Then Delaherche felt isolated and frightfully wretched. His hunger was returning, becoming quite intolerable, and he thought it was weakness alone that thus deprived him of all courage. So he left the room on tip-toe and went down into the kitchen again with the candlestick. But here everything was still more dreary: with the fire out, the sideboard empty, and the dishcloths flung about in disorder, it seemed as though the blast of the disaster had swept even through this room and carried away all the substantial gaiety of creature comforts. He thought at first that he should not be able to find even a crust, the bread having been taken for the soupe at the ambulance. In the depths of a cupboard, however, he at last came upon some haricot beans, left from the previous day, and forgotten there. And he ate them as they were, cold, without butter and without bread, standing at the table there, for he did not like to go upstairs to partake of such a meal as this, though on the other hand he made all haste to get out of that dismal kitchen, where the little vacillating lamp was infecting the atmosphere with a horrible stench of petroleum.
It was now scarcely more than ten o'clock, and Delaherche remained with nothing to do pending the time when he should know whether the capitulation was really to be signed or not. He still experienced a feeling of anxiety, a fear lest the struggle should be resumed, a dreadful terror of what might then happen, which he did not speak of, but which weighed covertly upon his heart. When he had again returned to his private room, where neither Maurice nor Jean had stirred, he tried to lie back in an arm-chair and get to sleep there; but sleep would not come to him, a noise of exploding shells made him start to his feet each time that he was on the point of losing consciousness. It was the uproar of the frightful cannonade of the daytime still lingering in his ears; and whenever he was roused by it he would listen for a moment, quite scared, and tremble at the deep silence which surrounded him. Being unable to sleep, he preferred to remain on his legs, and began wandering about the dark rooms, carefully avoiding the chamber where his mother was watching over the colonel, for the fixed stare with which she gazed at him made him feel quite uncomfortable. However, he twice went to see if Henriette had awakened, and paused at sight of his wife's calm, peaceful face. Not knowing what to do with himself, he kept on going up and down, moving hither and thither, until two o'clock in the morning.
He could then bear it no longer, and resolved upon again returning to the Sub-Prefecture, fully realising that until he knew what to expect it would be impossible for him to obtain any repose. Down below, however, at sight of the obstructed street, he was seized with despair, feeling that he would never have the strength to go and return through all those obstacles, the mere recollection of which made his limbs ache. And he stood there hesitating, when he saw Major Bouroche approach, panting and swearing: 'Thunder! I thought I should have left my legs behind me.'
The major had been obliged to repair to the town-hall to beg the mayor to requisition some chloroform, and send it to him at daybreak, for his own supply was exhausted. He still had several urgent operations to perform, and feared, so he put it, that he might be obliged to chop the poor devils up without anæsthetising them.
'Well?' asked Delaherche.
'Well, they don't even know whether the chemists have any left!'
But the manufacturer did not care a rap about the chloroform. 'No, no,' said he, 'is it finished over there? Have they signed with the Prussians?'
The major waved his arm violently. 'Nothing's done!' he cried. 'Wimpffen has just come back. Those beggars, it seems, are that exacting they deserve to have their ears boxed! Well, well, let us begin again and kick the bucket all of us; that's the best thing to do!'
Delaherche turned pale as he listened. 'But is what you tell me quite certain?'
'I had it from those people of the Municipal Council who are sitting over there en permanence. An officer came from the Sub-Prefecture to inform them of everything.'
Then he gave some details. The interview between General de Wimpffen, General von Moltke, and Bismarck had taken place at the château of Bellevue, near Donchery. A terrible man that General von Moltke, stern and hard, with the glabrous face of a mathematical chemist; a man who won battles by working out algebraical calculations in his study! He had immediately been desirous of showing that he was fully acquainted with the hopeless situation of the French army: it had no provisions and no ammunition, said he, it was a prey to demoralisation and disorder, and there was no possibility whatever of its breaking the iron circle that shut it in; whilst the German armies occupied by far the stronger positions, and could burn down the town in a couple of hours. Then he coldly dictated his will, which was the surrender of the entire French army, with arms and baggage.
On his side, Bismarck simply supported Moltke with the air of a good-natured bloodhound. And, thereupon, General de Wimpffen exhausted himself in combating these conditions, the most harsh that were ever imposed upon a beaten army. He spoke of his ill-luck, the heroism of the soldiers, and the danger of exasperating a proud people beyond endurance; he threatened, begged, talked during three hours with despairing, superb eloquence, asking that the vanquished army might simply be interned in some far-off region of France, or, if preferred, in Algeria; but, after all, the only concession made by the victor was that those of the officers who would give an engagement in writing, and pledge their honour not to serve again during the war, might return to their homes. Finally, the truce was prolonged until ten o'clock on the following morning, and if at that hour the conditions had not been accepted, the Prussian batteries would again open fire and burn down the town.
'But it's idiotic!' exclaimed Delaherche; 'you don't burn down a town that has done nothing to deserve it.'
The major, however, put the finishing touch to his alarm by adding that he had just seen some officers at the Hôtel de l'Europe who were talking of a sortie en masse before daybreak. Since the German exactions had become known, extreme excitement was being manifested, and the most extravagant plans were broached. Nobody was deterred by the idea that it would not be loyal to break the truce without a word of warning, under cover of the darkness, and all sorts of mad plans were indulged in:—A midnight march on Carignan through the ranks of the Bavarians, the recapture of the plateau of Illy, by means of a surprise, and the opening up of the road to Mézières; or else an irresistible rush, which at one bound would land them in Belgium. Others, it is true, said nothing, but realised the fatality of the disaster, and would have accepted and signed anything with a glad cry of relief, so as to have done at once with the whole business.
'Well, good night,' added Bouroche. 'I must try to sleep for a couple of hours. I need it.'
Thereupon he went off, leaving Delaherche suffocating. What? It was true, then; they were going to begin fighting again; they were going to burn and raze Sedan to the ground! It was becoming inevitable; this frightful thing would assuredly take place as soon as the sun had risen high enough above the hills to illumine the horror of the massacre. In a mechanical way he once more climbed the steep garret-stairs, and found himself again among the chimney stacks at the edge of the narrow terrace overlooking the town. But now he was in the midst of darkness, an infinite rolling sea of huge black waves, among which he was at first unable to distinguish anything. The factory buildings below him were the first to stand out in the gloom, in confused masses which he recognised; the engine-room, the loom-shops, the drying-rooms, the warehouses; and the view of all that huge pile of building, his pride and his wealth, overwhelmed him with pity for himself at the thought that in a few hours' time there would only be some ashes of it left. He raised his eyes towards the horizon and looked all around that black immensity, where the menace of the morrow was sleeping. On the south, in the direction of Bazeilles, some flakes of fire were flying skyward above the houses sinking into cinders; whilst, towards the north, the farm of the wood of La Garenne, set on fire during the evening, was still burning, ensanguining the trees with a great red glow. There were no other fires, nothing but those two blazes; all the rest was a fathomless abyss traversed only by scattered, terrifying noises. Some one was weeping over yonder, perhaps far away, perhaps upon the ramparts. In vain did he try to penetrate the veil, to discern the Liry and Marfée hills, the Frénois and Wadelincourt batteries, all the long belt of bronze beasts, with outstretched necks and open muzzles, whose presence he divined there. And as he lowered his eyes upon the town around him, he heard its pant of anguish—not merely the restless slumber of the soldiers fallen in the streets, the dull rustling of that mass of men, animals, and guns, but also, at least he fancied so, the anxious insomnia of the citizens, his neighbours, who, like himself, were unable to sleep, consumed by fever whilst they waited for the dawn. They all must know that the capitulation was not signed; they all must be counting the hours, shivering at the idea that if it were not signed nothing would remain for them but to go down into their cellars to die there, blocked up, crushed beneath the ruins of their homes. Then, all at once it seemed to him as though a desperate voice were ascending from the Rue des Voyards, crying 'Murder!' amid a sudden clank of arms. And thereupon he leant over the terrace railing and remained there listening in the dense night, lost amid the misty, starless sky, and seized from head to foot with such a shuddering that every hair upon his skin stood up.
