"No, Father Ykel! Jean is gone to Dosenheim on business; he is trying
to collect old debts; at this time we need money."
"Pshaw!" said he, "you need not hide the truth from me; I am an old
friend of the Burats and you. Merlin has not been here for several
days; he has crossed the mountain, and he did right; he is a brave
fellow; but there are plenty of traitors about here; you have been
denounced, so be on your guard."
This warning startled me, and, thinking that it would be well to tell
his mother, Margredel, and his Uncle Daniel, after breakfast, without
saying anything to Marie-Rose, I took my stick and set out for Felsberg.
It had stopped raining. The winter sun was shining over the woods, and
this spectacle, after leaving our dark nook, seemed to revive me. As
the path at the hill passed near the forest house, showing the old roof
in the distance, I was touched by it. All my recollections came back to
me, and it occurred to me to go and take a look at the cottage, and to
look at the inside by standing on the bench by-the wall. It seemed as
if it would do me good to see once more the old room, wherein the old
people had died and where my children had been born! My heart warmed at
the idea and I went swiftly on, till, reaching the little bridge between
the two willows, covered with frost, I stood still in horror.
A German forest-guard, his green felt hat, with its cock-feathers, set
on one side, his long-stemmed porcelain pipe in his great fair
mustaches, and with his arms crossed on the window-sill, was smoking
quietly, with a calm expression, happy as in his own house. He was
looking smilingly at two chubby, fair-haired children, who were playing
before the door, and behind him, in the shadow of the room, was leaning
a woman, very fat, with red cheeks, calling, gaily:
"Wilhelm, Karl, come in; here is your bread and butter!"
All my blood seemed to go through my veins at the sight. How hard it is
to see strangers in the old people's house, where one has lived till
one's old age, from which one has been chased, from no crime of one's
own, only because others are masters and turn one out of doors! It is
terrible!
The guard raising his head suddenly, I was afraid he would see me, so I
hid myself. Yes, I hid myself behind the willows, hastening to reach
the path farther on, and stooping like a malefactor. I would have been
ashamed if that man had seen that the former master had found him in his
house, in his room, beside his hearth; I blushed at the idea! I hid
myself, for he might have laughed at the Alsatian, who had been turned
out of doors; he might have enjoyed himself over it. But from that day
hatred, which I had never known before, entered my heart; I hate those
Germans, who peacefully enjoy the fruit of our toil, and consider
themselves honest people. I abhor them!
From there I went up through the heath to Felsberg, feeling very sad and
with hanging head.
The poor village seemed as sad as I, among its heaps of mud and
dunghills; not a soul was to be seen in the street, where requisitions
of all kinds had passed more than once. And at the old schoolhouse,
when I tried to lift the latch, I found the door fastened. I listened;
no noise nor murmur of children was to be heard. I looked through the
window; the copies were hanging there still by their strings, but the
benches were empty.
I called, "Father Daniel!" looking up at the first-floor windows, for
the garden gate was also closed. Some moments later another door, that
of Margredel's house, built against the gable end, opened; Uncle Daniel,
an active little man, with coarse woollen stockings, and a black cotton
skull cap on his head, appeared, saying:
"Who is there?" I turned round.
"Ah! it is Brigadier Frederick," said he. "Come in!"
"Then you do not live yonder any more?" said I.
"No, since day before yesterday the school has been closed," he
answered, sadly.
And in the lower room of the old cottage, near the little cast-iron
stove, where the potatoes were cooking in the pot, sending their steam
up to the ceiling, I saw Margredel, sitting on a low stool.
*XXVI*
Margredel wore her usual open, kindly expression, and even her usual
smile.
"Ah!" said she, "we have no longer our pretty up-stairs room for our
friends. The Germans are hunting us out of every place; we will not
know where to go soon! However, sit down there on the bench, Father
Frederick, and, if you like, we will eat some potatoes together."
