XXX
You know, George, how much bad weather adds to one's melancholy. It was sleeting, the great ruts full of water were ruffled by the wind. Dr. Simperlin and I walked for a long time in silence, one behind the other, taking care to avoid the puddles in which one could sink up to his knees.
Farther on, after having passed the Biechelberg, on the firmer ground of the forest, I told the doctor about the offers that the Oberförster had made to us, and the refusal of all our guards except Jacob Hepp; of our leaving the forest house, and of our little establishment at Ykel's, in a cold corner of the wretched inn, under the rocks, where the grandmother had not ceased to cough for six weeks.
He listened to me with bent head, and said at the end that it was very hard to leave one's home, one's fields, one's meadows, and the trees that one has planted; but that one should never draw back before one's duty; and that he also was about to leave the country with his wife and children, abandoning his practice, the fruit of his labour for many years, so as not to become one of the herd of King William.
Talking thus, about three o'clock, we reached the wretched tavern of Graufthal. We ascended the little staircase. Marie-Rose had heard us; she was at the door, and hastened to offer a chair to Dr. Simperlin.
The doctor looked at the black beams of the ceiling, the narrow windows, the little stove, and said:
"It is very small and very dark for people accustomed to the open air."
He was thinking of our pretty house in the valley, with its large, shining windows, its white walls. Ah! the times had changed sadly.
At last, having rested for a few minutes, to get his breath, he said:
"Let us go see the invalid."
We entered the little side room together. The day was declining; we had to light the lamp, and the doctor, leaning over the bed, looked at the poor old woman, saying:
"Well, grandmother Anne, I was passing by Graufthal, and Father Frederick beckoned me in; he told me that you were not very well."
Then the grandmother, entirely aroused, recognised him and answered:
"Ah! it is you, M. Simperlin. Yes, yes; I have suffered, and I suffer still. God grant it will soon be over!"
She was so yellow, so wrinkled and so thin, that one thought when one looked at her:
"Good heavens, how can our poor lady continue to exist in such a condition!"
And her hair, formerly gray, now white as snow, her hollow cheeks, her eyes glittering, and a forehead all shrivelled with wrinkles, made her, so to speak, unrecognisable.
The doctor questioned her; she answered very well to all his questions. He listened with his ear at her chest, and then at her back, while I held her up. At last he said, smiling:
"Well, well, grandmother, we are not yet in danger. This bad cold will pass away with the winter; only you must keep yourself warm, and not give way to sad thoughts. You will soon return to the forest house; all this cannot last."
"Yes, yes," said she, looking at us. "I hope that all will come right; but I am very old."
"Bah! when one has kept up like you, is one old? All this has been caused by a draught; you must take care of draughts, Mlle. Marie-Rose. Come, keep up your courage, grandmother."
So said the doctor; the grandmother seemed a little reassured.
We left the room, and outside, when I was questioning him and my daughter was listening, Dr. Simperlin asked me:
"Shall I speak before Mlle. Marie-Rose?"
"Yes," I answered, "for my poor daughter takes care of the invalid, and she ought to know all; if the illness is serious, if we are to lose the last creature who loves us and whom we love – well, it is always best to know it beforehand, than to be struck by the misfortune without having been warned."
"Well," said he, "the poor woman is ill not only because of her old age, but principally because of the grief which is sapping her constitution. She has something preying upon her mind, and it is that which makes her cough. Take care not to grieve her; hide your troubles from her. Always look gay before her. Tell her that you have strong hopes. If she looks at you, smile at her. If she is uneasy, tell her it is nothing. Let no one come in, for fear they should tell her bad news; that is the best remedy I can give you."
While he spoke, Marie-Rose, who was very much alarmed, was coughing behind her hand, with a little hacking cough; he interrupted himself, and, looking at her, he said:
"Have you coughed like that for any length of time, Mlle. Marie-Rose?"
"For some time," she answered, flushing.
Then he took her arm and felt her pulse, saying as he did so:
"You must be careful and look after yourself, too; this place is not healthy. Have you fever at nights?"
"No, sir."
"Well, so much the better; but you must take care of yourself; you must think as little as possible of sad things."
