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THE CHILDREN OF ALSACE
THE
CHILDREN OF ALSACE
(_LES OBERLÉS_)
BY
RENÉ BAZIN
AUTHOR OF "THE NUN," "REDEMPTION," ETC.
_WITH A PREFACE_
BY
DR. ANGELO S. RAPPOPORT
NEW YORK
JOHN LANE COMPANY
MCMXII
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
René Bazin is already known to the English public as a writer of
exquisite charm and wonderful sensibility. "The Nun," "Redemption,"
and "This My Son" have revealed his powers to appreciative readers.
Bazin is not only an original writer, a charming story-teller, but
also a deep thinker, a clear delineator of human character and life,
a wonderful landscape-painter, and a bold realist. For it is real
life, humble, poignant, palpitating, which we meet in his stories.
Life, full of misery and suffering, but also of pity and charity, of
self-sacrifice and heroic traits. Bazin is a passionate admirer of
Nature, and this admiration and love manifest themselves in his
preference for pastoral and rural scenes, and his description of
nature and peasant life.
Nature and climate, M. Bazin thinks, exercise a paramount influence
upon the soul, and produce deep and permanent impressions.
But in none of his books has he laid so much stress upon this
mysterious influence of a country upon the soul of its inhabitants
as in "Les Oberlés," which is now placed before English readers
under the title of "The Children of Alsace." For it is the country
of Alsace, with her woes and sorrows and sufferings, her
aspirations and hopes and dreams, which speaks to us through the
mouth of Jean Oberlé, the hero, who mysteriously feels the influence
of soil upon his soul, and is drawn to France, since Alsace is
sighing under the German yoke, and her weeping soul has fled to
France, there to wait the day of delivery and freedom!
"Les Oberlés," or "The Children of Alsace," possesses all the
elements necessary for a real drama, for a great tragedy, namely,
the clash of conflicting passions, emotions, and duties. And these
conflicting passions arise where one has a right to expect peace and
goodwill. The author introduces us to a divided family, and we see
the husband rise against his wife, the son against his father, and
the brother against the sister. Their different modes of thinking
and of feeling, their ambitions and dreams, turn these beings,
united by the ties of blood, into enemies. But "Les Oberlés" is not
only a family drama, tragic, irreparable, but also depicts the love
of the native soil, a love almost physical, in conflict with the
love for the Greater Fatherland. It also shows the clash of two
civilisations, the Latin and the Teuton, which for forty years have
now been waging war on the soil of conquered Alsace.
All these elements make "Les Oberlés" a really tragic novel--a novel
full of dramatic incidents, of poignant scenes, but also full of
life and love.
A. S. RAPPOPORT.
LONDON,
_November 1911_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
A FEBRUARY NIGHT IN ALSACE 9
CHAPTER II
THE EXAMINATION 36
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST FAMILY MEETING 55
CHAPTER IV
THE GUARDIANS OF THE HEARTH 75
CHAPTER V
COMPANIONS OF THE ROAD 88
CHAPTER VI
THE FRONTIER 102
CHAPTER VII
THE EASTER VIGIL 112
CHAPTER VIII
AT CAROLIS 137
CHAPTER IX
THE MEETING 150
CHAPTER X
THE DINNER AT THE BRAUSIGS' 163
CHAPTER XI
IN SUSPENSE 180
CHAPTER XII
THE HOP-PICKING 184
CHAPTER XIII
THE RAMPARTS OF OBERNAI 216
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST EVENING 232
CHAPTER XV
JOINING THE REGIMENT 238
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIÈRES 255
THE
CHILDREN OF ALSACE
CHAPTER I
A FEBRUARY NIGHT IN ALSACE
The moon was rising above the mists of the Rhine. A man who was
coming down from the Vosges by a path--a good sportsman and great
walker whom nothing escaped--had just caught sight of her through
the slope of forest trees. Then he at once stepped into the shadow
of the plantations. But this single glance through the opening, at
the night growing more and more luminous, was sufficient to make him
realise afresh the natural beauty amidst which he lived. The man
trembled with delight. The weather was cold and calm--a slight mist
rose from the hollows. It did not bring with it yet the scent of
jonquils and wild strawberries, but only that other perfume which
has no name and no season--the perfume of rosin, of dead leaves, of
grass once again grown green, of bark raised on the fresh skin of
the trees, and the breath of that everlasting flower which is the
forest moss. The traveller breathed in this smell which he loved; he
drank it in great draughts, with open mouth, for more than ten
strides, and although accustomed to this nocturnal festival of the
forest, to these lights of heaven, to these perfumes of earth, to
these rustlings of silent life, he said aloud: "Bravo, Winter!
Bravo, the Vosges! They have not been able to spoil you." And he put
his stick under his arm in order to make still less noise on the
sand and pine-needles of the winding path. Then turning his head:
"Carefully, Fidèle, good friend. It is too beautiful."
Three steps behind him trotted a spaniel, long-limbed and lean, with
a nose like a greyhound, who seemed quite grey, but who by daylight
was a mixture of fire-and-coffee-and-milk colour, with fringes of
soft hair marking the outline of his paws, belly, and tail. The
beast seemed to understand his master, for he followed him without
making any more noise than the moon made in passing over the tops of
the pine-trees.
