At last there came an end to the procession. The street was empty. No one uttered a word, and we ran away to cry to our hearts" content.
House, yard, barns were all crowded with people. I took refuge in the garden. Nature seemed covered with an ashen veil, the very sun was obscured. Had the radiant morning really begotten this sad noon? Like a wounded animal looking for a dark shelter, I fled to the orchard, and crouching down in a corner close to the wall I wept most bitterly, without knowing why. Some one called me; I had to go back to life, or rather a life, unknown, unsuspected, in which all was changed. The Prussians were advancing through France.
On arriving at the house I met only with grief-stricken features and swollen eyes. We had no mind to eat. Only a few refugees, already indifferent, and the dogs did not lose their appet.i.te. But standing at the dining-room windows we saw a sight worth seeing. The Prussians had taken possession of the village, and were looking for what they might lay their hands upon. They seemed to think little Mme. Laineux" shop had been created for their own special use, and they set about plundering it according to rule. They went up, three steps at a time, got among the groceries, made their choice, and came back, their arms filled with bottles and bags. In short, they carried away all that was eatable and drinkable in the house. They went up and down without interruption like two rows of ants busy stripping a sack of flour, one row full, the other empty. The grocer"s wife, a small woman, dark and pale with large black eyes, stood by, unable to withstand the plunderers. She locked the door. The first soldier who encountered that obstacle went to the window, broke a square, turned the door-handle, and muttering threats reopened the door.
With a look of despair, Mme. Laineux went and fetched an officer who was eating upstairs.
"Come and see what your men are doing."
The officer came, looked round, and declared:
"C"est la kerre, Matame!"
And he went back to his lunch.
The shop cleared out, the men made farther search into the house, and discovered a small store-room, which they emptied with equal activity.
For the pleasure of the thing, they cut stockings to transform them into socks, and spilled ink on petticoats and blouses. The last comers took the trap from the coach-house, the horse out of his stable, put the horse in the trap, and drove off with a light heart.
A bitter disenchantment filled our tired hearts. Nothing would have astonished us. In the afternoon two soldiers entered the farm, but at the sight of the yard crowded with men and dogs, withdrew. Broken down with weariness, we went early to bed. A ladder about twenty feet high led to a square opening through which we climbed into the hay-loft.
There every one of us made a hole in the hay and buried herself in it.
Now, in theory, hay offers a soft and sweet-smelling couch. The reality is slightly different. You may find comfort in this bed if you are wrapped up in cloaks and shawls to keep out the cold of the night, but the odour of the hay will make you sneeze, you will soon feel stiff in your legs, and hard blades of gra.s.s will p.r.i.c.k your ankles and your neck.
Despite minor annoyances, my companions were very soon slumbering. For my part I could not sleep. I was feverish and ... my golden waistband played tricks and got into my ribs. The slanting light of the moon gave an added pallor to the faces of the four sleeping girls, whose presence on their bed of hay, beneath the beams of the loft which spiders had covered with their grey lace, was astonishing enough. It seemed as though the four heads had been put there for a whim, and the bodies laid down somewhere else. I fell into a doze. I saw hundreds of Prussians pa.s.s before my eyes, laden with goods, and carrying away the very houses. Then there came a mult.i.tude of galloping horses, which all vanished from my sight, and I was asleep.
The next day an impudent sunbeam woke us up by caressing our eyelids. In the barn below the refugees were bustling about noisily. The first moment after awaking was cruel; we had, as Stendhal says, "to learn our misery afresh." One after the other, like fowls getting out of the henhouse, we went down our long ladder, and ran off to wash and to hear the latest news.
That day also was a day of tears.
The villagers, frightened to death, had not dared to unlock their doors, and we heard only in the morning that a French convoy had been taken by surprise and captured by the Germans at Neuville, no more than two miles from Chevregny.
Then a scout--a fact completely unconnected with the former--had been killed by the enemy at a cross-way, near Mme. Laroye"s house. We went to see the place, where the two white roads cross each other; large reddish spots still marked the ground. Kneeling down, we kissed this blood which cried for revenge, and from our inmost soul we besought Heaven that France should be victorious over her enemy, so that her heart"s blood might not be shed in vain.