Maurice awoke on the sofa at the first gleam of light. He was aching all over and did not stir, but lay there with his eyes fixed on the window panes, whilst they were slowly whitened by a livid dawn. In the acute lucidity of those waking moments, all the abominable memories returned to him, the battle of the day before, the flight, the disaster. Everything again passed before his eyes, even to the slightest details, and he experienced frightful suffering at the thought of that defeat, the crying shame of which penetrated to the very roots of his being, as though he had felt himself the culprit. And he reasoned his sufferings, analysed himself, finding the faculty of devouring himself quickened by what had happened. Was he not, after all, the first comer, a mere passer-by of the period, certainly of brilliant education, but at the same time crassly ignorant of all that he ought to have known, vain, too, even to blindness, and perverted by impatience for enjoyment, and by the lying prosperity of the reign? Then came another evocation as it were; he pictured his grandfather, born in 1780, one of the heroes of the Grand Army, one of the victors of Austerlitz, Wagram, and Friedland; next his father, born in 1811, fallen into bureaucracy, a petty official of indifferent ability, receiver of taxes at Le Chêne Populeux, where he had worn himself away; then himself, born in 1841, brought up as a gentleman, called to the bar, capable of the worst folly and of the greatest enthusiasm, vanquished at Sedan, in what he realised was an immense catastrophe, the end, indeed, of a world; and this degeneration of the race, which explained how it had become possible that France, victorious with the grandfathers, should be defeated in the person of the grandsons, crushed his heart as though it were some slowly aggravated family complaint, culminating in the fatal catastrophe when the appointed hour had struck. He would have felt so brave and triumphant had they been victorious! But in presence of defeat he was seized with the nervous weakness of a woman, and gave way to one of those fits of immense despair, during which it seemed to him as though the whole world were foundering. There was nothing left, France was dead. Sobs stifled him, and he wept, joining his hands together and stammering once more the prayers of infancy: 'Take me, my God! Take all these poor suffering wretches!'
Jean, rolled up in the blanket on the floor, heard him, and began to stir. 'What is the matter, youngster? Are you ill?' asked the corporal, eventually sitting up and feeling greatly astonished. Then, realising that Maurice had been taken again with those peculiar ideas of his, he spoke to him in a fatherly way: 'Come, what is the matter? You shouldn't worry yourself like that for nothing.'
'Ah!' exclaimed Maurice, 'it's all up; we can prepare ourselves to become Prussians.'
Jean, illiterate peasant that he was, with a hard skull, expressed great astonishment on hearing this, whereupon Maurice tried to make him understand that the race was exhausted, and must disappear and make room for the necessary stream of new blood. With an obstinate shake of the head, however, the corporal refused to accept the explanation: 'What! my field no longer belong to me? I should allow the Prussians to take it when I'm not yet dead and still have my two arms left? Come, come!'
Then, in his turn, he gave utterance to his ideas, expressing himself laboriously in such words as he could think of. They had had a fearful licking; that was certain. But they were not all dead, yet; there were still some left, and these would suffice to build the house afresh, provided they were good fellows and hard-workers, and didn't drink all they earned. In a family, now, when its members take proper care and put a bit of money by, they always manage to pull through even the worst stretches of bad luck. And besides, a blow sometimes does a man good: it makes him reflect. And then, too, if it were true there was some rottenness somewhere, some putrid limbs or other, far better lop them off with an axe and have done with them, than keep them until they killed you, like the cholera. 'Exhausted, done for? No, no,' he repeated again and again. 'I'm not done for. I don't feel that way at all.'
And stiff and lame though he was, with his hair still matted together by the blood from his torn scalp, he drew himself up, full of a vivacious need of life, ready to take a tool, to drive a plough, to build the house afresh as he expressed it. He belonged to the old, stubborn, sober stratum, the sensible, hard-working, and thrifty France.
'All the same,' he resumed, 'I'm sorry for the Emperor. Trade seemed to be in a fair way, wheat sold well. But, sure enough, he has been very stupid. No sensible chap would get himself into such a mess as this.'
Maurice, who still remained quite overwhelmed, made another distressful gesture: 'Ah! the Emperor; I liked him at bottom in spite of my ideas of liberty and a Republic. Yes, I had it in my blood, on account of my grandfather, no doubt. And now you see everything's rotten, even in that direction. Ah! what will become of us?'
A wild look was glimmering in his eyes, and he raised so grievous a plaint that Jean felt anxious and was about to rise, when the door opened and Henriette came in. The sound of their voices had just awakened her in the adjoining bedchamber. A pale light was now brightening the room.
'You've come just in time to scold him,' said Jean, pretending to laugh. 'He's not behaving as he ought.'
However, the sight of his sister, so pale and afflicted, had induced a salutary crisis of sensibility. Maurice opened his arms, called her to his heart, and when she had flung her arms around his neck, a great appeasement penetrated him. She herself was weeping, and their tears mingled. 'Ah! my poor, poor darling. I'm angry with myself that I haven't more courage to console you! That good fellow Weiss—your husband who was so fond of you—what will become of you? You have always been the victim, and yet you never complained. What a deal of grief I, myself, have caused you already, and who knows whether I sha'n't cause you even more——'
She was silencing him, placing her hand before his mouth, when in came Delaherche half out of his senses. Again feeling frightfully hungry, with one of those nervous hungers which fatigue exasperates, he had at last come down from the terrace, and on going to the kitchen to get something warm to drink, he had there found the cook with one of her relatives, a carpenter of Bazeilles, to whom she was just serving some mulled wine. Thereupon, this man, one of the last to remain in the village amid the conflagration, had told him that his dyeworks were utterly destroyed, reduced to a heap of cinders.
'Ah! the brigands, would you believe it?' stammered the manufacturer, addressing Jean and Maurice. 'Everything is lost. They are going to burn down Sedan this morning as they burnt down Bazeilles yesterday—I am ruined, ruined!'
Struck all at once by the scar which he observed on Henriette's forehead, he remembered that he had not yet been able to speak with her. 'It's true, then,' he added, 'you went there, and got hurt like that? Ah! poor Weiss!' And then, understanding by the young woman's red eyes that she knew of her husband's death, he blurted out a fearful detail which he had just learnt from the carpenter: 'That poor Weiss! It appears they burned him! Yes, they threw the bodies of the inhabitants they had shot into the flames of a blazing house, which they had smeared with petroleum.'[34]
Henriette listened, struck with horror. Good Lord! So she would not even have the consolation of recovering and burying her dear husband, whose ashes would be swept away by the wind! Maurice had again pressed her to his heart, and in a caressing voice was calling her his poor Cinderella, and beseeching her not to give way to so much grief, she who was so brave.
