OF THE MANY WARS FRANCE FOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH century, the Franco-Prussian War bears the distinction of being the only one in which France was invaded and occupied. Otto von Bismarck’s powerful Prussian army defeated Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, and in January 1871, Paris finally fell, after being reduced to virtual starvation. While France was occupied for only a relatively short time (the Treaty of Frankfurt ended the war on May 10, 1871), the devastating effects of this war and the humiliation of losing to the hated Prussians carved a deep groove in French culture of the era. It is the experience of the Prussian occupation of France and his own experience in the war that forms the basis for most of Maupassant’s stories about this conflict.
Maupassant was drafted into the army in July 1870 and took part in the retreat after the defeat at Sedan. He experienced many of the horrors of war firsthand, and details them with a black humor that highlights the bleak absurdity of war as seen from the ground level. For both the French and Prussian soldiers, the outcome of the war makes almost no difference, as we see in Two Friends, where one protagonist says to the other, “How stupid do you have to be to kill each other this way!”
The themes of frustration and impotence (A Duel), courage and patriotism (Mademoiselle Fifi), and a desire for revenge against the sadistic Prussian soldiers (Père Milon) permeate the stories in this section. Yet Maupassant does not lose sight of the fact that many of the Prussian soldiers are ordinary men who have no desire to fight: The Adventure of Walter Schnaffs and the depiction of the young Prussian soldiers in La Mère Sauvage are perfect examples of this.
Boule de suif, one of Maupassant’s most famous novellas, and deservedly, expertly combines many of the recurring themes here, serving as an important document of the political events and social mores of the time.
In the majority of these stories, Maupassant parodies the Prussians, who speak French with incorrect grammar and a heavy accent. The contrast between the satirical, humorous language and the serious themes provides biting irony. I have done my best to replicate this technique by transcribing a Germanic accent into the English.
THE MAJOR, THE PRUSSIAN COMMANDANT, COUNT VON FARLSBERG, was finishing reading his mail; settled back in a large tapestry-covered armchair, his boots were propped up against the elegant marble fireplace where his spurs, during the three months he had occupied the Château d’Uville, had made two holes that got deeper with every passing day.
A cup of steaming coffee sat on a small marquetry pedestal table that was stained with liquor, burnt by cigars, scratched by the conqueror’s penknife; every now and again, he would stop sharpening a pencil and carve some numbers or drawings on the beautiful piece of furniture, according to his whims.
When he had finished the letters and looked through the German newspapers his orderly brought him, he stood up and threw three or four enormous pieces of green wood onto the fire, for these gentlemen were gradually cutting down all the trees in the estate in order to keep warm. He walked over to the window.
The rain flooded down, the kind you typically have in Normandy, rain that looked as if it were being unleashed by some furious hand; it came down in great diagonal sheets that formed a kind of wall with slanted stripes, the driving, splashing rain that floods everything, the true downpour you get in the outskirts of Rouen, that chamberpot of France.
For a long time, the officer stared at the flooded lawns and the Andelle River in the distance that was overflowing its banks. He was tapping out a German waltz on the window pane when a noise made him turn around: it was his second in command, Baron von Kelweingstein, who held the rank of Captain.
The Major was an enormous man with broad shoulders and a long beard that spread out and covered his chest like a fan; his solemn, noble bearing made him look like a peacock in uniform, a peacock who carried his tail spread out over his chin. He had blue eyes that were pale and cold, and a scar on one cheek made by a sword in the war with Austria. And he had the reputation of being a decent man as well as a brave officer.
The Captain was a short, fat, red-faced man who looked as if he’d been poured into his tight uniform; his fiery beard was cut so short it was almost like stubble, and in a certain kind of light, his face looked as if he were covered in phosphorous. He’d lost two teeth one night at someone’s wedding party—he couldn’t exactly remember how—and because of this, he spat out his words, so you couldn’t always understand what he was saying. He had no hair at the very top of his head; the bald spot was surrounded by golden, shiny, curly hair, so that he looked like a monk.
The Major shook his hand and drank his cup of coffee in one gulp (his sixth of the morning), while listening to his subordinate’s report on the various incidents that had occurred; then the two of them walked over to the window, remarking on how gloomy it looked. The Major, a calm man who had a wife back home, adjusted well to everything; but the Captain, a tenacious pleasure-seeker who frequented seedy dives, and an obsessive womanizer, was furious at having been forced into celibacy in the middle of nowhere for the past three months.
Someone tapped at the door and the Captain shouted for him to come in; one of his orderlies appeared at the door; the fact that he was there meant that lunch was ready.
In the dining room, they found three lower-ranking officers: a lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two second lieutenants, Fritz Scheunaubourg1 and the Marquis Wilhem d’Eyrik, a very short dandy who was proud, brutal toward men, harsh to the people they’d beaten and as dangerous as gunpowder.
Ever since he’d arrived in France, his comrades refused to call him anything but “Mademoiselle Fifi.” The nickname was a result of his coquettish manner, his slim waist that looked as if he was wearing a corset, his pale face on which you could barely see any moustache growing, and the habit he had adopted of expressing his supreme disdain for people and things by constantly using the French phrase “fi, fi donc,”2 which he pronounced with a slight whistle.
THE DINING ROOM IN the Château d’Uville was long and majestic; its antique crystal mirrors were cracked by bullets, and its long Flemish tapestries were cut to ribbons, slashed with a sword and falling down in places: both evidence of how Mademoiselle Fifi amused himself when he had nothing better to do.
Three family portraits hung on the walls: a knight in a suit of armor, a cardinal and a judge; all three had long porcelain pipes sticking out of their mouths, so it looked like they were smoking. And in an antique frame whose gilding was worn with age, the painting of a noblewoman in a tightly corseted dress proudly displayed an enormous moustache added in charcoal.
The officers ate their lunch in virtual silence in this mutilated room that looked even gloomier in the rain, sadder in its vanquished appearance, the old oak parquet as grimy as the floor in a tavern.
After the meal, when they started smoking and drinking, they began talking about their boredom, as they did every day. Bottles of cognac and liquors were passed around, and all of them, leaning back in their chairs, kept taking sips of alcohol, never removing the long, curved stem of the pipes whose faience bowls were gaudily painted as if to attract some Hottentot.3
As soon as their glasses were empty, they would refill them with a gesture of resigned weariness. But since Mademoiselle Fifi constantly smashed his, a soldier always immediately brought him another.
A cloud of bitter smoke shrouded them, and they seemed to slump into a sad, drowsy state of drunkenness, the kind of gloomy intoxication of men with nothing to do.
Then the Baron suddenly sat up. He was shaken awake by a feeling of revolt. “For God’s sake,” he swore, “we have to think of something to do; we can’t go on like this.”
Lieutenant Otto and Second Lieutenant Fritz, both eminently endowed with the heavy, serious traits of the German race, replied at the same time: “But what, Captain?”
He thought for a few seconds. “What? Well, we should organize a party,” he continued, “that is, if the Commandant will allow it.”
The Major took the pipe out of his mouth: “What kind of party, Captain?”
The Baron walked over to him: “I’ll take care of everything, Major. I’ll send Le Devoir4 to Rouen to bring us back some women; I know where to get them. We can have dinner here; we have everything we need, and at least we’ll have a good time.”
Count von Farlsberg smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“You must be mad.”
But all the officers had stood up, surrounding their leader: “Oh, please let the Captain arrange it, Major,” they begged. “It’s so depressing here.”
In the end, the Major gave in. “Fine,” he said; and the Baron immediately called for Le Devoir. He was an old, non-commissioned officer whom no one had ever seen smile, but he fanatically carried out all the officers’ orders to the letter, whatever they were.
He stood there, impassively, taking the Baron’s instructions, then left; five minutes later, a large military wagon covered in tight canvas was hitched to four horses and galloped off in the driving rain.
The officers all suddenly felt lively; their languid bodies stood tall, their faces lit up and they started chatting.
Even though it was raining as hard as ever, the Major said it didn’t look so dark, and Lieutenant Otto declared with great conviction that it was going to clear up. Even Mademoiselle Fifi didn’t seem to be able to sit still. He got up, sat down again. His harsh, pale eyes looked around for something to break. Suddenly, staring at the Noblewoman with the Moustache, the blond young man pulled out his revolver.
“You will not see it,” he said, and from his chair, took aim. He fired twice, and two bullets pierced the eyes of the portrait.
Then he shouted: “Let’s make a mine!” which is what he called his bomb!5 And the conversations suddenly stopped, as if some powerful, new amusing idea had taken hold of everyone.
The bomb was his invention, the way he destroyed things, his favorite pastime.
When he left the château, the rightful owner, Count Fernand d’Amoys d’Uville, didn’t have time to take anything with him; the only thing he managed to hide was the silver, which he hurriedly stashed in a crevice in the wall. The dining room adjoined the large reception room, which was richly and magnificently decorated; before its owner fled, it had resembled a gallery in a museum.
Expensive paintings, drawings and watercolors hung on the walls, while the furniture, shelves and elegant display cabinets held hundreds of antiques: ornamental vases, statuettes, Dresden figurines, Chinese pagoda figures, old ivory pieces and Venetian glass, strange, precious objects that filled the enormous room.
Hardly anything was left now. Not that they had been pillaged; the Major would never have allowed that, but Mademoiselle Fifi made a bomb every now and again, and, on those days, all the officers had five minutes of good fun.
The little Marquis went into the reception room to get what he needed. He came back with a really lovely famille rose china teapot that he filled with gunpowder. Then he carefully pushed a long piece of tinder down its spout, lit it, and rushed to put his deadly toy in the adjoining room.
Then he ran quickly out, closing the door behind him. All the Germans were standing there, waiting, smiling with childish curiosity; and as soon as the explosion shook the château, they all ran in together.
Mademoiselle Fifi got there first; he clapped his hands in delight when he saw the terra-cotta Venus whose head had blown off; then they all picked up bits of porcelain, surprised and delighted by their odd, jagged shapes and examined them again, declaring that some of the damage had been done by a previous bomb, and the Major looked with a fatherly expression at the enormous reception room destroyed by these explosions in a manner worthy of Nero and strewn everywhere with fragments of fine works of art. He was the first to leave, after saying, in quite a friendly way: “It worked very well this time.”
An enormous cloud of smoke in the dining room had merged with the tobacco smoke from before, so they couldn’t breathe. The Commandant opened the window, and all the officers, who had come back to have another glass of cognac, walked over to it. The damp air rushed into the room, bringing with it the smell of floodwater and a kind of powdery mist that settled in their beards. They looked at the tall trees weighed down by the heavy flood, the wide valley covered in fog by the water unleashed from the low, dark clouds, and the church’s belltower, in the distance, rising up like a gray spike in the driving rain.
The bells had stopped ringing when they arrived. In fact, the only resistance the invaders had encountered in the region was the refusal to ring the bells. The country priest had not refused to take in or feed the Prussian soldiers, not at all; on several occasions, he had even agreed to drink a bottle of wine or beer with the enemy Commandant, who often used him as a benevolent intermediary. But there was no point in asking him to ring a single bell; he would have sooner offered to be shot. This was his own way of protesting against the invasion, by peaceful resistance, by remaining silent, the only form of resistance, he claimed, that was suitable to a priest, a man of kindness, not a bloodthirsty man; and everyone, for thirty miles around, praised the strength and heroism of Father Chantavoine, who dared proclaim the mourning of the French, who shouted it out by the stubborn silence of his church bells.
The entire village, fired up by his resistance, was prepared to support their priest to the very end, to risk anything at all, considering his tacit resistance the safeguard of their national honor. And because of this, the people of the region thought they deserved to be considered more patriotic than Belfort or Strasbourg,6 believing they had set just as good an example, and that the name of their village would become immortalized. Apart from this one thing, however, they offered no resistance at all to the Prussian conquerors.
The Commandant and his officers laughed among themselves at such harmless bravery, and since everyone in the area was adaptable and obliging toward them, they gladly tolerated their silent patriotism.
Only the little Marquis Wilhem wanted to force them to ring the bells. He was furious about his superior’s political concession to the priest, and every day he begged the Commandant to let him ring “ding-dong” once, just once, as a joke. And he made his request with the charm of a little kitten, the cajoling voice of a woman, the sweet tones of a mistress mad with desire; but the Commandant did not give in, so to console himself, Mademoiselle Fifi set off a bomb in the Château d’Uville.
The five men crowded around for a few minutes, breathing in the damp air. Then Lieutenant Fritz gave a hoarse laugh and said: “These ladies vill definitely not have a good ride in such bad weather.”
Then everyone left, as they each had to get back to their official assignments, and the Captain had a great deal to do to prepare for the dinner party.
When they met up again toward evening, they laughed at seeing how they had all spruced themselves up to look attractive, like the days on formal inspections: squeaky clean, hair slicked back, wearing cologne. The Commandant’s hair looked less gray than it had in the morning; and the Captain had shaved, keeping only his moustache, which made him look as if his upper lip was on fire.
In spite of the rain, they left the window open; and every now and then, one of them went over to see if they could hear anything. At ten past six, the Baron said he heard a wagon rumbling in the distance. Everyone rushed over; and soon the large truck arrived, its four galloping horses caked in mud, panting and foaming at the mouth.
And five women came out onto the steps, five beautiful women, carefully chosen by the Captain’s friend to whom Le Devoir had delivered the officer’s calling card.
The women hadn’t hesitated at all, certain of being well paid; they knew the Prussians, after all, as they’d been servicing them, and they had resigned themselves to the men as they did to all things. “That’s how it is in this job,” they told each other during the journey, no doubt to stifle a secret resentment in their hearts.
They all went into the dining room at once. It seemed even more dismal in its pitiful, dilapidated condition when the lights were on; and the table covered in food, on fine, silver plates they’d found in the wall where their owner had hidden them, made the scene look like a tavern where bandits would go to eat after a pillage. The Captain, absolutely delighted, grabbed hold of the women as if he knew them, complimenting them, kissing them, sniffing them, determining their worth as ladies of the night; and when the three young men wanted to take one each, he firmly refused, reserving to himself the right of handing them out fairly, according to the soldiers’ rank, in order to respect the hierarchy.
So, to avoid any discussion, objection or suspicion of partiality, he lined them up in size order, then spoke to the tallest:
“Name,” he said, making it sound like an order.
“Pamela,” she replied in a loud voice.
“Number one, the aforementioned Pamela, assigned to the Commandant,” he stated.
He immediately kissed Blondine, the second one, to indicate he was having her, then offered the chubby Amanda to Otto; Eva, the Tomato, to Second Lieutenant Fritz; and the smallest one of all, Rachel, a very young brunette with eyes as black as ink—a Jewess whose snub nose was the exception to the rule attributing hooked noses to everyone of her race—Rachel was given to the youngest officer, the frail Marquis Wilhem d’Eyrik.7
All of them, though, were pretty and plump, with no distinctive features, their looks and the way they held themselves very similar as a result of having sex every day and living in a brothel together.
The three youngest men immediately tried to get their women upstairs, using the pretext of offering them some soap and hairbrushes to freshen up; but the Captain wisely opposed this, stating that they were quite clean enough to sit down to dinner and that the men who wanted to go upstairs would want to change partners when they came back down, which would cause a problem for the other couples. His experience won out. They settled for many kisses, many kisses of anticipation.
Suddenly, Rachel started choking, coughing until her eyes watered, and smoke flowed out of her nostrils. The Marquis, pretending he wanted to kiss her, had blown tobacco smoke into her mouth. She didn’t get angry, didn’t say a word, but she stared at her owner with rage simmering deep in her dark eyes.
They sat down. Even the Commandant seemed delighted; he placed Pamela to his right, Blondine to his left, unfolded his napkin and said: “This was a charming idea of yours, Captain.”
Lieutenants Otto and Fritz, as polite as if they had been in the company of socialites, intimidated the women a little; but Baron von Kelweingstein felt right at home: he beamed, made risqué remarks and looked as if he were on fire with his crop of red hair. He flattered the women in the French of the Rhine; and his gross compliments, spluttered through the hole left by his two missing teeth, covered the young women in a spray of saliva.
In fact, they didn’t understand a word; and they did not seem to wake up until he started spitting out obscene words, crude expressions, distorted by his accent. Then all of them started laughing at the same time, laughing like mad things, falling over onto the men beside them, repeating the words the Baron had said; then he started saying them all wrong again, on purpose this time, just to hear the women say the dirty words. They gladly spewed them out, for they were drunk after the first few bottles of wine; then they got control of themselves and fell back into their usual behavior, kissing the moustaches of the men on either side of them, pinching their arms, shouting loudly, drinking from all the glasses, and singing French verses and bits of German songs they’d picked up from their daily contact with the enemy.
Soon even the men went wild, howled, smashed dishes, intoxicated by the women’s flesh they could smell and touch, while impassive soldiers stood behind to serve them.
Only the Commandant showed restraint.
Mademoiselle Fifi had Rachel on his lap, and, getting very aroused, he would sometimes passionately kiss the little dark curls that fell onto her neck, breathing in the sweet warmth of her skin and the scent of her flesh through the slight gap between her dress and her body, and sometimes pinch her brutally through the cloth, making her scream, for he was overwhelmed by ferocious rage, a vicious desire to ravage her. He often held her with both arms, pressing down on her as if to join her body to his, placing his lips on the young Jewess’s cool mouth, kissing her for so long she could hardly breathe; then, suddenly, he bit her so hard that a trickle of blood flowed down the young woman’s chin onto her bodice.
She looked hard at him again, and, dabbing water on her wound, she murmured: “I’ll make you pay for that.” But all he did was give a merciless laugh and say: “Yes, I will.”
Dessert was being served; they poured some champagne. The Commandant stood up and in the same tone of voice he might use to drink to the health of the Empress Augusta,8 he made a toast: “To our ladies!” And a round of toasts started, toasts full of the kind of compliments paid by roughnecks and drunkards, toasts filled with obscene jokes that sounded even more brutish because of the soldiers’ inability to speak the language.
They stood up, one after the other, trying to be witty, forcing themselves to be funny; and the women, who were so drunk they could barely stand up, with slurred speech and vacant expressions, applauded wildly at each one.
The Captain, wishing no doubt to give the orgy the appearance of gallantry, raised his glass again and said: “To our triumph over your hearts.”
Then Lieutenant Otto, a kind of bear from the Black Forest, stood up, drunk as a skunk, and suddenly overwhelmed by alcoholic patriotism passionately cried: “To our triumph over the French!”
As drunk as they were, all the women fell silent, but Rachel was trembling. “I know certain Frenchmen you wouldn’t dare say that to, you know,” she retorted.
But the little Marquis, who still had her sitting on his lap, started to laugh, for the wine had made him very giddy. “Ah! Ah! Ah! Well, I’ve never met any. As soon as we show up, they run away!”
The young woman, furious, shouted straight at him: “You’re lying, you bastard!”
For a moment, he stared at her with his pale eyes, the way he stared at the paintings he destroyed with his gun, then he started to laugh. “Ah! Yes, Let’s talk about those Frenchmen, my pretty! Would we even be here at all if they were really brave!” Then, getting even more worked up, he shouted: “We are the masters here! France belongs to us!”
She jumped off his lap and fell into a chair. He stood up, raised his glass toward the center of the table and said once more: “France and the French belong to us—we own their woods, their fields and all the houses in France!”
The others, completely drunk, were suddenly overwhelmed by military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes; they grabbed their glasses while shouting: “Long live Prussia!” then emptied them in a single gulp.
The young women did not protest; they were reduced to silence and overcome with fear. Even Rachel felt helpless and could find nothing to reply.
Then the little Marquis refilled his champagne glass and balanced it on the head of the Jewess, shouting: “And all the women in France belong to us as well!”
She got up so quickly that the glass tipped over, spilling the golden wine over her black hair, as if she were being baptized, before it dropped to the floor and shattered. Her lips quivering, she glowered at the officer, who was still laughing, then stammered in a voice choked with rage: “That . . . that’s not true; you won’t have all the women of France, you know.”
He sat down again so he could laugh more comfortably, and putting on a Parisian accent said: “Zat is very funny, very funny, so what are you doing here, ma chère?”
She was so stunned that she said nothing at first, so upset that she didn’t really understand him; then, once she realized what he was saying, she grew indignant and shouted vehemently: “Me! I’m not a woman; I’m a whore, and that is all you Prussians deserve.”
She had barely finished speaking when he slapped her hard across the face; when she saw him raise his arm again, she flew into a rage, grabbed a small silver dessert knife from the table and quickly—so quickly that no one saw what had happened at first—she stabbed him right in the neck, right in the hollow of his neck, just above his chest.
Something he was about to say stuck in his throat, and he sat there with his mouth gaping open and a horrible look in his eyes.
All the men let out a roar and leaped up in a panic, but she threw her chair at Lieutenant Otto’s legs, knocking him to the ground, rushed over to the window, opening it before they got to her, and ran out into the night, where the rain was still pouring down.
In two minutes, Mademoiselle Fifi was dead. Then Fritz and Otto drew their swords and wanted to kill the women, who threw themselves at their feet and clutched their legs. The Major prevented the massacre, but not without difficulty, and sent the four terrified women to be locked in a room with two guards at the door. Then he organized a party to hunt down the fugitive, as if he were ordering soldiers into combat, quite certain she would be caught.
Fifty men, fired up by threats, were sent running into the grounds. Two hundred others searched the woods and every house in the valley.
The table was cleared in a flash and used as a bed on which to lay the dead man, and the four officers, now standing upright and sober, with the harsh expression of men of war carrying out their duties, remained at the windows, trying to see whatever they could in the dark.
The torrential rain continued. An endless lapping sound filled the darkness, the murmur of flowing water that rises and falls, water that drips and then splashes up again.
Suddenly, they heard a gunshot, then another, quite far away; and for the next four hours, they could hear shots fired, some close by, some in the distance, along with calls to regroup, foreign words shouted as a rallying call in guttural voices.
Everyone returned the next morning. Two soldiers had been killed and three others wounded by their own soldiers in the heat of the chase and the confusion of their search through the darkness.
Rachel had not been found.
Then the people in the area were terrorized, their houses turned upside down, the entire region searched, the countryside scoured; they looked everywhere. The Jewess seemed not to have left a single trace of where she had gone.
The General was informed and ordered that the business be hushed up, so as not to set a bad example to the army, but he severely reprimanded the Commandant, who punished his inferiors. “We didn’t go to war for a good time and to have fun with prostitutes,” the General had said. And the frustrated Count Farlsberg swore to avenge his country.
