We were following the Wurtzen high road, our muskets slung on our
backs, our great-coat capes turned up, bending beneath our knapsacks,
and feeling down-hearted enough, as you may imagine. The rain was
falling, and ran from our shakos down our necks; the wind shook the
poplars, and their yellow leaves, fluttering around us, told of the
approach of winter. So hour after hour passed.
From time to time, at long intervals, we came upon a village with its
sheds, dunghills and gardens, surrounded with palings. The women
standing behind their windows, with little dull panes, gazed at us as
we went by; a dog bayed; a man splitting wood at his threshold turned
to follow us with his eyes, and we kept on, on, splashed and muddied to
our necks. We looked back; from the end of the village the road
stretched on as far as one could see; gray clouds trailed along the
despoiled fields, and a few lean rooks were flying away, uttering their
melancholy cry.
Nothing could be sadder than such a view; and to it was added the
thought that winter was coming on, and that soon we must sleep without
a roof, in the snow. We might well be silent, as we were, save the
quartermaster Poitevin. He was a veteran,--sallow, wrinkled, with
hollow cheeks, mustaches an ell long, and a red nose, like all brandy
drinkers. He had a lofty way of speaking, which he interspersed with
barrack slang. When the rain came down faster than ever, he cried,
with a strange burst of laughter: "Ay, ay, Poitevin, this will teach
you to hiss!" The old drunkard perceived that I had a little money in
my pocket, and kept near me, saying: "Young man, if your knapsack tires
you, hand it to me." But I only thanked him for his kindness.
Notwithstanding my disgust at being with a man who gazed at every
tavern sign when we passed through a village, and said at each one: "A
little glass of something would do us good as the time passes," I could
not help paying for a glass now and then, so that he did not quit me.
We were nearing Wurtzen and the rain was falling in torrents, when the
quartermaster cried for the twentieth time:
"Ay, Poitevin! Here is life for you! This will teach you to hiss!"
"What sort of a proverb is that of yours?" I asked; "I would like to
know how the rain would teach you to hiss."
"It is not a proverb, young man; it is an idea which runs in my head
when I try to be cheerful."
Then, after a moment's pause, he continued:
"You must know," said he, "that in 1806, when I was a student at Rouen,
I happened once to hiss a piece in the theatre, with a number of other
young fellows like myself. Some hissed, some applauded; blows were
struck, and the police carried us by dozens to the watch-house. The
Emperor, hearing of it, said: 'Since they like fighting so much, put
them in my armies! There they can gratify their tastes!' And, of
course, the thing was done; and no one dared hiss in that part of the
country, not even fathers and mothers of families."
"You were a conscript, then?" I asked.
"No, my father had just bought me a substitute. It was one of the
Emperor's jokes; one of those jokes which we long remember; twenty or
thirty of us are dead of hardship and want. A few others, instead of
filling honorable positions in their towns, such as doctors, judges,
lawyers, have become old drunkards. This is what is called a good
joke!"
Then he began to laugh, looking at me from the corner of his eye. I
had become very thoughtful, and two or three times more, before we
reached Gauernitz, I paid for the poor wretch's little glasses of
something.
It was about five o'clock in the evening, and we were approaching the
village of Risa, when we descried an old mill, with its wooden bridge,
over which a bridle-path ran. We struck off from the road and took
this path, to make a short cut to the village, when we heard cries and
shrieks for help, and, at the same moment, two women, one old, and the
other somewhat younger, ran across a garden, dragging two children with
them. They were trying to gain a little wood which bordered the road,
and at the same moment we saw several of our soldiers come out of the
mill with sacks, while others came up from a cellar with little casks,
which they hastened to place on a cart standing near; still others were
driving cows and horses from a stable, while an old man stood at the
door, with uplifted hands, as if calling down Heaven's curse upon them;
and five or six of the evil-minded wretches surrounded the miller, who
was all pale, with his eyes starting from their sockets.
The whole scene, the mill, the dam, the broken windows, the flying
women, our soldiers in fatigue caps, looking like veritable bandits,
the old man cursing them, the cows shaking their heads to throw off
those who were leading them, while others pricked them behind with
their bayonets--all seems yet before me--I seem yet to see it.
"There," cried the quartermaster, "there are fellows pillaging. We are
not far from the army."
"But that is horrible!" I cried. "They are robbers."
"Yes," returned the quartermaster, coolly; "it is contrary to
discipline, and if the Emperor knew of it, they would be shot like
dogs."