After an interval of silence, during which Delaherche stood at the window observing the brightening of the light, he hastily turned and said to the two soldiers: 'By the way, I was forgetting, but I came to tell you that downstairs, in the coach-house, where the treasury-chest is deposited, there is an officer distributing the money among the men, so that the Prussians may not get it. You ought to go down, for money may be useful if we are not all of us dead to-night.'
The advice was good, and Maurice and Jean went down, as soon as Henriette had consented to take her brother's place on the sofa. Delaherche, meantime, passed into the adjoining room, where he found Gilberte, still with her face quite calm, and sleeping as peacefully as a child; neither the loud talking nor the sobs having caused so much as a change in her position. And thence he peeped into the room where his mother was watching over M. de Vineuil, and found that she had dozed off in her armchair, whilst the colonel, whose eyes were closed, had not stirred, being utterly prostrated by fever. All at once, however, he opened his eyes widely, and asked: 'Well, it is finished, isn't it?'
Vexed by this question, which detained him just when he wished to take himself off, Delaherche made an angry gesture, whilst deadening his voice to answer: 'Ah, yes, finished, till it begins again! Nothing has been signed.'
A prey to incipient delirium, the colonel continued in faint tones: 'My God, may I die before the finish! I don't hear the guns. Why are they no longer firing? Up at St. Menges and Fleigneux we command all the roads; we will fling the Prussians into the Meuse should they venture to turn Sedan, to attack us. The town is at our feet between them and us, like an obstacle which strengthens our position. March! the Seventh Corps will take the lead, the Twelfth will cover the retreat——'
His hands jogged up and down on the sheet as though in unison with the trot of the horse, which, in his dream, was carrying him along. Little by little, however, as his words fell more heavily from his lips and he sank asleep, their movement became slower, till at last it altogether ceased, and he lay there, without a breath, overwhelmed.
'Rest yourself,' Delaherche had whispered, 'I will come back as soon as I have some news.' Then, after making sure that he had not awakened his mother, he slipped out of the room and disappeared.
Seated on a kitchen chair in the coach-house down below, Jean and Maurice had found a paymaster who was distributing fortunes there, screened merely by a little deal table placed in front of him, and without having recourse to pens, receipt forms, or papers of any kind. He simply dipped his hand into the bags overflowing with gold coins, and without even taking the trouble to count them, rapidly dropped a handful into the cap of each sergeant of the Seventh Corps who defiled before him. It was understood that the sergeants were to divide the sums given them among the men of their half-section. They all received the money with an awkward air, as though it had been some ration of meat or coffee, and then went off in embarrassment, emptying their képis into their pockets, so that they might not find themselves in the streets with all that gold displayed to view. And not a word was spoken. The only sound was the crystalline chinking of the coins amid the stupefaction which these poor devils experienced at finding themselves laden with all this wealth when there was no longer a loaf of bread or a quart of wine to be purchased in the whole town.
When Jean and Maurice stepped forward, the paymaster at first withdrew the handful of gold which he had ready, and exclaimed: 'Neither of you is a sergeant. Only the sergeants have a right to receive——' Then, tired already, and anxious to have done with it, he added: 'Here, corporal, you can take some all the same. Quick there, whose turn next?'
He had let the coins drop into the képi which Jean held out to him; and the corporal, stirred at sight of the amount, nearly six hundred francs, immediately desired Maurice to take half of it. There was no telling, said he; it was quite possible that they might be suddenly separated from one another. They accordingly divided the money in the garden in front of the ambulance, which they afterwards entered, having noticed their company's drummer, a gay, fat fellow named Bastian, lying on the straw near the entry. At about five o'clock on the previous evening, when the battle was over, he had been unluckily wounded in the groin by a stray bullet.
The spectacle which the ambulance presented in the white morning twilight, at this moment of the reveille, fairly froze their hearts. Three more of the wounded had died, unperceived, during the night, and now the attendants were hastily making room for others by carrying the corpses away. Every now and then the men amputated on the previous day, lying there in a somnolent state, would abruptly open their eyes and gaze with stupor on the vast dormitory of suffering in which they found themselves, and where, as in the shambles, a half-slaughtered flock lay prone upon the straw. The attendants had certainly swept and somewhat tidied the place on the previous evening, after all the bloody cuisine of the operations; but here and there trails of blood could be seen on the badly wiped floor, whilst a large red-spotted sponge, looking not unlike a human brain, was floating in a pail, and a forgotten hand, with broken fingers, was lying just outside the door, under the shed. These were the crumbs as it were of the butchery, the frightful scraps of the morrow of a day of massacre, dimly seen in the mournful rising of the dawn. And all the agitation and turbulent assertion of life of the earlier hours had, under the heavy weight of fever, given way to prostration. Scarcely a stammered plaint, deadened by sleepiness, disturbed the moist silence. A scared look came into the sufferer's glassy eyes as they again encountered the daylight; their clammy mouths exhaled foul breath; the whole hall was sinking into the succession of endless, livid, nauseous, death-sprinkled days which were now reserved to those wretched, mutilated men, who, at the end of two or three months, might possibly get over it, but at the cost of one of their limbs.
Bouroche, who was beginning his round, after a few hours' repose, paused for an instant in front of Drummer Bastian, and then passed on with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. Nothing could be done for that poor devil. The drummer, however, had opened his eyes, and, as though resuscitated, was keenly watching a sergeant, who, with his cap full of gold, had come to see whether some of his men were among the wounded. It so happened that there were a couple, and he gave each of them twenty francs. Other sergeants now arrived; gold began to rain upon the straw, and Bastian, who had succeeded in sitting up, held out both his hands, which the death pangs were already shaking, and stammered: 'For me! For me!'
The sergeant intended to pass on, as Bouroche had done. What, indeed, could be the use of money to a dying man? Suddenly yielding, however, to a good-natured impulse, he dropped some coins, without counting them, into the drummer's hands, which were already icy cold. 'For me! For me!' gasped Bastian once more. He had fallen back again, and fumbled for some time with his stiffened fingers, endeavouring to recover the gold which slipped from his grasp. Then he expired.
'Good night! The gent has blown his candle out!' said a dark, lean, little Zouave, who was lying near by. 'It's vexing all the same, just as one's got the brass to pay for a drink.'
The Zouave had his left foot bandaged; nevertheless he managed to raise himself and crawl on his knees and elbows to the side of the corpse, when he picked up all the money, searching both the drummer's hands and the folds of his great-coat. And noticing, when he had returned to his place with the cash, that the others were looking at him, he contented himself with remarking: 'Needn't let it be lost, eh?'
Maurice, whom this atmosphere of human misery suffocated, had made all haste to draw Jean outside again. As they were once more passing through the operating-shed they saw Bouroche there. He was exasperated at not having been able to procure any chloroform, but was all the same making up his mind to amputate the leg of a little fellow of twenty. Jean and Maurice fled, so as not to hear the poor devil's shrieks.
At that moment Delaherche came in from the street, and waving his arm to them, called out: 'Come upstairs, come at once. We are going to have some breakfast; the cook has managed to get some milk. It's very fortunate, for we need something warm.'
Despite the effort he was making, he could not conceal his exultant delight, and as the others approached him, he lowered his voice and added, with a radiant face: 'This time it's settled. General de Wimpffen has gone back to sign the capitulation.'
