‘Oh yes, oh yes.’
Then silence, and he spat very deliberately. After a pause Honoré had to go on:
‘Well, has she gone to bed?’
‘No, no.’
Finally the old man condescended to explain that he had gone as usual that morning to market in Raucourt, taking her with him in the cart. Because soldiers were going through the town that was no reason for people to give up eating meat and for business to stop. So, as always on Tuesdays, he had taken a sheep and a quarter of beef and he was finishing selling them when the arrival of the 7th corps had landed him in the middle of a terrible shindy, everybody running about and knocking each other over. So he had been afraid of somebody taking his horse and cart and had gone, not waiting for Silvine, who was doing some errands in the town.
‘Oh, she’ll get back all right,’ he concluded in his calm voice. ‘She will have taken refuge in Dr Dalichamp’s house, he’s her godfather… She’s a brave girl, for all her look of only being able to do what she’s told… Certainly she’s got lots of good points.’
Was he teasing? Or was he trying to explain why he was keeping on this girl who had come between him and his son, and that in spite of the Prussian’s child from whom she refused to be parted? Once again he cast his sly glance and laughed to himself.
‘Charlot is asleep in there, in her room, and she won’t be long, I’m sure.’
Honoré’s lips were trembling, and he looked so hard at his father that the latter resumed his walking up and down. Silence fell again, an endless silence while he automatically cut himself some more bread, still chewing. Jean went on too, without feeling any need to say a word. But Maurice had had enough to eat, and with his elbows on the table he looked round at the old sideboard and the old clock and daydreamed about the holidays he had spent at Remilly long ago with his sister. The minutes ticked by, the clock struck eleven.
‘Hell,’ he murmured, ‘we mustn’t let the others go without us.’ He went over and opened the window, and Fouchard did not object. The whole black valley was scooped out below like a rolling sea of shadows. Nevertheless, when your eyes became accustomed to it you could make out quite clearly the bridge lit by the fires on either bank. There were still cuirassiers crossing, looking in their big white cloaks like phantom riders whose horses, whipped on by a wind of terror, were walking on the water. And that went on and on endlessly, and always at the same speed like a slow-moving vision. To the right the bare hills, where the army was sleeping, were still wrapped in a death-like stillness and silence.
‘Oh well,’ went on Maurice with a gesture of despair, ‘it’ll be tomorrow morning now!’
He had left the window wide open, and old Fouchard seized his gun, cocked his leg over the rail and jumped out with the agility of a young man. For a minute or two he could be heard walking away with the regular step of a sentinel, then nothing could be heard but the distant roar of the crowded bridge. No doubt he had sat down on the roadside, feeling more secure there where he could see danger coming and be ready to leap back and defend his home.
Now Honoré was watching the clock every minute, and his nervousness was growing. It was only six kilometres from Raucourt to Remilly, hardly more than one hour’s walking for a strapping young woman like Silvine. Why wasn’t she back, for it was hours since the old man had lost her in the confusion of a whole army corps all over the place, blocking all the roads? He felt certain that some catastrophe had happened, and he visualized her caught in some horrible adventure, running panic-stricken across the fields, trampled on by horses.
Suddenly all three jumped to their feet. A sound of running feet was coming down the road, and they heard the old man loading his gun.
‘Who’s that?’ he shouted arrogantly. ‘Is it you, Silvine?’
No answer. He threatened to fire and repeated his question. Then a breathless, scared voice managed to say:
‘Yes, yes, it’s me, Monsieur Fouchard.’
Then she asked at once:
‘What about Chariot?’
‘In bed and asleep.’
‘Oh good, thank you.’
Then she gave up hurrying and fetched a deep sigh, breathing out all her anxiety and fatigue.
‘Go in through the window,’ Fouchard went on. ‘I’ve got company.’
