mind to attempt it, I feel calmer. Instead of making me anxious, the
sound of the cannon round Paris electrifies me. I feel as if it were
calling me; and each time it thunders, I am inclined to answer, “We are
coming.” I fancy the portrait in the summer-house smiles at me from its
gilt frame, and wears again its calm and placid aspect . . . I have but
one regret in quitting the Hermitage: what will become of my poor
Colaquet? I leave the stable-door open for him to seek his subsistence
in the forest. I pile up near him my last bundles of straw, and while I
make these preparations I avoid meeting his astonished, kind eyes, which
seem to say reproachfully, “Where are you going?”
. . . And now, on my table, opened at this unfinished page, I abandon my
diary with these last words, which will probably end it: We are off to
Paris!
[Picture: The moonlit river]
* * * * *
[Picture: Creeping through the forest.]
* * * * *
[Picture: The return journey.]
_Written groping in the dark_.
I have returned . . . Goudeloup is dead . . . Our journey has failed.
_December_ 26_th_.
Ten days! I have only been absent ten days. It seems to me that the
multitude of scenes and shadows, the confused and terrible sensations I
have brought back from my short journey, are enough to fill several
existences. Now that I have returned to the confined space of my
Hermitage, all these memories haunt and torment me,—I must try and write
them down merely to rid myself of them.
[Picture: Commencing the outward journey]
We started on the night of the sixteenth. A very cold night, without
stars, lighted up only by a white sprinkling of hoar-frost. The frosted
trees looked like hawthorn bushes flowering before their leaves break
forth. We passed through Champrosay, as dismal and silent as the
hoar-frost which was falling and lying on its cold roofs, instead of
gently melting round the water-spouts by the warmth of the lighted fires.
Not a Prussian was to be seen on the horizon, and this was fortunate, as
our two outlines stood out distinctly in the great bare plain. I found
my boat in a little creek hidden between the banks. It was a very
lightly-built Norwegian boat. Having wrapped some rags round the oars,
we pushed off noiselessly on the lonely river, knocking now and then
against the icicles which float on the surface of the water like blocks
of crystal. Many a time, in preceding years, I had embarked on nights as
dark and cold to set or visit my night-lines. But what life there was on
the river around me! A somewhat mysterious, dreamy sort of life, full of
the silence of universal slumber. Long wood rafts, with their fires
lighted fore and aft, and shadows standing near the helm, slowly go down
towards Paris, gliding by through all the forest shade, and entering
Bercy at break of day, in the full glare of a noisy and crowded
thoroughfare. On the banks, waggons passed along, the night express
train gliding along through the windings of the railway track, like a
serpent with eyes of fire. And I pondered over all the sad or joyful
motives that set all these people in motion . . . At intervals, by the
side of the river, which nearly bathed their walls, the lock-keeper’s
house, the ferrymen’s hut, the boatmen’s public-houses, threw the glimmer
from their dimmed windows over the still water.
[Picture: Wood rafts of former times]
To-day there is nothing of all this. We have a new river before us,
black and solitary, disturbed by all those broken bridges, which change
the currents. However, by a few strokes of the oar I was able to direct
our little bark, and keep it near enough to the middle of the stream to
avoid the submerged islands marked out by the dipping willows . . .
[Picture: “We crossed a heavy punt.”]
—All goes well . . . said Goudeloup in a low voice.
At that moment the noise of an oar thrown into a boat, came from the
bank, and a powerful southern voice called through the night:
—Come, ferryman, make haste! . . .
—It is the Draveil doctor, whispered my companion.
I too had recognised the kindly voice, that is heard day and night on
highroads and byeways, always encouraging and always hurried. How did he
come there? Had he therefore stayed at Draveil? . . . I should have
liked to have called out to him: “Good-night, Doctor!” But a moment’s
reflection stopped me. A lucky thought, in truth; for directly after we
crossed a heavy punt, with a lantern in the bow, passing over from one
side of the river to the other; and I saw by the side of dear Doctor R—
in his old felt hat, weather-beaten by all the storms of Seine and Oise,
some shining helmets.
