The Invasion of France in 1814 by Erckmann-Chatrian
CHAPTER XII
THE LANDLORD OF THE "PINEAPPLE"
Materne and his two boys walked for some time in silence. The weatherhad become fine; the pale winter sun shone over the brilliant snowwithout melting it, and the ground remained firm and hard.
In the distance, along the valley, stood out, with surprisingclearness, the tops of the fir-trees, the reddish peaks of the rocks,the roofs of the hamlets, with their icy stalactites hanging from theeaves, their small sparkling windows, and sharp gables.
People were walking in the street of Grandfontaine. A troupe of younggirls were standing round the washing-place; a few old men in cottoncaps were smoking their pipes on the doorsteps of the little houses.All this little world, lying in the depths of the blue expanse, came,and went, and lived, without a sound or sigh reaching the ears of theforesters.
The old hunter halted on the outskirts of the wood, and said to hissons: "I am going down to the village to see Dubreuil, the innkeeper ofthe 'Pineapple.'"
And he pointed with his stick to a long white building, the doors andwindows of which were surrounded with a yellow bordering, a pine-branchbeing suspended to the wall as a signboard.
"You must await me here. If there is no danger, I will come out on tothe doorstep and raise my hat; you can then come and take a glass ofwine with me."
He immediately descended the snowy slopes to the little gardens lyingabove Grandfontaine, which took about ten minutes; he then made his waybetween two furrows, reached the meadow, and crossed the villagesquare: his two sons, with their arms at their feet, saw him enter theinn. A few seconds after he reappeared on the doorstep and raised hishat.
Fifteen minutes later they had rejoined their father in the great roomof the "Pineapple." It was a rather low room with a sanded floor, andheated by a large iron stove.
Excepting the innkeeper Dubreuil, the biggest and most apoplecticlandlord in the Vosges, with immense paunch, round eyes, flat nose, awart on his left cheek, and a triple chin reaching over hiscollar--with the exception of this curious individual, seated near thestove in a leather arm-chair, Materne was alone. He had just filledthe glasses. The clock was striking nine, and its wooden cock flappedits wing with a peculiar scraping sound.
"Good-day, Father Dubreuil," said the two youths in a gruff voice.
"Good-day, my brave fellows," replied the innkeeper, trying to smile.
Then, in an oily voice, he asked them, "Nothing new?"
"Faith, no!" replied Kasper; "here is winter, the time for huntingboars."
And they both, putting their carbines in the corner of the window,within reach, in case of attack, passed one leg across the bench, andsat down, facing their father, who was at the head of the table.
At the same time they drank, saying, "To our healths!" which they werealways very careful to do.
"Thus," said Materne, turning to the fat man, as though taking up thethreads of an interrupted conversation, "you think, Father Dubreuil,that we have nothing to fear from the wood of Baronies, and that we mayhunt boar peaceably?"
"Oh, as to that, I know nothing!" exclaimed the innkeeper; "only atpresent the allies have not passed Mutzig. Besides, they harm no one;they receive all well-disposed people to fight against the usurper."
"The usurper? Who is he?"
"Why, Napoleon Bonaparte, the usurper, to be sure. Just look at thewall."
He pointed to a great placard stuck on the wall, near the clock.
"Look at that, and you will see that the Austrians are our truefriends."
Old Materne's eyebrows nearly met, but, repressing his feelings, "Oh,ah!" said he.
"Yes, read that."
"But I do not know how to read, Monsieur Dubreuil, nor my boys either.Explain to us what it is."
Then the old innkeeper, leaning with his hands on the arms of hischair, arose, breathing like a calf, and placed himself in front of theplacard, with his arms folded on his enormous paunch; and in a majestictone he read a proclamation from the allied sovereigns, declaring "thatthey made war on Napoleon personally, and not on France. Thereforeeverybody ought to keep quiet and not meddle in their affairs, underpain of being burnt, pillaged, and shot."
The three hunters listened, and looked at each other with a strange air.
