IV

When I arose in the morning, about seven, I went to Monsieur Goulden's

room to begin work, but he was still in bed, looking weary and sick.

"Joseph," said he, "I am not well. This horrible news has made me ill,

and I have not slept at all."

"Shall I not make you some tea?" I asked.

"No, my child, that is not worth while. I will get up by and by. But

this is the day to regulate the city clocks; I cannot go; for to see so

many good people--people I have known for thirty years--in misery,

would kill me. Listen, Joseph: take those keys hanging behind the door

and go. I will try to sleep a little. If I could sleep an hour or

two, it would do me good."

"Very well, Monsieur Goulden," I replied; "I will go at once."

After putting more wood in the stove, I took the cloak and mittens,

drew Monsieur Goulden's bed-curtains, and went out, the bunch of keys

in my pocket. The illness of Father Melchior grieved me very much for

a while, but a thought came to console me, and I said to myself: "You

can climb up the city clock-tower, and see the house of Catharine and

Aunt Gredel." Thinking thus, I arrived at the house of Brainstein, the

bell-ringer, who lived at the corner of the little place, in an old,

tumble-down barrack. His two sons were weavers, and in their old home

the noise of the loom and the whistle of the shuttle was heard from

morning till night. The grandmother, old and blind, slept in an

armchair, on the back of which perched a magpie. Father Brainstein,

when he did not have to ring the bells for a christening, a funeral, or

a marriage, kept reading his almanac behind the small round panes of

his window.

Beside their hut was a little box under the roof of the old hall, where

the cobbler Koniam worked, and farther on were the butchers' and

fruiterers' shops.

I came then to Brainstein's, and the old man, when he saw me, rose up,

saying:

"It is you, Monsieur Joseph."

"Yes, Father Brainstein; I came in place of Monsieur Goulden, who is

not well."

"Very good; it is all the same."

He took up his staff and put on his woollen cap, driving away the cat

that was sleeping upon it; then he took the great key of the steeple

from a drawer, and we went out together, I glad to find myself again in

the open air, despite the cold; for their miserable room was gray with

vapor, and as hard to breathe in as a kettle; I could never understand

how people could live in such a way.

At last we gained the street, and Father Brainstein said:

"You have heard of the great Russian disaster, Monsieur Joseph?"

"Yes, Father Brainstein; it is fearful!"

"Ah!" said he, "there will be many a Mass said in the churches; every

one will weep and pray for their children, the more that they are dead

in a heathen land."

"Certainly, certainly," I replied.

We crossed the court, and in front of the tower-hall, opposite the

guard-house, many peasants and city people were already standing,

reading a placard. We went up the steps and entered the church, where

more than twenty women, young and old, were kneeling on the pavement,

in spite of the terrible cold.

"Is it not as I said?" said Brainstein. "They are coming already to

pray, and half of them have been here since five o'clock."

He opened the little door of the steeple leading to the organ, and we

began climbing up in the dark. Once in the organ-loft, we turned to

the left of the bellows, and went up to the bells.

I was glad to see the blue sky and breathe the free air again, for the

bad odor of the bats which inhabited the tower almost suffocated me.

But how terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every wind, and how

dazzlingly the snow shone over twenty leagues of country! All the

little city of Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, three _demilunes_,

two advanced works, its barracks, magazines, bridges, _glacis_,

ramparts; its great parade-ground, and little, well-aligned houses,

were beneath me, as if drawn on white paper. I was not yet accustomed

to the height, and I held fast on the middle of the platform for fear I

might jump off, for I had read of people having their heads turned by

great heights. I did not dare go to the clock, and, if Brainstein had

not set me the example, I would have remained there, pressed against

the beam from which the bells hung; but he said:

"Come, Monsieur Joseph, and see if it is right."

Then I took out Monsieur Goulden's large watch which marked seconds,

and I saw that the clock was considerably slow. Brainstein helped me

to wind it up, and we regulated it.

"The clock is always slow in winter," said he, "because of the iron

working."

After becoming somewhat accustomed to the elevation, I began to look

around. There were the Oakwood barracks, the upper barracks,

Bigelberg, and lastly, opposite me, Quatre-Vents, and the house of Aunt

Gredel, from the chimney of which a thread of blue smoke rose toward

the sky. And I saw the kitchen, and imagined Catharine, in sabots, and

woollen skirt, spinning at the corner of the hearth and thinking of me.

I no longer felt the cold; I could not take my eyes from their cottage.

Father Brainstein, who did not know what I was looking at, said:

"Yes, yes, Monsieur Joseph: now all the roads are covered with people

in spite of the snow. The news has already spread, and every one wants

to know the extent of his loss."

He was right; every road and path was covered with people coming to the

city; and looking in the court, I saw the crowd increasing every moment

before the guard-house, the town-house, and the postoffice. A deep

murmur arose from the mass.

At length, after a last, long look at Catharine's house, I had to

descend, and we went down the dark, winding stairs, as if descending

into a well. Once in the organ-loft, we saw that the crowd had greatly

increased in the church; all the mothers, the sisters, the old

grandmothers, the rich, and the poor, were kneeling on the benches in

the midst of the deepest silence; they prayed for the absent, offering

all only to see them once again.

At first I did not realize all this; but suddenly the thought that, if

I had gone the year before, Catharine would be there, praying and

asking me of God, fell like a bolt on my heart, and I felt all my body

tremble.

"Let us go! let us go!" I exclaimed, "this is terrible."

"What is?" he asked.

"War."

We descended the stairs under the great gate, and I went across the

court to the house of Monsieur the Commandant Meunier, while Brainstein

took the way to his house.

At the corner of the Hotel de Ville, I saw a sight which I shall

remember all my life. There, around a placard, were more than five

hundred people, men and women crowded against each other, all pale, and

with necks outstretched, gazing at it as at some horrible apparition.

They could not read it, and from time to time one would say in German

or French:

"But they are not all dead! Some will return."

Others cried out:

"Let us see it! let us get near it."

A poor old woman in the rear lifted up her hands, and cried:

"Christopher! my poor Christopher!"

Others, angry at her clamor, called out:

"Keep that old woman quiet."

Each one thought only of himself.

Behind, the crowd continued to pour through the German gate.

At length, Harmantier, the _sergent-de-ville_, came out of the

guard-house, and stood at the top of the steps, with another placard

like the first; a few soldiers followed him. Then a rush was made

toward him, but the soldiers kept off the crowd, and old Harmantier

began to read the placard, which he called the twenty-ninth bulletin,

and in which the Emperor informed them that during the retreat the

horses perished every night by thousands. He said nothing of the men!

The _sergent-de-ville_ read slowly; not a breath was heard in the

crowd; even the old woman, who did not understand French, listened like

the others. The buzz of a fly could have been heard. But when he came

to this passage, "Our cavalry was dismounted to such an extent that we

were forced to bring together the officers who yet owned horses to form

four companies of one hundred and fifty men each. Generals rated as

captains, and colonels as under-officers"--when he read this passage,

which told more of the misery of the grand army than all the rest,

cries and groans arose on all sides; two or three women fell and were

carried away.

It is true that the bulletin added, "The health of his majesty was

never better," and that was a great consolation. Unfortunately it

could not restore life to three hundred thousand men buried in the

snow; and so the people went away very sad. Others came by dozens who

had not heard the news read, and from time to time Harmantier came out

to read the bulletin.

This lasted until night; still the same scene over and over again.