[Picture: Approaching the railway bridge]
By rare good fortune we were beyond the rays of their lantern, which
deepened the shadow through which our boat was gliding, and we passed by
unseen. No less danger awaited us a little farther on—the railway
bridge, of which three arches were blown up, blocking the river with its
gigantic remains. I really hardly know how we were able to get through
this fearful barrier in the dark, without being swamped or dashed to
pieces. At Port-Courcelles we had the same fear. The enormous gnarled
willows of the two islets became in the night so many shoals, that we
narrowly escaped. At last we reach Ablon and its lock. Here the cannon
round Paris resounds clear and terrible, sending forth at each instant
the red flash of its thunder . . . We ought to have expected it: the
lock is closed. Fortunately our boat is light, and together we shall be
able, as I have so often done, to hoist it on to the bank, and carry it
over to the other side of the barrier. We land at the little steps where
the innkeeper of Ablon skins his eels on summer days, and where the
fishermen sit patiently with their rods, bathed in sunshine from the top
of their boating-hats down to their shoes of untanned leather. It is
astonishing how a feeling of danger changes the whole aspect of things!
. . . When nearly at the top of the steps, I perceived against the
darkness, ten paces from me, a sentry on his beat, pacing up and down the
quay. Lower down, the lock-keeper’s house, turned into a Prussian
outpost, has all its windows lighted up. I wish to go down quickly,
re-embark, and gain the other bank; but Goudeloup will not listen to me.
His eyes remain obstinately fixed on that shadow which looms through the
fog, and whistles while trampling above us. I try to drag him away. He
escapes, makes one bound . . . I hear a dull sound, a smothered cry, the
rattle of arms, and the heavy fall of a man.
[Picture: The wrecked railway bridge] —Twenty-two! . . . says Goudeloup,
slipping, quite out of breath, down the slope.
But the unfortunate soldier, that he has left stretched out by the
river-side, has found strength before dying to fire his gun. The sharp
report rouses both banks of the river. Impossible to land. We quickly
push out into the middle of the stream, and row hard up the river. It is
all like a bad dream. The wind and current, everything is against us. A
boat pushes off from the lock, coming straight at us, lighted by a torch
which dips up and down as it watches for us, while another boat
approaches us in a contrary direction.
—To the dredger . . . whispers Goudeloup in my ear.
[Picture: On the steps by the lock]
Near us, moored some fifty or sixty feet from the shore, a dredging-boat
reared its black mass above the water, with its barrels and bucket-chain
to clear away the sand. The Seine was very high, and the water half
covered it, dashing against its bows with vehemence.
We board her, but in our haste to take refuge on this wreck we forget to
fasten our boat, which floats off with the rugs and provision it
contains. This saves us. Five minutes later a formidable “hurrah” tells
us the Prussians have just found our boat. Seeing it empty, they must
have thought we were drowned, engulfed; for a few moments after, the
torches returned to the shore, and the whole river resumed its silence
and darkness . . .
[Picture: Swimming to the dredger]
The dredger on which we found ourselves was a complete wreck—a curious
shelter, crackling and creaking all over, and furiously lashed by the
waters. On the deck, covered with splinters of wood and pieces of cast
iron, the cold was intolerable. We were obliged to take refuge in the
engine-room, to which the water happily had not yet penetrated. It would
soon, however, reach it, for in several places the sides of the room were
cracked almost down to the level of the waves, and we found ourselves
lighted by the leaden reflection of the darkness on the water. What
gloomy hours we spent there! Hunger, fear, and the terrible cold numbing
our limbs with a feeling of drowsiness against which we were obliged to
struggle . . . All around, the water seethed, the wood groaned, the
bucket-chain creaked in its rustiness, and aloft, above our heads,
something like the rag of a drenched flag flapped in the wind. We
impatiently waited for daybreak, not knowing exactly what distance
separated us from the land, nor how we should be able to reach it. In
our fitful slumbers, broken as they were by anxious thoughts of escape,
the shaking of the dredging-boat and the sound of the water surrounding
us, gave me at times the impression of a long voyage and a stormy night
at sea . . .
When through the holes in the room, which were blackened and torn as if
by a bombardment, we saw the river catch the first light of a sullen
winter’s morning, we tried to make out our position. The slopes of
Juvisy commanded the farther bank, rising above the fog, which its tall
trees pierced with their bare tops. On the opposite shore, eighty or a
hundred feet beyond the dredger, lay the flat, bare plains of Draveil,
stretching away into the far distance, without trace of a soldier on
them. Evidently that was the side we could escape by. The anticipation
of a cold bath, in the month of December, in that deep, foaming, and
swift-running water, was rather terrifying. However, the iron chain that
moored the dredger to the bank was happily still fastened to its ring,
and we had the resource left of clinging to it and being guided by it.
