Читать книгу: «Brigadier Frederick, The Dean's Watch», страница 12
XXXVII
Thus, George, after the loss of my situation and my property, earned by thirty years of labour, economy and faithful services; after the loss of our dear country, of our old parents and our friends, I had still one consolation: my daughter still remained to me, my good, courageous child, who smiled at me in spite of her anxiety, her grief, and her sufferings when she saw me too much cast down.
That is what overwhelms me when I think of it; I always reproach myself for having allowed her to see my grief, and for not having been able to keep down my anger against those who had reduced us to such a condition. It is easy to put a good face on the matter when you have everything you want; in need and in a strange country it is a different thing.
We lived as economically as possible. Marie-Rose looked after our little household, and I often sat for hours before the window, thinking of all that had occurred during the last few months, of the abominable order that had driven me from my country; I suddenly grew indignant, and raised my arms to heaven, uttering a wild cry.
Marie-Rose was more calm; our humiliation, our misery, and the national disasters hurt her as much and perhaps more than me, but she hid it from me. Only what she could not hide from me was that wretched cold, which gave me much anxiety. Far from improving as I had hoped, it grew worse – it seemed to me to get worse every day. At night, above all, when I heard through the deep silence that dry, hacking cough, that seemed to tear her chest asunder, I sat up in bed and listened, filled with terror.
Sometimes, however, this horrible cold seemed to get better, Marie-Rose would sleep soundly, and then I regained my courage; and thinking of the innumerable misfortunes that were extended over France, the great famine at Paris, the battlefields covered with corpses, the ambulances crowded with wounded, the conflagrations, the requisitions, the pillages, I said to myself that we had still a little fire to warm us, a little bread to nourish us. And then, so many strange things happened during the wars! Had we not formerly conquered all Europe, which did not prevent us from being vanquished in our turn? Might not the Germans have the same fate? All gamblers end by losing! Those ideas and many others I turned over in my mind; and Marie-Rose said, too:
"All is not over, father; all is not over! I had a dream last night. I saw Jean in a brigadier-forester's costume; we will soon have some good news!"
Alas! good news. Poor child! Yes, yes, you can dream happy dreams; you may see Jean wearing a brigadier's stripes, and smiling at you and giving you his arm to lead you, with a white wreath on your head, to the little chapel at Graufthal, where the priest waits to marry you. All would have happened thus, but there should be fewer rascals on earth, to turn aside the just things established by the Almighty. Whenever I think of that time, George, I seem to feel a hand tearing out my heart. I would like to stop, but as I promised you, I will go on to the end.
One day, when the fire was sparkling in the little stove, when Marie-Rose, very thin and thoughtful, was spinning, and when the old recollections of the forest house, with the beautiful spring, the calm, melancholy autumn, the songs of the blackbirds and thrushes, the murmur of the little river through the reeds, the voice of the old grandmother, that of poor Calas, the joyous barking of Ragot, and the lowing of our two handsome cows under the old willows, came stealing back to my memory; while I was forgetting myself in these things, and while the monotonous hum of the spinning wheel and the ticking of our old clock were filling our little room, all at once cries and songs broke out in the distance.
Marie-Rose listened with amazement; and I, abruptly torn from my pleasant dreams, started like a man who has been roused from sleep. The Germans were rejoicing so, some new calamity had befallen us. That was my first idea, and I was not mistaken.
Soon bands of soldiers crossed the street, arm in arm, crying with all their might:
"Paris has fallen! Long live the German fatherland!"
I looked at Marie-Rose; she was as pale as death, and was looking at me also with her great brilliant eyes. We turned our eyes away from each other, so as not to betray the terrible emotion that we felt. She went out into the kitchen, where I heard her crying.
Until dark we heard nothing but new bands, singing and shouting as they passed; I, with bowed head, heard from time to time my daughter coughing behind the partition of the kitchen, and I gave myself up to despair. About seven o'clock Marie-Rose came in with the lamp. She wanted to set the table.
"It is no use," I said; "do not put down my plate. I am not hungry."
"Neither am I," said she.
"Well, let us go to bed; let us try to forget our misery; let us endeavour to sleep!"
I rose; we kissed each other, weeping. That night, George, was horrible. In spite of her efforts to stifle the cough I heard Marie-Rose coughing without intermission until morning, so that I could not close my eyes. I made up my mind to go for a doctor; but I did not want to frighten my daughter, and thinking of a means to speak of that to her, towards dawn I fell asleep.