Soon the moonlight pierced through the branches; breaking up the
shade or sweeping it away from the open spaces, it spread out across
the slopes, enveloped the trunks of trees, or studded them with
stars, and quite cold, formless, and blue, created out of these same
trees a new forest, which daylight never knew. It was an immense
creation--quick and enchanting. It took but ten minutes. Not a
tremor foretold it. M. Ulrich Biehler continued his downward path, a
prey to growing emotion, stooping sometimes to get a better view of
the undergrowth, sometimes bending over the ravines with beating
heart, but watching with head erect, like the roebucks when about to
leave the valleys for the upland pastures.
This enthusiastic traveller, still young in mind, was, however, not
a young man. M. Ulrich Biehler, called M. Ulrich throughout the
countryside, was sixty years old, and his hair and beard, almost
white, proclaimed his age; but there had been more of the sap of
youth in him than in most, just as some possess more bravery or more
beauty, and something of this youthfulness he had retained. He lived
in the middle of the mountain of Sainte Odile, exactly twelve
hundred feet in the air, in a forest-house without any pretension
to architecture, and without lands of any sort except the sloping
meadow on which it stood, and at the back was a very small orchard,
ravaged periodically by hard winters. He had remained faithful to
this house, inherited from his father, who had bought it for a
holiday residence only, and here he spent the whole year alone,
although his friends, like his lands, were plentiful in the plains.
He was not shy of men, but he did not like to give up his own way of
living, consequently there were some fanciful stories told about
him. They said that in 1870 he had gone through the whole campaign
wearing a silver helmet, from the crest of which hung, instead of
horsehair, the hair of a woman. No one could say if this legend were
history. But twenty good people from the plains of Alsace could
affirm that there was not among the French Dragoons a more
indefatigable horseman, a bolder scout, a more tender companion in
misery, or one more forgetful of his own suffering, than M. Ulrich,
proprietor of Heidenbruch, in the mountain of Sainte Odile.
He had remained French under German rule. That was at once his joy
and the cause of the many difficulties which he tried to surmount or
to endure as a set-off for the favour they showed him in allowing
him to breathe the air of Alsace. He knew how to make himself
respected in the rôle of a man vanquished, tolerated, and watched.
There must be no concession which would show forgetfulness of the
dear French country, but there must be no provocation; he had no
taste for useless demonstration. M. Ulrich travelled much in the
Vosges, where he possessed forests here and there, which he looked
after himself. His woods had the reputation of being among the best
managed in Lower Alsace. His house, shut up for thirty years because
of mourning, had, however, a reputation for comfort and refinement.
The few persons, French or Alsatians, who had crossed the threshold
spoke of the graciousness of the host and the art with which he made
his guests welcome. Above all, the peasants loved him, those who had
gone through the war with him, and even their sons, who took off
their hats when M. Ulrich appeared at the corner of their vineyard
or of their lucerne-field.
They recognised him a long way off because of his slim, tall figure
and his habit of wearing only light clothes, which he bought in
Paris, and invariably chose in shades of brown, varying from the
dark brown of the walnut to the light brown of the oak. His pointed
beard, very well kept, added length to a face which had but little
colour and few wrinkles; his mouth smiled readily under his
moustaches, and his prominent nose, with its fine outline, showed
purity of race; his kind, intelligent grey eyes would quickly become
haughty and defiant if one spoke of Alsace; and the wide brow, which
imparted a touch of dreaminess to this face of a fighting man,
seemed larger still because of two bare patches extending into the
thick growth of stiff short hairs.
Now, on this particular evening M. Ulrich had returned from visiting
the wood-cutting going on in the mountains of the Valley of the
Bruche, and his servants were not expecting him to go out again,
when after dinner he said to his servant, the old Lisa, who was
waiting at table:
"My nephew, Jean, arrives to-night at Alsheim, and no doubt if I
waited till to-morrow I should see him here, but I prefer to see him
down there, and to-night. So I am starting. Leave the key under the
door, and go to bed."
He had immediately whistled for Fidèle, taken his stick and gone
down the path, which entered the wood at some fifty paces below
Heidenbruch. M. Ulrich was clad, according to his custom, in a loose
coat and trousers of dead-leaf colour and a velvet shooting-cap. He
walked quickly, and in less than half an hour he found himself at a
place where the path joined a wider alley, made for pedestrians and
for the pilgrims of Sainte Odile. The place was mentioned in the
guide-books, because for a hundred yards one could look down on the
course of a swift stream which lower down the plain flowed through
the village of Alsheim; and especially because in an opening of the
ravine in the angle formed by two slopes of the mountains, one could
see, in daylight, a corner of Alsace--villages, fields, meadows--and
very far away a vague streak of silver, which was the Rhine, and
beyond that the mountains of the Black Forest--blue as flax and
rounded as the loops of a garland. In spite of the night, which
limited his vision, M. Ulrich, on arriving in the alley, looked in
front of him, through force of habit, but saw only a triangle of
steel-coloured darkness in the upper part of which real stars shone,
and lower down gleamed luminous points the same size as the stars,
lightly veiled and surrounded with a halo--the lamps and candles of
the village of Alsheim. The traveller thought of his nephew, whom he
was presently to embrace, and asked himself: "Whom am I going to
find? What has he become after three years' absence, and three years
in Germany?"
