He called to the boy and shouted to him to come down. Emmanuel pretended not to hear and looked away. He had seen Christophe. He was glad to be in a position of peril in the turmoil, partly to show his courage to Olivier, partly to punish him for being with Christophe.
Meanwhile they had come across some of their friends in the crowd—Coquard, with his golden beard, who expected nothing more than a little jostling and crushing, and with the eye of an expert was watching for the moment when the vessel would overflow. Farther on they met the fair Berthe, who was slanging the people about her and getting roughly mauled. She had succeeded in wriggling through to the front row, and she was hurling insults at the police. Coquard came up to Christophe. When Christophe saw him he began to chaff him:
“What did I tell you? Nothing is going to happen.”
“That remains to be seen!” said Coquard. “Don’t you be too sure. It won’t be long before the fun begins.”
“Rot!” said Christophe.
At that very moment the cuirassiers, getting tired of having stones flung at them, marched forward to clear the entrances to the square: the central body came forward at a double. Immediately the stampede began. As the Gospel has it, the first were last. But they took good care not to be last for long. By way of covering their confusion the runaways yelled at the soldiers following them and screamed: “Assassins!” long before a single blow had been struck. Berthe wriggled through the crowd like an eel, shrieking at the top of her voice. She rejoined her friends; and taking shelter behind Coquard’s broad back, she recovered her breath, pressed close up against Christophe, gripped his arm, in fear or for some other reason, ogled Olivier, and shook her fist at the enemy, and screeched. Coquard took Christophe’s arm and said:
“Let’s go to Amélie’s.”
They had very little way to go. Berthe had preceded them with Graillot and a few workmen. Christophe was on the point of entering followed by Olivier. The street had a shelving ridge. The pavement, by the creamery, was five or six steps higher than the roadway. Olivier stopped to take a long breath after his escape from the crowd. He disliked the idea of being in the poisoned air of the restaurant and the clamorous voices of these fanatics. He said to Christopher:
“I’m going home.”
“Very well, then, old fellow,” said Christophe. “I’ll rejoin you in an hour from now.”
“Don’t run any risks, Christophe!”
“Coward!” said Christophe, laughing.
He turned into the creamery.
Olivier walked along to the corner of the shop. A few steps more and he would be in a little by-street which would take him out of the uproar. The thought of his little protégé crossed his mind. He turned to look for him. He saw him at the very moment when Emmanuel had slipped down from his coign of vantage and was rolling on the ground being trampled underfoot by the rabble: the fugitives were running over his body: the police were just reaching the spot. Olivier did not stop to think: he rushed down the steps and ran to his aid. A navvy saw the danger, the soldiers with drawn sabers. Olivier holding out his hand to the boy to help him up, the savage rush of the police knocked them both over. He shouted out, and in his turn rushed in. Some of his comrades followed at a run. Others rushed down from the threshold of the restaurant, and, on their cries, came those who had already entered. The two bodies of men hurled themselves at each other’s throats like dogs. And the women, standing at the top of the steps, screamed and yelled.—So Olivier, the aristocrat, the essentially middle-class nature, released the spring of the battle, which no man desired less than he.
Christophe was swept along by the workmen and plunged into the fray without knowing who had been the cause of it. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than that Olivier had taken part in it. He thought him far away in safety. It was impossible to see anything of the fight. Every man had enough to do in keeping an eye on his opponent. Olivier had disappeared in the whirlpool like a foundered ship. He had received a jab from a bayonet, meant for someone else, in his left breast: he fell: the crowd trampled him underfoot. Christophe had been swept away by an eddy to the farthest extremity of the field of battle. He did not fight with any animosity: he jostled and was jostled with a fierce zest as though he was in the throng at a village fair. So little did he think of the serious nature of the affair that when he was gripped by a huge, broad-shouldered policeman and closed with him, he saw the thing in grotesque and said:
“My waltz, I think.”
But when another policeman pounced on to his back, he shook himself like a wild boar, and hammered away with his fists at the two of them: he had no intention of being taken prisoner. One of his adversaries, the man who had seized him from behind, rolled down on the ground. The other lost his head and drew his sword. Christophe saw the point of the saber come within a hand’s breadth of his chest: he dodged, and twisted the man’s wrist and tried to wrench his weapon from him. He could not understand it: till then it had seemed to him just a game. They went on struggling and battering at each other’s faces. He had no time to stop to think. He saw murder in the other man’s eyes: and murderous desire awoke in him. He saw that the man would slit him up
