[8] By this name is designated the succession of stations guarded by
Russian troops between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, from the
mouth of the Terek to that of the Kuban.
[9] Vladikavkaz comes from the Russian verb “vladeti,” which means
“command, dominate.”
[10] Soldier-servant.
[11] He was called Ivan Smirnoff, a name which might be translated
into French as “John the Gentile,” which contrasted strangely with his
character, as we shall see by what follows.
[12] A familiar proverb of Russian soldiers in the moment of danger.
[13] A Russian drink; it is a kind of beer made with flour.
[14] A Russian word which corresponds to what is called in French “cap.”
[15] Mutton roasted in small pieces at the end of a stick.
[16] A cloak of impervious felt with long hair, rather like bearskin.
The burka, the ordinary cloak of the Cossacks, is only made in their
country: with it they brave with impunity the rain and mud of the
bivouac.
[17] The kibitka is a carriage, the body of which, like that of
a roughly-built barouche, is fixed directly on two axle-trees,
and in winter on two runners forming a sledge; it is the ordinary
travelling-carriage in Russia.
EL VERDUGO
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Midnight had just sounded from the belfry of the little town of Menda.
At that moment a young French officer, who was leaning over the parapet
of a long terrace, which ran along the edge of the gardens of the
castle of Menda, seemed to be sunk in meditation more profound than was
natural to the carelessness of military life; but it must be said at
the same time that hour, place, and night were never more propitious
to meditation. The clear sky of Spain spread an azure dome overhead.
The sparkling of the stars and the soft light of the moon lit up a
delightful valley, which unrolled itself invitingly at his feet. By
supporting himself upon an orange-tree in blossom, the major could
see, a hundred feet below him, the town of Menda, which seemed to have
taken shelter from the north winds at the foot of the rock upon which
the castle was built. Turning his head, he could observe the sea, its
shining waters framing the prospect in a broad sheet of silver. The
castle was lit up. The merry tumult of a ball, the strains of the
orchestra, the laughter of some officers and their partners reached
his ears, blended with the distant murmur of the waves. The coolness
of the night imparted a sort of energy to his body, fatigued by the
heat of the day. And, finally, the garden was planted with shrubs so
odoriferous and flowers so sweet, that the young man felt as if plunged
in a bath of perfumes.
The castle of Menda belonged to a grandee of Spain, who, together
with his family, was then in residence. All that evening the elder of
his daughters had regarded the officer with an interest characterized
by such sadness, that the sentiment of compassion expressed by the
Spaniard might well have been the cause of the Frenchman’s reverie.
Clara was beautiful, and, although she had three brothers and a sister,
the Marquis of Leganés’s possessions seemed considerable enough to
lead Victor Marchand to believe that the young lady would have a rich
dowry. But how presume to think that the daughter of an old man, the
vainest in all Spain of his nobility, would be bestowed on the son of
a Parisian grocer? Moreover, the French were hated. The Marquis having
been suspected by General G..t..r, who was governor of the province,
of organizing a movement in favour of Ferdinand VII, the battalion
commanded by Victor Marchand had been stationed in the little town of
Menda to overawe the neighbouring districts, which owed allegiance to
the Marquis of Leganés. A recent dispatch from Marshal Ney had given
reason to apprehend that the English might shortly attempt a landing
on the coast, and had pointed out the Marquis as a man who kept in
communication with the Cabinet in London. So, in spite of the good
reception which the Spaniard had given to Victor Marchand and his
soldiers, the young officer was constantly on his guard. As he made
his way to the terrace, from which he intended to examine the state of
the town and the districts committed to his oversight, he had asked
himself how he ought to interpret the friendliness which the Marquis
had never ceased to display towards him, and how the tranquillity of
the country could be reconciled with his general’s disquietude; but for
the last minute these thoughts had been driven from the young officer’s
head by a sense of prudence, and by a very legitimate curiosity. He
had just observed a considerable number of lights in the town. In
spite of it being the feast of St. James, he had ordered, only that
very morning, that fires were to be put out at the hour prescribed by
his regulations. The castle alone had been exempted from this measure.
He could see here and there the gleam of the bayonets of his soldiers
at their usual posts; but the silence was most solemn, and nothing
announced that the Spaniards were overcome by the intoxication of a
feast. After trying to discover a reason for this infringement of
which the townspeople were guilty, he found their contravention all
the more mysterious and incomprehensible that he had left officers in
charge of the night police and the rounds. With the impetuosity of
youth, he was proceeding to slip through a gap, in order to descend
the rocks rapidly, and thus arrive sooner than by the ordinary road
at a small post stationed at the entrance to the town on the castle
side, when a slight noise arrested him in his course. He thought he
heard the gravel of the walk crunch beneath a woman’s light footstep.
