“Do you want an idea?” “Yes.” “Go and see the priest.” “The priest? What
for?” “Ask him to supper, and beg him to bring a woman with him.” “The
priest! A woman! Ha! ha! ha!”
But Marchas continued with extraordinary gravity: “I am not laughing; go
and find the priest and tell him how we are situated, and, as he must
be horribly dull, he will come. But tell him that we want one woman at
least, a lady, of course, since we, are all men of the world. He is sure
to know his female parishioners on the tips of his fingers, and if there
is one to suit us, and you manage it well, he will suggest her to you.”
“Come, come, Marchas, what are you thinking of?” “My dear Garens, you
can do this quite well. It will even be very funny. We are well bred, by
Jove! and we will put on our most distinguished manners and our grandest
style. Tell the abbe who we are, make him laugh, soften his heart, coax
him and persuade him!” “No, it is impossible.”
He drew his chair close to mine, and as he knew my special weakness, the
scamp continued: “Just think what a swaggering thing it will be to do
and how amusing to tell about; the whole army will talk about it, and it
will give you a famous reputation.”
I hesitated, for the adventure rather tempted me, and he persisted:
“Come, my little Garens. You are the head of this detachment, and you
alone can go and call on the head of the church in this neighborhood. I
beg of you to go, and I promise you that after the war I will relate the
whole affair in verse in the Revue de Deux Mondes. You owe this much to
your men, for you have made them march enough during the last month.”
I got up at last and asked: “Where is the priest's house?” “Take the
second turning at the end of the street, you will see an avenue, and at
the end of the avenue you will find the church. The parsonage is beside
it.” As I went out, he called out: “Tell him the bill of fare, to make
him hungry!”
I discovered the ecclesiastic's little house without any difficulty;
it was by the side of a large, ugly brick church. I knocked at the door
with my fist, as there was neither bell nor knocker, and a loud voice
from inside asked: “Who is there?” To which I replied: “A quartermaster
of hussars.”
I heard the noise of bolts and of a key being turned, and found myself
face to face with a tall priest with a large stomach, the chest of a
prizefighter, formidable hands projecting from turned-up sleeves, a red
face, and the look of a kind man. I gave him a military salute and said:
“Good-day, Monsieur le Cure.”
He had feared a surprise, some marauders' ambush, and he smiled as he
replied: “Good-day, my friend; come in.” I followed him into a small
room with a red tiled floor, in which a small fire was burning, very
different to Marchas' furnace, and he gave me a chair and said: “What
can I do for you?” “Monsieur, allow me first of all to introduce
myself;” and I gave him my card, which he took and read half aloud: “Le
Comte de Garens.”
I continued: “There are eleven of us here, Monsieur l'Abbe, five on
picket duty, and six installed at the house of an unknown inhabitant.
The names of the six are: Garens, myself; Pierre de Marchas, Ludovic de
Ponderel, Baron d'Streillis, Karl Massouligny, the painter's son, and
Joseph Herbon, a young musician. I have come to ask you, in their name
and my own, to do us the honor of supping with us. It is an Epiphany
supper, Monsieur le Cure, and we should like to make it a little
cheerful.”
The priest smiled and murmured: “It seems to me to be hardly a suitable
occasion for amusing one's self.” And I replied: “We are fighting during
the day, monsieur. Fourteen of our comrades have been killed in a month,
and three fell as late as yesterday. It is war time. We stake our life
at every moment; have we not, therefore, the right to amuse ourselves
freely? We are Frenchmen, we like to laugh, and we can laugh everywhere.
Our fathers laughed on the scaffold! This evening we should like to
cheer ourselves up a little, like gentlemen, and not like soldiers; you
understand me, I hope. Are we wrong?”
He replied quickly: “You are quite right, my friend, and I accept your
invitation with great pleasure.” Then he called out: “Hermance!”