Her good-humour and her courage in such a wretched place made me still
more indignant against those who had plunged us all into misfortune; my
consternation kept me from speaking.
"Are Marie-Rose and the grandmother well?" asked Margredel.
"Yes, thank God!" I answered; "but we are very uneasy about Jean. The
Prussians know that he has gone; Father Ykel has warned me to be on my
guard, and I came to warn you."
"Who cares for the Prussians?" said she, shrugging her shoulders
contemptuously. "Ah! they are a bad race! Jean has crossed the
mountains long before this; if they had been able to stop him we would
have heard of it by this time; they would have come to tell us, rubbing
their hands with delight; but he has got over; he is a fine fellow!"
She laughed with all her toothless mouth.
"Those who have to fight him will not laugh. He is safe with our
volunteers! The guns and cannon are thundering yonder!"
The poor woman saw the bright side of everything, as usual, and I
thought:
"What a blessing it is to have a character like that; how fortunate!"
Uncle Daniel was walking about the room, saying:
"It is because of Jean's departure that the bandits shut up my school.
They had nothing to reproach me with; they gave me no explanations; they
simply shut it up, that is all, and just gave us time enough to carry
away our furniture; they looked at us crossly, crying, '_Schwindt!
schwindt!_'"[#]
[#] Quick! quick!
"Yes," cried Margredel, "they are sly hypocrites; they strike you heavy
blows without warning. In the morning they smile at you, they sit by the
fire like good apostles, they kiss your children with tears in their
eyes; and then all at once they change their tone, they collar you, and
turn you out of doors without mercy. Ah! those good Germans; we know
those honest people now! But they will not always be so proud. Wait a
bit; Heaven is just! Our own people will come back; Jean will be with
them. You will see, Father Frederick! We will go back to the forest
house; we will celebrate the wedding there! That is all I can say.
Don't you see, you must trust in God. Now we are suffering for our
sins. But God will put everything to rights, when we will have finished
expiating our faults. It cannot be otherwise. He uses the Prussians to
punish us. But their turn will come; we will go to their country. They
will see how agreeable it is to be invaded, robbed, pillaged. Let them
have a care! Every dog has his day!"
She spoke with so much confidence that it infected me; I said to myself:
"What she says is very possible. Yes, justice will be done, sooner or
later! After all, we may take Alsace again. Those Germans do not like
each other. We would only have to win one great battle; the break-up
would begin at once. The Bavarians, the Hessians, the Wuertembergers,
the Saxons, the Hanoverians, they would all go home again. We would
have it all our own way!"
But, in the meantime, we were in a very sad position. Margredel said
that they had enough rye and potatoes to last till the end of the war,
and that, with a few _sous'_ worth of salt, would be sufficient for
them.
Master Daniel compressed his lips and looked thoughtful.
So, having seen how things were getting along at Felsberg, I took leave
of my old friends about eleven o'clock, wishing them all the good things
in the world.
I avoided passing by the forest house, and I descended the hill of
Graufthal by the forest of fir trees among the rocks, leaning on my
stick in the steepest places.
I remember meeting, about two-thirds of my way down, old Roupp, an
incorrigible thief, with his faded little blouse, his cotton cravat
rolled like a rope round his lean neck, and his hatchet in his hand.
He was chopping away right and left, at everything that suited him; huge
branches, small fir trees, everything went into his magnificent fagot,
which was lying across the path, and as I called to him:
"Then you are not afraid of the Prussian guards, Father Roupp!"
He began to laugh, with his chin turned up and his scrap of felt hat on
the back of his neck, and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
"Ah! brigadier," said he, merrily, "those people don't risk themselves
alone in the forest! Unless they come in regiments, with cannon in front
of them and uhlans on every side, and ten against one, they always
follow the high roads. They are fellows that have a great respect for
their skins. Ha! ha! ha!"
I laughed, too, for he only told the truth. But a terrible surprise
awaited me a little farther on, at the descent of the rocks.