Having said that, he took his hat from my bed and his cane from the corner, and said to me, as we were descending the stairs together:
"You must come to the city to-morrow, and you will find a little bottle at the shop of Reeb, the apothecary; you must give three drops of it, in a glass of water, morning and evening, to the grandmother; it is to calm that suffocating feeling; and look after your daughter, too; she is very much changed. When I remember Marie-Rose, as fresh and as healthy as she was, six months ago, it makes me uneasy. Take care of her."
"Gracious Heavens!" said I to myself, in despair; "take care of her! Yes, yes, if I could give her my own existence; but how take care of people who are overwhelmed by fears, grief, and regrets?"
And, thinking of it, I could have cried like a child. M. Simperlin saw it, and, on the threshold, shaking my hand, he said:
"We, too, are very sick; is it not so, Father Frederick? Yes, terribly sick. Our hearts are breaking; each thought kills us; but we are men; we must have courage enough for everybody."
I wanted to accompany him at least to the end of the valley, for the night had come; but he refused, saying:
"I know the way. Go up stairs, Father Frederick, and be calm before your mother and your daughter; it is necessary."
He then went away and I returned to our apartments.
XXXI
Two or three days passed away. I had gone to the town to get the potion that the doctor had ordered from Reeb, the apothecary; the grandmother grew calmer; she coughed less; we talked to her only of peace, tranquility, and the return of Jean Merlin, and the poor woman was slowly recovering; when, one morning, two Prussian gens-d'armes stopped at the inn; as those people usually passed on without halting, it surprised me, and, a few moments later, Father Ykel's daughter came to tell me to go down stairs, that some one was asking for me.
When I went down, I found those two tall fellows, with jack-boots, standing in the middle of the room; their helmets almost touched the ceiling. They asked me if they were speaking to the person known as Frederick, formerly the brigadier forester of Tömenthal. I answered in the affirmative; and one of them, taking off his big gloves, in order to fumble in his knapsack, gave me a letter, which I read at once.
It was an order from the commander of Phalsbourg to leave the country within twenty-four hours!
You understand, George, what an impression that made on me; I turned pale and asked what could have drawn upon me so terrible a sentence.
"That is no affair of ours," answered one of the gens-d'armes. "Try to obey, or we will have to take other measures."
Thereupon they mounted their horses again and rode off; and Father Ykel, alone with me, seeing me cast down and overwhelmed by such an abomination, not knowing himself what to say, or to think, cried out:
"In the name of Heaven, Frederick, what have you been doing? You are not a man of any importance, and, in our little village, I should have thought they would have forgotten you long ago!"
I made no reply; I remembered nothing; I thought only of the grief of my daughter and of the poor old grandmother when they learned of this new misfortune.
However, at last I remembered my imprudent words at the Café Vacheron, the day of my dispute with Toubac; and Father Ykel at the first word told me that it all came from that; that Toubac had certainly denounced me; that there was only one thing left for me to do, and that was to go at once to the commander and beg him to grant me a little time, in consideration of the grandmother, over eighty years of age, seriously ill, and who would certainly die on the road. He also sent for the schoolmaster, and gave me, as Mayor of the parish, a regular attestation concerning my good qualities, my excellent antecedents, the unhappy position of our family; in short, he said all the most touching and the truest things that could be said on such an occasion. He also recommended me to go to M. Simperlin, too, and get a certificate of illness, to confirm his attestation, thinking that thus the commander would be touched and would wait till the poor old woman was well enough to travel.
In my trouble, seeing nothing else to do, I set out. Marie-Rose knew nothing of it, nor the grandmother, either; I had not the courage to announce the blow that was threatening us. To set out alone, to fly far away from those savages, who coolly plunged us into all sorts of miseries, would have been nothing to me; but the others! Ah! I dared not think of it!
Before noon I was at Phalsbourg, in a frightful state of wretchedness; all the misfortunes that crushed us rose before my eyes.
I saw the doctor, who declared simply in his certificate that the invalid, who was old, weak, and, moreover, entirely without resources, could not stand a journey, even of two hours, without dying.
"There," said he, giving me the paper, "that is the exact truth. I might add that your departure will kill her also, but that would be nothing to the commander; if this does not touch his heart, the rest would be useless also."
