French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
< < < PART II Chapter VIII
Chapter II > > >
PART III
WOE TO THE VANQUISHED!
Chapter I
SILVINE’S QUEST—AMONG THE SLAIN
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.
Silvine glanced around her with astonished eyes, anxious at finding that she also felt refreshed and almost happy. Why should this secluded nook wear such an aspect of peaceful felicity when all was mourning and suffering around it? She made a despairing, eager gesture. ‘Quick! quick! let us get on. Where is it? Where did you see Honoré?’
Fifty yards farther on, as they at last arrived at the plateau of Illy, the level plain suddenly spread itself out before them. This time they had come to the real battlefield, the bare expanse of country stretching away to the horizon under the great wan sky, whence frequent showers were streaming. No heaps of dead were to be seen. All the Germans must have been already buried, for not one of them remained among the scattered corpses of the French strewn along the roads, over the stubbles, and in the hollows, according to the phases of the struggle. The first corpse they came upon was that of a sergeant, a superb, sturdy young fellow whose face was peaceful, with parted lips which seemed to be smiling. A hundred paces farther on, however, they saw another corpse lying across the road and this was frightfully mutilated, with the head half carried away and the shoulders splashed with brain-matter. Then, after passing the solitary corpses, they came upon little clusters of dead here and there. They saw seven kneeling in a line, with their guns raised to their shoulders, who had been shot dead whilst in the act of firing; whilst near them had fallen a non-commissioned officer in the posture of one giving the word of command. The road then followed a narrow ravine, and horror again took possession of them, for an entire company seemed to have fallen here, annihilated by shrapnel. The trench-like hollow was filled with bodies, men who had slipped, toppled over, and become entangled together, some with severed limbs, and others with twisted hands, which had clawed the yellow bank in their futile efforts to save themselves from falling. A black band of crows flew away as Silvine and Prosper approached; and swarms of flies were already buzzing over the bodies, flocking to the spot in thousands, all eager to drink the fresh blood flowing from the wounds.
‘Where is it, where is it?’ repeated Silvine.
They were now skirting a ploughed field covered with knapsacks, of which some regiment, hard pressed by the enemy, must have rid itself in a fit of panic. The débris strewing the soil indicated various episodes of the struggle. Scattered képis looking like large poppies with shreds of uniforms, epaulettes and belts, all covering a field of beets, denoted a fierce hand-to-hand encounter, one of the few close tussles engaged in during that formidable artillery duel which had lasted for twelve long hours. But it was more particularly against broken or abandoned weapons that one stumbled at almost every step—sabres, bayonets, chassepots, in such great numbers that they seemed as it were the fruit of the earth, a crop that had sprouted from the soil on some day of abomination. Pans and cans also littered the roadways, together with all sorts of things that had fallen from the rent knapsacks—rice, brushes, and cartridges. And field followed field amid the same immense devastation, fences torn down, trees scorched as though they had been set on fire, the very soil furrowed by the shells, or so trodden underfoot, so hardened, so ravaged by the gallop of masses of men, that it seemed as though it must for evermore remain unproductive. And while the rain blurred everything with its wan moisture, a persistent smell arose, the smell peculiar to battlefields, which stink of fermenting straw and burning cloth, a commingling of filth and gunpowder.
Weary of these fields of death, through leagues and leagues of which it seemed to her she had been marching, Silvine gazed around her with growing anguish; ‘Where is it? where is it, then?’
But no answer came from Prosper, who was growing uneasy. For his own part, he was upset less by the sight of his dead comrades than by that of the horses, the poor horses prone on their sides, such numbers of which they encountered. Some were really pitiable to see, lying in frightful postures with heads torn off and flanks ripped open, giving egress to their entrails. Several, stretched upon their backs and displaying their huge bellies, upreared their four stiffened legs like posts. The boundless plain was quite bumpy with these stricken steeds. Some of them were not yet dead though they had been in agony for two days past; and at the faintest sound, they raised their pain-racked heads, wagging them to right and left, and then letting them fall again; whilst others, remaining motionless, gave vent at times to a loud call, that plaint of the dying horse, so peculiar, so frightfully dolorous, that the very atmosphere quivered at the sound. And Prosper, with his heart lacerated, bethought himself of Zephyr, fancying that he would perhaps see him again.
All at once he felt the ground shaking as under the gallop of a furious charge. He looked round, and barely had time to call to his companion: ‘The horses! the horses! Run behind that wall!’
