The Prussian Commander, Major Graf von Farlsberg, was finishing
the reading of his mail, comfortably seated in a large tapestry
armchair, with his booted feet resting on the elegant marble of the
mantelpiece on which, for the last three months that he had been
occupying the Chateau d'Uville, his spurs had traced two deep
grooves, growing deeper every day.
A cup of coffee was steaming on an inlaid guerdon, stained with
liqueur, burned by cigars, notched by the penknife of the conquering
officer who, while sharpening his pencil, would stop at times and
trace on the marble monograms or designs according to the fancy of
his indolent dream.
After he had finished his letters and read the German newspapers,
which his orderly had brought him, he rose, threw into the fire
three or four enormous pieces of green wood, for these gentlemen
were cutting down, little by little, the trees of the park to
keep themselves warm and stepped over to the window. The rain was
pouring, a regular Normandy rain which one might have thought was
let loose and showered down by a furious hand, a slanting rain,
thick like a curtain, forming a kind of wall with oblique stripes,
a rain that lashed, splashed, deluged everything, a rain peculiar
to the neighborhood of Rouen, that watering pot of France.
The Officer looked for a long while at the inundated lawn, and yonder,
the swollen Andilles, which was overflowing; and with his fingers
he was drumming on the window-pane a waltz from the Rhineland, when
a noise caused him to turn around; it was his second in command,
Baron von Kelweingstein, holding a rank equivalent to that of
Captain.
The Major was a giant, with broad shoulders, graced by a fan-shaped
blond beard, flowing down his chest and forming a breast-shield.
His whole tall, solemn person suggested the image of a military
peacock, a peacock that would carry its tail spread on its chin.
He had blue eyes, cold and gentle; a cheek bearing the scar of a
sword wound inflicted during the Austrian war; and he was said to
be a kind hearted man as well as a brave officer.
Short, red faced, corpulent, tightly belted, the Captain wore,
cropped almost close, his red hair, the fiery filaments of which,
when under the reflection of certain lights, might have given the
impression as though his face had been rubbed with phosphorus. Two
teeth lost in a night orgy and brawl, he did not exactly remember
now, caused him to spit out indistinct words which one could not
always understand. He was bald only on the top of his head, like
a tonsured monk, with a crop of short, curly hair, golden and shiny,
around this circle of bare flesh.
The Commander shook hands, and gulped down his cup of coffee (the
sixth since that morning), while listening to the report of his
subordinate about the incidents and happening in the service. Then
both came back near the window and declared that theirs was not a
cheerful lot. The Major, a quiet man, married and having left his
wife home, would adapt himself to anything; but the Baron Captain,
accustomed to leading a fast life, a patron of low resorts, a wild
chaser of disreputable women, was furious at having been confined
for the last three months to the obligatory chasteness of this out
of the way Post.
Presently they heard a scratching on the door; the Commander said:
"Come in," and a man, one of their automaton soldiers, appeared
in the aperture, announcing by his mere presence that luncheon was
served.
In the dining-room they found three officers of lower rank; one
lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two second-lieutenants, Fritz
Scheuneberg and Markgraf Wilhelm von Eyrik, a tiny blond man,
haughty and brutal with his men, harsh toward the vanquished foe,
and violent like a fire-arm.
Since his arrival in France his comrade called him only Mademoiselle
Fifi. This nickname was bestowed upon him on account of his
coquettish style of dressing and manners, his slender waist, which
looked as if it were laced in a corset, his pale face on which a
nascent mustache could hardly be seen, and also on account of the
habit he had acquired, in order to express his supreme contempt
for persons and things, of using continually the French locution:
"Fi! fi donc!" which he pronounced with a slight lisping.
The dining-room of the Chateau d'Uville was a large and regal hall,
the ancient mirrors of which constellated with bullet holes, and
the high Flanders tapestries, slashed with sword cuts and hanging
in shreds at certain places, told the tale of Mademoiselle Fifi's
favorite occupations and pastime during his hours of idleness.
On the walls, three family portraits, a warrior wearing his armor,
a Cardinal and a Chief Justice, were smoking long porcelain pipes,
while in its frame, ungilt by age, a noble lady in a tight waist,
was showing with an arrogant air an enormous pair of mustache
crayoned with charcoal.
And the Officers' luncheon went off almost silently in this mutilated
room, darkened by the shower outside, sad and depressing in its
vanquished appearance, the old oak parquet floor of which had become
solid like the floor of a bar room.