An old bent, wrinkled, horrible peasant woman appeared and said: “What
do you want?” “I shall not dine at home, my daughter.” “Where are you
going to dine then?” “With some gentlemen, the hussars.”
I felt inclined to say: “Bring your servant with you,” just to see
Marchas' face, but I did not venture, and continued: “Do you know any
one among your parishioners, male or female, whom I could invite as
well?” He hesitated, reflected, and then said: “No, I do not know
anybody!”
I persisted: “Nobody! Come, monsieur, think; it would be very nice to
have some ladies, I mean to say, some married couples! I know
nothing about your parishioners. The baker and his wife, the grocer,
the--the--the--watchmaker--the--shoemaker--the--the druggist with Mrs.
Druggist. We have a good spread and plenty of wine, and we should be
enchanted to leave pleasant recollections of ourselves with the people
here.”
The priest thought again for a long time, and then said resolutely: “No,
there is nobody.” I began to laugh. “By Jove, Monsieur le Cure, it is
very annoying not to have an Epiphany queen, for we have the bean. Come,
think. Is there not a married mayor, or a married deputy mayor, or a
married municipal councillor or a schoolmaster?” “No, all the ladies
have gone away.” “What, is there not in the whole place some good
tradesman's wife with her good tradesman, to whom we might give this
pleasure, for it would be a pleasure to them, a great pleasure under
present circumstances?”
But, suddenly, the cure began to laugh, and laughed so violently that he
fairly shook, and presently exclaimed: “Ha! ha! ha! I have got what you
want, yes. I have got what you want! Ha! ha! ha! We will laugh and enjoy
ourselves, my children; we will have some fun. How pleased the ladies
will be, I say, how delighted they will be! Ha! ha! Where are you
staying?”
I described the house, and he understood where it was. “Very good,” he
said. “It belongs to Monsieur Bertin-Lavaille. I will be there in half
an hour, with four ladies! Ha! ha! ha! four ladies!”
He went out with me, still laughing, and left me, repeating: “That is
capital; in half an hour at Bertin-Lavaille's house.”
I returned quickly, very much astonished and very much puzzled. “Covers
for how many?” Marchas asked, as soon as he saw me. “Eleven. There
are six of us hussars, besides the priest and four ladies.” He was
thunderstruck, and I was triumphant. He repeated: “Four ladies! Did
you say, four ladies?” “I said four women.” “Real women?” “Real women.”
“Well, accept my compliments!” “I will, for I deserve them.”
He got out of his armchair, opened the door, and I saw a beautiful white
tablecloth on a long table, round which three hussars in blue aprons
were setting out the plates and glasses. “There are some women coming!”
Marchas cried. And the three men began to dance and to cheer with all
their might.
Everything was ready, and we were waiting. We waited for nearly an hour,
while a delicious smell of roast poultry pervaded the whole house. At
last, however, a knock against the shutters made us all jump up at the
same moment. Stout Ponderel ran to open the door, and in less than a
minute a little Sister of Mercy appeared in the doorway. She was thin,
wrinkled and timid, and successively greeted the four bewildered hussars
who saw her enter. Behind her, the noise of sticks sounded on the
tiled floor in the vestibule, and as soon as she had come into the
drawing-room, I saw three old heads in white caps, following each other
one by one, who came in, swaying with different movements, one inclining
to the right, while the other inclined to the left. And three worthy
women appeared, limping, dragging their legs behind them, crippled
by illness and deformed through old age, three infirm old women, past
service, the only three pensioners who were able to walk in the home
presided over by Sister Saint-Benedict.
She had turned round to her invalids, full of anxiety for them, and
then, seeing my quartermaster's stripes, she said to me: “I am much
obliged to you for thinking of these poor women. They have very little
pleasure in life, and you are at the same time giving them a great treat
and doing them a great honor.”
