"I will not cry out any more, sir; I will say nothing. Only let me stay
by her; I will be very quiet."
A few minutes after, Dr. Carriere left the room, making a sign to the
others to withdraw.
A great many people followed him, a small number remained. I saw them
moving to and fro, arranging the bed and raising the pillows, whispering
among themselves. The silence was profound. Time passed. A priest
appeared with his assistants; they began to pray in Latin. It was the
last offices of the church. The good women, kneeling, uttered the
responses.
All disappeared. It was then about five o'clock in the evening. The
lamp was lighted. I rose softly and approached the bed.
My daughter, looking as beautiful as an angel, her eyes half open, still
breathed; I called her in a whisper: "Marie-Rose! Marie-Rose!" crying
bitterly as I spoke.
It seemed every minute as if she was about to look at me and answer,
"Father!"
But it was only the light that flickered on her face. She no longer
stirred. And from minute to minute, from hour to hour, I listened to
her breathing, which was growing gradually shorter and shorter. I
looked at her cheeks and her forehead, gradually growing paler. At
last, uttering a sigh, she lifted her head, which was slightly drooping,
and her blue eyes opened slowly.
A good woman, who was watching with me, took a little mirror from the
table and held it to her lips; no cloud dimmed the surface of the glass;
Marie-Rose was dead.
I said nothing, I uttered no lamentations, and I followed like a child
those who led me into the next room. I sat down in the shadow, my hands
on my knees; my courage was broken.
And now it is ended. I have told you all, George.
Need I tell you of the funeral, the coffin, the cemetery? and then of
my return to the little room where Marie-Rose and I had lived together;
of my despair at finding myself alone, without relations, without a
country, without hope, and to say to myself, "You will live thus
always--always until the worms eat you!"
No, I cannot tell you about that; it is too horrible. I have told you
enough.
You need only know that I was like a madman, that I had evil ideas which
haunted me, thoughts of vengeance.
It was not I, George, who cherished those terrible thoughts; it was the
poor creature abandoned by heaven and earth, whose heart had been torn
out, bit by bit, and who knew no longer where to lay his head.
I wandered through the streets; the good people pitied me; Mother Ory
gave me all my meals. I learned that later. Then I did not think of
anything; my evil thoughts did not leave me; I talked of them alone,
sitting behind the stove of the inn, my chin on my hands, my elbows on
my knees, and my eyes fixed on the floor.
God only knows what hatred I meditated. Mother Ory understood all, and
the excellent woman, who wished me well, told M. d'Arence about me.
One morning, when I was alone in the inn parlour, he came to talk things
over with me, reminding me that he had always shown himself very
considerate towards me, that he had always recommended me as an honest
man, a good servant, full of zeal and probity, in whom one could repose
perfect trust, and that he hoped it would be that way till the end; that
he was sure of it; that a brave, just man, even in the midst of the
greatest misfortunes, would show himself the same that he was in
prosperity; that duty and honour marched before him; that his greatest
consolation and his best was to be able to say to himself: "I am cast
down, it is true; but my courage remains to me; my good conscience
supports me; my enemies themselves are forced to confess that fate has
been unjust to me."
He talked to me in this manner for a long time, pacing up and down the
room; and I, who had not shed a tear at my daughter's funeral, I burst
out crying.
Then he told me that the time had come to depart; that the sight of the
Prussians only embittered my nature; that he would give me a letter of
recommendation for one of his intimate friends in Paris; that I would
obtain there a situation with a small salary, either on the railway or
elsewhere; and that in this way, when my pension was paid to me, I could
live in peace, not happy, but far from all that reminded me unceasingly
of my misfortunes.
I was ready to do anything that he wished, George, but he wanted nothing
but for my own good.
So I set out, and for the last three years I have been one of the
superintendents of the Eastern Railway Station.
*XL*
When I arrived in the midst of the great confusion after the siege, I
had the pain of seeing a terrible thing, the recollection of which adds
to my suffering--Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen. The great city
was in flames, and the Prussians outside looked at this sight with a
barbarous joy.
"There is no longer any Paris," they said; "no longer any Paris."
The horrible envy that gnawed these people was satisfied.
Yes, I have seen that! I thought that it was all over with us; I
shuddered at it. I cried, "The Almighty has determined that France
shall descend into the abyss!"
But that, thanks to Heaven, has also passed away. The recollection
remains; let us hope that it will never perish.
And that was not all. After these great calamities I was obliged to
witness, as I fulfilled the duties of my post, pass, day by day, before
my eyes, the great emigration of our brothers of Alsace and Lorraine;
men, women, children, old men, by thousands, going to earn their living
far from their native land--in Algeria, in America, everywhere.
Our poor countrymen all recognised me by my face; they said, "He is one
of our people."
The sight of them does me good also; it is like a breath from one's
native land of good and wholesome air. We shook hands. I pointed them
out the hotel where one can live cheaply; I rendered them all the little
services that one can render to friends of a day, who will retain a kind
remembrance of him who held out his hand to them.