Ah! what an immense relief; his factory saved, the atrocious nightmare dissipated, life coming back again, full of pain and sorrow, no doubt; but for all that life, yes, life! Nine o'clock was now striking, and little Rose, whom he had met in the neighbourhood, had just told him what had taken place during the early morning at the Sub-Prefecture. She had made her way to this part of the town, through the somewhat less crowded streets, with the view of trying to obtain some bread from an aunt, who kept a baker's shop. At eight o'clock, said she, General de Wimpffen had assembled a fresh council of war, composed of more than thirty generals, whom he had informed of the result of the step he had taken, of the futility of his efforts, and of the harsh exactions of the victorious enemy. His hands trembled whilst he described the interview, violent emotion filled his eyes with tears; and he was still speaking when a colonel of the Prussian staff presented himself as a parlementaire, in General von Moltke's name, with a reminder that if a decision had not been come to by ten o'clock the German fire would reopen on the town of Sedan. Thereupon, in this extreme, frightful necessity, the council had adopted the only course that was open to it, that of authorising General de Wimpffen to return to the château of Bellevue to accept everything. The general must have already arrived there, and the entire French army was surrendering.
Rose next launched out into a variety of details concerning the extraordinary agitation which the news was exciting in the town. At the Sub-Prefecture she had seen some officers tearing off their epaulettes, and bursting into tears like children. Cuirassiers flung their sabres into the Meuse from the bridge, over which an entire regiment had defiled, man after man throwing away his weapon and gazing on the water as it spurted and then closed up. In the streets, too, the soldiers took hold of their chassepots by the barrels, and broke the butts against the house-walls, whilst artillerymen removed the pieces of mechanism from the mitrailleuses, and consigned them to the sewers. There were some soldiers, also, who buried, and others who burned the flags. On the Place Turenne she had seen an old sergeant climb upon a corner stone, and as though seized with sudden madness, heap insults upon the commanders and taunt them with cowardice. Other men seemed stultified and wept big silent tears. And, it must be said, there were others, the greater number too, whose eyes smiled with gladness, whose persons from head to foot denoted enraptured relief. So at last there was to be an end to their misery; they were prisoners, and there would be no more fighting. They had for so many days been suffering from excessive marching and lack of food. Besides, what was the use of fighting since they were not the stronger? So much the better if the commanders had sold them, so as to have done with the business at once. It was so delightful to think that they would soon have white bread again and sleep in beds.
As Delaherche was entering the dining-room upstairs with Maurice and Jean, his mother called him: 'Come here a moment. I'm anxious about the colonel.'
With open eyes, M. de Vineuil was once more venting aloud the panting dream of his feverish delirium: 'What matters it? If the Prussians do cut us off from Mézières——' he gasped; 'here come some of them turning the wood of La Falizette, whilst others are coming up along the valley of the Givonne. But the frontier is behind us, and we can cross it at a bound, as soon as we have killed as many of them as possible—that was what I wanted yesterday——'
His ardent eyes, however, had just caught sight of Delaherche. He recognised him, and seemed to come to his senses, to emerge from his hallucinatory somnolence; and as he thus returned to a consciousness of the terrible reality, he asked for the third time; 'It's finished, eh?'
And this time, the manufacturer was quite unable to restrain the outburst of his satisfaction: 'Yes, thank heavens! quite finished! The capitulation must now be signed.'
On hearing this, the colonel, despite his bandaged foot, rose violently from the bed, and taking his sword, which had remained lying on a chair, he made an effort to break it. But his hands were trembling, and the blade slipped.
'Take care! he'll hurt himself,' cried Delaherche. 'Take it out of his hands; it's dangerous!'
Old Madame Delaherche seized hold of the sword, but at sight of M. de Vineuil's despair she did not hide it, as her son advised her to do. Putting forth strength extraordinary in one so old, and of which she herself would not have thought her poor hands capable, she broke it with a sharp snap upon her knee. The colonel had got into bed again, and lay there weeping, and looking at his old friend with an expression of infinite tenderness.
Meantime, in the dining-room, the cook had served bowls of café-au-lait for everybody. Both Henriette and Gilberte were now awake, the latter well rested by her good sleep, and with a clear face and gay eyes. And tenderly did she kiss her friend, whom she pitied, so she said, from the very depths of her heart. Maurice placed himself near his sister, whilst Jean, who had been pressed to stay, and who felt somewhat embarrassed, found himself facing Delaherche. Old Madame Delaherche could not be prevailed upon to come and sit down at table, and merely drank a bowl of coffee which was taken to her. The breakfast of the five others, however, though begun in silence, soon became animated. They were empty and very hungry, and how could they not feel glad at finding themselves there, virtually unharmed and in good health, when thousands of poor devils were strewing the surrounding country? And in the large, cool dining-room, too, the spotless white table-cloth was a joy for the eyes, whilst the café-au-lait, which was very hot, seemed exquisite.
They talked. Delaherche, who had already recovered all the assurance of the rich manufacturer, the bonhomie of the master fond of popularity, severe only towards those who failed, reverted to Napoleon III., whose face had been haunting him for a couple of days past. And he addressed himself to Jean, having only that artless fellow there. 'Ah! monsieur,' he began, 'yes, I can indeed say that the Emperor has greatly deceived me. For however much his incense-bearers may plead extenuating circumstances, he is evidently the first cause, the only cause of our disasters.'
He was already forgetting that he had formerly shown himself an ardent Bonapartist, and but a few months previously had done all he could to insure the triumph of the Plebiscitum. And he no longer even pitied the fallen Sovereign who was about to become the Man of Sedan, but taxed him with every iniquity.
'Absolutely incapable, as one is forced to recognise at the present moment; still that by itself would be nothing—but his mind has always been addicted to chimeras; he's a man with an ill-proportioned brain, with whom things seemed to succeed just so long as he had luck on his side. No; people mustn't try to make us pity his fate, by telling us that he was deceived by others, and that the Opposition refused him the necessary men and credits. It is he who has deceived us, whose vices and blunders have plunged us into the frightful mess in which we find ourselves.'
Maurice, who did not wish to take any part in the conversation, could not restrain a smile, whilst Jean, whom this talk about politics rendered uncomfortable, and who feared that he might say something foolish, contented himself with replying: 'Folks say, all the same, that he's a good fellow.'
However, these few words, modestly spoken though they were, almost made Delaherche leap from his seat. All the fright he had experienced, all the anguish he had undergone, burst forth in a cry of exasperated passion that had turned to hatred. 'A good fellow, indeed; that's easily said! Do you know, monsieur, that three shells fell here in my factory, and that it wasn't the Emperor's fault if the buildings were not burnt down? Do you know that I who speak to you, I shall lose a hundred thousand francs in this idiotic affair? Ah! no, no, it is altogether too much—France invaded, burnt, exterminated, industry at a standstill, trade destroyed! We've had quite enough of such a good fellow as that, Heaven preserve us from him! He's down in the mud and the blood, and I say let him stay there!'
Thereupon he made an energetic gesture with his fist as though he were pushing down some struggling wretch and keeping him under water. Then, with a greedy lip, he finished drinking his coffee. Gilberte had given vent to a slight involuntary laugh at sight of the painful abstractedness of Henriette, whom she served like a child. The meal continued till at last the bowls were emptied; still they did not stir, preferring to linger awhile amid the gladsome peacefulness of that large, cool room.