When I left the wood and saw the little thatched roofs at the foot of
the hill, among the heath, I first saw helmets glittering in the narrow
lane in front of Father Ykel's hut, and, looking closer, I perceived a
ragged crowd of men and women gathered around them; Ykel, at the door of
the inn, was talking; Marie-Rose behind, in front of the dark stable,
and the grandmother at her little window, with uplifted hands, as if
cursing them.
*XXVII*
Naturally, I began to run through the brushwood, knowing that something
serious was happening, and descending the passage of the old cloister,
to make a short cut, I came out behind the stable, at the moment that
some one was leaving it, dragging our two cows, tied by the horns.
It was the station-master of Bockberg, named Toubac, a short, thick-set
man, with a black beard, whose two tall, handsome daughters were said to
be the servants of the Prussian hauptmann[#] who had lodged at his house
since the beginning of the siege.
[#] Captain.
When I saw this rascal taking away my cattle, I cried:
"What are you doing, thief? Let my cows alone, or I will break every
bone in your body."
Then, at my cries, the sergeant and his squad of men, with drawn
bayonets, Ykel, Marie-Rose, and even the grandmother, dragging herself
along and leaning against the wall, entered the passage.
Marie-Rose cried out to me:
"Father, they want to take away our cows."
And the grandmother said lamentingly:
"Good Heavens! what will we have to live on? Those cows are our only
possession; they are all that we have left!"
The sergeant, a tall, lean man, with a tight-fitting uniform and with a
sword at his side, hearing Ykel say, "Here is the master! the cows
belong to him!" turned his head, as if on a pivot, and looked at me over
his shoulder; he wore spectacles under his helmet, and had red mustaches
and a hooked nose; he looked like an owl, who turns his head without
moving his body; a very bad face!
The crowd was blocking up the passage and the sergeant cried:
"Back! Clear the premises, corporal, and if they resist, fire upon
them!"
The trampling of the sabots in the mud and the cries of the grandmother,
weeping and sobbing, made this scene fearful.
"These cows suit me," said the station-master to the sergeant; "I will
take them; we can go."
"Do they belong to you?" said I, angrily, and clutching my stick.
"That is no affair of mine," said he, in the tone of a bandit, without
heart and without honour. "I have my choice of all the cows in the
country to replace those that the rascals from Phalsbourg carried off
from me at their last sortie. I choose these. They are Swiss cows. I
always liked Swiss cows."
"And who gave you the choice?" I cried. "Who can give you other people's
property?"
"The _hauptmann_, my friend, the _hauptmann_!" said he, turning up the
brim of his hat with an air of importance.
Then several of the crowd began to laugh, saying, "The _hauptmann_ is a
generous man; he pays those well who give him pleasure."
My indignation overcame me; and the sergeant having ordered his squad of
men to go on, at the moment when the station-master, crying "Hue!" was
dragging my poor cows after him by the horns, I was about to fall upon
him like a wolf, when Marie-Rose took hold of my hands and whispered to
me with a terrified look:
"Father, do not stir, they would kill you. Think of grandmother."
My cheeks were quivering, my teeth clenched, red flames were dancing
before my eyes; but the thought of my daughter alone in the world,
abandoned at this terrible time, and of the grandmother dying of hunger,
gave me the strength to keep down my rage, and I only cried:
"Go, scoundrel! Keep the property you have stolen from me, but beware
of ever meeting me alone in the forest!"
The sergeant and his men pretended not to hear; and he, the wretch,
said, laughing:
"These cows, sergeant, are as good as mine; after a long search we ended
by finding two fine animals."
They had searched all the villages, visited all the stables, and it was
on us that the misfortune fell. Marie-Rose, on seeing the poor beasts
raised by us at the forest house, could not restrain her tears, and the
grandmother, her hands clasped above her gray head, cried:
"Ah! now--now we are lost! Now this is the last stroke. My God, what
have we done to deserve such misery!"