For several days, straggling remnants of the routed army had passed
through the town. There was no question of organized troops, it was
simply a disjointed rabble, the men unshaven and dirty, their uniforms
in tatters, slouching along without regimental colors, without
order--worn out, broken down, incapable of thought or resolution,
marching from pure habit and dropping with fatigue the moment they
stopped. The majority belonged to the militia, men of peaceful pursuits,
retired tradespeople, sinking under the weight of their accouterments;
quick-witted little moblets as prone to terror as they were to
enthusiasm, as ready to attack as they were to fly; and here and there a
few red trousers, remnants of a company mowed down in one of the big
battles; somber-coated artillerymen, side by side with these various
uniforms of the infantry, and now and then the glittering helmet of a
heavily booted dragoon who followed with difficulty the march of the
lighter-footed soldiers of the line.
Companies of franc-tireurs, heroically named "Avengers of the Defeat,"
"Citizens of the Tomb," "Companies in Death," passed in their turn,
looking like a horde of bandits.
Their chiefs--formerly drapers or corn-dealers, retired soap-boilers or
suet-refiners, warriors of circumstance created officers for their money
or the length of their moustaches, heaped with arms, flannels, and gold
lace--talked loudly, discussed plans of campaign, and gave you to
understand that they were the sole support of France in her death-agony;
but they were generally in terror of their own soldiers, men "of the
sack and cord," most of them brave to foolhardiness, all of them given
to pillage and debauchery.
Report said that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen. The National
Guard, which for two months past had made the most careful
reconnoiterings in the neighboring wood, even to the extent of
occasionally shooting their own sentries and putting themselves in
battle array if a rabbit stirred in the brushwood, had now retired to
their domestic hearths; their arms, their uniforms, all the murderous
apparatus with which they had been wont to strike terror to the hearts
of all beholders for three leagues round, had vanished.
Finally, the last of the French soldiery crossed the Seine on their way
to Pont-Audemer by Saint Sever and Bourg-Achard; and then, last of all,
came their despairing general tramping on foot between two orderlies,
powerless to attempt any action with these disjointed fragments of his
forces, himself utterly dazed and bewildered by the downfall of a people
accustomed to victory and now so disastrously beaten in spite of its
traditional bravery.
After that a profound calm, the silence of terrified suspense, fell over
the city. Many a rotund bourgeois, emasculated by a purely commercial
life, awaited the arrival of the victors with anxiety, trembling lest
their meat-skewers and kitchen carving-knives should come under the
category of arms.
Life seemed to have come to a standstill, the shops were closed, the
streets silent. From time to time an inhabitant, intimidated by their
silence, would flit rapidly along the pavement, keeping close to the
walls.
In this anguish of suspense, men longed for the coming of the enemy.
In the latter part of the day following the departure of the French
troops, some Uhlans, appearing from goodness knows where, traversed the
city hastily. A little later, a black mass descended from the direction
of Sainte-Catherine, while two more invading torrents poured in from the
roads from Darnetal and Bois-guillaume. The advance guards of the three
corps converged at the same moment into the square of the Hotel de
Ville, while battalion after battalion of the German army wound in
through the adjacent streets, making the pavement ring under their heavy
rhythmic tramp.
Orders shouted in strange and guttural tones were echoed back by the
apparently dead and deserted houses, while from behind the closed
shutters eyes peered furtively at the conquerors, masters by right of
might, of the city and the lives and fortunes of its inhabitants. The
people in their darkened dwellings fell a prey to the helpless
bewilderment which comes over men before the floods, the devastating
upheavals of the earth, against which all wisdom and all force are
unavailing. The same phenomenon occurs each time that the established
order of things is overthrown, when public security is at an end, and
when all that the laws of man or of nature protect is at the mercy of
some blind elemental force. The earthquake burying an entire population
under its falling houses; the flood that carries away the drowned body
of the peasant with the carcasses of his cattle and the beams torn from
his roof-tree; or the victorious army massacring those who defend their
lives, and making prisoners of the rest--pillaging in the name of the
sword, and thanking God to the roar of cannon--are so many appalling
scourges which overthrow all faith in eternal justice, all the
confidence we are taught to place in the protection of Providence and
the reason of man.
