From that day I could think of nothing but my misfortune. I tried to
work, but my thoughts were far away, and Monsieur Goulden said:
"Joseph, stop working. Make the most of the little time you can remain
among us; go to see Catharine and Mother Gredel. I still think they
will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men so much that it may
be a long time coming."
I went every morning then to Quatre-Vents, and passed my days with
Catharine. We were very sorrowful, but very glad to see each other.
We loved one another even more than before, if that were possible.
Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the good old times; but
suddenly she would burst into tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt
Gredel would rail at the wars which brought misery to every one. She
said that the Council of Revision deserved to be hung; that they were
all robbers, banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a
little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was right.
I returned to the city about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, when
they closed the gates, and as I passed, I saw the small inns full of
conscripts and old returned soldiers drinking together. The conscripts
always paid; the others, with dirty police caps cocked over their ears,
red noses, and horse-hair stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted
their mustaches and related with majestic air their battles, their
marches, and their duels. One can imagine nothing viler than those
holes, full of smoke, cob-webs hanging on the black beams, those old
sworders and young men drinking, shouting, and beating the tables like
crazy people; and behind, in the shadow, old Annette Schnaps or Marie
Hering--her old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only three
teeth remaining, crosswise, in it--gazing on the scene, or emptying a
mug to the health of the braves.
It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and laborious fellows,
leading such an existence; but no one thought of working, and any one
of them would have given his life for two farthings. Worn out with
shouting, drinking, and internal grief, they ended by falling asleep
over the table, while the old fellows emptied their cups, singing:
"'Tis glory calls us on!"
I saw these things, and I blessed heaven for having given me, in my
wretchedness, kind hearts to keep up my courage, and prevent my falling
into such hands.
This state of affairs lasted until the twenty-fifth of January. For
some days a great number of Italian conscripts--Piedmontese and
Genoese--had been arriving in the city; some stout and fat as Savoyards
fed upon chestnuts--their cocked hats on their curly heads; their
linsey-woolsey pantaloons dyed a dark green, and their short vests also
of wool, but brick-red, fastened around their waists by a leather belt.
They wore enormous shoes, and ate their cheese seated along the old
market-place. Others were dried up, lean, brown, shivering in their
long cassocks, seeing nothing but snow upon the roofs and gazing with
their large, black, mournful eyes upon the women who passed. They were
exercised every day in marching, and were going to fill up the skeleton
of the Sixth regiment of the line at Mayence, and were then resting for
a while in the infantry barracks.
The captain of the recruits, who was named Vidal, lodged over our room.
He was a square-built, solid, very strong-looking man, and was, too,
very kind and civil. He came to us to have his watch repaired, and
when he learned that I was a conscript and was afraid I should never
return, he encouraged me, saying that it was all habit; that at the end
of five or six months one fights and marches as he eats his dinner; and
that many so accustom themselves to shooting at people that they
consider themselves unhappy when they are deprived of that amusement.
But his mode of reasoning was not to my taste; the more so as I saw
five or six large grains of powder on one of his cheeks, which had
entered deeply, and as he explained to me that they came from a shot
which a Russian fired almost under his nose, such a life disgusted me
more and more, and as several days had already passed without news, I
began to think they had forgotten me, as they did Jacob, of Chevre Hof,
of whose extraordinary luck every one yet talks. Aunt Gredel herself
said to me every time I went there, "Well, well! they will let us alone
after all!" When, on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January, as I
was about starting for Quatre-Vents, Monsieur Goulden, who was working
at his bench with a thoughtful air, turned to me with tears in his eyes
and said:
"Listen, Joseph! I wanted to let you have one night more of quiet
sleep; but you must know now, my child, that yesterday evening the
brigadier of the _gendarmes_ brought me your marching orders. You go
with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five or six young men of the
city--young Klipfel, young Loerig, Jean Leger, and Gaspard Zebede. You
go to Mayence."
I felt my knees give way as he spoke, and I sat down unable to speak.
Monsieur Goulden took my marching orders, beautifully written, out of a
drawer, and began to read them slowly. All that I remember is that
Joseph Bertha, native of Dabo, Canton of Phalsbourg, Arrondissement of
Sarrebourg, was incorporated in the Sixth regiment of the line, and
that he was to join his corps the twenty-ninth of January at Mayence.
This letter produced as bad an effect on me as if I had known nothing
of it before. It seemed something new, and I grew angry.