While we were discussing this, a cannon was fired off rather close at
hand, from the heights of Juvisy, followed up immediately by the whistle
of a shell and its splash in the water near us. A few seconds later,
before we had recovered from our astonishment, a second shell fell near
the dredger. Then I understood the flag, the splinters of wood, the
pieces of cast iron, and the smell of burnt powder we had noticed in the
cabin. The Prussians were using the old dredger as a target for their
cannons. It was absolutely necessary to quit at once. The cold and the
dangers of the river sank into insignificance. Forward we must go. I
seized hold of the chain with both hands and lowered myself rapidly into
the river, Goudeloup following me. Our fingers were skinned by the
chafing iron: we advanced but slowly, numbed by the current and the icy
water. A fresh cannon-shot redoubles our energy. Look out! Here comes
the shell. This time it falls full on the iron-plated front of the
dredger, bursts, and covers us with the wreckage. I hear behind me a
deep sigh . . . No, never shall I forget the last agonising motion of
that chain, which I felt move, struggle for a second, and then rise up
quickly in the water, loose, free, and light in my hands . . .
[Picture: They get into the river again] I turned round; no one to be
seen. Nothing but a mass of blood floating away on the stream. The
unfortunate fellow must have been struck on the head and killed on the
spot . . . A feeling of intense despair overcame me. My companion
slaughtered beside me, and I helpless to succour him . . . A little more
and I too must have let go the chain; but the instinct of life won the
day, and a few minutes later I landed on the bank, but to get no farther.
After a dozen steps, overcome by the anxiety, fatigue, and terrible cold
which penetrated through all my wet clothes, I dropped down by the
roadside on the dry grass of a ditch. The well-known trot of a horse,
the roll of an old cabriolet, and the kind voice of Doctor R— drew me
from my lethargy.
—What! it is you? . . . What are you doing there?
Quick as lightning, he wrapped me up in his cloak, hid me in the straw
under the apron of the carriage, and set off in the direction of Draveil,
where the excellent man has turned his house into a hospital. From the
cabriolet I passed into the coach-house. There, dry clothes and a few
glasses of hot grog soon revived me. I remained there till nightfall,
without daring to move, understanding very well, although the Doctor had
never told me, the risk he was incurring by receiving me. The house was
full of soldiers and hospital attendants. Military boots resounded on
the pavement of the small courtyard. And all around, the loud laughter,
the swords clashing, and the harsh German speech, still more accentuated
by its insolent tone. I heard all this with my eyes shut, stupefied by
the sensation of comfort, with a vague recollection of past danger and of
the cold river, and poor Goudeloup’s heart-rending groan ringing in my
ears.
At night the Doctor came to set me free, and took me to the room
generally occupied by his grandchildren, whom he had sent away on the
approach of the Prussians. It was there that I awoke the next morning.
After the horrible scenes of the previous day, those three little cribs,
with white muslin curtains round them, the children’s toys lying
scattered on the floor with their lesson-books, even the faint medicinal
smell that came from a cupboard in which the Doctor kept some drugs,
everything calmed and soothed my over-excited nerves. In a neighbouring
yard a cock crowed and a donkey began braying. The village seemed to
awaken. Suddenly a bugle-call, rudely jarring on these peaceful sounds,
recalled the sad reality. Then there was coming and going to and fro;
doors banged . . . I drew near the window. The Doctor’s house looked
into the street, over the flower-beds of a narrow strip of garden in
front of it. Every one knew his house, with its round brass bell-knob
standing out brightly on the freshly white-washed wall; and the furniture
in the little parlour, which could be seen on the ground-floor, gave it
an appearance of homely comfort. Hidden behind the closed blinds, I saw
the street full of men in forage-caps falling into line, calling,
numbering each other, ready to start. Among the caps, several Bavarian
helmets appeared. These were quartermasters running from house to house,
chalking down the numbers on the doors, preparing quarters for the
advancing forces. Soon the departing regiment moved off to the sound of
their drums, while opposite, at the entrance to the village, the Bavarian
buglers noisily entered. During the last three months the unhappy
village had been in this condition. The straw of the encampments had not
time to grow cold between the departure of one regiment and the arrival
of another . . .
