He fell back on to the pillow in another flood of tears. It was an irresistible nervous reaction, an all-destroying collapse, one of those sudden plunges into despair and contempt for the world and for himself to which he was so often subject. Knowing him well, his sister remained calm.
‘It would be very wrong, Maurice dear, to desert your post at the moment of danger.’
He sat up with a jerk.
‘All right, give me my gun and I’ll blow my brains out, it will be quicker.’
He pointed to Weiss, standing still and silent.
‘You see, he’s the only sensible one, yes, he’s the only one who has seen clearly… Do you remember, Jean, what he was saying to me outside Mulhouse a month ago?’
‘That’s quite true, he said we should be beaten.’
They recalled the scene, that night of anxiety, that nerve-racking wait during which all the disaster of Froeschwiller could already be sensed in the dismal sky, while Weiss was voicing his misgivings – Germany well prepared, better led, aroused in a great burst of patriotism, France in disarray, a prey to disruption, unprepared and distraught, with neither the commanders, nor the men nor the weapons needed. Now the dreadful prophecy was coming true.
Weiss’s hands trembled as he raised them. His amiable face expressed the deepest grief.
‘Oh, I don’t feel at all triumphant about being right! I’m not very bright, but it was so obvious when you knew how things were… But all the same, if we are beaten we can kill some of those accursed Prussians. That is the one consolation, I still don’t think we shall get out of this, and I want some Prussians not to get out of it either, heaps of Prussians, enough to cover all that land over there!’
He stood up and waved his arm over the whole valley of the Meuse. There was a flame in those bulging, short-sighted eyes that had disqualified him for military service.
‘God, yes, I’d fight if I was free! I don’t know whether it’s because they are now masters in my own part of the country, in Alsace where already the Cossacks had done so much harm before, but I can’t think of them and visualize them here without at once being seized with a furious desire to make a dozen of them bleed to death… Oh, if I hadn’t been turned down on medical grounds, if I were a soldier!’
Then, after a pause:
‘But then, who knows?’
It was the rebirth of hope, the need to believe victory was always possible, held even by the most disillusioned. Maurice, already ashamed of his tears, listened and clung anew to this dream. And indeed, only yesterday hadn’t a rumour run round that Bazaine was at Verdun? Fortune owed a miracle to this France she had made glorious for so long. Henriette had slipped away in silence and when she returned she was not surprised to see her brother up and dressed and ready to go. She insisted on seeing them both eat something. They had to sit down at the table, but each mouthful stuck in their throats and made them feel sick, heavy as they still were with sleep. Being a man of foresight, Jean cut a loaf in two, and put half in Maurice’s pack and half in his own. It was getting dark, they must go. Henriette, standing by the window looking out at the Prussian troops in the distance on La Marfée, the black ants ceaselessly on the move and now gradually disappearing in the growing darkness, let an involuntary moan escape her:
‘Oh war, how atrocious war is!’
Thereupon Maurice teased her, taking his revenge:
‘What, little sister, you urge us to fight and then curse war?’
She turned round and flung at him, valiant as ever:
‘It’s true, I loathe it and think it’s unjust and horrible… Perhaps it’s simply because I am a woman. These killings make me sick. Why can’t they talk it out and come to an understanding?’
Jean, good fellow that he was, nodded in agreement. Nothing seemed easier to him, as a plain, uneducated man, than for everybody to come to terms so long as they produced good reasons. But Maurice, back in his scientific world, was thinking of war as a necessity, war like life itself, the law of the universe. Wasn’t it man, a soft-hearted creature, who introduced the conception of justice and peace, whereas impassive nature is nothing but a continual fight to the death?
‘Come to an understanding!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, centuries from now! If all the peoples formed only one nation you might just conceive the coming of that golden age, but even then wouldn’t the end of war mean the end of humanity?… I was silly just now, we must fight since it is the universal law.’
But then he too smiled and took up Weiss’s phrase.
‘But then, who knows?’
Once again the morbid exaggeration of his highly strung nature made him give in to unquenchable illusion and a need for deliberate blindness.