And at that same hour Napoleon III. was in the weaver's poor house on the Donchery road. Already at five in the morning he had insisted upon leaving the Sub-Prefecture, ill at ease at feeling Sedan encompassing him, like a reproach and a threat; still worried, moreover, by a desire to soothe his sensitive heart by obtaining more favourable terms for his unfortunate army. He wished to see the King of Prussia. So, getting into a hired calash, he had set out along the broad highway, bordered with lofty poplars, that first portion of his journey into exile, accomplished in the freshness of the dawn, with a consciousness of all the fallen grandeur that he was leaving behind him in his flight; and it was upon that road that he met Bismarck hastening to him, in an old flat cap and long greased boots, for the sole purpose of trifling with him and preventing him from seeing the King until the capitulation was signed. The King was still at Vendresse, eight and a half miles away. Where should he go? Where could he wait? Afar off, the palace of the Tuileries had disappeared, enveloped in a thundercloud. Sedan, too, already seemed to have receded a distance of many leagues, shut off, as it were, by a river of blood. There were no more imperial châteaux in France, no more official residences; there was not even a corner in the abode of the smallest functionary where he dared to go and seat himself. And it was in the weaver's house that he was minded to strand—the wretched house espied beside the road, with its narrow kitchen-garden skirted by a hedge, and comprising merely a ground-floor and one upper storey with mournful little windows. The room upstairs had whitewashed walls and a tiled floor, and its only furniture was a deal table and two straw-bottomed chairs. There he waited for hours, at first in the company of Bismarck, who smiled on hearing him talk of generosity, and then all alone, dragging his misery up and down the room, pressing his ashy face to the window-panes, and gazing once more upon that soil of France, that Meuse which looked so beautiful as it flowed along athwart vast, fertile fields.[35]
Then that day, the next day, and the following days, there came the other abominable marches and their halting places: the château of Bellevue, that smiling bourgeois country-seat overlooking the river, where he slept, and where he wept after his interview with King William; then the cruel departure, Sedan avoided for fear of the vanquished and the famished, the pontoon bridge, which the Prussians had thrown across the river at Iges, the long circuit on the northern side of the town, the by-ways, the remote roads of Floing, Fleigneux, and Illy—all that lamentable flight in the open calash; and there, on that tragic, corpse-strewn plateau of Illy, occurred the legendary meeting—the wretched Emperor, no longer able to endure the motion of the vehicle, sinking down under the violence of some spasm, maybe mechanically smoking his everlasting cigarette, whilst a flock of haggard, blood-and-dust-covered prisoners, whom their captors were escorting from Fleigneux to Sedan, ranged themselves at the edge of the road to allow the carriage to pass; the first ones silent, the next ones growling, and the others, beyond, growing more and more exasperated until they burst into jeers and brandished their fists with gestures of insult and malediction. And after that there was yet the interminable journey across other portions of the battlefield, a league of broken-up roads, past ruins, and corpses with widely opened, threatening eyes; and then came a bare stretch of country with vast, silent woods, and the frontier atop of an incline; and beyond it the end of everything—a dip into a narrow valley where the road was edged with pines.
And what a first night of exile that was at Bouillon, in an inn, the Hôtel de la Poste, where he found himself amid such a throng of mere sightseers and French refugees that he deemed it proper to show himself, whereat there was loud murmuring and hissing! The room, with its three windows overlooking the Place and the Semoy, was the commonplace hotel-room, with the usual chairs upholstered in red damask, the usual mahogany wardrobe with a plate-glass door, the mantelshelf decked with the usual zinc clock, flanked by shells and vases of artificial flowers under glass cases. Right and left of the door were two little fellow beds. In one of them slept an aide-de-camp, so overcome by fatigue that at nine o'clock he was already sound asleep. In the other one the Emperor must have turned and turned for hours, unable to close his eyes; and if he got up to assuage his sufferings by walking, his only diversion can have been to look at two engravings, hanging on the wall there, on either side of the chimney-piece—one representing Rouget de l'Isle singing the Marseillaise; the other, the Day of Judgment, the mighty call sounded by the trumps of the Archangels, drawing all the dead from the bosom of the earth, the resurrection of the ossuaries of the battlefields, ascending to testify before God.[36]
All the train of the Imperial household, the cumbersome, accursed baggage vans, had remained at Sedan, in distress behind the sub-prefect's lilac bushes. Those in charge were at a loss how to spirit them away, how to remove them safely from the sight of the poor folks dying of misery, so intolerable indeed became the aggressive insolence which they had assumed, the frightful irony with which the defeat had imbued them. A very dark night had to be waited for, and then the horses, the carriages, and the vans, with their silver saucepans, their spits, and their baskets of fine wines, went forth from Sedan with great mystery, and in their turn betook themselves to Belgium, journeying with muffled tread and roll along the dark roads amid an uneasy shivering, such as attends a theft.
Amid the smoke and thunder of the cannonade, during the interminable day of the battle, Silvine, quivering from head to foot at thought of Honoré, had not ceased gazing towards Sedan from that hill of Remilly, where stood old Fouchard's little farm. And on the morrow her anxiety had increased, augmented by the impossibility of obtaining any accurate tidings from the Prussians guarding the roads, who refused to answer any questions, being, moreover, themselves ignorant of what was happening. The bright sunshine of the previous day had disappeared, showers had fallen, and the valley now wore a gloomy aspect in the livid light.
Towards evening old Fouchard, who, in his intentional silence, was also feeling worried, though he thought but little of his son, being indeed more anxious to know how the misfortunes of others would affect himself, was standing on his threshold waiting for something to turn up, when he noticed a big fellow in a blouse, who had been prowling along the road for a moment or so with an embarrassed air. On recognising him, the old man's surprise was so intense, that although three Prussians were passing at the time he called in a loud voice:
'Hullo, Prosper! Is it you?'
With an energetic wave of the arm the Chasseur d'Afrique abruptly silenced him. Then, drawing near, he answered in an undertone: 'Yes, it's I. I've had quite enough of fighting for nothing, so I skedaddled—and, I say, father Fouchard, you don't want a farm-hand, do you?'
At this the old man immediately regained all his prudent reserve. It so happened that he did want somebody, but it would not serve his purpose to say so. 'A hand? Why, no—not just now. But come inside all the same, and drink a glass of wine. I'm not going to leave you on the road like that.'
In the living-room was Silvine, just setting the soupe on the fire, with little Charlot laughing and frolicking, and hanging to her skirts. She did not at first recognise Prosper, although he had formerly been in service with her; but, in fact, it was only on bringing a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine that she took a good look at him; and then she at once raised a cry, and, with thoughts only for Honoré, exclaimed: 'Ah! you've come back from it, haven't you? Is Honoré all right?'
Prosper was on the point of answering when he hesitated. For two days past he had been living in a dream, amid a violent succession of ill-defined events which had left no precise impression on his memory. He certainly thought that he had seen Honoré stretched dead upon a cannon, but he would not have sworn it; and why should he grieve folks when he was not certain? 'Honoré,' he muttered, 'I don't know, I can't say.'
She looked at him fixedly and insisted: 'Then you haven't seen him?'
