The Folding Doors

A young man was coming slowly down the wide staircase of a palace in the
Rue de Vaugirard. It was, by the new reckoning, the 13th of Brumaire;
evening, and cold, moonlit, and clear; these things being the same by
any reckoning, as the young man thought, pausing by the tall window on
the landing-place that looked out on to the blue-shadowed, silent
street.

There was a ball overhead in the great state rooms, and he could hear
the music, violins, flutes and harpsichord, distinctly, though he had
closed the door behind him. He was one of the guests, and had the
watchful, furtive air of one who has stolen away unperceived, and fears
that he may be discovered. He seemed now to have stopped with an idea of
ascertaining if anyone was abroad, for he leant over the smooth gilt
banisters and listened. The great staircase was empty, and empty the
vast hall below.

Opposite the landing window was a long mirror, with three branched
candles before it. The young man turned to this quickly and noiselessly,
and pulled from the pocket of his coat a strip of gilt-edged paper,
folded tightly. He unrolled this and read the message it contained,
written in a light pencil.

"At half-past ten knock four times on the folding doors. _Do not be
late; every moment is one of terror. I am afraid of HIM_."

The last two sentences were underlined, the last word twice.

The young man looked up and down the stairs, twisted the paper up, and
was about to thrust it into the flame of one of the candles, when he
caught sight of himself in the tall mirror, and stood staring at the
image with the paper held out in his hand.

He saw a figure that to his thinking was that of a mountebank, for it
had once been that of the Due de Jaurès--Citizen Jaurès now--courtier of
his one-time Christian Majesty Louis XVI., beheaded recently as Louis
Capet in the great square now called by the people the Place de la
Revolution.

The People had altered everything, even the person of M. de Jaurès, who
wore the classic mode beloved of liberty--the fashion of this year one
of freedom, hair _à la_ Titus and a black stock swathing the chin. His
face was without colour, the black, hollow eyes and black hair
accentuating this pallor; his countenance, though sombre in expression,
was beautiful by reason of the exquisite lines of the mouth and
nostrils, and something elevated and noble in the turn of the head. As
he stared at himself a slow flush of terrible shame overspread his
paleness; with something like a suppressed shudder, he gave the paper to
the flame, and scattered the ashes down the stairs.

Then he pulled out the watch hanging from the black watered-silk fob.

It wanted ten minutes to half-past ten. The dance music ceased overhead;
in its place came laughter, loud talking, and presently a woman singing
in a rapt and excited fashion.