Part 6 (2/2)
”And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take its place.”
”I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn't fair.”
There was neither pa.s.sion nor resentment in the low voice. ”What shall I do?” she went on, after waiting for Emile to speak.
”Put up with it, or better still go in for the Cause seriously.”
”Don't you call this serious? Blood and brutalities and slave-driving?
You talked about _l'entresol de l'enfer_, but I'm beginning to think I've stepped over the threshold.”
”_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_!”
Arith.e.l.li bit her lips. ”I don't feel in the mood for arguing now. I wish you would leave me alone.”
”On condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, I'll go and settle with the Manager that you don't have to appear to-night. It's lucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. The audience won't miss you. Has Sobrenski given you anything to do to-day?”
”I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I was to go to the Baroni's at two o'clock.”
”I'll see to that. A cipher message?”
”Yes. It's fastened under my hair.” She dragged herself into a sitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shaking hands. Emile took it.
”Good! I shall be back at five o'clock. You can get up later and come round to my rooms. Do you understand?”
”Yes!”
When he had gone she cowered down into the big bed s.h.i.+vering. Every bone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She had the sensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. Was it all real or not?
Last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. She still heard Emile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovely siren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and the walls closed in upon her.
His words worked in her brain: ”_Go in for the Cause seriously.
Remember it's liberty we are fighting for. A life more or less--what's that? Yours or mine? What does it matter? Do you wonder we don't make love to women? It's a G.o.ddess and not a woman before whom we burn incense. Blood and tears, money and life! Is there any sacrifice too great for her altar?_”
And she had been both frightened and fascinated.
This was what Anarchism made of men like the cynical Emile. It had never occurred to her before that even Sobrenski, whom she regarded solely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice.
She drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at Emile's room and finding it empty, she ”prowled,” as she herself would have expressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a very feminine curiosity. Under a pile of loose music she found the portrait of a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robe that could only have been made in Paris or Vienna.
The picture was signed _Marie Roumanoff_, and on the back was written ”_Tout pa.s.se, tout ca.s.se, tout la.s.se!_” There were songs too scrawled with love-messages in Emile's handwriting.
She pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with any thought of jealousy. Emile always said that no revolutionist ever wasted time or thought on women.
After all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? She had written to her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with the accounts of her triumph.
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