The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (128 page)

“You can see, sergeant, that those two are dying fast: it would be so much food lost!”

The old sergeant looked.

“Eight,” said he; “eight rations!”

Hullin could bear it no longer. He went over to the innkeeper Wittmann’s opposite, as white as death; Wittmann was also a fur and leather merchant. Seeing him enter, “Hé! is it you, Master Jean-Claude?” he exclaimed. “You arrive sooner than usual; I did not expect you till next week.” Then seeing how he staggered—“But say, you are ill?”

“I have just seen the wounded.”

“Ah, yes! the first time, it shocks you; but if you had seen fifteen thousand pass, as we have, you would not think anything more about it.”

“A glass of wine, quick?” said Hullin, who felt badly. “Oh, mankind, mankind! And to think that we are brothers!”

“Yes, brothers until it touches your purse,” replied Wittmann. “Come, drink! that will set you right.”

“And you have seen fifteen thousand go by?” rejoined the shoemaker.

“At the least, for two months, without speaking of those who have remained in Alsace and the other side of the Rhine; for, you comprehend, they cannot find carts enough for all, and then many are not worth the trouble of being carried away.”

“Yes, I comprehend! But why are they there, those poor creatures? Why do they not go into the hospital?”

“The hospital! What is one hospital, ten hospitals, for fifty thousand wounded? Every hospital, from Mayence and Coblentz as far as Phalsbourg, is crowded. And, besides, that terrible fever, typhus, you see, Hullin, kills more than the bullet. All the villages of the plain twenty leagues round are infected with it; they die everywhere like flies. Luckily the town has been in a state of siege these three days; the gates will be closed, and no more will enter. I have lost, for my part, my Uncle Christian and my Aunt Lisbeth, as healthy, solid people as you and I, Master Jean-Claude. At last the cold has arrived; last night there was a white frost.”

“And the wounded remained on the pavements all night?”

“No, they came from Saverne this morning; in an hour or two, when the horses are rested, they will leave for Sarrebourg.”

At that moment, the old sergeant, who had re-established order in the carts, came in rubbing his hands.

“Hé! hé!” said he, “it freshens, Papa Wittmann. You did well to light the fire in the stove. A little glass of cognac to drive away the fog. Hum! hum!”

His small half-closed eyes, his beaked nose, the cheek-bones being separated from it by two flourishing wrinkles, which were lost to sight in a long reddish imperial—everything looked gay in his face, and told of a jovial, kind disposition. It was a regular military face, scorched, burnt by the open air, full of frankness, but also of a cheery slyness; his great shako, his blue-gray cloak, the shoulder-belt, the epaulette, seemed to partake of his individuality. One could not have represented him without them. He walked up and down the room, continuing to rub his hands, while Wittmann poured him a glass of brandy. Hullin, seated near the window, had at once noticed the number of his regiment—6th Light Infantry. Gaspard, the son of Madame Lefèvre, served in this regiment. Jean-Claude could now obtain some tidings of the lover of Louise; but, as he was going to speak, his heart beat loud. If Gaspard was dead; if he had perished like so many others!

The worthy shoemaker felt nearly suffocated; he kept silent. “Better to know nothing,” thought he. However, a few minutes later, he could do so no longer. “Sergeant,” said he, in a hoarse voice, “you are in the 6th Light Infantry?”

“Yes, my citizen,” said the other, turning round in the middle of the room.

“Do you know one called Gaspard Lefèvre?”

“Gaspard Lefèvre, of the 2d division of the 1st? Parbleu, if I know him! It is I who taught him his drill. A brave soldier! hardened against fatigue. If we had a hundred thousand of that stamp—”

“Then he lives? he is well?”

“Yes, citizen. Eight days ago I left the regiment at Fredericsthal to escort this convoy of wounded. You understand, it is hot there—one cannot answer for anything. From one moment to the other, each of us may have his business settled for him. But eight days ago, at Fredericsthal—the 15th December—Gaspard Lefèvre still answered to the roll-call.”

Jean-Claude breathed. “But then, sergeant, have the goodness to tell me why Gaspard has not written to his village for two months?”