Small detachments now began knocking at the doors and then disappearing
into the houses. It was the occupation after the invasion. It now
behooved the vanquished to make themselves agreeable to the victors.
After a while, the first alarms having subsided, a new sense of
tranquillity began to establish itself. In many families the Prussian
officer shared the family meals. Not infrequently he was a gentleman,
and out of politeness expressed his commiseration with France and his
repugnance at having to take part in such a war. They were grateful
enough to him for this sentiment--besides, who knew when they might not
be glad of his protection? By gaining his good offices one might have
fewer men to feed. And why offend a person on whom one was utterly
dependent? That would not be bravery but temerity, a quality of which
the citizens of Rouen could no longer be accused as in the days of those
heroic defenses by which the city had made itself famous. Above all,
they said, with the unassailable urbanity of the Frenchman, it was
surely permissible to be on politely familiar terms in private, provided
one held aloof from the foreign soldier in public. In the street,
therefore, they ignored one another's existence, but once indoors they
were perfectly ready to be friendly, and each evening found the German
staying longer at the family fireside.
The town itself gradually regained its wonted aspect. The French
inhabitants did not come out much, but the Prussian soldiers swarmed in
the streets. For the rest, the blue hussar officers who trailed their
mighty implements of death so arrogantly over the pavement did not
appear to entertain a vastly deeper grade of contempt for the simple
townsfolk than did the officers of the Chasseurs who had drunk in the
same cafés the year before. Nevertheless there was a something in the
air; something subtle and indefinable, an intolerably unfamiliar
atmosphere like a widely diffused odor--the odor of invasion. It filled
the private dwellings and the public places, it affected the taste of
food, and gave one the impression of being on a journey, far away from
home, among barbarous and dangerous tribes.
The conquerors demanded money--a great deal of money. The inhabitants
paid and went on paying; for the matter of that, they were rich. But the
wealthier a Normandy tradesman becomes, the more keenly he suffers at
each sacrifice each time he sees the smallest particle of his fortune
pass into the hands of another.
Two or three leagues beyond the town, however, following the course of
the river about Croisset Dieppedalle or Biessard, the sailors and the
fishermen would often drag up the swollen corpse of some uniformed
German, killed by a knife-thrust or a kick, his head smashed in by a
stone, or thrown into the water from some bridge. The slime of the river
bed swallowed up many a deed of vengeance, obscure, savage, and
legitimate; unknown acts of heroism, silent onslaughts more perilous to
the doer than battles in the light of day and without the trumpet
blasts of glory.
For hatred of the Alien is always strong enough to arm some intrepid
beings who are ready to die for an Idea.
At last, seeing that though the invaders had subjected the city to their
inflexible discipline they had not committed any of the horrors with
which rumor had accredited them throughout the length of their triumphal
progress, the worthy tradespeople took heart of grace and the commercial
spirit began once more to stir within them. Some of them who had grave
interests at stake at Havre, then occupied by the French army, purposed
trying to reach that port by going overland to Dieppe and there taking
ship.
They took advantage of the influence of German officers whose
acquaintance they had made, and a passport was obtained from the general
in command.
Having therefore engaged a large diligence with four horses for the
journey, and ten persons having entered their names at the livery stable
office, they resolved to start on the Tuesday morning before daybreak,
to avoid all public remark.
For some days already the ground had been hard with frost, and on the
Monday, about three o'clock in the afternoon, thick dark clouds coming
up from the north brought the snow, which fell without intermission all
the evening and during the whole night.
At half past four the travelers were assembled in the courtyard of the
Hotel de Normandie, from whence they were to start.
They were all still half asleep, their teeth chattering with cold in
spite of their thick wraps. It was difficult to distinguish one from
another in the darkness, their heaped-up winter clothing making them
look like fat priests in long cassocks. Two of the men, however,
recognized each other; they were joined by a third, and they began to
talk. "I am taking my wife with me," said one. "So am I." "And I too."
