He sounds my stomach. “But you are better,” he murmurs; “the stomach is
not so hard.” I protest--he seems astonished, the interne then says to
him in an undertone:
“We ought perhaps to give him an injection; and we have here neither
syringe nor stomach-pump; if we send him to the hospital--?”
“Come, now, that’s an idea!” says the good man, delighted at getting rid
of me, and then and there he signs the order for my admission. Joyfully
I buckle on my knapsack, and under guard of one of the servants of the
lyceum I make my entrance at the hospital. I find Francis again! By
incredible good luck the St. Vincent corridor, where he sleeps, in
default of a room in the wards, contains one empty bed next to his. We
are at last reunited! In addition to our two beds, five cots stretch,
one after the other, along the yellow glazed walls. For occupants they
have a soldier of the line, two artillerymen, a dragoon, and a hussar.
The rest of the hospital is made up of certain old men, crack-brained
and weak-bodied, some young men, rickety or bandy-legged, and a great
number of soldiers--wrecks from MacMahon’s army--who, after being
floated on from one military hospital to another, had come to be
stranded on this bank. Francis and I, we are the only ones who wear
the uniform of the Seine militia; our bed neighbors were good enough
fellows; one, to tell the truth, quite as insignificant as another; they
were, for the most part, the sons of peasants or farmers called to serve
under the flag after the declaration of war.
While I am taking off my vest, there comes a sister, so frail, so pretty
that I can not keep from looking at her; the beautiful big eyes! the
long blond lashes! the pretty teeth! She asks me why I have left the
lyceum; I explain to her in roundabout phrases how the absence of a
forcing pump caused me to be sent back from the college. She smiles
gently and says to me: “Ah, sir soldier, you could have called the thing
by its name; we are used to everything.” I should think she was used to
everything, unfortunate woman, for the soldiers constrained themselves
but little in delivering themselves of their indiscreet amenities before
her. Yet never did I see her blush. She passed among them mute, her eyes
lowered, seeming not to hear the coarse jokes retailed around her.
Heavens! how she spoiled me! I see her now in the morning, as the sun
breaks on the stone floor the shadows of the window bars, approaching
slowly from the far end of the corridor, the great wings of her bonnet
flapping At her face-She comes close to my bed with a dish that smokes,
and on the edge of which glistens her well-trimmed finger nail. “The
soup is a little thin to-day,” she says with her pretty smile, “so I
bring you some chocolate. Eat it quick while it’s hot!”
In spite of the care she lavished upon me, I was bored to death in that
hospital. My friend and I, we had reached that degree of brutishness
that throws you on your bed, trying to kill in animal drowsiness the
long hours of insupportable days. The only distractions offered
us consisted in a breakfast and a dinner composed of boiled beef,
watermelon, prunes, and a finger of wine--the whole of not sufficient
quantity to nourish a man.
Thanks to my ordinary politeness toward the sisters and to the
prescription labels that I wrote for them, I obtained fortunately a
cutlet now and then and a pear picked in the hospital orchard. I was,
then, on the whole, the least to be pitied of all the soldiers packed
together, pell-mell, in the wards, but during the first days I could not
succeed even in swallowing the meagre morning dole. It was inspection
hour, and the doctor chose that moment to perform his operations. The
second day after my arrival he ripped a thigh open from top to bottom;
I heard a piercing cry; I closed my eyes, not enough, however, to avoid
seeing a red stream spurt in great jets on to the doctor’s apron.
That morning I could eat no more. Little by little, however, I grew
accustomed to it; soon I contented myself by merely turning my head away
and keeping my soup.
In the mean while the situation became intolerable. We tried, but in
vain, to procure newspapers and books; we were reduced to masquerading,
to donning the hussar’s vest for fun. This puerile fooling quickly wore
itself out, and stretching ourselves every twenty minutes, exchanging a
few words, we dive our heads into the bolsters.
There was not much conversation to be drawn from our comrades. The two
artillerymen and the hussar were too sick to talk. The dragoon swore by
the name of heaven, saying nothing, got up every instant, enveloped
in his great white mantle, and went to the wash-bowls, whose sloppy
condition he reported by means of his bare feet. There were some old
saucepans lying about in which the convalescents pretended to cook,
offering their stew in jest to the sisters.