He turned his head and saw nothing, but his eye was arrested by the
extraordinary brightness of the ocean. There, all of a sudden, he
perceived a sight so ominous that he stood motionless with surprise,
and refused to believe his senses. The silvery rays of the moon enabled
him to distinguish some sails at a considerable distance. He trembled,
and sought to convince himself that this vision was an optical delusion
produced by the fantastic tricks of waves and moon. At that moment a
hoarse voice uttered the name of the officer, who looked towards the
gap, and there saw the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to
accompany him to the castle slowly emerge.
“Is that you, commandant?”
“Yes. What is it?” was the whispered response of the young man, whom a
sort of presentiment warned to proceed with secrecy.
“Those rascals down there are as restless as worms, and I hasten, with
your leave, to report some little things I have observed.”
“Speak,” answered Victor Marchand.
“I have just been following a man from the castle, who came this way
with a lantern in his hand. A lantern is terribly suspicious! I don’t
think that there Christian requires to light candles at this time of
night.--‛They mean to do for us,’ says I to myself, and I set about
examining his heels. And so, commandant, I discovered a pretty heap of
faggots on a rock two or three steps away.”
A terrible cry which all at once resounded from the town interrupted
the soldier. A sudden gleam lit up the commandant. The poor grenadier
received a bullet in his head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood
blazed up like a conflagration some ten paces from the young man. The
instruments and laughter were no longer to be heard in the ball-room.
A deathly silence, broken by occasional groans, had suddenly taken
the place of the hum and music of the feast. A cannon-shot boomed
across the silvery plain of the ocean. A cold sweat ran down the young
officer’s forehead. He was without his sword. He understood that his
soldiers had perished, and that the English were about to land. He
saw himself dishonoured if he lived, he saw himself brought before a
court-martial; then with his eye he measured the depth of the valley,
and was about to dash himself down, when at that moment Clara’s hand
seized his.
“Flee!” she said. “My brothers are coming behind me to kill you. At the
foot of the rock yonder, you will find Juanito’s Andalusian. Go!”
She pushed him away; the young man gazed at her in stupefaction for
one moment; but, soon obeying the instinct of self-preservation, which
never forsakes any man, even the bravest, he dashed into the park in
the direction indicated, and ran over rocks which only the goats had
trodden hitherto. He heard Clara calling to her brothers to pursue him;
he heard the steps of his assassins; he heard the bullets from several
discharges whistle past his ears; but he reached the valley, found the
horse, mounted it, and disappeared with the rapidity of lightning.
Some hours later, the young officer arrived at the quarters of General
G..t..r, whom he found at dinner with his staff.
“I bring you my head!” exclaimed the major, as he made his appearance,
pale and disordered.
He sat down and related the horrible adventure. His recital was
received with appalling silence.
“I consider you more to be pitied than blamed,” the terrible general at
length replied. “You are not answerable for the Spaniards’ crime; and
provided the marshal does not decide otherwise I acquit you.”
These words afforded but very slight consolation to the unfortunate
officer.
“When the emperor hears about it!” he exclaimed.
“He’ll want to have you shot,” said the general, “but we shall see.
Now, let us say no more about it,” he added sternly, “except to exact a
vengeance that will strike salutary terror into this country where they
make war like savages.”
An hour later, a whole regiment of infantry, a detachment of cavalry
and a train of artillery were on the march. The general and Victor
marched at the head of the column. The soldiers, aware of the massacre
of their comrades, were possessed with a fury without bounds.
The distance which separated the town of Menda from the general
headquarters was covered with miraculous rapidity. On the line of
march, the general found whole villages under arms. Each of these
miserable places was surrounded, and its inhabitants decimated.
By some inexplicable fatality, the English ships had remained hove
to without advancing; but it was learned subsequently that these
vessels had nothing on board but artillery, and had outsailed the other
transports. Thus the town of Menda, deprived of its expected defenders,
whom the appearance of the English sails had seemed to promise, was
surrounded by the French troops almost without a blow being struck. The
inhabitants, seized with terror, offered to surrender at discretion.
With that devotion, instances of which have been not uncommon in the
Peninsula, the assassins of the French, foreseeing from the notorious
cruelty of the general that Menda would perhaps be committed to the
flames and the inhabitants put to the sword, proposed to denounce
themselves to the general. He accepted their offer, on condition
that the inmates of the castle, from the humblest serving-man to the
Marquis, should be delivered into his hands. This capitulation having
been agreed to, the general promised to show mercy to the rest of the
inhabitants, and to prevent his soldiers from pillaging or setting fire
to the town. An enormous fine was imposed, and the richest inhabitants
gave themselves up as prisoners to guarantee its payment, which had to
be effected within twenty-four hours.