We crossed the little bridge, and found the thieves crowded around a
cask which they had tapped, passing around the cup. This sight roused
the quartermaster's indignation, and he cried majestically:
"By whose permission are you plundering in this way?"
Several turned their heads, but seeing that we were but three, for the
rest of our party had gone on, one of them replied:
"Ha! what do you want, old joker? A little of the spoil, I suppose.
But you need not curl up your mustaches on that account. Here, drink a
drop."
The speaker held out the cup, and the quartermaster took it and drank,
looking at me as he did so.
"Well, young man," said he, "will you have some, too? It is famous
wine, this."
"No, I thank you," I replied.
Several of the pillaging party now cried:
"Hurry, there; it is time to get back to camp."
"No, no," replied others; "there is more to be had here."
"Comrades," said the quartermaster, in a tone of gentle reproof and
warning, "you know, comrades, you must go gently about it."
"Yes, yes, old fellow," replied a drum-major, with half-closed eyes,
and a mocking smile; "do not be alarmed; we will pluck the pigeon
according to rule. We will take care; we will take care."
The quartermaster said no more, but seemed ashamed on my account. He
at length said:
"What would you have, young man? War is war. One cannot see himself
starving, with food at hand."
He was afraid I would report him; he would have remained with the
pillagers, but for the fear of being captured. I replied, to relieve
his mind:
"Those are probably good fellows, but the sight of a cup of wine makes
them forget everything."
At length, about ten o'clock at night, we saw the bivouac fires, on a
gloomy hill-side to the right of the village of Gauernitz, and of an
old castle from which a few lights also shone. Farther on, in the
plain, a great number of other fires were burning. The night was
clear, and as we approached the bivouac, the sentry challenged:
"Who goes there?"
"France!" replied the quartermaster.
My heart beat, as I thought that, in a few moments, I should again meet
my old comrades, if they were yet in the world.
Some men of the guard came forward from a sort of shed, half a
musket-shot from the village, to find out who we were. The commandant
of the post, a gray-haired sub-lieutenant, his arm in a sling under his
cloak, asked us whence we came, whither we were going, and whether we
had met any parties of Cossacks on our route. The quartermaster
answered his questions. The lieutenant informed us that Souham's
division had that morning left Gauernitz, and ordered us to follow him,
that he might examine our marching-papers; which we did in silence,
passing among the bivouac fires, around which men, covered with dried
mud, were sleeping, in groups of twenty. Not one moved.
We arrived at the officers' quarters. It was an old brick-kiln, with
an immense roof, resting on posts driven into the ground. A large fire
was burning in it, and the air was agreeably warm. Around it soldiers
were sleeping, with a contented look, their backs against the wall; the
flames lighted up their figures under the dark rafters. Near the posts
shone stacks of arms. I seem yet to see these things; I feel the
kindly warmth which penetrated me. I see my comrades, their clothes
smoking, a few paces from the kiln, where they were gravely waiting
until the officer should have finished reading the marching-papers, by
the dim, red light. One bronzed old veteran watched alone, seated on
the ground, and mending a shoe with a needle and thread.
The officer handed me back my paper first, saying:
"You will rejoin your battalion to-morrow, two leagues hence, near
Torgau."
Then the old soldier, looking at me, placed his hand upon the ground,
to show that there was room beside him, and I seated myself. I opened
my knapsack, and put on new stockings and shoes, which I had brought
from Leipzig, after which I felt much better.
The old man asked:
"You are rejoining your corps?"
"Yes; the Sixth at Torgau."
"And you came from?"----
"The hospital at Leipzig."
"That is easily seen," said he; "you are fat as a beadle. They fed you
on chickens down there, while we were eating cow-beef."
I looked around at my sleeping neighbors. He was right; the poor
conscripts were mere skin and bone. They were bronzed as veterans, and
scarcely seemed able to stand.
The old man, in a moment, continued his questions:
"You were wounded?"
"Yes, veteran, at Lutzen."
"Four months in the hospital!" said he, whistling; "what luck! I have
just returned from Spain, flattering myself that I was going to meet
the _Kaiserliks_ of 1807 once more--sheep, regular sheep--but they have
become worse than guerillas. Everything goes to the bad."
He said the most of this to himself, without paying much attention to
me, all the while sewing his shoe, which from time to time he tried on,
to be sure that the sewn part would not hurt his foot. At last he put
the thread in his knapsack, and the shoe upon his foot, and stretched
himself upon a truss of straw.