THE LANDLORD OF THE "PINEAPPLE"
Materne and his two boys walked for some time in silence. The weather
had become fine; the pale winter sun shone over the brilliant snow
without melting it, and the ground remained firm and hard.
In the distance, along the valley, stood out, with surprising
clearness, the tops of the fir-trees, the reddish peaks of the rocks,
the roofs of the hamlets, with their icy stalactites hanging from the
eaves, their small sparkling windows, and sharp gables.
People were walking in the street of Grandfontaine. A troupe of young
girls were standing round the washing-place; a few old men in cotton
caps were smoking their pipes on the doorsteps of the little houses.
All this little world, lying in the depths of the blue expanse, came,
and went, and lived, without a sound or sigh reaching the ears of the
foresters.
The old hunter halted on the outskirts of the wood, and said to his
sons: "I am going down to the village to see Dubreuil, the innkeeper of
the 'Pineapple.'"
And he pointed with his stick to a long white building, the doors and
windows of which were surrounded with a yellow bordering, a pine-branch
being suspended to the wall as a signboard.
"You must await me here. If there is no danger, I will come out on to
the doorstep and raise my hat; you can then come and take a glass of
wine with me."
He immediately descended the snowy slopes to the little gardens lying
above Grandfontaine, which took about ten minutes; he then made his way
between two furrows, reached the meadow, and crossed the village
square: his two sons, with their arms at their feet, saw him enter the
inn. A few seconds after he reappeared on the doorstep and raised his
hat.
Fifteen minutes later they had rejoined their father in the great room
of the "Pineapple." It was a rather low room with a sanded floor, and
heated by a large iron stove.
Excepting the innkeeper Dubreuil, the biggest and most apoplectic
landlord in the Vosges, with immense paunch, round eyes, flat nose, a
wart on his left cheek, and a triple chin reaching over his
collar--with the exception of this curious individual, seated near the
stove in a leather arm-chair, Materne was alone. He had just filled
the glasses. The clock was striking nine, and its wooden cock flapped
its wing with a peculiar scraping sound.
"Good-day, Father Dubreuil," said the two youths in a gruff voice.
"Good-day, my brave fellows," replied the innkeeper, trying to smile.
Then, in an oily voice, he asked them, "Nothing new?"
"Faith, no!" replied Kasper; "here is winter, the time for hunting
boars."
And they both, putting their carbines in the corner of the window,
within reach, in case of attack, passed one leg across the bench, and
sat down, facing their father, who was at the head of the table.
At the same time they drank, saying, "To our healths!" which they were
always very careful to do.
"Thus," said Materne, turning to the fat man, as though taking up the
threads of an interrupted conversation, "you think, Father Dubreuil,
that we have nothing to fear from the wood of Baronies, and that we may
hunt boar peaceably?"
"Oh, as to that, I know nothing!" exclaimed the innkeeper; "only at
present the allies have not passed Mutzig. Besides, they harm no one;
they receive all well-disposed people to fight against the usurper."
"The usurper? Who is he?"
"Why, Napoleon Bonaparte, the usurper, to be sure. Just look at the
wall."
He pointed to a great placard stuck on the wall, near the clock.
"Look at that, and you will see that the Austrians are our true
friends."
Old Materne's eyebrows nearly met, but, repressing his feelings, "Oh,
ah!" said he.
"Yes, read that."
"But I do not know how to read, Monsieur Dubreuil, nor my boys either.
Explain to us what it is."
Then the old innkeeper, leaning with his hands on the arms of his
chair, arose, breathing like a calf, and placed himself in front of the
placard, with his arms folded on his enormous paunch; and in a majestic
tone he read a proclamation from the allied sovereigns, declaring "that
they made war on Napoleon personally, and not on France. Therefore
everybody ought to keep quiet and not meddle in their affairs, under
pain of being burnt, pillaged, and shot."
The three hunters listened, and looked at each other with a strange air.
When Dubreuil had finished, he reseated himself and said, "Now do you
see?"
"And where did you get that?" demanded Kasper.
