The whole village was wide awake. Through attic windows anxious faces were peeping; restless people stood at their garden walls. From house to house they exchanged impressions.
A young woman of the neighbourhood had rushed to her coffee-mill at the beginning of the action, and by the time her old father went to the garden to unearth a precious bottle of _marc_, she had ground all her small reserve, so that "our French" might have hot coffee on reaching the village!
Alas, our hopes were once more hoped in vain! Little by little the firing grew fainter, the cannon less audible; the flames and the lights died away; and suddenly silence and peace fell upon the village. The extinguisher was dropped on us again. Speechless and gloomy we went to bed at two o"clock in the morning, with limbs and souls chilled, and we did not even try to seek sleep.
The civilians were not the only ones who thought the French likely to come back. The hussars had spent the whole night on horseback, ready, if their brothers-in-arms withdrew, to go at full speed to the north: such were the orders in case of an alarm--at least they said so. Officers, under-officers, and soldiers were all the more grieved with the disturbance as they were going to feast and make merry all night in order to keep Christmas, and were looking forward to such a junketing as they had never dreamed of in the Marches of Brandenburg. The lieutenant had visited all the farms of the village, felt a hundred fowls, and chosen the plumpest and the tenderest. The feathered tribe were waiting for their last hour in an adjacent shed.
But now to whom would the inheritance come?
"My beautiful fowls," the officer muttered between his teeth, "my beautiful fowls! Who will eat them? How many a slip is there "twixt the duck and the lip!"
The alarm over, Von Bernhausen had not yet recovered his serenity. At break of day he summoned his host, the farmer, the cook, and the cook"s boy, ordered them to slay, pluck, and roast directly all that bore comb or webbed foot.
"At eleven," he declared, "we shall eat them every one."
They ate them every one. Crammed to the brim, greatly pleased with themselves, the hussars strummed on their paunches: ""Tis so much gained!"
There is no need to say that they began their feast again on Christmas Day. In order to celebrate this G.o.dly day according to old customs, soldiers of all arms and all localities had looked everywhere for fir-trees. They were not satisfied with small ones, and in our wood, near Bucy, they lopped eighteen beautiful Norway pines; they did the like in other private estates, and even in a public place of Laon, where the beheaded trees cut a very sorry figure, you may take my word for it.
Their Christmas Eve supper was very merry, at Morny at least, and till a late hour of the night we heard the noise of dances, laughter, and shouts, mingled with women"s voices. We civilians spent a poor trembling Christmas, whose bitter sweetness was made up of fond thoughts of the absent, and sad remembrances of past years. Christmas ... peace on the earth ... Christmas ... all the pleasures of our childhood recurred to our memory.... Good-will to all men.... Christmas, the feast of the one that said: "Love one another." And the strong still grind down the weak, hatred and bloodshed prevail everywhere!... The irony of the day brought to our lips a bitter taste.
On the 31st of December every one had gone to bed as usual; the people were but slumbering as they were now wont to, when out burst a sharp firing accompanied by loud shouting. Every one sprang up, all windows flew wide open, cries arose:
"The French!"
"Listen...."
"Hoch! hoch!"
Oh, despair! they were but the Prussians cheering the New Year. Even when they enjoy themselves, these people are not harmless. Their guns were loaded with b.a.l.l.s, which pa.s.sed through several shutters; it was a miracle that no one was hurt.
If that New Year"s Day was not a merry one, it brought with it hope that is inseparable from everything at its beginning. Deliverance! that was what we wished one another. And we not only relied on the New Year to bring it, but to bring it without great delay. Fortunately this a.s.surance gave us a moral satisfaction, for our material rejoicings were very scanty. In most houses, in ours for instance, meat did not appear on the table any more than it had for many a day. Only a few farmers succeeded in putting a chicken in their pot without the knowledge of the Germans. For it was understood that all fowls were requisitioned. Their owners had a right to look after them and to feed them, but not to eat them. At the butcher"s horse-meat was sold--coming of course from animals killed at the front--and sometimes some coa.r.s.e beef, which was obtained by large bribes from soldiers employed at the slaughter-house.
Rather than feast upon such unappetising and expensive meat, we preferred to eat boiled vegetables. Sometimes frogs" legs varied the monotony of our daily menu; some of our neighbours managed to buy venison, poachers being not rare in the German army; and soldiers there were who profited handsomely from roebucks, which they killed when the officers turned their backs.
But these few windfalls did not make up for the lack of many things, hitherto looked upon as indispensable. And what was our alarm on hearing once that bread itself would run short! On a certain Sat.u.r.day the people who went to fetch flour came back with their carts empty; likewise the following week. No more bread! This bad fortune had been long foreseen, and to provide against it we had dried slices of bread in the oven, and thus filled many and many a tin. But seven persons are not long eating up a reserve of this kind. So by a recipe, which all the village knew, a dough was made of mashed potatoes and a little flour--every one had managed to lay by a few pounds of it--and these thin cakes, baked in the oven, bore some likeness to the food we missed.
Other villages were even less fortunate than ours, and had no bread at all--officially at least--for a very long time. The farmers who had contrived to hide corn had to grind it in a coffee-mill or with the help of a mincing-machine, and the ovens--long unemployed--were again turned to account when no Germans were present.
On the whole our village did not starve now, as it had starved during October and November. A few peasants had mysteriously dug up their potatoes, and sold them just as mysteriously. Besides, through the Mayor"s clever management, the Germans consented to our buying from them a certain quant.i.ty of rice, salt, and sugar. These goods, we heard, were the remainder of provisions sent to the commissary of stores. They were sold on stated days, and every inhabitant was ent.i.tled to a kilo of rice, a pound of sugar, half a pound of salt, once a fortnight. It was a sheer pleasure to chaffer with the invaders; they demanded gold as payment for their scanty revictualling, but later on they had to content themselves with a sum partly in gold, partly in silver. They played hang-dog tricks on the middlemen. Once the Mayor was informed that such and such goods were to be had to the amount of three hundred francs.