She jumped in through the window, but stood dumbfounded when she saw the three men. In the flickering light of the candle she could be seen: very dark with thick black hair, fine large eyes which in themselves made her beautiful, set in an oval face denoting calm and steady resignation. But then the sudden sight of Honoré brought all the blood up from her heart to her cheeks; and yet she was not surprised to find him there, indeed she had been thinking of him while she was running all the way from Raucourt.
His voice failed him and he almost reeled, but put on an appearance of the utmost calm:
‘Good evening, Silvine.’
‘Good evening, Honoré.’
But then she turned away so as not to burst into tears. She smiled at Maurice, whom she recognized. Jean embarrassed her. As she felt stifled she took off the scarf she had round her neck.
Honoré went on, avoiding the affectionate terms of long ago:
‘We were worried about you, Silvine, because of all the Prussians coming.’
She suddenly went pale and her face fell, and glancing involuntarily towards the room where Chariot was asleep she gestured with her hand as though she were fending off some abominable vision, and murmured:
‘The Prussians, oh yes, yes, I saw them!’
She sank on to a chair, exhausted and then told them her story; that when the 7th corps had overrun Raucourt she had fled to the house of her godfather, Dr Dalichamp, hoping that old Fouchard would think of going there for her before he went home. The main street was jammed with such a crush of people that even a dog would not have ventured along it. She had waited patiently until about four, not too worried, making bandages with some ladies for the doctor who, thinking that they might perhaps send some wounded from Metz and Verdun if there was any fighting round there, had been busy for a fortnight fixing up a casualty station in the big room at the town hall. Some people had come and said that the station might be needed at once, and in fact by noon they had heard gunfire in the direction of Beaumont. But that was still a long way off and nobody was worried; and then all of a sudden, just as the last French soldiers were leaving Raucourt, a shell came down with a terrific noise and smashed in the roof of a house quite near. Two more followed; it was a German battery shelling the rearguard of the 7th. There were already some wounded from Beaumont at the town hall and it was feared that a shell might finish them off as they lay on straw mattresses waiting for the doctor to deal with them. Mad with terror, the wounded men got up and tried to go down into the cellars in spite of their smashed limbs which were making them scream with pain.
‘And then,’ she went on, ‘I don’t know how it happened, but there was a sudden silence… I had gone upstairs to a window looking on to the road and the open country. I couldn’t see a soul, not one red-trouser, and then I heard loud, heavy steps, and a voice shouted something and all the rifle-butts hit the ground together. There, at the end of the street, were a lot of little, dark, dirty-looking men with big ugly heads surmounted by helmets like the ones our firemen wear… I was told they were Bavarians. Then as I looked up I saw, oh, thousands and thousands of them coming along all the roads, over the fields, through the woods, in close-packed ranks, endlessly. A black invasion, like black grasshoppers, on and on, so that in no time you couldn’t see the ground for them.’
She shuddered and again made the gesture of driving the horrible memory away.
‘And then you’ve no idea what went on… It seems these men had been on the march for three days and had just been fighting like maniacs at Beaumont. So they were starving and half crazy, with their eyes popping out of their heads. The officers didn’t even attempt to hold them in check and they all broke into houses and shops, smashing
in doors and windows, breaking furniture, looking for something to eat and drink, swallowing anything that came to hand… I saw one of them in Simmonot’s, the grocer’s, ladling treacle out of a tub with his helmet. Others were gnawing at pieces of raw bacon. Others chewed flour. It had already been said that there was nothing left as our soldiers had been passing through for forty-eight hours, and yet they could still find things – hidden stores no doubt – and so went on deliberately destroying everything, thinking they were being refused food. In less than an hour grocers, bakers, butchers and even private houses had their windows smashed, cupboards rifled, cellars broken into and emptied. At the doctor’s – you just can’t imagine it – I found one great lout eating all the soap. But it was in the cellar that the real pillage went on. From upstairs you could hear them down there howling like wild beasts, breaking bottles, opening the taps of casks, and the wine gushed out with a noise like a fountain. They came up with their hands red after paddling about in all that spilt wine… And this is the sort of thing that happens when men go back to savagery: Monsieur Dalichamp tried in vain to prevent a soldier from drinking off a litre of laudanum he had discovered. That poor devil must be dead by now, he was in such agonies when I left.’