‘By the way,’ he went on gaily, ‘what about cousin Gunther?’
‘Cousin Gunther?’ said Henriette. ‘But he belongs to the Prussian Guard… Are they in these parts?’
Weiss made a gesture of ignorance, and so did the two soldiers, who couldn’t say, since even the generals themselves had no idea what enemy forces they had opposite them.
‘Let’s be off, I’ll show you the way,’ he said. ‘I found out just now where the 106th is camping.’
Then he told his wife that he would not come back, but go and sleep at Bazeilles. He had recently bought a cottage there that he had just made ready for them to use until the cold weather began. It was next door to a dyeworks belonging to Monsieur Delaherche. He was worried about the provisions he had already stored in the cellar, a cask of wine, two sacks of potatoes, and was sure, he said, that marauders would loot the place if it stayed empty, but he would probably keep it safe if he slept in it that night. While he was talking his wife looked him straight in the eyes.
‘Don’t you worry,’ he went on with a smile, ‘all I want to do is to keep an eye on our few sticks of furniture. I promise you that if the village is attacked or there is the slightest danger I shall come back at once.’
‘You go,’ she said. ‘But come back or else I shall come and fetch you!’
As they were leaving Henriette kissed Maurice tenderly. Then she put out her hand to Jean and held his in her own for a few seconds, in a friendly grip.
‘I am putting my brother in your charge again. Yes, he has told me how good you have been to him and I love you for it!’
He was so embarrassed that all he could do was squeeze her strong little hand in return. Once again he felt the impression he had had when they first came, of Henriette with hair like ripe corn and so blithe and gay in her unobtrusive way that she filled the air round her with a kind of caress.
Down below they were back in the dark Sedan of the morning. Already the narrow streets were melting into the dusk, and the roadways were cluttered up with mysterious activity. Most of the shops were shut, and houses seemed dead, whereas out in the open there was an appalling crush. But still they had managed without too much difficulty to get to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville when they ran into Delaherche, who was wandering about to see what he could see. He at once exclaimed how delighted he was to see Maurice, told them how he had just taken Captain Beaudoin back to Floing where his regiment was, and his usual self-satisfaction increased when he heard that Weiss was going to sleep out at Bazeilles, for as he had just told the captain, he had made up his mind to spend the night there at his dyeworks, just to keep an eye on things.
‘Weiss, we’ll go there together, but first let us go down to the Sub-Prefecture where we might catch a glimpse of the Emperor.’
Ever since he had nearly spoken to him at the Baybel farmhouse, he could think of nothing but Napoleon III, and eventually he roped in the two soldiers as well. Only a few groups of people were standing about on the Place de la Sous-Préfecture and talking softly to each other, but scared-looking officers dashed through every few minutes. The colour of the trees was already fading into a dreary shadow, and to the right the sound of the Meuse could be heard as it flowed noisily past the buildings. In the crowd it was being said that the Emperor, who had
decided to leave Carignan much against his will at eleven o’clock on the night before, had absolutely refused to push on as far as Mézières, because he wanted to stay in the danger zone and not demoralize the troops. Others said that he was no longer there but had fled, leaving by way of a substitute one of his lieutenants wearing his uniform, whose striking personal resemblance took the army in. Others swore on their word of honour that they had seen vehicles loaded with the imperial treasure going into the garden of the Sub-Prefecture – a hundred million in gold, in brand-new twenty-franc pieces. The truth was that it was merely the paraphernalia of the Emperor’s household, the passenger coach, the two carriages, the dozen vans which had caused such a stir as they went through the villages of Courcelles, Le Chêne, Raucourt, and had grown in popular imagination until they had become an immense train of vehicles which had brought the army to a standstill and had at last landed up here, accursed and ashamed, concealed from all eyes behind the lilac bushes of the Sub-Prefecture.