Since he needed a pretext to act ruthlessly, he called for the country priest and ordered him to ring the bells at the funeral of the Marquis d’Eyrik.
Much to his surprise, the priest was docile, humble, considerate. And when Mademoiselle Fifi’s body left the Château d’Uville to be taken to the cemetery, carried by soldiers, followed by soldiers, surrounded by soldiers, all with loaded rifles, the church bells pealed the funeral toll for the first time, but cheerfully, at a lively pace, as if a friendly hand were caressing them.
The church bells rang again that night, and the next day, and every day; they rang as often as anyone could have wished. Sometimes, they even started ringing in the middle of the night, all by themselves, gently releasing two or three notes into the darkness, full of a strange kind of cheerfulness, awakened for some unknown reason. The townspeople believed the belltower was bewitched, and no one except the priest and the sexton dared go near it.
All this happened because a poor young woman was living up there, alone and frightened, and only the priest and the sexton secretly brought her food.
She remained there until the German troops were gone. Then, one evening, the priest borrowed the baker’s horse-drawn wagon and drove the woman he’d been hiding to the edge of Rouen. When they got there, he gave her a peck on the cheek; she got out and quickly ran back to the brothel, whose Madame thought she was dead.
A little while later, a patriotic gentleman took her away from the brothel; he held nothing against her and admired her for her good deed. Then he fell in love with her in her own right, married her and made a lady of her, as worthy as any other.
____________
1 The name “Fritz” was used in French slang to mean any German.
2 Translates roughly as “To hell with that!”
3 Contemptuous reference to a nomadic tribe from Africa.
4 Another name that is a play on words: it means “duty” or “obligation.”
5 The expression in French is faire une mine, which can mean either “let’s make a face” or “let’s make a bomb.”
6 Belfort and Strasbourg, besieged by the Prussians, had resisted for several months.
7 After the French Revolution (1789), France was the first European country to recognize Jews as equal citizens under the law. Nevertheless, in some parts of France anti-Jewish hatred was severe by the late nineteenth century. The Ligue Nationale Antisémitique de France was formed in 1889 and organized propaganda, riots and violent pogroms against local Jews. It was extremely rare for a Jewish woman to be a prostitute, and the remark about Rachel’s nose reflects the stereotyping of the time. This story, however, portrays Rachel as brave and patriotic.
8 The wife of the emperor William of Prussia.
“YOU KNOW,” SAID MONSIEUR MATHIEU D’ENDOLIN, “THESE woodcocks remind me of a very appalling story about the war.
You know my property on the outskirts of Cormeil. I was living there when the Prussians arrived.
I had a neighbor at the time who was mad; she had lost her mind after some terrible misfortunes. A long time ago, when she was twenty-five, her father, her husband and her newborn baby all died within the space of a month.
Whenever death enters a household, it returns there almost immediately, as if it recognizes the door.
The poor young woman, overwhelmed by grief, grew gravely ill, and was delirious for six weeks. Then, a kind of calm weariness followed that violent attack and she became paralyzed, hardly ate and only moved her eyes. Every time someone tried to get her to stand up, she would scream as if she were being murdered. And so they left her in her bed, only pulling her from under the sheets to wash her and turn over the mattress.
An old maid stayed with her, making her drink something from time to time, or take a few mouthfuls of cold meat. What was going through her hopeless heart? No one ever knew, for she never spoke again. Was she thinking about the dead? Was she lost in sad daydreams about nothing in particular? Or was her vacant mind as stagnant as still waters?
For fifteen years, she remained withdrawn and indifferent.
War broke out; and during the early part of December, the Prussians pushed through to Cormeil.
I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was freezing cold outside and I was stretched out in an armchair, laid up with gout, when I heard the sound of their heavy, regular marching. I could see them going by from my window.
They filed past in an endless line, in unison as always, like puppets on strings. Then their leaders sent their men to lodge with various townspeople. I had seventeen of them. My neighbor, the madwoman, had twelve, including a major, a real roughneck, violent and surly.
The first few days, everything went on as usual. They told the officer who lived next door that the woman was not well, and he barely gave it a second thought. But he soon became annoyed by this woman he never saw. He asked about her illness; they said that the woman who owned the house hadn’t left her bed for fifteen years after a severe bout of grief. He didn’t believe a word of it, no doubt, and thought that the poor madwoman refused to get out of bed so she didn’t have to see the Prussians, didn’t have to speak to them or be near them.
He demanded that she see him; he was taken into her room.
“I ask you, Madame, you vill get out from bed und come down so vee can see you,” he said sharply.
She turned her blank, vacant eyes toward him and said nothing.
“I vill not tolerate such insolence,” he continued. “If you do not get out from bed by yourself, I vill find some vay to make you.”
She remained dead still, as if she hadn’t even seen him.
He became furious, taking her calm silence as a sign of utter scorn.
“You better come down tomorrow . . .” he added.
Then he walked out.
The next day, the old maid, panic-stricken, wanted to get her dressed, but the madwoman started to scream and fight her. The officer rushed upstairs, and the servant threw herself at his knees, crying:
“She won’t, Monsieur, she won’t. Please forgive her; she is so unhappy.”
The soldier didn’t know what to do, not daring to tell his men to force her out of bed, in spite of his anger. Then suddenly, he started to laugh, and shouted out some orders in German.
Soon after, a group of soldiers was seen carrying a mattress, the way they would carry a wounded man on a stretcher. On the mattress, still with its bedding intact, was the madwoman, ever silent, ever calm, indifferent to whatever was happening, as long as she could stay in her bed. One man followed behind, carrying a bundle of women’s clothing.
And the officer rubbed his hands together and said:
“I vill make sure you get yourself dressed und go for a little valk.”
Then we saw the cortège heading for the Imauville forest.
Two hours later, the soldiers returned, alone.
No one ever saw the madwoman again. What had they done with her? Where had they taken her! No one ever knew.
SNOW FELL NOW, all day and all night, burying the plains and the woods with a shroud of icy frost. The wolves howled, coming right up to our doors.
The thought of this doomed woman haunted me; and I made several requests to the Prussian authorities to try to get some information. I nearly got myself executed.
Spring returned. The occupying forces were leaving. My neighbor’s house remained locked up; thick grass grew in the paths.
The old maid had died during the winter. No one was concerned about what had happened any more; I was the only one who thought about it constantly.
What had they done with that woman? Had she escaped through the woods? Had she been taken in somewhere, put into a hospital where they could learn nothing from her? Nothing happened to lessen my concerns, but gradually, time calmed my troubled heart.
The following autumn, the woodcocks flew by in a large group; and as my gout was not very painful at the time, I hobbled into the forest. I had already killed four or five long-billed birds when I hit one that disappeared into a ditch full of branches. I had to climb down into it to retrieve it. I found it lying next to someone’s skull.
The memory of the madwoman hit me at once, as if I’ been punched in the chest. Many others had surely died in these woods during that terrible year, yet I don’t know why I was sure, completely sure, I’m telling you, that I had found the head of that poor, miserable madwoman.
And suddenly, I understood, I could picture it all. They had left her here on her mattress, in the cold, deserted forest, and, in keeping with her obsession, she had simply let herself die beneath the thick, light blanket of snow, without moving at all.
Then the wolves had eaten her.
And the birds had made their nests with the stuffing from her torn bed.
I kept that sad skull. And I prayed that our sons would never have to experience war again.”
AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE WAR, LIEUTENANT LARÉ had captured two cannons from the Prussians. His general said: “Thank you, Lieutenant,” and awarded him the Croix d’honneur.
Since he was as modest as he was brave, skillful, creative, clever and resourceful, he was put in charge of a hundred men; he organized a group of reconnaissance scouts who saved the army on several occasions during their retreat.
But the invasion flooded in from all sides, like an ocean crashing onto the beach. Great waves of men arrived one after the other, casting marauders from their crests onto the shore. General Carrel’s brigade, separated from its division, continually had to retreat, fighting every day but suffering very few losses, thanks to the vigilance and swiftness of Lieutenant Laré, who seemed to be everywhere at once, avoided all the enemy’s traps, outwitted them, led their Uhlans1 on a wild goose chase and killed their scouts.
One morning, the General asked to see him.
“Lieutenant,” he said, “here is a dispatch from General Lacère, who will be in grave danger if we do not come to his aid by dawn. He is in Blainville, twenty-four miles from here. You will leave as soon as it is dark with three hundred men whom you will position all along the roads. I will wait two hours and then follow you. Study the route carefully; I’m afraid we might run into an enemy division.”
It had been freezing cold for a week. At two o’clock, it started snowing; by evening, the ground was covered in it, and thick, white swirls of snow hid even the objects closest to hand.
At six o’clock, the detachment set off.
Two men were sent out first, alone, as scouts, about three hundred yards ahead. Then came a platoon of ten men whom the Lieutenant commanded himself. The rest of the men followed in two long columns. Three hundred yards to each side of the small troop, to the right and to the left, a few soldiers walked in pairs.
The snow kept falling, covering the men in white powder; it didn’t melt on their clothes, and because it was dark, they blended in with the endless whiteness of the countryside.
Every now and again, they stopped. All they could hear was the faint rustling of falling snow, more a feeling than a sound, a distant whisper, sinister and difficult to make out. An order was passed along, very quietly, and when the troop started walking again, it left some men behind, ghostly, white shapes in the snow who gradually grew fainter and finally disappeared. These living signposts had to guide the army that followed.
The reconnaissance team slowed down. There was something up ahead.
“Go around to the right,” said the Lieutenant, “toward the de Ronfé woods. The château is over to the left.”
Soon the order to “Halt!” spread. The detachment stopped and waited for the Lieutenant; he went up to the château with only ten other men.
They advanced, crawling beneath the trees. Suddenly, they all stopped dead. A terrifying stillness hovered above them. Then, close by, a young woman’s voice—clear and lyrical—floated through the silent woods:
“We’re going to get lost in the snow, Father, we’ll never make it to Blainville.”
“Don’t worry, my girl,” a stronger voice replied. “I know this countryside like the back of my hand.”
The Lieutenant said a few words and four men set out, as quiet as shadows.
Suddenly, a woman’s piercing cry rose in the night. Two prisoners were led in: an old man and a very young woman. The Lieutenant questioned them, still speaking very softly.
“Name?”
“Pierre Bernard.”
“Profession?”
“Head butler to Count de Ronfé.”
“Is this your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a laundress at the château.”
“Where are you going?”
“We’re running away.”
“Why?”
“Twelve Uhlans were there tonight. They shot three guards and hung the gardener; I was afraid for my daughter.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Blainville.”
“Why?”
“Because the French army is there.”
“Do you know how to get there?”
“Absolutely.”
“Very well, come with us.”
They returned to the rest of the troop and continued walking through the fields. The old man was silent; he walked alongside the Lieutenant. His daughter walked next to him. She suddenly stopped.
“Father,” she said, “I’m so tired that I don’t think I can go on much longer.”
Then she sat down. She was shivering from the cold and looked as if she were about to die. Her father wanted to carry her, but he was too old and too weak.
“Lieutenant,” he said, sobbing, “we’re going to get in your way and slow you down. France comes first. Go on without us.”
The officer had already given an order. A few men had left. They returned with some cut-off tree branches. In a minute, they had made a stretcher. The entire detachment had joined them.
“There is a woman here dying of the cold,” said the Lieutenant. “Will anyone offer to give up his coat for her?”
Two hundred coats were offered.
“Now who wants to carry her?”
They all stretched out their arms. The young woman was wrapped up in the soldiers’ warm greatcoats and gently placed on the stretcher; then four strong arms lifted her up. And like an Oriental queen carried by slaves, she was taken to the middle of the detachment. They walked more briskly now, more courageously, more cheerfully, moved by the presence of a woman, the supreme inspiration that allowed so many prodigious events to be accomplished in the long-standing tradition of France.
After an hour, they stopped again and everyone lay down in the snow. In the distance, in the middle of the field, they could see a large, dark shape. It was like some surreal monster that grew longer, like a snake, then suddenly coiled back into a mass, darted quickly forward, stopped, and continuously changed shape. Orders were whispered and circulated among the men, and every now and then they heard the sharp, short click of metal. The moving mass was fast approaching, and they could see twelve Uhlans, one behind the other, lost in the dark, galloping quickly toward them. A bright flash of light suddenly revealed two hundred men on the ground in front of them. The sound of rapid gunfire faded away into the silent, snowy night, and all twelve of them, along with their horses, fell down dead.
The French detachment waited a long time. Then they started walking again. The old man they’d met served as their guide.
At long last, a distant voice cried out: “Who’s there!”
Someone closer by replied with the watchword.
They waited some more; discussions took place. It had stopped snowing. A cold wind swept the clouds away, and behind them, high in the night sky, countless stars were shining. They grew fainter as the sky turned pink in the east.
A staff officer arrived to welcome the detachment. When he asked who the person was being carried on the stretcher, it moved; two small hands threw off the heavy blue greatcoats, and an adorable little face appeared. It was as rosy as dawn, with eyes as bright as the stars that had now disappeared, and a smile as bright as the rising sun.
“It’s me, Monsieur,” she said.
The soldiers, wild with delight, broke out into applause and carried the young woman triumphantly back to camp, where the soldiers were taking up arms. Soon after, General Carrel arrived. At nine o’clock, the Prussians attacked. They were forced to retreat at noon.
That evening, Lieutenant Laré, utterly exhausted, was sleeping on a bale of hay when the General called to see him in his tent. He was chatting with the elderly man the Lieutenant had met during the night. As soon as Lieutenant Laré came in, the General shook his hand.
“My dear Count,” he said to the man, “here is the young man you were just telling me about. He’s one of my best officers.”
He smiled, lowered his voice and added:
“Actually, the best.”
Then, turning toward the stunned Lieutenant, he said:
“Allow me to introduce Count de Ronfé-Quédissac.”
The old man took both the Lieutenant’s hands in his.
“My dear Lieutenant,” he said, “you saved my daughter’s life and I know of only one way to thank you . . . come and see me in a few months to let me know if . . . if you find her pleasing . . .”
One year later, to the day, Captain Laré married Mademoiselle Louise-Hortense-Geneviève de Ronfé-Quédissac in the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
She brought him a dowry of six hundred thousand francs, and everyone said she was the prettiest bride they had seen all year.
____________
1 Prussian Lancers (light cavalry) who often accompanied reconnaissance parties.
PARIS WAS BESIEGED;1 STARVING, ON THE VERGE OF DEATH. There were hardly any sparrows on the rooftops and even the rats had deserted the sewers. People ate anything they could find.
One bright morning in January, Monsieur Morissot was walking sadly along a street on the outskirts of the city, his hands in the trouser pockets of his uniform;2 he was hungry. He was a watchmaker by profession and a homebody by nature. He stopped in his tracks when he suddenly ran into someone he knew. It was Monsieur Sauvage,3 a friend he had made at the riverbank while out fishing.
Every Sunday, before the war, Morissot would set out before dawn with a bamboo fishing rod in his hand and a tin box slung over his shoulder. He would take the train to Argenteuil, get out at Colombes, and then walk to the Ile Marante, the place of his dreams. As soon as he arrived, he would start to fish, and he would fish all day long, until night fell.
Every Sunday, they met there. Monsieur Sauvage was a short, stout, jovial man, a notions seller from the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and another enthusiastic fisherman. They would often spend half a day together, sitting side by side, holding their fishing rods and swinging their legs above the flowing water. And they became good friends.
On certain days, they didn’t even speak. Sometimes they would chat a little, but they got along extremely well without saying a word because they shared the exact same tastes and feelings.
In the springtime, around ten o’clock, when the morning sun cast a fine mist over the water and warmed the backs of the two keen fishermen, Monsieur Morissot would sometimes say to his companion: “Isn’t it wonderful here!”
And Monsieur Sauvage would reply: “I can think of nothing better.” And those simple words were enough to prove that they understood and respected each other.
In the fall, near dusk, when the setting sun blazed on the horizon, turning the sky blood red, when the water reflected scarlet clouds from above, made the entire river crimson, burned the faces of the two friends as if they were on fire and cast a golden glow on the russet trees that already shimmered in a wintry haze, Monsieur Sauvage would smile and look over at Monsieur Morissot and say: “What a wonderful sight!” And Morissot, entranced, would continue staring at his floater and reply: “This is so much better than the city, don’t you think?”
Now, as soon as they recognized each other, they shook hands enthusiastically, both men poignantly moved at having met again under such different circumstances. Monsieur Sauvage sighed and murmured: “What terrible times we’re going through!” Monsieur Morissot groaned gloomily: “And the weather’s been so awful! Today is the first nice day this year.”
The sky was, indeed, a cloudless bright blue.
They started walking along together, side by side, sad and lost in thought. Monsieur Morissot added: “And remember when we went fishing? Oh, it’s so good to think back to those times!”
“When do you think we’ll be able to go back there?” asked Monsieur Sauvage.
They went into a small café and drank some absinthe; then they went back outside and continued walking.
Monsieur Morissot suddenly stopped. “How about another, what do you think?” Monsieur Sauvage agreed. “Your wish is my command.” And they went into another bar.
They were extremely drunk when they came outside again, like people who have been fasting and then find their stomachs full of alcohol. It was warm out. A gentle breeze tickled their faces.
Monsieur Sauvage, totally drunk now because of the warm weather, stopped walking: “What if we went?”
“Went where?”
“Went fishing.”
“But where?”
“To our little island. The French outposts are near Colombes. I know Colonel Dumoulin; we can easily get through.”
Monsieur Morissot trembled with desire: “Right. I’m in.” And they went their separate ways to pick up their fishing gear.
An hour later, they were walking side by side on the main road. Then they reached the house where the Colonel lived. He smiled at their request and agreed to their whim. They continued on their way, armed with their travel pass.
Soon they crossed the outposts, walked through the deserted region of Colombes and followed a little vineyard that led down to the Seine. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning.
On the other side of the river, the village of Argenteuil looked dead. The Orgemont and Sannois hills towered above the entire region. The vast plain that stretched to Nanterre was deserted, completely deserted, with nothing but bare cherry trees and gray earth.
Monsieur Sauvage pointed to the tops of the hills and whispered: “The Prussians are up there!” And the two friends stood dead still, terrified, in this isolated spot.
“The Prussians!” They had never seen any, but for months now, they could sense they were there, all around Paris, destroying France, pillaging, massacring, causing everyone to starve, invisible and all-powerful. A kind of superstitious terror mingled with the hatred they felt toward these victorious foreigners.
“Hey! What if we ran into some of them?” Monsieur Morissot stammered.
Monsieur Sauvage’s Parisian cockiness returned to him, in spite of everything.
“We’ll offer them some fish to fry,” he replied.
But they hesitated when it came to venturing into the countryside, intimidated by the silence that stretched across the horizon.
Finally, Monsieur Sauvage made a decision: “Come on, let’s go! But let’s be careful.” And they went down into the vineyard, hunched over, crawling, using the bushes as cover, fearfully on the lookout and straining to hear any noise.
One strip of bare land remained to be crossed before they could get to the river. They started running, and as soon as they reached the riverbank, they huddled in the dry reeds.
Monsieur Morissot pressed his ear to the ground, trying to hear if anyone was marching in the area. He heard nothing. They were alone, completely alone.
They felt reassured and began to fish.
Opposite them, the deserted Ile Marante hid them from view from the other side of the river.
The little restaurant was closed and seemed as if it had been neglected for many years.
Monsieur Sauvage caught the first fish, a gudgeon. Monsieur Morissot caught the second one, and every minute or so, they would reel in their lines with a wriggling, silvery fish attached; it was a truly miraculous catch.
They very carefully slipped the fish into a fine mesh fishing net that dripped water down onto their feet. And a wonderful sense of joy ran through them, the kind of joy that takes hold of you when you once again experience a pleasure you love, and that you have been deprived of for so long.
The delightful sun spread its warmth down their backs; they no longer listened out for anything, no longer thought about anything; the rest of the world just didn’t exist: they were fishing.
But suddenly, a muffled sound that seemed to come from underground made the earth shake. A cannon had started firing again.
Monsieur Morissot looked around and, beyond the bank, to the left, he saw the high outline of Mont-Valérien; there was a wispy white feather at its summit, a cloud of smoke it had just spit out.
Immediately, a second spurt of smoke shot from the top of the fortress; and a few seconds later, a new explosion roared out.
Then others followed, and every few minutes the mountain spewed its deadly breath, its milky mist billowing then rising slowly into the calm sky, forming a cloud above the summit.
Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders. “Here they go again,” he said.
Monsieur Morissot, who was anxiously watching the feather of his floater sink with every roar of the cannon, was suddenly overwhelmed with the kind of anger a peaceable man feels toward the madmen who fought like this. “How stupid do you have to be to kill each other this way!” he grumbled.
“They’re worse than animals,” replied Monsieur Sauvage.
And Monsieur Morissot, who had just caught a fish, said: “And to think it will always be like this as long as there are governments.”
Monsieur Sauvage cut in: “The French Republic wouldn’t have declared war . . .”
But Monsieur Morissot interrupted him: “With kings we have wars in other countries; with the Republic, we have wars in our own.”
And they calmly began a discussion, trying to untangle the great political problems of the day with the clear logic of kind, ordinary men of average intelligence, agreeing on this one point: that people would never be free. And Mont-Valérien thundered tirelessly, firing cannonballs that demolished French homes, crushed lives, destroyed people, put an end to dreams and to so many anticipated joys, to so much hope and happiness, filling the hearts of women, the hearts of daughters, the hearts of mothers, far away, in other lands, filling their hearts with endless suffering.
“That’s life,” said Monsieur Sauvage.
Monsieur Morissot laughed and added: “You mean, that’s death.”
But they shuddered in fear, sensing that someone was walking behind them, and they were right. They looked around and saw four men standing there, four big, bearded men with guns, dressed like livery servants and wearing flat caps, four men who were pointing their rifles at them.
They dropped the two lines they were holding, which slowly sank down into the river.
In a few seconds, the two friends had been grabbed, tied up, carried off, thrown into a small boat and taken to the island.
And behind the house they had thought was deserted, they saw about twenty German soldiers.
A kind of hairy giant sat straddling his chair and smoking a long porcelain pipe. “Now then, gentlemen,” he said in excellent French. “Have you caught a lot of fish?”
A soldier had made sure to bring the fish with them and he placed the full net at the officer’s feet. The Prussian smiled.
“Well! Well! I can see that you didn’t do badly at all. But that’s not what I want to discuss. Listen to me and don’t worry.