It was eight o'clock when I woke up, and after dressing myself I called Marie-Rose. She did not answer. Then I went into her room, and I saw spots of blood on her pillow; her handkerchief, too, which she had left on the night-table, was all red.
It made me shudder! I returned and sat down in my corner, thinking of what I had just seen.
XXXVIII
It was market day. Marie-Rose had gone to lay in our small stock of provisions; she returned about nine o'clock, so much out of breath that she could scarcely hold her basket. When I saw her come in I recollected the pale faces of those young girls, of whom the poor people of our valley used to say that God was calling them, and who fell asleep quietly at the first snow. This idea struck me, and I was frightened; but then, steadying my voice, I said quite calmly:
"See here, Marie-Rose, all last night I heard you coughing; it makes me uneasy."
"Oh! it is nothing, father," she answered, colouring slightly; "it is nothing, the fine weather is coming and this cold will pass off."
"Anyhow," I replied, "I will not be easy, as long as a doctor has not told me what it is. I must go at once and get a doctor."
She looked at me, with her hands crossed over the basket, on the edge of the table; and, guessing perhaps by my anxiety that I had discovered the spots of blood, she murmured:
"Very well, father, to ease your mind."
"Yes," I said, "it is better to do things beforehand; what is nothing in the beginning may become very dangerous if neglected."
And I went out. Down stairs M. Michel gave me the address of Dr. Carrière, who lived in the Rue de la Mairie. I went to see him. He was a man of about sixty, lean, with black sparkling eyes and a grizzled head, who listened to me very attentively and asked me if I was not the brigadier forester that his friend M. d'Arence had spoken to him about. I answered that I was he, and he accompanied me at once.
Twenty minutes afterward we reached our room. When Marie-Rose came the doctor questioned her for a long time about the beginning of this cold, about her present symptoms, if she had not fever at night with shivering fits and attacks of suffocation.
By his manner of questioning her she was, so to speak, forced to answer him, and the old doctor soon knew that she had been spitting blood for over a month; she confessed it, turning very pale and looking at me as if to ask pardon for having hidden this misfortune from me. Ah! I forgave her heartily, but I was in despair. After that Dr. Carrière wished to examine her; he listened to her breathing and finally said that it was all right, that he would give her a prescription.
But in the next room, when we were alone, he asked me if any of our family had been consumptive; and when I assured him that never, neither in my wife's family nor my own, had we ever had the disease, he said:
"I believe you; your daughter is very beautifully formed; she is a strong and handsome creature; but then she must have had an accident; a fall, or something like that must have put her in this condition. She is probably hiding it from us; I must know it."
So I called Marie-Rose, and the doctor asked her if some weeks before she did not remember having fallen, or else run against something violently, telling her that he was going to write his prescription according to what she would reply, and that her life probably depended upon it.
Then Marie-Rose confessed that the day the Germans came to take away our cows she had tried to hold them back by the rope, and that one of the Prussians had struck her between the shoulders with the hilt of his sword, which had thrown her forward on her hands, and that her mouth had suddenly filled with blood; but that the fear of my anger at hearing of such an outrage had kept her from saying anything to me about it.
All was then clear to me. I could not restrain my tears, looking at my poor child, the victim of so great a misfortune. She withdrew. The doctor wrote his prescription. As we were descending the stairs he said:
"It is very serious. You have only one daughter?"
"She is my only one," I answered.
He was sad and thoughtful.
"We will do our best," he said; "youth has many resources! But do not let her be excited in any way."
As he walked down the street he repeated to me the advice that M. Simperlin had given me about the grandmother; I made no answer. It seemed to me that the earth was opening under my feet and was crying to me:
"The dead – the dead! Give me my dead!"
How glad I should have been to be the first to go to rest, to close my eyes and to answer:
"Well, here I am. Take me and leave the young! Let them breathe a few days longer. They do not know that life is a terrible misfortune; they will soon learn it, and will go with less regret. You will have them all the same!"
And, continuing to muse in this way, I entered an apothecary's shop near the large bridge and had the prescription made up. I returned to the house. Marie-Rose took two spoonfuls of the medicine morning and evening, as it had been directed. It did her good, I saw it from the first few days; her voice was clearer, her hands less burning; she smiled at me, as if to say:
"You see, father, it was only a cold. Don't worry about it any more."