The old soldier smiled, and blinked his little eyes. “Ah! now, citizen, do you then believe that one has nothing else to do on the march but to write?”

“No. I have served; I was in the campaigns of Sambre-et-Meuse, of Egypt and Italy, but that did not prevent me from giving some news of myself.”

“One instant, comrade,” interrupted the sergeant. “I have passed through Egypt and Italy also; the campaign we are finishing is altogether different.”

“It has then been very severe?”

“Severe! one must have one’s soul driven into every part of one’s members, so as not to leave one’s bones there. All was against us: sickness, traitors, peasants, townsfolk, our allies—in fact all! From our company, which was complete when we quitted Phalsbourg, the 21st of last January, only thirty-four men remain. I believe Gaspard Lefèvre is the only conscript left. Those poor conscripts! they fought well; but they were not accustomed to endure hardships: they melted like butter in an oven.” So saying, the old sergeant approached the counter and drank his glass off at one draught. “To your health, my citizen. Are you perchance the father of Gaspard?”

“No, I am a relation.”

“Well, you can pride yourselves on being stoutly built in your family. What a man at twenty! He has gone through everything—he has, while the others fell away in dozens.”

“But,” rejoined Hullin, after an instant’s silence, “I cannot see anything so very different in this last campaign; for we also had sickness and traitors.”

“Anything different!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Everything was different! Formerly, if you have gone through the war in Germany, you ought to remember that, after one or two victories, it was over: the people received you well; one drank the little white wines, and ate sauerkraut and ham with the townsfolk; one danced with the buxom wives. The husbands and grandpapas laughed heartily, and when the regiment left, everybody cried. But this time, after Lutzen and Bautzen, instead of feeling kindly, the people regarded us with diabolical faces; we could get nothing out of them but by force; one could have fancied one’s self in Spain or Vendée. I do not know what stuff they had in their heads against us. Better had we only been French, had we not had Saxons and other allies, who only awaited the moment to spring at our throats: we should then have pulled through all the same, one against five! But the allies—don’t talk to me of the allies! Why, at Leipzig, the 18th of October last, in the hottest part of the battle, our allies turned against us and shot at us from behind; those were our good friends the Saxons. A week later, our former friends the Bavarians came and threw themselves across our retreat: we had to pass over them at Hanau. The day after, near Frankfort, another column of good friends presented themselves, and we had to crush them. The more one kills, the more they come! Here we are now this side of the Rhine. Well, there are decidedly more of these good friends marching from Moscow. Ah! if we could have foreseen it after Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram!”

Hullin had become very thoughtful. “And now how do we stand, sergeant?”

“We have had to repass the Rhine, and all our strongholds on the other side are blockaded. The 10th of November last the Prince of Neufchâtel reviewed the regiment at Bleckheim. The 3d battalion had been amalgamated with the 2d, and the ‘cadre’ received orders to be in readiness to leave for the depot. Cadres are not wanting, but men. As for twenty years we have been bled on all sides, it is not astonishing. All Europe is down upon us. The Emperor is at Paris; he is laying down a plan of the campaign. If we may only have breathing time till the spring—”

Just then Wittmann, who was standing by the window, said, “Here is the governor come from inspecting the clearings around the town.”

It was the commandant, Jean-Pierre Meunier, wearing a three-cornered hat, and a tricolor scarf around his waist, who crossed over the square.

“Ah,” said the sergeant, “I must get him to sign my papers. Pardon, citizen; I must leave you.”

“Do so, sergeant; and thank you. If you meet Gaspard, tell him that Jean-Claude Hullin embraces him, and that they expect tidings from him in the village.”

“Good—good. I will not fail to do so.”

The sergeant went out, and Hullin finished his wine in a reverie.

“Father Wittmann,” said he, after a pause, “what of my parcel?”

“It is ready, Master Jean-Claude.” Then, looking into the kitchen, “Grédel! Grédel! bring Hullin’s parcel.”

A little woman appeared, and put down on the table a roll of sheepskins. Jean-Claude passed his stick through it, and lifted it over his shoulder.

“What, you are going to leave us so soon?”