A hundred chargers or so, all riderless, and some still laden with heavy kits, were rushing from the summit of a neighbouring slope, rolling towards them at a hellish pace. These were the mounts which had lost their riders in the fight Remaining on the field, they had instinctively collected together, and having neither hay nor straw, they had for a couple of days past been cropping the scanty grass, pulling the hedges to pieces, and gnawing the bark of the trees. And now, whenever hunger pricked them like a spur, they started off all together at a mad gallop, and charged across the blank, silent country, crushing the dead, and finishing off the wounded.
The herd was drawing near, and Silvine only had time to pull the donkey and the little cart behind the low wall: ‘Good heavens! they will break everything!’
The horses, however, had leapt the barrier; there was merely a roll of thunder as it were, and then they were galloping off, plunging into a hollow road which stretched away to the verge of a wood, behind which they disappeared.
Having led the donkey back into the track, Silvine insisted upon Prosper answering her: ‘Come, where is it?’
Turning and surveying the horizon on every side, he answered: ‘There were three trees—I must find them—a fellow doesn’t see very clearly, you know, when he’s fighting, and it isn’t easy afterwards to find out the road one took.’
Then, on perceiving some people on his left, two men and a woman, it occurred to him to question them. But the woman fled at his approach, and the men warned him away with threatening gestures. Others whom he saw, clad in sordid garments, inexpressibly filthy, and with the suspicious-looking faces of bandits, were careful to avoid him, slinking away between the bushes like crawling, crafty animals. And on noticing that the dead, in the rear of these evil-looking men, were shoeless, displaying their bare white feet in the grey light, he ended by realising that these prowlers were some of the tramps following the hostile armies, plunderers of corpses, predatory German Jews, who had entered France in the wake of the invasion. One tall, thin fellow darted away ahead of him at a gallop, with a sack burdening his shoulders, and stolen silver and stolen watches jingling in his pockets.
A lad of thirteen or fourteen allowed Prosper to approach him, however, and protested loudly when the Chasseur, finding that he was French, began overwhelming him with reproaches: What! couldn’t a chap earn his living, then? For his part, he was simply picking up chassepots, and received five sous for each one that he found. That same morning, having fled from his village with his stomach empty since the previous day, he had hired himself out to a man from Luxemburg who had contracted with the Prussians to collect the rifles scattered over the battlefield. The Germans, indeed, feared that if the weapons were picked up by the frontier peasants, they would be carried off into Belgium, and sent back into France by another route, and thus quite a crowd of poor devils was now hunting for the guns, seeking for so many five-sous, rummaging among the herbage, like the peasant-women who may be seen bending double in the meadows whilst searching the grass for dandelions.
‘A dirty trade!’ Prosper growled.
‘Well, a chap must eat,’ the youngster answered. ‘I’m not robbing anyone.’
Then, as he did not belong to that district, and could not give any information, he pointed out a little farmhouse, near by, where he had seen some people a short time before. Prosper thanked him and was going off to join Silvine again, when he caught sight of a chassepot half buried in a furrow. His first thought was to say nothing about it, but all at once he retraced his steps, and despite himself exclaimed: ‘Hi! there’s one here, that will make five sous more for you.’
As they drew near to the farm, Silvine noticed some other peasants who were digging a long trench with picks and spades. These were immediately under the orders of German officers, who, with nothing more formidable than switches in their hands, stood by, stiff and silent, watching the work. The inhabitants of all the surrounding villages had in this way been requisitioned to bury the dead; for it was feared that the rainy weather would hasten the mortification of the corpses. Near the trench were two carts laden with dead bodies, which a gang of men was removing and swiftly depositing in the cavity, placing them side by side in serried array, and without troubling to search their garments or even to look at their faces. And in the rear of the first party three other men, provided with large shovels, were covering the row of corpses with a layer of earth, so thin and scanty, however, that it was already cracking under the action of the rain. So hastily and carelessly was the work done, indeed, that before a fortnight was over a pestilence would be rising from every chink. Silvine could not resist halting beside the trench and gazing at the poor wretches who were laid in it. She was shuddering with a horrible fear, an idea that she recognised Honoré in each blood-smeared face that her eyes fell upon. Was not that he—that unfortunate fellow who had lost his left eye, or that other one, perhaps, with the broken jaw? If she did not speedily find him on that endless, indefinite plateau, he would assuredly be taken from her beyond power of recovery, and buried all of a heap with the others. Accordingly she ran off to join Prosper, who had gone on to the farm-gate with the donkey: ‘Good Lord, where is it, then? Ask, question the people!’
