All the long, long day of the battle Silvine, up on Remilly hill, where
Father Fouchard’s little farm was situated, but her heart and soul
absent with Honoré amid the dangers of the conflict, never once took
her eyes from off Sedan, where the guns were roaring. The following
day, moreover, her anxiety was even greater still, being increased by
her inability to obtain any definite tidings, for the Prussians who
were guarding the roads in the vicinity refused to answer questions, as
much from reasons of policy as because they knew but very little
themselves. The bright sun of the day before was no longer visible, and
showers had fallen, making the valley look less cheerful than usual in
the wan light.
Toward evening Father Fouchard, who was also haunted by a sensation of
uneasiness in the midst of his studied taciturnity, was standing on his
doorstep reflecting on the probable outcome of events. His son had no
place in his thoughts, but he was speculating how he best might convert
the misfortunes of others into fortune for himself, and as he revolved
these considerations in his mind he noticed a tall, strapping young
fellow, dressed in the peasant’s blouse, who had been strolling up and
down the road for the last minute or so, looking as if he did not know
what to do with himself. His astonishment on recognizing him was so
great that he called him aloud by name, notwithstanding that three
Prussians happened to be passing at the time.
“Why, Prosper! Is that you?”
The chasseur d’Afrique imposed silence on him with an emphatic gesture;
then, coming closer, he said in an undertone:
“Yes, it is I. I have had enough of fighting for nothing, and I cut my
lucky. Say, Father Fouchard, you don’t happen to be in need of a
laborer on your farm, do you?”
All the old man’s prudence came back to him in a twinkling. He _was_
looking for someone to help him, but it would be better not to say so
at once.
“A lad on the farm? faith, no—not just now. Come in, though, all the
same, and have a glass. I shan’t leave you out on the road when you’re
in trouble, that’s sure.”
Silvine, in the kitchen, was setting the pot of soup on the fire, while
little Charlot was hanging by her skirts, frolicking and laughing. She
did not recognize Prosper at first, although they had formerly served
together in the same household, and it was not until she came in,
bringing a bottle of wine and two glasses, that she looked him squarely
in the face. She uttered a cry of joy and surprise; her sole thought
was of Honoré.
“Ah, you were there, weren’t you? Is Honoré all right?”
Prosper’s answer was ready to slip from his tongue; he hesitated. For
the last two days he had been living in a dream, among a rapid
succession of strange, ill-defined events which left behind them no
precise memory, as a man starts, half-awakened, from a slumber peopled
with fantastic visions. It was true, doubtless, he believed he had seen
Honoré lying upon a cannon, dead, but he would not have cared to swear
to it; what use is there in afflicting people when one is not certain?
“Honoré,” he murmured, “I don’t know, I couldn’t say.”
She continued to press him with her questions, looking at him steadily.
“You did not see him, then?”
He waved his hands before him with a slow, uncertain motion and an
expressive shake of the head.
“How can you expect one to remember! There were such lots of things,
such lots of things. Look you, of all that d——-d battle, if I was to
die for it this minute, I could not tell you that much—no, not even the
place where I was. I believe men get to be no better than idiots, ’pon
my word I do!” And tossing off a glass of wine, he sat gloomily silent,
his vacant eyes turned inward on the dark recesses of his memory. “All
that I remember is that it was beginning to be dark when I recovered
consciousness. I went down while we were charging, and then the sun was
very high. I must have been lying there for hours, my right leg caught
under poor old Zephyr, who had received a piece of shell in the middle
of his chest. There was nothing to laugh at in my position, I can tell
you; the dead comrades lying around me in piles, not a living soul in
sight, and the certainty that I should have to kick the bucket too
unless someone came to put me on my legs again. Gently, gently, I tried
to free my leg, but it was no use; Zephyr’s weight must have been fully
up to that of the five hundred thousand devils. He was warm still. I
patted him, I spoke to him, saying all the pretty things I could think
of, and here’s a thing, do you see, that I shall never forget as long
as I live: he opened his eyes and made an effort to raise his poor old
head, which was resting on the ground beside my own. Then we had a talk
together: ‘Poor old fellow,’ says I, ‘I don’t want to say a word to
hurt your feelings, but you must want to see me croak with you, you
hold me down so hard.’ Of course he didn’t say he did; he couldn’t, but
for all that I could read in his great sorrowful eyes how bad he felt
to have to part with me. And I can’t say how the thing happened,
whether he intended it or whether it was part of the death struggle,
but all at once he gave himself a great shake that sent him rolling
away to one side. I was enabled to get on my feet once more, but ah! in
what a pickle; my leg was swollen and heavy as a leg of lead. Never
mind, I took Zephyr’s head in my arms and kept on talking to him,
telling him all the kind thoughts I had in my heart, that he was a good
horse, that I loved him dearly, that I should never forget him. He
listened to me, he seemed to be so pleased! Then he had another long
convulsion, and so he died, with his big vacant eyes fixed on me till
the last. It is very strange, though, and I don’t suppose anyone will
believe me; still, it is the simple truth that great, big tears were
standing in his eyes. Poor old Zephyr, he cried just like a man—”
At this point Prosper’s emotion got the better of him; tears choked his
utterance and he was obliged to break off. He gulped down another glass
of wine and went on with his narrative in disjointed, incomplete
sentences. It kept growing darker and darker, until there was only a
narrow streak of red light on the horizon at the verge of the
battlefield; the shadows of the dead horses seemed to be projected
across the plain to an infinite distance. The pain and stiffness in his
leg kept him from moving; he must have remained for a long time beside
Zephyr. Then, with his fears as an incentive, he had managed to get on
his feet and hobble away; it was an imperative necessity to him not to
be alone, to find comrades who would share his fears with him and make
them less. Thus from every nook and corner of the battlefield, from
hedges and ditches and clumps of bushes, the wounded who had been left
behind dragged themselves painfully in search of companionship, forming
when possible little bands of four or five, finding it less hard to
agonize and die in the company of their fellow-beings. In the wood of
la Garenne Prosper fell in with two men of the 43d regiment; they were
not wounded, but had burrowed in the underbrush like rabbits, waiting
for the coming of the night. When they learned that he was familiar
with the roads they communicated to him their plan, which was to
traverse the woods under cover of the darkness and make their escape
into Belgium. At first he declined to share their undertaking, for he
would have preferred to proceed direct to Remilly, where he was certain
to find a refuge, but where was he to obtain the blouse and trousers
that he required as a disguise? to say nothing of the impracticability
of getting past the numerous Prussian pickets and outposts that filled
the valley all the way from la Garenne to Remilly. He therefore ended
by consenting to act as guide to the two comrades. His leg was less
stiff than it had been, and they were so fortunate as to secure a loaf
of bread at a farmhouse. Nine o’clock was striking from the church of a
village in the distance as they resumed their way. The only point where
they encountered any danger worth mentioning was at la Chapelle, where
they fell directly into the midst of a Prussian advanced post before
they were aware of it; the enemy flew to arms and blazed away into the
darkness, while they, throwing themselves on the ground and alternately
crawling and running until the fire slackened, ultimately regained the
shelter of the trees. After that they kept to the woods, observing the
utmost vigilance. At a bend in the road, they crept up behind an
out-lying picket and, leaping on his back, buried a knife in his
throat. Then the road was free before them and they no longer had to
observe precaution; they went ahead, laughing and whistling. It was
about three in the morning when they reached a little Belgian village,
where they knocked up a worthy farmer, who at once opened his barn to
them; they snuggled among the hay and slept soundly until morning.