I saw the priest, who had remained in the dark hallway, and was laughing
heartily, and I began to laugh in my turn, especially when I saw
Marchas' face. Then, motioning the nun to the seats, I said:
“Sit down, sister; we are very proud and very happy that you have
accepted our unpretentious invitation.”
She took three chairs which stood against the wall, set them before the
fire, led her three old women to them, settled them on them, took their
sticks and shawls, which she put into a corner, and then, pointing to
the first, a thin woman with an enormous stomach, who was evidently
suffering from the dropsy, she said: “This is Mother Paumelle; whose
husband was killed by falling from a roof, and whose son died in Africa;
she is sixty years old.” Then she pointed to another, a tall woman,
whose head trembled unceasingly: “This is Mother Jean-Jean, who is
sixty-seven. She is nearly blind, for her face was terribly singed in a
fire, and her right leg was half burned off.”
Then she pointed to the third, a sort of dwarf, with protruding, round,
stupid eyes, which she rolled incessantly in all directions, “This is La
Putois, an idiot. She is only forty-four.”
I bowed to the three women as if I were being presented to some royal
highnesses, and turning to the priest, I said: “You are an excellent
man, Monsieur l'Abbe, to whom all of us here owe a debt of gratitude.”
Everybody was laughing, in fact, except Marchas, who seemed furious, and
just then Karl Massouligny cried: “Sister Saint-Benedict, supper is on
the table!”
I made her go first with the priest, then I helped up Mother Paumelle,
whose arm I took and dragged her into the next room, which was no easy
task, for she seemed heavier than a lump of iron.
Stout Ponderel gave his arm to Mother Jean-Jean, who bemoaned her
crutch, and little Joseph Herbon took the idiot, La Putois, to the
dining-room, which was filled with the odor of the viands.
As soon as we were opposite our plates, the sister clapped her hands
three times, and, with the precision of soldiers presenting arms,
the women made a rapid sign of the cross, and then the priest slowly
repeated the Benedictus in Latin. Then we sat down, and the two fowls
appeared, brought in by Marchas, who chose to wait at table, rather than
to sit down as a guest to this ridiculous repast.
But I cried: “Bring the champagne at once!” and a cork flew out with the
noise of a pistol, and in spite of the resistance of the priest and of
the kind sister, the three hussars, sitting by the side of the three
invalids, emptied their three full glasses down their throats by force.
Massouligny, who possessed the faculty of making himself at home, and of
being on good terms with every one, wherever he was, made love to Mother
Paumelle in the drollest manner. The dropsical woman, who had retained
her cheerfulness in spite of her misfortunes, answered him banteringly
in a high falsetto voice which appeared as if it were put on, and she
laughed so heartily at her neighbor's jokes that it was quite alarming.
Little Herbon had seriously undertaken the task of making the idiot
drunk, and Baron d'Streillis, whose wits were not always particularly
sharp, was questioning old Jean-Jean about the life, the habits, and the
rules of the hospital.
The nun said to Massouligny in consternation:
“Oh! oh! you will make her ill; pray do not make her laugh like that,
monsieur. Oh! monsieur--” Then she got up and rushed at Herbon to take
from him a full glass which he was hastily emptying down La Putois'
throat, while the priest shook with laughter, and said to the sister:
“Never mind; just this once, it will not hurt them. Do leave them
alone.”
After the two fowls they ate the duck, which was flanked by the three
pigeons and the blackbird, and then the goose appeared, smoking,
golden-brown, and diffusing a warm odor of hot, browned roast meat. La
Paumelle, who was getting lively, clapped her hands; La Jean-Jean left
off answering the baron's numerous questions, and La Putois uttered.
grunts of pleasure, half cries and half sighs, as little children do
when one shows them candy. “Allow me to take charge of this animal,”
the cure said. “I understand these sort of operations better than most
people.” “Certainly, Monsieur l'Abbe,” and the sister said: “How would
it be to open the window a little? They are too warm, and I am afraid
they will be ill.”