It was only a momentary pause. M. Ulrich crossed the alley, and
wishing to go the shortest way, passed under the branches of a
forest of great beech-trees, which sloped steeply down towards a fir
plantation, where he could regain the road. Some dead leaves still
trembled at the ends of the lower branches, but the greater number
had fallen on those of the preceding year. They had not left an inch
of the soil uncovered, and as thin as silk themselves, and quite
pale, they looked like a pavement of extremely smooth light-coloured
flagstones: the trunks, marbled with moss, regular as columns, rose
to a great height at the top, very high up, the tips leant towards
each other, and their tenuous branches touched each other, outlined
the arch, and let the light pass through. A few bushes broke the
harmony of the lines. About a hundred yards lower down, the barrier
of green trees seemed to form the solid wall of this ruined
cathedral.
Suddenly M. Ulrich heard a slight noise, which another man would
probably not have noticed: it was in front of him, among the green
firs towards which he was advancing. It was the sound of a stone
rolling down the slopes, faster and faster, striking against
obstacles and rebounding. The noise grew fainter and fainter and
ended with a detonation, sharply distinct, which proved that the
stone had reached the pebbly bottom of the hollow and split. The
forest had again become silent, when a second stone, much smaller
still, to judge by the sound it called forth, also began to roll
along in the shadow. At the same time the dog's hair stood up, and
he came back growling to his master.
"Be quiet, Fidèle," he said. "They must not see me!"
M. Ulrich thrust himself behind the trunk of a tree, understanding
that a living being was coming up across the wood, and guessing who
was going to appear. Indeed, making a hole in the black curtain of
pine-trees, he now saw the head, the two forelegs, and soon the
whole body of a horse. A white, hurried breath escaped from its
nostrils and smoked in the darkness. The animal was making immense
efforts to climb the steep slope. With straining muscles its
forefeet doubled up like hooks, its belly all but on the ground, it
advanced by jerks, but almost noiselessly, sinking into the moss and
the thick mass of vegetation heaped on the soil, and hardly
displacing anything but the leaves, which slipped one over the other
with a murmur as of dropping water. It carried a pale-blue horseman
bending over the animal's neck and shoulders, and holding his lance
almost horizontally, as if an enemy were near. The breath of the man
mingled with the breath of the horse in the cold night air. They
advanced, showing by their bearing the difficulty of the upward
struggle. Soon the traveller distinguished the yellow cord on the
rider's tunic, the black boots beneath the dark breeches, the
straight sword hanging at the saddle-bow, and he recognised a
horseman of the regiment of Rhenish Hussars garrisoned at Strasburg;
then nearer still he was able to distinguish on the black-and-white
flag of the lance a yellow eagle, indicating a non-commissioned
officer; he saw under the flat cap a beardless face, ruddy and
perspiring, with red-brown, fierce and restless eyes, a face
buffeted by the horse's mane in motion, and frequently turning to
the right, and he named under his breath Gottfried Hamm,
quartermaster in the Rhenish Hussars, and son of Hamm the
police-constable of Obernai. The man passed by, brushing against the
tree behind which M. Ulrich was hiding; the shadow of his body and
of his horse stretched across the feet of the Alsatian and on to the
neighbouring moss: they left in their wake an odour of harness and
of perspiration.
At the moment when he passed the tree he turned his head again
towards the right. M. Ulrich looked in the same direction, which was
where the greatest length of the beech-wood could be seen. Thirty
yards farther on he discovered a second horseman coming up the same
track, then a third, who had become no more than a grey silhouette
between the columns of beech-trees and then, judging by the shadowy
movements, farther on still, he divined that there were other
soldiers and other horses climbing the mountain. Suddenly there was
a flash in the depths of the wood, as if a glowworm were flying by.
It was an order. All the men took one step to the right, and,
forming in single file, silently, without uttering a word,
continued their mysterious manoeuvre. The shadows moved for an
instant in the depths of the forest; the murmur of crushed and
falling leaves became more and more indistinct, then ceased, and the
night seemed once more to be empty of life.
"A formidable enemy," said M. Ulrich half aloud, "who is kept in
training day and night! There was certainly an officer down there on
the path. It was in his direction they were all looking. He raised
his sword, bright in the moonlight, and those nearest saw it. They
all turned. How little noise they made! All the same, I could have
finished off two of them--if we had been at war."
Then, noticing that his dog was now quietly looking at him with nose
in air and tail wagging, he added:
"Yes, yes, they are gone. You don't like them any more than I do."
Before continuing his way, he waited to make sure that the Hussars
would not return in his direction. He did not like meeting German
soldiers. These encountered hurt the sore and suspicious pride of
the conquered man; they hurt him through his fidelity to
France--through his love, which always dreaded a new war--a war, the
date of which he saw with astonishment recede and recede. He would
sometimes go a long way round in order to avoid a troop on the march
on the high roads. Why had those Hussars come to disturb his descent
to Alsheim? Always these manoeuvres, always this thought of the West
away down there, to which they clung with such tenacity; always this
beast of prey who prowls supple and agile on the summit of the
Vosges, and who watches the moment for descending.
M. Ulrich went down the beech-wood slopes, his head bent, his mind
full of sad memories, which a word had been sufficient to call
up--less than a word even--for alas! mingled with them, and ready to
rise again out of the past, was all the youth of the man. He was
careful to make no noise, keeping his dog behind him, and not
caressing him when the poor beast rubbed his nose against his
master's hand as if to say, "What is the matter then? Are they not
gone?"
In a quarter of an hour, by the wider road which he re-entered at
the end of the beech-wood, M. Ulrich gained the edge of the forest.
A cooler, stronger breeze blew through the oak and hazel copses
which bordered the plain. He stopped and listened towards the right,
saying, with a displeased shrug of the shoulders:
"That is how they will come back! Not a soul will have heard them!