Near Delaherche, who was on tiptoe watching the ground-floor rooms, an old woman, some poor charwoman from near-by, with bent body and knotted, work-stained hands, was mumbling between her teeth:
‘An Emperor… I’d like to see one… yes, just for the sake of seeing…’
Suddenly Delaherche seized Maurice’s arm, exclaiming:
‘Look, there he is!… See, there in the left-hand window… Oh no, I’m making no mistake, I saw him yesterday quite near… He lifted the curtain, yes, that pale face pressed against the window-pane.’
The old woman had overheard and stood open-mouthed. It was indeed, pressed against the window-pane, a wraith with a cadaverous face, lack-lustre eyes, drawn features and a colourless moustache, in this final torture. And the old girl, quite taken aback, turned away at once and walked off with a gesture of sovereign contempt.
‘That an Emperor? Well, of all the sillies!’
A Zouave was there too, one of the soldiers on the loose and in no hurry to get back to the corps. He waved his rifle, swearing and spitting out threats, and said to a mate:
‘Just wait a minute while I put a bullet through his fucking head!’
Delaherche intervened in great indignation. But the Emperor had already disappeared. The loud swash of the Meuse went on and an unspeakably doleful moan seemed to have passed by in the deepening shadows. Other vague sounds could be heard far away. Was it the terrible order: March on! March on! shouted from Paris, which had hounded this man on from stage to stage, dragging the irony of his imperial escort along the roads of defeat until he was now cornered in the frightful disaster he had foreseen and come deliberately to meet? How many decent, ordinary people were about to die through his fault, and what an utter breakdown of this sick man’s whole being, this sentimental dreamer, silent while dully awaiting his doom!
Weiss and Delaherche took the two soldiers as far as the plateau of Floing.
‘Good-bye,’ said Maurice, embracing his brother-in-law.
‘No, no! Au revoir, good gracious me!’ cried Delaherche in his jolliest manner.
Jean, with his instinctive sense of direction, at once found the 106th, whose tents were aligned up the slope to the plateau behind the cemetery. It was now almost dark, but you could still make out the roofs of the town in great dark masses, and beyond them Balan and Bazeilles in the fields opening out as far as the line of hills from Remilly to Frénois; to the left stretched the black patch of the Garenne woods and down on the right gleamed the pale ribbon of the Meuse. For a moment Maurice watched the huge panorama vanish into the darkness.
‘Ah, here comes the corporal!’ said Chouteau. ‘Has he come back with the rations?’
A buzz of conversation arose. All through the day the men had been coming back singly or in dribs and drabs and in such confusion that the officers had given up even asking for explanations. They kept their eyes shut and were glad to welcome those who consented to return.
As a matter of fact Captain Beaudoin had only just got back, and Lieutenant Rochas had only returned at about two o’clock with the straggling company reduced by two thirds. Now it was more or less up to strength. Some of the soldiers were drunk, others were still famished, not having been able to scrounge a bit of bread. And once again rations had not turned up. Loubet, however, had contrived to cook some cabbages pinched from a garden somewhere, but he had neither salt nor fat and their stomachs were still crying out for something to eat.
‘Come on, corporal, you’re a sly one, you are!’ Chouteau repeated with a leer. ‘Oh, it’s not for myself, I’ve had a very good meal with Loubet at a lady’s house.’
Anxious faces looked towards Jean, the squad had been waiting, especially Lapoulle and Pache, the unlucky ones, who hadn’t picked anything up, counting on him, for he could have got flour out of a stone, as they put it. So Jean, moved with pity and conscience-stricken at having abandoned his men, divided between them the half loaf he had in his pack.
‘Oh Christ, oh Christ!’ Lapoulle kept on saying as he chewed, finding no other word in his growl of satisfaction, while Pache said under his breath a Paternoster and an Ave to make sure that God would send him his daily bread again tomorrow.
The bugler Gaude had blown roll-call at full blast, but not retreat, and the camp fell at once into deep silence. And it was then, when he had checked that his half-section was complete, that Sergeant Sapin, with his sickly-looking face and screwed-up nose, said quietly:
‘There will be a lot missing this time tomorrow.’
As Jean looked at him he added with quiet certainty, gazing far away into the darkness:
‘Oh, as for me, I shall be killed tomorrow.’