The first one added: "We shall not return to Rouen, and if the Prussians
come to Havre we shall slip over to England."
They were all like-minded and all had the same project.
Meanwhile there was no sign of the horses being put in. A small lantern
carried by a hostler appeared from time to time out of one dark doorway
only to vanish instantly into another. There was a stamping of horses'
hoofs deadened by the straw of the litter, and the voice of a man
speaking to the animals and cursing sounded from the depths of the
stables. A faint sound of bells gave evidence of harnessing, and became
presently a clear and continuous jingle timed by the movement of the
beast, now stopping, now going on again with a brisk shake, and
accompanied by the dull tramp of hob-nailed sabots.
A door closed sharply. All sound ceased. The frozen travelers were
silent, standing stiff and motionless. A veil of white snow-flakes
glistened incessantly as it fell to the ground, blotting out the shape
of things, powdering everything with an icy froth; and in the utter
stillness of the town, quiet and buried under its winter pall, nothing
was audible but this faint, fluttering, and indefinable rustle of
falling snow--more a sensation than a sound--the intermingling of
ethereal atoms seeming to fill space, to cover the world.
The man reappeared with his lantern, dragging after him by a rope a
dejected and unwilling horse. He pushed it against the pole, fixed the
traces, and was occupied for a long time in buckling the harness, having
only the use of one hand as he carried the lantern in the other. As he
turned away to fetch the other horse he caught sight of the motionless
group of travelers, by this time white with snow. "Why don't you get
inside the carriage?" he said, "you would at least be under cover."
It had never occurred to them, and they made a rush for it. The three
men packed their wives into the upper end and then got in themselves,
after which other distinct and veiled forms took the remaining seats
without exchanging a word.
The floor of the vehicle was covered with straw into which the feet
sank. The ladies at the end, who had brought little copper charcoal
foot-warmers, proceeded to light them, and for some time discussed their
merits in subdued tones, repeating to one another things which they had
known all their lives.
At last, the diligence having been furnished with six horses instead of
four on account of the difficulties of the road, a voice outside asked,
"Is everybody here?" A voice from within answered "Yes," and they
started.
The conveyance advanced slowly--slowly--the wheels sinking in the snow;
the whole vehicle groaned and creaked, the horses slipped, wheezed, and
smoked, and the driver's gigantic whip cracked incessantly, flying from
side to side, twining and untwining like a slender snake, and cutting
sharply across one or other of the six humping backs, which would
thereupon straighten up with a more violent effort.
Imperceptibly the day grew. The airy flakes which a traveler--a
Rouennais "pur sang"--once likened to a shower of cotton, had ceased to
fall; a dirty gray light filtered through the heavy thick clouds which
served to heighten the dazzling whiteness of the landscape, where now a
long line of trees crusted with icicles would appear, now a cottage with
a hood of snow.
In the light of this melancholy dawn the occupants of the diligence
began to examine one another curiously.
Right at the end, in the best seats, opposite to one another, dozed
Madame and Monsieur Loiseau, whole-sale wine merchant of the Rue Grand
Pont.
The former salesman of a master who had become bankrupt, Loiseau had
bought up the stock and made his fortune. He sold very bad wine at very
low prices to the small country retail dealers, and enjoyed the
reputation among his friends and acquaintances of being an unmitigated
rogue, a thorough Norman full of trickery and jovial humor.
His character for knavery was so well established that one evening at
the Prefecture, Monsieur Tournel, a man of keen and trenchant wit,
author of certain fables and songs--a local glory--seeing the ladies
growing drowsy, proposed a game of "L'oiseau vole."[1] The pun itself
flew through the prefect's reception rooms and afterwards through the
town, and for a whole month called up a grin on every face in the
province.
Loiseau was himself a noted wag and famous for his jokes both good and
bad, and nobody ever mentioned him without adding immediately, "That
Loiseau is simply priceless!"
He was of medium height with a balloon-like stomach and a rubicund face
framed in grizzled whiskers. His wife--tall, strong, resolute, loud in
voice and rapid of decision--represented order and arithmetic in the
business, which he enlivened by his jollity and bustling activity.