Having finished eating, it was time for smoking; they began to drink
and, reverting to their usual topic, they spoke of their monotonous
and tedious life. Bottles of cognac and liqueur passed from hand
to hand, and seating back on their chairs, they were all absorbing
their liqueur in repeated sips, holding at the corner of their
mouths the long curved pipes ending in a meerschaum bowl, invariably
daubed as if to seduce Hottentots.
As soon as their glasses were empty, they refilled them with
a gesture of resigned weariness. But Mademoiselle Fifi broke his
glass every instant and then a soldier brought him immediately a
new one.
A mist of acrid smoke bathed, drowned them, and they seemed to sink
into a somnolent and sad inebriety, in that taciturn and morose
intoxication peculiar to men who have nothing to do.
But suddenly the Baron sat up. A revolt shook him; he swore: "By
heavens! this cannot go on indefinitely; we must in the end invent
something."
Lieutenant Otto and Second-Lieutenant Fritz, two Teutons eminently
endowed with heavy and serious German faces, replied together:
"What shall we invent, Captain?"
He mused for a few seconds and resumed: "What? Well, we must
organize an entertainment, if the Commander will permit."
The Major took his pipe out of his mouth: "What entertainment,
Captain?"--
The Baron came nearer: "Leave it to me, Commander; I shall send
Pflicht[*] to Rouen, and he will bring us some women I know where
to get them. A supper will be prepared here; besides we have
everything, and I may venture to say we shall spend a rather pleasant
evening."
[*]Duty
Graf Farlsberg, shrugged his shoulders and smiled: "You are crazy,
my friend!"
But all the officers had risen, surrounding their chief and beseeching
him: "Let the Captain go, Commander; it is so sad here!"
Finally the Major yielded: "All right!" said he; and immediately
the Baron sent for Pflicht. Pflicht was an old non-commissioned
officer, who had never been seen smiling, but who carried out with
fanatical punctuality the orders of his superiors, no matter what
they were.
Erect, with his impassive face, he received the Baron's instructions;
then he left the room; and five minutes later a large military
wagon, covered with miller's tarpaulin stretched in the shape of
a dome, was being rapidly driven away under the heavy rain at the
gallop of four horses.
At once an awakening thrill seemed to run through the group
of officers and shook them from their lethargy; the languid poses
straightened up, faces became animated and they began to talk.
Although the shower was continuing as heavy as ever, the Major
affirmed that it was not so dark, and Lieutenant Otto announced
positively that the weather was clearing up. Even Mademoiselle
Fifi seemed unable to keep still. He rose and sat down again. His
harsh and clear eye was looking for something to break; suddenly,
glaring at the lady with the mustache, the young prig drew his
revolver: "You shall not witness it, you!" said he, and, without
leaving his seat, he aimed. Two bullets fired in rapid succession
put out the eyes of the portrait.
Then he exclaimed: "Let us explode a mine!" And at once the
conversation was interrupted, as if a powerful and new curiosity
had taken hold of every one present.
A mine, that was his invention, his way of destroying, his favorite
amusement.
When he hurriedly left his chateau, Comte Fernand d'Armoy d'Uville,
the legitimate owner, had had no time to take with him nor hide
away anything except the silver-plate, which he had stowed away in
a hole made in a wall. Now as he was immensely wealthy and lived
in great luxury, his large salon, the door of which communicated
with the dining-room, presented the appearance of a Picture Gallery
before the precipitate flight of the master.
Priceless paintings and aquarelles were hanging on the walls, while
on the tables, the étagères and the elegant cabinets, thousands of
bric à brac and bibelots, statuettes, Dresden and Chinese vases,
old ivories and Venice pottery peopled the large room with their
precious and odd multitude.
Hardly any were left by this time. Not that they had been stolen;
the Major, Graf Farlsberg, would not have permitted nor tolerated
it; but Mademoiselle Fifi once in a while exploded a mine; and on
such occasions all the officers enjoyed themselves thoroughly for
five minutes.
The little Markgraf went to the salon to fetch what he needed; he
brought in a tiny and graceful Chinese tea-pot of the Rose family,
which he filled with gun powder, and through the neck of which he
carefully introduced a long piece of tinder, lighted it and, running,
carried this infernal machine into the next room.
Then he returned quickly and closed the door behind him. All the
Germans stood up and waited, their faces wreathed in childlike smiles
of curiosity, and as soon as the explosion shook the Chateau, they
hurried in all at once.
Mademoiselle Fifi, who had been the first one to rush in, was
deliriously clapping his hands in front of a terra cotta Venus,
whose head at last had been blown off; and each picked up broken
pieces of China, wondering at the strange indentation of the
fragments, examining the new damage done, claiming that some of
the damage had been caused by previous explosions. And the Major
was contemplating, with a paternal look, the large salon upset by
this Neronian firework and strewn with the debris of the objects of
Art. He came out first, declaring good- naturedly: "It was very
successful this time!"