"That, my boy, is put up everywhere!"
"Well, we are pleased with that," said Materne, laying his hand on
Frantz's arm, who had risen with sparkling eyes. "Dost thou want a
light, Frantz? Here is my flint."
Frantz sat down again, and the old man continued, good-naturedly: "And
our good friends the Germans take nothing from any one?"
"Quiet, orderly people have nothing to fear; but as to the rascals who
rise, all is taken from them. And it is just--the good ought not to
suffer for the wicked. For example, instead of doing you any harm, the
allies would receive you well at their head-quarters. You know the
country: you would serve as guides, and you would be richly paid."
There was a slight pause. The three hunters again looked at each
other: the father had spread his hands on the table, as though to
recommend calm to his sons; but even he was very pale.
The innkeeper, observing nothing, continued: "You would have much more
to fear in the woods of Baronies from those brigands of Dagsburg,
Sarre, and Blanru, who have all revolted, and wish to have '93 over
again."
"Are you sure of that?" demanded Materne, making an effort to control
himself.
"Am I sure! You have only to look out of the window and you will see
them on the road to the Donon. They have surprised the anabaptist
Pelsly, and bound him to the foot of his bed. They pillage, rob, break
up the roads. But beware! In a few days they will see strange things.
It is not with a thousand men that they will be attacked, not with ten
thousand, but with millions. They will all be hung."
Materne rose.
"It is time for us to be going," said he briefly. "At two o'clock we
must be at the wood, and here we are talking quietly like magpies! Au
revoir, Father Dubreuil." They rushed out hastily, no longer able to
contain their passion.
"Think of what I have said," cried the innkeeper to them from his chair.
Once in the open air, Materne, turning round, said, with trembling
lips: "If I had not restrained myself, I should have broken the bottle
on his head."
"And I," said Frantz, "should have run him through with my bayonet."
Kasper, one foot on the step, seemed about to re-enter the inn; he
grasped the handle of his hunting-knife, and his face bore a terrible
expression. But his father took him by the arm and dragged him off,
saying: "Come, come, we will deal with him later on. To counsel me to
betray the country! Hullin told us to be on our guard: he was right."
They went down the street, looking to the right and left with haggard
eyes. The people asked among themselves: What is the matter with them?
On reaching the end of the village, they halted, in front of the old
cross, close to the church, and Materne in a calmer tone, pointing out
the path which winds round Phramond over the heath, said to his sons:
"You must take that road. I shall follow the route to Schirmeck. I
shall not go too fast, so that you may have time to come up with me."
They parted, and the old hunter, with bowed head, walked on
thoughtfully for a long time, asking himself by what inward strength he
had been able to keep from breaking the fat innkeeper's head. He said
to himself that no doubt it was from fear of compromising his sons.
While thinking over these things, Materne kept continually meeting
herds of cattle, sheep and goats, which were being led into the
mountain. Some came from Wisch, Urmatt, and even from Mutzig; the poor
beasts could scarcely stand.
"Where the devil are you running so fast?" shouted the old hunter to
the melancholy herdsmen. "Have you then no confidence in the
proclamation of the Austrians and Russians?"
And they angrily answered: "It is easy for you to laugh.
Proclamations! we know what they are worth now. They pillage and rob
everything, make forced contributions, carry off the horses, cows,
oxen, and carts."
"Nonsense! impossible! What are you talking about?" said Materne.
"You astound me! Such worthy people, such good friends, the saviours
of France. I cannot believe you. Such a beautiful proclamation as it
was."
"Well, go down to Alsace, and you will see."
The poor creatures went on, shaking their heads in extreme indignation,
and he laughed slyly.
The farther Materne advanced, the number of herds became greater.
There were not only troops of cattle bellowing and lowing, but flocks
of geese, as far as the eye could reach, screeching and cackling,
dragging themselves along the road with wings spread and half-frozen
feet: it was piteous to see.
It was worse still on approaching Schirmeck. The people were flying in
crowds, with their great wagons loaded with barrels, smoked meats,
furniture, women and children. They were lashing their horses almost
to death on the road, and screaming in terrified voices: "We are lost;
the Cossacks are coming."