I went then to the commander's quarters, which were in the old government house, in the Rue du College. The humiliation of addressing supplications to rascals whom I detested was not the least of my sorrows; that I, an old French forester, an old servant of the state, gray-headed and on the point of retiring on a pension, should stoop to implore compassion from enemies as hard-hearted, as proud of their victories, gained by sheer force of numbers, as they were! However, for the grandmother, for the widow of old Burat, I could bear everything.
A tall rogue, in uniform, and with red whiskers, made me wait a long time in the vestibule; they were at breakfast, and only about one o'clock was I allowed to go up stairs. Up there another sentinel stopped me, and then, having received permission to enter a rather large room, opening on the garden of the Arsenal, I knocked at the commander's door, who told me to come in. I saw a large, red-faced man, who was walking to and fro, smoothing down the sleeves of his uniform and puffing out his cheeks in an ill-natured way. I told him humbly of my position, and gave him my certificates, which he did not even take the trouble to read, but flung them on the table.
"That has nothing at all to do with it," said he sharply; "you are described as a dangerous person, a determined enemy of the Germans. You prevented your men from entering our service; your son-in-law has gone to join the bandits of Gambetta. You boasted openly in a restaurant of having refused the offers of the Oberförster of Zornstadt; that is four times more than is necessary to deserve being turned out of doors."
I spoke of the grandmother's condition.
"Well! leave her in her bed," said he; "the order of the Kreissdirector is for you alone."
Then, without listening to me any longer, he went into a side room, calling a servant, and closed the door behind him. I went down stairs again, feeling utterly crushed; my last hope was gone; I had no other resource; I had to leave; I had to announce this bad news to my daughter, to the grandmother! I knew what would be the result of it; and, with hanging head, I went through that German doorway, the bridge, the sentinels, without seeing anything. On the glacis, at Biechelberg, all along the road through the woods and through the valley, I was as if mad with despair; I talked to myself, I cried out, looking at the trees and raising my hand toward heaven.
"Now the curse is upon us! Now pity, the disgrace of crime, the remorse of conscience are abolished! Nothing is left now but strength. Let them exterminate us, let them cut our throats! Let the rascals strangle the old woman in her bed; let them hang my daughter before the door, and as for me, let them chop me into pieces! That would be better. That would be less barbarous than to tear us from each other's arms; to force the son to abandon his mother on her death-bed!"
And I continued on my road, stumbling along. The forests, the ravines, the rocks seemed to me full of those old brigands, of those Pandoras of whom I had heard tell in my childhood; I thought I heard them singing round their fires, as they shared the plunder; all the old miseries of the time before the great revolution came back to me. The distant trumpet of the Prussians in the city that sounded its three wild notes to the echoes, seemed to me to arouse those old villains who had been reduced to dust centuries before.
XXXII
All at once the sight of the cottages of Graufthal aroused me from my dreams; I shivered at the thought that the moment was come to speak, to tell my daughter and the grandmother that I was banished, driven away from the country. It seemed to me like a sentence of death that I myself was about to pronounce against those whom I loved best in the world. I slackened my steps so as not to arrive too quickly, when, raising my eyes, after having passed the first houses, I saw Marie-Rose waiting in the dark little entry of the inn; my first glance at her told me that she knew all.
"Well, father?" said she in a low voice, as she stood on the threshold.
"Well," I answered, trying to be calm, "I must go. But you two can stay – they have granted you permission to stay."
At the same time I heard the grandmother moaning up stairs in her bed. Katel, that morning, directly after I set out, had gone up stairs to tell my daughter the bad news; the poor old woman had heard all. The news had already spread through the village; the people round us were listening; and, seeing that the blow had fallen, I told all who wished to hear how the Prussian commander had received me. The crowd of neighbours listened to me without a word; all were afraid of sharing my fate. The grandmother had heard my voice, and she called me:
"Frederick! Frederick!"
When I heard her voice, a cold perspiration broke out on my face. I went up stairs, answering:
"Here I am, grandmother, here I am! Don't cry so! It will not last long. I will come back! Now they distrust me. They are wrong, grandmother; but the others are the strongest!"
"Ah!" she cried, "you are going away, Frederick – you are going away like poor Jean. I knew that he had gone away to fight. I knew all. I will never see either of you again."
"Why not, grandmother, why not? In a few weeks I will be allowed to come back, and Jean will come back, too, after the war!"
