Whilst half the town was in flames, the other half pursued its accustomed life.  In the mornings, milk pails could be heard jingling in the dairy carts.  In a deserted avenue some old navvy might be seen seated against a wall slowly eating hunks of bread with perhaps a little meat.  Almost all the presidents of the trusts remained at their posts.  Some of them performed their duty with heroic simplicity.  Raphael Box, the son of a martyred multi-millionaire, was blown up as he was presiding at the general meeting of the Sugar Trust.  He was given a magnificent funeral and the procession on its way to the cemetery had to climb six times over piles of ruins or cross upon planks over the uprooted roads.

The ordinary helpers of the rich, the clerks, employees, brokers, and agents, preserved an unshaken fidelity.  The surviving clerks of the Bank that had been blown up, made their way along the ruined streets through the midst of smoking houses to hand in their bills of exchange, and several were swallowed up in the flames while endeavouring to present their receipts.

Nevertheless, any illusion concerning the state of affairs was impossible.  The enemy was master of the town.  Instead of silence the noise of explosions was now continuous and produced an insurmountable feeling of horror.  The lighting apparatus having been destroyed, the city was plunged in darkness all through the night, and appalling crimes were committed.  The populous districts alone, having suffered the least, still preserved measures of protection.  The were paraded by patrols of volunteers who shot the robbers, and at every street corner one stumbled over a body lying in a pool of blood, the hands bound behind the back, a handkerchief over the face, and a placard pinned upon the breast.

It became impossible to clear away the ruins or to bury the dead.  Soon the stench from the corpses became intolerable.  Epidemics raged and caused innumerable deaths, while they also rendered the survivors feeble and listless.  Famine carried off almost all who were left.  A hundred and one days after the first outrage, whilst six army corps with field artillery and siege artillery were marching, at night, into the poorest quarter of the city, Caroline and Clair, holding each other’s hands, were watching from the roof a lofty house, the only one still left standing, but now surrounded by smoke and flame, joyous songs ascended from the street, where the crowd was dancing in delirium.

“To-morrow it will be ended,” said the man, “and it will be better.”

The young woman, her hair loosened and her face shining with the reflection of the flames, gazed with a pious joy at the circle of fire that was growing closer around them.

“It will be better,” said she also.

And throwing herself into the destroyer’s arms she pressed a passionate kiss upon his lips.

S. 4