"Come, Moses," she said to me one day; "we are not as badly off as you
think; and if we should come to it, ah, well! do not be troubled, we
shall find some way of getting along! So long as others have something
to live upon, we shall not perish, more than they."
She gave me courage, and I ate cheerfully, I had so much confidence in
her.
That same evening, after Zeffen and the children had gone to bed, Sorle
took the lamp, and led me to her hiding-place.
Under the house we had three cellars, very small and very low,
separated by lattices. Against the last of these lattices, Sorle had
thrown bundles of straw up to the very top; but after removing the
straw, we went in, and I saw at the farther end, two bags of potatoes,
a bag of flour, and on the little oil-cask a large piece of salt beef.
We stayed there more than an hour, to look, and calculate, and think.
These provisions might serve us for a month, and those in the large
cellar under the street, which we had declared to the commissary of
provisions, a fortnight. So that Sorle said to me as we went up:
"You see that, with economy, we have what will do for six weeks. A
time of great want is now beginning, and if the Emperor does not come
before the end of six weeks, the city will surrender. Meanwhile, we
must get along with potatoes and salt meat."
She was right, but every day I saw how the children were suffering from
this diet. We could see that they grew thin, especially little David;
his large bright eyes, his hollow cheeks, his increasing dejected look,
made my heart ache.
I held him, I caressed him; I whispered to him that, when the winter
was over, we would go to Saverne, and his father would take him to
drive in his carriage. He would look at me dreamily, and then lay his
head upon my shoulder, with his arm around my neck, without answering.
At last he refused to eat.
Zeffen, too, became disheartened; she would often sob, and take her
babe from me, and say that she wanted to go, that she wanted to see
Baruch! You do not know what these troubles are, Fritz; a father's
troubles for his children; they are the cruelest of all! No child can
imagine how his parents love him, and what they suffer when he is
unhappy.
But what was to be done in the midst of such calamities? Many other
families in France were still more to be pitied than we.
During all this time, you must remember that we had the patrols, the
shells in the evening, requisition and notices, the call to arms at the
two barracks and in front of the mayoralty, the cries of "Fire!" in the
night, the noise of the fire-engines, the arrival of the envoys, the
rumors spread through the city that our armies were retreating, and
that the city was to be burned to the ground!
The less people know the more they invent.
It is best to tell the simple truth. Then every one would take
courage, for, during all such times, I have always seen that the truth,
even in the greatest calamities, is never so terrible as these
inventions. The republicans defended themselves so well, because they
knew everything, nothing was concealed from them, and every one
considered the affairs of his nation as his own.
But when men's own affairs are hidden from them, how can they have
confidence? An honest man has nothing to conceal, and I say it is the
same with an honest government.
In short, bad weather, cold, want, rumors of all kinds, increased our
miseries. Men like Burguet, whom we had always seen firm, became sad;
all that they could say to us was:
"We shall see!--we must wait!" The soldiers again began to desert, and
were shot!
Our brandy-selling always kept on: I had already emptied seven pipes of
spirit, all my debts were paid, my storehouse at the market was full of
goods, and I had eighteen thousand francs in the cellar; but what is
money, when we are trembling for the life of those we love?
On the sixth of March, about nine o'clock in the evening, we had just
finished supper as usual, and the sergeant was smoking his pipe, with
his legs crossed, near the window, and looking at us without speaking.
It was the hour when the bombarding began; we heard the first
cannon-shots, behind the Fiquet bottom-land; a cannon-shot from the
outposts had answered them; that had somewhat roused us, for we were
all thoughtful.
"Father Moses," said the sergeant, "the children are pale!"
"I know it very well," I replied, sorrowfully.
He said no more, and as Zeffen had just gone out to weep, he took
little David on his knee, and looked at him for a long time. Sorle
held little Esdras asleep in her arms. Safel took off the table-cloth
and rolled up the napkins, to put them back in the closet.
"Yes," said the sergeant. "We must take care, Father Moses; we will
talk about it another time."
I looked at him with surprise; he emptied his pipe at the edge of the
stove, and went out, making a sign for me to follow him. Zeffen came
in, and I took a candle from her hand. The sergeant led me to his
little room at the end of the passage, shut the door, sat down on the
foot of the bed, and said:
"Father Moses, do not be frightened--but the typhus has just broken out
again in the city; five soldiers were taken to the hospital this
morning; the commandant of the place, Moulin, is taken. I hear, too,
of a woman and three children!"
He looked at me, and I felt cold all over.
"Yes," said he, "I have known this disease for a long time; we had it
in Poland, in Russia, after the retreat, and in Germany. It always
comes from poor nourishment."
Then I could not help sobbing and exclaiming:
"Ah, tell me! What can I do? If I could give my life for my children,
it would all be well! But what can I do?"
"To-morrow, Father Moses, I will bring you my portion of meat, and you
shall have soup made of it for your children. Madame Sorle may take
the piece at the market, or, if you prefer, I will bring it myself.
You shall have all my portions of fresh meat till the blockade is over,
Father Moses."