Apart, however, from a servant-woman and her child who had made their way back from the woods, where they had almost perished of hunger and thirst, there were only some Prussian soldiers at the farm. It was a nook suggestive of patriarchal simplicity, of honest rest following upon the fatigues of the past few days. Some of the Germans were carefully brushing their tunics, which they had hung on the clothes-lines. Another, skilful with his needle, had almost finished darning a hole in his trousers; whilst in the middle of the courtyard the cook of the party had lighted a large fire, on which the evening repast was boiling in a huge pot, which exhaled a pleasant smell of bacon and cabbage. The conquest was already being organised with perfect tranquillity and discipline. These men, smoking their long pipes, might have passed for peaceful civilians who had just returned home. On a bench at the door a brawny, carroty-haired fellow had taken the servant’s child—a little chap of five or six—in his arms, and was dandling him playfully, speaking German words of endearment to him, vastly amused to see the urchin laugh at this harsh-syllabled foreign language which he did not understand.
Prosper, however, at once turned his back upon the farm for fear of some fresh mishap. But these Prussians were evidently good-natured fellows; they smiled at sight of the little moke, and did not even trouble to ask for the laissez-passer.
Then came a wild march. On the sun appearing for a moment between two clouds they saw that it was already low on the horizon. Would night fall and surprise them in that endless charnel-place? Then a fresh shower obscured the sun, and all around them there remained but the pale infinitude of rain, a fine spray which blotted out everything, the roads, the fields, and the trees. The donkey was still trotting at the same slow pace behind them, carrying his head low, and dragging the little cart along with the resigned gait of a docile animal. They went northward, they came back towards Sedan, no longer knowing what direction they were taking; and twice they retraced their steps on recognising certain spots which they had previously passed. They were doubtless going round and round; and at last, overcome by despair and exhaustion, they halted at a crossway where three roads met, and stood there in the pelting downpour, lacking both strength of mind and body to pursue their search any farther.
To their surprise, however, they suddenly heard some groans, and on trudging as far as a lonely cottage, on their left, they found two wounded men lying in a room. All the doors were open, and these men had seen nobody, not a soul, during the two days that they had been lying there, shivering with fever, and without even having their wounds dressed. Thirst was consuming them, torturing them the more acutely as the rain was streaming all around them, and they could hear it pattering loudly on the window-panes. Neither could move, and both at once raised a cry of ‘Water! water!’ that distressful, longing cry with which the wounded always pursue the passer-by whenever the faintest sound of steps rouses them from their lethargy.
When Silvine had brought them some water, Prosper, who in the more severely wounded of the two men had recognised a comrade, a Chasseur d’Afrique of his own regiment, realised that they could not be far from the ground over which Margueritte’s division had charged. He questioned the poor fellow, who, with a vague wave of the arm, ended by answering affirmatively, ‘It was over yonder, on the left, after passing a large field of lucern.’ Provided with this information, Silvine wished to start off again at once. Some men were passing, picking up the dead, and having called to them in order that they might come to succour the two wounded soldiers, she took hold of the donkey’s bridle and began dragging the animal over the slippery ground, all eagerness to make her way yonder past that field of lucern.
All at once Prosper halted. ‘It must be hereabouts. Look! there are the three trees on the right. Do you see the ruts too? And yonder there’s a broken caisson. We’ve reached the spot at last.’
Quivering from head to foot, Silvine darted forward and examined two corpses, two artillerymen who had fallen by the wayside. ‘But he’s not here, he’s not here!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must have made a mistake. Yes, you must have fancied it, your eyes must have deceived you.’
Little by little a mad hope, a delirious joy was gaining upon her. ‘Suppose you were mistaken. What if he should be alive? And of course he must be alive since he’s not here.’
But, all at once, she groaned aloud. Turning round, she had found herself on the very spot where the battery had been established. The scene was a frightful one, the ground cut up and rent as by an earthquake, with wreckage lying all around, and corpses thrown upon their stomachs, their backs, their sides, in horrifying postures; their arms twisted, their legs doubled under them, their heads askew, their white teeth showing in their mouths, which howling had distended. A corporal had expired with both hands pressed upon his eyelids in a paroxysm of fright, as though to shut out all view of what was happening. Some gold coins, which a lieutenant had carried in a belt about his body, had fallen from it, oozing forth with his blood, and lay scattered among his bowels. The two chums, Adolphe the driver, and Louis the gun-layer, with their eyes protruding from their sockets, were still clasped in a fierce embrace, one atop of the other, coupled even in death. And at last there was Honoré, lying upon his crippled gun as on a bed of honour, struck both in the flank and the shoulder, but with his face unscathed and handsome with its expression of anger, whilst his eyes were still turned in the direction of those Prussian batteries yonder.