But such a spout of smoke had invaded the dining-room, mixing
with the smoke of tobacco, that it was impossible to breathe. The
Commander opened the window, and all the officers, who had come
back to drink a last glass of cognac, crowded near it.
The damp air blew into the room bringing in a kind of water dust,
which sprayed and powdered the beards, and a smell of inundation.
They were looking at the tall trees bending under the shower, the
broad valley darkened by this outflow of the black low clouds[*],
and in the distance the Church spire rising like a gray point in
the pelting rain.
[*][Note from Brett: The original uses "clowds," but I think
"clouds" was intended.]
Since the arrival of the Germans, the Church bell had not rung.
It was in fact the only resistance with which the invaders met in
that neighborhood, the resistance of the bell-tower. The Curate
had not refused to receive and feed Prussian soldiers; he had even,
on several occasions, accepted to drink a bottle of beer or claret
with the enemy Commander, who often used him as a benevolent
intermediary. But it was useless to ask him for a single ring of
his bell; he would rather have faced a firing squad. That was his
way of protesting against invasion, a peaceful protest, the protest
of silence, the only one, said he, that became a priest, a man of
peace and not of blood. And everybody for ten miles around praised
the firmness, the heroism of Father Chantavoine, who dared to affirm
the public mourning and proclaim it by the obstinate mutism of his
Church.
The entire village, enthusiastic about this resistance, was ready
to support and back up its pastor to the bitter end, to risk
anything, considering this tacit protest as a safeguard of the
national honor. It seemed to the peasants that in this way they
deserved better of their country than Belfort or Strasbourg, that
they had given just as good an example, that the name of their hamlet
would remain immortal for it; and with that single exception, they
refused nothing to the victorious Prussians.
The Commander and his officers laughed in private at this manifestation
of inoffensive courage, and as the entire neighborhood showed
themselves obliging to them and docile to their orders, they
willingly tolerated the priest's silent patriotism.
Little Markgraf Wilhelm was the only one who would have liked to
compel the bell to ring; he was very indignant at the political
condescendence of his superior officer towards the priest; and every
day he was beseeching the Commander to let him do once, just once,
"Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" merely for the sake of having a little
fun. And he begged for it with feline gracefulness, the cajolery
of a woman, the tenderness of voice of a beloved mistress craving
for something, but the Commander did not yield, and to console
himself, Mademoiselle Fifi exploded mines in the chateau d'Uville.
The five men remained there, in a group, for a few minutes, inhaling
the damp air. Finally Lieutenant Fritz spoke with a thick laugh:
"Decidedly, the ladies will not have fine weather for their trip."
Thereupon they separated, each going to his work, the Captain having
a great deal to do to make arrangements for the dinner party.
When they met again at nightfall, they began to laugh at seeing
each other dolled up coquettishly and smart like on grand review
days, perfumed, pomaded and hale. The Commander's hair seemed less
gray than in the morning, and the Captain had shaved, keeping only
his mustache, which looked like a flame under his nose.
Notwithstanding the rain, the window was kept open and from time
to time one of them went over to listen. At ten minutes past six
o'clock, the Baron reported a distant rolling. They all hurried
downstairs, and soon the large carriage came up with the four horses
still galloping, covered with mud up to their backs, steaming and
blowing.
And five women got off the carriage and stepped on the perron,
five graceful girls carefully selected by a chum of the Captain,
to whom Pflicht had taken a card from his officer.
They had not been reluctant to come, knowing that they would be
well paid; besides, they were quite well acquainted and familiar
with the Prussians, having been in intercourse with them for the
past three months and making the best of men as of things. "Our
business requires it," they told each other on their way, no doubt
in order to ease off some secret pricking of a remnant of conscience.
And, presently, they were ushered into the dining-room. Lighted
up, the dining-room looked still more lugubrious in its pitiful
dilapidation, and the table covered with viands, rich china
and silver plate, which had been discovered in the wall where the
owner had hidden them, gave to the premises the appearance of a low
tavern, where bandits are having supper after a successful raffle.
The Captain, radiant, took hold of the women as of a familiar thing,
appreciating them, embracing them, scenting them, estimating them
at their value as instruments of pleasure; and as the three younger
men wanted to take one each, he objected to it with authority,
reserving to himself the privilege of making the assignments, in
perfect fairness, according to rank, so as not to injure in any
way the hierarchy.
Then, in order to preclude any discussion, any contest and any
suspicion of partiality, he lined them up according to height, and
addressing the tallest, in a tone of command: "Your name?"