The general took all precautions necessary for the safety of his
troops, saw to the defence of the district, and refused to billet his
soldiers. After seeing them encamped, he went up to the castle, and
took it into military occupation. The members of the Leganés family and
the domestics were kept carefully under observation, bound, and shut
up in the hall where the dance had taken place. From the windows of
this apartment the terrace, which commanded the town, could easily be
seen. The staff took up its quarters in an adjoining gallery, where the
general at once held a council upon the measures to be taken to oppose
the disembarkation. After having dispatched an aide-de-camp to Marshal
Ney, and ordered batteries to be established on the coast, the general
and his staff proceeded to deal with the prisoners. Two hundred
Spaniards whom the inhabitants had surrendered were shot out of hand on
the terrace. After this military execution, the general ordered as many
gallows to be erected as there were persons in the hall of the castle,
and the town executioner to be sent for. Victor Marchand took advantage
of the time until dinner to visit the prisoners. He was not long in
returning to the general.
“I come,” he said with emotion, “to ask you some favours.”
“You!” retorted the general in a tone of bitter irony.
“Alas!” Victor responded, “They are sad favours I ask. When the
Marquis saw you plant the gallows, he hoped that you would change the
punishment to be inflicted on his family, and begs you to cause the
nobles to be beheaded.”
“Very well!” said the general.
“They ask also to be allowed the consolations of religion, and to be
set free from their bonds; they promise not to attempt to escape.”
“I agree to that,” said the general; “but you are responsible to me for
them.”
“The old man also offers you all his fortune, if you will pardon his
youngest son.”
“Indeed!” replied the general. “His estate already belongs to King
Joseph.” He stopped. A look of contempt wrinkled his brow, and he
added: “I’ll do more than he desires. I understand the importance of
his last request. Well, he shall purchase the eternity of his name, but
Spain shall always remember his treachery and its punishment! I grant
his fortune and life to whichever of his sons will take the place of
the executioner. Go, and say no more about it.”
Dinner was served. The officers at table satisfied an appetite which
fatigue had sharpened. Only one of them, Victor Marchand, was absent
from the feast. After long hesitation, he entered the apartment where
the haughty family of Leganés was languishing, and cast a sorrowful
look on the spectacle now presented by the hall, where only the other
evening he had seen the heads of the two young women and the three
young men whirling round as they were borne along in the waltz: he
shuddered as he reflected that in a little they must roll severed by
the executioner’s sabre. Bound to their gilded chairs, the father and
mother, the three sons and the two daughters, remained in a state
of complete immobility. Eight servants were standing, their hands
bound behind their backs. These fifteen persons looked at one another
gravely, and their eyes hardly betrayed the sentiments by which they
were animated. On some brows profound resignation and regret at the
failure of their enterprise might be read. Some motionless soldiers
guarded them, and respected the grief of those cruel enemies. An
expression of curiosity animated their visages when Victor made his
appearance. He gave the order to unbind the prisoners, and himself
proceeded to unfasten the cords which held Clara a prisoner in her
chair. She smiled sadly. The officer could not help coming in contact
with the young woman’s arms, while he admired her black hair and her
supple form. She was a true Spaniard: she had the Spanish complexion,
the Spanish eyes, with long curved lashes and a pupil blacker than the
raven’s wing.
“Have you succeeded?” she asked, addressing him with one of those
mournful smiles in which there is still some vestige of the young girl.
Victor could not restrain himself from groaning. He looked at the
three brothers and Clara one by one. The first, and he was the eldest,
was thirty years old. Short, rather badly built, with a proud and
disdainful expression, he was not without a certain nobility of
manner, and seemed no stranger to that delicacy of sentiment which
once rendered Spanish gallantry so celebrated. He was called Juanito.
The second, Philip, was aged about twenty. He resembled Clara. The
youngest was eight years old. In Manuel’s features, a painter would
have found something of that Roman constancy which David has bestowed
upon the children in his republican scenes. The old Marquis had a head
covered with white hair, which looked as if it had come out of one of
Murillo’s pictures. At the sight, the young officer shook his head in
despair of seeing the general’s bargain accepted by any one of those
personages; nevertheless he ventured to confide it to Clara. At first
the Spaniard shivered, but in an instant she recovered calmness, and
went and knelt before her father.
“Oh!” she said to him. “Make Juanito swear that he will obey faithfully
the orders which you will give him, and we shall be content.”
The Marchioness trembled with expectation; but, when she bent over
to her husband and heard Clara’s horrible confidence, the mother
fainted. Juanito understood all, he sprang up like a caged lion. Victor
took upon himself to dismiss the soldiers, after having obtained an
assurance of perfect submission from the Marquis. The domestics were
led out and delivered to the executioner, who hanged them. When the
family were observed by none but Victor, the old father rose.
“Juanito!” he said.