By now it was nine, and the night looked like being bitterly cold, for the mists had risen off the Meuse, hiding the stars. Maurice, lying beside Jean under a hedge, shivered and said they would do well to go and lie down in the tent. But neither of them could get to sleep, for since the rest they had had they were more tired and aching than ever. They envied Lieutenant Rochas near them who, scorning any cover, and simply wrapped in a blanket, was snoring like an old campaigner on the wet ground. Then for a long time they watched with interest the little candle flame burning in a large tent where the colonel and some officers were sitting up late. All the evening Monsieur de Vineuil had looked very worried because he had had no orders for the following morning. He felt his regiment was exposed too far forward, although he had already drawn back and abandoned the forward outpost occupied that morning. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles had not been seen – he was said to be ill in bed at the Hôtel de la Croix d’Or, and the colonel had to decide to send an officer to warn him that the new position looked dangerous, the 7th corps being so spread out because it was obliged to defend too long a line from the loop of the Meuse to the Garenne woods. It was certain that the battle would begin with the daylight, so there were not more than seven or eight hours of this great black calm left. Maurice was very surprised to see, as the little glimmer of light in the colonel’s tent went out, Captain Beaudoin pass quite close to him, skirting the hedge with furtive steps, and disappear in the direction of Sedan.
The night steadily thickened as the vapours rising from the river obscured everything in a dismal fog.
‘Are you asleep, Jean?’
He was, and so Maurice was alone. The thought of joining Lapoulle and the others in the tent made him feel sick and tired. He listened to their snores answering those of Rochas, and felt envious. It may well be that if great captains sleep soundly on the eve of a battle it is simply because they are tired out. Nothing could now be heard coming from the great camp, lost in the darkness, but the heavy breath of sleep, a gigantic but gentle breathing. Nothing really existed clearly, he only knew that the 5th corps must be camping down there beneath the ramparts, that the 1st stretched from the Garenne woods to the village of La Moncelle, while the 12th, over on the other side of the town, was occupying Bazeilles; and everything was asleep, and the slow pulse of sleep was coming from the first tents to
the last from the intangible depths of shadow over more than a league. Then beyond all that there was another unknown, and its sound also sometimes reached his ears, so distant, so soft that he might have thought it was just a noise in his own ears – a far away galloping of cavalry, a muffled roar of cannon, but above all a heavy tramp of marching men, the procession up there of the black human ant-hill, the invasion, the enveloping that even night itself could not halt. Were there not somewhere over there fires going out, occasional voices calling, a great and ever growing anguish pervading this last night as they all waited in terror for the day?
Maurice’s groping hand had found Jean’s, and only then did he fall asleep, reassured. Nothing was left but one distant bell in Sedan, tolling the hours one by one.
PART TWO
1
AT Bazeilles, in the dark little room, a sudden shock made Weiss leap out of bed. He listened. It was gunfire. He felt for the candle, which he had to light so as to see the time by his watch: four o’clock and only just beginning to get light. He seized his spectacles and looked up and down the main street, the Douzy road which runs through the village, but it was filled with a kind of thick dust and he could not make anything out. So he went into the other room, the window of which looked over on to the fields towards the Meuse, and he realized that the morning mists were coming off the river and obscuring the horizon. The gunfire was louder from over the river, beyond this veil. Suddenly a French battery replied, so near and with such a din that the walls of the little house shook.
The Weisses’ house was about in the centre of Bazeilles, on the right before you reach the Place de l’Eglise. The front, standing a little back, faced the road and had only one storey above the ground floor with three windows, and a loft above, but there was quite a large garden behind which sloped down to the meadows and from which could be seen the immense panorama of the hills from Remilly to Frénois. Weiss, in the excitement of new ownership, had not gone to bed until nearly two after he had buried all the provisions in his cellar and worked out how to protect the furniture as well as possible from bullets by draping the windows with mattresses. He felt anger rising within him when he reflected that the Prussians might come and sack this house he had longed for so much, acquired with so much difficulty and so far enjoyed so little.