An infinite sweetness shone in her eyes; she was glad to get well. The hope of seeing Jean once more added to her happiness. Naturally, I encouraged her in her joyous thoughts. I said:
"We will receive news one of these days. Neighbour such a one also expects to hear from her son; it cannot be long now. The mails were stopped during the war, the letters are lying at the offices. The Germans wanted to discourage us. Now that the armistice is signed we will get our letters."
The satisfaction of learning such good news brightened her countenance.
I did not let her go to the city; I took the basket myself and went to get our provisions; the market women knew me.
"It is the old brigadier," they would say; "whose pretty daughter is sick. They are alone. It is he who comes now."
None of them ever sold me their vegetables at too high a price.
XXXIX
I thought no longer of the affairs of the country. I only wanted to save my daughter; the rumours of elections, of the National Assembly at Bordeaux, no longer interested me; my only thought was:
"If Marie-Rose only lives!"
So passed the end of January, then came the treaty of peace: we were deserted! And from day to day the neighbours received news from their sons, from their brothers, from their friends, some prisoners in Germany, others in cantonments in the interior; but for us not a word!
I went to the post-office every morning to see if anything had come for us. One day the postmaster said to me:
"Ah! it is you. The postman has just gone. He has a letter for you."
Then I hastened hopefully home. As I reached the door the postman left the alley and called to me, laughing:
"Hurry up, Father Frederick, you have got what you wanted this time: a letter that comes from the Army of the Loire!"
I went up stairs four steps at a time, with beating heart. What were we about to hear? What had happened during so many weeks? Was Jean on the road to come and see us? Would he arrive the next day – in two, three, or four days?
Agitated by these thoughts, when I got up stairs my hand sought for the latch without finding it. At last I pushed open the door; my little room was empty. I called:
"Marie-Rose! Marie-Rose!"
No answer. I went into the other room; and my child, my poor child was lying there on the floor, near her bed, white as wax, her great eyes half open, the letter clutched in her hand, a little blood on her lips. I thought her dead, and with a terrible cry I caught her up and laid her on the bed. Then, half wild, calling, crying, I took the letter and read it with one glance.
See, here it is! Read it, George, read it aloud; I know it by heart, but it does not matter, I like to turn the knife in the wound; when it bleeds it hurts less.
"MY DEAR MARIE-ROSE: Adieu! I shall never see you more. A bursting shell has shattered my right leg; the surgeons have had to amputate it. I will not survive the operation long. I had lain too long on the ground. I had lost too much blood. It is all over. I must die! Oh! Marie-Rose, dear Marie-Rose, how I would like to see you again for one instant, one minute; how much good it would do me! All the time I lay wounded in the snow I thought only of you. Do not forget me either; think sometimes of Jean Merlin. Poor Mother Margredel, poor Father Frederick, poor Uncle Daniel! You will tell them. Ah! how happy we would have been without this war!"
The letter stopped here. Underneath, as you see, another hand had written: "Jean Merlin, Alsatian. Detachment of the 21st Corps. Silly-le-Guillaume, 26th of January, 1871."
I took this all in with one look, and then I continued to call, to cry, and at last I fell into a chair, utterly exhausted, saying to myself that all was lost, my daughter, my son-in-law, my country – all, and that it would be better for me to die, too.
My cries had been heard; some people came up stairs, Father and Mother Michel, I think. Yes, it was they who sent for the doctor. I was like one distracted, without a sign of reason; my ears were singing; it seemed to me that I was asleep and was having a horrible dream.
Long after the voice of Dr. Carrière roused me from my stupor; he said:
"Take him away! Do not let him see this! Take him away!"
Some people took me by the arms; then I grew indignant, and I cried:
"No, sir; I will not be taken away! I want to stay, she is my daughter! Have you children, that you tell them to take me away? I want to save her! I want to defend her!"
"Let him alone," said the doctor, sadly; "let the poor fellow alone. But you must be silent," he said to me; "your cries may kill her."
I fell back in my seat, murmuring:
"I will not cry out any more, sir; I will say nothing. Only let me stay by her; I will be very quiet."
A few minutes after, Dr. Carriére left the room, making a sign to the others to withdraw.
A great many people followed him, a small number remained. I saw them moving to and fro, arranging the bed and raising the pillows, whispering among themselves. The silence was profound. Time passed. A priest appeared with his assistants; they began to pray in Latin. It was the last offices of the church. The good women, kneeling, uttered the responses.
All disappeared. It was then about five o'clock in the evening. The lamp was lighted. I rose softly and approached the bed.
