VI
TROUBLES
First consternation, and then rage, took possession of the people of Antwerp at the final outcome of the struggle. The plutocracy had carried it off, but only with the co-operation of corruption and stupidity. The peasantry had opposed their veto to the will of the great city. The victors, who could not conceal from themselves the equivocal alloy of their triumph, committed the error of wishing to celebrate it, and, although inwardly somewhat crestfallen, they faced it out, feigned jubilation, and resolved the crowd, by their bravado and their grimacing challenges, upon the explosion of hostile sentiments that it had been containing with great difficulty since the morning. They did not, however, risk showing themselves upon the balcony of their club, whither they were ironically called by the mob, a sea of convulsive heads, pale and wan with fury, red and inflamed, grinning sardonically, tight-lipped, beating back their tears of rage.
Five o'clock. Night had fallen. The wealthy folk had returned to their houses in the new part of the city, sliding timidly through the crowd that was still keeping watch in the square.
They all stayed there, uneasy, not knowing what
166
