Paris: The Novel

well, for out of the cab, carrying a huge bunch of flowers, came a man that Jacques Le Sourd thought he vaguely recognized. The fellow went straight to the side door, which was opened by a maid. Jacques saw the fellow have a brief conversation with her, then turn. And at that moment he remembered. It was either the waiter that he’d spoken to in the Moulin Rouge last night, or someone very like him. The man glanced toward Jacques, but gave no sign of recognition at all, and got back into the cab, which immediately rattled away. Jacques shrugged. A coincidental resemblance perhaps. Or if it was the waiter, the fellow clearly hadn’t recognized him. He put the incident out of his mind.
    When he thought that he had done all that he usefully could, he leftthe rue des Belles-Feuilles. For there was still another equally important task to complete. He had to plan his escape.
    He wasn’t worried about the moment of the killing itself. If there were people in the street who could identify him or give chase, then he wouldn’t shoot. De Cygne could always die another day. But the odds were good that the street would be empty. If destiny had thrown this opportunity in his way, it must be for a reason.
    Then, assuming that de Cygne didn’t come on foot, there might be a coachman to deal with. The chances were that the coachman would be too shocked to react in time. But if he tried anything, then Jacques decided he’d shoot him too. It was simpler.
    For half an hour he wandered about the area. The first thing to consider was the pistol. He felt inside his overcoat. It was safely concealed there, tied with string around his waist. After firing it, he wanted to dispose of it as soon as possible. He could throw it almost anywhere, but thirty yards down the street on the right was a high wall enclosing the garden of a large mansion. He could easily toss the gun over the wall as he ran past.
    At that point he’d already be running down the hill, so it would be sensible to continue in the same direction. The huge avenue would be quiet at night. He could turn down it, run to the end, which wasn’t far, and then into the Bois de Boulogne. But should anyone see him, it would immediately invite suspicion. The police were quite good at sweeping the Bois for criminals at night.
    At the bottom of the rue des Belles-Feuilles, however, before one reached the avenue, there was an intersection of small streets which led into a network of lanes. It didn’t take him long to find a route that took him through a succession of these lanes and led him back into the avenue Victor Hugo, where there were always people, bars, a brasserie or two. He could hail a cab if he saw one, or even stop for a drink.
    Satisfied with this plan, he made his way slowly back toward the rue des Belles-Feuilles.
    The street was empty as he went down it. He came to the darkened doorway he had selected and stepped into it. Carefully he drew out his pistol from its hiding place. All he had to do now was to wait. He felt very calm.

    He’d always known he would kill Roland de Cygne. He’d made a vow to do it, and that was enough. But it had also become clear to him that he could take his time. When he could do so without risk, he’d do it. Until then he would wait. For there were other things, more important things, that needed to be done. When he was a boy he hadn’t really understood that, but now he did.
    Like Roland de Cygne, he believed in a higher cause, a pure ideal, the freedom of the human spirit. Like Roland, he was proud of France. For wasn’t France the home of revolution? True, the American Revolution had been a noble precursor. A bourgeois revolution for a capitalist country, a step along the way, but no more. The true ideals—sullied since by dictatorship and compromise and corruption—had been born in France. And when the new international order came into being, France would have her place of honor in the history of the world.
    Above all, Jacques now believed, the final resolution of the long historical struggle was inevitable. It might take time, but the earthly apocalypse, when all men should be free—free of oppression, free of bogus bourgeois comfort, free of superstition—would come. It was destiny. And that certitude gave him strength and comfort.
    The death of Roland de Cygne was just a tiny part of that process, of no great importance. But it was a debt of honor he owed his father, and the memory of the Commune, and when the time was