Some peasants, who had witnessed the scene, gave us an account of it. In great numbers the Germans came down the road. All of a sudden, two French scouts appeared on the outskirts of the wood, saw the enemy, fired at them, and then turned back. One of them was lucky enough to get under cover, but the other, severely wounded, was unhorsed, and fell down. Stretched by the wayside he made an attempt to get up, but his adversaries rushed upon him, and in a confused scuffle beat him to death with the b.u.t.t-ends of their guns, and rode away at full gallop.
The victim was to be buried that very morning, and as we wished to be present at the funeral, no time could be lost. When we arrived at the churchyard two men were already digging a narrow grave. The body, wrapped in a white sheet, was lying on a stretcher. There was no coffin.
Soldiers should lie in the soil for which they have died. The red spot beneath his head grew larger little by little, and the blood that trickled down made a dazzling rill in the white sand. We approached him with a shrinking heart. With pious hands the grave-digger lifted up the sheet to show us the face of the dead man. An aquiline nose and a firm chin were still distinguishable. The rest of the features were clotted with blood and shapeless. Nearly choked with sobs, we could not help wondering from which wound the blood had flowed, when suddenly the truth flashed upon us, at a gesture of the old grave-digger, who pointed at what were, but the day before, the boy"s eyes. His eyes! oh, you cowards! villains! They had not only beaten him to death, they had put his eyes out! He was defending himself like a brave soldier. He was alone against twenty, and they had murdered him. There on the white road, in the sunshine, they had committed their crime; the shades of night had fallen upon him before he descended to the tomb.
Oh, vengeance! vengeance! We wept, we cried, and nothing could comfort us. We wept over the gallant soldier of France, who fell so near us; we wept over all the dead and wounded, and above all we wept--oh, narrowness of the human heart!--over the one soldier we loved, whose uncertain fate tortured our hearts. Oh, my Posy, my treasure, my love, my pride, have you not asked for a dangerous mission? Have you received your death-wound, outnumbered in some lonely corner? Have they...? the terrifying thought! ... oh, his eyes! ... his eyes!... It was beyond endurance. Crushed with grief, I fell senseless. When I came to myself the priest had said the usual prayers, and was gone. My companions stood up, shedding silent tears. The two villagers gloomily filled the grave, and the earth fell with a hollow sound on the poor body. One of the men broke off in the middle of his work, and told us of the scout"s death.
What he said confirmed what we had already heard. "Curse them!" he cried out, and, with a gesture of rage, seized his spade, and began again to fill the grave.
But we had not done with emotion yet.
"Do you know that the Germans took three hundred prisoners yesterday?"
some one asked us. "You will see them pa.s.s on the road."
The churchyard is terraced to the street, which runs down a steep hill, and thence already we caught sight of a few hors.e.m.e.n, closely followed by soldiers on foot. They were French. At the sight of the enemy, our grief, all of a sudden, turned to wrath and madness. Here they were in our own country, the very same we saw yesterday, no doubt. They were those perhaps who had blinded and killed the scout, and they were taking our brothers to captivity. Oh, for the power to strike, to kill those men! To hurl down upon them some of those big stones, half loosened by time! We shuddered at the mere sight of them, a bantering, conceited, happy mob. The faces of Yvonne and Antoinette, standing among the crosses, were wet with tears and convulsed with rage. Hatred was so clearly visible in their eyes that the faces of the Germans grew hard and stiffened as if they had been given a slap in the face. They pa.s.s, they are gone, and now the prisoners are coming. They seemed to have made up their minds to accept the situation. They were hot, and talked among themselves in a low voice. The officers drove in a jolting car, motionless and spent. We could not see them very well, but we could distinguish the stripes on the Captain"s sleeve, and then the cart disappeared from sight at a winding of the road. The way was open; we went home, and when we were alone, Genevieve and I fell into each other"s arms, and without saying a word wept again inconsolably. Towards the close of the day the garden tempted us. It is a dear old garden, full of shade and of old-fashioned, sweet-smelling flowers. It is about four yards above the level of the street, and if you sit on the wall, as large as an easy-chair, you can see all that goes on in the street below. Like souls in agony, we dragged ourselves along the alleys edged with box, doleful and weary. From the wall we observed the four points of the compa.s.s. Not a Prussian in sight. So we began to talk to little Mme. Laineux, who looked out of her window just over the way. Close to her stood a young girl about fifteen years of age, whose head, framed in a handkerchief tied under the chin, was the most exquisite ever seen.
