Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his
kindly voice: “I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let
go, my poor child; she is quite dead.”
At last Silvère released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead!
Still that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he
was alone he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be
looking at him. He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her
bosom, and watered it with his tears. He was beside himself with grief.
He pressed his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion,
all his soul, in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it might
bring her to life again. But the girl was turning cold in spite of his
caresses. He felt her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch. Then he
was seized with terror, and with haggard face and listless hanging arms
he remained crouching in a state of stupor, and repeating: “She is
dead, yet she is looking at me; she does not close her eyes, she sees
me still.”
This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death,
he still seemed to read the girl’s lament for her sad fate.
In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
clear air. Silvère was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did not
even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart’s carbine
which Silvère had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging
over aunt Dide’s chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it
from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hôtel de la
Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken,
when a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of
cattle, once more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre had
fled; it was the last contingents from the country who were being
exterminated. There was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel Masson
and the prefect, Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a
retreat. The infuriated soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and
pinning isolated fugitives to the walls with their bayonets. When they
had no more enemies before them, they riddled the façade of the
Mule-Blanche with bullets. The shutters flew into splinters; one window
which had been left half-open was torn out, and there was a loud rattle
of broken glass. Pitiful voices were crying out from within; “The
prisoners! The prisoners!” But the troops did not hear; they continued
firing. All at once Commander Sicardot, growing exasperated, appeared
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