The sun was high in the heavens when Prosper awoke. As he opened his
eyes and looked about him, while the two comrades were still snoring,
he beheld their entertainer engaged in hitching a horse to a great
carriole loaded with bread, rice, coffee, sugar, and all sorts of
eatables, the whole concealed under sacks of charcoal, and a little
questioning elicited from the good man the fact that he had two married
daughters living at Raucourt, in France, whom the passage of the
Bavarian troops had left entirely destitute, and that the provisions in
the carriole were intended for them. He had procured that very morning
the safe-conduct that was required for the journey. Prosper was
immediately seized by an uncontrollable desire to take a seat in that
carriole and return to the country that he loved so and for which his
heart was yearning with such a violent nostalgia. It was perfectly
simple; the farmer would have to pass through Remilly to reach
Raucourt; he would alight there. The matter was arranged in three
minutes; he obtained a loan of the longed-for blouse and trousers, and
the farmer gave out, wherever they stopped, that he was his servant; so
that about six o’clock he got down in front of the church, not having
been stopped more than two or three times by the German outposts.
They were all silent for a while, then: “No, I had enough of it!” said
Prosper. “If they had but set us at work that amounted to something, as
out there in Africa! but this going up the hill only to come down
again, the feeling that one is of no earthly use to anyone, that is no
kind of a life at all. And then I should be lonely, now that poor
Zephyr is dead; all that is left me to do is to go to work on a farm.
That will be better than living among the Prussians as a prisoner,
don’t you think so? You have horses, Father Fouchard; try me, and see
whether or not I will love them and take good care of them.”
The old fellow’s eyes gleamed, but he touched glasses once more with
the other and concluded the arrangement without any evidence of
eagerness.
“Very well; I wish to be of service to you as far as lies in my power;
I will take you. As regards the question of wages, though, you must not
speak of it until the war is over, for really I am not in need of
anyone and the times are too hard.”
Silvine, who had remained seated with Charlot on her lap, had never
once taken her eyes from Prosper’s face. When she saw him rise with the
intention of going to the stable and making immediate acquaintance with
its four-footed inhabitants, she again asked:
“Then you say you did not see Honoré?”
The question repeated thus abruptly made him start, as if it had
suddenly cast a flood of light in upon an obscure corner of his memory.
He hesitated for a little, but finally came to a decision and spoke.
“See here, I did not wish to grieve you just now, but I don’t believe
Honoré will ever come back.”
“Never come back—what do you mean?”
“Yes, I believe that the Prussians did his business for him. I saw him
lying across his gun, his head erect, with a great wound just beneath
the heart.”
There was silence in the room. Silvine’s pallor was frightful to
behold, while Father Fouchard displayed his interest in the narrative
by replacing upon the table his glass, into which he had just poured
what wine remained in the bottle.
“Are you quite certain?” she asked in a choking voice.
“_Dame_! as certain as one can be of a thing he has seen with his own
two eyes. It was on a little hillock, with three trees in a group right
beside it; it seems to me I could go to the spot blindfolded.”
If it was true she had nothing left to live for. That lad who had been
so good to her, who had forgiven her her fault, had plighted his troth
and was to marry her when he came home at the end of the campaign! and
they had robbed her of him, they had murdered him, and he was lying out
there on the battlefield with a wound under the heart! She had never
known how strong her love for him had been, and now the thought that
she was to see him no more, that he who was hers was hers no longer,
aroused her almost to a pitch of madness and made her forget her usual
tranquil resignation. She set Charlot roughly down upon the floor,
exclaiming:
“Good! I shall not believe that story until I see the evidence of it,
until I see it with my own eyes. Since you know the spot you shall
conduct me to it. And if it is true, if we find him, we will bring him
home with us.”
Her tears allowed her to say no more; she bowed her head upon the
table, her frame convulsed by long-drawn, tumultuous sobs that shook
her from head to foot, while the child, not knowing what to make of
such unusual treatment at his mother’s hands, also commenced to weep
violently. She caught him up and pressed him to her heart, with
distracted, stammering words:
“My poor child! my poor child!”
Consternation was depicted on old Fouchard’s face. Appearances
notwithstanding, he did love his son, after a fashion of his own.
Memories of the past came back to him, of days long vanished, when his
wife was still living and Honoré was a boy at school, and two big tears
appeared in his small red eyes and trickled down his old leathery
cheeks. He had not wept before in more than ten years. In the end he
grew angry at the thought of that son who was his and upon whom he was
never to set eyes again; he rapped out an oath or two.
“_Nom de Dieu!_ it is provoking all the same, to have only one boy, and
that he should be taken from you!”
When their agitation had in a measure subsided, however, Fouchard was
annoyed that Silvine still continued to talk of going to search for
Honoré’s body out there on the battlefield. She made no further noisy
demonstration, but harbored her purpose with the dogged silence of
despair, and he failed to recognize in her the docile, obedient servant
who was wont to perform her daily tasks without a murmur; her great,
submissive eyes, in which lay the chief beauty of her face, had assumed
an expression of stern determination, while beneath her thick brown
hair her cheeks and brow wore a pallor that was like death. She had
torn off the red kerchief that was knotted about her neck, and was
entirely in black, like a widow in her weeds. It was all in vain that
he tried to impress on her the difficulties of the undertaking, the
dangers she would be subjected to, the little hope there was of
recovering the corpse; she did not even take the trouble to answer him,
and he saw clearly that unless he seconded her in her plan she would
start out alone and do some unwise thing, and this aspect of the case
worried him on account of the complications that might arise between
him and the Prussian authorities. He therefore finally decided to go
and lay the matter before the mayor of Remilly, who was a kind of
distant cousin of his, and they two between them concocted a story:
Silvine was to pass as the actual widow of Honoré, Prosper became her
brother, so that the Bavarian colonel, who had his quarters in the
Hotel of the Maltese Cross down in the lower part of the village, made
no difficulty about granting a pass which authorized the brother and
sister to bring home the body of the husband, provided they could find
it. By this time it was night; the only concession that could be
obtained from the young woman was that she would delay starting on her
expedition until morning.