The cry of "The Cossacks! the Cossacks!" ran along the whole line like
a puff of wind; the women turned round open-mouthed, and the children
stood up on the wagons to get a better view. You never beheld anything
like it before; and Materne, angered, blushed for the terror of these
people, who might have defended themselves; while selfishness and their
desire to save their property, made them fly like cowards.
At the crossing of the Fond-des-Saules quite close to Schirmeck, Kasper
and Frantz rejoined their father, and the three entered the "Golden
Key" tavern, kept by the Widow Faltaux, on the right side of the road.
The poor woman and her two daughters were watching from a window the
great migration with streaming eyes and clasped hands.
In fact, the tumult increased every minute; the cattle, wagons, and
people seemed eager to get away over each other's shoulders. They no
longer had any command of themselves: they were howling and striking
about them in their desire to escape.
Materne pushed the door open, and seeing the women more dead than
alive, white and dishevelled, he shouted, striking his stick on the
ground: "What, mother, have you too gone mad? What! you, who owe a
good example to your daughters,--have you lost courage? it is a shame."
The old woman turned round and said in a broken voice: "Ah, my poor
Materne, if you only knew--if you only knew!"
"Well, what then? The enemy is coming: they won't eat you."
"No; but they devour everything without mercy. Old Ursula, of
Schlestadt, came here yesterday evening. She says that the Austrians
only want 'Knoepfe' and 'Nudel,' the Russians 'Schnapps,' and the
Bavarians 'Sauerkraut.' And when they have stuffed all that down their
throats, they cry out with their mouths still full, 'Schocolat!
schocolat!' O Lord, how can we feed all these people?"
"I know well that is difficult," said the old hunter: "you can never
satisfy a jay with white cheese. But, first of all, where are these
Cossacks, these Bavarians, these Austrians? All the way from
Grandfontaine we have not met even one."
"They are in Alsace, on the Urmatt side, and they are coming here."
"While waiting for them," said Kasper, "give us a bottle of wine. Here
is a three-crown piece: you will hide it easier than your barrels."
One of the girls went to the cellar, and, at the same time, several
other persons entered: an almanac-seller from Strasbourg, a wagoner
from Sarrebrueck in a blouse, and two or three townspeople from Hutzig,
Wisch, and Schirmeck, who were flying with their herds, and were
exhausted with shouting.
All sat down at the same table, before the windows overlooking the
road. Wine was served them, and each began to relate what he knew.
One said the allies were in such numbers that they had to sleep side by
side in the valley of Hirschenthal, and they were so covered with
vermin that, after their departure, the dead leaves walked of
themselves in the woods; another, that the Cossacks had set fire to a
village in Alsace, because they had been refused candles for dessert
after dinner; that some of them, especially the Calmucks, ate soap like
cheese and bacon-rind like cake; that many drank brandy by the pint,
after having taken care to season it with handfuls of pepper; and that
it was necessary to hide everything from them, for nothing came amiss
to them for eating and drinking.
The wagoner said, at this point, that three days before, a Russian
corps-d'armee having passed the night under the ramparts of Bitsch, it
had been compelled to remain more than an hour on the ice in the little
village of Rorbach, and that the whole of this army corps had drunk out
of a warming-pan left on the window-sill of an old woman's house; that
this race of savages broke the ice to bathe, and afterward crept into
the brick-kilns to dry; lastly, that they only feared Corporal Knout.
These worthy folks communicated such singular things to each other,
which they pretended to have seen with their own eyes, or heard from
trustworthy sources, that one could with difficulty believe them.
Outside, the tumult, rolling of wagons, lowing of herds, shouts of the
drivers, and clamors of the fugitives, continued unceasingly, and
produced the effect of a vast murmur.
Toward noon Materne and his sons were going to leave, when a more
prolonged shout than any of the others was heard: "The Cossacks! the
Cossacks!"