Beside them, in a more dignified attitude as befitted his superior
station, sat Monsieur Carré-Lamadon, a man of weight; an authority on
cotton, proprietor of three branch businesses, officer of the Legion of
Honor and member of the General Council. All the time of the Empire he
had remained leader of a friendly opposition, for the sole purpose of
making a better thing out of it when he came round to the cause which he
had fought with polite weapons, to use his own expression. Madame
Carré-Lamadon, who was much younger than her husband, was the
consolation of all officers of good family who might be quartered at the
Rouen garrison. She sat there opposite to her husband, very small, very
dainty, very pretty, wrapped in her furs, and regarding the lamentable
interior of the vehicle with despairing eyes.
Their neighbors, the Count and Countess Hubert de Breville, bore one of
the most ancient and noble names in Normandy. The Count, an elderly
gentleman of dignified appearance, did all in his power to accentuate by
every artifice of the toilet his natural resemblance to Henri Quatre,
who, according to a legend of the utmost glory to the family, had
honored with his royal embraces a Dame de Breville, whose husband had,
in consequence, been made Count and Governor of the province.
A colleague of Monsieur Carré-Lamadon in the General Council, Count
Hubert represented the Orleanist faction in the department. The history
of his marriage with the daughter of a small tradesman of Nantes had
always remained a mystery. But as the Countess had an air of grandeur,
understood better than any one else the art of receiving, passed even
for having been beloved by one of the sons of Louis Philippe, the
neighboring nobility bowed down to her, and her salon held the first
place in the county, the only one which preserved the traditions of the
viel le galanterie and to which the entreé was difficult.
The fortune of the Brevilles--all in Government Funds--was reported to
yield them an income of five hundred thousand francs.
The six passengers occupied the upper end of the conveyance, the
representatives of revenued society, serene in the consciousness of its
strength--honest well-to-do people possessed of Religion and Principles.
By some strange chance all the women were seated on the same side, the
Countess having two sisters of Mercy for neighbors, wholly occupied in
fingering their long rosaries and mumbling Paters and Aves. One of them
was old and so deeply pitted with the small-pox that she looked as if
she had received a charge of grape shot full in the face; the other was
very shadowy and frail, with a pretty unhealthy little face, a narrow
phthisical chest, consumed by that devouring faith which creates martyrs
and ecstatics.
Seated opposite to the two nuns were a man and woman who excited a good
deal of attention.
The man, who was well known, was Cornudet, "the demon," the terror of
all respectable, law-abiding people. For twenty years he had dipped his
great red beard into the beer mugs of all the democratic café's. In the
company of kindred spirits he had managed to run through a comfortable
little fortune inherited from his father, a confectioner, and he looked
forward with impatience to the Republic, when he should obtain the
well-merited reward for so many revolutionary draughts. On the Fourth of
September--probably through some practical joke--he understood that he
had been appointed prefect, but on attempting to enter upon his duties
the clerks, who had remained sole masters of the offices, refused to
recognize him, and he was constrained to retire. For the rest, he was a
good fellow, inoffensive and serviceable, and had busied himself with
incomparable industry in organizing the defense of the town; had had
holes dug all over the plain, cut down all the young trees in the
neighboring woods, scattered pitfalls up and down all the high roads,
and at the threatened approach of the enemy--satisfied with his
preparations--had fallen back with all haste on the town. He now
considered that he would be more useful in Havre, where fresh
entrenchments would soon become necessary.
The woman, one of the so-called "gay" sisterhood, was noted for her
precocious stoutness, which had gained her the nickname of "Boule de
Suif"--"ball of fat." She was a little roly-poly creature, cushioned
with fat, with podgy fingers squeezed in at the joints like rows of
thick, short sausages; her skin tightly stretched and shiny, her bust
enormous, and yet with it all so wholesomely, temptingly fresh and
appetizing that it was a pleasure to look at her. Her face was like a
ruddy apple--a peony rose just burst into bloom--and out of it gazed a
pair of magnificent dark eyes overshadowed by long thick lashes that
deepened their blackness; and lower down, a charming little mouth, dewy
to the kiss, and furnished with a row of tiny milk-white teeth. Over and
above all this she was, they said, full of inestimable qualities.