For the moment let us forget them and go and say 'How do you do?' to
Jean Oberlé."
M. Ulrich went down a last bit of short, steep path. A few more
steps and the screens of undergrowth and brushwood which hid the
view were passed. He saw the entire sky unveiled, and below him, in
front, to the left and to the right, something of a softer, more
misty blue, the land of Alsace. The smell of the fields and of
plants wet with the dew, rose from the soil like a harvest of the
night. The wind wafted it, the cold wind, the familiar passer-by on
this plain, the vagabond companion of the Rhine. One could
distinguish no detail in the shadow where Alsace slept, except at a
distance of a few hundred yards, where lines of roofs clustered
about a round grey belfry ending in a steeple. That was the village
of Alsheim. M. Ulrich hastened on and soon found the course of the
stream again, now more rapid than ever, the bank of which he had
skirted in the mountain; walked along by it, and saw stand out, high
and massive, in its park of trees despoiled by winter, the first
house of Alsheim--the house of the Oberlés.
It was built on the right of the road, from which it was separated,
first by a white wall, then by a brook which ran through the domain
more than two hundred yards farther, providing the water necessary
for the engines, and then flowing, enlarged and cunningly directed,
among the trees, to its outlet. M. Ulrich went through the large
gate of wrought iron which opened on to the road, and passing by the
lodge-keeper's cottage, leaving to the right the timber-yard full of
piled-up wood, of cris-crossed planks, of poles, and of sheds, he
took the left avenue, which wound between clumps of trees and the
lawn, and reached the flight of steps before a two-storied house,
with dormer windows, built of the red stone of Saverne and dating
from the middle of the century. It was half-past eight. He went
eagerly up to the first floor and knocked at the door of a room.
A young voice answered:
"Come in!"
M. Ulrich had not time to take off his shooting-cap. He was seized
round the neck, drawn forward, and embraced by his nephew, Jean
Oberlé, who said:
"Good evening, Uncle Ulrich! Ah! How glad I am! What a good idea!"
"Come, let go of me! Good evening, my Jean! You have just arrived?"
"I got here at three o'clock this afternoon. I should have come to
see you to-morrow, you know!"
"I was certain of it! But I could not wait so long. I simply had to
come down and see you. It is three years since I saw you, Jean! Let
me look at you!"
"At your leisure," said the young man, laughing. "Have I changed?"
He had just pushed a leathern arm-chair up to his uncle, and sat
down facing him, on a sofa covered with a rug and placed against the
wall.
Between them there was a table, on which burned a little oil lamp of
chased metal. Near by through the window, whose curtains were drawn
aside, the park could be seen all motionless and solitary in the
moonlight. M. Ulrich scrutinised Jean with a curiosity at once
affectionate and proud. He had grown--he was a little taller than
his uncle. His solid Alsatian face had taken on a quiet firmness and
more pleasing lines. His brown moustache was thicker, his easy
gestures were now those of a man who has seen the world. He might
have been mistaken for a Southerner because of the Italian paleness
of his shaven cheeks, of his eyes encircled with shadow, because of
his dark hair which he wore parted at the side, and because of his
pale lips opening over fine healthy teeth, which he showed when he
spoke or smiled. But several signs marked him a Child of Alsace. The
width of his face across the cheek-bones, his eyes green as the
forests of the Vosges, and the square chin of the peasants of the
valley.
He had inherited some of their characteristics, for his great
grandfather had guided the plough. He had their sturdy horseman's
body. The uncle also guessed, by the youthfulness of the glance
which met his, that Jean Oberlé, the man of twenty-four, whom he was
now looking at once more, was not very different morally from him
whom he had known formerly.
"No," he said, after a long pause, "you are the same!--only you are
a man--I was afraid of greater changes."
"And why?"
"Because, my boy, at your age especially there are certain journeys
which are crucial tests. But first, where do you come from,
exactly?"
"From Berlin, where I passed my _Referendar_ examination."
The uncle laughed a jerky laugh, which he repressed quickly, and
which was lost in his grey beard.
"Let us call that the _Licence en droit_ examination--if you kindly
will."
"Most willingly, uncle."
"Then give me a fuller explanation and one more up-to-date, for you
must have had your diploma in your pocket more than a year. What
have you done with your time?"
"It's very simple. The year before last I passed my examination, as
you know, in Berlin, so finishing my law studies. Last year I worked
with a lawyer till August. Then I travelled through Bohemia,
Hungary, Croatia, and the Caucasus--with father's permission. I took
six months over it. I returned to Berlin to get my student's luggage
and to pay some farewell visits--and here I am."
"Well, and your father? In my haste to see you again I have not
asked after him. Is he well?"
"He is not here."
"What! Was he obliged to be absent on the very evening of your
return?"
Jean answered with a little bitterness:
"He was obliged to be present at a great dinner at the Councillor
von Boscher's. He has taken my sister. It is a very grand reception,
it seems."
There was a short silence. The two men smiled no longer. They felt
between them--quite near--the supreme question, imposing itself upon
them after a three minutes' conversation, that exasperating and
fatal question which cannot be avoided, which unites and divides,
which lurks beneath all social intercourse, honours, mortifications,
and institutions, the question which has kept Europe under arms for
thirty years.
"I dined alone," said Jean, "that is to say, with my grandfather."
"Not much of a companion, poor man. Is he not always so depressed,
and so very infirm?"