When morning came old Fouchard could not be prevailed on to allow one
of his horses to be taken, fearing he might never set eyes on it again.
What assurance had he that the Prussians would not confiscate the
entire equipage? At last he consented, though with very bad grace, to
loan her the donkey, a little gray animal, and his cart, which, though
small, would be large enough to hold a dead man. He gave minute
instructions to Prosper, who had had a good night’s sleep, but was
anxious and thoughtful at the prospect of the expedition now that,
being rested and refreshed, he attempted to remember something of the
battle. At the last moment Silvine went and took the counterpane from
her own bed, folding and spreading it on the floor of the cart. Just as
she was about to start she came running back to embrace Charlot.
“I entrust him to your care, Father Fouchard; keep an eye on him and
see that he doesn’t get hold of the matches.”
“Yes, yes; never fear!”
They were late in getting off; it was near seven o’clock when the
little procession, the donkey, hanging his head and drawing the narrow
cart, leading, descended the steep hill of Remilly. It had rained
heavily during the night, and the roads were become rivers of mud;
great lowering clouds hung in the heavens, imparting an air of
cheerless desolation to the scene.
Prosper, wishing to save all the distance he could, had determined on
taking the route that lay through the city of Sedan, but before they
reached Pont-Maugis a Prussian outpost halted the cart and held it for
over an hour, and finally, after their pass had been referred, one
after another, to four or five officials, they were told they might
resume their journey, but only on condition of taking the longer,
roundabout route by way of Bazeilles, to do which they would have to
turn into a cross-road on their left. No reason was assigned; their
object was probably to avoid adding to the crowd that encumbered the
streets of the city. When Silvine crossed the Meuse by the railroad
bridge, that ill-starred bridge that the French had failed to destroy
and which, moreover, had been the cause of such slaughter among the
Bavarians, she beheld the corpse of an artilleryman floating lazily
down with the sluggish current. It caught among some rushes near the
bank, hung there a moment, then swung clear and started afresh on its
downward way.
Bazeilles, through which they passed from end to end at a slow walk,
afforded a spectacle of ruin and desolation, the worst that war can
perpetrate when it sweeps with devastating force, like a cyclone,
through a land. The dead had been removed; there was not a single
corpse to be seen in the village streets, and the rain had washed away
the blood; pools of reddish water were to be seen here and there in the
roadway, with repulsive, frowzy-looking debris, matted masses that one
could not help associating in his mind with human hair. But what
shocked and saddened one more than all the rest was the ruin that was
visible everywhere; that charming village, only three days before so
bright and smiling, with its pretty houses standing in their well-kept
gardens, now razed, demolished, annihilated, nothing left of all its
beauties save a few smoke-stained walls. The church was burning still,
a huge pyre of smoldering beams and girders, whence streamed
continually upward a column of dense black smoke that, spreading in the
heavens, overshadowed the city like a gigantic funeral pall. Entire
streets had been swept away, not a house left on either side, nor any
trace that houses had ever been there, save the calcined stone-work
lying in the gutter in a pasty mess of soot and ashes, the whole lost
in the viscid, ink-black mud of the thoroughfare. Where streets
intersected the corner houses were razed down to their foundations, as
if they had been carried away bodily by the fiery blast that blew
there. Others had suffered less; one in particular, owing to some
chance, had escaped almost without injury, while its neighbors on
either hand, literally torn to pieces by the iron hail, were like gaunt
skeletons. An unbearable stench was everywhere, noticeable, the
nauseating odor that follows a great fire, aggravated by the
penetrating smell of petroleum, that had been used without stint upon
floors and walls. Then, too, there was the pitiful, mute spectacle of
the household goods that the people had endeavored to save, the poor
furniture that had been thrown from windows and smashed upon the
sidewalk, crazy tables with broken legs, presses with cloven sides and
split doors, linen, also, torn and soiled, that was trodden under foot;
all the sorry crumbs, the unconsidered trifles of the pillage, of which
the destruction was being completed by the dissolving rain. Through the
breach in a shattered house-front a clock was visible, securely
fastened high up on the wall above the mantel-shelf, that had
miraculously escaped intact.
“The beasts! the pigs!” growled Prosper, whose blood, though he was no
longer a soldier, ran hot at the sight of such atrocities.
He doubled his fists, and Silvine, who was white as a ghost, had to
exert the influence of her glance to calm him every time they
encountered a sentry on their way. The Bavarians had posted sentinels
near all the houses that were still burning, and it seemed as if those
men, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, were guarding the fires in
order that the flames might finish their work. They drove away the mere
sightseers who strolled about in the vicinity, and the persons who had
an interest there as well, employing first a menacing gesture, and in
case that was not sufficient, uttering a single brief, guttural word of
command. A young woman, her hair streaming about her shoulders, her
gown plastered with mud, persisted in hanging about the smoking ruins
of a little house, of which she desired to search the hot ashes,
notwithstanding the prohibition of the sentry. The report ran that the
woman’s little baby had been burned with the house. And all at once, as
the Bavarian was roughly thrusting her aside with his heavy hand, she
turned on him, vomiting in his face all her despair and rage, lashing
him with taunts and insults that were redolent of the gutter, with
obscene words which likely afforded her some consolation in her grief
and distress. He could not have understood her, for he drew back a pace
or two, eying her with apprehension. Three comrades came running up and
relieved him of the fury, whom they led away screaming at the top of
her voice. Before the ruins of another house a man and two little
girls, all three so weary and miserable that they could not stand, lay
on the bare ground, sobbing as if their hearts would break; they had
seen their little all go up in smoke and flame, and had no place to go,
no place to lay their head. But just then a patrol went by, dispersing
the knots of idlers, and the street again assumed its deserted aspect,
peopled only by the stern, sullen sentries, vigilant to see that their
iniquitous instructions were enforced.
“The beasts! the pigs!” Prosper repeated in a stifled voice. “How I
should like, oh! how I should like to kill a few of them!”
Silvine again made him be silent. She shuddered. A dog, shut up in a
carriage-house that the flames had spared and forgotten there for the
last two days, kept up an incessant, continuous howling, in a key so
inexpressibly mournful that a brooding horror seemed to pervade the
low, leaden sky, from which a drizzling rain had now begun to fall.