Then everybody rushed outside, except the hunters, who contented
themselves with opening a window and looking out: they all ran away
across the fields: men, herds, wagons and all, were dispersed like
leaves in autumn. In less than two minutes the road was deserted,
except in Schirmeck, which was so encumbered, that it would have been
impossible to walk four steps. Materne, gazing far away along the
road, cried, "I look in vain--I can see nothing."
"Nor do I," rejoined Kasper.
"Come, come," cried the old hunter, "I see clearly that the fear of all
these people gives more strength to the enemy than he in fact
possesses. It is not in such a way we shall receive the Cossacks in
the mountains; they will find who they have to deal with."
Then, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of disgust, he said:
"Fear is an odious thing, and after all we have only one poor life to
lose. Let us go."
They quitted the inn, and the old man having taken the road to the
valley, in order to climb the summit of the Hirschberg in front of
them, his sons followed him. They soon reached the outskirts of the
wood, when Materne said that they must mount as high as possible, so as
to see the whole plain, and bring back some positive news to the
bivouac; that all the accounts of those cowards were not worth one good
look by themselves.
Kasper and Frantz agreed, and all three began to climb the slope, which
forms a sort of advanced promontory commanding the plain. When they
reached the peak they distinctly saw the enemy's position, three
leagues distant, between Urmatt and Lutzelhouse. They formed great
black lines on the snow: farther off were a few dark masses--no doubt,
the artillery and baggage. Other masses surrounded the villages, and,
notwithstanding the distance, the sparkling of the bayonets announced
that a column had just commenced marching toward Visch.
After having contemplated this spectacle in silence for some minutes,
the old man said, "We have decidedly thirty thousand men under our
eyes. They are advancing in our direction; we shall be attacked
to-morrow, or the day after at the latest. It will not be a trumpery
affair, my boys; but if they are numerous we have the best of the
position. And then it is always agreeable to fire into a heap; there
are no balls lost."
Having made these judicious reflections, he looked at the height of the
sun, and added: "It is now two o'clock; we know all we want. Let us
return to the bivouac."
The youths slung their carbines crossways, and leaving to their left
the valley of the Brocque, Schirmeck, and Framont, they climbed the
steep banks of the Hengsbach, which overlook the Little Donon--two
leagues distant--and came down again on the other side, without
following any regular path through the snow, and only guiding
themselves by the peaks in order to take a short cut.
They continued thus for about two hours: the winter sun was going down
to the horizon, night was approaching, bright and calm. They had now
only to descend, and then mount, on the other side, the solitary gorge
of Kiel, forming a large circular basin in the midst of the woods, and
enclosing a bluish pond, where the deer came sometimes to quench their
thirst.
Suddenly, as they were coming out from the underwood, not dreaming of
anything, the old man, stopping behind a thick screen of shrubs, said
"Chut!" and lifting his hand, pointed to the little lake, which was
covered with thin clear ice.
The two young fellows needed only to glance toward it to be greeted by
a most strange sight. About twenty Cossacks, with yellow shaggy
beards, heads covered with old fur caps in the shape of stove-pipes,
their lean legs draped in long rags, and their feet in rope stirrups,
were seated on their little horses, with long floating manes and thin
tails, their bodies speckled yellow, black and white, like goats. Some
had for their only weapon a long lance, others a sword, others an axe
suspended by a cord to their saddle, and a large horse-pistol passed
through their belts. Several were looking upward with ecstasy on the
green tops of the pines, rising by stages above each other into the
clouds. One great lanky fellow had broken the ice with the butt-end of
his lance; and his little horse was drinking with outstretched neck and
overhanging mane. A few having dismounted, were clearing the snow and
pointing to the wood--no doubt to indicate that it was a good place for
encamping. Their comrades on horseback were conversing and pointing to
the bottom of the valley on their right, which descends in the form of
a gap toward Grinderwald.
Anyway it was a halt. It is impossible to describe the strange and
picturesque aspect of these fellows from a strange country, with their
copper-colored faces, long beards, black eyes, flat heads, squat noses,
and grayish tatters, on the banks of this lake, under the lofty
perpendicular rocks lifting up their green pines to the skies.