No sooner was her identity recognized than a whisper ran through the
ladies in which the words "prostitute" and "public scandal," were so
conspicuously distinct that she raised her head and retaliated by
sweeping her companions with such a bold and defiant look that deep
silence instantly fell upon them, and they all cast down their eyes with
the exception of Loiseau, who watched her with a kindling eye.
However, conversation was soon resumed between the three ladies, whom
the presence of this "person" had suddenly rendered friendly--almost
intimate. It seemed to them that they must, as it were, raise a rampart
of their dignity as spouses between them and this shameless creature who
made a traffic of herself; for legalized love always takes a high hand
with her unlicensed sister.
The three men too, drawn to one another by a conservative instinct at
sight of Cornudet, talked money in a certain tone of contempt for the
impecunious. Count Hubert spoke of the damage inflicted on him by the
Prussians, of the losses which would result to him from the seizing of
cattle and from ruined crops, but with all the assurance of a great
landed proprietor, ten times millionaire, whom these ravages might
inconvenience for the space of a year at most. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon,
of great experience in the cotton industry, had taken the precaution to
send six hundred thousand francs across to England as provision against
a rainy day. As for Loiseau, he made arrangements to sell all the wine
in his cellars to the French commission of supplies, consequently the
Government owed him a formidable sum, which he counted upon receiving at
Havre.
The three exchanged rapid and amicable glances. Although differing in
position they felt themselves brothers in money, and of the great
freemasonry of those who possess, of those who can make the gold jingle
when they put their hands in the breeches-pockets.
The diligence went so slowly that by ten o'clock in the morning they had
not made four leagues. The men got out three times and climbed the hill
on foot. They began to grow anxious, for they were to have lunched at
Totes, and now they despaired of reaching that place before night.
Everybody was on the look-out for some inn by the way, when the vehicle
stuck fast in a snowdrift, and it took two hours to get it out.
Meanwhile the pangs of hunger began to affect them severely both in mind
and body, and yet not an inn, not a tavern even, was to be seen; the
approach of the Prussians and the passage of the famished French troops
had frightened away all trade.
The gentlemen foraged diligently for the provisions in the farms by the
roadside; but they failed to obtain so much as a piece of bread, for the
mistrustful peasant hid all reserve stores for fear of being pillaged by
the soldiers, who, having no food supplied to them, took by force
everything they could lay their hands on.
Towards one o'clock Loiseau announced that he felt a very decided void
in his stomach. Everybody had been suffering in the same manner for a
long time, and the violent longing for food had extinguished
conversation.
From time to time some one would yawn, to be almost immediately imitated
by another and then each of the rest in turn, and according to their
disposition, manners, or social standing, would open their mouth
noisily, or modestly cover with the hand the gaping cavity from which
the breath issued in a vapor.
Boule de Suif had several times stooped down as if feeling for something
under her skirts. She hesitated a moment, looked at her companions, and
then composedly resumed her former position. The faces were pale and
drawn. Loiseau declared he would give a thousand francs for a ham. His
wife made a faint movement as to protest, but restrained herself. It
always affected her painfully to hear of money being thrown away, nor
could she even understand a joke upon the subject.
"To tell the truth," said the Count, "I do not feel quite myself
either--how could I have omitted to think of bringing provisions?" And
everybody reproached themselves with the same neglectfulness.
Cornudet, however, had a flask of rum which he offered round. It was
coldly refused. Loiseau alone accepted a mouthful, and handed back the
flask with thanks saying, "That's good! that warms you up and keeps the
hunger off a bit." The alcohol raised his spirits somewhat, and he
proposed that they should do the same as on the little ship in the
song--eat the fattest of the passengers. This indirect but obvious
allusion to Boule De Suif shocked the gentle people. Nobody responded
and only Cornudet smiled. The two Sisters of Mercy had ceased to tell
their beads and sat motionless, their hands buried in their wide
sleeves, their eyes obstinately lowered, doubtless engaged in offering
back to Heaven the sacrifice of suffering which it sent them.