There remained, then, only the soldier of the line: an unfortunate
grocer’s clerk, father of a child, called to the army, stricken
constantly by fever, shivering under his bedclothes.
Squatting, tailor-fashion, on our bed, we listen to him recount the
battle in which he was picked up. Cast out near Froeschwiller, on a
plain surrounded with woods, he had seen the red flashes shoot by in
bouquets of white smoke, and he had ducked, trembling, bewildered by the
cannonading, wild with the whistling of the balls. He had marched,
mixed in with the regiments, through the thick mud, not seeing a single
Prussian, not knowing in what direction they were, hearing on all sides
groans, cut by sharp cries, then the ranks of the soldiers placed in
front of him, all at once turned, and in the confusion of flight he had
been, without knowing how, thrown to the ground. He had picked himself
up and had fled, abandoning his gun and knapsack, and at last, worn
out by the forced marches endured for eight days, undermined by fear,
weakened by hunger, he had rested himself in a trench. He had remained
there dazed, inert, stunned by the roar of the bombs, resolved no longer
to defend himself, to move no more; then he thought of his wife, and,
weeping, demanded what he had done that they should make him suffer so;
he picked up, without knowing why, the leaf of a tree, which he kept,
and which he had about him now, for he showed it to us often, dried and
shriveled at the bottom of his pockets.
An officer had passed meanwhile, revolver in hand, had called him
“coward,” and threatened to break his head if he did not march. He had
replied: “That would please me above all things. Oh, that this would
end!” But the officer at the very moment he was shaking him on to his
feet was stretched out, the blood bursting, spurting from his neck. Then
fear took possession of him; he fled and succeeded in reaching a
road far off, overrun with the flying, black with troops, furrowed by
gun-carriages whose dying horses broke and crushed the ranks.
They succeeded at last in putting themselves under shelter. The cry of
treason arose from the groups. Old soldiers seemed once more resolved,
but the recruits refused to go on. “Let them go and be killed,” they
said, indicating the officers; “that’s their profession. As for me I
have children; it’s not the State that will take care of them if I die!”
And they envied the fate of those who were slightly wounded and the sick
who were allowed to take refuge in the ambulances.
“Ah, how afraid one gets, and, then, how one holds in the ear the voices
of men calling for their mothers and begging for something to drink,”
he added, shivering all over. He paused, and, looking about the corridor
with an air of content, he continued: “It’s all the same, I am very
happy to be here; and then, as it is, my wife can write to me,” and he
drew from his trousers pocket some letters, saying with satisfaction:
“The little one has written, look!” and he points out at the foot of
the paper under his wife’s labored handwriting, some up-and-down strokes
forming a dictated sentence, where there were some “I kiss papas” in
blots of ink.
We listened twenty times at least to that story, and we had to suffer
during mortal hours the repetitions of that man, delighted at having a
child. We ended by stopping our ears and by trying to sleep so as not to
hear him any more.
This deplorable life threatened to prolong itself, when one morning
Francis, who, contrary to his habit, had been prowling around the whole
of the evening before in the courtyard, says to me: “I say, Eugène, come
out and breathe a little of the air of the fields.” I prick my ears.
“There is a field reserved for lunatics,” he continued; “that field is
empty; by climbing onto the roofs of the outhouses, and that is easy,
thanks to the gratings that ornament the windows, we can reach the
coping of the wall; we jump and we tumble into the country. Two steps
from the wall is one of the gates of Evreux. What do you say?”
I say--I say that I am quite willing to go out, but how shall we get
back?
“I do not know anything about that; first let us get out, we will plan
afterward. Come, get up, they are going to serve the soup; we jump the
wall after.”