She began shaking violently, and covered her eyes with both hands so as not see any more.
‘No, no, I’ve seen too much, I can’t say another word!’
Old Fouchard, who had stayed out in the road, had come and stood by the window to listen, and this tale gave him food for thought; he had been told that the Prussians paid for everything, were they going to start thieving now? Maurice and Jean were also listening intently to all these details about the enemy that this girl had just seen, and whom they had never succeeded in setting eyes on in a whole month of war. But Honoré, lost in thought and betraying his emotions by the expression of his mouth, was only interested in her, and thinking of nothing but the old trouble that had separated them.
Just then the door of the next room opened and the child Chariot appeared. He must have heard his mother’s voice, and he ran over in his nightshirt to kiss her. Pink, fair and very chubby, he had a mop of light curly hair and big blue eyes.
Silvine was startled at seeing him so suddenly, as if taken off her guard by the picture he conjured up. Was it that she did not recognize him, this beloved child of hers, that she should now look at him in terror as though he were a nightmare come to life? She burst into tears.
‘My poor darling!’
She crushed him wildly in her arms and held him to her, while Honoré, deathly pale, saw the extraordinary likeness between Charlot and Goliath, the same square, blond head, the whole Germanic race in a lovely, healthy child, fresh and smiling. The son of the Prussian, or ‘that Prussian’, as all the jokers in Remilly called him! And here was this French mother holding him to her heart while she was still overwhelmed and haunted by the sight of the invaders!
‘Now, my poor lamb, be a good boy and come back to bed… Come along to bye-byes, sweetie.’
She carried him off. When she came back from the next room she had stopped crying and recovered her calm face, with its expression of placidity and courage.
It was Honoré who started the conversation again, in a hesitant voice:
‘And what about the Prussians?’
‘Oh yes, the Prussians… Well, they had broken up everything, and pillaged, eaten and drunk everything. They stole the linen too, towels, sheets and even curtains, which they tore into long strips to bandage their feet with. I saw some whose feet were just one raw mass, they had marched so far. In front of the doctor’s house I saw a lot of them sitting down in the gutter with their boots off and winding round their feet women’s chemises trimmed with lace, no doubt stolen from Madame Lefèvre, the wife of the manufacturer… The looting went on until the evening. Houses had no doors left, and through all the openings on the ground floor gaping on to the road you could see the remains of the furniture inside, an absolute shambles that infuriated ordinary sensible people. I was so beside myself that I couldn’t stay there any longer. They tried to keep me, saying the roads were blocked, that I would get killed for certain, but it was no use, and I left, and took to the fields on the right as soon as I got out of Raucourt. Cartloads of French and Prussians were coming in from Beaumont. Two of them passed quite close to me in the darkness and there were shouts and moans, and oh, I ran and ran over fields and through woods, I don’t remember where, but I did a big detour round Villers… Three times I hid when I thought I could hear soldiers. But I only met one woman who was running too. She was getting away from Beaumont, and she told me things that would make your hair stand on end… Anyway, here I am and feeling miserable, just miserable!’
Once again she was choked with sobs. Some obsession kept bringing her back to these things, and she repeated what the woman from Beaumont had told her. This woman, who lived in the main street of the village, had seen the German artillery going through since nightfall. Along both sides was a hedge of soldiers holding resin torches, lighting the roadway fiery red. And in the middle the stream of horses, cannon and ammunition waggons tore through at a furious gallop. It was a hell-for-leather ride to victory, a devilish hunt for French troops to finish off and do to death in some black hole. Nothing was respected, they smashed everything and simply went on. Horses that stumbled had their harness cut off at once and were rolled over, trampled on and thrown out as bits of bleeding wreckage. Some men trying to cross the road were similarly knocked down and cut to pieces by the wheels. In this hurricane the drivers, who were dying of hunger, did not stop but caught loaves of bread thrown to them while the torch-bearers held out joints of meat for them on the points of their bayonets. Then with the same points they gave the horses a dig so they reared up in terror and galloped faster still. The night went on and on and still the artillery passed through with the increasing violence of a tempest, amid frantic cheering.