Juanito made no response but an inclination of the head which was equal
to a refusal, fell back in his chair, and regarded his parents with a
dry and terrible eye. Clara came and sat on his knee, and began gaily:
“My dear Juanito,” she said, putting her arm round his neck and kissing
him on his eyelids, “if you only knew how easy death will be to me if
given by you! I shall not have to submit to the hateful touch of an
executioner’s hands. You will cure me of the ills which awaited me,
and--my good Juanito, you did not wish to see me belong to anybody, did
you--?”
Her velvety eyes darted a glance of fire upon Victor, as if to rekindle
in Juanito’s heart his horror of the French.
“Be brave,” his brother Philip said, “or else our race, which is almost
royal, will be extinguished.”
Suddenly Clara rose, the group which had formed about Juanito broke up;
and the son, justifiably mutinous, saw erect before him his old father,
who exclaimed solemnly: “Juanito, I command you!”
The young man remained motionless, his father fell on his knees.
Involuntarily, Clara, Manuel and Philip followed his example. All
stretched out their hands to him who should save their family from
oblivion, and seemed to repeat these words of their father: “My son,
will you prove lacking in Spanish energy and right feeling? Do you wish
me to remain long on my knees, and ought you to consider your own life
and your own sufferings?... Is this my son, madam?” added the old man,
turning to the Marchioness.
“He consents!” exclaimed his mother in despair, observing Juanito move
his eyebrows in a fashion of which only she understood the significance.
Mariquita, the second daughter, knelt and clasped her mother in her
feeble arms; and, as she wept scalding tears, her little brother Manuel
came to scold her. At that moment the almoner of the castle entered; he
was at once surrounded by the whole family, they led him to Juanito.
Unable to endure the scene any longer, Victor made a sign to Clara,
and hastened to go and try a last effort with the general. He found
him in good humour, in the middle of the feast, and drinking with his
officers, who were beginning to exchange merry remarks.
An hour later, a hundred of the most notable inhabitants of Menda came
up to the terrace, according to the general’s orders, to be witnesses
of the execution of the family of Leganés. A detachment of soldiers
was posted to keep back the Spaniards, who were drawn up beneath the
gallows on which the Marquis’s domestics had been hanged. The heads
of the townsmen almost touched the feet of those martyrs. Thirty
paces distant from them, a block rose, and a scimitar gleamed. The
executioner was there in case of a refusal on the part of Juanito.
Soon, amid the most profound silence, the Spaniards heard the footsteps
of several persons, the measured sound of the march of a picket of
soldiers, and the slight rattle of their muskets. These different
sounds were blended with the merry accents from the officers’ mess,
as the dance-music of the ball had disguised the preparations for the
sanguinary treachery of the other night. All eyes were turned towards
the Castle, and they saw the noble family advancing with incredible
firmness. Every brow was calm and serene. One man only, pale and in
disorder, leaned on the priest, who expended all the consolations of
religion on this man, the only one who was to live. The executioner
understood, as did every one else, that Juanito had taken his place
for a day. The old Marquis and his wife, Clara, Mariquita, and their
two brothers, came and knelt a few paces from the fatal spot. Juanito
was led by the priest. When he arrived at the block, the executioner,
taking him by the sleeve, drew him aside, and gave him, probably, some
instructions. The confessor placed the victims in such a position that
they could not see the executions. But they were true Spaniards, and
held themselves erect and unfaltering.
Clara darted first to her brother. “Juanito,” she said to him, “have
pity on my want of courage, and begin with me!”
At that moment, the precipitate steps of a man resounded. Victor
arrived on the place of this scene. Clara had already knelt down, her
white neck invited the scimitar. The officer turned pale, but he found
strength to hasten up to her.
“The General grants you your life, if you will marry me,” he said to
her in an undertone.
The Spaniard darted a look of contempt and pride at the officer. “Go
on, Juanito!” she said in deep accents.
Her head rolled at Victor’s feet. The Marchioness of Leganés let a
convulsive movement escape her when she heard the sound; it was the
only sign of her grief.
“Am I right like this, my good Juanito?” was the demand which little
Manuel made of his brother.
“Ah, you weep, Mariquita!” said Juanito to his sister.
“Oh, yes!” responded the young girl. “I am thinking of you, my poor
Juanito: you will be very unhappy without us!”
Soon the tall figure of the Marquis appeared. He gazed upon the blood
of his children, turned towards the hushed and motionless spectators,
stretched out his hands towards Juanito, and said in a loud voice:
“Spaniards, I give my son his father’s blessing! Now _Marquis_, strike
without fear, you are without reproach.”
But when Juanito saw his mother approach supported by the confessor, he
exclaimed: “She nursed me!”
His voice drew a cry of horror from the assemblage. The din of the
feast and the merry laughter of the officers were hushed at the
terrible clamour. The Marchioness understood that Juanito’s courage was
exhausted, with one bound, she leaped over the balustrade, to dash her
brains out on the rocks below. A cry of admiration arose. Juanito had
fallen unconscious.