Shaking his head, and slowly waving his hands, he answered: 'You are mistaken if you think one can be certain of anything. So many things happened, so many things! Why, of all that cursed battle I couldn't tell you so long, even to save my life! No, not even tell the places I passed through. 'Pon my word it makes one an idiot.' He drank a glass of wine and remained sitting there, quite downcast, with dreamy eyes peering, as it were, into the depths of his memory. 'All I can remember,' he resumed, 'is that night was already falling when I recovered consciousness. The sun was still high up in the sky when I fell, whilst we were charging. I must have been lying there for hours with my right leg caught under poor Zephyr, who had been hit full in the chest. There was nothing at all pleasant, I can assure you, in my position, with heaps of dead comrades round me, and not so much as a live cat to be seen, and with the prospect, too, of kicking the bucket myself if nobody came to pick me up. I tried ever so gently to release my thigh, but it was no go, Zephyr was as heavy as five hundred thousand devils. He was still warm. I fondled him, called him, spoke endearing words to him, and then something happened, do you know, that I shall never forget. He opened his eyes and tried to raise his poor head, which was lying on the ground beside mine. And we had a chat together. 'My poor old fellow,' I said to him, 'I don't say it to reproach you, but is it because you want me to kick the bucket with you that you hold me down so tight?' Of course he didn't answer yes, but, all the same, I read in his eyes the grief he felt at leaving me. And I don't know how it happened, whether he did it on purpose, or whether it was only a convulsion, but he gave a sudden start which threw him on one side. And I was then able to get up, ah! in a fearful state, with my leg as heavy as lead. But no matter, I took Zephyr's head in my arms and went on talking to him, telling him all my heart could think of—that he was a good horse, and that I was very fond of him and should always remember him. He listened to me and seemed so pleased! Then he gave another start and died; his big eyes, which hadn't ceased looking at me, became quite blank all at once. It's funny, too, and you won't believe me, but the plain truth is he had big tears in his eyes—my poor Zephyr, he wept as though he were one of us.'
Weeping himself, almost choking with grief, Prosper had to pause. He drank another glass of wine and then resumed his narrative in imperfect, disjointed phrases. Night had drawn in, only a red ray of light had remained, on a level with the battlefield, throwing the giant shadows of the dead horses far over the ground. He, no doubt, had for a long time remained with Zephyr, unable to depart on account of the heaviness of his leg. Then he had been set on his feet by a sudden sensation of terror, a pressing desire to remain alone no longer, but to find himself again among some comrades in order that he might feel less afraid. In this wise the forgotten wounded had dragged themselves along from the ditches, the bushes, all the lonely nooks on every side, searching for companionship, gathering together in groups, little parties of four or five, for it seemed to them less hard to suffer and die in company. And in this wise too, Prosper, whilst hobbling through the wood of La Garenne, fell in with two soldiers of the 43rd, who had not received so much as a scratch, but had hidden themselves there like hares, waiting for the night. On learning that he knew the road they explained their idea to him, which was to escape into Belgium, making their way to the frontier, through the woods, before daylight. He at first refused to guide them, for he would rather have betaken himself direct to Remilly, certain as he was that he would find an asylum there. But how could he procure a blouse and trousers? Besides how could he hope to get past the numerous Prussian pickets between the wood of La Garenne and Remilly? He would have had to cross the entire valley. So he finally consented to guide his two comrades. His leg having become inflamed they halted at a farm to let him rest, and were lucky enough to obtain some bread there. Nine o'clock was striking from a distant steeple when they set out again. The only serious danger in which they found themselves was at La Chapelle, where they fell into the midst of a hostile picket-guard, which rushed to arms and fired into the darkness whilst they, on their side, threw themselves on their stomachs, crawled and galloped along on all fours beneath the whizzing bullets. After that experience they did not again venture out of the woods, but groped along, with fumbling hands and ears on the alert, until at the turn of a path they crawled up stealthily and sprang upon the shoulders of a forlorn sentinel whose throat they ripped open with a knife. And then the roads proved free and they continued on their way, laughing and whistling. At about three in the morning they reached a little Belgian village, where a good-natured farmer on being aroused at once opened his barn, in which they fell sound asleep upon trusses of hay.
The sun was already high when Prosper awoke. On opening his eyes he found his comrades still snoring and perceived the farmer harnessing a horse to a large tilted cart, laden with bread, rice, coffee, sugar, all sorts of provisions in fact, hidden underneath sacks of charcoal. And he learnt that the worthy fellow had two married daughters at Raucourt in France, to whom he was about to take these provisions, knowing them to be absolutely destitute since the Bavarians had passed through the town. He had obtained the safe-conduct necessary for his purpose early that morning.
Prosper was at once seized with an uncontrollable desire to share the cart seat with the farmer, and return to that secluded spot over yonder, nostalgia for which was already filling his heart with anguish. It was all so simple—he would alight at Remilly through which the farmer must needs pass. And in three minutes it was settled, the coveted trousers and blouse were lent to him, the farmer gave out everywhere that he was his man, and at about six in the evening he alighted in front of the village church, having only been stopped some two or three times on the road by the Prussian pickets.
'Yes, I'd had enough of it,' Prosper repeated after a pause. 'If they had only put us to some use, like over yonder, in Algeria; but to be always cantering up and down doing nothing, to feel that one serves no earthly purpose—all that ends by becoming unbearable. Besides, now that my poor Zephyr's dead I should be all alone. The only thing I can do is to go back to the fields. That's better than being a prisoner of the Prussians, eh? You have some horses, father Fouchard, you shall see if I'm fond of them and can take care of them?'
The old man's eyes glistened. He chinked glasses again, and without any show of eagerness, completed the business: 'Well, as it will be doing you a service, I'll agree to it—I'll take you. But as to wages, you mustn't talk of them, mind, till the war's over, for I really don't need any one, and the times are so hard.'
Meanwhile Silvine, seated with Charlot on her lap, had not taken her eyes off Prosper; and, now, on seeing him rise with the intention of going to the stables to make the acquaintance of the horses there, she once more asked him: 'And so you haven't seen Honoré?'
This question, so abruptly repeated, made Prosper start, as though it had suddenly thrown a flood of light upon a dim corner of his memory. He once more hesitated, but finally decided to speak out: 'Well, I didn't want to grieve you just now,' said he, 'but I fancy Honoré must have remained yonder——-'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, I think the Prussians did for him—I saw him lying back on a cannon, with his head raised and a hole just below his heart.'
Silence fell. Silvine had become frightfully pale, and old Fouchard, quite thunderstruck, set his glass, which he had just filled with the wine remaining in the bottle, upon the table again. 'You are sure of that?' the young woman asked in a choking voice.
'Well, as sure as one can be of anything one sees. It was on a little hillock just beside three trees, and it seems to me I could go there with my eyes shut.'
To her it seemed as though everything had crumbled away. Her lover, who had forgiven her, who had bound himself to her by a promise, whom she was to have married as soon as he got his discharge at the end of the war! And now they had killed him, and he was lying yonder with a hole below his heart! Never before had she felt such love for him. So intense was her desire to gaze upon him again, and, despite everything, secure him for herself even beneath the sod, that she was thoroughly aroused from her customary passivity. Roughly setting Charlot on the floor, she exclaimed: 'Well, I myself will only believe it when I've seen it. Since you know where it is, you shall take me there. And if it's true, if we find him, we'll bring him back here.'