I get up. The hospital lacked water, so much so that I was reduced to
washing in the seltzer water which the sister had had sent to me. I take
my siphon, I mark the painter who cries fire, I press the trigger, the
discharge hits him full in his face; then I place myself in front of
him, I receive the stream in my beard, I rub my nose with the lather, I
dry my face. We are ready, we go downstairs. The field is deserted;
we scale the wall; Francis takes his measure and jumps. I am sitting
astride the coping of the wall, I cast a rapid glance around me; below,
a ditch and some grass, on the right one of the gates of the town; in
the distance, a forest that sways and shows its rents of golden red
against a band of pale blue. I stand up; I hear a noise in the court; I
jump; we skirt the walls; we are in Evreux!
Shall we eat? Motion adopted.
Making our way in search of a resting-place, we perceive two little
women wagging along. We follow them and offer to breakfast with them;
they refuse; we insist; they answer no less gently; we insist again;
they say yes. We go home with them, with a meat-pie, bottles of wine,
eggs, and a cold chicken. It seems odd to us to find ourselves in a
light room hung with paper spotted with lilac blossoms and green leaves;
there are at the casements damask curtains of red currant color, a
mirror over the fireplace, an engraving representing a Christ tormented
by the Pharisees. Six chairs of cherry wood and a round table with an
oilcloth showing the kings of France, a bedspread with eiderdown of pink
muslin. We set the table, we look with greedy eye at the girls moving
about. It takes a long time to get things ready, for we stop them for a
kiss in passing; for the rest, they are ugly and stupid enough. But what
is that to us? It’s so long since we have scented the mouth of woman!
I carve the chicken; the corks fly, we drink like topers, we eat
like ogres. The coffee steams in the cups; we gild it with cognac;
my melancholy flies away, the punch kindles, the blue flames of the
Kirschwasser leap in the salad bowl, the girls giggle, their hair in
their eyes. Suddenly four strokes ring out slowly from the church tower.
It is four o’clock. And the hospital! Good heavens, we had forgotten it!
I turn pale. Francis looks at me in fright, we tear ourselves from the
arms of our hostesses, we go out at double quick.
“How to get in?” says the painter.
Alas! we have no choice; we shall get there scarcely in time for supper.
Let’s trust to the mercy of heaven and make for the great gate!
We get there; we ring; the sister concierge is about to open the door
for us and stands amazed. We salute her, and I say loud enough to be
heard by her:
“I say, do you know, they are not very amiable at that commissariat; the
fat one specially received us only more or less civilly.”
The sister breathes not a word. We run at a gallop for the messroom; it
was time, I heard the voice of Sister Angèle who was distributing the
rations. I went to bed as quickly as possible, I covered with my hand a
spot my beauty had given me the length of my neck; the sister looks at
me, finds in my eyes an unwonted sparkle, and asks with interest: “Are
your pains worse?”
I reassure her and reply: “On the contrary, sister, I am better; but
this idleness and this imprisonment are killing me.”
When I speak of the appalling ennui that is trying me, sunk in this
company, in the midst of the country, far from my own people, she does
not reply, but her lips close tight, her eyes take on an indefinable
expression of melancholy and of pity. One day she said to me in a dry
tone: “Oh, liberty’s worth nothing to you,” alluding to a conversation
she had overheard between Francis and me, discussing the charming
allurements of Parisian women; then she softened and added with her
fascinating little moue: “You are really not serious, Mr. Soldier.”
The next morning we agreed, the painter and I, that as soon as the soup
was swallowed, we would scale the wall again. At the time appointed we
prowl about the field; the door is closed. “Bast, worse luck!”
says Francis, “_En avant!_” and he turns toward the great door of the
hospital. I follow him. The sister in charge asks where we are going.
“To the commissariat.” The door opens, we are outside.