As far as I am concerned, you are two spies sent to find me. I catch you and shoot you. You were pretending to be fishing in order to best hide your real plan. You fell into my hands, too bad. That’s war for you.
But since you got past the outposts, you surely have a password to get you back. Tell me the password and I’ll let you live.”
The two friends, pale as ghosts, stood side by side, their hands trembling slightly from anxiety. They said nothing.
The officer continued: “No one will ever know and you can go safely back home. The secret will go with you to your grave. If you refuse, you will die, and right now. Choose.”
They stood dead still without saying a word.
The Prussian remained calm and pointed toward the river. “In just five minutes, you will be at the bottom of that water,” he continued. “Just think about it: in five minutes! You must have families, don’t you?”
Cannon fire from Mont-Valérien continued to thunder.
The two fishermen stood in silence. The German gave orders in his own language. Then he moved his chair away so he wouldn’t be too close to the prisoners, and twelve men came and stood at twenty paces from them, rifles at their sides.
“You have one minute,” the officer added, “not a second more.”
Suddenly, he stood up, went over to the two Frenchmen, took Monsieur Morissot by the arm and dragged him further away. “Quickly,” he said very quietly, “tell me the password, all right? Your friend will never know; it will just look as if I’ve calmed down a bit.”
Monsieur Morissot said nothing.
The Prussian then dragged Monsieur Sauvage to the side and asked him the same question.
Monsieur Sauvage said nothing.
The two friends stood side by side once more.
The officer started shouting out orders. The soldiers raised their weapons.
Then Monsieur Morissot happened to glance over at the fishing net full of gudgeon that sat on the grass a few feet away.
A ray of sunlight reflected off the heap of fish that were still moving, making them shine brightly. And a feeling of weakness swept through him. He just couldn’t help himself, his eyes filled with tears.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Sauvage,” he stammered.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Morissot,” his friend replied.
They shook hands, trembling uncontrollably from head to foot.
“Fire!” shouted the officer.
The twelve bullets hit them all at once.
Monsieur Sauvage fell straight down, face-first. Monsieur Morissot, who was a bigger man, swayed, pivoted around and fell diagonally across his friend, his face raised to the heavens as blood gushed from his chest beneath his jacket.
The German shouted more orders.
His men scattered, came back with ropes and stones and tied them to the dead men’s feet, then carried them to the riverbank.
Mont-Valérien, now shrouded in smoke, never stopped thundering.
Two soldiers took Monsieur Morissot by the head and feet; two others got hold of Monsieur Sauvage in the same way. They swung the bodies with great effort and heaved them far into the river; their bodies flew up, arched, then fell straight down into the water, the stones pulling them in feet-first.
The water splashed, bubbled up, rippled, then was calm, while tiny little waves hit the riverbanks.
A small pool of blood floated on the surface.
The officer, still very calm, said quietly: “Now the fish can get even.”
Then he headed back to the house.
Suddenly, he noticed the net full of gudgeon in the grass. He picked it up, examined it, smiled and shouted: “Wilhelm!”
A soldier wearing a white apron came running out. And the Prussian, throwing him the dead men’s catch, ordered:
“Throw these little fish into a frying pan for me right away, while they’re still alive. They’ll be delicious!”
Then he picked up his pipe and continued to smoke.
____________
1 Paris was besieged by the invading Prussians in the last week of September 1870, and finally surrendered in January 1871.
2 National Guard uniform.
3 Sauvage can mean two things in French: “savage,” or “someone who is shy and doesn’t socialize much.” In this case, we must assume the latter, though Maupassant later plays on the other meaning ironically to point out the savagery of the Prussians.
FOR A MONTH NOW, THE SUN’S SCORCHING RAYS HAVE BEEN raining fire down onto the fields. All life is blossoming radiantly beneath this torrent of fire; the land is green as far as the eye can see. The blue sky stretches out over the horizon. From a distance, the farms scattered over the flat, open countryside of Normandy look like clusters of small woods, surrounded as they are by circles of tall beech trees. From close up, after you open the worm-eaten gate, you think you have entered an enormous garden, for all the old apple trees, as knobbly as the farmers, are in bloom. Their old dark trunks, gnarled, bent, set in rows in the courtyard, reach upward toward the sky, showing off their dazzling canopy of pink and white blossom. The sweet scent of their flowers mingles with the thick smells from the open stables and the steaming dung as it ferments, pecked at by the hens.
It is noon. The family is eating in the shade of a pear tree planted in front of the door: the father, the mother, their four children and five servants—two women and three men. They hardly speak. They eat their soup, then dish out the meat stew with plenty of potatoes and bacon.
Every now and again, one of the servants gets up and goes down to the cellar to refill the cider jug.
The man, a tall fellow, about forty years old, is staring at a grapevine growing up toward the shutters over one wall of the house; it has no fruit yet; it is as long and twisted as a snake.
“Father’s vine is budding early this year,” he says at last. “Maybe it’ll have some fruit.”
The woman turns around and looks at it as well, without saying a word.
The vine was planted at the very spot where his father had been shot and killed.
IT HAPPENED DURING THE 1870 war. The Prussians were occupying the whole country. France’s General Faidherbe and the Northern army were fighting them.
The Prussians had set up their headquarters at this farm. The old farmer who owned it, Père Milon, Pierre, had accepted them and made them as comfortable as possible.
For a month, the German vanguard had kept watch in the village. The French soldiers held their position, about thirty-five miles away. And yet, every night, some Uhlans disappeared.
None of the small groups of scouts, the ones that had only two or three men sent out on patrol, ever came back.
Their dead bodies were found the next morning, in a field, or outside a courtyard or in a ditch. Even their horses were found dead along the roadside, their throats cut by a sword.
These murders seemed to be carried out by the same men, who were never found.
The whole region was terrorized. Farmers were shot if anyone simply pointed a finger at them; women were put in prison. Children were threatened to try to get information out of them. They learned nothing.
Now it happened that one morning, Père Milon was found in his stable with a gash on his face.
Two Uhlans had been found dead, their stomachs cut open, about three miles from the farm. One of them still had his bloody sword in his hand. He had fought back, trying to defend himself.
A military tribunal was set up right in front of the farm, and the old man was brought out.
He was sixty-eight years old. He was short, thin, a little bent over, with large hands that looked like the claws on a crab. His drab hair was as soft and downy as a duckling’s, so you could see patches of his scalp here and there. The suntanned, wrinkled skin on his neck had thick veins that ran down into his jaws and reemerged at his temples. He was known in the area as stingy and hard to do business with.
They stood him between four soldiers, in front of the kitchen table they’d brought outside. Five officers and the Colonel sat opposite him.
The Colonel began speaking in French:
“Père Milon, ever since we have been here, we have had only praise for you. You have always been considerate and even attentive toward us. But today, a terrible accusation is hanging over you, and we must clear things up. How did you get that wound on your face?”
The farmer did not reply.
“Your silence tells us you are guilty, Père Milon,” the Colonel continued. “I want you to answer me, do you understand? Do you know who killed the two Uhlans that were found this morning near the cross at the roadside?”
“I did,” the old man said clearly.
The Colonel, surprised, fell silent for a moment, staring at the prisoner. Père Milon remained impassive; he looked like an old, confused farmer, his eyes lowered as if he were speaking to his priest. Only one thing gave away what he was feeling inside: he continually swallowed his saliva, with visible difficulty, as if his throat had completely closed up.
Père Milon’s family, his son Jean, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, stood a few feet behind him, terrified and filled with dismay.
“Do you also know who killed all the scouts from our army we’ve been finding in the countryside every morning for a month?” the Colonel continued.
The old man replied with the same brutish passivity:
“Me.”
“You’re the one who killed all of them?”
“Each and every one of ’em, yes, me.”
“Only me.”
“Tell me how you did it.”
This time, the old man seemed upset; it was clear he was uncomfortable at having to talk at length.
“Don’t know, just did it, however it happened,” he muttered.
“I’m warning you,” the Colonel said, “that you have to tell me everything. You would be better off to resign yourself to that right now. How did it start?”
The man looked anxiously over at his family who were listening attentively behind him. He hesitated again for a moment, then suddenly, made a decision.
“I was coming back one night, must’ve been around ten o’clock, the day after you got here. You and your soldiers had robbed me of more than fifty écus2 worth of fodder and a cow and two sheep. So I says to myself: whatever they’re takin’ from me, fifty écus or whatever, that’s what I’ll take back from them. And I also had other things I was feeling that I’ll tell you about. I seen one of your cavalrymen smoking his pipe near the ditch behind my barn. I went and got my scythe and come back real quiet like from behind so he didn’t hear a thing. And I cut off his head in one go, just one, like it was an ear of corn, before he could even say ‘Ouch!’ You just look in the bottom of the pond: you’ll find him in a coal sack, with a stone from the wall.
Then I got an idea. I took all his stuff, from his hat right down to his boots, and hid ’em in the vaulted tunnel leading to the lime kiln in the Martin woods, behind the farm.”
The old man fell silent. The officers, stunned, looked at each other.
The interrogation continued, and this is what they were told:
ONCE HE’D CARRIED OUT this murder, the man had been obsessed by one thought: “Kill the Prussians!” He hated them with the sly, fierce hatred of a greedy farmer, and a patriotic one. He knew his mind, as he put it. He waited a few days.
He had displayed such humility, submission and compliance toward the conquerors that he was allowed to come and go as he pleased. He saw the dispatch riders leaving every evening, so he went out one night, after overhearing the name of the village where they were headed, having learned the few words of German he needed from living with the soldiers.
He left by the courtyard, slipped into the woods, reached the tunnel leading to the lime kiln, went to the very end of it where he found the dead man’s clothes he’d left on the floor and put them on.
Then he started prowling through the fields, crawling on all fours, following the embankment so he wouldn’t be seen, listening out for the slightest noise, as anxious as a poacher.
When he felt the time was right, he got closer to the road and hid behind a bush. He waited a while. Finally, around midnight, he heard the sound of a horse galloping along the solid earth on the road. He put his ear to the ground to make sure that only one horseman was coming, then got ready.
The Uhlan was galloping fast, bringing back the dispatches. He listened carefully, kept his eyes open. When he was no more than ten feet away, Père Milon crawled out onto the road, groaning: “Hilfe! Hilfe!—Help, help!” The horseman stopped, thinking there was a wounded German on the ground; he got off his horse, went up to him, suspecting nothing, and leaned over the stranger. The long, curved blade of a sword sliced through his middle. He fell down dead at once, without realizing what had happened, his body quivering in the final throes of death.
The old Norman farmer beamed with silent joy; he stood up and cut the dead man’s throat, just for fun. Then he dragged the body to the ditch and threw it in.
The horse was calmly waiting for his master. Père Milon mounted him and took off at a gallop across the flat, open country.
About an hour later, he spotted two more Uhlans riding side by side, on their way back home. He headed straight at them, again shouting: “Hilfe! Hilfe!” The Prussians, recognizing the uniform, made way for him, utterly trusting. And the old man charged through them like a cannonball, killing one with his sword, then shooting the other.
Then he slit the horses’ throats, German horses! He calmly returned to the tunnel leading to the lime kiln and hid his horse at the back. He took off the uniform, put on his old, tattered clothes, went home to bed and slept until morning.
He didn’t go out again for four days, waiting for the inquest that had been ordered to finish; but on the fifth day, he went out again and killed two more soldiers using the same technique. After that, he never stopped. Every night, he wandered around, prowled about wherever his fancy led him, killing Prussians wherever he found them, galloping through the empty fields in the moonlight, a lost Uhlan, on a manhunt. Once he had completed his task, leaving dead bodies lying beside the road, the old rider went back to the tunnel where he hid his horse and his uniform.
Every day around noon, he calmly took oats and water to his horse in his underground hiding place; he gave him a lot to eat, as he demanded a great deal of work from him.
The night before, however, one of the men he’d attacked had been suspicious, and had slashed the old farmer’s face with his sword.
He’d still managed to kill them though, both of them! He’d gone back to the woods again, hidden his horse and put on his tattered clothes; but as he was coming home, he felt very weak and had dragged himself to the stable, unable to make it to the house.
He’d been found there, bleeding, stretched out in the hay . . .
WHEN HE’D FINISHED HIS STORY, he suddenly raised his head and looked proudly at the Prussian officers.
The Colonel, who was pulling at his moustache, asked: “Do you have anything else to say?”
“No, nothing, the debt is paid. I killed sixteen of ’em, not one more, not one less.”
“You know that you are going to die?”
“I don’t want no mercy.”
“Yes. I was in the service, in the past. And back then, you were the ones who killed my father, he was a soldier under the first Emperor.3 And don’t forget you killed my youngest son, François, last month, near Evreux. You had it comin’ and I give it to you. We’re even.”
The officers looked at each other.
“Eight for my father,” the old farmer continued, “eight for my son, so we’re even. I didn’t go lookin’ for a fight, not me! I don’t even know you! I don’t even know where you come from! Here you are, in my house, givin’ orders like you owned the place. I got back at you through the others. And I ain’t sorry.”
Then, pulling his stiff old body straight, he crossed his arms, striking the pose of a humble hero.
The Prussians talked amongst themselves for a long time. One of the captains, who had also lost his son the month before, defended the high-minded villain.
Then the Colonel stood up and went over to Père Milon.
“Listen to me old man,” he said quietly, “there is perhaps a way to save your life, if you . . .”
But Père Milon was not listening; staring straight at the conquering officer, as the wind rustled through the downy hairs on his head, he grimaced terribly, tensing his thin face with the gash on it, and puffing out his chest, he spit, as hard as he could, right into the Prussian’s face.
The Colonel, furious, raised his hand, and for the second time, the man spit at him, right in the face.
All the officers had stood up and were shouting orders at once.
In less than a minute, the old man, still impassive, was pushed against the wall and, smiling at Jean, his older son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, he was shot dead, as they all looked on in horror.
____________
1 The French often use Père (Father) to describe someone older or to distinguish the person from his son.
2 An old form of money.
3 Napoleon I.
THE ADVENTURE OF WALTER SCHNAFFS
EVER SINCE HE HAD ENTERED FRANCE WITH THE INVADING army, Walter Schnaffs considered himself the unhappiest of men. He was very round, walked with difficulty, was often out of breath and suffered terribly from painful feet that were very thick and very flat. And he was a kindly, peaceful man, neither bloodthirsty nor overly generous, the father of four children he adored and married to a young blond woman whose kisses, attention and affection he missed desperately every night. He liked getting up late and going to bed early, savoring good food and drinking beer in restaurants. He also believed that everything sweet in life eventually disappears; and in his heart, he held a horrific, instinctive and logical hatred for cannons, rifles, guns and sabers, but most especially for bayonets, as he felt incapable of maneuvering that particular weapon quickly enough to defend his fat belly.
When night fell and he was wrapped up in his coat and stretched out on the ground next to his snoring comrades, he thought for a long time about the family he’d left back home, about the dangers he might encounter along the way. What would happen to his little ones if he were killed? Who would provide for them and bring them up? They weren’t rich, in spite of the debt he’d gotten himself into so he could give them a bit of money before he left. And so Walter Schnaffs sometimes cried.
At the start of the fighting, he felt his legs were so weak that he would have let himself fall to the ground if he hadn’t believed that the entire army would trample his body. The sound of bullets whizzing past made his hair stand on end.
For many long months he had lived in terror and anguish.
His platoon was advancing toward Normandy; one day he and a small reconnaissance party were sent on ahead simply to explore a section of the area and then withdraw. Everything seemed calm in the countryside; nothing led them to believe they would meet with any organized resistance.
The Prussians were calmly going down a little valley cut through by deep ravines when heavy rounds of gunfire stopped them in their tracks, killing about twenty of their men; and a group of snipers suddenly rushed out from a tiny wood, running forward, bayonets on their rifles.
At first, Walter Schnaffs stood dead still, so astonished and terrified that he didn’t even think of running away. Then he was seized by a mad desire to flee; but he realized at once that he was as slow as a tortoise in comparison to the thin Frenchmen who were leaping about like a herd of goats. Then he noticed a large ditch full of brushwood covered in dry leaves a few steps in front of him, so he jumped into it feet-first, without even stopping to wonder how deep it was, just as you might jump into a river from a bridge.
As straight and sharp as an arrow, he pierced a thick layer of vines and sharp brambles that scratched his hands and face, then fell heavily on his bottom onto a bed of stones.
He immediately looked up at the sky through the hole he’d made. That gaping hole might give him away, so he carefully crawled, on all fours, to the back of the ditch, under the roof made of linked branches, going as fast as possible, to get far away from the battlefield. Then he stopped and sat down again, crouching out of sight like a hare in the tall, dry grass.
For some time, he could still hear explosions, shouting and cries. Then the clamor of the battle died down, stopped altogether. Everything became silent and calm once more.
Suddenly, something moved next to him. He jumped in terror. It was a little bird scattering dead leaves as he landed on a branch. For nearly an hour, Walter Schnaffs’s heart raced and pounded wildly.
Night fell, engulfing the ravine in darkness. And the soldier began to think. What was he going to do? What would happen to him? Could he get back to his army. . . ? How? Which way? But if he went back, he would have to start living that horrible life all over again: the life of anguish, terror, exhaustion and suffering he’d led since the beginning of the war! No! He couldn’t face it any more! He no longer had the strength he needed to endure the marches and face danger at every moment.
But what could he do? He couldn’t hide in this ravine until the end of the hostilities. No, certainly not. If he hadn’t needed to eat, this idea would not have been such a bad one; but he did need to eat, and every day.
And so he found himself all alone, in uniform, armed, on enemy territory, far from anyone who could help him. He was shaking from head to toe.
“If only I were taken prisoner!” he suddenly thought, and his heart quivered with desire, an intense, passionate desire to be captured by the French. Prisoner! He would be saved, fed, given shelter, safely away from the bullets and sabers, with nothing to feel anxious about, in a well-guarded, good prison. Prisoner! How perfect!
And he immediately made his decision:
“I’m going to be taken prisoner.”
He stood up, determined to carry out his plan without wasting another minute. But he stood very still, suddenly overwhelmed by dreadful thoughts and terrifying new fears.
Where should he go to be taken prisoner? How? Which way? And horrifying images, images of death, rushed through his soul.
He would be in great danger, roaming about the countryside in his pointed helmet.1
What if he ran into some farmers? If any of them saw a lost Prussian, a helpless Prussian, they would kill him as if he were a stray dog! They would murder him with their pitchforks, their pickaxes, their scythes, their shovels! They would reduce him to a pulp, give him a real beating, with the fierceness of frustrated losers.
What if he ran into any snipers? Snipers who were madmen, who obeyed no rules and had no discipline: as soon as they spotted him, they would shoot him just for fun, to help pass the time, for a laugh. And he could already picture himself crushed against a wall facing the butts of twelve rifles whose round little black eyes seemed to be staring at him.
What if he ran into the French army itself? The men in the front lines would take him for a scout, some bold, evil private who had gone on a reconnaissance mission all alone, and they’d open fire on him. And he imagined the erratic blasts of gunfire from soldiers hidden in the brush, imagined himself standing in the middle of a field, then falling to the ground, riddled with holes from the bullets he could already feel penetrating his body.
He sat down again, in despair. There seemed to be no way out of his situation.
It was completely dark now, silent and dark. He didn’t move, shuddering at the slightest strange noise he heard in the shadows. A rabbit, thumping his bottom at the edge of a burrow, nearly made Walter Schnaffs run for his life. The hooting of the owls pierced his soul, cut through his heart with sharp, painful blows that terrified him. He squinted, trying to see in the dark; and he constantly imagined he could hear people walking close by.
After endless hours and suffering the terrors of the damned, he looked through the covering of branches and saw that day was breaking. Then he felt enormously relieved; he stretched out his arms and legs and suddenly relaxed; his heart felt calm; his eyes closed. He fell asleep.
When he woke up, the sun seemed to be more or less in the middle of the sky; it must have been noon. Not a single sound disturbed the gloomy silence of the fields; and Walter Schnaffs realized that he was extremely hungry.
He yawned, salivating at the idea of some sausages, the delicious sausages that soldiers eat; and his stomach hurt.
He stood up, took a few steps, felt that his legs were weak, and sat down again to think. For two or three hours more, he considered the pros and cons, changing his mind from one minute to the next, defeated, unhappy, torn between contradictory ideas.
One thought finally seemed both logical and practical to him, and that was to keep an eye out for some villager who was walking past all alone, unarmed, and without any dangerous workman’s tools, to run out in front of him and put himself in his hands, making it very clear that he was surrendering.
Then he took off his helmet, as its sharp point could give him away, and taking infinite care, he poked his head outside his hiding hole.
Not a single soul was in sight. Further away, to the right, he could see the smoke rising from the rooftops of a little village, the smoke from the kitchens! Further away, to the left, he saw a wide passageway lined with trees, leading to a large château flanked by turrets.
He waited until nightfall, his hunger causing him terrible pain, seeing nothing but crows in flight, hearing nothing but the muted rumbling of his entrails.
And night descended upon him once more.
He stretched out at the back of his shelter and fell asleep: it was a feverish sleep, haunted by nightmares, the sleep of a starving man.
Dawn broke once more above his head. He started keeping watch again. But the countryside was as empty as the day before; and a new fear spread through the mind of Walter Schnaffs, the fear of starving to death! He could picture himself stretched out in the corner of his hiding place, on his back, his eyes closed. Then the animals, all sorts of small animals, went over to his corpse and started eating him, attacking him everywhere at once, sliding underneath his clothes to bite at his cold flesh. And a large black crow was pecking at his eyes with its sharp beak.
Then he nearly went mad, imagining he might faint from weakness and wouldn’t be able to walk any more. And he was just about to rush toward the village, determined to brave everything, when he spotted three farmers walking through the fields, their pitchforks slung over their shoulders, and he jumped back into his hiding place.
But as soon as night fell over the plain, he slowly came out of the ditch, and started to walk toward a château he could see in the distance; bent over, frightened, his heart pounding, he preferred to go there rather than the village, which seemed as terrifying to him as a lair full of tigers.
Light shone through the downstairs windows. One of them was even open; a strong smell of roasted meat wafted out, an aroma that quickly flooded through Walter Schnaffs, from his nose right down to his stomach; it made him flinch, made him pant, irresistibly attracting him, filling his heart with desperate daring.
Then, without stopping to think, he pressed his face against the window; he was still wearing his helmet.