And in the evening, when I went back to my little room under the roof,
and thinking about these things, I am still glad at not being quite
useless in this world; it is my only consolation, George; sometimes this
thought gives me a good night's rest.
Other days, when the weather is gloomy, when it rains, when it is cold,
or when I have met in the street the bier of a young girl, with its
white wreath, then sad thoughts get the upper hand. I wrap my old cloak
around me when my work is over, and I wander aimlessly through the
streets, among the people who are all occupied by their own affairs and
pay no attention to any one. I walk very far, sometimes to the Arc de
Triomphe, sometimes to the Garden of Plants, and I return utterly
exhausted. I fall asleep, trying not to think of the happy days of the
past, for those remembrances make my heart throb even in a dream, and
suddenly I awake, covered with perspiration, and crying:
"All is over. You have no longer a daughter. You are alone in the
world."
I am obliged to rise, to light my lamp, and to open the window in order
to calm myself a little, to soothe myself and to restore myself to
reason.
Sometimes, too, I dream that I am at the forest house with Jean Merlin
and Marie-Rose. I see them; I talk to them; we are happy. But when I
awake--do not let us talk of it; what is ended cannot return.
Things will go on this way as long as they can. I shall not be buried
with the old people, neither with Jean; nor with my daughter. We will
all be scattered. This thought also gives me pain.
I must confess, George, that our brothers of Paris have received us very
well; they have helped us, they have aided us in a hundred ways; they
have done all that they could for us. But after such terrible
disasters, they themselves having been so severely tried, the poverty
was still very great; for a long time in the garrets of La Villette, of
La Chapelle, and of the other suburbs, we suffered from cold and hunger.
To-day the greatest portion of the stream of emigration has passed;
almost all the labourers have got work; the women and the old people
have found a refuge, and the children are receiving instruction in the
public schools.
Others are always coming, the emigation will last as long as the
annexation, for Frenchmen cannot bow their heads like the Germans under
the Prussians' despotism, and the annexation will last long if we
continue to dispute over party questions instead of uniting together in
the love of our fatherland.
But do not let us speak of our dissensions; that is too sad.
The only thing that I have still to say to you before ending this
sorrowful story is, that in the midst of my misfortunes, I do not accuse
the Almighty; no, the Almighty is just; we deserve to suffer. Whence
came all our misfortunes? From one man who had taken an oath before God
to obey the laws, and who trampled them under his feet, who had those
killed who defended them, and transported far away to the islands
thousands of his fellow beings whose courage and good sense he feared.
Well, this man we approved of; we voted for him, not once but twenty
times; we took, so to speak, his evil actions upon ourselves; we threw
aside justice and honour; we thought, "Interest does everything; this
man is shrewd; he has succeeded; we must support him."
When I remember that I voted for that wretch, knowing that it was not
just, but afraid of losing my place, when I remember that, I cry,
"Frederick, may God forgive you! You have lost everything, friends,
relatives, country--everything. Confess that you deserved it. You were
not ashamed to support the man who caused thousands of Frenchmen, as
honest as yourself, also to lose their little all. You voted for
strength against justice; you must bow beneath the law that you
accepted. And, like millions of others, you, too, gave that man the
right to declare war; he did so. He staked you, your country, your
family, your possessions, those of all Frenchmen in the interests of his
dynasty, without thinking of anything, without reflecting or taking any
precautions; he lost the game. Pay and be silent. Do not reproach the
Almighty with your own stupidity and injustice; beat your breast and
bear your iniquity." That is what I think.
May others profit by my example; may they always nominate honest people
to represent them; may honesty, disinterestedness and patriotism come
before anything else; people who are too cunning are often dishonest,
and people who are too bold, who do not fear to cry out against the
laws, are also capable of upsetting them and of putting their own will
in the place of them.
That is the best advice to be given to the French; if they profit by it
all will go well, we will regain our frontiers; if they do not profit by
it, that which happened to the Alsatians and Lorrainers will happen to
them also, province by province; they may repent, but it will be too
late.
As to the Germans, they will reap what they have sown. Now they are at
the pinnacle of power; they made all Europe tremble, and they are
foolish enough to rejoice at it. It is very dangerous to frighten every
one; we learned it at our own expense; they will learn it in their turn.
Because Bismark has succeeded in his enterprises, they look upon him as
a kind of a god; they will not see that this man employed only dishonest
means: strategy, lies, espionage, corruption and violence. Nothing is
ever firm that is erected on such a foundation.
But to tell all this or nothing to the Germans would come to the same
thing; they are intoxicated by their victories, and will only awake when
Europe, wearied by their ambition and by their insolence, will rise to
bring them to reason; then they will be forced to acknowledge, as we
have acknowledged ourselves, that, if strength sometimes overwhelms
right, justice is eternal.