Arrived at the grand square of the town, in front of the church,
I perceive, as we contemplate the sculptures of the porch, a stout
gentleman with a face like a red moon bristling with white mustaches,
who stares at us in astonishment. We stare back at him, boldly, and
continue on our way. Francis is dying of thirst; we enter a café, and,
while sipping my demi-tasse, I cast my eyes over the local paper, and
I find there a name that sets me dreaming. I did not know, to tell the
truth, the person who bore it, but that name recalled to me memories
long since effaced. I remembered that one of my friends had a relation
in a very high position in the town of Evreux. “It is absolutely
necessary for me to see him,” I say to the painter; I ask his address of
the café-keeper; he does not know it; I go out and visit all the bakers
and the druggists that I meet with. Every one eats bread and takes
medicine; it is impossible that one of those manufacturers should not
know the address of Monsieur de Fréchêdé. I did find it there, in fact;
I dust off my blouse, I buy a black cravat, gloves, and I go and ring
gently, in the Rue Chatrain, at the iron grating of a private residence
which rears its brick facade and slate roofs in the clearing of a sunny
park. A servant lets me in. Monsieur de Fréchêdé is absent, but Madame
is at home. I wait for a few seconds in a salon; the portière is raised
and an old lady appears. She has an air so affable that I am reassured.
I explain to her in a few words who I am.
“Sir,” she says with a kind smile, “I have often heard speak of your
family. I think, even, that I have met at Madame Lezant’s, madame, your
mother, during my last journey to Paris; you are welcome here.”
We talked a long time; I, somewhat embarrassed, covering with my képi
the spot on my neck; she trying to persuade me to accept some money,
which I refuse.
She says to me at last: “I desire with all my heart to be useful to you.
What can I do?” I reply: “Heavens, Madame, if you could get them
to send me back to Paris, you would render me a great service;
communications will be interrupted very soon, if the newspapers are to
be believed; they talk of another _coup d’état_, or the overthrow of the
Empire; I have great need of seeing my mother again; and especially of
not letting myself be taken prisoner here if the Prussians come.”
In the mean while Monsieur de Fréchêdé enters. In two words he is made
acquainted with the situation.
“If you wish to come with me to the doctor of the hospital,” he says,
“you have no time to lose.”
To the doctor! Good heavens! and how account to him for my absence from
the hospital? I dare not breathe a word; I follow my protector, asking
myself how it will all end. We arrive; the doctor looks at me with a
stupefied air. I do not give him time to open his mouth, and I deliver
with prodigious volubility a string of jeremiads over my sad position.
Monsieur de Fréchêdé in his turn takes up the argument, and asks him, in
my favor, to give me a convalescent’s leave of absence for two months.
“Monsieur is, in fact, sick enough,” says the doctor, “to be entitled to
two months’ rest; if my colleagues and if the General look at it as I do
your protégé will be able in a few days to return to Paris.”
“That’s good,” replies Monsieur de Fréchêdé. “I thank you, doctor; I
will speak to the General myself to-night.”
We are in the street; I heave a great sigh of relief; I press the hand
of that excellent man who shows so kindly an interest in me. I run to
find Francis again. We have but just time to get back; we arrive at the
gate of the hospital; Francis rings; I salute the sister. She stops
me: “Did you not tell me this morning that you were going to the
commissariat?”
“Quite right, sister.”
“Very well! the General has just left here. Go and see the director and
Sister Angèle; they are waiting for you; you will explain to them, no
doubt, the object of your visits to the commissariat.”
We remount, all crestfallen, the dormitory stairs. Sister Angèle is
there, who waits for us, and who says:
“Never could I have believed such a thing! You have been all over the
city, yesterday and to-day, and Heaven knows what kind of life you have
been leading!”
“Oh, really!” I exclaim.
She looked at me so fixedly that I breathed not another word.
“All the same,” she continued, “the General himself met you on the Grand
Square to-day. I denied that you had gone out, and I searched for you
all over the hospital. The General was right, you were not here. He
asked me for your names; I gave him the name of one of you, I refused
to reveal the other, and I did wrong, that is certain, for you do not
deserve it!”
“Oh, how much I thank you, my sister!” But Sister Angèle did not listen
to me. She was indignant over my conduct! There was but one thing to do;
keep quiet and accept the downpour without trying to shelter myself.
In the mean time Francis was summoned before the director, and since, I
do not know why, they suspected him of corrupting me; and since he was,
moreover, by reason of his foolery, in bad odor with the doctor and the
sisters, he was informed that he must leave the hospital the following
day and join his corps at once.
“Those huzzies with whom we dined yesterday are licensed women, who
have sold us; it was the director himself who told me,” he declared
furiously.