"But his mind is very much alive, I assure you!"
There was a second silence, after which M. Ulrich asked,
hesitatingly:
"And my sister? Your mother? Is she with them?"
The young man nodded an affirmative.
The elder man's grief was so intense that he turned away his eyes so
that Jean might not see all the suffering they expressed. He raised
them by chance to a water-colour by that master of decorative art,
Spindler, hanging on the wall, and which represented three beautiful
Alsatian girls amusing themselves swinging. Quickly he looked his
nephew straight in the face, and, his voice broken with emotion,
said:
"And you? You, too, could have dined with the Councillor von
Boscher, considering how intimate you are with these Germans. Did
you not wish to follow your parents?"
"No."
The word was said decidedly, simply. But M. Ulrich had not got the
information he sought. Yes, Jean Oberlé had certainly become a man.
He refused to blame his family, to voice any opinion which would be
an accusation of the others. His uncle continued with the same
ironical accent:
"Nevertheless, my nephew, all the winter through your Berlin
successes were dinned into my ears. They did not spare me. I knew
you were dancing with our fair enemies. I knew their names."
"Oh, I beg you," said Jean seriously, "do not let us joke about
these questions--like people who dare not face them and give their
opinion. I have had a different education from yours, it is true,
uncle--a German education. But that does not diminish my love for
this country; on the contrary...."
M. Ulrich stretched his hand across the table and pressed that of
Jean.
"So much the better," he said.
"Did you doubt it?"
"I did not doubt it, my child--I did not know. I see so many things
that pain me--and so many convictions surrendered."
"The proof that I love our Alsace is shown by my intention to live
in Alsheim."
"What!" said M. Ulrich, stupefied. "You give up the idea of entering
the German Administration--as your father desires you should do? It
is grave--a serious thing, my friend, to rob him of his ambition.
You were the subject of the future. Does he know?"
"He suspects; but we have not yet had any explanations on the
matter. I have not had time since my return."
"And what will you do?"
The youthful smile reappeared on the lips of Jean Oberlé.
"I shall cut wood, as he does, as my grandfather Phillipe does; I
shall settle among you here. When I travelled in Germany and in
Austria, after my examination, it was chiefly that I might study the
forests, the saw-mills, and the factories like our own. You are
weeping?"
"Not quite."
M. Ulrich was not weeping, but he was obliged to dry his wet eyelids
with the tip of his finger.
"It would be for joy, in any case, my dear boy. Oh, for a true and
great joy. To see you faithful to what I love best in the world. To
keep you with us--to see you determined not to accept appointments
and honours from those who have violated your country.... Yes, it
was the dream I dared no longer dream.... Only, quite frankly, I
cannot understand it. I am surprised. Why are you not like your
father, or like Lucienne, who have so openly rallied to the enemy?
You studied law in Munich, in Bonn, in Heidelberg, in Berlin; you
have just passed four years in Germany, without speaking of your
college years. How did you avoid becoming German?"
"I am less so than you."
"That is hardly possible."
"Less than you, because I know them better. I have judged them by
comparison. Well, they are our inferiors."
"Well, I _am_ pleased. We hear nothing but the opposite of this. In
France, above all, the praise of the conquerors of 1870 continues
without intermission."
The young man, touched by M. Ulrich's emotion, leaned no longer on
the sofa, but bending forwards, his face lit up by the lamp, which
made his green eyes appear more brilliant, said:
"Do not mistake me, Uncle Ulrich. I do not hate the Germans, and in
that I differ from you. I even admire them, for in some things they
are admirable. Among them I have friends I esteem greatly. I shall
have others. I belong to a generation which has not seen what you
have seen, and which has lived differently--I have not been
conquered!"
"Happily, not!"
"Only the more I know them, the more I feel myself different from
them; I feel I am of another race, with another category of ideals
into which they do not enter, which I find superior, and which,
without knowing why, I call 'France.'"
"Bravo, Jean, bravo!"
The old dragoon officer bent forward--he also was quite pale--and
the two men were only separated by the width of the table.
"What I call France, uncle, what I have in my heart, like a dream,
is a country where there is a greater facility for thought."
"Yes----"
"For speech----"
"That's it!"
"For laughter."
"How right you are!"
"Where souls have infinite shades of colour! A country that has the
charm of a woman one loves, as it were a still more beautiful
Alsace."
Both had risen, and M. Ulrich drew his nephew towards him, and
pressed that fervent head against his breast.
"Frenchman!" said he, "Frenchman to the marrow of your bones, and in
every drop of blood in your veins! My poor boy!"
The young man continued, his head still resting on the older man's
shoulder:
"That is why I cannot live over yonder--across the Rhine--and why I
shall live here!"
"Well might I say 'poor boy'!" answered M. Ulrich. "All is
changed--alas! Even here in your home. You will suffer, Jean, with a
nature like yours. I understand everything now--everything."
Then letting his nephew go:
"How glad I am I came to-night. Sit down there quite close to me. We
have so much to say to each other--Jean, my Jean!"
They sat down side by side, happy, on the sofa. M. Ulrich stroked
his pointed beard into its habitual well-groomed neatness. He
recovered from his emotion, and said:
"Do you know that by speaking of France as we have spoken this
evening, we have committed misdemeanours such as I delight in? It is
not allowed. If we had been out of doors and Hamm had heard us, we
should have been speedily dealt with--there would have been an
official report!"
"I met him this afternoon."