Tears were stifling her, and she sank upon the table, quivering with prolonged sobs, whilst the child, stupefied at being so roughly treated by his mother, likewise burst into tears. Then taking the little one in her arms again and pressing him to her heart she stammered distractedly: 'My poor child! my poor child!'
Old Fouchard was still in a state of consternation. Despite appearances, he was, in his own fashion, attached to his son. Old memories must have come back to him from long, long ago, from the days when his wife was living, when Honoré still went to school, for two big tears welled from his red eyes and coursed down the tanned parchment of his cheeks. He had not wept for ten years or more. Then oaths escaped his lips, and he ended by getting quite angry respecting that son of his whom he would never see again: 'Curse it! It upsets a man—to have but one lad, and for them to kill him.'
When some measure of calmness had returned, however, Fouchard was extremely annoyed at finding that Silvine still talked of going over yonder in search of Honoré's body. Without further lamentation, preserving indeed a despairing, invincible silence, she persisted in her resolve; and he no longer knew her, usually so docile, performing any task assigned to her without complaint, whereas now those large, submissive eyes of hers, which sufficed for the beauty of her face, had acquired an expression of fierce decision, whilst her brow remained pale, as with the pallor of death, beneath her mass of thick dark hair. She had already torn a red wrapper from her shoulders and went to dress herself in black from head to foot, like a widow. In vain did Fouchard dwell upon the difficulty of the search, the dangers which she would be exposed to, the faint hope there was of finding the body. No matter, she even ceased answering him at last, and he realised that she would go off of her own accord and do something rash if he did not take steps in the matter, a prospect which disquieted him the more as trouble might ensue with the German authorities. Accordingly he made up his mind to go and see the mayor of Remilly, who was a distant cousin of his, and between them they concocted a plausible story: Silvine was said to be Honoré's widow, and Prosper passed as being her brother, so that the Bavarian colonel, quartered at the Cross-of-Malta inn below the village, willingly drew up a safe-conduct, authorising the brother and sister to bring back the husband's body provided they could find it. By this time night had drawn in, and the only thing to which the young woman would consent was to defer the journey until sunrise.
On the morrow Fouchard would not allow a horse to be put to one of his large carts, for fear lest he should never see either beast or vehicle again. Who could tell, indeed, whether the Prussians would not confiscate them both? At last, however, he consented, with an ill grace, to lend a little grey donkey and its cart, which, though small, was yet large enough to carry a corpse. At great length he then gave instructions to Prosper, who, although he had slept well, seemed very thoughtful and anxious. Now that, rested and freed from excitement, he tried to remember the spot where he had seen Honoré lying, he doubted whether he would be able to find it, and the prospect of this expedition disturbed him. At the last moment Silvine went to fetch the blanket from her own bed, folded it up, and laid it in the cart; and she was already starting, when she ran back to kiss little Charlot: 'I leave him in your care, father Fouchard; mind that he doesn't get playing with the lucifers.'
'Yes, yes, you needn't be anxious.'
The preparations had lasted a long time, and it was nearly seven o'clock when Silvine and Prosper descended the steep slopes of Remilly behind the narrow cart which the little grey donkey drew along with its head hanging low. It had rained heavily during the night, the roads were like rivers of mud, and large livid patches of cloud were scudding across the gloomy sky.
Desirous of taking the shortest route, Prosper had adopted the idea of passing through Sedan. Before reaching Pont-Maugis, however, the cart was stopped and detained during more than an hour by a Prussian picket, and only when the laissez-passer had circulated among four or five officers was the donkey able to resume its journey, it being stipulated that the party should make the round by way of Bazeilles, which was reached by a cross-road on the left. No reason was assigned for this stipulation, but doubtless the officers wished to avoid increasing the crush which prevailed in the town. Whilst Silvine was crossing the Meuse, over the railway bridge, that fatal bridge which the French had neglected to blow up, and for which, albeit, the Bavarians had paid so terrible a price, she espied the corpse of an artilleryman coming down stream with the current, in a sauntering sort of way. Caught by a tuft of herbage, it remained for a moment motionless, then suddenly swung round and started off again.
Bazeilles, which the donkey crossed at a walk from end to end, was a picture of destruction, of all the abominable havoc that devastating war can wreak when with the fury of a blizzard it sweeps through a land. The dead had already been picked up, not a single corpse remained on the paved highway of the village, and the rain was washing away the blood. Some puddles, however, were still quite red, and beside them lay suspicious remnants, things which looked like shreds of flesh, with what seemed to be hair adhering to them. But the appalment which froze every heart came from the sight of the ruins—the ruins of that village which three days previously had worn such a smiling aspect with its pleasant houses girt with gardens, and which now had crumbled to the ground, annihilated, displaying but scraps of walls blackened by the flames. The church, a huge funeral pile of smoking beams, was still burning in the centre of the Place, whence arose a stout column of black smoke which spread out on high like a great tuft of mourning plumes above a hearse. Entire streets had disappeared, nothing remained on either hand—nothing but piles of calcined stones fringing the gutters amid a mass of soot and cinders, a thick, inky mud, which spread over everything. At the various crossways the corner houses had been razed to the ground, carried away as it were by the fiery blast which had blown past these spots. Other houses had suffered less grievously, one had by chance remained standing, isolated; whilst those on its right and left seemed to have been hacked by shrapnel, their upreared carcases resembling gaunt skeletons. And everything exhaled an unbearable stench, the nauseating smell of fire, especially the acrid odour of the petroleum with which the floorings had been deluged. Then, too, there was the mute desolation of the household goods which the villagers had tried to save, the poor articles of furniture that had been flung from the windows and shattered by their fall; the crippled tables with broken legs, the wardrobes with their sides ripped open and their chests rent asunder, the linen, too, lying here and there, torn and soiled, with all the woeful residue of the pillage melting away in the rain. And, on glancing behind one gaping house-front and between some fallen flooring, one could espy a clock standing upon a mantelpiece that still adhered to the wall of an upper storey.
'Ah! the brutes!' growled Prosper, whose soldier's blood rose hotly to his brain at sight of such abomination.
He clenched his fist, and Silvine, herself very pale, had to quiet him with a glance each time that they came upon a sentry by the roadside. The Bavarians had indeed placed sentinels near the houses which were still burning, and these men, with fixed bayonets and loaded guns, seemed to be protecting the fires in order that the flames might complete their work. With a threatening gesture, a guttural cry when he had to deal with any obstinate person, the sentry drove back both the mere sightseers and the interested parties who were prowling around. Clusters of villagers had collected at a distance and stood there in silence, looking on and quivering with restrained rage. One woman, quite young, with dishevelled hair and in a mud-stained dress, obstinately remained in front of the heaped-up, smoking remnants of a little house, the live cinders of which she wished to search although the sentinel sternly forbade her approach. It was said that this woman's little child had been burnt to death in the house. And, all at once, as the Bavarian brutally pushed her aside, she turned round and spat all her furious despair in his face, assailing him with insults which reeked of blood and filth, foul, obscene words which eased her feelings. He probably did not understand her, but falling back gazed at her with an uneasy air until three of his comrades ran up and freed him from the woman, whom they dragged away, howling. A man and two little girls, who, all three, had fallen on the ground from sheer fatigue and wretchedness, were sobbing in front of the ruins of another house, not knowing where to go, having indeed seen all they possessed fly away in smoke and cinders. A patrol, however, came along and dispersed the villagers, and then the road again became deserted save for the stern, gloomy sentinels, who glanced vigilantly to right and left intent upon enforcing their iniquitous orders.