When Dubreuil had finished, he reseated himself and said, "Now do yousee?"
"And where did you get that?" demanded Kasper.
"That, my boy, is put up everywhere!"
"Well, we are pleased with that," said Materne, laying his hand onFrantz's arm, who had risen with sparkling eyes. "Dost thou want alight, Frantz? Here is my flint."
Frantz sat down again, and the old man continued, good-naturedly: "Andour good friends the Germans take nothing from any one?"
"Quiet, orderly people have nothing to fear; but as to the rascals whorise, all is taken from them. And it is just--the good ought not tosuffer for the wicked. For example, instead of doing you any harm, theallies would receive you well at their head-quarters. You know thecountry: you would serve as guides, and you would be richly paid."
There was a slight pause. The three hunters again looked at eachother: the father had spread his hands on the table, as though torecommend calm to his sons; but even he was very pale.
The innkeeper, observing nothing, continued: "You would have much moreto fear in the woods of Baronies from those brigands of Dagsburg,Sarre, and Blanru, who have all revolted, and wish to have '93 overagain."
"Are you sure of that?" demanded Materne, making an effort to controlhimself.
"Am I sure! You have only to look out of the window and you will seethem on the road to the Donon. They have surprised the anabaptistPelsly, and bound him to the foot of his bed. They pillage, rob, breakup the roads. But beware! In a few days they will see strange things.It is not with a thousand men that they will be attacked, not with tenthousand, but with millions. They will all be hung."
Materne rose.
"It is time for us to be going," said he briefly. "At two o'clock wemust be at the wood, and here we are talking quietly like magpies! Aurevoir, Father Dubreuil." They rushed out hastily, no longer able tocontain their passion.
"Think of what I have said," cried the innkeeper to them from his chair.
Once in the open air, Materne, turning round, said, with tremblinglips: "If I had not restrained myself, I should have broken the bottleon his head."
"And I," said Frantz, "should have run him through with my bayonet."
Kasper, one foot on the step, seemed about to re-enter the inn; hegrasped the handle of his hunting-knife, and his face bore a terribleexpression. But his father took him by the arm and dragged him off,saying: "Come, come, we will deal with him later on. To counsel me tobetray the country! Hullin told us to be on our guard: he was right."
They went down the street, looking to the right and left with haggardeyes. The people asked among themselves: What is the matter with them?
On reaching the end of the village, they halted, in front of the oldcross, close to the church, and Materne in a calmer tone, pointing outthe path which winds round Phramond over the heath, said to his sons:"You must take that road. I shall follow the route to Schirmeck. Ishall not go too fast, so that you may have time to come up with me."
They parted, and the old hunter, with bowed head, walked onthoughtfully for a long time, asking himself by what inward strength hehad been able to keep from breaking the fat innkeeper's head. He saidto himself that no doubt it was from fear of compromising his sons.
While thinking over these things, Materne kept continually meetingherds of cattle, sheep and goats, which were being led into themountain. Some came from Wisch, Urmatt, and even from Mutzig; the poorbeasts could scarcely stand.
"Where the devil are you running so fast?" shouted the old hunter tothe melancholy herdsmen. "Have you then no confidence in theproclamation of the Austrians and Russians?"
And they angrily answered: "It is easy for you to laugh.Proclamations! w
"Nonsense! impossible! What are you talking about?" said Materne."You astound me! Such worthy people, such good friends, the savioursof France. I cannot believe you. Such a beautiful proclamation as itwas."
"Well, go down to Alsace, and you will see."
The poor creatures went on, shaking their heads in extreme indignation,and he laughed slyly.
The farther Materne advanced, the number of herds became greater.There were not only troops of cattle bellowing and lowing, but flocksof geese, as far as the eye could reach, screeching and cackling,dragging themselves along the road with wings spread and half-frozenfeet: it was piteous to see.
It was worse still on approaching Schirmeck. The people were flying incrowds, with their great wagons loaded with barrels, smoked meats,furniture, women and children. They were lashing their horses almostto death on the road, and screaming in terrified voices: "We are lost;the Cossacks are coming."
