"Is any one here?"
Just then an old woman appeared with a candle at the top of a wooden
staircase.
"What do you want?" she asked.
I told her that I was billeted at her house. She came downstairs, and,
looking at my billet, told me in German to follow her.
I ascended the stairs. Passing an open door, I saw two men naked to
the waist at work before an oven. I was, then, at a baker's, and her
having so much work accounted for the old woman being up so late. She
wore a cap with black ribbons, a large blue apron, and her arms were
bare to the elbows; she, too, had been working, and seemed very
sorrowful. She led me into a good-sized room with a porcelain stove
and a bed at the farther end.
"You come late," she said.
"We were marching all day," I replied, "and I am fainting with hunger
and weariness."
She looked at me and I heard her say:
"Poor child! poor child! Well, take off your shoes and put on these
sabots."
Then she made me sit before the stove, and asked:
"Are your feet sore?"
"Yes, they have been so for three days."
She put the candle upon the table and went out. I took off my coat and
shoes. My feet were blistered and bleeding, and pained me horribly,
and I felt for the moment as if it would almost be better to die at
once than continue in such suffering.
This thought had more than once arisen to my mind in the march, but
now, before that good fire, I felt so worn, so miserable, that I would
gladly have lain myself down to sleep forever, notwithstanding
Catharine, Aunt Gredel, and all who loved me. Truly, I needed God's
assistance.
While these thoughts were running through my head, the door opened, and
a tall, stout man, gray-haired, but yet strong and healthy, entered.
He was one of those I had seen at work below, and held in his hands a
bottle of wine and two glasses.
"Good-evening!" said he, gravely and kindly.
I looked up. The old woman was behind him. She was carrying a little
wooden tub, which she placed on the floor near my chair.
"Take a foot-bath," said she; "it will do you good."
This kindness on the part of a stranger affected me more than I cared
to show, and I thought: "There are kind people in the world." I took
off my stockings; my feet were bleeding, and the good old dame
repeated, as she gazed at them:
"Poor child! poor child!"
The man asked me whence I came. I told him from Phalsbourg in
Lorraine. Then he told his wife to bring some bread, adding that,
after we had taken a glass of wine together, he would leave me to the
repose I needed so much.
He pushed the table before me, as I sat with my feet in the bath, and
we each drained a glass of good white wine. The old woman returned
with some hot bread, over which she had spread fresh, half-melted
butter. Then I knew how hungry I was. I was almost ill. The good
people saw my eagerness for food; for the woman said:
"Before eating, my child, you must take your feet out of the bath."
She knelt down and dried my feet with her apron before I knew what she
was about to do. I cried:
"Good Heavens! madame; you treat me as if I were your son."
She replied, after a moment's mournful silence:
"We have a son in the army."
Her voice trembled as she spoke, and my heart bled within me. I
thought of Catharine and Aunt Gredel, and could not speak again. I ate
and drank with a pleasure I never before felt in doing so. The two old
people sat gazing kindly on me, and, when I had finished, the man said:
"Yes, we have a son in the army; he went to Russia last year, and we
have not since heard from him. These wars are terrible!"
He spoke dreamily, as if to himself, all the while walking up and down
the room, his hands crossed behind his back. My eyes began to close
when he said suddenly:
"Come, wife. Good-night, conscript."
They went out together, she carrying the tub.
"God reward you," I cried, "and bring your son safe home!"
In a minute I was undressed, and, sinking on the bed, I was almost
immediately buried in a deep sleep.