Eight servants were having dinner around a large table. Suddenly, one of the maids stood stock-still, stunned, eyes wide, and dropped her glass. Everyone turned to see what she was staring at!
It was the enemy!
Good Lord! The Prussians were attacking the château!
At first, there was a cry, a single cry, made up of the cries of eight different voices, a horrible cry of terror, then a chaotic jumping up, a scramble, a free-for-all, a mad rush for the back door. Chairs fell back, men knocked women down and stepped over them. In two seconds, the room was empty, deserted, the table piled high with food. Walter Schnaffs stood looking at it through the window, stunned.
After hesitating a few minutes, he climbed over the parapet and walked over to the plates of food. His extreme hunger made him tremble like a man delirious with fever: but one terrible fear held him back, nailed him to the spot. He listened. The entire house seemed to be shaking; doors slammed shut, footsteps raced through the floor above. The anxious Prussian listened to the baffling din; then he heard some muted sounds, as if bodies were falling onto the soft ground, at the foot of the walls, bodies jumping from the first floor.
Then all the movement, all the commotion stopped, and the large château became as silent as a tomb.
Walter Schnaffs sat down in front of one of the plates that had not been broken and began to eat. He gulped down great mouthfuls, as if he were afraid he might be interrupted too soon, before having wolfed enough down. He used both hands to throw pieces of food into his mouth, which was opened as wide as a trap door; and lumps of food fell into his stomach one after the other, making his throat swell as he swallowed them. Every now and again he stopped, ready to explode like a pipe about to burst. Then he took the pitcher of cider and cleared his esophagus the way you wash out a clogged pipe.
He emptied all the plates, all the dishes and all the bottles; intoxicated on food and drink, dazed, bright red, shaking from hiccups, his mind confused and his mouth greasy, he unbuttoned his uniform so he could breathe, incapable of taking a single step. His eyes closed, his mind grew sluggish; he placed his heavy head on the table, onto his crossed arms, and little by little lost all consciousness of everything around him.
THE LAST CRESCENT of the moon dimly lit up the horizon above the trees in the grounds of the château. It was the time of morning just before dawn when it was still cold.
Shadows slipped through the many silent thickets, and every now and then, a moonbeam struck a piece of steel, making it glow in the darkness.
The imposing, dark silhouette of the peaceful château stood tall. Only two windows on the ground floor still had their lights on.
SUDDENLY, a booming voice shouted:
“Forward men! Onward! Charge!”
Within seconds, the doors, the shutters and the windows crashed down under a wave of men who rushed forward, shattered everything, broke everything, and swarmed into the house. Within seconds, fifty soldiers armed to the teeth flooded into the kitchen where Walter Schnaffs was resting peacefully; they held fifty loaded rifles to his chest, knocked him down, rolled him over, held him down and tied him up from head to toe.
He was panting with shock, too stunned to understand what was happening, beaten, hit with their rifle butts and absolutely terrified.
And suddenly, a fat soldier wearing many gold medals set his foot on the stomach of Walter Schnaffs, shouting:
“I am taking you prisoner, surrender!”
The Prussian only understood the word “prisoner,” so he groaned, “Ja, ja, ja.”
His conquerors hauled him up, tied him to a chair and examined their prisoner, who was wheezing like a whale, with keen curiosity. Several of them were so overcome with emotion and exhaustion that they had to sit down.
And Walter Schnaffs was smiling, he was smiling now, certain at last that he’d been taken prisoner!
Another officer came in.
“Colonel, the enemy has fled,” he said. “Several of them seem to have been wounded. We have taken control of the château.”
The fat soldier wiped his forehead and shouted: “Victory!”
Then he made some notes in a small business diary that he took out of his pocket:
“After a fierce battle, the Prussians were forced to retreat, taking their dead and their wounded with them, an estimated fifty men put out of action. Several of them were taken prisoner.”
“What arrangements shall I make, Colonel?” the young officer asked.
“We are going to withdraw,” the Colonel replied, “to avoid a new offensive with superior troops and artillery.”
And he gave the order to leave.
Two lines of soldiers formed in the dark, beneath the walls of the château, and started to move, surrounding Walter Schnaffs on all sides; he was tied up and led along by six warriors pointing guns at him.
A reconnaissance patrol was sent on ahead to scout the road. They advanced cautiously, stopping from time to time.
As day broke, they reached the subprefecture of La Roche-Oysel, whose National Guard had brought home this military victory.
The eager, overexcited townspeople were there, waiting. When they saw the prisoner’s helmet, they started shouting vehemently. Younger women raised their arms in the air; old women wept; one grandfather threw his crutch at the Prussian but hit one of the guards on the nose, wounding him.
“Stand guard over the prisoner,” the Colonel shouted.
They finally reached the Town Hall. The prison door was opened and Walter Schnaffs was untied and thrown inside.
Two hundred armed men stood watch around the building.
And then, in spite of the symptoms of indigestion that had been troubling him for some time, the Prussian, mad with joy, began to dance, dance frantically, raising his arms and legs in the air, dancing and shouting frenetically, until he finally dropped down, exhausted, against a wall.
He was a prisoner! He was saved!
AND THAT IS HOW the Château de Champignet was won back from the enemy after being occupied for only six hours.
Colonel Ratier,2 a fabric salesman, who pulled off this coup as chief of the National Guard of La Roche-Oysel, was awarded a medal.
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1 The Prussians wore distinctive helmets with sharp metal spikes on top.
2 Again, Maupassant uses his characters’ names for humor: a ratier is “a dog who chases rats.”
I
I HADN’T BEEN BACK TO VIRELOGNE FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. I returned in the autumn, to stay with my friend Serval and go hunting; he’d finally rebuilt his château after the Prussians destroyed it.
I loved this part of the country a great deal. It is one of those wonderful places that appeal to the eye with sensual charm. The kind of place you feel a physical love for. People like us who are seduced by the countryside remember certain streams, woods, lakes, hills with great affection, for we have seen them so often and they have touched us the way all joyful events do. Sometimes, our thoughts return to one part of a forest, to the edge of a riverbank, or to an orchard filled with flowers, perhaps seen only once, on a happy day, but they remain in our hearts like certain women you happened to meet in the street, one spring morning, women wearing light, transparent dresses who leave an unforgettable feeling of unrequited desire in our bodies and souls, the sensation of having briefly encountered happiness.
I loved all the countryside around Virelogne; it was dotted with little woods and brooks that ran through the ground like veins, carrying blood deep into the earth. You could fish there for trout, crayfish and eels. Such divine happiness! There were places to go swimming, and you often found wading birds in the tall grass that grew along the banks of these narrow streams.
I was walking along, as sprightly as a goat, watching my two dogs sniffing the ground ahead of me. Serval, who was about a hundred yards to my right, was stamping through a field of alfalfa. I turned past the bushes at the edge of the Saudres woods and noticed a cottage in ruins.
Suddenly, I remembered the way it looked the last time I’d seen it, in 1869: clean, covered in vines, with chickens outside the door. Is there anything sadder than a lifeless house, with its dilapidated, sinister skeleton still standing?
I also remembered that one day when I was very tired, a kind woman had given me a glass of wine in that house, and that Serval had told me the story of the people who lived there. The father, an old poacher, had been killed by the police. The son, whom I had seen in the past, was a tall, thin young man who was also known as an avid game hunter. People called them “the Savages.”
Was that their real name or a nickname?
I called out to Serval. He took long steps, like a wading bird, and came over to me.
“What happened to the people who lived over there?” I asked.
And he told me this story.
II
WHEN WAR WAS DECLARED, THE SON, WHO WAS THEN THIRTY-THREE, enlisted, leaving his mother alone in her house. No one felt very sorry for the old woman because she had money, and everyone knew it.
And so she lived all by herself in this isolated house, at the edge of the woods. But she wasn’t afraid; she came from the same stock as the men in her family; she was a tough old woman, tall and thin, who hardly ever laughed and the kind of person you didn’t joke with. In fact, none of the women who worked in the fields in these parts hardly ever laughed. Only the men could laugh and joke around. The women have sad, poor hearts, because their lives are gloomy and dull. The farmers learn a bit of cheerfulness at the taverns, but their wives remain serious and always look stern. The muscles in their faces never learned how to laugh.
La Mère Sauvage continued her ordinary life in her cottage, which was soon covered in snow. She went to the village once a week to buy bread and a little meat; then she returned to her hovel. Because everyone talked about wolves in the woods, she always went out with a rifle on her shoulder, her son’s rusty rifle with the worn-down butt; and she was a strange sight, the tall Mère Sauvage, a little bent over, walking slowly through the snow, the gun barrel sticking out above the black hat, the kind of hat everyone wore in these parts; it fit tightly on her head and kept her white hair well covered; no one had ever seen her hair.
One day, the Prussians arrived. They were sent to lodge with the townspeople, according to their wealth and resources. The old woman, who was known to be rich, got four soldiers.
They were four big young men with pale skin, blond beards and blue eyes; they were still fat in spite of the strain they’d already endured, and they were good lads, despite occupying the country they’d defeated. Alone in the home of this elderly woman, they showed great concern for her, sparing her, as much as possible, any extra work and expense. You could see all four of them around the well in the morning getting washed, in their shirtsleeves, on the cold, damp, snowy days, splashing water onto their pale, pink skin typical of all the men from the North, while La Mère Sauvage bustled about, preparing her soup. Then they cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed the floors, chopped the wood, peeled the potatoes, washed the clothes, did all the household chores, like four good boys with their mother.
But the old woman thought about her own son constantly, her tall, thin son with his hooked nose, brown eyes, the thick moustache that covered his upper lip with a strip of dark hair. Every day, she asked one of the soldiers living with her:
“Do you know where the Twenty-third French Regiment has gone? My son is with them.”
“No, not know, not know anything.”
And since they understood her pain and anxiety—they too had mothers back home—they were attentive to her in hundreds of little ways. And she liked them very much, her four enemies, because the country folk rarely harbor any patriotic hatred; that is common only among the well-to-do. The lower classes, the ones who pay the most because they are poor and because every new tax is more of a burden to them, the ones who are killed en masse, the ones who are the true cannon fodder because they are the majority of the population, the ones, in the end, who suffer most cruelly the atrocious miseries of war because they are the weakest and can defend themselves the least, these poor people understand little of the thirst for war, the easily aroused sense of honor and the so-called political strategies that wear down two nations in the space of six months, two nations: both the conquered and the conquerors.
Whenever they talked about La Mère Sauvage’s Germans, the townspeople always said:
“Those four sure got themselves a good home.”
Now, one morning when the old woman was alone in the house, she saw a man in the distance, walking across the plain toward her cottage. She soon recognized him; he was the mailman who delivered the letters on foot. He handed her a folded piece of paper; she took the glasses she used for sewing from their case and began to read:
Madame Sauvage,
I am writing to give you some very bad news. Your son Victor was killed yesterday by a cannonball, which virtually cut his body in half. I was close by, as we always walked side by side in the regiment, and he talked to me about you so I could let you know right away if anything happened to him.
I took the watch out of his pocket to bring back to you when the war is over.
Yours sincerely,
Césaire Rivot,
Private 2nd class, 23rd Regiment
The letter was dated three weeks earlier.
She didn’t cry, not at all. She stood dead still, so overwhelmed, so stunned that she didn’t yet feel any pain. “So now Victor is dead,” she thought. Then tears slowly rose to her eyes, and pain pierced her heart. Ideas occurred to her, one by one, horrible, agonizing ideas. She would never hold him in her arms again, never kiss him again, her child, her boy, never again, never again! The police had killed her husband, the Prussians had killed her son . . . His body had virtually been cut in half by a cannonball. And she felt she could picture what happened, the horrible thing that had happened: his head slumped down, his eyes open as he chewed on the corner of his long moustache, the way he always used to when he was angry.
What had they done with his body, afterwards? If only they’d brought her child’s body back to her the way they’d given her husband’s body to her, with the bullet in the middle of his forehead.
She heard voices. It was the Prussians coming back from the village. She quickly hid the letter in her pocket and wiped the tears from her face; she greeted them calmly, making sure her expression gave nothing away.
All four of them were laughing, delighted because they’d brought back a nice live rabbit, stolen no doubt, and they gestured to the old woman that they would have something good to eat.
She immediately began preparing lunch; but when it came time to kill the rabbit, she didn’t have the heart to do it, though it would not have been the first time. One of the soldiers smashed his fist against the back of its head and killed it.
Now that it was dead, she skinned it, pulling its red body from under the skin, but as she worked, the sight of the blood that covered her hands, the sensation of the warm blood she could feel cooling and coagulating, made her whole body tremble, and she kept seeing her son cut in half and covered in blood, just like this animal whose flesh was still quivering.
She sat down at the table with the Prussians, but she couldn’t eat, couldn’t eat a single mouthful. They wolfed down the rabbit without giving her a thought. She watched them, furtively, without speaking, forming an idea, and her face was so impassive that they didn’t notice a thing.
Suddenly, she said: “I don’t even know your names and it’s been a month since we’ve been together.” They understood, not without difficulty, what she wanted, and told her their names. But that wasn’t enough; she wanted them to write them down on a piece of paper, with the addresses of their families; and placing her glasses on her large nose, she studied their strange handwriting, then folded the paper in half and put it in her pocket, along with the letter telling her that her son was dead.
When the meal was over, she told the men:
“I’m going to do something for you.”
And she began carrying hay up into the loft where they slept.
They were surprised to see her do this; she explained they’d be warmer and they helped her. They piled the bales of hay right up to the thatched roof; and they made a kind of large bedroom with four walls of fodder, warm and sweet-smelling, where they would get a wonderful night’s sleep.
At suppertime, one of them was concerned that La Mère Sauvage was still not eating. She said she had an upset stomach. Then she lit a nice fire to keep warm, and the four Germans climbed up into their room on the ladder they used every night.
As soon as the trap door was shut, the old woman moved the ladder away, then silently opened the front door, went out and came back with enough bales of hay to fill the kitchen. She walked barefoot in the snow, so quietly that not a sound was heard. Every now and then, she listened to the muffled, irregular snoring of the four sleeping soldiers.
When she felt she’d prepared everything well enough, she lit one of the bales of hay and threw it into the house; when it spread to the others, she went back outside and watched.
In seconds, a bright flash of light lit up the entire inside of the house, then it became a terrifying inferno, an enormous, blazing furnace whose bright light streamed through the narrow window, casting a reddish glow over the snow.
Then a great cry came from the top of the house, the roar of human voices, heartrending cries of anguish and terror. The trap door crashed down and a swirl of fire rushed through the loft, pierced the thatched roof and rose into the sky like an immense burning torch; the entire cottage was ablaze.
Nothing could be heard inside except for the crackling fire, the creaking walls, the wooden beams crashing down. Suddenly, the roof caved in, and from the glowing shell of the house, a great plume of smoke filled with sparks flew up into the air.
The countryside, white with snow, lit up by the fire, glistened like a silvery cloak tinged blood red.
In the distance, a church bell began to ring.
La Mère Sauvage remained there, standing in front of her house, armed with her rifle, her son’s rifle, in case any of the men had managed to escape.
When she saw it was all over, she threw her gun into the fire. She heard it explode.
People began to arrive, farmers, Prussians.
They found the old woman sitting on a tree stump, calm and contented.
A German officer, who spoke French like a native, asked:
“Where are your soldiers?”
She stretched out her thin arm toward the red rubble of the fire that was starting to die out. “In there!” she replied in a loud voice.
Everyone rushed around her.
“How did it catch fire?” the Prussian asked.
“I set it on fire,” she replied.
No one believed her, thinking the disaster had suddenly made her go mad. Since everyone was standing around and listening to her, she told her story from start to finish, from the arrival of the letter to the final cries of the men burning inside her house. She left out no detail about what she had felt or what she had done.
When she had finished, she took the two papers from her pocket and adjusted her glasses to see them better in the light of the dying fire, then she held one of them up and said: “This one is about Victor dying.” Holding up the other one, she nodded toward the flaming ruins and added: “This one is their names so you can write to their families.” She calmly handed the white sheet of paper to the officer who was holding her by the shoulders.
“You’ll write and tell them what happened, and you’ll tell their parents that I, Victoire Simon,2 La Mère Sauvage, was the one who did it! Don’t forget.”
The officer shouted out orders in German. They grabbed her, threw her against her house, against its walls that were still warm. Then twelve men quickly lined up opposite her, about twenty yards away. She stood dead still. She had understood, she was waiting.
An order was shouted, followed by a long volley of gunfire. One shot rang out alone, after all the others.
The old woman did not fall down. She sank to the ground as if someone had cut off her legs.
The Prussian officer walked over to her. She was almost cut in half, and in her clenched hand, she held her letter, soaked in blood.
“DESTROYING MY CHÂTEAU WAS as an act of reprisal by the Germans,” my friend Serval continued.
I thought about the mothers of the four kind young men who had burned to death in that cottage, and I thought of the horrific heroism of that other mother, gunned down against the wall.
Then I picked up a small stone that was still charred, black from the fire.
____________
1 Maupassant often uses names to indicate a character’s nature. Sauvage can mean “savage,” “wild,” and also “antisocial.” Calling someone La Mère indicates she is both a mother and elderly.
2 We now learn that the mother’s real name is Victoire—Victory.
NOT A SOUND IN THE FOREST APART FROM THE GENTLE FLUTTER of snow drifting onto the trees. It had been falling since noon, a light, fine snow that covered the branches in an icy, frothy powder, casting a silvery glint over the dead leaves that still clung to the trees. It spread an immense, soft white blanket over the roads and intensified the endless silence of this sea of trees.
In front of the cottage in the forest, a young woman with bare arms was chopping wood over a stone with an ax. She was tall, slim but strong, a young country woman, the daughter and wife of foresters.
“We’re alone tonight, Berthine,” a voice called from inside the house. “Better come inside, it’s gettin’ dark and there may be some Prussians and wolves prowlin’ round.”
The woodcutter split a large log with powerful blows that made her chest expand every time she raised her arms.
“I’m done, Ma,” she replied. “I’m here, it’s okay, don’t worry; it’s still light out.”
Then she piled the logs and kindling beside the fireplace, went outside to close the enormous hard oak shutters and finally came back inside, locking the heavy bolts on the door.
Her mother was spinning wool by the fire; she was an old woman with wrinkles who had grown more fearful with age.
“I don’t like it when your Pa ain’t here,” she said. “Two women alone ain’t strong enough.”
“Oh!” the young woman replied, “I’d happily kill a wolf or a Prussian, you know.”
And she glanced over at a large revolver hanging above the hearth.
Her husband had been taken into the army at the beginning of the Prussian invasion, and the two women had been left alone with her father, Nicolas Pichon, an old gamekeeper nicknamed “Stilts.” He’d stubbornly refused to leave his house to stay in town.
The closest town was Rethel, an ancient fortified city built high on a rock. Its inhabitants were patriotic and had decided to resist the invaders, to blockade themselves in and fight, following Rethel’s tradition. Twice already, under Henri IV and Louis XIV, they’d become famous for their heroic defense of the town. And they would do the same this time, you can bet your boots! Or else they’d have to burn them alive within the city walls.
And so they had bought cannons and rifles, equipped a militia, formed battalions and companies, and held drills all day long on the Place d’Armes. Everyone—bakers, grocers, butchers, notaries, lawyers, carpenters, booksellers, even pharmacists—took their turn at military training at precise times of the day, under the command of Monsieur Lavigne, a former Second Lieutenant in the Dragoons, now a notions dealer, since he’d married the daughter of Monsieur Ravaudan1 Senior and inherited his shop.
He’d awarded himself the rank of Major, and since all the young men had gone off to the army, he’d enlisted all the other men, and they were training to put up a fight. The fat men in town now jogged along the streets to lose weight and improve their stamina while the weaker men carried heavy bundles to build up their muscles.
And so they waited for the Prussians. But the Prussians never came. They weren’t far away, though: on two occasions their scouts had already made it deep enough into the woods to reach the house of Nicolas Pichon, Stilts.
The old gamekeeper, who was as fast as a fox, had gone to warn the town. They’d prepared their cannons but no enemy had been seen.
Stilts’s house was used as an outpost in the Aveline Forest. Twice a week, he went to town to buy provisions and to tell the townspeople what was happening in the countryside.
ON THIS PARTICULAR DAY, he’d gone to tell them that a small detachment of German infantrymen had stopped at his house the day before, then left again almost immediately. The Second Lieutenant in charge could speak French.
When he went on these trips, he took along his two ferocious dogs—huge hounds with jaws like a lion—and he left the two women on their own with instructions to barricade themselves inside the house as soon as it got dark.
The young woman wasn’t afraid of anything, but the old woman was always trembling with fear. “This will end in disaster, it will,” she said over and over again. “You’ll see, disaster.”
That evening, she was even more anxious than usual. “Do you know what time Pa will be gettin’ home?” she asked.
“Not before eleven, for sure. Whenever he has dinner with the Major, he always gets home late.”
And the young woman had just hung her cooking pot over the fire to make the soup when she heard a strange noise echoing down the chimney; she stopped stirring.
“There’s people walkin’ through the woods, seven or eight of ’em at least.”
Her mother, terrified, stopping the spinning wheel. “Oh, my God!” she stammered. “And your Pa’s not here!”
She had barely finished what she was saying when someone started banging angrily at the door, so hard that it shook.
When the women did not reply, a loud, guttural voice shouted: “Open the door!”
Then, after a silence, the same voice continued: “Open now or I break down your door!”
Berthine slipped the heavy revolver from over the fireplace into the pocket of her skirt, then put her ear against the door. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I am detachment from the other day,” the voice replied.
“What do you want?” the young woman asked.
“I am lost since morning, in dese voods, mit meine men. Open now or I break down your door!”
The forester’s daughter had no choice; she quickly undid the bolts, then pulling open the heavy door, she saw six men, six Prussian soldiers standing in the snow, outlined in its pale light, the same men who’d come the day before.
“What are you doing here at this time of night?” she asked in a firm tone of voice.
“I am lost,” the Second Lieutenant said once more, “completely lost und I recognized your house. My men und I have not eaten anysing since dis morning.”
“But I’m alone here with my mother tonight,” Berthine said.
The soldier, who seemed an honest man, replied: “Does not matter. I vill not hurt you but you must to give us somesing to eat. Vee are all dying of hunger und very tired.”
Berthine stepped back. “Come inside,” she said.
They went in, covered in light snow, and their helmets had a kind of creamy froth on them that made them look like meringues. And they seemed weary, exhausted.