At last, at three o'clock, when they were in the middle of an
interminable stretch of bare country without a single village in sight,
Boule de Suif, stooping hurriedly, drew from under the seat a large
basket covered with a white napkin.
Out of it she took, first of all, a little china plate and a delicate
silver drinking-cup, and then an immense dish, in which two whole fowls
ready carved lay stiffened in their jelly. Other good things were
visible in the basket: patties, fruits, pastry--in fact provisions for a
three days' journey in order to be independent of inn cookery. The necks
of four bottles protruded from between the parcels of food. She took the
wing of a fowl and began to eat it daintily with one of those little
rolls which they call "Regence" in Normandy.
Every eye was fixed upon her. As the odor of the food spread through the
carriage nostrils began to quiver and mouths to fill with water, while
the jaws, just below the ears contracted painfully. The dislike
entertained by the ladies for this abandoned young woman grew savage,
almost to the point of longing to murder her or at least to turn her out
into the snow, her and her drinking-cup and her basket and her
provisions.
Loiseau, however, was devouring the dish of chicken with his eyes.
"Madame has been more prudent than we," he said. "Some people always
think of everything."
She turned her head in his direction. "If you would care for any,
Monsieur--? It is not comfortable to fast for so long."
He bowed. "Ma foi!--frankly, I won't refuse. I can't stand this any
longer--the fortune of war, is it not, madame?" And with a comprehensive
look he added: "In moments such as this we are only too glad to find any
one who will oblige us." He had a newspaper which he spread on his knee
to save his trousers, and with the point of a knife which he always
carried in his pocket he captured a drumstick all glazed with jelly,
tore it with his teeth, and then proceeded to chew it with satisfaction
so evident that a deep groan of distress went up from the whole party.
Upon this Boule de Suif in a gentle and humble tone invited the two
Sisters to share the collation. They both accepted on the spot, and
without raising their eyes began to eat very hurriedly, after stammering
a few words of thanks. Nor did Cornudet refuse his neighbor's offer, and
with the Sisters they formed a kind of table by spreading out newspapers
on their knees.
The jaws opened and shut without a pause, biting, chewing, gulping
ferociously. Loiseau, hard at work in his corner, urged his wife in a
low voice to follow his example. She resisted for some time, then, after
a pang which gripped her very vitals, she gave in. Whereupon her
husband, rounding off his phrases, asked if their "charming
fellow-traveler" would permit him to offer a little something to Madame
Loiseau.
"Why, yes, certainly, Monsieur," she answered with a pleasant smile, and
handed him the dish.
There was a moment of embarrassment when the first bottle of claret was
uncorked--there was but the one drinking-cup. Each one wiped it before
passing it to the rest. Cornudet alone, from an impulse of gallantry no
doubt, placed his lips on the spot still wet from the lips of his
neighbor.
Then it was that, surrounded by people who were eating, suffocated by
the fragrant odor of the viands, the Count and Countess de Breville and
Monsieur and Madame Carré-Lamadon suffered the agonies of that torture
which has ever been associated with the name of Tantalus. Suddenly the
young wife of the cotton manufacturer gave a deep sigh. Every head
turned towards her; she was as white as the snow outside, her eyes
closed, her head fell forward--she had fainted. Her husband, distraught
with fear, implored assistance of the whole company. All lost their
heads till the elder of the two Sisters, who supported the unconscious
lady, forced Boule de Suif's drinking-cup between her lips and made her
swallow a few drops of wine. The pretty creature stirred, opened her
eyes, smiled and then declared in an expiring voice that she felt quite
well now. But to prevent her being overcome again in the same manner,
the Sister induced her to drink a full cup of wine, adding, "It is
simply hunger--nothing else."
At this Boule de Suif, blushing violently, looked at the four starving
passengers and faltered shyly, "Mon Dieu! If I might make so bold as to
offer the ladies and gentlemen--" She stopped short, fearing a rude
rebuff.
