The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (120 page)

And it was the truth, Fritz, even our children had nothing more nourishing to eat than soup made of potatoes and salt beef, which cause many dangerous maladies.

The garrison had no lack of anything; but, notwithstanding, the governor was all the time proclaiming that the visits were to be recommenced, and that those who should be found delinquent should be punished with the rigor of military law. Those people wanted to have everything for themselves; but nobody minded them, everybody hid what he could.

Fortunate in those times was he who kept a cow in his cellar, with some hay and straw for fodder; milk and butter were beyond all price. Fortunate was he who owned a few hens; a fresh egg, at the end of February, was valued at fifteen sous, and they were not to be had even at that price. The price of fresh meat went up, so to speak, from hour to hour, and we did not ask if it was beef or horse-flesh.

The council of defence had sent away the paupers of the city before the blockade, but a large number of poor people remained. A good many slipped out at night into the trenches by one of the posterns; they would go and dig up roots from under the snow, and cut the nettles in the bastions to boil for spinach. The sentries fired from above, but what will not a man risk for food? It is better to feel a ball than to suffer with hunger.

We needed only to meet these emaciated creatures, these women dragging themselves along the walls, these pitiful children, to feel that famine had come, and we often said to ourselves:

“If the Emperor does not come and help us, in a month we shall be like these wretched creatures! What good will our money do us, when a radish will cost a hundred francs?”

Then, Fritz, we smiled no more as we saw the little ones eating around the table; we looked at each other, and this glance was enough to make us understand each other.

The good sense and good feeling of a brave woman are seen at times like this. Sorlé had never spoken to me about our provisions; I knew how prudent she was, and supposed that we must have provisions hidden somewhere, without being entirely sure of it. So, at evening, as we sat at our meagre supper, the fear that our children might want the necessary food sometimes led me to say:

“Eat! feast away! I am not hungry. I want an omelet or a chicken. Potatoes do not agree with me.”

I would laugh, but Sorlé knew very well what I was thinking.

“Come, Moses,” she said to me one day; “we are not as badly off as you think; and if we should come to it, ah, well! do not be troubled, we shall find some way of getting along! So long as others have something to live upon, we shall not perish, more than they.”

She gave me courage, and I ate cheerfully, I had so much confidence in her.

That same evening, after Zeffen and the children had gone to bed, Sorlé took the lamp, and led me to her hiding-place.

Under the house we had three cellars, very small and very low, separated by lattices. Against the last of these lattices, Sorlé had thrown bundles of straw up to the very top; but after removing the straw, we went in, and I saw at the farther end, two bags of potatoes, a bag of flour, and on the little oil-cask a large piece of salt beef.

We stayed there more than an hour, to look, and calculate, and think. These provisions might serve us for a month, and those in the large cellar under the street, which we had declared to the commissary of provisions, a fortnight. So that Sorlé said to me as we went up:

“You see that, with economy, we have what will do for six weeks. A time of great want is now beginning, and if the Emperor does not come before the end of six weeks, the city will surrender. Meanwhile, we must get along with potatoes and salt meat.”

She was right, but every day I saw how the children were suffering from this diet. We could see that they grew thin, especially little David; his large bright eyes, his hollow cheeks, his increasing dejected look, made my heart ache.

I held him, I caressed him; I whispered to him that, when the winter was over, we would go to Saverne, and his father would take him to drive in his carriage. He would look at me dreamily, and then lay his head upon my shoulder, with his arm around my neck, without answering. At last he refused to eat.

Zeffen, too, became disheartened; she would often sob, and take her babe from me, and say that she wanted to go, that she wanted to see Baruch! You do not know what these troubles are, Fritz; a father’s troubles for his children; they are the cruelest of all! No child can imagine how his parents love him, and what they suffer when he is unhappy.

But what was to be done in the midst of such calamities? Many other families in France were still more to be pitied than we.

During all this time, you must remember that we had the patrols, the shells in the evening, requisition and notices, the call to arms at the two barracks and in front of the mayoralty, the cries of “Fire!” in the night, the noise of the fire-engines, the arrival of the envoys, the rumors spread through the city that our armies were retreating, and that the city was to be burned to the ground!

The less people know the more they invent.

It is best to tell the simple truth. Then every one would take courage, for, during all such times, I have always seen that the truth, even in the greatest calamities, is never so terrible as these inventions. The republicans defended themselves so well, because they knew everything, nothing was concealed from them, and every one considered the affairs of his nation as his own.

But when men’s own affairs are hidden from them, how can they have confidence? An honest man has nothing to conceal, and I say it is the same with an honest government.

In short, bad weather, cold, want, rumors of all kinds, increased our miseries. Men like Burguet, whom we had always seen firm, became sad; all that they could say to us was:

“We shall see!—we must wait!” The soldiers again began to desert, and were shot!

Our brandy-selling always kept on: I had already emptied seven pipes of spirit, all my debts were paid, my storehouse at the market was full of goods, and I had eighteen thousand francs in the cellar; but what is money, when we are trembling for the life of those we love?

On the sixth of March, about nine o’clock in the evening, we had just finished supper as usual, and the sergeant was smoking his pipe, with his legs crossed, near the window, and looking at us without speaking.

It was the hour when the bombarding began; we heard the first cannon-shots, behind the Fiquet bottom-land; a cannon-shot from the outposts had answered them; that had somewhat roused us, for we were all thoughtful.

