The Invasion of France in 1814 by Erckmann-Chatrian
CHAPTER XIX
GASPARD'S LETTER
Toward two o'clock the next morning, snow began to fall. At daybreakthe Germans had left Grandfontaine, Framont, and even Schirmeck. Inthe distance, on the plains of Alsace, could be seen the black lines,which indicated their retreating battalions.
Hullin arose early and made the round of the bivouacs. He stopped fora few seconds on the plateau, to look at the cannons in position, thesleeping partisans, and the watchful sentries; then, satisfied with hisinspection, he re-entered the farm, where Louise and Catherine werestill asleep.
The gray light was spreading everywhere. A few wounded in the nextroom were growing feverish; they were calling for their wives andchildren. Soon the hum of voices and the noise of busy feet broke thestillness of the night. Catherine and Louise awoke. They sawJean-Claude sitting in a corner of the window watching them, andashamed of having slept longer than he, they arose and approached him.
"Well?" asked Catherine.
"Well, they have left; and we are masters of the field, as I expected."
This assurance did not appear to satisfy the old dame. She lookedthrough the window to see for herself that the Germans were retreatinginto Alsace; and during the whole of that day she seemed both anxiousand troubled.
Between eight and nine the cure Saumaize came in from the village ofCharmes. Some mountaineers then descended the slopes to pick up thedead, and dug a deep pit to the right of the farm, where partisans and"kaiserlichs," with their clothes, hats, shakos, and uniforms, werelaid side by side. The cure Saumaize, a tall old man with white hair,read the prayers for the dead in that solemn, mysterious voice whichseems to penetrate to the depths of one's soul, and to summon from thetomb the spirits of extinct generations to attest to the living theterrors of the grave.
All day carts and sledges continued to arrive to carry away thewounded, who demanded, with loud cries, to be allowed to see theirvillages once more. Doctor Lorquin, fearing to increase theirirritation, was forced to consent. And toward four o'clock, Catherineand Hullin were alone in the great room: Louise had gone out to preparethe supper. Outside, large flakes of snow continued to fall, and, fromtime to time, a sledge might be seen silently passing along, bearing awounded man laid in straw. Catherine, seated near the table, wasfolding bandages with an absent air.
"What ails you, Catherine?" demanded Hullin. "You have seemed sothoughtful since morning: and yet our affairs are going on well."
The old dame, pushing the linen slowly away from her, replied,--"Yes,Jean-Claude, I am uneasy."
"Uneasy about what? The enemy is in full retreat. Only this moment,Frantz Materne, whom I had sent to reconnoitre, and all the messengersfrom Piorette, Jerome, and Labarbe, told me that the Germans arereturning to Mutzig. Old Materne and Kasper, having gathered up thedead, learned at Grandfontaine that nothing is to be seen in thedirection of Saint-Blaize-la-Roche. All this proves that our Spanishdragoons gave the enemy a warm reception on the way to Senones, andthat they fear an attack from Schirmeck. What is it, then, Catherine,that troubles you?"
And seeing that Hullin looked at her inquiringly, "You may laugh atme," said she; "but I have had a dream."
"A dream?"
"Yes, the same as at the farm of Bois-de-Chenes." And gettinganimated, she continued, in an almost angry tone, "You may say what youlike, Jean-Claude, but a great danger menaces us. Yes, yes! you don'tsee any sense in all this; but it was not a dream, it was like an oldtale which comes back to one: something one sees in sleep andremembers. Listen! We were as we are now, after a great victory--insome place--I don't know where--in a sort of large wooden shed, withbeams across it, and palisades around. We were not thinking ofanything: all the faces I saw I knew: you were among them, Marc Dives,Duchene, and old men already dead: my father and old Hugues Rochart ofHarberg, the uncle of him who has just died: and they all had coarsegray cloth blouses, with long beards and bare necks. We had won a likevictory, and were drinking out of red earthenware pots, when a cryarose: 'The enemy is coming!' And Yegof, on horseback, with his longbeard and pointed crown, an axe in his hand, and with his eyes gleaminglike a wolf's, appeared before me in the darkness. I rushed on himwith a club, he waited for me--and from that moment I saw no more. Ionly felt a great pain in my neck; a cold wind passed over my face, andmy head seemed to be dangling at the end of a cord: it was thatwretched Yegof who had hung my head to his saddle and was gallopingaway!"
There was a short pause; and then Jean-Claude, rousing from his stupor,replied: "It is a dream. I also have had dreams. Yesterday you wereagitated, Catherine, by all that tumult, that noise."
"No," she exclaimed in a firm tone, taking up her task again: "no, itwas not that. And to tell you the truth, during the battle, and evenwhen, the cannons were thundering against us, I was not afraid; I wascertain beforehand that we should not be beaten; I had seen it longago. But now I am afraid."
"But the Germans have evacuated Schirmeck; the whole line of the Vosgesis defended. We have more men than we need; they are coming everyminute in great numbers."
"No matter."
Hullin shrugged his shoulders.
"Come, come! you are feverish, Catherine; try to be calm, and think ofpleasanter things. As for all these dreams, you see, I make no moreaccount of them than I do of the Grand Turk, with his pipe and bluestockings. The chief thing is to keep a good look-out, and to haveplenty of ammunition, men, and guns: that is infinitely better than themost rose-colored dreams."