The young woman pointed to the two wooden benches, one on either side of the long table.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you some soup. You really do look worn out.”
Then she bolted the door again.
She put more water in her cooking pot, threw in some more butter and potatoes, then took a large slab of bacon that was hanging over the fireplace, cut half of it off and added it to the pot.
The six men watched her every move, a look of intense hunger in their eyes. They’d put their rifles and helmets in the corner and were waiting, as well behaved as good little children on their benches at school.
Her mother had started spinning wool again, but constantly glanced over at the invaders in terror. The only sounds were the gentle humming of the spinning wheel, the crackling of the fire and the soup bubbling in the pot.
Then, suddenly, a strange noise made everyone jump, something like the heavy, hoarse breathing of a wild animal at the door.
The German officer leapt up and was heading toward the rifles. Berthine smiled and gestured for him to stop.
“It’s only the wolves,” she said. “They’re just like you, hungry and prowling around.”
He wasn’t convinced and wanted to see with his own eyes; as soon as he opened the door, he saw two large, gray animals running away with quick, rapid strides.
“I vould never have believed it,” he murmured, sitting down again.
And he waited for his food to be ready.
They wolfed down their meal, their mouths gaping open so they could swallow more, their wide eyes opening and closing in unison with their jaws, and their throats made the same noise as water gurgling down a drainpipe as they swallowed the soup.
The two women stood there, silently watching the rapid movements of their long red beards; the potatoes looked as if they were sinking into undulating sheepskins.
They were thirsty too, so Berthine went down into the cellar to get some cider. She stayed down there for a long time. It was a small vaulted cellar that had been used as both a prison and a hiding place during the Revolution, or so people claimed. You got to it by opening a trap door and going down a narrow, winding staircase at the back of the kitchen.
When Berthine returned, she was laughing, laughing slyly to herself. She gave the Germans the jug of cider.
Then she and her mother had their supper at the other end of the kitchen.
The soldiers had finished eating; all six of them were falling asleep at the table. Every now and again, someone’s head dropped down with a thud, then he would quickly wake and sit up straight again.
“Why don’t you all go lie down by the fire,” Berthine said to the officer. “There’s plenty of room for all six of you, you know. I’m going upstairs to my room with my mother.”
And the two women went up to the second floor. The soldiers could hear them lock the door and walk around for a while; then they didn’t make any more noise.
The Prussians stretched out on the floor, their feet toward the fire, their heads on top of their rolled-up coats, and all of them were soon snoring: a medley of six different snores, from dull to shrill, but all continuous and loud.
THEY’D BEEN SLEEPING for quite a long time when a gunshot rang out, so loudly that it sounded as if it had been fired right at the wall of the house. The soldiers sprang up. Then they heard two more gunshots, followed by three others.
The door from the second floor opened suddenly and Berthine appeared barefoot, wearing only her nightshirt and skirt. She held a candle in her hand and looked terrified.
“It’s the French army,” she stammered. “There must be at least two hundred of ’em. If they find you here, they’ll burn down our house. Quick, get down into the cellar, and don’t make a sound. If you make any noise, we’re finished.”
“Ja, ja, vill go,” the terrified officer whispered. “How do vee get down?”
The young woman hurriedly opened the narrow, square trap door and the six men disappeared down the small winding staircase, backwards, one after the other, so they could feel their way down the steps.
As soon as the spike on the last helmet had disappeared, Berthine slammed shut the heavy oak door—as thick as a wall, as strong as steel—complete with hinges and a lock big enough for a dungeon; she turned the key twice and started to laugh, a silent laugh of delight, and she was filled with a mad desire to dance over the heads of her prisoners.
They made no noise, locked down there as if they were in a safe, a safe made of stone with only a small barred vent to let in some air.
Berthine immediately relit the fire, put the cooking pot back over it and made some more soup.
“Pa will be worn out tonight.”
Then she sat down and waited. The only sound that broke the silence was the dull, regular tick-tock of the clock’s pendulum.
Every now and again, the young woman glanced anxiously at the clock, with an expression that seemed to say:
“He’s taking his time.”
But soon she thought she could hear mumbling beneath her feet. Incomprehensible words spoken in low voices rose up through the brickwork from the cellar. The Prussians were beginning to guess she’d tricked them, and before long, the Second Lieutenant went to the top of the little staircase and started pounding on the trap door.
“You vill open it,” he shouted.
She stood up, walked closer and, imitating his accent said: “Vat do you vant?”
“You vill open it.”
“I von’t.”
“Open or I vill break down the door!” the man said angrily.
She started to laugh: “Go ahead and try, little man, just you try!”
And he began hitting the solid oak trap door above his head with the butt of his rifle. But the door would have stood firm against a battering ram.
Berthine heard him go back down the stairs. Then the soldiers each came, in turn, to inspect the door and try their strength. Realizing their efforts were pointless, no doubt, they all went back down into the cellar and started talking amongst themselves.
The young woman listened to them, then went to open the front door to see if she could hear anything in the dark.
She heard the sound of barking in the distance. She gave the kind of whistle a hunter would, and almost immediately, two enormous dogs came out of the darkness and playfully leapt around her. She grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks and held them so they wouldn’t run away. Then she shouted as loudly as she could: “Hey! Pa?”
A voice replied, still quite far away: “Hey, Berthine.”
She waited a few seconds, then said again: “Hey! Pa.”
The voice was closer now and replied: “Hey, Berthine.”
“Don’t go past the cellar window,” she continued: “There’s Prussians down there.”
And suddenly the tall silhouette of the man could be seen to her left, standing still between two tree trunks.
“Prussians down the cellar. What’re they doin’ there?” he asked, sounding worried.
The young woman started to laugh: “It’s the ones what came yesterday. They got lost in the forest. I put them down the cellar to cool ’em off.”
And she told him the whole story, how she’d frightened them by firing the gun and locked them down the cellar.
The old man looked worried: “What am I supposed to do with ’em at this time of night?”
“Go get Monsieur Lavigne and his men,” she replied. “He’ll take them prisoner. He’ll be real happy, he will.”
Old Pichon smiled: “Y’know, he will at that.”
“I made some soup,” his daughter continued. “Eat it real quick and then get goin’.”
The old gamekeeper put two plates of food on the floor for his dogs, sat down at the table and ate his soup.
The Prussians heard people talking and went quiet.
Stilts left fifteen minutes later. And Berthine sat, her head in her hands, and waited.
THE PRISONERS STARTED getting restless. They were shouting now, calling out, angrily beating the unmovable trap door of the cellar with the butts of their rifles, over and over again.
Then they started firing shots through the cellar window, hoping, no doubt, to be heard by some German detachment that might be passing through the woods.
Berthine sat absolutely still but the noise was upsetting her, irritating her. A feeling of malicious anger ran through her; she would have gladly killed them all, the villains, just to shut them up.
Then she grew more and more impatient, and started watching the clock and counting the passing minutes.
Her father had left an hour and a half ago. He would have reached the town by now. She pictured what he would do. He’d tell his story to Monsieur Lavigne, who would turn pale with emotion and ring for his maid to bring his uniform and weapons. She felt she could actually hear the drummer rushing through the streets. Terrified faces pressed against windows. The citizens’ army would rush out of their homes, out of breath, still buckling their belts, and run toward the Major’s house.
Then the troop, with Stilts leading the way, would set out through the night, through the snow, toward the forest.
She looked at the clock. “They could be here in an hour.”
She was overwhelmed by anxious impatience. They were taking so long!
The time she’d imagined they would arrive came at last.
She opened the door once more to see if she could hear them coming. She caught a glimpse of a shadow walking cautiously toward the house. She let out a cry of fear. It was her father.
“They sent me to see if anything’s changed,” he said.
“No, nothing.”
Then he gave a long, shrill whistle out into the night. Soon, they could see dark shapes emerging slowly from behind the trees: ten men had been sent on ahead of the rest of the soldiers.
“Don’t walk by the cellar window,” Stilts said over and over again.
So the first men to arrive showed the ones behind them where the dangerous vent was.
Finally, the main body of the troop appeared, two hundred men in all, each carrying two hundred bullets.
Monsieur Lavigne, trembling and very excited, ordered them to surround the house, leaving a wide open space free in front of the little black opening at ground level where air was let into the cellar.
Then he went inside and asked how many enemies there were and their state of mind, for they’d gone so silent you might have thought they’d disappeared, vanished, flown away through the little window.
Monsieur Lavigne stamped his foot against the trap door. “I wish to speak to the Prussian officer,” he said.
The German did not reply.
“I want the Prussian officer,” he said again.
In vain. For twenty minutes he demanded that this silent officer surrender, along with all their arms and kit, promising that none of them would be killed and that the officer and his men would be treated with military courtesy. But he received no sign of either agreement or hostility. The situation was becoming difficult.
The citizens’ army stamped their feet into the snow and slapped their shoulders with their arms to keep warm, the way coachmen do, and they watched the little window with an increasing, childish desire to walk in front of it.
One of them, a very supple man named Potdevin,2 finally took a chance. He gathered speed and leapt in front of the window like a stag. He succeeded. The prisoners seemed to be dead.
“No one’s down there,” a voice cried.
And another soldier walked across the empty space in front of the dangerous vent. Then it became a game. One after the other, the men jumped past the vent, going from one side to the other, like children having a race, and they ran so fast that each one kicked up snow and sent it flying. To keep warm, they’d lit fires made with large pieces of dead wood, and the silhouettes of the running National Guard were lit up as they quickly raced from side to side.
“It’s your turn, Maloison!”3 someone shouted.
Maloison was a chubby baker whose fat stomach was the subject of many jokes among his fellow soldiers.
He hesitated. They teased him. So he made up his mind and started running at an easy, jogging pace; he was breathing heavily, which made his fat belly jiggle.
The entire detachment laughed until they cried.
“Bravo, bravo, Maloison!” they shouted, to encourage him.
He’d made it about two thirds of the way across when a long, red flame suddenly shot out of the vent. They heard a gunshot and the huge baker let out a horrible scream and fell flat on his face.
NO ONE RUSHED OVER to help him. Then they saw him crawling on all fours through the snow, groaning, and as soon as he was out of danger’s way, he fainted.
He’d been shot in the upper thigh.
After the initial shock and terror had worn off, they all started laughing again.
But Major Lavigne came out onto the doorstep of the cottage. He’d decided on his plan of attack.
“Planchut the plumber and his workmen, now!” he ordered in a booming voice. Three men came forward.
“Detach the drainpipes from the house.”
And fifteen minutes later, twenty yards of drainpipes were brought to the commander.
Then, taking infinite care, he had a little round hole cut into the trap door and built a conduit made from the pipes that went from the water pump down into the hole.
“Now we’re going to offer our German friends something to drink!” he announced, sounding delighted.
A frenzied “hurrah!” of admiration was followed by shouts of joy and hysterical laughter. And the commander organized groups of men who would work for five minutes and then hand over to the next group.
“Pump,” he ordered.
And after getting the pump handle going, they heard the soft sound of water running down the pipes into the cellar, splashing over each step, like a gurgling waterfall flowing into a pool with goldfish.
An hour passed, then two, then three.
The agitated Major paced up and down in the kitchen, stopping every now and again to press his ear against the ground to try and work out what his enemies were doing, wondering if they would soon surrender.
Their enemies were moving around now. They could hear them shifting barrels, talking, splashing about.
Then, around eight o’clock in the morning, a voice rose up from the vent:
“I vant to speak to the French officer.”
Lavigne replied from near the window, taking care not to stick his head out too close to it.
“Do you surrender?”
“I surrender.”
“Then hand over your rifles.”
A weapon immediately appeared through the bars of the vent and fell onto the snow, then two, then three—then all their weapons.
“Vee have no more,” said the same voice. “Hurry up! I am drowning.”
“Stop pumping,” the commander ordered.
They stopped and dropped the pump handle.
Then, having filled the kitchen with all the armed soldiers who’d been waiting, he slowly raised the oak trap door.
Four heads appeared first, four blond soaking wet heads with long, light hair, then one after the other, the six Germans emerged, shivering, drenched, and terrified.
They were taken and tied up. Then, fearing some unexpected event, the citizens’ army left immediately, in two convoys, one driving off with the prisoners, the other with Maloison carried on a mattress on top of some poles.
They entered Rethel in triumph.
Monsieur Lavigne was decorated for having captured a Prussian detachment, and the fat baker received a medal for having been wounded by the enemy.
____________
1 The verb for repairing clothing is ravauder, quite similar to this man’s name and profession.
2 Literally, “Jug of wine,” but it actually means a “bribe” or “backhander.”
3 Literally, “Naughty Little Goose.”
THE WAR WAS OVER; THE GERMANS WERE OCCUPYING FRANCE; the country was trembling like a beaten warrior beneath the foot of the conqueror.
Paris was starving, panic-stricken, in despair. The first trains left the capital, slowly crossing the countryside and villages, headed toward the newly established borders. The first passengers looked out of the windows at the devastated land and burnt-out hamlets. In front of the few houses that remained standing, Prussian soldiers wearing black helmets topped with brass points sat astride chairs, smoking their pipes. Others were working or chatting as if they were one of the family. When the trains passed through the cities, you could see entire regiments practicing maneuvers in the town squares, and despite the noise from the railway tracks, the sound of raucous orders could still be heard every now and then.
Monsieur Dubuis, who had been in the National Guard in Paris throughout the entire siege, was going to join his wife and daughter in Switzerland; he’d sent them abroad before the invasion, just in case.
Neither famine nor exhaustion had managed to diminish his big stomach, for he was a wealthy, peace-loving merchant. He had lived through the horrible events with sad resignation and bitter thoughts on the savagery of man. Now that the war was over and he was headed for the border, it was the first time he actually saw any Prussians, even though he’d been on duty on the city’s ramparts and stood watch on many a cold night.
He looked with annoyed terror at these armed, bearded men who were occupying France as if they were at home, and in his soul, he felt a kind of fever of powerless patriotism along with a great need to beware, a kind of new instinct for caution that remains with us to this day.
In his compartment, two Englishmen, who had come to witness the events, viewed everything through calm and curious eyes. They were both fat and chatted in their own language, sometimes leafing through their tourist guide, which they read out loud in an effort to recognize the places it described.
Suddenly, the train stopped at a small town and a Prussian officer noisily climbed up the steps of the train, his saber clanging loudly as he entered the compartment. He was a big man, bursting out of his uniform, and had an enormous beard. His red hair seemed to be on fire and his long moustache, a bit paler in color, flew up and cut across both sides of his face.
The Englishmen immediately started staring at him, smiling with satisfied curiosity, while Monsieur Dubuis pretended to be reading a newspaper. He huddled in his corner, like a thief in the presence of a policeman.
The train started to move again. The Englishmen continued talking, trying to locate the precise place where a battle had been fought. Suddenly, when one of them pointed to a specific village on the horizon, the Prussian officer stretched out his long legs, leaned back in his seat and said in French:
“I killed tvelve Frenchmen in this village. I take more than a hundred prisoners.”
The Englishmen, totally fascinated, immediately asked, also in French:
“Oh! What’s this village called?”
The Prussian replied, “Pharsbourg,” then continued, “I took dese naughty boys und teached dem a lesson.”
And he looked at Monsieur Dubuis and arrogantly roared with laughter.
The train kept on moving, passing through the occupied villages.
You could see German soldiers all along the roads, near the fields, standing next to the fences or chatting in cafés. They covered the land like a swarm of African locusts.
The officer stretched out his hands.
“If I vere in charge, I vould have taken Paris und burned everysing und killed everyvun. No more France!”
Not wishing to be impolite, the Englishmen simply replied: “Oh, yes.”
“In tventy years,” the soldier continued, “all Europe, all, vill belong to us. Prussia stronger dan everyvun.”
The Englishmen, somewhat anxious, said nothing more. Their faces had become impassive and seemed made of wax between their long sideburns. Then the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still leaning back in his seat, he started making jokes. He made fun of defeated, crushed France, viciously insulted his enemies. He made fun of Austria, which had recently been conquered; he joked about the fierce but powerless defense encountered in the provinces; he insulted the troops and their inferior artillery. He announced that Bismarck was going to build an iron city made from the captured cannons. And suddenly, he pressed his boots against Monsieur Dubuis’s thigh. His face burned red with anger, but he turned away.
The Englishmen seemed to have become indifferent to everything, as if they’d suddenly found themselves back on their isolated island, far from the maddening crowd.
The officer took out his pipe and stared at the Frenchman.
“You have some tobacco, yes?”
“No, Monsieur,” replied Monsieur Dubuis.
“If you please,” the German continued, “you vill go und buy me some at next stop.”
And he started laughing once more.
“I vill give you a tip.”
The train whistled as it slowed down. They passed the burned-out building of a station and came to a stop.
The German opened the door of the compartment, grabbed Monsieur Dubuis by the arm, saying:
“Go on, go do my errand, und schnell—fast!”
A detachment of Prussian troops filled the station. Other soldiers stood watch, positioned all along the wooden fences. The train was already whistling to announce it was about to leave. Monsieur Dubuis suddenly jumped out onto the platform and, ignoring the stationmaster who was waving his arms at him, rushed into the next compartment.
HE WAS ALONE! His heart was beating so hard that he was panting; he opened his jacket and wiped off his forehead. The train stopped again at a station.
And suddenly the officer appeared at the door and got into his compartment along with the two Englishmen, who followed out of curiosity.
The German sat down opposite the Frenchman and, still laughing, said:
“You did not vant to do my errand.”
“No, Monsieur,” replied Monsieur Dubuis.
The train had just started to move again.
“Then I vill cut your moustache,” the officer said, “und use it to fill my pipe.”
And he extended his hand toward Monsieur Dubuis’s face.
The Englishmen, ever impassive, couldn’t take their eyes off them.
The German had already got hold of a bit of hair and was pulling on it when Monsieur Dubuis slapped his arm away with the back of his hand, and grabbing him by the neck, he threw the officer against his seat. Then, overwhelmed with mad rage, temples pounding, eyes blazing, he continued strangling him with one hand while punching him furiously in the face with the other. The Prussian tried to fight back, to get his sword out, to overcome this enemy who was holding him down. But Monsieur Dubuis was crushing him with the weight of his enormous stomach, and he kept hitting and hitting, relentlessly, without stopping to catch his breath, without even knowing where his blows were landing. Blood flowed. The German, choking, gurgling, spluttering, tried—in vain—to push off this fat, frustrated man who was beating him to death.
The Englishmen inched closer to get a better look. They stood there, full of joy and curiosity, ready to bet for or against each of the rivals.
Then suddenly, exhausted by such a struggle, Monsieur Dubuis got up and sat down without saying a word.
The Prussian was so aghast, so stunned, so astonished and in so much pain that he didn’t pounce on him. When he’d caught his breath, he said:
“If you vill not have a duel with me because of dis insult, I vill kill you.”
“Whenever you like,” Monsieur Dubuis replied. “With pleasure.”
“Here is Strasbourg,” the German continued. “I vill take two officers as my vitnesses; I have time before the train goes.”
Monsieur Dubuis, who was puffing as much as the train, said to the Englishmen:
“Would you like to be my witnesses?”
They both replied at once: “Oh, yes!”
The train stopped.
The Prussian quickly found two friends who carried the pistols, and everyone climbed up onto the ramparts.
The Englishmen constantly took out their watches to check the time, hurried everyone along and made them go through the formalities very quickly, worried that they might not make it back to the train before it left.
Monsieur Dubuis had never held a pistol in his life. He was placed twenty paces from his enemy.
“Are you ready?” he was asked.
As he was replying, “Yes, Monsieur,” he noticed that one of the Englishmen had opened his umbrella to protect himself from the sun.
A voice shouted:
“Fire!”
Without hesitating, Monsieur Dubuis fired blindly and was astonished to see the Prussian opposite him sway, fling his arms in the air and fall face first onto the ground. He had killed him.
One of the Englishmen, full of joy, satisfied curiosity and cheerful impatience, shouted: “Oh!” The other one, who still had his watch in his hand, grabbed Monsieur Dubuis by the arm and started running, dragging him toward the station.
The first Englishmen marked time as he ran, elbows close to his body and fists clenched.
“One, two! One, two!”
And all three of them jogged along, in spite of their fat stomachs, like three caricatures in a satirical magazine.
The train was leaving. They jumped into their compartment.
The Englishmen then took off their hats, waved them in the air and shouted, “Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!” three times in a row.
Then, one after the other, they solemnly shook hands with Monsieur Dubuis and sat back down in their seats.
FOR SEVERAL DAYS IN A ROW, THE REMNANTS OF THE DEFEATED army had been passing through the city. They were no longer a unified regiment, just a scattered group of soldiers. The men had long, dirty beards, uniforms in shreds, and advanced listlessly, without a flag, without a regiment. All of them looked dejected, exhausted, incapable of coming up with a single idea or plan. They simply kept marching through habit, dropping with exhaustion the moment they stopped. Some were peace-loving men who had lived a life of ease and were then called up to serve, hunched over under the weight of their rifles. Some were eager volunteers, easily frightened but full of enthusiasm, as ready to attack as to flee. And among them were a scattering of soldiers in their red breeches, the wreckage of a division that had been overwhelmingly defeated in a great battle. Gloomy artillerymen marched along with these various foot soldiers, and every now and again they were joined by the shiny helmet of some dragoon who could barely keep up with the faster pace of the ordinary soldiers.
Bands of snipers and guerrillas with heroic-sounding names—“Avengers of the Defeat,” “Citizens of the Tomb,” “Dealers of Death”—also passed by, looking like bandits.
Their leaders, former fabric or grain merchants, tallow or soap sellers, soldiers by some quirk of fate, were appointed officers because of their wealth or the length of their moustaches; they were heavily armed, wore flannel uniforms with stripes indicating their rank, and spoke in booming voices, discussing campaign plans and bragging that they alone could support a dying France on their shoulders. Yet they sometimes feared their own soldiers, criminals who were often excessively brave but basically debauched looters.
People were saying that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen.
For the past two months, the National Guard had cautiously sent reconnaissance scouts into the nearby woods; they sometimes shot their own sentries and were ready for action whenever a small rabbit stirred under the brush. They had all gone back home. Their weapons, their uniforms, all the murderous gear that had formerly terrified everyone up and down the main road for miles around, all of it had mysteriously disappeared.
The last of the French soldiers had just managed to cross the Seine, making their way through Saint-Sever and Bourg-Achard to reach Pont-Audemer; and bringing up the rear, in between two orderlies, their general walked in despair, unable to do anything with such a mass of stragglers, dismayed by the great debacle of a nation used to victory yet disastrously beaten despite its legendary bravery.