‘Oh! my friend,’ sobbed Silvine, ‘my friend!’
She had fallen upon her knees on the drenched ground, with clasped hands, in an outburst of mad grief. That name of friend, the only one that came to her lips, told of all the affection she had lost in losing that excellent young fellow, so good, so kind, who had forgiven her and consented, despite everything, to make her his wife. And now her hope was ended, her life was over. Never had she loved another, never would she cease to love him. The rain was abating, and a flock of crows whirling and croaking above the three trees, alarmed her like a threat of evil. Did they want to take him from her once more, that dear one, dead, alas! whom she had only found again with so much difficulty? She had dragged herself to him, on her knees, and was driving away the greedy flies that buzzed above his blankly staring eyes, whose glance she still obstinately sought.
But her anxiety took another turn when between Honoré’s clenched fingers she espied some blood-stained paper. With gentle jerks, she tried to pull it from him; but the dead man would not release it, his fingers grasped it so tightly that it could only have been torn from him in shreds. It was the letter he had preserved under his shirt, against his skin, the letter she had written to him, which he had thus pressed as in a farewell clasp, amid the final throes of his agony. And when she had recognised it, there stole through all her affliction a profound and penetrating joy. She was quite overcome on finding that he had died thinking of her. Yes, most certainly, she would leave that dear letter in his hand, she would make no further effort to take it from him since he was so stubbornly bent on carrying it with him to the grave. A fresh flow of tears relieved her: warm, gentle tears were these. She had risen to her feet and she kissed his hands, she kissed his brow, repeating ever the same infinitely loving word: ‘My friend—my friend.’
Meanwhile, however, the sun was sinking, and Prosper had gone to fetch the blanket, which he spread upon the ground. Then, slowly, reverently, they both raised Honoré’s body, laid it on the blanket, and carried it, wrapped in the folds of the covering, to the little cart. The rain was already threatening again, and, mournful little cortège that they formed, they were starting off once more across that accursed plain, when all at once they heard a rolling, rumbling noise, as of thunder. Then again did Prosper call: ‘The horses! the horses!’
It was another charge of those famished, wandering cavalry mounts which had remained at large. They were approaching this time over a vast level stretch of stubble, in a deep mass, with their manes streaming in the wind and their nostrils covered with foam; and an oblique ray of the red sun threw the shadow of their frantic gallop clean across the plateau to its farther end. Silvine had immediately sprung in front of the cart, her arms uplifted, as though to stop them, with a gesture of furious affright. Fortunately, some rising ground turned them aside and they swerved to the left, otherwise they must have crushed everything. The ground fairly shook beneath their mad scamper, and their hoofs sent the stones flying like grape-shot, one pebble wounding the little donkey on the head. Then they were lost to view in the depths of a ravine.
‘It’s hunger that makes them gallop like that,’ said Prosper. ‘Poor animals!’
Having bandaged the donkey’s head with her handkerchief, Silvine again took hold of the bridle and the dismal little cortège once more traversed the plateau on its return journey of a couple of leagues or so to Remilly. At every few steps Prosper halted to gaze at the dead horses, his heart heavy at the thought of going off like that, without having again seen Zephyr.
A little below the wood of La Garenne, they were turning to the left with the intention of taking the road they had followed in the morning, when a German outpost demanded their laissez-passer, and instead of turning them away from Sedan ordered them to pass through the town under penalty of being arrested. There was no questioning this new order, besides it shortened the journey by a mile and a half, which they were glad of, weary as they felt in every limb.
Inside Sedan, however, their progress was greatly impeded. As soon as they were within the fortifications they found themselves in a foul atmosphere reeking with filth. For three days the town had been the cesspool of a hundred thousand men; and to complete the insufferable stench there were the carcases of the horses, which had been slaughtered and cut up on the various open spaces, and whose entrails were now rotting in the sunlight, their heads, their bones lying here and there about the pavements and swarming with flies. A pestilence would assuredly break out if proper diligence were not shown in sweeping into the sewers all those horrible beds of manure which in the Rue du Ménil, the Rue Maqua, and even on the Place Turenne were a quarter of a yard high. As it happened, printed notices placarded by the German authorities already requisitioned the inhabitants for the following day, ordering all of them, no matter what their position might be, workmen, shopkeepers, merchants, and magistrates, to assemble with brooms and shovels and set about this necessary work, under threat of heavy penalties if the town were not clean by the evening. And the chief judge of the local court was already to be seen at his door, scraping the pavement and throwing the filth into a barrow, with a fire-shovel!