“Father Moses,” said the sergeant, “the children are pale!”

“I know it very well,” I replied, sorrowfully.

He said no more, and as Zeffen had just gone out to weep, he took little David on his knee, and looked at him for a long time. Sorlé held little Esdras asleep in her arms. Sâfel took off the table-cloth and rolled up the napkins, to put them back in the closet.

“Yes,” said the sergeant. “We must take care, Father Moses; we will talk about it another time.”

I looked at him with surprise; he emptied his pipe at the edge of the stove, and went out, making a sign for me to follow him. Zeffen came in, and I took a candle from her hand. The sergeant led me to his little room at the end of the passage, shut the door, sat down on the foot of the bed, and said:

“Father Moses, do not be frightened—but the typhus has just broken out again in the city; five soldiers were taken to the hospital this morning; the commandant of the place, Moulin, is taken. I hear, too, of a woman and three children!”

He looked at me, and I felt cold all over.

“Yes,” said he, “I have known this disease for a long time; we had it in Poland, in Russia, after the retreat, and in Germany. It always comes from poor nourishment.”

Then I could not help sobbing and exclaiming:

“Ah, tell me! What can I do? If I could give my life for my children, it would all be well! But what can I do?”

“To-morrow, Father Moses, I will bring you my portion of meat, and you shall have soup made of it for your children. Madame Sorlé may take the piece at the market, or, if you prefer, I will bring it myself. You shall have all my portions of fresh meat till the blockade is over, Father Moses.”

I was so moved by this, that I went to him and took his hand, saying:

“Sergeant, you are a noble man! Forgive me, I have thought evil of you.”

“What about?” said he, scowling.

“About the landwehr at the tile-kiln!”

“Ah, good! That is a different thing! I do not care about that,” said he. “If you knew all the kaiserlichs that I have despatched these ten years, you would have thought more evil of me. But that is not what we are talking about; you accept, Father Moses?”

“And you, sergeant,” said I, “what will you have to eat?”

“Do not be troubled about that; Sergeant Trubert has never been in want!”

I wanted to thank him. “Good!” said he, “that is all understood. I cannot give you a pike, or a fat goose, but a good soup in blockade times is worth something, too.”

He laughed and shook hands with me. As for myself I was quite overcome, and my eyes were full of tears.

“Let us go; good-night!” said he, as he led me to the door. “It will all come out right! Tell Madame Sorlé that it will all come out right!”

I blessed that man as I went out, and I told it all to Sorlé, who was still more affected by it than myself. We could not refuse; it was for the children! and during the last week there had been nothing but horse-meat in the market.

So the next morning we had fresh meat to make soup for those poor little ones. But the dreadful malady was already upon us, Fritz! Now, when I think of it, after all these years, I am quite overcome. However, I cannot complain; before going to take the bit of meat, I had consulted our old rabbi about the quality of this meat according to the law, and he had replied:

“The first law is to save Israel; but how can Israel be saved if the children perish?”

But after a while I remembered that other law:

“The life of the flesh is in the blood, therefore I said unto the children of Israel: Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eateth it shall be cut off; and whosoever eateth of any sick beast shall be unclean.”

In my great misery the words of the Lord came to me, and I wept.

All these animals had been sick for six weeks; they lived in the mire, exposed to the snow and wind, between the arsenal and guard bastions.

The soldiers, almost all of whom were sons of peasants, ought to have known that they could not live in the open air, in such cold weather; a shelter could easily have been made. But when officers take the whole charge, nobody else thinks of anything; they even forget their own village trades. And if, unfortunately, their commanders do not give the order, nothing is done.

This is the reason that the animals had neither flesh nor fat; this is the reason that they were nothing but miserable, trembling carcasses, and their suffering, unhealthy flesh had become unclean, according to the law of God.

Many of the soldiers died. The wind brought to the city the bad air from the bodies, scattered by hundreds around the tile-kiln, the Ozillo farm, and in the gardens, and this also caused much sickness.

The justice of the Lord is shown in all things; when the living neglect their duties toward the dead, they perish.

I have often remembered these things when it was too late, so that I think of them only with grief.

CHAPTER XVIII

DEATH OF LITTLE DAVID

The most painful of all my recollections, Fritz, is the way in which that terrible disease came to our family.

On the twelfth of March we heard of a large number of men, women, and children who were dying. We dared not listen; we said:

“No one in our house is sick, the Lord watches over us!”

After David had come, after supper, to cuddle in my arms, with his little hand on my shoulder, I looked at him; he seemed very drowsy, but children are always sleepy at night. Esdras was already asleep, and Sâfel had just bidden us good-night.

At last Zeffen took the child, and we all went to bed.

That night the Russians did not fire; perhaps the typhus was among them, too. I do not know.

About midnight, when by God’s goodness we were asleep, I heard a terrible cry.

I listened, and Sorlé said to me:

“It is Zeffen!”

I rose at once, and tried to light the lamp; but I was so much agitated that I could not find anything.

Sorlé struck a light, I drew on my pantaloons and ran to the door. But I was hardly in the passage-way when Zeffen came out of her room like an insane person, with her long black hair all loose.

“The child!” she screamed.

Sorlé followed me. We went in, we leaned over the cradle. The two children seemed to be sleeping; Esdras all rosy, David as white as snow.

At first I saw nothing, I was so frightened, but at last I took up David to waken him; I shook him, and called, “David!”

And then we first saw that his eyes were open and fixed.