[Picture: Being picked up by the Doctor]
The Doctor, who just then came into the room, made me leave the window.
—Take care, Mr. Robert; do not show yourself. There is at the
_Commandatur_ a list of the inhabitants who have remained in the country,
and we are all closely watched. After eight o’clock in the evening,
nobody except myself is allowed to go outside their house . . . So many
Prussians have been murdered in the neighbourhood! Draveil pays the
penalty. Their requisitions are three times heavier here than elsewhere.
The least word, and they imprison; the slightest show of rebellion, and
they shoot. Our unhappy peasants are terrified. They spy and inform
about each other; and if one of them perceived that I was hiding some one
in my house, he would be capable—to spare himself a requisition—of
warning the _Commandatur_. What would be the fate of both of us, I can
easily imagine . . .
He was so afraid of any imprudence on my part, poor dear Doctor, that all
the time I stayed in his house he kept the key of my room in his pocket.
The latticed shutters and closed windows threw a prison gloom over my
room, that only gave me light enough to read by. I had medical works, a
few odd volumes translated from the Panckoucke series, and from time to
time a copy of a French paper published by the Prussians at Versailles.
That also was written in a foreign kind of French, and our real or
imaginary defeats were sneeringly described with coarse and stupid jokes.
When I could no longer read, I looked out through the blinds into the
street—the real old-fashioned street of a country town. Straight rows of
houses with little gardens and a pavement in front, the spaces between
them filled with a trellis-work of branches, or the trunk of a great elm,
and a background of plain and vineyard scarcely hidden by the low roofs.
Then sheds and stables, a fountain spouting out of an old wall, the large
gateway of a farm, side by side with the notary’s white and clean little
house, ornamented with escutcheons. And over all the cruel blight of the
invasion. Knitted jerseys drying on the iron gates and on the shutters.
Large pipes protruding from every window, and military boots. Never had
I heard the sound of so many boots . . . Opposite my window was the
_Commandatur_. Every day peasants were brought in, urged along by
butt-ends of rifles or the scabbards of swords. The women and children
followed weeping, and while the man was dragged inside, they remained at
the door explaining their case to the soldiers, who, with closed lips,
listened disdainfully or else laughed with a stupid brutal laughter. No
hope of pity or justice. All depended on the caprice of the conqueror.
They were so well aware of it, these unfortunate peasants, that they
hardly dared stir out or show themselves, and when they did venture into
the street, it was heart-rending to see them creeping under the walls,
glancing out of the corner of their eyes, bowed down, obsequious and
servile, like Eastern Jews.
It was a cruel sight to see the ambulances stop at our door in the wind,
cold, rain, and snow; to hear the groans of the sick and wounded being
removed from the carts and borne in helpless. When evening came, to end
the long melancholy days, the Prussian bugles sounded the retreat under
the leafless elm trees, with its slowly marked time, and its last three
notes thrown out like the weird screech of a night-bird at the approach
of night. This was the moment when the Doctor, muddy and tired, entered
my room. He himself brought my food, and, with his usual good nature,
told me all he had done—about his visits, the hearsays from Paris and
from the provinces, about the sick people brought to him, and his
disputes with the Prussian major, who was his colleague in command of the
hospital, and whose German pedantry annoyed and exasperated him. We
talked in sad low tones, and then the kind man bade me good-night. Once
more alone, I softly opened my window to breathe the fresh air for a few
minutes. In spite of the bitter cold, it did me good. In its peaceful
slumbers the country seemed to return to its former condition and resumed
the aspect of its happier days. But soon the step of a patrol, the groan
of a wounded man, the sound of the cannon thundering on the horizon,
brought me back to the reality, and I retired into my prison, full of
hatred and anger. At the end of a short time this cellular kind of
existence in the midst of the army of occupation became intolerable.
Having lost all hope of entering Paris, I regretted my Hermitage. There,
at least, I had solitude and Nature. I was not tempted there, as I was
here, to interfere in the injustices, brutalities, and constant vexations
going on in the street, thereby running the risk of compromising my kind
host. Therefore I resolved upon leaving.