They were then just abreast of the park of Montivilliers, and there
they witnessed a most horrible sight. Three great covered carts, those
carts that pass along the streets in the early morning before it is
light and collect the city’s filth and garbage, stood there in a row,
loaded with corpses; and now, instead of refuse, they were being filled
with dead, stopping wherever there was a body to be loaded, then going
on again with the heavy rumbling of their wheels to make another stop
further on, threading Bazeilles in its every nook and corner until
their hideous cargo overflowed. They were waiting now upon the public
road to be driven to the place of their discharge, the neighboring
potter’s field. Feet were seen projecting from the mass into the air. A
head, half-severed from its trunk, hung over the side of the vehicle.
When the three lumbering vans started again, swaying and jolting over
the inequalities of the road, a long, white hand was hanging outward
from one of them; the hand caught upon the wheel, and little by little
the iron tire destroyed it, eating through skin and flesh clean down to
the bones.
By the time they reached Balan the rain had ceased, and Prosper
prevailed on Silvine to eat a bit of the bread he had had the foresight
to bring with them. When they were near Sedan, however, they were
brought to a halt by another Prussian post, and this time the
consequences threatened to be serious; the officer stormed at them, and
even refused to restore their pass, which he declared, in excellent
French, to be a forgery. Acting on his orders some soldiers had run the
donkey and the little cart under a shed. What were they to do? were
they to be forced to abandon their undertaking? Silvine was in despair,
when all at once she thought of M. Dubreuil, Father Fouchard’s
relative, with whom she had some slight acquaintance and whose place,
the Hermitage, was only a few hundred yards distant, on the summit of
the eminence that overlooked the faubourg. Perhaps he might have some
influence with the military, seeing that he was a citizen of the place.
As they were allowed their freedom, conditionally upon abandoning their
equipage, she left the donkey and cart under the shed and bade Prosper
accompany her. They ascended the hill on a run, found the gate of the
Hermitage standing wide open, and on turning into the avenue of secular
elms beheld a spectacle that filled them with amazement.
“The devil!” said Prosper; “there are a lot of fellows who seem to be
taking things easy!”
On the fine-crushed gravel of the terrace, at the bottom of the steps
that led to the house, was a merry company. Arranged in order around a
marble-topped table were a sofa and some easy-chairs in sky-blue satin,
forming a sort of fantastic open-air drawing-room, which must have been
thoroughly soaked by the rain of the preceding day. Two zouaves, seated
in a lounging attitude at either end of the sofa, seemed to be laughing
boisterously. A little infantryman, who occupied one of the fauteuils,
his head bent forward, was apparently holding his sides to keep them
from splitting. Three others were seated in a negligent pose, their
elbows resting on the arms of their chairs, while a chasseur had his
hand extended as if in the act of taking a glass from the table. They
had evidently discovered the location of the cellar, and were enjoying
themselves.
“But how in the world do they happen to be here?” murmured Prosper,
whose stupefaction increased as he drew nearer to them. “Have the
rascals forgotten there are Prussians about?”
But Silvine, whose eyes had dilated far beyond their natural size,
suddenly uttered an exclamation of horror. The soldiers never moved
hand or foot; they were stone dead. The two zouaves were stiff and
cold; they both had had the face shot away, the nose was gone, the eyes
were torn from their sockets. If there appeared to be a laugh on the
face of him who was holding his sides, it was because a bullet had cut
a great furrow through the lower portion of his countenance, smashing
all his teeth. The spectacle was an unimaginably horrible one, those
poor wretches laughing and conversing in their attitude of manikins,
with glassy eyes and open mouths, when Death had laid his icy hand on
them and they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life.
Had they dragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die
in one another’s company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of the
Prussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circle
about the table, out of derision for the traditional gayety of the
French nation?
“It’s a queer start, though, all the same,” muttered Prosper, whose
face was very pale. And casting a look at the other dead who lay
scattered about the avenue, under the trees and on the turf, some
thirty brave fellows, among them Lieutenant Rochas, riddled with wounds
and surrounded still by the shreds of the flag, he added seriously and
with great respect: “There must have been some very pretty fighting
about here! I don’t much believe we shall find the bourgeois for whom
you are looking.”
Silvine entered the house, the doors and windows of which had been
battered in and afforded admission to the damp, cold air from without.
It was clear enough that there was no one there; the masters must have
taken their departure before the battle. She continued to prosecute her
search, however, and had entered the kitchen, when she gave utterance
to another cry of terror. Beneath the sink were two bodies, fast locked
in each other’s arms in mortal embrace, one of them a zouave, a
handsome, brown-bearded man, the other a huge Prussian with red hair.
The teeth of the former were set in the latter’s cheek, their arms,
stiff in death, had not relaxed their terrible hug, binding the pair
with such a bond of everlasting hate and fury that ultimately it was
found necessary to bury them in a common grave.
Then Prosper made haste to lead Silvine away, since they could
accomplish nothing in that house where Death had taken up his abode,
and upon their return, despairing, to the post where the donkey and
cart had been detained, it so chanced that they found, in company with
the officer who had treated them so harshly, a general on his way to
visit the battlefield. This gentleman requested to be allowed to see
the pass, which he examined attentively and restored to Silvine; then,
with an expression of compassion on his face, he gave directions that
the poor woman should have her donkey returned to her and be allowed to
go in quest of her husband’s body. Stopping only long enough to thank
her benefactor, she and her companion, with the cart trundling after
them, set out for the Fond de Givonne, obedient to the instructions
that were again given them not to pass through Sedan.
After that they bent their course to the left in order to reach the
plateau of Illy by the road that crosses the wood of la Garenne, but
here again they were delayed; twenty times they nearly abandoned all
hope of getting through the wood, so numerous were the obstacles they
encountered. At every step their way was barred by huge trees that had
been laid low by the artillery fire, stretched on the ground like
mighty giants fallen. It was the part of the forest that had suffered
so severely from the cannonade, where the projectiles had plowed their
way through the secular growths as they might have done through a
square of the Old Guard, meeting in either case with the sturdy
resistance of veterans. Everywhere the earth was cumbered with gigantic
trunks, stripped of their leaves and branches, pierced and mangled,
even as mortals might have been, and this wholesale destruction, the
sight of the poor limbs, maimed, slaughtered and weeping tears of sap,
inspired the beholder with the sickening horror of a human battlefield.