“General,” said a half-drunken officer, “Marchand has just been telling
me something of this execution. I bet you did not order it....”
“Do you forget, gentlemen,” exclaimed General G..t..r, “that, in a
month, five hundred French families will be in tears, and that we are
in Spain? Do you wish us to leave our bones here?”
After that address there was no one, not even a sub-lieutenant, who
dared to empty his glass.
In spite of the respect with which he is everywhere regarded, in spite
of the title of _El Verdugo_ (The Executioner) which the King of Spain
has granted as a title of honour to the Marquis of Leganés, he is
consumed by regrets, he lives in retirement and shows himself rarely.
Bowed down by the burden of his splendid crime, he seems to be waiting
impatiently until the birth of a second son gives him the right to
rejoin the shades who accompany him incessantly.
LAURETTE, OR, THE RED SEAL
COUNT ALFRED DE VIGNY
I
_OF THE MEETING WHICH BEFELL ME ONE DAY ON THE HIGH ROAD_
The high road through Artois and Flanders is long and dreary. It
stretches in a straight line, without trees, without ditches, through
flat fields that are always full of yellow mud. In the month of March,
1815, I travelled along this road, and a meeting befell me which I have
never forgotten since.
I was alone, on horseback, I was wearing a handsome white cloak, a red
uniform, a black helmet, pistols and a big sabre; it had been raining
in torrents for the last four days and nights of my journey, and I
remember that I was singing “Joconde” at the top of my voice. I was so
young!--The King’s household, in 1814, had been filled up with children
and grandsires; the Emperor seemed to have taken all the men and killed
them.
My comrades were in front, on the road, in the train of King Louis
XVII.; I saw their white clocks and red uniforms, right away on the
northern horizon; Bonaparte’s lancers, who were watching and following
our retreat step by step, from time to time showed the tricolour
pennons of their lances on the opposite sky-line. A lost shoe had
delayed my horse; he was young and strong, and I urged him on, so that
I might rejoin my squadron; he set off at a rapid trot. I put my hand
to my belt,--it was well enough furnished with gold pieces; I heard
the iron scabbard of my sabre ringing against the stirrup, and I felt
very proud and perfectly happy.
It was still raining, and I was still singing. However, I soon grew
silent, tired of hearing no one but myself, and I no longer heard
anything but the rain and the hoofs of my horse, which was floundering
in the ruts. The road was unpaved; I was sinking, and was obliged to go
at a walk. My top-boots were covered, outside, with a thick crust of
mud as yellow as ochre; inside they were filling with rain. I looked at
my brand-new gold epaulettes, my joy and comfort; they were roughened
by the wet, which distressed me.
My horse lowered his head; I did the same: I began to think, and to
wonder, for the first time, where I was going. I knew absolutely
nothing about it; but that did not trouble me long: I was certain that,
my squadron being there, there was my duty also. Feeling at my heart
a deep, unchangeable calm, I gave thanks for it to the indescribable
sense of Duty, and I tried to explain it to myself. Seeing at close
quarters how unaccustomed fatigues were gaily borne by heads so fair,
or so white, how a secure future was so cavalierly risked by so many
prosperous men of the world, and taking my share in that miraculous
satisfaction which is imparted to every man by the conviction that he
cannot evade any debt of Honour, I concluded that an easier and more
common thing than people imagine, is SELF-SACRIFICE.
I wondered whether Self-sacrifice was not a feeling innate in us;
what was this need of obeying, and resigning our will into another’s
hands, as if it were a heavy and wearisome load; whence came the secret
happiness at being rid of this burden, and why human pride had never
rebelled against it. I saw clearly how this mysterious instinct bound
peoples together, everywhere, into powerful unions, but nowhere did
I see, so entire and so formidable as in Armies, this renunciation
of individual actions, words, wishes and almost of thoughts. I saw
resistance possible and usual everywhere, the citizen, in all places,
practising a discerning and intelligent obedience which examines
into matters, and may be suspended. I saw how even the wife’s tender
submission ends as soon as she is bidden to do wrong, and how the law
defends her; but military obedience, passive and active at one and the
same time, receiving the order and carrying it out, striking, with eyes
shut, like the ancient Destiny! I traced the possible consequences
of the soldier’s Self-sacrifice, irretrievable, unconditional, and
sometimes leading to terrible duties.
Thus I thought as I journeyed on at my horse’s pleasure, looking at
the time by my watch, and seeing the road still stretching out in a
straight line, without a tree or a house, and cutting the plain as
far as eye could see, like a broad yellow stripe on a grey canvas.
Sometimes the watery stripe blended with the watery earth around it,
and, when a rather less pallid light illuminated this desolate stretch
of country, I saw myself in the midst of a muddy sea, following a
current of slime and plaster.