Loiseau, however, at once threw himself into the breach. "Parbleu! under
such circumstances we are all companions in misfortune and bound to help
each other. Come, ladies, don't stand on ceremony--take what you can get
and be thankful: who knows whether we shall be able to find so much as
a house where we can spend the night? At this rate we shall not reach
Totes till to-morrow afternoon."
They still hesitated, nobody having the courage to take upon themselves
the responsibility of the decisive "Yes." Finally the Count seized the
bull by the horns. Adopting his most grandiose air, he turned with a bow
to the embarrassed young woman and said, "We accept your offer with
thanks, madame."
The first step only was difficult. The Rubicon once crossed, they fell
to with a will. They emptied the basket, which contained, besides the
provisions already mentioned; a pate de foie gras, a lark pie, a piece
of smoked tongue, some pears, a slab of gingerbread, mixed biscuits, and
a cup of pickled onions and gherkins in vinegar--for, like all women,
Boule de Suif adored crudities.
They could not well eat the young woman's provisions and not speak to
her, so they conversed--stiffly at first, and then, seeing that she
showed no signs of presuming, with less reserve. Mesdames de Breville
and Carré-Lamadon, having a great deal of "savoir vivre," knew how to
make themselves agreeable with tact and delicacy. The Countess, in
particular, exhibited the amiable condescension of the extremely
high-born lady whom no contact can sully, and was charming. But big
Madame Loiseau, who had the soul of a gendarme, remained unmoved,
speaking little and eating much.
The conversation naturally turned upon the war. They related horrible
deeds committed by the Prussians and examples of the bravery of the
French; all these people who were flying rendering full homage to the
courage of those who remained behind. Incidents of personal experience
soon followed, and Boule de Suif told, with that warmth of coloring
which women of her type often employ in expressing their natural
feelings, how she had come to leave Rouen.
"I thought at first I should be able to hold out," she said, "for I had
plenty of provisions in my house, and would much rather feed a few
soldiers than turn out of my home and go goodness knows where. But when
I saw them--these Prussians--it was too much for me. They made my blood
boil with rage, and I cried the whole day for shame. Oh, if I had only
been a man!--well, there! I watched them from my window--fat pigs that
they were with their spiked helmets--and my servant had to hold my hands
to prevent me throwing the furniture down on the top of them. Then some
of them came to be quartered on me, and I flew at the throat of the
first one--they are not harder to strangle than any one else--and would
have finished him too if they had not dragged me off by the hair. Of
course I had to lie low after that. So as soon as I found an opportunity
I left--and here I am."
Everybody congratulated her. She rose considerably in the estimation of
her companions, who had not shown themselves of such valiant mettle, and
listening to her tale, Cornudet smiled the benignant and approving smile
of an apostle--as a priest might on hearing a devout person praise the
Almighty; democrats with long beards having the monopoly of patriotism
as the men of the cassock possess that of religion. He then took up the
parable in a didactic tone with the phraseology culled from the notices
posted each day on the walls, and finished up with a flourish of
eloquence in which he scathingly alluded to "that blackguard of a
Badinguet."[2]
But Boule de Suif fired up at this for she was a Bonapartist. She turned
upon him with scarlet cheeks and stammering with indignation, "Ah! I
should just like to have seen any of you in his place! A nice mess you
would have made of it! It is men of your sort that ruined him, poor man.
There would be nothing for it but to leave France for good if we were
governed by cowards like you!"
Cornudet, nothing daunted, preserved a disdainful and superior smile,
but there was a feeling in the air that high words would soon follow,
whereupon the Count interposed, and managed, not without difficulty, to
quiet the infuriated young woman by asserting authoritatively that every
sincere opinion was to be respected. Nevertheless the Countess and the
manufacturer's wife, who nourished in their hearts the unreasoning
hatred of all well-bred people for the Republic and at the same time
that instinctive weakness of all women for uniformed and despotic
governments, felt drawn, in spite of themselves, to this woman of the
street who had so much sense of the fitness of things and whose opinions
so closely resembled their own.