There were corpses of men there, too; soldiers, who had stood
fraternally by the trees and fallen with them. A lieutenant, from whose
mouth exuded a bloody froth, had been tearing up the grass by handfuls
in his agony, and his stiffened fingers were still buried in the
ground. A little farther on a captain, prone on his stomach, had raised
his head to vent his anguish in yells and screams, and death had caught
and fixed him in that strange attitude. Others seemed to be slumbering
among the herbage, while a zouave; whose blue sash had taken fire, had
had his hair and beard burned completely from his head. And several
times it happened, as they traversed those woodland glades, that they
had to remove a body from the path before the donkey could proceed on
his way. Presently they came to a little valley, where the sights of
horror abruptly ended. The battle had evidently turned at this point
and expended its force in another direction, leaving this peaceful nook
of nature untouched. The trees were all uninjured; the carpet of
velvety moss was undefiled by blood. A little brook coursed merrily
among the duckweed, the path that ran along its bank was shaded by tall
beeches. A penetrating charm, a tender peacefulness pervaded the
solitude of the lovely spot, where the living waters gave up their
coolness to the air and the leaves whispered softly in the silence.
Prosper had stopped to let the donkey drink from the stream.
“Ah, how pleasant it is here!” he involuntarily exclaimed in his
delight.
Silvine cast an astonished look about her, as if wondering how it was
that she, too, could feel the influence of the peaceful scene. Why
should there be repose and happiness in that hidden nook, when
surrounding it on every side were sorrow and affliction? She made a
gesture of impatience.
“Quick, quick, let us be gone. Where is the spot? Where did you tell me
you saw Honoré?”
And when, at some fifty paces from there, they at last came out on the
plateau of Illy, the level plain unrolled itself in its full extent
before their vision. It was the real, the true battlefield that they
beheld now, the bare fields stretching away to the horizon under the
wan, cheerless sky, whence showers were streaming down continually.
There were no piles of dead visible; all the Prussians must have been
buried by this time, for there was not a single one to be seen among
the corpses of the French that were scattered here and there, along the
roads and in the fields, as the conflict had swayed in one direction or
another. The first that they encountered was a sergeant, propped
against a hedge, a superb man, in the bloom of his youthful vigor; his
face was tranquil and a smile seemed to rest on his parted lips. A
hundred paces further on, however, they beheld another, lying across
the road, who had been mutilated most frightfully, his head almost
entirely shot away, his shoulders covered with great splotches of brain
matter. Then, as they advanced further into the field, after the single
bodies, distributed here and there, they came across little groups;
they saw seven men aligned in single rank, kneeling and with their
muskets at the shoulder in the position of aim, who had been hit as
they were about to fire, while close beside them a subaltern had also
fallen as he was in the act of giving the word of command. After that
the road led along the brink of a little ravine, and there they beheld
a spectacle that aroused their horror to the highest pitch as they
looked down into the chasm, into which an entire company seemed to have
been blown by the fiery blast; it was choked with corpses, a landslide,
an avalanche of maimed and mutilated men, bent and twisted in an
inextricable tangle, who with convulsed fingers had caught at the
yellow clay of the bank to save themselves in their descent,
fruitlessly. And a dusky flock of ravens flew away, croaking noisily,
and swarms of flies, thousands upon thousands of them, attracted by the
odor of fresh blood, were buzzing over the bodies and returning
incessantly.
“Where is the spot?” Silvine asked again.
They were then passing a plowed field that was completely covered with
knapsacks. It was manifest that some regiment had been roughly handled
there, and the men, in a moment of panic, had relieved themselves of
their burdens. The debris of every sort with which the ground was
thickly strewn served to explain the episodes of the conflict. There
was a stubble field where the scattered _kepis_, resembling huge
poppies, shreds of uniforms, epaulettes, and sword-belts told the story
of one of those infrequent hand-to-hand contests in the fierce
artillery duel that had lasted twelve hours. But the objects that were
encountered most frequently, at every step, in fact, were abandoned
weapons, sabers, bayonets, and, more particularly, chassepots; and so
numerous were they that they seemed to have sprouted from the earth, a
harvest that had matured in a single ill-omened day. Porringers and
buckets, also, were scattered along the roads, together with the
heterogeneous contents of knapsacks, rice, brushes, clothing,
cartridges. The fields everywhere presented an uniform scene of
devastation: fences destroyed, trees blighted as if they had been
struck by lightning, the very soil itself torn by shells, compacted and
hardened by the tramp of countless feet, and so maltreated that it
seemed as if seasons must elapse before it could again become
productive. Everything had been drenched and soaked by the rain of the
preceding day; an odor arose and hung in the air persistently, that
odor of the battlefield that smells like fermenting straw and burning
cloth, a mixture of rottenness and gunpowder.
Silvine, who was beginning to weary of those fields of death over which
she had tramped so many long miles, looked about her with increasing
distrust and uneasiness.
“Where is the spot? where is it?”
But Prosper made no answer; he also was becoming uneasy. What
distressed him even more than the sights of suffering among his
fellow-soldiers was the dead horses, the poor brutes that lay
outstretched upon their side, that were met with in great numbers. Many
of them presented a most pitiful spectacle, in all sorts of harrowing
attitudes, with heads torn from the body, with lacerated flanks from
which the entrails protruded. Many were resting on their back, with
their four feet elevated in the air like signals of distress. The
entire extent of the broad plain was dotted with them. There were some
that death had not released after their two days’ agony; at the
faintest sound they would raise their head, turning it eagerly from
right to left, then let it fall again upon the ground, while others lay
motionless and momentarily gave utterance to that shrill scream which
one who has heard it can never forget, the lament of the dying horse,
so piercingly mournful that earth and heaven seemed to shudder in
unison with it. And Prosper, with a bleeding heart, thought of poor
Zephyr, and told himself that perhaps he might see him once again.
Suddenly he became aware that the ground was trembling under the
thundering hoof-beats of a headlong charge. He turned to look, and had
barely time to shout to his companion:
“The horses, the horses! Get behind that wall!”
From the summit of a neighboring eminence a hundred riderless horses,
some of them still bearing the saddle and master’s kit, were plunging
down upon them at break-neck speed. They were cavalry mounts that had
lost their masters and remained on the battlefield, and instinct had
counseled them to associate together in a band. They had had neither
hay nor oats for two days, and had cropped the scanty grass from off
the plain, shorn the hedge-rows of leaves and twigs, gnawed the bark
from the trees, and when they felt the pangs of hunger pricking at
their vitals like a keen spur, they started all together at a mad
gallop and charged across the deserted, silent fields, crushing the
dead out of all human shape, extinguishing the last spark of life in
the wounded.
The band came on like a whirlwind; Silvine had only time to pull the
donkey and cart to one side where they would be protected by the wall.
“_Mon Dieu!_ we shall be killed!”
But the horses had taken the obstacle in their stride and were already
scouring away in the distance on the other side with a rumble like that
of a receding thunder-storm; striking into a sunken road they pursued
it as far as the corner of a little wood, behind which they were lost
to sight.
Silvine, when she had brought the cart back into the road, insisted
that Prosper should answer her question before they proceeded further.
“Come, where is it? You told me you could find the spot with your eyes
bandaged; where is it? We have reached the ground.”
