The old woman heard these words, and stood there gazing. Close to the window-pane, as Delaherche had said, she could see a cadaverous-looking face with dim eyes, distorted features, and moustaches which seemed to have blanched in the throes of this last, long agony. Quite stupefied, the old woman immediately turned round and went off, making a gesture of superlative contempt: 'That an Emperor? Ugh, the ugly beast!'
A Zouave stood near by, one of those disbanded soldiers who evinced no haste to join their regiments. He was brandishing his chassepot, swearing and expectorating threats, and all at once he exclaimed to a comrade: 'Wait a second, I'll put a bullet into his head.'
This made Delaherche quite indignant, and he intervened; but Napoleon had already disappeared. The loud rush of the Meuse was still resounding; a plaint of infinite sadness seemed to have sped by in the growing dimness. From afar off came the muttering of other scattered noises. Was it the echo of the terrible order, 'March! march!' shouted from Paris, the order that had impelled this man on and on, from halting-place to halting-place, dragging with him along the highways of defeat all the irony of his imperial escort, and now brought to a stand, confronted by the frightful disaster that he had foreseen and had come to meet. Ah! how many brave fellows were about to die through his fault, and how profoundly must he have been stirred in every corner of his being--he, the sick man, the sentimental dreamer, so silently and mournfully waiting for destiny!
Weiss and Delaherche accompanied the two soldiers as far as the plateau of Floing. 'Farewell!' said Maurice, as he embraced his brother-in-law.
'No, no, till we meet again!' gaily exclaimed the manufacturer.
Jean, with his keen scent, at once found the 106th, whose tents were pitched on the slope of the plateau, behind the cemetery. Night had now almost completely fallen, but one could still distinguish the dark, massy roofs of the town, beyond which were Balan and Bazeilles in the meadows that stretched as far as the range of hills from Remilly to Frénois; whilst on the left extended a black patch, the wood of La Garenne, and on the right, down below, glittered the Meuse, like a broad, pale ribbon. For a moment Maurice scanned the vast horizon as it faded away in the darkness.