As I carefully examined this yellow stripe of road, I noticed on it,
about a quarter of a league off, a little black moving speck. This
gave me pleasure,--it was somebody. I saw that this black speck was
going like myself in the direction of Lille, and that it was travelling
in a zigzag, a sign of a laborious journey. I accelerated my pace
and gained on this object, which lengthened somewhat and grew larger
beneath my gaze. I resumed a trot on firmer ground, and thought I made
out a kind of small black vehicle. I was hungry, I hoped that it was a
canteen-woman’s cart, and, regarding my poor horse as a boat, I rowed
it with all my might to reach that fortunate isle, in that sea wherein
at times it sank up to the middle.
A hundred paces off, I was able to distinguish clearly a little white
wooden cart, covered with three hoops and with black oilcloth. It
looked like a little cradle set on two wheels. The wheels were sunk
in the mud up to the axle-trees; a little mule which drew them was
laboriously led by a man on foot who held the bridle. I drew near and
viewed him with attention.
He was a man of about fifty, with a white moustache, tall and strong,
with back bent like those old infantry officers who have carried the
knapsack. He wore their uniform, and you caught a glimpse of a major’s
epaulette under a short blue cloak, much worn. His face was rugged,
but kind, as so many are in the army. He looked at me sideways under
his thick black eyebrows, and briskly drew from his cart a gun, which
he cocked, at the same time crossing to the other side of his mule, of
which he made a rampart. Having seen his white cockade, I contented
myself with showing the sleeve of my red uniform, and he replaced his
gun in the cart, saying:
“Ah! that makes a difference, I took you for one of those fellows who
are chasing us. Will you have a drink?”
“With pleasure,” I said, approaching him, “I have drunk nothing for
twenty-four hours.”
He had hanging from his neck a cocoa-nut, very finely carved, contrived
as a flask, with a silver neck, and he seemed rather proud of it. He
passed it to me, and I drank a little poor white wine from it with
great enjoyment; I returned the cocoa-nut to him.
“To the health of the King!” he said as he drank; “he made me an
officer of the Legion of Honour, it is only fair that I should follow
him to the frontier. Indeed, as I have only my epaulette to live by, I
shall afterwards resume command of my battalion, it is my duty.”
So speaking, as if to himself, he started his little mule once more,
saying that we had no time to lose; and, as I was of his opinion, I
set off again along with him. I looked at him continually without
questioning him, never having cared for the indiscreet chatter so
common amongst us.
We went on without speaking for about a quarter of a league. As he
stopped then to give a rest to his little mule, which it pained me to
see, I stopped too and tried to squeeze from my riding-boots the water
which filled them, as if they were two wells in which my legs had been
soaked.
“Your boots are beginning to stick to your feet,” he said.
“I have not had them off for four nights,” I told him.
“Pooh! in a week you won’t notice it,” he rejoined in his hoarse voice;
“it is something to be alone, you know, in times like those we live in.
Do you know what I have in there?”
“No,” I said.
“A woman.”
I said “Oh!” without too much surprise, and marched on calmly, at a
walking pace. He followed me.
“That wretched wheelbarrow didn’t cost me much,” he went on, “nor the
mule either; but it is all I need, though this road is a devil of a
pull.”
I offered him my horse to mount when he felt tired; and as I only
talked to him gravely and simply of his turn-out, for which he feared
mockery, he suddenly put himself at his ease, and, coming near my
stirrup, slapped me on the knee, saying:
“Well, you’re a good lad, though you are in the Reds.”
From his bitter tone, in thus designating the four Red Companies, I
gathered what malignant prejudices had been aroused in the army by the
luxury and the commissions of these corps of officers.
“However,” he added, “I shall not accept your offer, seeing that I
cannot ride, and that that’s not _my_ business.”
“But, major, superior officers like yourself have to do so.”
“Pooh! once a year at the inspection, and then on a hired horse. _I_
have always been a sailor, and since then a foot-soldier; I don’t
understand horsemanship.”
He walked twenty paces, looking at me sideways from time to time, as if
expecting a question: and as no word was forthcoming he continued:
“You aren’t inquisitive, upon my word! What I said just now should have
surprised you.”
“I am seldom surprised,” said I.
“Oh! but if I told you how I left off being a sailor, we should see.”
“Well,” I replied, “why don’t you try? it will warm you, and make me
forget that the rain is soaking into my back and only stopping at my
heels.”
The good major solemnly prepared to speak, with all the pleasure of a
child. He adjusted his oilcloth-covered shako on his head, and jerked
his shoulder in a way that no one who has not served in the infantry
can picture, in the way that a foot-soldier does to lift his knapsack
and lighten its weight for a moment; it is a soldier’s custom, which,
in an officer, becomes a bad habit. After this convulsive gesture, he
again drank a little wine from his cocoa-nut, gave the little mule an
encouraging kick in the stomach, and began.