He, drawing himself up and anxiously scanning the horizon in every
direction, seemed to become more and more perplexed.
“There were three trees, I must find those three trees in the first
place. Ah, _dame_! see here, one’s sight is not of the clearest when he
is fighting, and it is no such easy matter to remember afterward the
roads one has passed over!”
Then perceiving people to his left, two men and a woman, it occurred to
him to question them, but the woman ran away at his approach and the
men repulsed him with threatening gestures; and he saw others of the
same stripe, clad in sordid rags, unspeakably filthy, with the
ill-favored faces of thieves and murderers, and they all shunned him,
slinking away among the corpses like jackals or other unclean, creeping
beasts. Then he noticed that wherever these villainous gentry passed
the dead behind them were shoeless, their bare, white feet exposed,
devoid of covering, and he saw how it was: they were the tramps and
thugs who followed the German armies for the sake of plundering the
dead, the detestable crew who followed in the wake of the invasion in
order that they might reap their harvest from the field of blood. A
tall, lean fellow arose in front of him and scurried away on a run, a
sack slung across his shoulder, the watches and small coins, proceeds
of his robberies, jingling in his pockets.
A boy about fourteen or fifteen years old, however, allowed Prosper to
approach him, and when the latter, seeing him to be French, rated him
soundly, the boy spoke up in his defense. What, was it wrong for a poor
fellow to earn his living? He was collecting chassepots, and received
five sous for every chassepot he brought in. He had run away from his
village that morning, having eaten nothing since the day before, and
engaged himself to a contractor from Luxembourg, who had an arrangement
with the Prussians by virtue of which he was to gather the muskets from
the field of battle, the Germans fearing that should the scattered arms
be collected by the peasants of the frontier, they might be conveyed
into Belgium and thence find their way back to France. And so it was
that there was quite a flock of poor devils hunting for muskets and
earning their five sous, rummaging among the herbage, like the women
who may be seen in the meadows, bent nearly double, gathering
dandelions.
“It’s a dirty business,” Prosper growled.
“What would you have! A chap must eat,” the boy replied. “I am not
robbing anyone.”
Then, as he did not belong to that neighborhood and could not give the
information that Prosper wanted, he pointed out a little farmhouse not
far away where he had seen some people stirring.
Prosper thanked him and was moving away to rejoin Silvine when he
caught sight of a chassepot, partially buried in a furrow. His first
thought was to say nothing of his discovery; then he turned about
suddenly and shouted, as if he could not help it:
“Hallo! here’s one; that will make five sous more for you.”
As they approached the farmhouse Silvine noticed other peasants engaged
with spades and picks in digging long trenches; but these men were
under the direct command of Prussian officers, who, with nothing more
formidable than a light walking-stick in their hands, stood by, stiff
and silent, and superintended the work. They had requisitioned the
inhabitants of all the villages of the vicinity in this manner, fearing
that decomposition might be hastened, owing to the rainy weather. Two
cart-loads of dead bodies were standing near, and a gang of men was
unloading them, laying the corpses side by side in close contiguity to
one another, not searching them, not even looking at their faces, while
two men followed after, equipped with great shovels, and covered the
row with a layer of earth, so thin that the ground had already begun to
crack beneath the showers. The work was so badly and hastily done that
before two weeks should have elapsed each of those fissures would be
breathing forth pestilence. Silvine could not resist the impulse to
pause at the brink of the trench and look at those pitiful corpses as
they were brought forward, one after another. She was possessed by a
horrible fear that in each fresh body the men brought from the cart she
might recognize Honoré. Was not that he, that poor wretch whose left
eye had been destroyed? No! Perhaps that one with the fractured jaw was
he? The one thing certain to her mind was that if she did not make
haste to find him, wherever he might be on that boundless,
indeterminate plateau, they would pick him up and bury him in a common
grave with the others. She therefore hurried to rejoin Prosper, who had
gone on to the farmhouse with the cart.
“_Mon Dieu!_ how is it that you are not better informed? Where is the
place? Ask the people, question them.”
There were none but Prussians at the farm, however, together with a
woman servant and her child, just come in from the woods, where they
had been near perishing of thirst and hunger. The scene was one of
patriarchal simplicity and well-earned repose after the fatigues of the
last few days. Some of the soldiers had hung their uniforms from a
clothes-line and were giving them a thorough brushing, another was
putting a patch on his trousers, with great neatness and dexterity,
while the cook of the detachment had built a great fire in the middle
of the courtyard on which the soup was boiling in a huge pot from which
ascended a most appetizing odor of cabbage and bacon. There is no
denying that the Prussians generally displayed great moderation toward
the inhabitants of the country after the conquest, which was made the
easier to them by the spirit of discipline that prevailed among the
troops. These men might have been taken for peaceable citizens just
come in from their daily avocations, smoking their long pipes. On a
bench beside the door sat a stout, red-bearded man, who had taken up
the servant’s child, a little urchin five or six years old, and was
dandling it and talking baby-talk to it in German, delighted to see the
little one laugh at the harsh syllables which it could not understand.
Prosper, fearing there might be more trouble in store for them, had
turned his back on the soldiers immediately on entering, but those
Prussians were really good fellows; they smiled at the little donkey,
and did not even trouble themselves to ask for a sight of the pass.
Then ensued a wild, aimless scamper across the bosom of the great,
sinister plain. The sun, now sinking rapidly toward the horizon, showed
its face for a moment from between two clouds. Was night to descend and
surprise them in the midst of that vast charnel-house? Another shower
came down; the sun was obscured, the rain and mist formed an
impenetrable barrier about them, so that the country around, roads,
fields, trees, was shut out from their vision. Prosper knew not where
they were; he was lost, and admitted it: his memory was all astray, he
could recall nothing precise of the occurrences of that terrible day
but one before. Behind them, his head lowered almost to the ground, the
little donkey trotted along resignedly, dragging the cart, with his
customary docility. First they took a northerly course, then they
returned toward Sedan. They had lost their bearings and could not tell
in which direction they were going; twice they noticed that they were
passing localities that they had passed before and retraced their
steps. They had doubtless been traveling in a circle, and there came a
moment when in their exhaustion and despair they stopped at a place
where three roads met, without courage to pursue their search further,
the rain pelting down on them, lost and utterly miserable in the midst
of a sea of mud.
