"Well! leave her in her bed," said he; "the order of the
_Kreissdirector_ is for you alone."
Then, without listening to me any longer, he went into a side room,
calling a servant, and closed the door behind him. I went down stairs
again, feeling utterly crushed; my last hope was gone; I had no other
resource; I had to leave; I had to announce this bad news to my
daughter, to the grandmother! I knew what would be the result of it;
and, with hanging head, I went through that German doorway, the bridge,
the sentinels, without seeing anything. On the glacis, at Biechelberg,
all along the road through the woods and through the valley, I was as if
mad with despair; I talked to myself, I cried out, looking at the trees
and raising my hand toward heaven.
"Now the curse is upon us! Now pity, the disgrace of crime, the remorse
of conscience are abolished! Nothing is left now but strength. Let them
exterminate us, let them cut our throats! Let the rascals strangle the
old woman in her bed; let them hang my daughter before the door, and as
for me, let them chop me into pieces! That would be better. That would
be less barbarous than to tear us from each other's arms; to force the
son to abandon his mother on her death-bed!"
And I continued on my road, stumbling along. The forests, the ravines,
the rocks seemed to me full of those old brigands, of those Pandoras of
whom I had heard tell in my childhood; I thought I heard them singing
round their fires, as they shared the plunder; all the old miseries of
the time before the great revolution came back to me. The distant
trumpet of the Prussians in the city that sounded its three wild notes
to the echoes, seemed to me to arouse those old villains who had been
reduced to dust centuries before.
*XXXII*
All at once the sight of the cottages of Graufthal aroused me from my
dreams; I shivered at the thought that the moment was come to speak, to
tell my daughter and the grandmother that I was banished, driven away
from the country. It seemed to me like a sentence of death that I
myself was about to pronounce against those whom I loved best in the
world. I slackened my steps so as not to arrive too quickly, when,
raising my eyes, after having passed the first houses, I saw Marie-Rose
waiting in the dark little entry of the inn; my first glance at her told
me that she knew all.
"Well, father?" said she in a low voice, as she stood on the threshold.
"Well," I answered, trying to be calm, "I must go. But you two can
stay--they have granted you permission to stay."
At the same time I heard the grandmother moaning up stairs in her bed.
Katel, that morning, directly after I set out, had gone up stairs to
tell my daughter the bad news; the poor old woman had heard all. The
news had already spread through the village; the people round us were
listening; and, seeing that the blow had fallen, I told all who wished
to hear how the Prussian commander had received me. The crowd of
neighbours listened to me without a word; all were afraid of sharing my
fate. The grandmother had heard my voice, and she called me:
"Frederick! Frederick!"
When I heard her voice, a cold perspiration broke out on my face. I
went up stairs, answering:
"Here I am, grandmother, here I am! Don't cry so! It will not last
long. I will come back! Now they distrust me. They are wrong,
grandmother; but the others are the strongest!"
"Ah!" she cried, "you are going away, Frederick--you are going away like
poor Jean. I knew that he had gone away to fight. I knew all. I will
never see either of you again."
"Why not, grandmother, why not? In a few weeks I will be allowed to
come back, and Jean will come back, too, after the war!"
"I will never see you again!" she cried.
And her sobs grew louder. The people, curious, and even cruel in their
curiosity, had come up stairs one after another; our three little rooms
were filled with them; they held their breath, they had left their
sabots at the foot of the stairs; they wanted to see and hear
everything; but then, seeing the poor old woman in the shadow of her
great gray curtains, sobbing and holding out her arms to me, almost all
hastened to go down stairs again and to return to their homes. No one
was left but big Starck, Father Ykel, and his daughter, Katel.
"Grandmother Anne," said Father Ykel, "don't get such ideas into your
head. Frederick is right. You must be reasonable. When peace is
declared all will be right again. You are eighty-three years old and I
am nearly seventy. What does that matter? I hope to see again Jean,
Father Frederick, and all those who are gone."
"Ah!" said she, "I have suffered too much; now it is all over!"
And till night she did nothing but cry. Marie-Rose, always courageous,
opened the cupboards and packed up my bundle, for I had no time to lose;
the next day I must be on my road. She took out my clothes and my best
shirts and put them on the table, asking me, in a low voice, while the
grandmother continued to cry:
"You will take this, father? And that?"