The cry of "The Cossacks! the Cossacks!" ran along the whole line likea puff of wind; the women turned round open-mouthed, and the childrenstood up on the wagons to get a better view. You never beheld anythinglike it before; and Materne, angered, blushed for the terror of thesepeople, who might have defended themselves; while selfishness and theirdesire to save their property, made them fly like cowards.
At the crossing of the Fond-des-Saules quite close to Schirmeck, Kasperand Frantz rejoined their father, and the three entered the "GoldenKey" tavern, kept by the Widow Faltaux, on the right side of the road.The poor woman and her two daughters were watching from a window thegreat migration with streaming eyes and clasped hands.
In fact, the tumult increased every minute; the cattle, wagons, andpeople seemed eager to get away over each other's shoulders. They nolonger had any command of themselves: they were howling and strikingabout them in their desire to escape.
Materne pushed the door open, and seeing the women more dead thanalive, white and dishevelled, he shouted, striking his stick on theground: "What, mother, have you too gone mad? What! you, who owe agood example to your daughters,--have you lost courage? it is a shame."
The old woman turned round and said in a broken voice: "Ah, my poorMaterne, if you only knew--if you only knew!"
"Well, what then? The enemy is coming: they won't eat you."
"No; but they devour everything without mercy. Old Ursula, ofSchlestadt, came here yesterday evening. She says that the Austriansonly want 'Knoepfe' and 'Nudel,' the Russians 'Schnapps,' and theBavarians 'Sauerkraut.' And when they have stuffed all that down theirthroats, they cry out with their mouths still full, 'Schocolat!schocolat!' O Lord, how can we feed all these people?"
"I know well that is difficult," said the old hunter: "you can neversatisfy a jay with white cheese. But, first of all, where are theseCossacks, these Bavarians, these Austrians? All the way fromGrandfontaine we have not met even one."
"They are in Alsace, on the Urmatt side, and they are coming here."
"While waiting for them," said Kasper, "give us a bottle of wine. Hereis a three-crown piece: you will hide it easier than your barrels."
One of the girls went to the cellar, and, at the same time, severalother persons entered: an almanac-seller from Strasbourg, a wagonerfrom Sarrebrueck in a blouse, and two or three townspeople from Hutzig,Wisch, and Schirmeck, who were flying with their herds, and wereexhausted with shouting.
All sat down at the same table, before the windows overlooking theroad. Wine was served them, and each began to relate what he knew.One said the allies were in such numbers that they had to sleep side byside in the valley of Hirschenthal, and they were so covered withvermin that, after their departure, the dead leaves walked ofthemselves in the woods; another, that the Cossacks had set fire to avillage in Alsace, because they had been refused candles for dessertafter dinner; that some of them, especially the Calmucks, ate soap likecheese and bacon-rind like cake; that many drank brandy by the pint,after having taken care to season it with handfuls of pepper; and thatit was necessary to hide everything from them, for nothing came amissto them for eating and drinking.
The wagoner said, at this point, that three days before, a Russiancorps-d'armee having passed the night under the ramparts of Bitsch, ithad been compelled to remain more than an hour on the ice in the littlevillage of Rorbach, and that the whole of this army corps had drunk outof a warming-pan left on the window-sill of an old woman's house; thatthis race of savages broke the ice to bathe, and afterward crept intothe brick-kilns to dry; lastly, that they only feared Corporal Knout.
These worthy folks communicated such singular things to each other,which they pretended to have seen with their own eyes, or heard fromtrustworthy sources, that one could with difficulty believe them.
Outside, the tumult, rolling of wagons, lowing of herds, shouts of thedrivers, and clamors of the fugitives, continued unceasingly, andproduced the effect of a vast murmur.
Toward noon Materne and his sons were going to leave, when a moreprolonged shout than any of the others was heard: "The Cossacks! theCossacks!"