Then a profound sense of calm, a silent and terrifying waiting game descended on the town. Many portly middle-class men had grown soft thanks to their easy lives; they anxiously awaited the arrival of their conquerors, quaking at the thought that their roasting spits or large kitchen knives might be considered weapons.
Life seemed to have stopped; the shops were closed, the streets silent. Sometimes, one of the people who lived there would quickly walk down the road, huddling against the buildings, frightened of the silence.
The anguish of waiting made them wish the enemy would actually arrive.
On the afternoon of the day after the French troops had left, a few lancers—who seemed to have come out of nowhere—sped through the city. Then, a little later, a dark mass of bodies came down from Saint Catherine’s Hill, while two other waves of invaders appeared on the roads from Darnetal and Boisguillaume. The advance guard of these three battalions arrived at the square in front of the Town Hall at exactly the same time. Then the German army poured in from every nearby street, their battalions pounding along the sidewalks with their harsh, rhythmical steps.
Orders shouted in foreign, guttural voices rose up through the houses that appeared empty and dead; but behind closed shutters, people watched out fearfully for these victorious men, masters over their town, their destinies and their lives, determined by the “rules of war.”
The townspeople sat in their darkened rooms, overwhelmed with the kind of fear brought about by such cataclysmic events, huge upheavals that destroy the land, and that neither wisdom nor strength can overpower. For the same feeling emerges every time the established order is overthrown, when no one feels safe any more, when everything that protected the laws of nature or of man is suddenly at the mercy of ferocious, reckless brutality. An earthquake that buries an entire population beneath their crumbling homes; a river that floods, sweeping away farmers and the dead bodies of their cattle alike, along with beams ripped from the roofs of houses; or the glorious army massacring anyone who fights back, taking the rest as prisoners, pillaging in the name of the Sword and thanking their God to the sound of cannon fire—all terrifying plagues that destroy any belief in eternal justice, any confidence we are taught to have in protection from Heaven and human rationality.
Small detachments of troops knocked at every door before disappearing inside the houses. Occupation followed the invasion. The conquered were obliged to be gracious to their conquerors.
After a while, once the initial terror had worn off, a new sense of calm returned. In many families, a Prussian officer sat down to share a meal with them. Sometimes he had good manners and showed pity for France out of politeness, expressed his repugnance at having participated in the war. People were grateful for such feelings; and, of course, his protection might be needed one day. By handling him properly, they would perhaps have fewer men they had to feed. And why upset someone you were completely dependent on? To behave in such a way would be more reckless than brave. And recklessness was no longer one of the faults of the good people of Rouen, as it had been during the heroic resistance in the past, which had made their city famous. In the end, people told themselves that it was quite permissible to be polite to the foreign soldiers inside their houses, as long as they did not appear friendly in public, a supremely rational idea in keeping with French manners. Outside the house, they were strangers, but inside, they happily chatted together, and the German stayed longer and longer each evening, to keep warm by the fire in the living room.
Little by little, the city started to look like itself again. The Frenchmen still hardly ever went out, but the Prussian soldiers milled about in the streets. Moreover, the officers of the Blue Hussars, who arrogantly dragged their great deadly weapons along the pavement, did not seem to be significantly more disdainful of the ordinary people than the French cavalry officers who had drunk in the very same cafés the year before.
And yet there was something in the air, something subtle and strange, an intolerable foreign atmosphere, like a bad smell that spreads: the stench of invasion. It filled the houses and public squares, changed how the food tasted, gave everyone the impression they were on a journey, very far away, a journey to the land of dangerous, barbaric tribes.
The conquerors demanded money, a lot of money. The townspeople always paid; besides, they were rich. But the richer a Norman merchant becomes, the more he suffers from having to sacrifice anything, any small part of his fortune, watching it pass into someone else’s hands.
But six or seven miles south of the city, following the course of the river as it flowed toward Croisset, Dieppedalle or Biessart, sailors and fishermen often hauled out the swollen corpse of some German in uniform, beaten to death with a wooden shoe, or stabbed, or his head bashed in by a stone, or someone who had been pushed into the river from the top of a bridge. The sludge of the river buried these obscure acts of vengeance, savage but justifiable, unknown acts of heroism, silent attacks, more dangerous than battles fought in broad daylight and without any hint of glory.
For the hatred of the Foreigner always arms a few Brave Men who are prepared to die for an Idea.
In the end, even though the invaders had subjugated the city with their strict discipline, they had not carried out any of the horrific deeds they were rumored to have committed throughout their long, triumphal march, and so the inhabitants grew bolder: the need to trade arose again in these merchants’ hearts. Some of these men had important commercial dealings in Le Havre, which was occupied by the French army, so they wanted to try to get there by traveling overland to Dieppe where they could get a boat to the port.
The German officers they had gotten to know used their influence with the General in charge to get them a permit to leave.
And so, a large carriage pulled by four horses was hired for the journey and ten people signed up to travel with the owner. They decided to leave one Tuesday morning, just before daybreak, to avoid attracting a crowd.
For some time now, the frost had hardened the ground, and that Monday, around three o’clock, great dark clouds descended from the north, and it snowed steadily all that evening and continued snowing throughout the night.
At four-thirty in the morning, the travelers gathered in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Normandie, where they’d been told to meet the coach.
They were still very sleepy and shivered beneath their blankets. It was difficult to see in the darkness, and the way everyone was bundled up in heavy winter clothing made them all look like fat priests in their long cloaks. But two of the men recognized each other; a third one went up to them and they started chatting: “I’m bringing my wife along,” one of them said. “So am I.” “Me too.” “We’re not going to come back to Rouen,” the first one said, “and if the Prussians make it to Le Havre, we’re going to head for England.” They were all very much alike, so they all had the same plan.
Meanwhile, the horses were not being harnessed. A little lantern carried by a stable boy appeared every now and then from a dark doorway only to disappear at once into another. The horses’ hooves stamped on the ground, muted by the dung and straw, and a man’s voice talking to the animals and swearing could be heard inside the building.
The faint jingle of bells meant they were fixing the harness; the soft sound soon became a clear, continuous ringing that followed the rhythm of the horse’s movement, sometimes stopping, then suddenly continuing once more, accompanied by the dull thud of a horseshoe striking the ground.
The door suddenly closed. Not a sound could be heard. Everyone was freezing and had stopped talking: they simply stood there, stiff from the cold.
An endless blanket of white snow shimmered as it spread over the ground; it made it impossible to see any shapes, covering everything in a powdery layer of frost. And in the great silence of the calm city buried beneath the winter’s snow, all that could be heard was the strange rustling of the falling snow, more a feeling than a sound, the mingling of invisible particles that seemed to fill the sky and engulf all the world.
The man reappeared with his lantern, pulling a sad-looking horse along by a rope, who didn’t seem eager to follow. He placed him beside the beam, secured the ties and walked slowly all around to make sure the harness was properly fitted; he could only use one hand as he was carrying the lantern in the other. As he went inside to get the next horse, he noticed all the motionless travelers, already covered in snow. “Why don’t you get into the carriage?” he asked. “At least you’ll be out of the snow.”
They hadn’t thought of that, of course, and rushed into the carriage.
The three men helped their wives inside and then got in themselves; then the other hesitant people, covered in snow, took their seats without exchanging a word.
Their feet sank into the straw that covered the floor.
The women had brought along little copper foot-warmers filled with some sort of chemical fuel; they lit them and spoke quietly for some time, explaining the advantages of having them, repeating things to each other that they already knew for quite some time.
Finally, six horses were harnessed to the carriage instead of four because of the weight of the load. A voice from outside asked: “Is everyone in?” A voice from inside replied: “Yes.” And they set out on their way.
The carriage moved slowly, very slowly.
The wheels sank in the snow; the entire carriage groaned with a muted, creaking sound; the animals slipped, huffed and puffed, and the coachman’s enormous whip snapped continuously, flicking in all directions, curling up and unfolding like some slim serpent, sharply stinging the horses’ flanks which instantly tensed and made them strain to go faster.
But day was gradually breaking. The delicate snowflakes that one of the travelers, a native of Rouen, had described as a stream of cotton wool, no longer fell. A murky light filtered through heavy, dark clouds, making the countryside look even more dazzling white; sometimes they could see a row of tall trees covered in ice, sometimes a cottage with a roof laden with snow.
Inside the carriage, in the bleak light of daybreak, everyone looked at each other with curiosity.
Right at the back, in the best seats, Monsieur and Madame Loiseau, wine distributors from the Rue Grand-Pont, sat opposite one another, dozing.
A former assistant to an employer who had lost everything, Loiseau had bought the business and made his fortune. He sold very bad wine at very low prices to retailers in small villages and was known amongst his friends and acquaintances as a sly devil, a true Norman, tricky and jovial.
His reputation as a rogue was so well established that one evening, at the city’s administrative offices, Monsieur Tournel, a writer of fables and songs, a local legend thanks to his subtle, biting wit, had suggested to some of the ladies who seemed about to doze off that they play a game called “Loiseau the Thief.”2 The term immediately caught on and spread rapidly through the local area, then into the heart of the city, and had made everyone roar with laughter for an entire month.
In addition, Loiseau was well known for playing tricks of all kinds and telling jokes, sometimes funny and sometimes mean, and no one could ever mention him without immediately adding: “That Loiseau is just a scream!”
He was short and stocky, with a round belly and ruddy complexion beneath his long, graying moustache.
His wife was tall, sturdily built, confident, and had a high-pitched voice; she made snap decisions and was the one who organized and kept the accounts of the business, which her husband cheerfully ran.
Next to them was Monsieur Carré-Lamadon, a more dignified gentleman belonging to a higher social class, who was considerably wealthy and the owner of three cotton mills, an officer of the Legion of Honor and a member of the Conseil général.3 During the entire reign of the Empire,4 he had been the leader of the benevolent opposition party, solely in order to make himself more money by recruiting others to the cause he was fighting, using what he called “polite weapons.” Madame Carré-Lamadon, who was much younger than her husband, brought solace to the officers from the best families who were garrisoned at Rouen.
Sitting opposite her husband, she looked adorable: very pretty, petite, curled up in her fur coat, as she glanced sadly at the terrible condition of the inside of the carriage.
The people next to her, the Count and Countess Hubert de Bréville, bore one of the most ancient and noble names in Normandy. The Count, an elderly gentleman of aristocratic appearance, attempted to emphasize, by artificial means, his natural resemblance to Henri IV, who, according to a proud family legend, had gotten one of the de Bréville ladies pregnant and so had made her husband a count and governor of the province.
A colleague of Monsieur Carré-Lamadon in the Conseil général, Count Hubert was head of the Orléanist Party5 in the region. The story of his marriage to the daughter of an insignificant shipowner from Nantes had always remained a mystery. But as the Countess looked very aristocratic, was second to none as a hostess, and said even to have been loved by one of the sons of Louis-Philippe, every member of the nobility invited her to their parties; and her salon6 was considered the best in the country, the only one where traditional values of gallantry were still respected, and the most difficult to be accepted into.
The de Brévilles’ fortune consisted entirely of property and was worth, or so it was said, five hundred thousand francs a year.
These six people sat in the back of the carriage, the place reserved for the landed gentry, confident and strong men and women, the honest members of society who were Religious and had Principles.
Through a strange coincidence, all the women were seated on the same side, and the Countess had two additional neighbors: two good nuns who wore long rosary beads and whispered their Paters and Aves. One of them was old, with a face so marked and pitted by smallpox that she looked as if she had been hit by machine gun fire. The other nun was scrawny but had a rather pretty yet sickly-looking face: her chest sounded as if she had consumption, her strength sapped by the all-devouring faith that creates martyrs and eccentric visionaries.
Everyone was looking at the man and woman who sat opposite the two nuns.
The man was famous: Cornudet, le démoc,7 who inspired fear in the hearts of respectable people. He had been dipping his red beard into the beer glasses of every republican café for the past twenty years. He and his friends had already spent the rather large fortune that had been left to him by his father, a former confectioner, and he was waiting, impatiently, for the rise of the Republic so he could finally take the place he rightly deserved after consuming so many revolutionary glasses of beer. On September 4,8 perhaps as a result of a joke, he believed he had been appointed Prefect; but when he tried to take up his post, the office workers who had taken over the place refused to recognize his authority and he was forced to leave. Despite all of this, he was a rather likable young man, inoffensive and helpful, and he threw himself into defending Paris with unequaled passion. He had holes dug in the plains, cut down all the young trees in the neighboring forests, scattered traps along all the roads and then, satisfied with all his preparations, as soon as the enemy was getting closer, he hightailed it back to the city. He now thought he would be more useful in Le Havre, where new entrenchments were going to be needed.
The woman, one of the variety known as “courtesans,” was famous for her youthful sexuality and voluptuous figure, which had earned her the nickname “Butterball.” Short, curvaceous, extremely chubby, with puffy fingers pressed in at the joints like rows of little sausages, she had smooth, glowing skin and an enormous bosom that bulged over her low-cut dress. She was quite delectable and extremely popular; her fresh youthfulness made her very attractive. Her face was like a red apple, a peony bud about to blossom; thick eyelashes cast a shadow over her magnificent dark eyes. She had shiny little baby teeth, and her enchanting mouth with its slender, moist lips was made to be kissed.
She also possessed, or so people said, other inestimable qualities.
As soon as she was recognized, the righteous women started whispering, and at once the words “prostitute” and “shameful hussy” were murmured so loudly that she looked up. She then gave each of her neighbors such a provocative, scathing look that a great silence immediately followed, and every one of them lowered their eyes, except for Loiseau, who was enthralled and salaciously watched her every move.
But soon the conversation between the three women started up again, since the presence of this young women suddenly made them bond as friends, almost intimate acquaintances. For they believed they had to create a pact, as it were, based on their dignity as honest wives, to stand together against this shameless hussy.
For legitimized love always takes the high moral ground in the face of its more licentious sister.
The three men, bound by an instinct for conservatism at the sight of Cornudet, began talking about money in a contemptuous way that was insulting about the poor. Count Hubert listed the damage the Prussians had done to him, the losses suffered due to the cattle he’d had stolen and the lost harvest, but with the smug confidence of a noble lord who was a millionaire ten times over and so would recoup these losses within a year. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon, an experienced cotton manufacturer, had had the foresight to send six hundred thousand francs to England, a nest egg for the disastrous time he anticipated he might one day face. As for Loiseau, he had made sure he’d sold all the cheap table wine left in his cellars to the French Military Supply Corps, so the state owed him a great deal of money, which he hoped to be paid in Le Havre.
All three of them looked at each other in a friendly way. Despite their different social status, they felt themselves united in the brotherhood of money whose members could always hear the sound of gold coins jingling whenever they reached into their pockets.
The carriage was traveling so slowly that by ten o’clock in the morning, they had barely gone twelve miles. The men got out three times to walk up the hills on foot.
Everyone was starting to get anxious, for they were meant to be having lunch at Tôtes, but now they feared they wouldn’t even make it there by evening. They were all gazing outside in the hope of finding an inn along the road when the carriage sank in a bank of snow; it took two hours to dig it out.
They were getting hungrier and hungrier and more and more disheartened. Not a single cheap restaurant or wine shop could be found: the approach of the Prussians and the starving French troops that passed through had frightened everyone away, so they had closed all their stores.
The gentlemen rushed out to see if they could find some food in the farms along the road, but they couldn’t even get any bread: the wary farmers hid all their reserves out of fear of being pillaged by the soldiers who, having nothing whatsoever to eat, grabbed anything they could find by force.
At around one o’clock in the afternoon, Loiseau announced that he definitely felt a big hollow in his empty stomach. Everyone had been suffering the same way for a long time, and the desperate need to eat continued to grow, killing all conversation.
Every now and again, someone yawned; someone else did the same almost immediately, and each one of them, in turn, according to his character, sophistication and social status, either noisily opened his mouth or modestly held a hand to cover the gaping hole, their breath escaping in a kind of mist.
Butterball bent down several times, as if she were looking for something under the folds of her dress. She hesitated for a moment, looked at her companions, then calmly sat up straight again. Everyone looked pale and tense. Loiseau said he would pay a thousand francs for a hunk of ham. His wife began to make a gesture as if to protest, then stopped herself. She always found it painful to hear talk about money being wasted and could not really understand how anyone could make jokes about such a thing. “I don’t feel well at all,” said the Count. “How could I have not thought of bringing along some food?” Everyone reproached himself in the same way.
Cornudet, however, had a bottle of rum; he offered it around: everyone coldly refused. Only Loiseau accepted and took a few sips, thanking him when he handed back the bottle: “That’s good, it really is, it warms you up and makes you forget about being hungry.” The alcohol put him in a good mood and he suggested they follow the words of a sailor’s song: to eat the fattest passenger. This indirect allusion to Butterball shocked the respectable people in the carriage. No one said a word; only Cornudet was smiling. The two good nuns stopped saying their rosary and sat very still, their eyes looking stubbornly down, their hands hidden inside their wide sleeves, doubtlessly offering back the suffering Heaven had sent them as a sacrifice.
At three o’clock, they found themselves in the middle of flat, open country as far as the eye could see, without a single village in sight. Butterball quickly bent down and pulled out a large basket covered in a white cloth from under her seat.
First she took out a small earthenware plate, then a small silver cup and finally an enormous dish that contained two whole chickens cut into joints preserved in aspic, and everyone could see many other wonderful things wrapped up in the basket—pâtés, fruit, sweets—enough food to last three days without having to depend on stopping at inns.
The necks of four bottles peeked out from between the packages of food. She picked up a chicken wing and began to daintily nibble at it, along with one of the rolls known in Normandy as a “Regency.”
Everyone was staring at her. Then the smell of chicken filled the carriage, causing their nostrils to flare, their mouths to water and their jaws to contract in pain. The scorn the ladies felt toward this young woman grew savage: they would have liked to kill her or throw her out of the carriage into the snow, her, her silver cup, her basket and all her food.
Loiseau’s eyes devoured the dish of chicken. “Well, well! I can see that Madame thought ahead more than we did. Some people always manage to think of everything.” She looked up at him: “Would you like some, Monsieur? It’s difficult to go without food all day.” He bowed. “Well, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t say no. I’m at the end of my tether. All’s fair in love and war, don’t you think, Madame?” And looking all around him, he added:
“At times like this, it’s very lucky to find such generous people.”
He spread some newspaper over his trousers so he wouldn’t stain them and using the pocketknife he always carried, helped himself to a chicken thigh covered in aspic, tore a piece off with his teeth and chewed it with such obvious satisfaction that a great sigh of distress from the others filled the carriage.
Then Butterball, in a soft, humble voice, asked the nuns if they would like to share her food. They both accepted immediately, and, without looking up at her, began eating quickly, after mumbling a few words of thanks. Cornudet did not refuse his neighbor’s offer, and, along with the nuns, they made a kind of table by spreading the newspaper out over their knees.
Mouths opened and closed, chewing, swallowing, greedily devouring the food. In his corner of the carriage, Loiseau was hard at work, and quietly urged his wife to follow his example. She resisted for a long time, but after her stomach contracted painfully, she gave in. Her husband, assuming his most polite manner, asked whether their “charming companion” would mind offering a little bit to Madame Loiseau.
“But of course, Monsieur,” she replied with a kind smile, as she held out the dish.
There was an awkward moment when the first bottle of Bordeaux was opened: there was only one drinking cup. It was wiped clean before being passed to the next person. Only Cornudet, undoubtedly out of gallantry, drank from the same moist spot as his neighbor.
Surrounded by people who were eating, virtually choking on the wonderful smell of food, the Count and Countess de Bréville and Monsieur and Madame Carré-Lamadon suffered the hideous form of torture that has long been associated with the name of Tantalus.9 Suddenly, the young wife of the cotton manufacturer let out such a great sigh that everyone turned to look at her; she was as white as the snow outside; her eyes closed, her head dropped forward: she had fainted. Her husband, extremely upset, begged everyone for help. No one knew what to do until the older nun supported the sick woman’s head, placed Butterball’s drinking cup in between her lips and made her take a few sips of wine. The pretty young woman stirred, opened her eyes and said in a faint voice that she felt quite well again now. But to prevent her from fainting again, the nun made her drink a whole glass of wine. “She’s just hungry, that’s all,” she said.
Butterball then blushed terribly from embarrassment. “Good Lord,” she stammered, looking at the four travelers who had had nothing to eat, “if I presumed to offer these ladies and gentlemen . . .” She stopped herself, fearing their contempt. But Loiseau spoke up: “Well, in such situations we are all brothers and should help each other. Come now, ladies, don’t stand on ceremony: accept her offer, for goodness sake! Are we even sure we’ll find somewhere to spend the night? At the rate we’re going, we won’t even make it to Tôtes before noon tomorrow.” They hesitated; no one wanted the responsibility of being the first to say yes. But the Count solved the problem. He turned toward the frightened, chubby girl and using his most sophisticated manner said: “We accept most gratefully, Madame.”
The first step was the most difficult. Once the Rubicon was crossed, they didn’t hesitate to tuck in. The basket was emptying but still had much food left: there was a pâté de foie gras, a lark pie, a piece of smoked tongue, some Crassane pears, a square Pont L’Evêque cheese, some petits fours and a cup full of pickles and pickled onions, because Butterball, like all women, adored raw vegetables.
It was impossible to eat this young woman’s food without speaking to her. And so they began to chat, reservedly at first, then, as she seemed more well mannered and better educated than they had imagined, more openly. The de Bréville and Carré-Lamadon ladies, who were very sophisticated, became quite gracious but tactful. The Countess especially displayed the kind of amiable condescension typical of the upper-class nobility that cannot be stained by contact of any kind with lesser beings, but could not have been more charming. Only the stocky Madame Loiseau, who had the soul of a policeman, remained surly, speaking little and eating a great deal.
Naturally, they talked about the war. They told terrible stories about the Prussians, gave examples of the courageous qualities of the French; and all these people who were running away, paid homage to the bravery of the others. Soon they began talking about themselves, and Butterball, with great emotion, with that warm way of speaking that young girls sometimes use when expressing their natural passions, explained how she had left Rouen: “At first, I thought I could stay on there,” she said. “I had my house, well stocked with food, and I preferred to feed a few soldiers than to run away heavens knows where. But when I saw those Prussians, I just couldn’t stand it! They made my blood boil with anger and I cried with shame all day long. Oh! If only I were a man, you’d see! I watched them from my window, the fat swine with their spiked helmets, and my maid had to grab my hands to stop me throwing furniture down at them. Then some of them came and said they would be lodging with me, so I lunged at the throat of the first one I saw. It’s no more difficult to strangle them than anyone else! I would have finished him off if I hadn’t been pulled away by the hair. After that, I had to go into hiding. And so, when I saw the opportunity, I left, and here I am now.”
