Madame Gigon lived through the night, sleeping peacefully in her high
bed near the door that opened upon the terrace. But Lily did not sleep
at all. She kept watch, sometimes sitting at the bedside, sometimes
lying wrapped in her cloak in the long chair beneath the plane trees.
She watched the flashes on the horizon beyond the wood, until the dawn
rising slowly absorbed them and rendered them invisible in a faint glow
which grew and grew until it enveloped all the dome of the sky and
transformed, suddenly and without warning, the dark wood from a low
black wall extending across the sky into a grove of slender trunks
silhouetted against the rising light.
At dawn the troops no longer passed the house. The dusty white road lay
deserted between the rows of chestnut trees. But in the dust were the
prints of a thousand hoofs and the tracks of the wide wheeled caissons.
The little procession on the distant bridge at Trilport had vanished.
There were no soldiers going forward; and coming back, there was now
only an occasional, straggling cart or the figure of a shopkeeper
pushing before him in a wooden wheelbarrow all that he had salvaged of
his little shop.
At noon there appeared out of the wood a rolling kitchen drawn by tired
horses and driven by weary soldiers all white with dust. It came nearer
and nearer until it arrived at the farm where, in the shadow of the big
gray barns, it halted and the men ate. A little while later soldiers
began to appear among the trees, tiny figures in red trousers and red
caps, no longer bright like the poppies, but all stained and dust
covered. The red marked them against the wall of greenery as if it had
been planned that they should serve as targets.
Singly and in little groups of two or three the soldiers straggled
across the fields toward the kitchen set up against the gray wall of
the barn. The sun shone brilliantly, and in the clear white light the
red tiles, the white walls, and the green of the trees appeared gay and
bright. Some of the men carried arms suspended in slings. One or two
wore about their close-cropped heads bandages that were stained with
spots of red as if the color had come loose from their tragic little
caps and stained their skins. There was one dandified young officer,
with fine waxed mustaches, who dragged a shattered leg and still wore
the bedraggled remnants of the spotless white gloves he had carried into
the battle.
When they had eaten and drunk, the soldiers made their way across the
iron bridge and turning along the tow path at the foot of the garden
kept on their way, moving in a thin, trickling stream in the direction
of Paris.
At length Lily, rousing herself, went to the foot of the garden, opened
the gate and stood on the path. She carried wine which she gave them to
drink as they passed.
“And how does it go?” she asked now and then.
The respectful answer was always the same. “Badly, Madame.... Badly. It
would be better if you did not remain.”
Or a shrug and “What can we do, Madame? They have better guns ... better
shells. One cannot see them. They are dressed so that they look like the
trees themselves. And we ... we.” A gesture indicating the fatal red
trousers and kepi.
Early in the afternoon the sound of the guns became audible again, not
distant this time and indistinct like thunder, but sharp and clear ...
the barking “ping” of the seventy-fives.
When the wine was all gone, Lily returned again to the terrace to wait.
She had not been sitting there long when there arose all at once the
sound of a terrific explosion. Turning her head she saw above the river
at Trilport a great cloud of white dust and black smoke. They had
destroyed the solid white bridge. It was the French themselves who had
destroyed it. The Germans must be very near.
Madame Gigon slept peacefully just inside the doorway, all undisturbed
by the explosion.
As for Lily, lying in the low chair, the explosion appeared to have
worked a miracle. The color had begun to return to her white face. It
showed itself in bright spots as if she had been seized by a fever. And
presently she arose and began to walk about, up and down the garden,
going at last into the château itself from which she returned in a
little while carrying a pair of the Baron’s binoculars. With these she
climbed to the little turret which rose above the vine covered
dove-cote. There she settled herself to watching.
In a little while the men about the kitchen gathered themselves into a
group, put the horses once more into the harness and drove away,
carrying with them a boy of the last class whose strength had given out.
M. Dupont followed them until he reached the edge of the iron bridge
where he halted and stood looking after them, his hands shading his old
eyes against the long rays of the setting sun, until they disappeared
around a turn of the river. Then he went quietly indoors.
A little while later a battery of guns appeared among the trees, halted
on the edge of the wood, and began firing in the direction of La Ferté
where a cloud of smoke from the burning houses hung low upon the
horizon. It was a pretty picture. The men worked the guns rapidly. The
cannon spat forth little curls of white smoke followed by sudden angry
barks, not in the least deafening. In the clear evening light it was all
like one of Meissonier’s battle pictures, rather clear and pretty and
bright-colored.
But in a little while the battery stopped firing, the horses leaned
forward once more into the harness and the guns drew away down the lane,
past the white farm and across the iron bridge. The planks reverberated
with a thunderous sound under the hoofs of the galloping horses. The
little cavalcade turned along the tow-path and vanished. Out of the wood
there appeared suddenly three gray-green figures on horseback who halted
and surveyed the landscape. They were the first of the Uhlans.