I turned to Marchas: “Open the window for a minute.” He did so; the cold
outer air as it came in made the candles flare, and the steam from the
goose, which the cure was scientifically carving, with a table napkin
round his neck, whirl about. We watched him doing it, without speaking
now, for we were interested in his attractive handiwork, and seized with
renewed appetite at the sight of that enormous golden-brown bird, whose
limbs fell one after another into the brown gravy at the bottom of the
dish. At that moment, in the midst of that greedy silence which kept us
all attentive, the distant report of a shot came in at the open window.
I started to my feet so quickly that my chair fell down behind me, and
I shouted: “To saddle, all of you! You, Marches, take two men and go and
see what it is. I shall expect you back here in five minutes.” And while
the three riders went off at full gallop through the night, I got into
the saddle with my three remaining hussars, in front of the steps of the
villa, while the cure, the sister and the three old women showed their
frightened faces at the window.
We heard nothing more, except the barking of a dog in the distance. The
rain had ceased, and it was cold, very cold, and soon I heard the gallop
of a horse, of a single horse, coming back. It was Marchas, and I called
out to him: “Well?” “It is nothing; Francois has wounded an old peasant
who refused to answer his challenge: 'Who goes there?' and who continued
to advance in spite of the order to keep off; but they are bringing him
here, and we shall see what is the matter.”
I gave orders for the horses to be put back in the stable, and I sent
my two soldiers to meet the others, and returned to the house. Then the
cure, Marchas, and I took a mattress into the room to lay the wounded
man on; the sister tore up a table napkin in order to make lint, while
the three frightened women remained huddled up in a corner.
Soon I heard the rattle of sabres on the road, and I took a candle to
show a light to the men who were returning; and they soon appeared,
carrying that inert, soft, long, sinister object which a human body
becomes when life no longer sustains it.
They put the wounded man on the mattress that had been prepared for him,
and I saw at the first glance that he was dying. He had the death rattle
and was spitting up blood, which ran out of the corners of his mouth at
every gasp. The man was covered with blood! His cheeks, his beard, his
hair, his neck and his clothes seemed to have been soaked, to have been
dipped in a red tub; and that blood stuck to him, and had become a dull
color which was horrible to look at.
The wounded man, wrapped up in a large shepherd's cloak, occasionally
opened his dull, vacant eyes, which seemed stupid with astonishment,
like those of animals wounded by a sportsman, which fall at his feet,
more than half dead already, stupefied with terror and surprise.
The cure exclaimed: “Ah, it is old Placide, the shepherd from Les
Moulins. He is deaf, poor man, and heard nothing. Ah! Oh, God! they have
killed the unhappy man!” The sister had opened his blouse and shirt, and
was looking at a little blue hole in his chest, which was not bleeding
any more. “There is nothing to be done,” she said.
The shepherd was gasping terribly and bringing up blood with every last
breath, and in his throat, to the very depth of his lungs, they could
hear an ominous and continued gurgling. The cure, standing in front of
him, raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross, and in a slow
and solemn voice pronounced the Latin words which purify men's souls,
but before they were finished, the old man's body trembled violently, as
if something had given way inside him, and he ceased to breathe. He was
dead.
When I turned round, I saw a sight which was even more horrible than
the death struggle of this unfortunate man; the three old women were
standing up huddled close together, hideous, and grimacing with fear and
horror. I went up to them, and they began to utter shrill screams, while
La Jean-Jean, whose burned leg could no longer support her, fell to the
ground at full length.
Sister Saint-Benedict left the dead man, ran up to her infirm old women,
and without a word or a look for me, wrapped their shawls round them,
gave them their crutches, pushed them to the door, made them go out, and
disappeared with them into the dark night.
I saw that I could not even let a hussar accompany them, for the mere
rattle of a sword would have sent them mad with fear.
The cure was still looking at the dead man; but at last he turned round
to me and said:
“Oh! What a horrible thing!”