Monsieur Goulden, after a moment's silence, added:
"The Italians start to-day at eleven."
Then, as if awakening from a horrible dream, I cried:
"But shall I not see Catharine again?"
"Yes, Joseph, yes," said he, in a trembling voice. "I notified Mother
Gredel and Catharine, and thus, my boy, they will come, and you can
embrace them before leaving."
I saw his grief, and it made me sadder yet, so that I had a hard
struggle to keep myself from bursting into tears.
He continued after a pause:
"You need not be anxious about anything, Joseph. I have prepared all
beforehand; and when you return, if it please God to keep me so long in
this world, you will find me always the same. I am beginning to grow
old, and my greatest happiness would be to keep you for a son, for I
found you good-hearted and honest. I would have given you what I
possess, and we would have been happy together. Catharine and you
would have been my children. But since it is otherwise, let us be
resigned. It is only for a little while. You will be sent back, I am
sure. They will soon see that you cannot make long marches."
While he spoke, I sat silently sobbing, my face buried in my hands.
At last he arose and took from a closet a soldier's knapsack of
cowskin, which he placed upon the table. I looked at him, thinking of
nothing but the pain of parting.
"Here is your knapsack," he added; "and I have put in it all that you
require; two linen shirts, two flannel waistcoats, and all the rest.
You will receive at Mayence two soldier's shirts,--all that you will
need; but I have made for you some shoes, for nothing is worse than
those given the soldiers, which are almost always of horse-hide and
chafe the feet fearfully. You are none too strong in your leg, my poor
boy. Well, well, that is all."
He placed the knapsack upon the table and sat down.
Without, we heard the Italians making ready to depart. Above us
Captain Vidal was giving his orders. He had his horse at the barracks
of the gendarmerie, and was telling his orderly to see that he was well
rubbed and had received his hay.
All this bustle and movement produced a strange effect upon me, and I
could not yet realize that I must quit the city. As I was thus in the
greatest distress, the door opened and Catharine entered weeping, while
Mother Gredel cried out:
"I told you you should have fled to Switzerland; that these rogues
would finish by carrying you off. I told you so, and you would not
believe me."
"Mother Gredel," replied Monsieur Goulden, "to go to do his duty is not
so great an evil as to be despised by honest people. Instead of all
these cries and reproaches, which serve no good purpose, you would do
better to comfort and encourage Joseph."
"Ah!" said she; "I do not reproach him, although this is terrible."
Catharine did not leave me; she sat by me and we embraced each other,
and she said, pressing my arm:
"You will return?"
"Yes, yes," said I, in a low voice. "And you--you will always think of
me; you will not love another?"
She answered, sobbing:
"No, no! I will never love any but you."
This lasted a quarter of an hour, when the door opened and Captain
Vidal entered, his cloak rolled like a hunting-horn over his shoulder.
"Well," said he, "well; how goes our young man?"
"Here he is," answered Monsieur Goulden.
"Ah!" remarked the captain; "you are making yourself miserable. It is
natural. I remember when I departed for the army. We have all a home."
Then, raising his voice, he said:
"Come, come, young man, courage! We are no longer children."
He looked at Catharine.
"I see all," said he to Monsieur Goulden. "I can understand why he
does not want to go."
The drums beat in the street and he added:
"We have yet twenty minutes before starting," and, throwing a glance at
me, "Do not fail to be at the first call, young man," said he, pressing
Monsieur Goulden's hand.
He went out, and we heard his horse pawing at the door.
The morning was overcast, and grief overwhelmed me. I could not leave
Catharine.
Suddenly the roll beat. The drums were all collected in the square.
Monsieur Goulden, taking the knapsack by its straps, said in a grave
voice:
"Joseph, now the last embrace: it is time to go."
I stood up, pale as ashes. He fastened the knapsack to my shoulders.
Catharine sat sobbing, her face covered with her apron. Aunt Gredel
looked on with lips compressed.
The roll continued for a time, then suddenly ceased.
"The call is about commencing," said Monsieur Goulden, embracing me.
Then the fountains of his heart burst forth; tears sprang to his eyes;
and calling me his child, his son, he whispered, "Courage!"
Aunt Gredel seated herself again, and as I bent toward her, taking my
head between her hands, she sobbed:
"I always loved you, Joseph; ever since you were a baby. You never
gave me cause of grief--and now you must go. O God! O God!"