Jean tried to say: “Don’t make me
suffer more than need be!” but his voice stuck
in his throat.
One of the Vengeurs cast a look in the direction
of the Pont-au-Change and saw that the federes
were losing ground. Shouldering his musket, he
said:
“Let’s clear out of the bl—y
place, by God!”
The men hesitated; some began to slink away.
At this the cantiniere shrieked:
“Bl—sted hounds! Then I’ll
have to do his business for him!”
She threw herself on Jean Servien and spat in his
face; she abandoned herself to a frantic orgy of obscenity
in word and gesture and clapped the muzzle of her
revolver to his temple.
Then he felt all was over and waited.
A thousand things flashed in a second before his eyes;
he saw the avenues under the old trees where his aunt
used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself
a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered
the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree
bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat
the air with his arms and fell forward face to the
ground. The men finished him with their bayonets;
then the woman danced on the corpse with yells of
joy.
The fighting was coming closer. A well-sustained
fire swept the Quai. The woman was the
last to go. Jean Servien’s body lay stretched
in the empty roadway. His face wore a strange
look of peacefulness; in the temple was a little hole,
barely visible; blood and mire fouled the pretty hair
a mother had kissed with such transports of fondness.