Then everybody rushed outside, except the hunters, who contentedthemselves with opening a window and looking out: they all ran awayacross the fields: men, herds, wagons and all, were dispersed likeleaves in autumn. In less than two minutes the road was deserted,except in Schirmeck, which was so encumbered, that it would have beenimpossible to walk four steps. Materne, gazing far away along theroad, cried, "I look in vain--I can see nothing."
"Nor do I," rejoined Kasper.
"Come, come," cried the old hunter, "I see clearly that the fear of allthese people gives more strength to the enemy than he in factpossesses. It is not in such a way we shall receive the Cossacks inthe mountains; they will find who they have to deal with."
Then, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of disgust, he said:"Fear is an odious thing, and after all we have only one poor life tolose. Let us go."
They quitted the inn, and the old man having taken the road to thevalley, in order to climb the summit of the Hirschberg in front ofthem, his sons followed him. They soon reached the outskirts of thewood, when Materne said that they must mount as high as possible, so asto see the whole plain, and bring back some positive news to thebivouac; that all the accounts of those cowards were not worth one goodlook by themselves.
Kasper and Frantz agreed, and all three began to climb the slope, whichforms a sort of advanced promontory commanding the plain. When theyreached the peak they distinctly saw the enemy's position, threeleagues distant, between Urmatt and Lutzelhouse. They formed greatblack lines on the snow: farther off were a few dark masses--no doubt,the artillery and baggage. Other masses surrounded the villages, and,notwithstanding the distance, the sparkling of the bayonets announcedthat a column had just commenced marching toward Visch.
After having contemplated this spectacle in silence for some minutes,the old man said, "We have decidedly thirty thousand men under oureyes. They are advancing in our direction; we shall be attackedto-morrow, or the day after at the latest. It will not be a trumperyaffair, my boys; but if they are numerous we have the best of theposition. And then it is always agreeable to fire into a heap; thereare no balls lost."
Having made these judicious reflections, he looked at the height of thesun, and added: "It is now two o'clock; we know all we want. Let usreturn to the bivouac."
The youths slung their carbines crossways, and leaving to their leftthe valley of the Brocque, Schirmeck, and Framont, they climbed thesteep banks of the Hengsbach, which overlook the Little Donon--twoleagues distant--and came down again on the other side, withoutfollowing any regular path through the snow, and only guidingthemselves by the peaks in order to take a short cut.
They continued thus for about two hours: the winter sun was going downto the horizon, night was approaching, bright and calm. They had nowonly to descend, and then mount, o
Suddenly, as they were coming out from the underwood, not dreaming ofanything, the old man, stopping behind a thick screen of shrubs, said"Chut!" and lifting his hand, pointed to the little lake, which wascovered with thin clear ice.
The two young fellows needed only to glance toward it to be greeted bya most strange sight. About twenty Cossacks, with yellow shaggybeards, heads covered with old fur caps in the shape of stove-pipes,their lean legs draped in long rags, and their feet in rope stirrups,were seated on their little horses, with long floating manes and thintails, their bodies speckled yellow, black and white, like goats. Somehad for their only weapon a long lance, others a sword, others an axesuspended by a cord to their saddle, and a large horse-pistol passedthrough their belts. Several were looking upward with ecstasy on thegreen tops of the pines, rising by stages above each other into theclouds. One great lanky fellow had broken the ice with the butt-end ofhis lance; and his little horse was drinking with outstretched neck andoverhanging mane. A few having dismounted, were clearing the snow andpointing to the wood--no doubt to indicate that it was a good place forencamping. Their comrades on horseback were conversing and pointing tothe bottom of the valley on their right, which descends in the form ofa gap toward Grinderwald.
Anyway it was a halt. It is impossible to describe the strange andpicturesque aspect of these fellows from a strange country, with theircopper-colored faces, long beards, black eyes, flat heads, squat noses,and grayish tatters, on the banks of this lake, under the loftyperpendicular rocks lifting up their green pines to the skies.