[Picture: Robert, peering from his window]
To my great surprise, the Doctor did not even try to dissuade me from my
project.
—You are quite right, he said quietly; you will be safer over there.
Since, on reflection, I have always fancied that some neighbour may have
seen me behind the lattice, and that my host, although he would not admit
it, feared they would betray me. We therefore decided that I should
leave Draveil the next day, in the same manner in which I arrived. When
it was quite dark, I went down into the stable. I hid myself in the
straw of the cabriolet, the Doctor’s cloak was thrown over me, and we
started off. The journey was accomplished without accident. Every
hundred and fifty or two hundred yards was a sentry-box erected by the
roadside at the expense of the district.
—_Wer da_? challenged the sentry, cocking his rifle.
The Doctor answered:
—_Lazareth_!
And the little gig continued its jingling rattle over the stones. At the
edge of the forest he stopped. The road was clear. I hastily jumped
out.
—Take this, said the kind man, holding out a basket full of food and
bottles . . . Shut yourself up, and do not stir out . . . I will come
and see you soon.
Thereupon he whipped up his horse, and I threw myself into the thicket.
A quarter of an hour later, I was at the Hermitage.
[Picture: Being challenged by a sentry]
* * * * *
[Picture: Hungry birds come for food]
_January_ 3_rd_.
. . . A fine drifting snow has been falling for the last few days. The
forest is completely covered. Around me the silence was so deep that I
could even hear the fall of the thickening flakes. It is impossible to
go out. I watch the snow falling from the murky sky and whitening all
things. The famished birds come to my very doorstep. The roedeer have
taken refuge in the stable in place of my poor Colaquet, of whom I have
heard nothing…
[Picture: Deer sheltering in the stable]
* * * * *
[Picture: “They blew out his brains with a revolver.”]
* * * * *
[Picture: Robert hears bad news from the Doctor]
_January_ 10_th_.
. . . The Doctor came to see me. Bad news: Paris still shut up,
disasters in the provinces! The conquerors, worn out by such a tardy
victory, redouble the humiliations and brutalities . . . At Draveil, on
Christmas night, five or six Bavarians, after sitting up late drinking
with old Rabot, the forester, in a public-house, blew out his brains with
a revolver. The unhappy man’s brother, who lived opposite, ran in on
hearing the report of the shot, and in his turn fell mortally wounded.
Another man of the same family was seriously wounded. The wretches would
have massacred all comers! The affair created a great sensation: a
fictitious inquiry was made, and concluded by the district of Draveil
being condemned to pay an indemnity of _sixteen hundred pounds_ to the
Bavarians! . . .
[Picture: Bavarian preparing for the party]
* * * * *
[Picture: Game-shooting party in the forest]
_January_ 15_th_.
. . . This morning the Prince of Saxony’s staff had a large
shooting-party in the forest. On hearing the firing so near me, I was
seized with a terrible anxiety. I thought it was the arrival of some
French advanced-guard; but from the windows of the studio overlooking the
woods, I saw between the leafless branches, crowds of beaters wearing the
Saxon forage-caps running and shouting through the thickets, while plumed
and gilded sportsmen watched at every turn of the drives. In the circle
round the _Great Oak_ an enormous bivouac-fire blazed in front of a tent.
Here, called by a flourish of trumpets, the shooters came to breakfast.
I heard the clinking of glasses, the uncorking of bottles, and the
cheering of the revellers. Then the slaughter of deer and pheasants
recommenced. Ah! if old Guillard had been there! he who kept such an
account of his game, watched over his coveys and his rabbit-holes, knew
the favourite haunts of the deer. How he would have grieved to see this
sacrilege! The bewildered birds knew not where to seek safety from the
cruel guns. The startled hares and rabbits ran under the legs of the
sportsmen, and in the midst of all the confusion a wounded deer took
refuge in the courtyard of the Hermitage. The eyes of hunted animals
have a look of piteous astonishment which is truly heart-rending. This
one excited my compassion, pressing against the low wall round the well,
sniffing the air, and pawing the ground with its little bleeding feet.
My indignation redoubled against the plundering race that swarmed over
vanquished France with the voracity of locusts, destroying its vineyards,
its houses, its cornfields, its forests, and, when the country was laid
bare, exterminating even the game, leaving nothing alive.
[Picture: “I heard the clinking of glasses.”]