"Did you learn nothing more?" asked the prefect.
"Yes. As I said, until about the middle of the night I heard sounds in the cellar, and then for a long time everything was silent. I thought the person or persons must have gone to bed. There was nothing for me to gain by getting out of the hole in which I lay, so I determined to stay until daylight at least. ”

“ Every feature showed his consciousness of noble lineage; and the disgust he manifested at anything democratic was equally innate with him; for to his mind it had been just such popular fanaticism that had made France bleed and Europe restless for a quarter of a century, and had dispossessed him of his rightful inheritance. ”

“ The only night officer in the town had by accident wandered in this direction; and when before the stone house, about to turn back, he had been attracted by the strange noises. He was trying to enter the front door; but finding that impossible, he walked around the house and tried the side entrance. He succeeded in prying it open, and as he stepped noiselessly into the room, fell over the body on the floor. Lowering his lantern, he beheld the same pale and distorted visage that the dwarf (now hiding in the half-story above) had seen a few moments before. "Foul play," he said to himself ”

“ Irène, gathering a handful of newspapers as she passed through the hall, retired to her room at once. Monsieur and Joseph sat up to discuss plans of procedure.
The two rooms they occupied were on the third story facing the north, and commanded a magnificent view of Paris for many squares beyond the Seine. Although it was late, many lights besides the rows of street lamps still dotted the darkness of the night. Beyond the river the lights grew smaller, but increased immensely in numbers. There seemed to be an uncommon activity for the lateness of the hour ”

“ There was no conversation now, and I could only hear low monotonous sounds at about the interval of one's breathing. At length the talk began again, almost all coming from one voice; but I feel nearly certain that in this last conversation two persons were speaking; neither voice, however, sounded like the one that had called 'Monsieur.' Occasionally, I heard a noise as if some one were pounding or drumming on an iron door or wall; but this stopped soon; and that is all I heard. I crawled out of the hole about daybreak."
"We are warranted now in breaking into the house ”