My daughter, looking as beautiful as an angel, her eyes half open, still breathed; I called her in a whisper: "Marie-Rose! Marie-Rose!" crying bitterly as I spoke.
It seemed every minute as if she was about to look at me and answer, "Father!"
But it was only the light that flickered on her face. She no longer stirred. And from minute to minute, from hour to hour, I listened to her breathing, which was growing gradually shorter and shorter. I looked at her cheeks and her forehead, gradually growing paler. At last, uttering a sigh, she lifted her head, which was slightly drooping, and her blue eyes opened slowly.
A good woman, who was watching with me, took a little mirror from the table and held it to her lips; no cloud dimmed the surface of the glass; Marie-Rose was dead.
I said nothing, I uttered no lamentations, and I followed like a child those who led me into the next room. I sat down in the shadow, my hands on my knees; my courage was broken.
And now it is ended. I have told you all, George.
Need I tell you of the funeral, the coffin, the cemetery? and then of my return to the little room where Marie-Rose and I had lived together; of my despair at finding myself alone, without relations, without a country, without hope, and to say to myself, "You will live thus always – always until the worms eat you!"
No, I cannot tell you about that; it is too horrible. I have told you enough.
You need only know that I was like a madman, that I had evil ideas which haunted me, thoughts of vengeance.
It was not I, George, who cherished those terrible thoughts; it was the poor creature abandoned by heaven and earth, whose heart had been torn out, bit by bit, and who knew no longer where to lay his head.
I wandered through the streets; the good people pitied me; Mother Ory gave me all my meals. I learned that later. Then I did not think of anything; my evil thoughts did not leave me; I talked of them alone, sitting behind the stove of the inn, my chin on my hands, my elbows on my knees, and my eyes fixed on the floor.
God only knows what hatred I meditated. Mother Ory understood all, and the excellent woman, who wished me well, told M. d'Arence about me.
One morning, when I was alone in the inn parlour, he came to talk things over with me, reminding me that he had always shown himself very considerate towards me, that he had always recommended me as an honest man, a good servant, full of zeal and probity, in whom one could repose perfect trust, and that he hoped it would be that way till the end; that he was sure of it; that a brave, just man, even in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, would show himself the same that he was in prosperity; that duty and honour marched before him; that his greatest consolation and his best was to be able to say to himself: "I am cast down, it is true; but my courage remains to me; my good conscience supports me; my enemies themselves are forced to confess that fate has been unjust to me."
He talked to me in this manner for a long time, pacing up and down the room; and I, who had not shed a tear at my daughter's funeral, I burst out crying.
Then he told me that the time had come to depart; that the sight of the Prussians only embittered my nature; that he would give me a letter of recommendation for one of his intimate friends in Paris; that I would obtain there a situation with a small salary, either on the railway or elsewhere; and that in this way, when my pension was paid to me, I could live in peace, not happy, but far from all that reminded me unceasingly of my misfortunes.
I was ready to do anything that he wished, George, but he wanted nothing but for my own good.
So I set out, and for the last three years I have been one of the superintendents of the Eastern Railway Station.
XL
When I arrived in the midst of the great confusion after the siege, I had the pain of seeing a terrible thing, the recollection of which adds to my suffering – Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen. The great city was in flames, and the Prussians outside looked at this sight with a barbarous joy.
"There is no longer any Paris," they said; "no longer any Paris."
The horrible envy that gnawed these people was satisfied.
Yes, I have seen that! I thought that it was all over with us; I shuddered at it. I cried, "The Almighty has determined that France shall descend into the abyss!"
But that, thanks to Heaven, has also passed away. The recollection remains; let us hope that it will never perish.
And that was not all. After these great calamities I was obliged to witness, as I fulfilled the duties of my post, pass, day by day, before my eyes, the great emigration of our brothers of Alsace and Lorraine; men, women, children, old men, by thousands, going to earn their living far from their native land – in Algeria, in America, everywhere.
Our poor countrymen all recognised me by my face; they said, "He is one of our people."
The sight of them does me good also; it is like a breath from one's native land of good and wholesome air. We shook hands. I pointed them out the hotel where one can live cheaply; I rendered them all the little services that one can render to friends of a day, who will retain a kind remembrance of him who held out his hand to them.
And in the evening, when I went back to my little room under the roof, and thinking about these things, I am still glad at not being quite useless in this world; it is my only consolation, George; sometimes this thought gives me a good night's rest.