The basket was empty--this had not been difficult among ten of
them--they only regretted it was not larger. The conversation was kept
up for some little time longer, although somewhat more coldly after they
had finished eating.
The night fell, the darkness grew gradually more profound, and the cold,
to which digestion rendered them more sensitive, made even Boule de Suif
shiver in spite of her fat. Madame de Breville thereupon offered her
her charcoal foot-warmer, which had been replenished several times since
the morning; she accepted with alacrity, for her feet were like ice.
Mesdames Carré-Lamadon and Loiseau lent theirs to the two Sisters.
The driver had lit his lanterns, which shed a vivid light over the cloud
of vapor that hung over the steaming back of the horses and over the
snow at each side of the road, which seemed to open out under the
shifting reflection of the lights.
Inside the conveyance nothing could be distinguished any longer, but
there was a sudden movement between Boule de Suif and Cornudet, and
Loiseau, peering through the gloom, fancied he saw the man with the
beard start back quickly as if he had received a well-directed but
noiseless blow.
Tiny points of fire appeared upon the road in front. It was Totes. The
travelers had been driving for eleven hours, which, with the four
half-hours for food and rest to the horses, made thirteen. They entered
the town and stopped in front of the Hotel de la Commerce.
The door opened. A familiar sound caused every passenger to tremble--it
was the clink of a scabbard on the stones. At the same moment a German
voice called out something.
Although the diligence had stopped, nobody attempted to get out, as
though they expected to be massacred on setting foot to the ground. The
driver then appeared holding up one of the lanterns, which suddenly
illumined the vehicle to its farthest corner and revealed the two rows
of bewildered faces with their open mouths and startled eyes wide with
alarm.
Beside the driver in the full glare of the light stood a German
officer, a tall young man excessively slender and blonde, compressed
into his uniform like a girl in her stays, and wearing, well over one
ear, a flat black wax-cloth cap like the "Boots" of an English hotel.
His preposterously long moustache, which was drawn out stiff and
straight, and tapered away indefinitely to each side till it finished
off in a single thread so thin that it was impossible to say where it
ended, seemed to weigh upon the corners of his mouth and form a deep
furrow in either cheek.
In Alsatian-French and stern accents he invited the passengers to
descend: "Vill you get out, chentlemen and laties?"
The two Sisters were the first to obey with the docility of holy women
accustomed to unfaltering submission. The Count and Countess appeared
next, followed by the manufacturer and his wife, and after them Loiseau
pushing his better half in front of him. As he set foot to the ground he
remarked to the officer, more from motives of prudence than politeness,
"Good evening, Monsieur," to which the other with the insolence of the
man in possession, vouchsafed no reply but a stare.
Boule de Suif and Cornudet, though the nearest the door, were the last
to emerge--grave and haughty in face of the enemy. The buxom young woman
struggled hard to command herself and be calm; the democrat tugged at
his long rusty beard with a tragic and slightly trembling hand. They
sought to preserve their dignity, realizing that in such encounters each
one, to a certain extent, represents his country; and the two being
similarly disgusted at the servile readiness of their companions, she
endeavored to show herself prouder than her fellow travelers who were
honest women, while he, feeling that he must set an example, continued
in his attitude his mission of resistance begun by digging pitfalls in
the high roads.
They all entered the huge kitchen of the inn, and the German, having
been presented with the passport signed by the general in command--where
each traveler's name was accompanied by a personal description and a
statement as to his or her profession--he proceeded to scrutinize the
party for a long time, comparing the persons with the written notices.
Finally, he exclaimed unceremoniously, "C'est pien--that's all right,"
and disappeared.
They breathed again more freely. Hunger having reasserted itself, supper
was ordered. It would take half an hour to prepare, so while two
servants were apparently busied about it the travelers dispersed to look
at their rooms. These were all together down each side of a long passage
ending in a door with ground glass panels.
At last, just as they were sitting down to table, the innkeeper himself
appeared. He was a former horse-dealer, a stout asthmatic man with
perpetual wheezings and blowings and rattlings of phlegm in his throat.
His father had transmitted to him the name of Follenvie.
"Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset?" he said.