II
_THE STORY OF THE RED SEAL_
You must know first of all, my lad, that I was born at Brest; I began
as a soldier’s son, earning my half-rations and half-pay from the time
I was nine years old, my father being a private in the Guards. But,
as I loved the sea, one fine night, while I was on leave at Brest,
I hid in the bottom of the hold of a merchant vessel leaving for the
Indies; they only discovered me in mid-ocean, and the captain preferred
making me a cabin-boy to throwing me overboard. When the Revolution
came, I had made some progress, and in my turn had become captain
of a neat enough little merchant vessel, having scoured the sea for
fifteen years. When the ex-royal navy, a fine old navy too, by Jove!
suddenly found itself without officers, they took some captains from
the merchant navy. I had had some skirmishes with buccaneers of which I
may tell you later; they put me in command of a brig of war named the
“Marat.”
On the 28th of Fructidor, 1797, I received orders to set sail for
Cayenne. I had to take there sixty soldiers and a man sentenced to
transportation, who was left over from the hundred and ninety-three
whom the frigate “Decade” had taken on board some days before. I
was ordered to treat this individual with consideration, and in the
Directory’s first letter was enclosed a second, sealed with three red
seals, in the midst of which was one very large. I was forbidden to
open this letter before reaching the first degree of north latitude,
between the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of longitude, that is to
say, when just about to cross the line.
This big letter had a quite peculiar appearance. It was long, and so
tightly shut that I could read nothing between the corners or through
the envelope. I am not superstitious, but that letter frightened me. I
put it in my room under the glass of a wretched little English clock
which was nailed over my bed. That bed was a real sailor’s bed, you
know what they are like. But what am I talking about? You are sixteen
at the very most, you can’t have seen one.
A queen’s room cannot be arranged as neatly as a sailor’s, I say it
without any wish to boast. Everything has its own little place and its
own little nail. Nothing can move about. The vessel may roll as it
pleases, without displacing anything. The furniture is made to suit
the shape of the ship and of your own little room. My bed was a chest.
When it was open, I slept in it; when it was shut, it was my sofa, and
I smoked my pipe on it. Sometimes it was my table; then we sat on two
little casks which were in the room. My floor was waxed and scrubbed
like mahogany, and shone like a jewel: a real mirror! Oh! it was a
pretty little room! And my brig certainly had its value as well. We
often enjoyed ourselves famously there, and the voyage began pleasantly
enough that time, had it not been.... But we must not anticipate.
We had a good north-north-west wind, and I was engaged in putting the
letter under the glass of my clock, when my “convict” entered my room;
he was holding the hand of a pretty young thing of about seventeen. He
told me that he was nineteen; a handsome fellow, though rather pale,
and too fair-skinned for a man. He was a man all the same; and a man
who conducted himself, when occasion arose, better than many old ones
would have done, as you will see. He held his little wife by the arm;
she was as fresh and gay as a child. They looked like two turtle-doves.
To me it was a pleasant sight. I said to them:
“Well, children! you have come to pay the old captain a visit: it is
charming of you. I am taking you rather a long way; but so much the
better, we shall have time to get to know one another. I am sorry to
receive the lady without my coat; but I was going to nail this great
rascal of a letter up there. Perhaps you would give me a hand?”
They really were good little things. The little husband took the
hammer, and the little wife the nails, and they passed them to me as I
asked for them; and she said to me: “Right! left! captain!” laughing
because the pitching of the ship made my clock toss about. I can still
hear her even now with her little voice: “Left! right! captain!” She
was laughing at me.--” Ah!” I said, “you little mischief! I will make
your husband scold you, I will!” Then she threw her arms about his neck
and kissed him. They really were charming, and that was the way we
became acquainted. We were good friends at once.
It was a good crossing too. I always had weather that might have been
made for me. As I had never had any but black faces on my ship, I
made my two little lovers come to my table every day. It cheered me
up. When we had eaten the biscuits and fish, the little wife and her
husband kept on looking at each other as if they had never seen each
other before. Then I would begin to laugh with all my heart and make
fun of them. They laughed too with me. You would have laughed to see
us like three lunatics, not knowing what was the matter with us. It
was really pleasant to see them loving each other like that! They were
happy everywhere; they liked all that was given to them. Yet they were
allowanced like all the rest of us; I only added a little Swedish
brandy when they dined with me, just a small glass, to keep up my rank.
They slept in a hammock, in which the ship rolled them about like those
two pears I have there in my wet handkerchief. They were brisk and
contented. I was like you, I asked no questions. What need was there
for _me_, a ferryman, to know their name and business? I was carrying
them from the other side of the sea, as I would have carried two birds
of paradise.