In spite of listening attentively to this story Maurice, overcome with fatigue after the voracious eating, had dropped his head between his arms on the table. Jean struggled on a little longer and then he too gave in and went off to sleep at the other end. Old Fouchard had gone down the road again, and so Honoré found himself alone with Silvine who was sitting quite still now, facing the wide open window.
Then he stood up and went over to the window. The night was still immense and black, swollen as it were with the laboured breathing of the troops. But louder noises, knockings and crackings, were coming up now because the artillery was crossing down there over the half-submerged bridge. Horses were rearing, scared by the running water. Ammunition waggons slipped over to one side and had to be pushed completely into the river. As he saw this painful, slow retreat to the opposite bank which had been going on since the day before and would certainly not be completed by dawn, the young man thought of the other artillery tearing through Beaumont like a rushing torrent, overwhelming everything, pounding man and beast so as to go faster.
Honoré went up to Silvine and said softly, in the frightening darkness:
‘Are you unhappy?’
‘Oh yes, I am unhappy.’
She sensed that he was going to refer to the thing, the abominable thing, and lowered her eyes.
‘Tell me, how did it happen? I’d like to know.’
She could not answer.
‘Did he force you?… Did you consent?’
She stammered out almost inaudibly:
‘Oh God, I don’t know, I swear I don’t even know myself… But you see, it would be wrong to tell a lie, and I can’t find excuses! No, I can’t say he used force… You had gone, I was out of my mind, and the thing happened, I don’t know, I don’t know how!’
She could not go on for crying, and he, deathly pale and on the point of tears too, waited a minute. And yet the thought that she could not lie to him gave him some comfort. Then he went on questioning her, for his mind was tormented by all sorts of things he could not yet understand.
‘So F
ather has kept you on here?’
She did not even look up, but became quieter and resumed her air of brave resignation.
‘I do my job. I have never cost much for my keep, and as there is an extra mouth besides me he has taken advantage of it to cut my wages… Now it is clear that whatever he orders I’ve got to do.’
‘But what about yourself? Why have you stayed?’
That surprised her so much that she looked him in the eyes.
‘But where do you expect me to go? At any rate my little boy and I can eat here and we are left alone.’
They fell silent again but now each was looking into the other’s eyes, while in the distance down in the dark valley the noises of the crowd swelled up as the rumbling of the guns over the pontoon bridge went on and on. The darkness was rent by a loud cry, some cry of a man or beast, and infinitely sad.
‘Listen, Silvine,’ he went on slowly, ‘you sent me a letter which gave me great joy… I wouldn’t ever have come back here. But that letter, I’ve read it again this evening, and it says things that couldn’t be said better.’
At first she went white when she heard him refer to that. Perhaps he was vexed that she had dared to write, like some brazen hussy. But then as he went on explaining she blushed very red.
‘I know that you don’t believe in lying, and that’s why I believe what is on the paper…. Yes, now I quite believe it… You were right to think that if I had died in the war without seeing you again it would have been a great sorrow to me to pass away like that thinking you didn’t love me… And so, as you do still love me, as you have never loved anyone else…’
He got tongue-tied and could not find the right words, trembling with overwhelming emotion.
‘Listen, Silvine my dearest, if those Prussian swine don’t kill me, I still want you – yes, we’ll get married as soon as I’m back home.’
She jumped up, and with a cry fell into the young man’s arms. She could not speak, and all the blood in her veins seemed to be in her face. He sat down on the chair and took her on his knee.