"I will never see you again!" she cried.
And her sobs grew louder. The people, curious, and even cruel in their curiosity, had come up stairs one after another; our three little rooms were filled with them; they held their breath, they had left their sabots at the foot of the stairs; they wanted to see and hear everything; but then, seeing the poor old woman in the shadow of her great gray curtains, sobbing and holding out her arms to me, almost all hastened to go down stairs again and to return to their homes. No one was left but big Starck, Father Ykel, and his daughter, Katel.
"Grandmother Anne," said Father Ykel, "don't get such ideas into your head. Frederick is right. You must be reasonable. When peace is declared all will be right again. You are eighty-three years old and I am nearly seventy. What does that matter? I hope to see again Jean, Father Frederick, and all those who are gone."
"Ah!" said she, "I have suffered too much; now it is all over!"
And till night she did nothing but cry. Marie-Rose, always courageous, opened the cupboards and packed up my bundle, for I had no time to lose; the next day I must be on my road. She took out my clothes and my best shirts and put them on the table, asking me, in a low voice, while the grandmother continued to cry:
"You will take this, father? And that?"
I answered:
"Do as you think best, my daughter. I have no sense left to think of anything with. Only put my uniform in the bundle – that is the principal thing."
Ykel, knowing that we were pressed for time, told us not to worry about the supper, that we should sup with them. We accepted.
That evening, George, we spoke little at table. Katel was up stairs with the grandmother. And when night came, as my bundle was packed, we went to bed early.
You may readily believe that I slept but little. The moans of the grandmother, and then my reflections, the uncertainty as to my destination, the small amount of money that I could take with me, for I had to leave enough to live on at home – all these things kept me awake in spite of my fatigue and the grief that was weighing me down. And all through that long night I asked myself where I should go, what I should do, what road I should take, to whom I should address myself in order to make my living? Turning these ideas over a hundred times in my head, I at last remembered my former chief of the guards, M. d'Arence, one of the best men I had ever known, who had always liked me, and even protected me during the time that I was under his orders as a simple guard many years before; I remembered that people said that he had retired to Saint Dié, and I hoped, if I had the good luck to find him yet alive, that he would receive me well and would help me a little in my misfortune. This idea occurred to me towards morning; I thought it a good one, and I fell asleep for an hour or two. But at daybreak I was up. The terrible moment was approaching; I was scarcely out of bed, the grandmother heard me and called to me. Marie-Rose was also up; she had prepared our farewell breakfast; Ykel had sent up a bottle of wine.
Having dressed myself, I went into the grandmother's room, trying to keep up my spirits, but knowing that I would never see her again.
She seemed calmer, and, calling me to her, she threw her arms round my neck, saying:
"My son, for you have been my son – a good son to me – my son Frederick, I bless you! I wish you all the happiness that you deserve. Ah! wishes are not worth much, nor the blessings of poor people either. Without that, dear Frederick, you would not have been so unhappy."
She wept, and I could not restrain my tears. Marie-Rose, standing at the foot of the bed, sobbed silently.
And as the grandmother still held me, I said:
"See here, grandmother, your benediction and your kind words do me as much good as if you could give me all the riches of the world; it is my consolation to think that I will see you soon again."
"Perhaps we will meet again in heaven," said she; "but here on this earth I must say farewell. Farewell, Frederick, farewell."
She held me tightly embraced, kissing me with her trembling lips; and then, having released me and turned away her head, she held my hand for a minute, and, beginning to sob again, she repeated, in a low voice: "Farewell!"
I left the room; my strength failed me. In the side room I took a glass of wine and I put a piece of bread in my pocket; Marie-Rose was with me; I beckoned her to come down stairs softly, so that the grandmother should not hear our sobs at the moment of parting.
We went silently down stairs into the large lower room, where Father Ykel awaited us with some other friends; Starck, who had helped us to move from the forest house, Hulot, and some other good people.
We bade each other farewell; then in the entry I kissed Marie-Rose, as an unhappy father kisses his child, and in that kiss I wished her everything that a man can wish to the being whom he loves better than his life, and whom he esteems as one esteems virtue, courage, and goodness. And then, with my bundle slung on the end of a stick, I went away without turning my head.