'The brutes! the brutes!' repeated Prosper in a low growl. 'It would be a treat to strangle a few of them.'
Silvine again silenced him. She was shuddering. A dog, shut up in a cart-house spared by the fire, forgotten there for a couple of days past, was howling, raising a continuous plaint, so doleful that a kind of terror sped athwart the low hanging sky whence some fine grey rain had just begun to fall. And at that moment, whilst passing the park of Montivilliers, they came upon a ghastly spectacle; three large tumbrels laden with corpses were standing there, one behind the other—scavengers' tumbrels, into which, as they pass along the streets of a morning, it is customary to shovel all the refuse of the previous day; and in a like manner they had now been filled with corpses; stopping each time that a body was flung into them, and starting off again with a great rumbling of wheels to halt once more farther on—in this wise scouring the whole of Bazeilles, until they fairly overflowed with heaped-up corpses. And now, motionless, by the wayside, they were waiting to be taken to the public 'shoot,' the neighbouring charnel-place. Feet protruded from them, upreared in the air; and a head, half-severed from the trunk, hung over the side of one of the vehicles. And when the three tumbrels again set out, jolting along through the puddles, a long, livid, pendent hand began rubbing against one of the wheels, which in its revolutions gradually wore it away, stripped it first of its skin, and then consumed it to the bone.
The rain ceased falling when they reached the village of Balan, where Prosper prevailed on Silvine to eat some bread, which he had taken the precaution to bring with him. It was already eleven o'clock. As they were drawing near to Sedan they were stopped by another Prussian post, and, this time, there was a terrible to-do, for the officer in command flew into a passion and even refused to return the laissez-passer, which, speaking in perfect French, he declared to be a forgery. By his orders some soldiers pushed the donkey and the little cart under a shed. What was to be done? How were they to continue their journey? Silvine was in despair, when an idea came to her on recollecting cousin Dubreuil, that well-to-do relative of old Fouchard's, with whom she was acquainted, and whose residence, the Hermitage, was only a few hundred yards away, beyond the lanes overlooking the suburb. Perhaps the German officer might listen to a man of means like him. So, leaving the donkey, she took Prosper with her, for the officer contented himself with impounding the vehicle and the moke, and allowed the young couple to go free. They ran on and found the gate of the Hermitage wide open, and as they entered the avenue of ancient elms they were greatly astonished by a spectacle which they descried in the distance. 'The deuce!' said Prosper, 'here are some fellows having a high time of it!'
A joyous party appeared to be assembled on the fine gravel of the terrace, below the house-steps. Some arm-chairs and a sofa, upholstered in sky-blue satin, were ranged around a table with a marble top, thus forming a strange, open-air drawing-room, which the rain must have been drenching since the day before. A couple of Zouaves, wallowing at either end of the sofa, appeared to be splitting with laughter; whilst a little Linesman, leaning forward in an arm-chair, looked as though he were holding his sides. All three had their elbows resting in a nonchalant way on the arms of their seats; whilst a Chasseur was holding out his hand as though to take a glass from the table. They had apparently emptied the cellar, and were having a spree.
'How is it they are still here?' muttered Prosper, becoming more and more stupefied as he drew nearer. 'The devils! are they doing this to show their contempt for the Prussians?'
All at once, however, Silvine, whose eyes were dilating, shrieked and made a gesture of horror. The soldiers did not stir—they were dead! The two Zouaves, stiffened and with twisted hands, had no faces left them; their noses had been torn off, their eyes driven out of their sockets. The laugh of the Linesman who was holding his sides, was due to a bullet which had split his lips, breaking his teeth. And atrocious, indeed, was the sight which these poor wretches presented, seated there, as though chatting together, in the rigid postures of lay figures, with their eyes glassy, and their mouths wide open, each and all of them icy cold and for ever motionless. Had they, whilst yet alive, dragged themselves to that spot that they might die together? Was it the Prussians, who, by way of a grim joke, had picked them up and seated them there in a convivial circle, as though in derision of French gaiety?
'A queer amusement all the same,' resumed Prosper, turning pale. And looking at the other corpses strewn across the avenue, beneath the trees and over the lawns, at the thirty brave fellows or so among whom lay Lieutenant Rochas, riddled with bullets and swathed in the colours of his regiment, the Chasseur added with a serious, almost reverential air: 'There's been some hard fighting here. I hardly think we shall meet the gentleman you want to find.'
Silvine was already entering the house, through whose shattered windows and gaping doorways the damp atmosphere freely penetrated. Evidently enough, there was nobody there; the occupants must have gone away prior to the battle. However, she obstinately made her way to the kitchen, and on entering it again raised a cry of fright. Two bodies had rolled under the sink—a Zouave, a well-built man with a black beard, and a brawny Prussian with red hair. They were locked together in a savage embrace; the Frenchman's teeth had bitten into the German's cheek, and their stiffened arms had in no degree relaxed their grasp, but were still bending and cracking each other's broken spine, uniting them both in such an intricate knot of everlasting fury, that they must needs be buried together.
Since there was nothing they could do in that empty house, which death alone now tenanted, Prosper made all haste to lead Silvine away. On returning, in despair, to the outpost where the donkey and the cart had been detained, they were lucky enough to find there a general who was visiting the battlefield. He wished to see the laissez-passer which the stern officer commanding the post had confiscated, and having read it he returned it to Silvine with a gesture of commiseration, as though to say that this poor woman should be allowed to go on her way in search of her husband's body. Thereupon, without tarrying, she and her companion, followed by the little cart, went off towards the Fond de Givonne, permission to pass through Sedan having been again refused them.
They turned to the left in view of reaching the plateau of Illy by the road passing through the wood of La Garenne. But here again they were delayed, and a score of times did they despair of getting through the wood, so many were the obstacles they met with. At every step the trees, cut down by the shells, barred the road like fallen giants. This, indeed, was the bombarded forest, through which as through some square of the Old Guard of steadfast, veteran firmness, the cannonade had swept, destroying venerable lives. On all sides were prostrate trunks, stripped, pitted, rent like human breasts. This scene of destruction, with its multitude of massacred branches shedding tears of sap, was fraught with the same heartrending horror as a field of human battle. And there were also corpses; the corpses of soldiers who had fallen beside the trees as by the side of comrades. A lieutenant was lying there, with his mouth quite bloody and with both hands still clawing the soil and tearing up tufts of grass. Farther on a captain had passed away, stretched upon his stomach, and with his head upraised to bellow forth his pain. Others seemed to be sleeping among the bushes, whilst a Zouave, whose blue sash had caught fire, had had his beard and hair entirely burnt. And all along the narrow woodland road, it repeatedly became necessary to push the corpses on one side so that the donkey might continue on its way.
All at once, however, on reaching a little valley, the horror came to an end. The battle had, doubtless, taken another direction, leaving this delightful nook unscathed. Not a twig of the trees had been broken, not a drop of blood had stained the moss. A beck flowed past through duckweed, and lofty beech trees shaded the path which skirted it. With the freshness of the running water, the quivering silence of the greenery, the spot was fraught with a penetrating charm, an adorable peacefulness.
Prosper stopped the donkey in order that it might drink from the stream. 'Ah! how pleasant it is here!' he said, thus spontaneously giving expression to his relief.