"And I saw the son pass by in the depths of the wood just now. He is
a non-commissioned officer in the Rhenish Hussars--the regiment
which will soon be yours. Is that the carriage I hear?"
"No."
"Listen, then!"
They listened, gazing out of the window at the park, which was lit
up by the full high moon; at the lawn in the shape of a lyre with
its two white avenues, at the clumps of trees, and farther on the
tile roofs of the saw-mill. Not a sound could be heard save the fall
of the brook at the factory sluice, a monotonous sound which seemed
now near, now far, according to the direction and strength of the
freshening wind which was now blowing from the north-east, "from the
Cathedral platform," as Uncle Ulrich said, thinking of Strasburg.
"No; what you hear," said Jean Oberlé, after listening for a while,
"is the noise of the sluice. Father told the coachman to go to
Molsheim to wait for the eleven-thirty train. We have time to chat."
They had time, and they made good use of it. They began to speak
softly, without haste or difficulty, like those who have recognised
that they agree on essentials and who can now safely open up all
other questions, even the smallest. They spoke of the year's
voluntary service Jean had been allowed to postpone until he was
twenty-four, and of that new life he was going to begin at
Strasburg--of the ease with which he could come nearly every Sunday
to Alsheim. Then, this dear name having been repeated, uncle and
nephew took pleasure in their recollections of the country, first of
Alsheim, then of Sainte Odile, of the forest-dwelling of
Heidenbruch, of Obernai, of Saverne, where the uncle had forests, of
Guebwiller, where he had relations. It was Alsace they evoked. They
thoroughly understood one another. They smoked, their legs crossed,
seated one in each corner of the sofa, letting their words flow
freely, and laughing often. Their conversation was so prolonged that
the Black Forest cuckoo clock hanging over the door struck midnight.
"Do you suppose we have disturbed your grandfather?" asked M.
Ulrich, getting up, and pointing with his hand to the wall which
separated the young man's room from that of the sick man.
"No," said Jean; "he hardly sleeps at all now--I am sure it has
pleased him to hear me laugh. As my family left me at five o'clock I
spent a good deal of my time with him, and I watched him closely. He
hears and understands everything. He recognised your voice, I am
sure, and perhaps he has caught a word here and there."
"That will have pleased him, my boy. He belongs to the very old
Alsace, that country which seems almost fabulous to you, and to
which I also belong, although I am much younger than M. Oberlé. It
was wholly French, that Alsace, and not a man of that time has
changed. Look at your grandfather--look at old Bastian. We are the
generation who suffered. We represent grief--we others. Your father
embodies resignation."
"And I?"
Uncle Ulrich looked at the young man, with his far-seeing eyes, and
said:
"You--oh, you are Romance."
They would have smiled, both of them, but they could not, as if that
word had been too perfectly accurate, which is not always the case
with human judgments--as if they felt that Fate was there in this
room, invisible, who repeated to them at the bottom of their hearts
at the same time: "Yes, it is true--this one is Romance." The grief
which was oppressing them was only to be explained by the imminence
of life's mystery. It faded away. M. Ulrich reached out his hand to
his nephew, more gravely than he would have done if that word had
not escaped him, which he did not regret, but which remained present
with him.
"Good-bye, dear Jean. I would rather not wait for my
brother-in-law. I do not know what attitude I should take up towards
him. All you have told me would embarrass me. You will wish him good
night for me. I will go home through the woods by moonlight. What a
pity I have not my gun with me and the good luck to come across a
brace of grouse in the fir wood."
To reach the staircase he took some careful steps on the carpet in
the passage.
"Uncle," said Jean, in a low tone, "if you would go to my
grandfather I am sure he would be pleased--I am sure he is not
sleeping."
Uncle Ulrich, who was walking in front, stopped and retraced his
steps. Jean turned the handle of the door near which he was, and
going first into the room, said, in a lowered voice:
"Grandfather, I bring you a visitor--Uncle Ulrich--who wishes to see
you."
They were in the semi-darkness of a large room, the curtains of
which had been drawn, and a nightlight, in transparent china, placed
at the end of the room on the left between the closed window and a
bed which occupied the corner, was the sole light. On the table
beside the bed, in the little luminous halo which surrounded the
nightlight, was a small crucifix of copper, and a gold watch, the
only shining objects in the room. In the bed an old man was sitting
rather than lying, his shoulders covered with a grey wool crossover,
his back and head supported by pillows, his hands hidden under the
sheets, which still kept the folds of the linen press. A tapestry
riband, serving as bell-cord and finishing in a fringe, reached to
the middle of the bed. The man who was sleeping or waking there was
impotent. Life with him was withdrawing more and more within. He
walked and moved with difficulty. He no longer spoke. Under his
thick, pale cheeks his mouth moved only to eat and to say three
words--three cries--always the same: "Hunger, Thirst. Go away!" A
sort of senile laziness allowed his jaw to hang, the jaw that had
commanded many men. M. Ulrich and Jean went to the middle of the
room without his giving the least sign that he was conscious of
their presence. This poor human ruin was, however, the same man who
had founded the factory at Alsheim, who had raised himself from the
condition of a little country proprietor, who had been elected
_protesting_ deputy, who had been seen and heard in the Reichstag,
claiming the unrecognised rights of Alsace and demanding justice of
Prince Bismarck. Intelligence was watching, imprisoned, like the
flame which lit up the room that night; but it expressed itself no
longer. In this uninterrupted dream what men and things must pass
before the mental vision of him who knew the whole of Alsace, who
had gone through it in every direction, who had drunk of its white
wines at all the tables of the rich and the poor; traveller,
merchant, forester, and patriot! And it was he--this wrinkled bald
head, this lowering face, these heavy eyelids, between which a slow,
sad eye slipped to and fro like a billiard ball in the immovable
slit of a bell. However, the two visitors had the impression that
his gaze rested on them with an unusual pleasure.
