"Nach Paris!" Those left
behind till the following day were to live in the ruined houses or
the open air. Desnoyers heard songs. Under the splendor of the evening
stars, the soldiers had grouped themselves in musical knots, chanting
a sweet and solemn chorus of religious gravity. Above the trees was
floating a red cloud, intensified by the dusk--a reflection of the
still burning village. Afar off were bonfires of farms and homesteads,
twinkling in the night with their blood-colored lights.
The bewildered proprietor of the castle finally fell asleep in a bed
in the lodge, made mercifully unconscious by the heavy and stupefying
slumber of exhaustion, without fright nor nightmare. He seemed to be
falling, falling into a bottomless pit, and on awaking fancied that he
had slept but a few minutes. The sun was turning the window shades to an
orange hue, spattered with shadows of waving boughs and birds fluttering
and twittering among the leaves. He shared their joy in the cool
refreshing dawn of the summer day. It certainly was a fine morning--but
whose dwelling was this? . . . He gazed dumbfounded at his bed and
surroundings. Suddenly the reality assaulted his brain that had been so
sweetly dulled by the first splendors of the day. Step by step, the host
of emotions compressed into the preceding day, came climbing up the long
stairway of his memory to the last black and red landing of the night
before.
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