Everyone congratulated her warmly. She rose in the estimation of her companions, who had not demonstrated such courage; and as Cornudet listened to her, he smiled with the kindly, approving smile of an apostle, the same smile a priest might wear when he hears a devout person praising God, for the long-bearded democrats have the monopoly on patriotism just as priests have on religion.
When it was his turn, he spoke dogmatically, stressing his words in a way he had learned from the proclamations hung on the walls of the city every day, and he concluded with a choice morsel of oratory in which he eloquently crushed Louis-Napoleon, that “villain, Badinguet.”10
Now Butterball got angry, for she was for Bonaparte. She blushed redder than a cherry and stammered in indignation: “I would have liked to see what you would have done in his place. Oh, yes! What a mess you would have made! You’re the ones who betrayed him! No one would have any choice but to leave France if we were governed by scoundrels like you!” Cornudet, impassive, kept smiling in a superior, disdainful way, but they could sense that insults would soon be exchanged, so the Count intervened. He managed to calm the angry young woman down, but not without difficulty, stating firmly that all sincerely held opinions should be respected. But the Countess and the manufacturer’s wife, who felt the irrational hatred of all respectable people toward the Republic, along with the instinctive tenderness that women cherish for despotic, ostentatious governments, felt drawn, in spite of themselves, to this prostitute who was full of dignity and whose feelings so closely resembled their own.
The basket was empty. Ten people had easily emptied it; their only regret was that there had not been more. The conversation continued for a while, though everyone was more distant since they had finished eating.
Night was falling; it was getting darker and darker, and the cold, which everyone felt more as they were digesting their food, made Butterball shiver, in spite of her plumpness. So Madame de Bréville offered her her foot-warmer, which had been refueled several times since the morning, and she accepted at once, for her feet were freezing cold. Madame Carré-Lamadon and Madame Loiseau gave theirs to the two nuns.
The driver had lit his lanterns. They cast a bright glow over the mist that hovered above the horses’ sweating rumps, and on the snow along both sides of the road that seemed to uncurl beneath the moving reflection of the lamps.
It was so dark inside the carriage that it was impossible to see anything. Then suddenly, something moved between Butterball and Cornudet, so Loiseau peered into the darkness and thought he saw the man with the long beard pull quickly away as if he had been hit, silently but hard.
Several small lights appeared on the road ahead. It was Tôtes. They had been traveling for eleven hours, fourteen if you counted the four times they had stopped to let the horses rest and eat some oats. They entered the town and stopped in front of the Hôtel du Commerce.
The coach door opened! A well-known sound made all the travelers shudder: it was the harsh noise of scabbards being dragged along the ground. Then someone shouted something in German.
Even though the carriage was standing still, no one got out, as if they expected to be massacred the moment they did. Then the driver appeared with one of the lanterns in his hand, lighting up the inside of the carriage with its two rows of frightened faces, their mouths gaping open and their eyes wide with surprise and terror.
In the bright light, they could see a German officer standing next to the driver. He was a tall young man, excessively thin and blond, stuffed into his uniform like a woman in a corset, wearing his flat, shiny cap tilted to one side, which made him look like a bellboy in some English hotel. His extremely long, straight moustache tapered off at both ends into a single strand of blond hair so thin that it seemed endless, and the weight of the moustache seemed to drag down the corners of his mouth, pulling at his cheeks and making his lips droop.
He spoke the French of the Alsace region; in a dry voice, he asked the passengers to come out of the carriage: “Vill you please to come out, ladies und gentlemen?”
The two nuns were the first to obey, with the compliance of religious women used to always being submissive. The Count and Countess were next, followed by the manufacturer and his wife, then Loiseau, who pushed his larger, better half in front of him. Once out of the carriage, Loiseau said: “Hello, Monsieur,” more out of a feeling of prudence than politeness. The officer, as insolent as anyone in a position of power, looked at him without replying.
Butterball and Cornudet were the last to emerge, even though they were seated next to the door; they looked serious and dignified in the face of the enemy. The plump young woman tried to control herself and seem calm; the democrat twisted his long, reddish beard in anguish, his hand trembling. Both of them wanted to maintain their dignity, understanding that in such situations every individual represents his country; and, equally revolted by the servility of their companions, Butterball tried to look prouder than her neighbors, the respectable women, while Cornudet, feeling it was up to him to set an example, maintained an attitude of sabotage, which was his mission ever since he had decided to travel.
They went into the enormous kitchen at the inn and the German asked them to show him their travel passes authorized and signed by the General in command; these gave the names, description and profession of each traveler. He studied them carefully, comparing the people in front of him with their details.
Then he said briskly: “Es gut,” and walked out.
They could breathe again. They were still hungry; supper was ordered. It would take half an hour to prepare, so while two servants started getting it ready, everyone went to see their rooms. They were all located along a long corridor; a glazed door with a ¢ (“cent”) sign on it—the bathroom—was at the very end.11
They were about to sit down to eat when the owner of the inn appeared. He was a former horse trader, a heavy, asthmatic man who was always wheezing, coughing and clearing his throat. His father had given him the name Follenvie.12
“Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset?” he asked.
Butterball shuddered and turned around:
“Mademoiselle, the Prussian officer wishes to speak to you at once.”
“To me?”
“Yes, if you are Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset.”
She was flustered, thought for a second, then declared firmly:
“He may want to see me, but I’m not going to see him.”
Everyone gesticulated all around her, talking and trying to understand why the officer had asked to see her.
“You are wrong, Madame,” said the Count, going over to her. “Your refusal could cause a great deal of trouble, not just for you, but for all of us as well. You must never oppose the people who are strongest. Your agreement to this request could not be dangerous in the least: it is undoubtedly to do with some detail that’s been overlooked.”
Everyone agreed with him. They begged her, pressured her, lectured her and ended up convincing her, for everyone feared the complications that might result from her stubbornness.
“I will do this for your sakes,” she finally said, “for you!”
The Countess took her hand:
“And we thank you for that.”
She left the room. They waited for her to come back before sitting down at the table. Each of them was upset at not having been summoned instead of this impulsive, short-tempered girl and mentally prepared the platitudes they would say in case they were the next to be called.
Ten minutes later, she returned, staggering, bright red and terribly upset. “That bastard!” she stammered. “That bastard!”
Everyone pressed her to find out what had happened but she wouldn’t say a word, and when the Count became insistent, she replied with great dignity: “No, it has nothing to do with any of you: I cannot tell you.”
So everyone sat down at the table where a large soup tureen gave off the aroma of cabbage. In spite of the incident, the meal was enjoyable. The cider was good, so the Loiseaus and the nuns had some; they didn’t want to spend a lot of money. The others ordered wine; Cornudet asked for a beer. He had an unusual way of opening the bottle and getting a head on the drink; he leaned the glass on its side and studied it, then raised it up beneath the light to take a good look at its color. As he drank, his long beard, which was about the same color as the drink he liked so much, seemed to tremble lovingly; his eyes squinted so he could keep his beer mug in sight, and he looked as if he were fulfilling the unique purpose for which he had been born. It was almost as if he had established in his mind an affinity between the two great passions in his life—Lager and the Revolution—and he obviously could not drink the one without thinking of the other.
Monsieur and Madame Follenvie were seated at the very end of the table. The gentleman, groaning like a broken-down train, wheezed too much to be able to speak while eating; his wife, however, talked incessantly. She shared, in great detail, her impressions of when the Prussians first arrived and how they behaved, what they said, and how she loathed them—in the first place because they cost her money, but also because she had two sons in the army. She spoke mainly to the Countess, flattered at being able to have a conversation with a grand lady.
Then she lowered her voice and started talking about more delicate subjects, though her husband interrupted her from time to time: “You really should be quiet, Madame Follenvie.” But she paid no attention to him.
“Yes, Madame, these Germans do nothing but eat potatoes and sausages or sausages and potatoes,” she continued. “And don’t think they are clean. Oh, no! With all due respect, they leave garbage everywhere. And if you could see them doing maneuvers all day long for days on end: there they all are in some field, marching forward, marching backward, turning this way, turning back. If only they could plow the fields or go back home and work on fixing the roads! But no, Madame, these soldiers do nothing worthwhile. Why should we poor people have to feed them so that they can learn how to kill us! I’m just an old woman with no education, it’s true, but when I see them wearing themselves out marching about from dawn to dusk, I say to myself: ‘When there are people who make so many discoveries that are helpful, why should others go to so much trouble to do harm! Really, isn’t it horrible to kill people, whether they are Prussian, or English or Polish or French?’ If we take revenge against someone who has done us harm, it’s considered wrong and we’re punished for it; but when they hunt down our boys with rifles as if they’re game, that’s just fine, because they award medals to whoever kills the most? You see? I’ll never understand that!”
Cornudet spoke up:
“War is barbarous if you attack a peaceful neighbor, but a sacred duty if it is a matter of defending your country.”
The old woman lowered her head:
“Yes, when you act in self-defense, that’s another matter; but wouldn’t it perhaps just be better to kill all the kings who make war to amuse themselves?”
Cornudet’s eyes blazed with passion as he said:
“Bravo, Madame citizen.”
Monsieur Carré-Lamadon was deep in thought. Although he was an enthusiastic admirer of famous military men, the great common sense of this countrywoman made him think of the wealth that could be brought to a country by so many idle and consequently inexpensive hands, by so much unproductive strength, if only they were used to work on great industrial projects that would take centuries to complete.
Loiseau stood up, went over to the innkeeper and said something to him in a low voice. The big man laughed, coughed, spluttered; his enormous belly wobbled with joy at his neighbor’s jokes, and he bought six casks of Bordeaux wine from Loiseau to be delivered in the spring, after the Prussians had gone.
Everyone was completely exhausted, so as soon as supper was over, they all went to bed.
Now Loiseau, who had noticed certain things, sent his wife to bed. He then looked through the keyhole and listened by the door to try and uncover what he called “the secrets of the corridor.”
After about an hour, he heard a rustling sound and quickly had a look; there was Butterball, looking rounder than ever in a blue cashmere peignoir trimmed with white lace. She was holding a candle in her hand and walking toward the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Then one of the doors at the side opened a little, and when she came back after a few moments, Cornudet, suspenders holding up his pants, followed her. They spoke to each other quietly, then stopped. Butterball seemed to be firmly refusing to allow him into her room. Unfortunately, Loiseau couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but toward the end, he managed to catch a few words as they were speaking more loudly. Cornudet was extremely insistent.
“Really, you’re being stupid. What difference should it make to you?” he said.
She looked indignant.
“No, my dear,” she replied. “There are certain times when you just don’t do such things, and in this place, it would be shameful.”
He did not understand at all and asked her why. Then she got really upset and spoke even louder:
“Why? You really don’t understand why? When there are Prussians in this inn, perhaps even in the room next door?”
He said nothing. The patriotic modesty of this harlot who refused to allow herself to be touched because the enemy was close by must have awakened the failing dignity within his heart, for he just gave her a kiss and slipped back into his own room.
Loiseau, who was quite aroused, walked away from the keyhole, pranced around the room, tied a handkerchief around his head as a kind of sleeping cap, lifted up the sheet where the hard carcass of his wife was laying, woke her with a kiss and whispered: “Do you love me, my darling?”
The entire house fell silent. But soon a sound was heard from somewhere, perhaps the cellar or maybe the attic, the sound of someone snoring loudly, a steady, regular, muted series of snores like a kettle bubbling over. Monsieur Follenvie had fallen asleep.
They had decided to leave early in the morning, so everyone was in the kitchen by eight o’clock, but the carriage, its roof covered in snow, stood by itself in the middle of the courtyard, with no horses and no driver. They looked for the coachman in the stables, the storage houses, the sheds, all in vain. So the men decided to go out and find him, and they left. They found themselves in the town square; the church was at the far end with low houses on either side; they could see some Prussian soldiers. One of them was peeling potatoes. Another was cleaning a barbershop. Yet another, a soldier with a very long beard, was hugging a little kid who was crying, rocking him on his lap to try to calm him down; and the fat countrywomen, whose husbands were “in the army at war,” gestured to their obedient conquerors to make them understand what tasks they had to do: chop the wood, ladle soup over the bread, grind the coffee; one of them was even washing his hostess’s laundry, as she was so old she could hardly move.
The Count, astonished, questioned the verger who was coming out of the presbytery. The old church mouse replied: “Oh! Those men aren’t so bad: they’re not Prussians, apparently. They’re from far away, I don’t exactly know where they come from, but all of them have left a wife and children behind; they don’t like war, not at all!
“I’m sure that people are crying over them back home just as we are here, and the war is causing terrible problems for them as much as for us. It’s not too bad here at the moment, because they aren’t doing any harm and they’re working as if they were in their own homes. You see, Monsieur, the poor have to help each other . . . It’s the noblemen who make war.”
Cornudet, indignant at finding such amiable relations between the conquerors and the conquered, walked away, preferring to stay inside the inn. “They are trying to repopulate the place,” Loiseau joked. But Monsieur Carré-Lamadon spoke seriously: “They are repairing the damage they’ve done.” Meanwhile, the coachman was nowhere in sight. They finally found him in the village café, having a friendly chat with the officer’s orderly.
“Weren’t you told to harness the horses at eight o’clock?” Carré-Lamadon asked.
“Yes, but I got another order after that.”
“What other order?”
“Not to harness them at all.”
“Who gave you such an order?”
“The Prussian officer.”
“But why?”
“I have no idea. Go and ask him. If I’m told not to harness the horses, I don’t harness the horses. That’s all there is to it.”
“And the officer himself gave you that order?”
“No, Monsieur: it was the innkeeper who passed the message on to me.”
“When was that?”
“Last night, just as I was about to go to bed.”
The three men went back to the inn, very worried.
They asked for Monsieur Follenvie, but the servant replied that because of his asthma, he never got up before ten o’clock. He had expressly forbidden them to wake him earlier unless there was a fire.
They wanted to see the officer, but this was absolutely impossible, even though he was staying at the inn. Monsieur Follenvie was the only person authorized to speak to him about matters to do with civilians. And so they waited. The women went back to their rooms and kept themselves busy with this and that.
Cornudet sat down alongside the tall fireplace in the kitchen, beside a blazing fire. He had a small table and a bottle of beer brought to him, and he smoked his pipe. The pipe was appreciated by all democrats almost as much as it was by him, as if it served the country by serving Cornudet. It was a superb meerschaum pipe, admirably seasoned, as black as its owner’s teeth, but sweet-smelling, curved, shiny, fitted to his hand and complementing his appearance. He sat there, very still, sometimes staring at the flames in the fireplace, sometimes at the froth that crowned his beer; and every time he took a drink, a look of satisfaction spread across his face and he would run his long thin fingers through his long greasy hair as he sucked the foam up from his moustache.
Loiseau, pretending he wanted to stretch his legs, went out to sell some wine to the local merchants. The Count and the manufacturer started talking politics. They were imagining the future of France. One of them believed in the Orléans, the other in some unknown saviour, a hero who would emerge when everyone was on the verge of despair: a du Guesclin,13 a Joan of Arc, perhaps? Or another Napoleon I? Ah! If only the Prince Imperial Louis-Napoleon wasn’t so young! Cornudet listened to them, smiling like a man who can predict the future. The smell of his pipe wafted throughout the kitchen.
At ten o’clock, Monsieur Follenvie appeared. They quickly asked him all sorts of questions, but all he could do was to repeat word for word what the officer had said to him two or three times: “Monsieur Follenvie, you will forbid them to harness these travelers’ carriage tomorrow. I do not want them to leave until I give the order. You understand. Now go.”
So they wanted to see the officer. The Count sent in his calling card on which Monsieur Carré-Lamadon added his name and all his titles. The Prussian replied that he would allow these men to speak to him after his lunch, which meant at about one o’clock.
The ladies came downstairs and everyone had a bit of food, in spite of their anxiety. Butterball looked sick and extremely worried.
They were just finishing their coffee when the orderly came to get the two gentlemen.
Loiseau joined the two men; when they tried to get Cornudet to come along as well, to give more weight to their interview, he proudly stated that he would never have anything to do with the Germans.
He sat back down near the fireplace and ordered another beer.
The three men went upstairs and were shown into the most beautiful room in the inn, where the officer received them; he was stretched out in an armchair, his feet resting on the mantelpiece, smoking a long porcelain pipe and wrapped in a flamboyant bathrobe that he doubtless stole from some abandoned house belonging to some bourgeois with bad taste. He did not get up, did not greet them, did not even look at them. He was a magnificent example of the rudeness that comes naturally to a victorious army.
After a few moments he finally spoke:
“Vat do you vant?”
“We wish to leave, Monsieur,” said the Count.
“No.”
“Might I ask the reason for your refusal?”
“Because I do not vish it.”
“With all due respect, Monsieur, I must point out that your general gave us permission to travel to Dieppe, and I don’t believe we have done anything to deserve your orders.”
“I do not vish it . . . That is all . . . You go now.”
The three men bowed and left the room.
The afternoon was awful. No one understood this German’s whim, and the strangest, most upsetting thoughts filled their heads. Everyone was sitting in the kitchen, talking continuously, imagining the most bizarre things. Perhaps they wanted to keep them hostage—but why?—or take them prisoner? Or maybe demand a large ransom? This idea left them panic-stricken. The richest ones were the most terrified, picturing themselves forced to hand over sacks of gold to this arrogant soldier in order to save their own lives. They wracked their brains trying to work out believable lies, how to hide their wealth so they would seem poor, very poor. Loiseau removed the chain from his watch and hid it in his pocket. As night fell, they grew more and more apprehensive. They lit the lamp and since they wouldn’t be having dinner for another two hours, Madame Loiseau suggested a game of trente et un.14 It would take their mind off things. Everyone agreed.
Even Cornudet politely put out his pipe and joined the game.
The Count shuffled the cards and dealt out the hands; Butterball had 31 right away and soon everyone concentrated on the game, which lessened the fears that haunted them. Cornudet noticed that Loiseau and his wife were cheating.
Just as they were about to sit down to eat, Monsieur Follenvie returned. In his hoarse voice, he said: “The Prussian officer wished me to ask Mlle Elisabeth Rousset if she had changed her mind yet.”
Butterball went very pale and stood deadly still; then she suddenly turned bright red and was so overcome with fury she couldn’t speak. Finally, she shouted: “Please tell that Prussian scoundrel, that filthy pig, that bastard, that I will never change my mind. Do you hear me? Never, never, never!”
The fat innkeeper went out. Then everyone swarmed around Butterball, questioning her, begging her to reveal the secret of her visit to the officer. She refused at first, but her frustration won out in the end: “What does he want? . . .What does he want? . . . He wants to sleep with me!” she cried. Everyone was so indignant that they weren’t even shocked. Cornudet banged his beer mug so violently on the table that it shattered. A great outcry of protest broke out against this repulsive thug, mixed with a wave of anger; everyone was united in resistance, taking a common stand, as if the sacrifice demanded of Butterball was shared by each of them. The Count declared in disgust that those people behaved like barbarians did in the past. The women especially expressed tender and enthusiastic sympathy toward Butterball. The two nuns, who only came downstairs for meals, looked away and said nothing.
Once the initial anger had subsided, they had dinner; but they hardly spoke: they were thinking.
The ladies went to bed early; the men continued to smoke and organized a game of écarté,15 which they invited Monsieur Follenvie to join, so they could subtly question him as to how to convince the officer to change his mind. But he concentrated on his cards, wouldn’t listen to them, wouldn’t answer them; he just said over and over again: “Let’s play cards, gentlemen, cards!” He was so intent on the game that he forgot to spit out the phlegm from his lungs, which made his chest sometimes wheeze like a note held too long on a keyboard. His whistling lungs hit every note of the asthmatic scale, from the deep serious chords right up to the sharp screeches of young roosters trying to crow.
He even refused to go up to bed when his wife came looking for him. She was exhausted—she was an “early bird,” always up at dawn—so she went upstairs alone; her husband, however, was a “night owl,” always eager to stay up late with friends. “Put my eggnog in front of the fire,” he shouted after her, then went back to his cards. When the others saw that they couldn’t get anything out of him, they said it was time to go to bed, and everyone went to his room.
They were up fairly early the next day, feeling a vague sense of hope, an even greater desire to leave than before and great fear at having to spend another day at this horrible inn.
Alas! The horses were still in the stable; the driver was nowhere in sight. They walked round and round the coach, bored, with nothing else to do.
Lunch was depressing, and everyone seemed colder toward Butterball, for after thinking it over during the night, their opinion had changed. They now virtually held a grudge against her for not having secretly gone to the Prussian so that her companions would have a nice surprise that morning. What could be easier? Who would even have known? She could have saved face by telling the officer that she felt sorry for the others who were so upset. What difference would it make to someone like her!
But no one admitted what they were thinking, at least, not yet.
That afternoon, they were bored to death, so the Count suggested they take a walk on the outskirts of the village. Everyone dressed up warmly and the little group set off, except for Cornudet, who preferred to sit by the fire, and the nuns, who spent their days in church or with the priest.
The cold, which was getting worse and worse every day, bitterly stung their noses and ears; their feet became so painful that every step they took brought more suffering, and when they finally reached open ground, the fields looked so mournful and gloomy under an endless sheet of snow that they immediately turned back, their souls and hearts icy cold.
The four women walked in front, followed a little way behind by the men.
Loiseau, who understood the situation, suddenly asked if “that slut” was going to force them to spend much more time in such a place. The Count, who was always polite, said they could not demand such a painful sacrifice from any woman; it had to be her decision. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon pointed out that if the French were preparing a counterattack from Dieppe, as was rumored, there would most likely be a battle at Tôtes. This thought worried the other two men. “What if we got away on foot?” asked Loiseau. The Count shrugged his shoulders: “Do you really think we could, in this snow? With our wives? We’d be hunted down and found in ten minutes and taken back as prisoners, at the mercy of the soldiers.” It was true; everyone fell silent.
The ladies talked about clothes, but a certain sense of reserve seemed to come between them.
Suddenly, the officer appeared at the end of the street. Against the snowy backdrop of the horizon, he looked like a wasp in uniform; he walked with his legs apart, with that gait unique to military men who are trying not to dirty their meticulously polished boots.