They kept silence so as to let the old man savour the sweetness of a
thought they would never, never know. Then Uncle Ulrich went near
the bed, and, placing his hand upon the arm of Philippe Oberlé,
bending down slightly to be nearer his ear and to more easily meet
his eyes, which were raised with difficulty:
"We have talked a good deal, M. Oberlé, your grandson and myself. He
is a good fellow--your Jean!"
A movement of the whole upper part of the body slowly changed the
position of the head of the old man, who was trying to see his
grandson.
"A good fellow," continued the forester, "whose stay in Berlin has
not spoiled him. He has remained worthy of you--an Alsatian, a
patriot. He does you honour."
Though there was only the tiny floating light in the room, Uncle
Ulrich and Jean thought they perceived a smile on the face of the
old man, the answer from a soul still young.
They quietly withdrew, saying:
"Good night, M. Oberlé. Good night, grandfather."
The flame of the nightlight flickered, displacing lights and
shadows; the door was shut, and the interrupted dream continued in
the room, where hardly anything had entered since sunset save the
hours struck in the belfry of the church of Alsheim. M. Ulrich and
his nephew parted at the foot of the staircase. The night was cold,
the grass all white with frost.
"Good time for walking!" said M. Ulrich; "I shall expect you at
Heidenbruch."
He whistled for his dog, and stroking its red-brown head, said:
"Take me home, for I am going to dream all the time of what that boy
told me!"
Scarcely had he gone some few hundreds of yards--the sound of his
footstep could still be heard on the road going up towards the Wood
of Urlosen--when in the calm of the night Jean caught the sound of
the trotting horses coming from the Obernai district. The noise of
their shoes striking the metalled road sounded like flails on a
threshing-floor; it was a rural sound, and not disturbing; it broke
no rest. Fidèle, who was barking furiously towards the edge of the
forest, must have had other reasons to show her teeth and give
tongue. Jean listened to the carriage coming nearer. Soon the noise
grew less and less, then became deadened, and he knew that the
carriage had passed between the walls of the village, or at least
had entered the circle of orchards which made Alsheim in the summer
a nest of apple-trees, cherries, and walnuts. Then it swelled and
sounded clear like a train coming out of a tunnel. The gravel
scrunched at the end of the avenue. Two lamps turned and passed
rapidly across the park; the grass, the shrubs, the lower trunks of
trees, arose abruptly out of the darkness and as abruptly sank back
into it again, and the brougham stopped before the house. Jean, who
had remained at the top of the staircase, went down and opened the
door. A young girl got out at once; her face was rosy, and she was
wrapped all in white--white mantilla, coat of white wool, and white
shoes. In passing, almost in the air, she bent to the right, just
touched Jean's forehead with a kiss, and half opened two lips heavy
with sleep.
"Good night, little brother."
And picking up her skirt with a loose grasp, with wavering
movements, her head already on the pillow as it were, she went up
the stairs and disappeared into the vestibule.
"Good evening, my son," said the authoritative voice of a man. "You
have waited for us; you were wrong. Come quickly, Monica, the horses
are very hot. Auguste, you will give them twelve litres to-morrow.
You would have done better to have gone with us, Jean. It was all
very nice. M. von Boscher asked twice about you."
The person who spoke thus, now to one and now to the other, had had
time to get out of the carriage, to shake hands with Jean, to turn
towards Madame Oberlé, still seated in the back of the carriage, to
go half-way up the flight of steps, to inspect with the eye of a
connoisseur the two black horses, whose wet backs looked as if they
had been rubbed with soap. His grey whiskers framed a full and solid
face; his overcoat was unbuttoned, showing the open waistcoat and
the shirt, where three Rhine stones shone; his oratorical hand only
appeared a moment. After having given his opinion and his orders,
Joseph Oberlé--vigilant master who forgot nothing--quickly raised
his double chin and fixed his eyes on the end of the enclosure,
where the pyramids of felled trees were resting, to see if there
were any signs of fire visible, or if any shadow prowled round the
saw-mill; then, nimbly mounting the second flight of steps two at a
time, he entered the house. His son had answered nothing. He was
helping Madame Oberlé out of the carriage, taking from her her
gloves and fan, and asking:
"You are not so very tired, are you, mother darling?"
Her dear eyes smiled, her long mouth said:
"Not too tired; but it is not for me, now, my dear. You have an old
mother!"
She leaned on the arm of her son--from a mother's pride more than
from necessity. There was infinite sadness in her smile, and she
seemed to ask Jean, at whom she looked while going up the steps,
"You forgive me for having gone there? I have suffered."
She was wearing a black satin dress. She had diamonds in her hair,
still black, and a collar of blue fox on her shoulders. Jean thought
she looked like an unhappy queen, and he admired the elegance of her
head, of her walk, and her fine carriage. She was of an old Alsatian
family, and he felt himself the son of this woman with a pride he
showed only to her.
He accompanied her, giving her his arm all the time so as to have
the joy of being nearer to her, and to stop her on nearly every step
of the staircase.