"You are mocking me, Jean-Claude."
"No; but to hear a sensible, courageous woman speak as you do, remindsone in spite of himself of Yegof, who pretends to have lived sixteenhundred years ago."
"Who knows?" said the old woman, in an obstinate tone; "it is possiblehe may remember what others have forgotten."
Hullin was going to relate to her his conversation of the eveningbefore at the bivouac-fire with the madman, thus hoping to overthrowall her gloomy fancies; but seeing she agreed with Yegof about thesixteen hundred years, the worthy man said no more, but resumed hiswalk up and down, with his head bent and an anxious face: "She is mad,"thought he; "one more shock and it is all over with her!"
Catherine after a pause was going to speak, when Louise entered like aswallow, calling out, in her sweetest voice, "Maman Lefevre, MamanLefevre, a letter from Gaspard!"
Whereupon the old farm-wife, whose hooked nose almost touched her lips,so angry was she to see Hullin turning her dream into ridicule, raisedher head, the long wrinkles in her face relaxing.
She took the letter, looked at the red seal, and said to the younggirl: "Embrace me, Louise: it is a good letter!" And Louise at onceembraced her with joy.
Hullin came close up to them, delighted at this incident; and thepostman Brainstein, his big boots dyed red with the snow, his two handson his stick, and drooping his shoulders, stationed himself at the doorwith a tired look.
The old dame put on her spectacles, slowly opened the letter under theimpatient eyes of Jean-Claude and Louise, and read aloud:--
"This, my mother, is to announce to you that all goes well, and that Ireached Phalsbourg on Tuesday evening just as the gates were beingclosed. The Cossacks were already on the Saverne road; we had to fireall night against their advanced guard. The following day, an envoywas sent demanding the surrender of the place. The commandant,Meunier, told him to go and be hanged; and three days after greatshowers of bombs and shells began to rain upon the town. The Russianshave three batteries--one on the side of Hittelbronn, the other at theBaraques above, and the third behind the tilery of Pernette near thedrinking-tank; but the red-hot shot do us the most harm: they burn downthe houses, and when a fire has broken out the bombs then come inquantities and prevent the people from extinguishing it. The women andchildren do not leave the block-houses; the townsmen remain with us onthe ramparts: they are fine fellows. Among them are some old soldiersof the Sambre-et-Meuse, Italy, and Egypt, who have not forgotten how tomanage the gun
"Yes, it is hard," exclaimed Catherine, drying her eyes. "Only tothink of it makes one's heart bleed."
Then she continued:--
"The day before yesterday, the governor decided on our making a sortieagainst the tile-kiln battery. You must know that these Russians breakthe ice of the tank, and bathe in it, in groups of from twenty tothirty; afterward drying themselves in the oven of the brick-kiln.Well! about four o'clock, as the day was closing, we went out by theArsenal gateway, ascending the covered way, and filing along theAllee-des-Vaches, with our muskets under our arms, and marching at thedouble. Ten minutes after we commenced a rolling fire on the men thatwere in the tank. Then their comrades rushed out of the brick-kilns:they had only time to put on their cartouche-boxes, seize theirmuskets, and form, all naked as they were, on the snow, like regularsavages. Notwithstanding that, the rogues were ten times more numerousthan we, and they began a movement to the right, in the direction ofthe little chapel of St. John, in order to surround us, when the gunsfrom the Arsenal began to send such a storm of shot at them as I neversaw before; it carried whole files clean off. A quarter of an hourlater they retreated in a body to Quatre-Vents, without waiting to pickup their breeches--their officers at their head, and the hail from thefortress bringing up the rear. Papa Jean-Claude would have laughed atthe rout immensely. At last, toward nightfall, we returned to thetown, having destroyed one of their batteries and thrown twoeight-pounders into the well of the kiln. It was our first sortie. Iam now writing to you from the Baraques du Bois-de-Chenes, where wehave been sent to get provisions for the fortress. All this may lastmonths. It is said that the allies are reascending the valley ofDosenheim as far as Weschem, and that thousands of them are marching onParis. Oh, if the Emperor once obtained the upper hand in Lorraine andChampagne, not one of them would escape! But who lives will see. Theyare sounding the retreat on Phalsbourg. We have collected a prettygood number of oxen, cows, and goats about here; but shall have tofight in order to get them in safely. Good-by, my good mother, mydearest Louise, and Papa Jean-Claude. I embrace you as though I heldyou in my arms."
At the close of the letter, Catherine Lefevre was overwhelmed withemotion.
"What a brave boy!" said she. "He only knows his duty. There! thouhearest, Louise? He embraces thee!"
Louise then throwing herself into her arms, they embraced each other;and Catherine, notwithstanding the firmness of her character, could notkeep back two large tears from trickling down her cheeks; then,recovering herself, "Come," said she, "all is well! Come, Brainstein,you must eat some meat and drink a glass of wine. And here is acrown-piece for your journey; I would give you the same sum every dayof the week for such a letter."
The postman, delighted with his present, followed the old dame. Louisewalked after them, and Jean-Claude, also, being eager to interrogateBrainstein as to what he had learnt on the road, touching the eventstaking place; but he could get nothing new out of him, except that theallies were besieging Bitsche and Lutzelstein, and that they had lostsome hundreds of men in trying to force the Graufthal pass.