It seemed a new world in ours,--a sort of unknown and strange game,which the three red hunters at first contemplated with intenseinterest. Having remained so for about five minutes, Kasper and Frantzfixed their long bayonets at the muzzle of their carbines, and thenretired about twenty paces into the underwood. They reached a rock,fifteen or twenty feet high, which Materne climbed, having no arms;then, after a few words exchanged in whispers, Kasper examined hispriming and raised his musket slowly to his shoulder, while his brotherstood by in readiness.
One of the Cossacks--he who was letting his horse drink--was about twohundred paces from them. The gun went off, awakening the deep echoesof the gorge; and the Cossack, spinning over his horse's head, plungedthrough the ice of the lake.
It is impossible to describe the stupor of the party at this report.They looked round them in every direction: the echo replied as thoughit had been a general fusillade; while a puff of smoke rose above theclump of trees where the hunters were hiding.
Kasper had reloaded his piece in a moment; but in the same space oftime the dismounted Cossacks had bounded on their horses, and all tookflight over the slope of the Hartz, one after the other, like roebucks,screaming wildly, "Hourah! hourah!"
This flight was but the work of a moment: the instant Kasper took aimfor the second time, the tail of the last horse disappeared in thebushes.
The horse of the dead Cossack alone remained at the water's edge, heldthere by a singular circumstance: his master, whose head and part ofwhose body was in the water, had his foot still in the stirrup.
Materne listened from his rock, then said joyously--"They are gone!Well, let us go and see. Frantz, remain here. Suppose any of themshould return----?"
Notwithstanding this recommendation, they all three approached near thehorse. Materne immediately took the bridle, saying:--"Come, oldfellow, we are going to teach you to speak French."
"Let us be off," exclaimed Kasper.
"No, we must see what we have shot. Don't you see that will be goodfor our comrades? Dogs who have not sniffed the skin of the game arenever well trained."
Whereupon they fished the Cossack out of the pool, and having placedhim across the horse, began to climb the side of the Donon by such asteep path, that Materne repeated, a hundred times at least,--"Thehorse will never go up there." But the horse, with its long goat-likelegs, passed more easily than they did; so that the old hunter wound upby remarking--"These Cossacks have famous horses. If ever I grow old,I will keep him to go after the deer with. We have a famous horse, myboys; with all his look of a cow, he is strong as a cart-horse."
From time to time he also made reflections on the Cossack:--"What aqueer face, eh! A round nose and a forehead like a cheese-box. Thereare certainly queer folks in the world! Thou hast hit him well,Kasper; right in the middle of the chest. And look! the ball came outat the back. Capital powder! Dives always keeps good articles."
Toward six they heard the first shout of their sentinels: "Who goesthere?"
"France," replied Materne, advancing.
Everybody ran to meet them. "Here is Materne!"
Hullin himself was as curious as the rest, and could not help hasteningtoward them with Doctor Lorquin. The partisans were soon collectedround the horse, with outstretched necks and open mouths, by the sideof a large fire where the supper was cooking.
"It is a Cossack," said Hullin, squeezing Materne's hand.
"Yes, Jean-Claude; we caught him at the pond of Kiel: it was Kasper whoshot him."
They stretched the corpse out near the fire. His yellow face hadstrange shadows on it in the firelight.
Doctor Lorquin, having looked at him, said: "It is a fine specimen ofthe Tartar race; if I had time, I should put it in a lime-bath, so asto obtain a skeleton of this tribe."
He then knelt down, and opening the long tunic,--"The ball hastraversed the pericardium, and has produced almost the same effect asaneurism of the heart."
The others kept silence.
Kasper, with his hand on the muzzle of his rifle, seemed quitecontented with his game; and old Materne, rubbing his hands, said: "Iwas sure I would bring you back something: my boys and I never returnempty-handed. There now!"
Hullin then pulled him aside. They entered the farm together, andafter the first surprise was over, every man began to make his ownpersonal reflections on the Cossack.