"Mamma, I have spent an excellent evening. It would have been
delicious if only you had been there! Imagine, Uncle Ulrich came at
half-past eight, and he only set out for home at midnight, just
now."
Madame Oberlé smiled a melancholy smile and said:
"He never stops as long as that for us. He keeps away."
"You mean to say that he keeps away! I will bring him back to you."
She stopped in her turn, looked at this son, whom she had not seen
since the afternoon, and smiled more gaily.
"You love my brother?"
"Better than I used to. I seem to have just discovered him."
"You were too young before."
"And how we have talked! We agree on all points."
The gentle maternal eyes sought those of her child in the twilight
of the staircase.
"Oh, all?" she asked.
"Yes, mamma, on all!"
They had arrived at the top of the stairs. She placed her gloved
finger on her mouth. She withdrew her arm which she had placed in
that of her son. She was at the door of her room, facing M. Philippe
Oberlé's room. Jean kissed her, withdrew a little, returned to her,
and pressed her once again to his heart silently.
Then he took a few steps down the passage, looked again at this
woman dressed in black, and whom mourning suited so well--so simple
with her drooping white hands and her erect head, so firm of
feature, so gentle in expression.
He murmured gaily:
"Saint Monica Oberlé, pray for us!"
She did not seem to hear him, but she remained, her hand on the
door-handle without entering, as long as Jean could see her, Jean,
who was going backwards step by step, farther away, into the shadows
of the passage.
He entered his room, his heart joyful, his mind full of thoughts,
all those thoughts of the past evening coming back now with swift
flight in the solitude of the present. Feeling that he would not
sleep at once, he opened the window. The cold air blew steadily from
the north-east. The mist had fled. From his room Jean could see,
beyond the wide strip of cultivated hilly ground, the forests where
Shadow all night long wound and unwound her folds, away to the
heights crowned here and there by a spiked cluster of ancient woods,
which broke the line of hills and wreathed itself about in stars. He
tried to find the house of M. Ulrich. And in thought he saw again
him who ought to be arriving home, when voices began to sing on the
edge of the forest. A shiver of pleasure seized the nerves of the
young man, who was a passionate musician. The voices were beautiful,
young, and in tune. There were more than twenty of them certainly,
perhaps thirty or fifty. He missed the words because of the
distance. It was like the sound of an organ in the night. They flung
out to the wind of Alsace a song of a spirited rhythm. Then three
distinct words reached Jean's ears. He shrugged his shoulders,
irritated with himself for not having understood at once. It was a
chorus of German soldiers coming back from the manoeuvre of those
Rhenish Hussars M. Ulrich had met coming down the mountain.
According to custom, they sang to keep themselves awake, and because
there was in their songs the power of the word Fatherland. The
horses' hoofs accompanied the melody like muffled cymbals. The words
escaped and vibrated:
"Stimmt an mit hellem hohen Klang,
Stimmt an das Lied der Lieder.
Des Faterlandes Hochgesang,
Das Waldthal hall es wieder."
Jean would have been glad to stop the song. How many times,
however, and in all the German Provinces, had he not heard the
soldiers sing? Why should he feel sad at the song of these men? Why
did the words enter into his soul so painfully, although he knew
them and could repeat them from memory? When some two hundred yards
from the village they became silent. Only the clatter of hoofs
continued drawing nearer to Alsheim and echoing above it. Jean
leaned forward to see the horsemen pass in the little market town.
He could see them through a large opening in the wall surrounding
the park, secured by an iron gate just in front of the house--a
moving mass in a brown dust that the wind blew back, leaning like
barley beards in the ear. The men were not to be distinguished from
each other, nor the horses. Jean thought, with a secret and
increasing pain, "How many there are!"
At Berlin, at Munich, at Heidelberg, they only aroused an idea of
strength without any immediate aim or object. The enemy had not been
specially singled out; it was everything opposed to the greatness of
the German Empire. Jean Oberlé had more than once admired the march
of regiments and the wonderful power of the man who commanded so
many men. But here on the frontier, on the ground still bloody with
the last war, there were memories which showed only too well who was
aimed at and threatened. The sight--the noise--of the soldiers made
him dream of butcheries, of death, and of the fearful mourning which
remains. They were passing between the houses. The noise of the
squadrons, of men and beasts shook the windows. The little town
seemed asleep. Neither the soldiers nor their leaders noticed
anything; but in many of the houses a mother woke and sat up in her
bed, shivering; a man stretched out his fist and cursed these
conquerors of past days. God alone knew the drama. They passed by.
When the last squadron had finished throwing shadows across the
road, between the two pillars of the gate, Jean thought he saw, in
the dust that was settling, a horseman facing the house. Was the
horse refusing to advance? No; he was at rest. The horseman must be
an officer--something golden placed in several rows across his
breast sparkled. He did not move, firm in his saddle, young
certainly, he gazed in front of him. This lasted scarcely a minute.
Then he lowered the sabre he held in his hand, and having saluted,
put spurs to his horse, which rushed away. The scene had been so
quick that Jean might have thought it an illusion, if the gallop of
the beast had not sounded in the village street.
"Some Teutonic joke," he thought--"a way this officer has found of
saying that the house pleases him! Thanks!"
The regiment had already left the village and ridden away to the
wide plain. The houses had gone to sleep once more. The wind blew
towards the green Vosges. In the opposite quarter, far away now,
like a religious hymn, rose again the song of the German soldiers,
who were celebrating the German Fatherland whilst marching towards
Strasburg.