At the end of a month, I had got to look on them as my children. All
day long, when I called them, they would come to sit with me. The young
man wrote at my table, that is to say on my bed; and, when I wished, he
helped me to take my “reckoning.” He soon knew how to do it as well as
I; I was sometimes quite amazed at it. The young wife would sit on a
little cask and begin to sew.
One day that they were settled like this I said to them:
“Do you know, my little friends, that we make a family picture, as we
are now? I don’t want to question you, but probably you haven’t more
money than you need, and you are pretty delicate, both of you, to
dig and use the pick as the convicts at Cayenne do. It is a wretched
country, I can tell you that with all my heart; but I, who am an old
wizened tar dried up by the sun, I should live there like a lord. If
you had, as it seems to me (without wishing to question you) that you
do have, a little liking for me, I should be willing enough to leave my
old brig, which is now no better than an old tub, and I would settle
there with you, if you like. I have no family but a dog, which is a
grief to me; you would be a little company for me. I would help you in
many things; and I have got together a good stock of goods honestly
enough smuggled, on which we should live, and which I should leave you
when I came to turn up my toes, as they say in polite society.”
They sat staring at one another quite amazed, looking as if they
thought I was not speaking the truth; and the little woman ran, as she
always did, and threw her arms round the other’s neck, and sat on his
knees, quite red in the face, and crying. He hugged her tightly, and I
saw tears in his eyes as well; he held out his hand to me, and turned
paler than usual. She whispered to him, and her long fair locks fell
over his shoulder; her hair had come untwisted like a rope suddenly
uncoiled, for she was as lively as a fish: that hair, if only you
could have seen it! it was like gold. As they kept on whispering, the
young man kissing her brow from time to time, and she weeping, I grew
impatient:
“Well, would that suit you?” I said to them at last.
“But ... but, captain, you are very kind,” said the husband, “but the
fact is ... you could not live with convicts, and....” He looked down.
“I don’t know,” I said, “what you have done to get transported, but
you’ll tell me that some day, or not at all, if you’d prefer. You don’t
look to me as if your consciences were very heavy, and I’m quite sure
that I’ve done many worse things than you in my life, so there, you
poor innocents. Of course while you are in my custody, I shall not
release you, you mustn’t expect it; I would sooner cut off your heads
like two pigeons’. But, the epaulette once laid aside, I no longer know
either admiral or anything else.”
“The fact is,” he answered, sadly shaking his dark head, dark, although
powdered a little, as was still the fashion at that time, “the fact is
I think it would be dangerous for you, captain, to seem to know us. We
laugh because we are young; we look happy because we love each other;
but I have some bad moments when I think of the future, and cannot tell
what will happen to my poor Laura.”
Again he pressed his young wife’s head to his bosom:
“That was really what I was bound to say to the captain; would not you
have said the same thing, child?”
I took my pipe and got up, because I was beginning to feel my eyes
rather moist, and that doesn’t suit _me_.
“Come! come!” I said, “things will clear themselves up later on. If the
lady objects to tobacco, her withdrawal would oblige.”
She got up, her face all flaming and wet with tears, like a child that
has been scolded.
“Anyhow,” she said to me, looking at my clock, “you are forgetting, you
people; what about the letter!”
I felt something which affected me powerfully. I seemed to have a pain
in my hair when she said that to me.
“Good Heavens! I had quite forgotten about it,” I said. “Ah! upon my
word, this is a pretty business! If we had passed the first degree of
north latitude, there would be nothing more for me to do but to throw
myself into the water.--Just to make me happy, the child reminds me of
that villainous letter!”
I looked quickly at my chart, and, when I saw that we had a week at
least still to go, my head was relieved, but my heart, without my
knowing why, was not.
“The fact is that the Directory doesn’t treat the question of obedience
as a joke!” I said. “Come, I am posted up this time again. The time
went past so quickly that I had quite forgotten that.”
Well, sir, we all three remained with our noses in the air looking at
the letter, as if it was going to speak to us. What struck me a good
deal was, that the sun, which slipped in through the skylight, was
lighting up the glass of the clock, and showed up the big red seal, and
the other little ones, like the features of a face in the midst of the
fire.
“Wouldn’t you say that its eyes were jumping out of its head?” I said
to amuse them.
“Oh! my friend,” said the young wife, “it looks like spots of blood.”
“Pooh! pooh!” said her husband, taking her arm, “you are wrong, Laura;
it looks like a circular to announce a wedding. Come and rest, come
along; why does the letter trouble you?”
They ran away as if a ghost had followed them, and went up on deck. I
remained alone with the big letter, and I remember that as I smoked my
pipe I kept looking at it, as if its red eyes held mine fast, sucking
them in as a serpent’s eyes do. Its great pale face, its third seal,
bigger than the eyes, wide open, gaping like the jaws of a wolf ... all
that put me in a bad temper; I took my coat and hung it on the clock,
so as not to see any more either the time or the brute of a letter.