He bowed as he passed the ladies, then looked scornfully at the men, who at least enjoyed the dignity of not having tipped their hats to him, though Loiseau at first had started to.
Butterball’s whole face turned red, and the three married women felt a great surge of humiliation to have run into this soldier in the company of this young woman whom he had treated so cavalierly.
And so they began talking about him, his physique, his face. Madame Carré-Lamadon, who had known many officers and considered herself an expert, remarked that he was not bad at all; she even regretted he wasn’t French, for he would make a very handsome Hussar, and all the women would be mad about him.
ONCE BACK AT THE INN, they did not know what to do. Bitter words were exchanged over really insignificant things. The silent dinner was soon over and everyone went up to bed, hoping to sleep longer to kill the time.
The next day, they all came downstairs looking tired and frustrated. The women barely spoke to Butterball.
A church bell rang out. It was for a baptism. The chubby young woman had a child who was being raised by countryfolk in Yvetot. She saw him barely once a year, and never thought about him, but the idea of the child about to be baptized filled her heart with a sudden, urgent wave of tenderness for her own son, and she was determined to go to the ceremony.
The moment she had gone, everyone looked at each other and brought their chairs closer together, for everyone felt they had to make some sort of decision. Loiseau had a brainwave: he suggested they propose that the officer should only keep Butterball and let the rest of them leave.
Monsieur Follenvie was given the task, but he returned almost immediately. The German, who knew something about human nature, had thrown him out. He intended to hold everybody there until his desire had been satisfied.
Then Madame Loiseau’s vulgar character revealed itself: “We’re not going to die of old age here,” she shouted. “Since it’s that tart’s profession to sleep with men, I don’t see why she has the right to refuse any one man in particular. Honestly, that thing had anyone and everyone in Rouen, even the coach drivers! Yes, Madame, the coachman from the police station! I know it’s true, yes, I do, because he buys his wine from us. And now, when it’s a question of getting us out of this bad situation, she gives herself airs and graces, the snotty little thing! . . . If you ask me, this officer has behaved properly. Perhaps he has done without it for a long time; and there were three others he would have no doubt preferred. But no, he’ll make do with the woman anyone can have. He respects married women. Think about it: he’s in charge here. All he had to say was: ‘I want . . .’ and he and his soldiers could have taken us by force.”
The other two women shuddered. The pretty Madame Carré-Lamadon’s eyes shone and she went a bit pale, as if she could feel herself being taken by force by the officer.
The men, who had been discussing the problem amongst themselves, joined the women. Loiseau, furious, wanted to hand “that wretched woman” over to the enemy by force. But the Count, having come from three generations of ambassadors and endowed with the physique of a diplomat, was more inclined to use subtler tactics: “We must persuade her,” he said.
And so began their conspiracy.
The women huddled together, lowered their voices and a general discussion began with each person giving her opinion. They spoke, however, in the most polite terms. The ladies in particular found the most delicate turns of phrase and the most subtly charming expressions to say the most shocking things. They were so careful about their language that an outsider wouldn’t have understood a thing. But since only a thin layer of modesty veils the surface of any society woman, they really began to enjoy this naughty little adventure, actually finding it a great deal of fun, feeling they were in their element, toying with love with the kind of sensuality a gourmet chef feels when he prepares dinner for someone.
In the end, the situation seemed so funny to them that their cheerfulness returned. The Count told some rather risqué jokes, but in such a clever way that they made everyone smile. Then Loiseau added some even more explicit stories, but no one was in the least offended. And the thought so brutally expressed by his wife stood out in all their minds: “Since it’s that tart’s profession to sleep with men, I don’t see why she has the right to refuse any one man in particular.” The sweet Madame Carré-Lamadon even seemed to think that if she were in Butterball’s place, she would be less inclined to refuse this officer than any other man.
The plan of attack was carefully prepared, as if they were in a fortress under siege. Each of them agreed the role they would play, the arguments they would use, the maneuvers they had to carry out. They decided their campaign, their strategies, their surprise attacks, to force this human citadel to crumble and yield to the victorious enemy.
Meanwhile, Cornudet stood apart, wanting nothing to do with this business.
Their minds were so completely concentrated that they didn’t even hear Butterball come in. Then the Count softly whispered “Shush,” which made everyone look up. She was there. Everyone quickly fell silent and a kind of embarrassment prevented anyone from speaking to her at first. The Countess, more skillful at the duplicity practiced in high society, asked: “Did you enjoy the baptism?”
The chubby young woman, still moved, described everything, the people, what they looked like, even the church itself. Then she said: “It feels so good to pray sometimes.”
Until lunchtime, the ladies were happy to be pleasant to her, in order to encourage her trust and convince her to accept their advice.
As soon as they sat down to dinner, they began maneuvers. First came a thinly veiled conversation about self-sacrifice. They gave examples from ancient times: Judith and Holofernes,16 then, for no apparent reason, Lucretia and Sextus,17 and Cleopatra, who slept with all the generals who opposed her in order to turn them into her slaves. Next they told a totally unbelievable story, made up by these ignorant millionaires, which detailed how the women of Rome seduced Hannibal, in Capua, along with all his lieutenants, soldiers and mercenaries. They named all the women who were victorious over their conquerors by turning their bodies into a battlefield, a means of domination, a weapon, women who conquered hideous, hateful beings through heroic caresses, sacrificing their chastity to the noble cause of vengeance and loyalty.
They even described, in veiled terms, the Englishwoman from a noble family who allowed herself to be given a horrible, contagious disease in order to infect Bonaparte; but he was miraculously saved moments before their deadly tryst by a sudden moment of weakness.
And all these things were said with moderation and politeness, interspersed with moments of forced enthusiasm designed to encourage a spirit of competition.
By the end, one would almost have believed that the unique role of a woman on this earth was to endlessly sacrifice herself, to offer up her body continually to the desires of military men.
The two nuns seemed to hear nothing at all and remained lost in thought. Butterball didn’t say a word.
All afternoon, she was left to think things over. But instead of calling her “Madame” as they had up until now, they simply called her “Mademoiselle,” without actually knowing why, but sensing that it would lower her a notch in their esteem, and to make her understand her shameful situation.
Just as the soup was being served, Monsieur Follenvie returned, repeating the question he had asked the night before:
“The Prussian officer wished me to ask Mlle Elisabeth Rousset if she had changed her mind yet.”
“No, Monsieur,” Butterball replied curtly.
During dinner, the coalition weakened. Loiseau made three inappropriate remarks. Everyone was wracking their brains to find new illustrations, in vain, when the Countess, perhaps without malice or forethought, perhaps simply feeling a vague need to pay homage to the Church, questioned the older of the nuns about the important facts in the lives of the saints. Now, many saints had committed acts that would be considered crimes to us, but the Church gives total absolution to any acts carried out for the glory of God or for the good of their fellow man. It was a powerful argument; the Countess took advantage of it. And so, either through tacit understanding or disguised collusion—anyone wearing an ecclesiastical habit excels in such things—or simply out of simple ignorance or sheer stupidity, the old nun provided great support to the conspiracy.
They had believed she was shy, but she showed them she was bold, talkative, passionate. This nun was not concerned by the trials and errors of casuistry; her doctrine was ironclad; her faith resolute; her conscience devoid of scruples. She found the sacrifice of Abraham a simple matter, for she would have killed her mother and father at once if she had been commanded to do so from on high; and nothing, in her opinion, could displease the Lord when the intention was admirable. The Countess, taking advantage of the holy authority of her unexpected accomplice, coaxed her on to make a salutary paraphrase of the ethical axiom: “The end justifies the means.”
“And so, Sister,” the Countess asked, “do you think that God would accept any means and would forgive any act if the intention is pure?”
“Who could doubt it, Madame? An act that is guilty in itself often becomes praiseworthy through the thought that inspires it.”
And they continued talking in this way, determining God’s will, predicting His decisions, assuming Him to be interested in things that barely truly concerned Him.
Everything said was veiled, skillful, discreet. But every word of the holy sister in her cornet headpiece weakened the indignant resistance of the courtesan.
Then the conversation took a somewhat different turn and the nun wearing the long string of rosary beads spoke about the convents in her order, about her Mother Superior, about herself and her darling little companion, Sister Saint Nicephore. They had been asked to go to the hospitals in Le Havre to nurse the hundreds of soldiers who had caught smallpox. She described these poor men, giving details of their illness. And while they were being held here on their way to Le Havre, a great number of Frenchmen might be dying who could have been saved! Nursing soldiers was her particular specialty; she had been in the Crimea, in Italy, in Austria, and as she told stories about the various military campaigns she had been involved in, she suddenly revealed herself to be one of those nuns who seemed eager to follow the army from camp to camp, gathering up the wounded in the midst of battles; and she could control these great undisciplined ruffians with a single word better than any of their leaders. She was a true drum-beating nun, and her haggard face, covered in pockmarks, seemed the very incarnation of the destructive nature of war.
The effect of her words was so excellent that no one spoke after she’d finished.
As soon as the meal was over, everyone rushed up to their rooms, and only came back down again late the next morning.
They had a quiet lunch. They were giving the seed sown the night before time to grow and bear fruit.
The Countess suggested they go for a walk in the afternoon; the Count offered Butterball his arm, as arranged beforehand, and walked with her a little behind the others.
He spoke to her in that familiar, paternal and slightly condescending tone that upper-class men use with young women, calling them “my dear child,” talking down to her because of his social position, his indisputable respectability. He came straight to the point:
“So you prefer to keep us here, leaving us vulnerable—along with yourself—to all the violence that would surely follow a Prussian defeat rather than consent to an act of sacrifice, as you have so often in your life?”
Butterball said nothing.
He used kindness, reasoning, sentiment to try to persuade her.
He knew how to maintain his status as “the Count,” while showing himself to be gallant when necessary, complimentary, even amiable. He glorified the service she would be doing them, mentioned their gratitude; then suddenly, he spoke to her in a very familiar tone: “And you know, my darling, he would be able to brag at having had the pleasure of knowing you, because he wouldn’t find many pretty girls like you in his country.”
Butterball said nothing and joined the others.
As soon as they got back, she went upstairs and did not come back down again. Their anxiety was extreme. What would she do? How embarrassed they would feel if she held out!
The dinner bell rang; they waited for her, in vain. Then Monsieur Follenvie came in and stated that Mlle Rousset was not feeling well and wouldn’t be having dinner. Everyone listened intently. The Count went over to the innkeeper. “So it’s done?” he asked quietly. “Yes.” He said nothing to his companions, out of politeness; he simply nodded slightly to them. A great sigh of relief rose up at once and everyone’s face lit up with joy. “Splendid!” shouted Loiseau. “The champagne’s on me, if they have any in this place!” and Madame Loiseau was very upset when the owner came back with four bottles. Everyone had suddenly become talkative and boisterous; vulgar joy filled their hearts. The Count noticed that Madame Carré-Lamadon was charming; the manufacturer paid compliments to the Countess. The conversation was lively, cheerful, witty.
Suddenly, Loiseau, looking anxious, raised his arms and shouted, “Be quiet!” Everyone fell silent, surprised and almost frightened. Then he raised his eyes toward the ceiling, strained to hear something, gestured them to be quiet, listened again and finally said: “Don’t worry, it’s all right,” his voice sounding normal again.
At first they didn’t understand, but soon they all smiled.
A quarter of an hour later, he pulled the same prank again, and repeated it often during the evening; and he pretended to question someone on the floor above, giving him advice that had double meanings drawn from his traveling salesman’s sense of humor. Sometimes he looked sad and sighed: “Poor girl!” or muttered from between clenched teeth:
“Well, well! you Prussian devil!” Sometimes, just when they had forgotten all about it, he would shout, “Enough, enough!” several times, adding, as if he were talking to himself, “I hope we will see her again; I hope that contemptible man doesn’t kill her!”
Even though these jokes were in the worst possible taste, everyone found them funny and no one was offended, for a feeling of indignation depends on the atmosphere, as does everything else, and the atmosphere they had gradually created was full of risqué thoughts.
During dessert, even the women made witty, funny allusions. Their eyes sparkled; they had all drunk a lot. The Count, who retained a serious demeanor even when relaxed, made a comparison that was much appreciated by everyone between their situation and the end of the icy winter at the North Pole and the joy of shipwrecked passengers who finally see a path leading south.
Loiseau, on a roll, stood up, a glass of champagne in his hand: “A toast to our freedom!” Everyone stood up and cheered. Even the two nuns, encouraged by the ladies, agreed to take a sip of the bubbly, which they had never tasted. They declared it was like sparkling lemonade, but much more subtle.
Loiseau summed up the situation.
“It’s a shame there isn’t a piano; we could dance a quadrille.”
Cornudet hadn’t said a word or made a gesture; he even looked as if he were lost in deep thought, tugging angrily at his long beard now and then, as if he were trying to make it even longer. Finally, around midnight, just as they were all about to go, Loiseau, who was staggering a little, suddenly poked Cornudet’s stomach and mumbled: “You weren’t much fun tonight; don’t you have anything to say, man?” Cornudet quickly raised his head and gazed at the others, one by one, a cutting, horrible look in his eyes. “I say that you have all done a vile thing!” He stood up, went over to the door, said, “Vile!” once more and walked out.
At first, this had a sobering effect. Loiseau was taken aback and said nothing; but he suddenly recovered his composure and bent over with laughter, saying over and over again: “They have no idea, they just have no idea.”
No one understood, so he revealed the “secret of the corridor.” Everyone became extremely cheerful. The women were laughing like idiots. The Count and Monsieur Carré-Lamadon laughed so hard they cried. They couldn’t believe it.
“What! Are you sure! He wanted to . . .”
“I’m telling you that I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And she refused . . .”
“Because the Prussian was in the next room.”
“And you’re sure?”
“I give you my word.”
The Count was choking with laughter. The manufacturer clutched his stomach with both hands.
“And so you see why he didn’t find tonight very funny,” Loiseau continued, “not funny at all.”
And all three men began to laugh again, choking, spluttering, out of breath.
Then they all parted. But Madame Loiseau, who had a spiteful nature, remarked to her husband as they were going to bed that Madame Carré-Lamadon—“the little vixen”—had forced herself to laugh all evening. “You know that when a woman is attracted by a uniform, she couldn’t care less if it belongs to a Frenchman or a Prussian; it’s all the same to her, I’m telling you. Good Lord, it’s disgusting!”
And all night long, flutters, distant sounds, barely audible, like breathing, the light touch of bare feet and faint creaking noises filled the dark corridor. And of course, they all slept very late; slivers of light slipped beneath their doors for a very long time. Champagne has that effect; it causes restless sleep, or so it’s said.
The next day, a bright winter’s sun made the snow sparkle. The carriage, harnessed at last, was waiting at the door, while a flock of white pigeons with pink eyes that had a small black dot in the center, heads tucked beneath their thick feathers, walked calmly between the legs of the six horses, pecking about for food in the steaming manure.
The coachman was in his place, wrapped up in a sheepskin coat, smoking a pipe, and all the delighted passengers quickly wrapped up some food for the rest of the journey.
They were waiting for Butterball. At last she appeared.
She seemed rather upset and ashamed as she walked shyly toward her companions; all of them turned away at once, as if they hadn’t seen her. The Count took his wife’s arm with great dignity and led her far away from this impure contact.
The chubby young woman stopped, astonished; then, gathering all her courage, she walked over to the manufacturer’s wife and humbly murmured, “Good morning, Madame.” The other woman merely nodded slightly in an insolent way and looked at her with an expression of offended virtue. Everyone seemed busy and kept their distance from her, as if some disease were festering under her dress. Then they hurried toward the carriage, followed by Butterball, who, all alone, was the last to climb in; she silently sat down in the same seat she had taken during the first part of the journey.
It was as if no one saw her, no one knew her; though Madame Loiseau looked at her with indignation from a distance and remarked to her husband, loud enough to be heard: “Thank goodness I’m not sitting next to her.”
The heavy carriage started out and continued on its way.
At first, no one spoke. Butterball didn’t dare look up. She felt indignant toward all her companions, and, at the same time, humiliated to have given in; she felt dirty for having allowed the Prussian to kiss her and hold her in his arms where the others had so hypocritically forced her.
But soon the Countess turned toward Madame Carré-Lamadon and broke the silence:
“I believe you know Madame d’Etrelles?”
“Yes, she’s one of my friends.”
“She’s such a charming woman!”
“Delightful! An exceptional person, highly educated as well, and a true artist: she sings beautifully and her drawing is sheer perfection.”
The manufacturer was chatting with the Count, and in between the rattling of the windows, certain words stood out now and again: “Share—maturity date—bonus—futures.”
Loiseau, who had stolen the old pack of cards from the inn, covered in grease from five years of contact with badly cleaned tables, began a game of bezique with his wife.
The nuns took hold of their long rosary beads that hung down below their waists, made the sign of the cross, and suddenly began mumbling quickly, getting faster and faster, rushing their words as if they were in a race to see who could say the most prayers; and they kissed a medallion from time to time, crossing themselves again, then went on with their rapid, continual muttering.
Cornudet sat motionless, deep in thought.
After they had been traveling for three hours, Loiseau put away the cards. “Time to eat,” he said.
His wife picked up a package tied with string and took out a piece of cold veal. She cut it up properly into neat, thin slices and both of them began to eat.
“Shall we eat as well?” said the Countess. Everyone agreed, and she unwrapped the provisions prepared in advance for the two couples. In one of those long earthenware dishes with a lid decorated with a hare to show that it contains a game pie, there was a succulent pâté with white streaks of lard crisscrossing on top of the mixture of finely chopped dark meats. A large wedge of Gruyère cheese that had been wrapped in newspaper had the words News in Brief on its creamy surface.
The two nuns took out some sausages that smelled of garlic; and Cornudet dug into both deep pockets of his thick coat to pull out four hard-boiled eggs from one and a piece of bread from the other. He peeled the eggs, threw the shells on the straw beneath his seat, and began biting into them, dropping tiny bits of yolk into his long beard; they stuck there, looking like little stars.
In the haste and confusion of the morning, Butterball had not had time to think about anything, and she watched in stifled rage and frustration as all these people ate so calmly. Her extreme anger caused her whole body to tense at first, and she started to open her mouth to shout a flood of insults at them for what they had done; but she was choked by so much exasperation that she couldn’t say a single word.
No one looked at her or gave her a second thought. She felt as if she were drowning in the disdain of these virtuous villains who had first sacrificed her, then rejected her, as if she were unclean and useless. Then she thought back to her large basket full of all the delicious things they had greedily devoured, her two chickens shining in aspic, her pâtés, her pears, her four bottles of Bordeaux wine, and her fury suddenly gave way, like a rope pulled too tightly that finally snaps, and she felt herself on the verge of tears. She made a great effort to control herself, sat up taller, stifled her sobs the way children do; but her tears rose up, glistened in the corners of her eyes, and soon two heavy teardrops broke free and rolled slowly down her cheeks. Others followed more quickly, rushing down like drops of water filtering from behind a rock, falling steadily onto the rounded curve of her bosom. She continued to sit tall, staring straight ahead, her face tense and pale, hoping that no one would see her.
But the Countess noticed and warned her husband with a gesture. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say: “What can I do? It’s not my fault.” Madame Loiseau gave a silent laugh and whispered triumphantly: “She’s crying out of shame.”
The two nuns had wrapped up what was left of their sausages and gone back to their prayers.
Then Cornudet, who was digesting his eggs, stretched his long legs out under the seat opposite, leaned back, crossed his arms, smiled like a man who has just heard a good joke, and began whistling the Marseillaise.18
The faces of all his companions went dark. This song of the common people did not please them in the least. They grew anxious, irritated, and looked as if they were about to howl, the way dogs do when they hear the sound of a hurdy-gurdy.
He noticed but didn’t stop. At times, he even started singing the words:
Amour sacré de la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs,
Liberté, liberté chérie,
Combats avec tes défenseurs!19
They were traveling more quickly now, for the snow was packed and harder. And all the way to Dieppe, throughout the long, dreary hours of the journey, through the jolts of the carriage along the road, at dusk, then in the heavy darkness of the carriage, he continued, with ferocious determination, his vengeful, endless whistling, forcing his weary, frustrated listeners to follow the song from start to finish, to remember every word of every verse.
And Butterball continued to cry, and every now and then, a sob she could not hold back was heard between two lines of the song, in the darkness.
____________
1 The closest translation of this nickname is “Butterball.” The contrast between the main character’s humorous name and what happens to her is a typical example of Maupassant’s irony.
2 A play on words: L’oiseau means “bird” and voler means both “to fly” and “to steal.”
3 A regional administrative body.
4 The Second Empire (1852–70).
5 The duc d’Orléans was one of the two claimants to the French throne.
6 The noblewomen of the time held regular, exclusive gatherings for their friends, usually to increase their influence or to support the arts. These were called salons because they were held in the reception rooms of the great houses.
7 Militant of the Second Republic proclaimed in 1848.
8 September 4, 1870, when Napoleon III was forced to abdicate.
9 The mythical figure condemned by Zeus to a life of constant hunger and thirst.
10 Badinguet was the worker who lent his clothes to Louis-Napoleon so he could escape from prison in 1846. The nickname is derogatory.
11 A note in the Pléiade edition of the original explains that in certain hotels, the bathroom door used to be indicated by the number 100, because in French, the word for hundred, cent, sounds exactly the same as the word for smell, sent. I have taken the liberty of transposing the pun using the (s)cent sign—Trans.
12 “Mad Desire.”
13 Bernard du Guesclin (1320–1380), known as the Eagle of Brittany because of his courage, was a legendary figure of the Hundred Years’ War.
14 A card game in which the winner has to get the closest to thirty-one points.
15 Another card game, similar to gin rummy, named for the French verb écarter (“to set aside”).
16 Escaping from the city being besieged by Holophernes, Judith is supposed to have seduced him before murdering him.
17 It is not clear why Maupassant invokes the story of Lucretias’s rape by Sextus Tarquinius which, according to ancient historians like Livy, led to the fall of Rome.
18 The French national anthem was composed in 1792 by Rouget de Lisle for the French Army of the Rhine. The irony here—Cornudet’s “good joke” is also Maupassant’s—is that this victorious military marching song, subsequently adopted by generations of revolutionaries, is sung in the context of a terrible defeat.
19 Drive on sacred love of country,
Support our avenging arms,
Liberty, cherished liberty,
Join the struggle with your defenders!