All the time we are cursing the jades and lamenting over our uniforms
which made us so recognizable, the rumor runs that the Emperor is taken
prisoner and that the Republic has been proclaimed at Paris; I give a
franc to an old man who was allowed to go out and who brings me a copy
of the “Gaulois.” The news is true. The hospital exults, Badinguet
fallen! it is not too soon; good-by to the war that is ended at last.
The following morning Francis and I, we embrace and he departs. “Till we
meet again,” he shouts to me as he shuts the gate; “and in Paris!”
Oh, the days that followed that day! What suffering! what desolation!
Impossible to leave the hospital; a sentinel paced up and down, in my
honor, before the door. I had, however, spirit enough not to try to
sleep. I paced like a caged beast in the yard. I prowled thus for the
space of twelve hours. I knew my prison to its smallest cranny. I
knew the spots where the lichens and the mosses pushed up through the
sections of the wall which had given way in cracking. Disgust for my
corridor, for my truckle-bed flattened out like a pancake, for my linen
rotten with dirt, took hold of me. I lived isolated, speaking to no one,
beating the flint stones of the courtyard with my feet, straying, like a
troubled soul, under the arcades whitewashed with yellow ochre the same
as the wards, coming back to the grated entrance gate surmounted by a
flag, mounting to the first floor where my bed was, descending to where
the kitchen shone, flashing the sparkle of its red copper through the
bare nakedness of the scene. I gnawed my fists with impatience, watching
at certain hours the mingled coming and going of civilians and soldiers,
passing and repassing on every floor, filling the galleries with their
interminable march.
I had no longer any strength left to resist the persecution of the
sisters, who drove us on Sunday into the chapel. I became a monomaniac;
one fixed idea haunted me; to flee as quickly as possible that
lamentable jail. With that, money worry oppressed me. My mother had
forwarded a hundred francs to me at Dunkirk, where it seems I ought to
be. The money never appeared. I saw the time when I should not have a
sou to buy either paper or tobacco.
Meanwhile the days passed. The De Fréchêdés seemed to have forgotten
me, and I attributed their silence to my escapades, of which they had
no doubt been informed. Soon to all these anxieties were added horrible
pains: ill-cared for and aggravated by my chase after petticoats, my
bowels became inflamed. I suffered so that I came to fear I should no
longer be able to bear the journey. I concealed my sufferings, fearing
the doctor would force me to stay longer at the hospital. I keep my bed
for a few days; then, as I felt my strength diminishing, I wished to get
up, in spite of all, and I went downstairs into the yard. Sister Angèle
no longer spoke to me, and in the evening, while she made her rounds in
the corridor and in the mess, turning so as not to notice the sparks of
the forbidden pipes that glowed in the shadows, she passed before me,
indifferent, cold, turning away her eyes. One morning, however, when I
had dragged myself into the courtyard and sunk down on every bench to
rest, she saw me so changed, so pale, that she could not keep from a
movement of compassion. In the evening, after she had finished her visit
to the dormitories, I was leaning with one elbow on my bolster, and,
with eyes wide open, I was looking at the bluish beams which the moon
cast through the windows of the corridor, when the door at the farther
end opened again, and I saw, now bathed in silver vapor, now in shadow,
and as if clothed in black crepe, according as to whether she passed
before the casements or along the walls, Sister Angèle, who was coming
toward me. She was smiling gently. “To-morrow morning,” she said to me,
“you are to be examined by the doctors. I saw Madame de Fréchêdé to-day;
it is probable that you will start for Paris in two or three days.” I
spring up in my bed, my face brightens, I wanted to jump and sing;
never was I happier. Morning rises. I dress, and uneasy, nevertheless, I
direct my way to the room where sits a board of officers and doctors.
One by one the soldiers exhibit their bodies gouged with wounds or
bunched with hair. The General scraped one of his finger nails, the
Colonel of the Gendarmerie {8} fans himself with a newspaper; the
practitioners talk among themselves as they feel the men. My turn
comes at last. They examine me from head to foot, they press down on
my stomach, swollen and tense like a balloon, and with a unanimity of
opinion the council grants me a convalescent’s leave of sixty days.