But they heard the sound of groans, and hastening to a lonely little
house on their left, found there, in one of the bedrooms, two wounded
men. All the doors were standing open; the two unfortunates had
succeeded in dragging themselves thus far and had thrown themselves on
the beds, and for the two days that they had been alternately shivering
and burning, their wounds having received no attention, they had seen
no one, not a living soul. They were tortured by a consuming thirst,
and the beating of the rain against the window-panes added to their
torment, but they could not move hand or foot. Hence, when they heard
Silvine approaching, the first word that escaped their lips was:
“Drink! Give us to drink!” that longing, pathetic cry, with which the
wounded always pursue the by-passer whenever the sound of footsteps
arouses them from their lethargy. There were many cases similar to
this, where men were overlooked in remote corners, whither they had
fled for refuge. Some were picked up even five and six days later, when
their sores were filled with maggots and their sufferings had rendered
them delirious.
When Silvine had given the wretched men a drink Prosper, who, in the
more sorely injured of the twain, had recognized a comrade of his
regiment, a chasseur d’Afrique, saw that they could not be far from the
ground over which Margueritte’s division had charged, inasmuch as the
poor devil had been able to drag himself to that house. All the
information he could get from him, however, was of the vaguest; yes, it
was over that way; you turned to the left, after passing a big field of
potatoes.
Immediately she was in possession of this slender clue Silvine insisted
on starting out again. An inferior officer of the medical department
chanced to pass with a cart just then, collecting the dead; she hailed
him and notified him of the presence of the wounded men, then, throwing
the donkey’s bridle across her arm, urged him along over the muddy
road, eager to reach the designated spot, beyond the big potato field.
When they had gone some distance she stopped, yielding to her despair.
“My God, where is the place! Where can it be?”
Prosper looked about him, taxing his recollection fruitlessly.
“I told you, it is close beside the place where we made our charge. If
only I could find my poor Zephyr—”
And he cast a wistful look on the dead horses that lay around them. It
had been his secret hope, his dearest wish, during the entire time they
had been wandering over the plateau, to see his mount once more, to bid
him a last farewell.
“It ought to be somewhere in this vicinity,” he suddenly said. “See!
over there to the left, there are the three trees. You see the
wheel-tracks? And, look, over yonder is a broken-down caisson. We have
found the spot; we are here at last!”
Quivering with emotion, Silvine darted forward and eagerly scanned the
faces of two corpses, two artillerymen who had fallen by the roadside.
“He is not here! He is not here! You cannot have seen aright. Yes, that
is it; some delusion must have cheated your eyes.” And little by little
an air-drawn hope, a wild delight crept into her mind. “If you were
mistaken, if he should be alive! And be sure he is alive, since he is
not here!”
Suddenly she gave utterance to a low, smothered cry. She had turned,
and was standing on the very position that the battery had occupied.
The scene was most frightful, the ground torn and fissured as by an
earthquake and covered with wreckage of every description, the dead
lying as they had fallen in every imaginable attitude of horror, arms
bent and twisted, legs doubled under them, heads thrown back, the lips
parted over the white teeth as if their last breath had been expended
in shouting defiance to the foe. A corporal had died with his hands
pressed convulsively to his eyes, unable longer to endure the dread
spectacle. Some gold coins that a lieutenant carried in a belt about
his body had been spilled at the same time as his life-blood, and lay
scattered among his entrails. There were Adolphe, the driver, and the
gunner, Louis, clasped in each other’s arms in a fierce embrace, their
sightless orbs starting from their sockets, mated even in death. And
there, at last, was Honoré, recumbent on his disabled gun as on a bed
of honor, with the great rent in his side that had let out his young
life, his face, unmutilated and beautiful in its stern anger, still
turned defiantly toward the Prussian batteries.
“Oh! my friend,” sobbed Silvine, “my friend, my friend—”
She had fallen to her knees on the damp, cold ground, her hands joined
as if in prayer, in an outburst of frantic grief. The word friend, the
only name by which it occurred to her to address him, told the story of
the tender affection she had lost in that man, so good, so loving, who
had forgiven her, had meant to make her his wife, despite the ugly
past. And now all hope was dead within her bosom, there was nothing
left to make life desirable. She had never loved another; she would put
away her love for him at the bottom of her heart and hold it sacred
there. The rain had ceased; a flock of crows that circled above the
three trees, croaking dismally, affected her like a menace of evil. Was
he to be taken from her again, her cherished dead, whom she had
recovered with such difficulty? She dragged herself along upon her
knees, and with a trembling hand brushed away the hungry flies that
were buzzing about her friend’s wide-open eyes.
She caught sight of a bit of blood-stained paper between Honoré’s
stiffened fingers. It troubled her; she tried to gain possession of the
paper, pulling at it gently, but the dead man would not surrender it,
seemingly tightening his hold on it, guarding it so jealously that it
could not have been taken from him without tearing it in bits. It was
the letter she had written him, that he had always carried next his
heart, and that he had taken from its hiding place in the moment of his
supreme agony, as if to bid her a last farewell. It seemed so strange,
was such a revelation, that he should have died thinking of her; when
she saw what it was a profound delight filled her soul in the midst of
her affliction. Yes, surely, she would leave it with him, the letter
that was so dear to him! she would not take it from him, since he was
so bent on carrying it with him to the grave. Her tears flowed afresh,
but they were beneficent tears this time, and brought healing and
comfort with them. She arose and kissed his hands, kissed him on the
forehead, uttering meanwhile but that one word, which was in itself a
prolonged caress:
“My friend! my friend—”
Meantime the sun was declining; Prosper had gone and taken the
counterpane from the cart, and between them they raised Honoré’s body,
slowly, reverently, and laid it on the bed-covering, which they had
stretched upon the ground; then, first wrapping him in its folds, they
bore him to the cart. It was threatening to rain again, and they had
started on their return, forming, with the donkey, a sorrowful little
cortége on the broad bosom of the accursed plain, when a deep rumbling
as of thunder was heard in the distance. Prosper turned his head and
had only time to shout:
“The horses! the horses!”
It was the starving, abandoned cavalry mounts making another charge.
They came up this time in a deep mass across a wide, smooth field,
manes and tails streaming in the wind, froth flying from their
nostrils, and the level rays of the fiery setting sun sent the shadow
of the infuriated herd clean across the plateau. Silvine rushed forward
and planted herself before the cart, raising her arms above her head as
if her puny form might have power to check them. Fortunately the ground
fell off just at that point, causing them to swerve to the left;
otherwise they would have crushed donkey, cart, and all to powder. The
earth trembled, and their hoofs sent a volley of clods and small stones
flying through the air, one of which struck the donkey on the head and
wounded him. The last that was seen of them they were tearing down a
ravine.
“It’s hunger that starts them off like that,” said Prosper. “Poor
beasts!”
Silvine, having bandaged the donkey’s ear with her handkerchief, took
him again by the bridle, and the mournful little procession began to
retrace its steps across the plateau, to cover the two leagues that lay
between it and Remilly. Prosper had turned and cast a look on the dead
horses, his heart heavy within him to leave the field without having
seen Zephyr.