Greatly pleased, he paid in golden cash. He was kept waiting one hour, then two, then three. At length he was told that he had been deceived.
The provisions were not nearly so abundant as they were first thought; there was scarcely a hundred francs" worth. The difference was to be given back to the purchaser. And, indeed, two hundred francs were returned to him, but the two hundred francs were paid in German notes!
For three weeks we had no bread at all; then the Germans vouchsafed us flour of their own, so much a day; a loaf made with this powder took the shape of a small, flat, brown and heavy crown, which gave us such acute pains that we often preferred being hungry to having our fill of this dough. We were all poor wretches and starvelings, but we were fellow-citizens, and we arranged to keep a certain level of the provisions. But a hundred times more wretched and starving were the refugees who, when their villages were burned to the ground, had been shared among the communes throughout the country. For months they had neither house nor home, and about forty of them had taken shelter in Morny, where they were huddled in one or two empty houses, lived but scantily, and slept on straw. Several died during the winter. Laon was also overrun with hundreds of those poor fugitives, and throughout the town you were a.s.sailed and pursued by small ragged beggars who made you think of Naples or Ma.r.s.eilles. The poor things moved your pity the more deeply as you were compelled to think:
"Such is perhaps the fate that is awaiting me."
Indeed, n.o.body was sure that a whim of the Germans would not turn him out of doors. It was seen more than once. So many things were requisitioned. First of all, the invaders laid the absent people under contribution, and as long as their houses had window-panes and furniture, they were sufficient for the plunderers. But afterwards? A large manufacturer of the neighbourhood, M. Vergniaud, had built a castle a few years before in the Renaissance style, and filled it with Renaissance furniture. When the rumour of invasion came, the owner took flight with his household. The first soldiers quartered in the villa knocked off the sculptures of the cupboards with axes, while others carried away what pleased them. We saw a china bath taken away to the trenches; it contained two small pigs. In the luggage of an officer who lodged in our house there were damask curtains, plates of old Strasburg ware, and even children"s clothes, all of which came from that castle.
In the end what remained of the furniture was taken to the station, loaded upon railway trucks, conveyed from one place to another for a fortnight, and then sent to an unknown destination. To Germany or to the trenches?
Some officers, who lived in Laon, did not approve of the costly furniture about them, so they sent for three civil prisoners. The orders they gave them were simple: "Take the furniture into the garden and break the whole in pieces with your axes; it will serve as firewood."
The house thus cleared, these gentlemen had but to look elsewhere for the wherewithal to furnish their rooms.
If uninhabited houses contained nothing useful, they requisitioned what they wanted from those who had stayed at home. Von Bernhausen soon discovered that he might find many things in our house of which he could make a good use. First, he was sure that such people as we are overfed ourselves. In fact, boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, boiled beans, boiled rice, barley coffee, and nut-tree tea are everywhere looked upon as choice dainties. So one day the street was ringing with drunken shouts. We kept silent, attentive to the least sound. "Will they go by without worrying us?" Oh no! An angry hand rang a full peal, whilst heavy boots beat rhythmical imprecations upon the gate. The key had hardly turned in the lock when Sainte-Brute rushed in like a madman, with two other hussars. Genevieve jumped to avoid the shock of the man:
"Oh, he is drunk!"
These words increased the fury of the non-commissioned officer:
"Drunk ... drunk ... I am drunk.... You dare say it again. It is an insult to the German army.... You will see ... you will see...."
Genevieve, with folded arms and head erect, as white as her woollen jacket, faced the non-commissioned officer. She looked at him with such an air of scorn and defiance that the maniac broke into a new fit of rage. Bending forward, his fists clenched, his eyes starting from their sockets, crimson-faced, he foamed at the mouth, he spat out: "Drunk ...
you said I am drunk ... you will go to prison ... you will be put on bread and water ... sleep on straw ... it will serve you right ...
drunk ... drunk...."
Around us stood the frightened family. The "Blackguard" sneered, and "Rabbit"s Paw," when the madman ceased, took up the burden of abuse. All of a sudden the sergeant altered his mind and sprang into the cellar.
His companions followed him, and we heard them upsetting empty bottles and shaking casks. "You may seek for wine, my fine fellows, and if you find a single bottle I will pour it out for you myself."
In the depths of the cellar Sainte-Brute continued to breathe forth fury, loading us with violent and obscene insults. Fortunately we did not understand much of his foul language. Then he came upstairs again in haste, rushed into the garden, and squeaked:
"Beans ... beans ... beans...."
Like one stupefied, he stopped and gazed at the lawn as if he had expected the beans to spring up at his call. There was no sign of them.
Then he turned round to me:
"Have you any beans?"
Good Heavens! There was a small sack of big white beans which we had bought last week, and out of which we hoped to get many a meal! If I deny that we have any, thought I, these people will go to the attic, and the first thing they see is the sack of beans, white and fruitful of promise.
"Hum ... yes, we have a small quant.i.ty of beans. But as we bought them, they cannot be requisitioned."
"How much have you?"
The answer came reluctantly:
"About twenty litres."
"Well, they are requisitioned; you are forbidden to use them."
The callers were about to leave, but the drunken man still wished to take Genevieve away.
"She must go to prison ... she has insulted the German army."
The "Blackguard," who was almost sober, pulled him by the arm:
"Come away, come away! These people will make a fuss, and it will be said that we are barbarians!"