Other days, when the weather is gloomy, when it rains, when it is cold, or when I have met in the street the bier of a young girl, with its white wreath, then sad thoughts get the upper hand. I wrap my old cloak around me when my work is over, and I wander aimlessly through the streets, among the people who are all occupied by their own affairs and pay no attention to any one. I walk very far, sometimes to the Arc de Triomphe, sometimes to the Garden of Plants, and I return utterly exhausted. I fall asleep, trying not to think of the happy days of the past, for those remembrances make my heart throb even in a dream, and suddenly I awake, covered with perspiration, and crying:
"All is over. You have no longer a daughter. You are alone in the world."
I am obliged to rise, to light my lamp, and to open the window in order to calm myself a little, to soothe myself and to restore myself to reason.
Sometimes, too, I dream that I am at the forest house with Jean Merlin and Marie-Rose. I see them; I talk to them; we are happy. But when I awake – do not let us talk of it; what is ended cannot return.
Things will go on this way as long as they can. I shall not be buried with the old people, neither with Jean; nor with my daughter. We will all be scattered. This thought also gives me pain.
I must confess, George, that our brothers of Paris have received us very well; they have helped us, they have aided us in a hundred ways; they have done all that they could for us. But after such terrible disasters, they themselves having been so severely tried, the poverty was still very great; for a long time in the garrets of La Villette, of La Chapelle, and of the other suburbs, we suffered from cold and hunger.
To-day the greatest portion of the stream of emigration has passed; almost all the labourers have got work; the women and the old people have found a refuge, and the children are receiving instruction in the public schools.
Others are always coming, the emigation will last as long as the annexation, for Frenchmen cannot bow their heads like the Germans under the Prussians' despotism, and the annexation will last long if we continue to dispute over party questions instead of uniting together in the love of our fatherland.
But do not let us speak of our dissensions; that is too sad.
The only thing that I have still to say to you before ending this sorrowful story is, that in the midst of my misfortunes, I do not accuse the Almighty; no, the Almighty is just; we deserve to suffer. Whence came all our misfortunes? From one man who had taken an oath before God to obey the laws, and who trampled them under his feet, who had those killed who defended them, and transported far away to the islands thousands of his fellow beings whose courage and good sense he feared. Well, this man we approved of; we voted for him, not once but twenty times; we took, so to speak, his evil actions upon ourselves; we threw aside justice and honour; we thought, "Interest does everything; this man is shrewd; he has succeeded; we must support him."
When I remember that I voted for that wretch, knowing that it was not just, but afraid of losing my place, when I remember that, I cry, "Frederick, may God forgive you! You have lost everything, friends, relatives, country – everything. Confess that you deserved it. You were not ashamed to support the man who caused thousands of Frenchmen, as honest as yourself, also to lose their little all. You voted for strength against justice; you must bow beneath the law that you accepted. And, like millions of others, you, too, gave that man the right to declare war; he did so. He staked you, your country, your family, your possessions, those of all Frenchmen in the interests of his dynasty, without thinking of anything, without reflecting or taking any precautions; he lost the game. Pay and be silent. Do not reproach the Almighty with your own stupidity and injustice; beat your breast and bear your iniquity." That is what I think.
May others profit by my example; may they always nominate honest people to represent them; may honesty, disinterestedness and patriotism come before anything else; people who are too cunning are often dishonest, and people who are too bold, who do not fear to cry out against the laws, are also capable of upsetting them and of putting their own will in the place of them.
That is the best advice to be given to the French; if they profit by it all will go well, we will regain our frontiers; if they do not profit by it, that which happened to the Alsatians and Lorrainers will happen to them also, province by province; they may repent, but it will be too late.
As to the Germans, they will reap what they have sown. Now they are at the pinnacle of power; they made all Europe tremble, and they are foolish enough to rejoice at it. It is very dangerous to frighten every one; we learned it at our own expense; they will learn it in their turn. Because Bismark has succeeded in his enterprises, they look upon him as a kind of a god; they will not see that this man employed only dishonest means: strategy, lies, espionage, corruption and violence. Nothing is ever firm that is erected on such a foundation.
But to tell all this or nothing to the Germans would come to the same thing; they are intoxicated by their victories, and will only awake when Europe, wearied by their ambition and by their insolence, will rise to bring them to reason; then they will be forced to acknowledge, as we have acknowledged ourselves, that, if strength sometimes overwhelms right, justice is eternal.
