And he next told the story of his flight; the explosion shaking
the whole district behind him, while, with delight and astonishment, he
found himself some distance off, in quiet streets where nothing was as
yet known. And for a month past he had been living in chance fashion, how
or where he could hardly tell, but he had often slept in the open, and
gone for a day without food. One evening little Victor Mathis had given
him five francs. And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for a
night and sent him off at the first sign of peril. A far-spreading, tacit
complicity had hitherto saved him from the police. As for going abroad,
well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description of
his person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting for
him at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding,
rather hasten his arrest? Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there that
he incurred the least risk of capture. Moreover, he no longer had
sufficient energy to flee. A fatalist as he was after his own fashion, he
could not find strength to quit the pavements of Paris, but there awaited
arrest, like a social waif carried chancewise through the multitude as in
a dream.
"And your daughter, little Celine?" Guillaume inquired. "Have you
ventured to go back to see her?"
Salvat waved his hand in a vague way.
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