Two days later I received the following letter, dated the day after we
had left, that had been written at an inn on the high road:
“MY FRIEND: I am writing to you, according to my promise. For the moment
I am at the inn, where I have just handed my prisoner over to a Prussian
officer.
“I must tell you, my friend, that this poor woman has left two children
in Germany. She had followed her husband, whom she adored, as she did
not wish him to be exposed to the risks of war by himself, and as her
children were with their grandparents. I have learned all this since
yesterday, and it has turned my ideas of vengeance into more humane
feelings. At the very moment when I felt pleasure in insulting this
woman, and in threatening her with the most fearful torments, in
recalling Piedelot, who had been burned alive, and in threatening her
with a similar death, she looked at me coldly, and said:
“'What have you got to reproach me with, Frenchwoman? You think that you
will do right in avenging your husband's death, is not that so?'
“'Yes,' I replied.
“'Very well, then; in killing him, I did what you are going to do in
burning me. I avenged my husband, for your husband killed him.'
“'Well,' I replied, 'as you approve of this vengeance, prepare to endure
it.'
“'I do not fear it.'
“And in fact she did not seem to have lost courage. Her face was calm,
and she looked at me without trembling, while I brought wood and dried
leaves together, and feverishly threw on to them the powder from some
cartridges, which was to make her funeral pile the more cruel.
“I hesitated in my thoughts of persecution for a moment. But the captain
was there, pale and covered with blood, and he seemed to be looking at
me with his large, glassy eyes, and I applied myself to my work again
after kissing his pale lips. Suddenly, however, on raising my head, I
saw that she was crying, and I felt rather surprised.
“'So you are frightened?' I said to her.
“'No, but when I saw you kiss your husband, I thought of mine, of all
whom I love.'
“She continued to sob, but stopping suddenly, she said to me in broken
words and in a low voice:
“'Have you any children?'
“A shiver rare over me, for I guessed that this poor woman had some. She
asked me to look in a pocketbook which was in her bosom, and in it I saw
two photographs of quite young children, a boy and a girl, with those
kind, gentle, chubby faces that German children have. In it there were
also two locks of light hair and a letter in a large, childish hand, and
beginning with German words which meant:
“'My dear little mother.
“'I could not restrain my tears, my dear friend, and so I untied her,
and without venturing to look at the face of my poor dead husband, who
was not to be avenged, I went with her as far as the inn. She is free; I
have just left her, and she kissed me with tears. I am going upstairs
to my husband; come as soon as possible, my dear friend, to look for our
two bodies.'”
I set off with all speed, and when I arrived there was a Prussian patrol
at the cottage; and when I asked what it all meant, I was told that
there was a captain of francs-tireurs and his wife inside, both dead. I
gave their names; they saw that I knew them, and I begged to be allowed
to arrange their funeral.
“Somebody has already undertaken it,” was the reply. “Go in if you wish
to, as you know them. You can settle about their funeral with their
friend.”
I went in. The captain and his wife were lying side by side on a bed,
and were covered by a sheet. I raised it, and saw that the woman had
inflicted a similar wound in her throat to that from which her husband
had died.
At the side of the bed there sat, watching and weeping, the woman who
had been mentioned to me as their best friend. It was the lancer's wife.