It seemed a new world in ours,--a sort of unknown and strange game,
which the three red hunters at first contemplated with intense
interest. Having remained so for about five minutes, Kasper and Frantz
fixed their long bayonets at the muzzle of their carbines, and then
retired about twenty paces into the underwood. They reached a rock,
fifteen or twenty feet high, which Materne climbed, having no arms;
then, after a few words exchanged in whispers, Kasper examined his
priming and raised his musket slowly to his shoulder, while his brother
stood by in readiness.
One of the Cossacks--he who was letting his horse drink--was about two
hundred paces from them. The gun went off, awakening the deep echoes
of the gorge; and the Cossack, spinning over his horse's head, plunged
through the ice of the lake.
It is impossible to describe the stupor of the party at this report.
They looked round them in every direction: the echo replied as though
it had been a general fusillade; while a puff of smoke rose above the
clump of trees where the hunters were hiding.
Kasper had reloaded his piece in a moment; but in the same space of
time the dismounted Cossacks had bounded on their horses, and all took
flight over the slope of the Hartz, one after the other, like roebucks,
screaming wildly, "Hourah! hourah!"
This flight was but the work of a moment: the instant Kasper took aim
for the second time, the tail of the last horse disappeared in the
bushes.
The horse of the dead Cossack alone remained at the water's edge, held
there by a singular circumstance: his master, whose head and part of
whose body was in the water, had his foot still in the stirrup.
Materne listened from his rock, then said joyously--"They are gone!
Well, let us go and see. Frantz, remain here. Suppose any of them
should return----?"
Notwithstanding this recommendation, they all three approached near the
horse. Materne immediately took the bridle, saying:--"Come, old
fellow, we are going to teach you to speak French."
"Let us be off," exclaimed Kasper.
"No, we must see what we have shot. Don't you see that will be good
for our comrades? Dogs who have not sniffed the skin of the game are
never well trained."
Whereupon they fished the Cossack out of the pool, and having placed
him across the horse, began to climb the side of the Donon by such a
steep path, that Materne repeated, a hundred times at least,--"The
horse will never go up there." But the horse, with its long goat-like
legs, passed more easily than they did; so that the old hunter wound up
by remarking--"These Cossacks have famous horses. If ever I grow old,
I will keep him to go after the deer with. We have a famous horse, my
boys; with all his look of a cow, he is strong as a cart-horse."
From time to time he also made reflections on the Cossack:--"What a
queer face, eh! A round nose and a forehead like a cheese-box. There
are certainly queer folks in the world! Thou hast hit him well,
Kasper; right in the middle of the chest. And look! the ball came out
at the back. Capital powder! Dives always keeps good articles."
Toward six they heard the first shout of their sentinels: "Who goes
there?"
"France," replied Materne, advancing.
Everybody ran to meet them. "Here is Materne!"
Hullin himself was as curious as the rest, and could not help hastening
toward them with Doctor Lorquin. The partisans were soon collected
round the horse, with outstretched necks and open mouths, by the side
of a large fire where the supper was cooking.
"It is a Cossack," said Hullin, squeezing Materne's hand.
"Yes, Jean-Claude; we caught him at the pond of Kiel: it was Kasper who
shot him."
They stretched the corpse out near the fire. His yellow face had
strange shadows on it in the firelight.
Doctor Lorquin, having looked at him, said: "It is a fine specimen of
the Tartar race; if I had time, I should put it in a lime-bath, so as
to obtain a skeleton of this tribe."
He then knelt down, and opening the long tunic,--"The ball has
traversed the pericardium, and has produced almost the same effect as
aneurism of the heart."
The others kept silence.
Kasper, with his hand on the muzzle of his rifle, seemed quite
contented with his game; and old Materne, rubbing his hands, said: "I
was sure I would bring you back something: my boys and I never return
empty-handed. There now!"
Hullin then pulled him aside. They entered the farm together, and
after the first surprise was over, every man began to make his own
personal reflections on the Cossack.