Silvine and Prosper, who had turned into the High Street, could walk but slowly through the fœtid slime. Moreover, a great commotion reigned in the town, and at every moment the road was blocked. The Prussians were now searching the houses for such of the French soldiers as had hidden themselves, obstinately intent on not surrendering. At about two o’clock on the previous day, when General de Wimpffen had returned from the château of Bellevue after signing the capitulation there, a rumour had circulated that the captive army was to be confined on the peninsula of Iges, until convoys could be organised to escort it to Germany. Merely a few officers intended to avail themselves of the clause which accorded them their liberty on condition that they pledged their word in writing not to serve again during the war. Among these, it appeared, there was only one general—Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who alleged his rheumatism as an excuse. And that same morning he had been saluted with jeers and hisses on taking his departure from the Golden Cross Hotel in a vehicle. Since dawn the operation of disarming the French troops had been in progress; the soldiers having to defile across the Place Turenne, and throw their guns and bayonets in a pile which, amid a crashing like that of old iron, kept rising higher and higher in one corner of the square. A detachment of German troops was assembled there under the orders of a young officer, a tall, pale fellow in a sky-blue tunic, a plumed cap and white gloves, who superintended the disarmament with an air of haughty smartness. A Zouave having refused, with a mutinous gesture, to surrender his chassepot, the officer gave orders for his removal, exclaiming, in perfect French: ‘That man to be shot at once!’ With dejected faces the other Frenchmen continued defiling, throwing their guns upon the pile with a mechanical gesture, anxious as they were to have done with it all. But how many there were who no longer had any weapons, whose chassepots lay scattered over the country-side! And how many who were hiding since the previous day, in the vain hope of escaping surrender amid the inexpressible confusion. The houses they had invaded still swarmed with these obstinate fellows, who refused to answer when called and squeezed themselves into corners, imagining that they would not be found there. The German patrols which scoured the town came upon some of the vanquished hidden under articles of furniture. Others who had taken refuge in cellars refused to come out even when discovered, and the patrols at last fired upon them through the vent-holes. Never was there such a man-hunt, such an abominable battue.
On reaching the bridge over the Meuse the donkey was stopped by the crush there. A suspicious officer, commanding the picket, which guarded the bridge, fancied that the little cart might be leaving the town with some bread or meat, and wished to make sure of its contents. When he had pulled the blanket aside and saw the corpse, he gazed at it for an instant as though thunderstruck; then with a wave of his arm he signed that the vehicle might proceed on its way. But it was still impossible to advance, in fact the obstruction was increasing. A German detachment was conducting one of the first convoys of prisoners to the peninsula of Iges. There seemed no end to this flock of captives. Onward they pressed, hustling one another, treading on one another’s heels, with their uniforms in tatters, their heads bowed, their eyes darting hangdog, sidelong glances, their backs bent and their arms swinging listlessly, like the vanquished men they were, no longer possessed of even a knife to cut their own throats with. The harsh voices of their guards rang out urging them onward, like whips raining lashes through their silent scramble, amid which the only sound was the plashing of their heavy shoes in the thick mud. Another shower had begun to fall, and there could be no more sorrowful sight than that flock of vanquished soldiers, trudging along in the rain, like tramps and beggars of the highways.
All at once Prosper, who, like the old Chasseur d’Afrique he was, felt his heart beating so violently with restrained rage that it seemed likely to burst, nudged Silvine in order to call her attention to two of the passing soldiers. He had recognised Maurice and Jean, marching fraternally, side by side, among their comrades; and the little cart having resumed its journey in the wake of the convoy, he was able to follow the two friends with his eyes as far as the suburb of Torcy, whilst they proceeded along the level road which conducts to Iges between gardens and plots of vegetables.
‘Ah!’ murmured Silvine, lowering her eyes upon Honoré’s corpse, profoundly distressed by all she had seen. ‘Perhaps the dead are the happier.’
Nightfall surprised them at Wadelincourt, and it had long since been pitch dark when they once more reached Remilly. Old Fouchard was stupefied on beholding his son’s corpse, for he had felt certain that it would not be found. For his own part he had employed his day in driving a good bargain. Officers’ horses, stolen on the battlefield, were being readily sold at twenty francs apiece, and he had given but five-and-forty francs for three of them.
< < < PART II Chapter VIII
Chapter II > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
| If you liked this site, subscribe , put likes, write comments! Share on social networks Check out Our Latest Posts |
© 2023 Akirill.com – All Rights Reserved
AKirill, Learn, apprenez, translation, traduction, livres bilingues, bilingual books 