A little below the wood of la Garenne, as they were about to turn off
to the left to take the road that they had traversed that morning, they
encountered another German post and were again obliged to exhibit their
pass. And the officer in command, instead of telling them to avoid
Sedan, ordered them to keep straight on their course and pass through
the city; otherwise they would be arrested. This was the most recent
order; it was not for them to question it. Moreover, their journey
would be shortened by a mile and a quarter, which they did not regret,
weary and foot-sore as they were.
When they were within Sedan, however, they found their progress
retarded owing to a singular cause. As soon as they had passed the
fortifications their nostrils were saluted by such a stench, they were
obliged to wade through such a mass of abominable filth, reaching
almost to their knees, as fairly turned their stomachs. The city, where
for three days a hundred thousand men had lived without the slightest
provision being made for decency or cleanliness, had become a cesspool,
a foul sewer, and this devil’s broth was thickened by all sorts of
solid matter, rotting hay and straw, stable litter, and the excreta of
animals. The carcasses of the horses, too, that were knocked on the
head, skinned, and cut up in the public squares, in full view of
everyone, had their full share in contaminating the atmosphere; the
entrails lay decaying in the hot sunshine, the bones and heads were
left lying on the pavement, where they attracted swarms of flies.
Pestilence would surely break out in the city unless they made haste to
rid themselves of all that carrion, of that stratum of impurity, which,
in the Rue de Minil, the Rue Maqua, and even on the Place Turenne,
reached a depth of twelve inches. The Prussian authorities had taken
the matter up, and their placards were to be seen posted about the
city, requisitioning the inhabitants, irrespective of rank, laborers,
merchants, bourgeois, magistrates, for the morrow; they were ordered to
assemble, armed with brooms and shovels, and apply themselves to the
task, and were warned that they would be subjected to heavy penalties
if the city was not clean by night. The President of the Tribunal had
taken time by the forelock, and might even then be seen scraping away
at the pavement before his door and loading the results of his labors
upon a wheelbarrow with a fire-shovel.
Silvine and Prosper, who had selected the Grande Rue as their route for
traversing the city, advanced but slowly through that lake of
malodorous slime. In addition to that the place was in a state of
ferment and agitation that made it necessary for them to pull up almost
at every moment. It was the time that the Prussians had selected for
searching the houses in order to unearth those soldiers, who,
determined that they would not give themselves up, had hidden
themselves away. When, at about two o’clock of the preceding day,
General de Wimpffen had returned from the château of Bellevue after
signing the capitulation, the report immediately began to circulate
that the surrendered troops were to be held under guard in the
peninsula of Iges until such time as arrangements could be perfected
for sending them off to Germany. Some few officers had expressed their
intention of taking advantage of that stipulation which accorded them
their liberty conditionally on their signing an agreement not to serve
again during the campaign. Only one general, so it was said,
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, alleging his rheumatism as a reason, had bound
himself by that pledge, and when, that very morning, his carriage had
driven up to the door of the Hotel of the Golden Cross and he had taken
his seat in it to leave the city, the people had hooted and hissed him
unmercifully. The operation of disarming had been going on since break
of day; the manner of its performance was, the troops defiled by
battalions on the Place Turenne, where each man deposited his musket
and bayonet on the pile, like a mountain of old iron, which kept rising
higher and higher, in a corner of the place. There was a Prussian
detachment there under the command of a young officer, a tall, pale
youth, wearing a sky-blue tunic and a cap adorned with a cock’s
feather, who superintended operations with a lofty but soldier-like
air, his hands encased in white gloves. A zouave, in a fit of
insubordination, having refused to give up his chassepot, the officer
ordered that he be taken away, adding, in the same even tone of voice:
“And let him be shot forthwith!” The rest of the battalion continued to
defile with a sullen and dejected air, throwing down their arms
mechanically, as if in haste to have the ceremony ended. But who could
estimate the number of those who had disarmed themselves voluntarily,
those whose muskets lay scattered over the country, out yonder on the
field of battle? And how many, too, within the last twenty-four hours
had concealed themselves, flattering themselves with the hope that they
might escape in the confusion that reigned everywhere! There was
scarcely a house but had its crew of those headstrong idiots who
refused to respond when called on, hiding away in corners and shamming
death; the German patrols that were sent through the city even
discovered them stowed away under beds. And as many, even after they
were unearthed, stubbornly persisted in remaining in the cellars
whither they had fled for shelter, the patrols were obliged to fire on
them through the coal-holes. It was a man-hunt, a brutal and cruel
battue, during which the city resounded with rifle-shots and outlandish
oaths.
At the Pont du Meuse they found a throng which the donkey was unable to
penetrate and were brought to a stand-still. The officer commanding the
guard at the bridge, suspecting they were endeavoring to carry on an
illicit traffic in bread or meat, insisted on seeing with his own eyes
what was contained in the cart; drawing aside the covering, he gazed
for an instant on the corpse with a feeling expression, then motioned
them to go their way. Still, however, they were unable to get forward,
the crowd momentarily grew denser and denser; one of the first
detachments of French prisoners was being conducted to the peninsula of
Iges under escort of a Prussian guard. The sorry band streamed on in
long array, the men in their tattered, dirty uniforms crowding one
another, treading on one another’s heels, with bowed heads and
sidelong, hang-dog looks, the dejected gait and bearing of the
vanquished to whom had been left not even so much as a knife with which
to cut their throat. The harsh, curt orders of the guard urging them
forward resounded like the cracking of a whip in the silence, which was
unbroken save for the plashing of their coarse shoes through the
semi-liquid mud. Another shower began to fall, and there could be no
more sorrowful sight than that band of disheartened soldiers, shuffling
along through the rain, like beggars and vagabonds on the public
highway.
All at once Prosper, whose heart was beating as if it would burst his
bosom with repressed sorrow and indignation, nudged Silvine and called
her attention to two soldiers who were passing at the moment. He had
recognized Maurice and Jean, trudging along with their companions, like
brothers, side by side. They were near the end of the line, and as
there was now no impediment in their way, he was enabled to keep them
in view as far as the Faubourg of Torcy, as they traversed the level
road which leads to Iges between gardens and truck farms.
“Ah!” murmured Silvine, distressed by what she had just seen, fixing
her eyes on Honoré’s body, “it may be that the dead have the better
part!”
Night descended while they were at Wadelincourt, and it was pitchy dark
long before they reached Remilly. Father Fouchard was greatly surprised
to behold the body of his son, for he had felt certain that it would
never be recovered. He had been attending to business during the day,
and had completed an excellent bargain; the market price for officers’
chargers was twenty francs, and he had bought three for forty-five
francs.