“Yes, Wittmann. The days are short, and the roads difficult through the forests after six o’clock. I must get back early.”

“Then a safe journey to you, Master Jean-Claude.”

Hullin left, and crossed the square, turning away his face from the convoy, which still remained before the church.

The innkeeper from his window watched him hurrying away, and thought to himself, “How white he looked on entering; he could hardly keep upright. It is queer that such a sturdy man, and an old soldier too, should not have energy enough for a cat. As for me, I would see fifty regiments go by on those carts without minding it any more than I did my first pipe.”

CHAPTER IV

MADAME LEFÈVRE

While Hullin was learning the disaster of our armies, and was walking slowly, his head bent, and an anxious expression on his face, toward the village of Charmes, everything went on as usual at the farm of Bois-de-Chênes. No one thought of Yégof’s wonderful stories, or of the war: old Duchêne led his oxen to their drinking-place, the herdsman Robin turned over their litter; Annette and Jeanne skimmed their curdled milk. Only Catherine Lefèvre was silent and gloomy—thinking of days gone by—all the while superintending with an impassible face the occupations of her domestics. She was too old and too serious to forget from one day to another what had so much troubled her. When night came on, after the evening’s repast, she entered the great room, where her servants could hear her drawing the large register-book from the closet and putting it on the table, to sum up her accounts, as she was in the habit of doing.

They soon began to load the cart with corn, vegetables, and poultry: for the next day there was a market at Sarrebourg, and Duchêne had to start early.

Picture to yourself the great kitchen, and all these worthy folks hurrying to finish their work before going to rest: the black kettle, full of beetroot and potatoes destined for the cattle, boiling on an immense pinewood fire; the plates, dishes, and soup-tureens shining like suns on the shelves; the bunches of garlic and of reddish-brown onions hung up in rows to the beams of the ceiling, among the hams and flitches of bacon; Jeannie, in her blue cap and little red petticoat, stirring up the contents of the kettle with a big wooden spoon; the wicker cages, with the cackling fowls and great cock, who pushed his head through the bars and looked at the flames with a wondering eye and raised crest; the bull-dog Michel, with his flat head and hanging jowl, in search of some forgotten dish; Dubourg coming down the creaking staircase to the left, his back bent with a sack on his shoulder; while outside, in the dark night, old Duchêne, upright on the cart, lifted his lantern and called out, “That makes the fifteenth, Dubourg; two more.” One could see also, hanging against the wall, an old hare, brought by the hunter Heinrich to be sold at the market, and a fine grouse, with its purple and green plumage, dimmed eye, and a drop of blood at the end of its beak.

It was about half-past seven when the sound of footsteps was heard at the entrance to the yard. The bull-dog went toward the door growling. He listened, sniffed the night air, then went back quietly, and began licking his dish again.

“It is some one belonging to the farm,” said Annette. “Michel does not move.”

Nearly at the same time, old Duchêne from outside called, “Good-night, Master Jean-Claude. Is it you?”

“Yes. I come from Phalsbourg; and I am going to rest myself a minute before going down to the village. Is Catherine here?”

And then the good man came forward to the light, his hat pushed off his face, and his roll of sheepskins on his back.

“Good-night, my children,” said he; “good-night! Always at work!”

“Yes, Monsieur Hullin, as you see,” replied Jeanne, laughing. “If one had nothing to do, life would be very wearisome.”

“True, my pretty girl, true. It is only work which gives you your roses and brilliant eyes.”

Jeanne was going to answer, when the door of the great room opened, and Catherine Lefèvre advanced, looking piercingly at Hullin, as though to guess beforehand what news he brought.

“Well, Jean-Claude, you have returned.”

“Yes, Catherine; with good tidings and bad.”

They entered the large room—a high and spacious apartment wainscoted with wood to the ceiling, with its oak closets and their shining clasps, its iron stove opening into the kitchen, its old clock counting the seconds in its walnut-wood case, and the leathern arm-chair, worn and used by ten generations of aged men. Jean-Claude never went into this room without its bringing back to his remembrance Catherine’s grandfather, whom he seemed still to see, with his white head, sitting behind the oven in the dark.