Raphael might have drawn her fine features, her clear eyes. Even her hands browned by the sun were pretty; even her waist was elegant in spite of an unbecoming frock. O France, you are rich in all treasures, and that sweet little maid is not the least of them! The grocer"s wife confided her sorrows to us in a bitter tone. Two old men pa.s.sing by stopped in the street to condole with her; then a third person, shabbily dressed, joined in the talk, and from the very first proved interesting.
He was a soldier, escaped from the yesterday"s fight, and he told us his adventure in detail.
"Tuesday," he said, "we slept in Arden, a small place we had reached at five o"clock in the evening. The horses were not tired, and we might have marched on. At least, we ought to have been up at three, instead of which we set out again at six o"clock, and were not bidden to make haste. We did not know that the enemy was treading in our steps. About nine we approached this place, quite easy in our minds, when we heard the people cry: "The Prussians!... To the right-about! Quick! Quick!"
Convoys like us are not looked upon as fighting men, do you see; we ought to be a few miles behind the front. We were but scantily armed; some of us had a revolver and no bullets, the others bullets and no revolver. What could we do against the cannon, which peppered us from the top of the hill? We were ordered back.
"The drivers made what speed they could, when, just at the turn of the road, one of the carts managed to tumble down; those that followed at full speed were thrown down upon it, and thus made a barricade, which held up all the rest. The guns fired without ceasing. Our Captain came up: "Nothing to do, my lads; we are caught. Be quick, get a white flag."
We looked for a white flag.... There was none. At length a white handkerchief was hoisted on a stick. And then a troop of hors.e.m.e.n cantered down upon us. "Lay yourselves in the ditch," we heard. The horses pawed our backs, and I a.s.sure you the Prussians did nothing to hold them back. I will show you."
And the man, taking off his jacket, bared his bruised and swollen back.
"Still lying in the ditch, I noticed close to me the opening of a gutter-stone stopped up with mud and gra.s.s. I tried to pull it out; it gave way. I got into the narrow pa.s.sage, and cried out to my companion: "There is room but for one."
""It is one safe and sound," he answered, and stopped up the opening of the pipe again.
"For twenty-six hours I lay in there, with the Germans overhead. Never in my life did I think of my wife and children as I did then! About eleven o"clock, when all the noise had ceased, I ventured out of my hole. People who were working hard by took me in, dressed my wound, and gave me civilian clothes. I hope to escape to the woods and join the French army again."
And so saying the man went away. We called him back to slip some biscuits and chocolate into his hand. With a smile he pointed to his full pockets, and said, "I am well stored, you see. I will share with the others." Alas, he was not alone! The convoy amounted to 800 soldiers. About 15 had been killed, 350 taken prisoners, and the rest were hidden in the woods. The boldest or the luckiest might reach the French lines. The others would probably wander about, like wild beasts who hide themselves, would suffer cold and hunger, and then after weeks or months of this wretched life they would be caught and sent to Germany ... unless they were shot.
Our thoughts were mournful as death when at nightfall we climbed a second time to the hay-loft. We could not sleep, our anxiety was too great. Were the Germans still gaining ground? Would they sweep onward, like a cloud of insects, towards Paris, whose splendour and renown dazzled and attracted them invincibly? Oh, may they burn their wings there and be carbonised to the last one! The next day we went to see the place of the skirmish. The fields on both sides of the road were all covered over with things the soldiers had thrown away. In some places the gra.s.s was heaped with knapsacks, papers, clothes, and arms. We tramped on; the road wound its way through meadows and woods, and then got into a funnel-shaped valley. Here had been the thickest of the fight. The cavalry came up from behind; there were the guns on the rocks to the right and left. Alas, the convoy had really been caught in a trap! The three carts still stood in the middle of the road, and the meadows were thickly strewn with soldiers" things, papers, and discarded arms. Colette discovered a beautiful sword hidden in a bush; she quickly put it back again, that presently she might come and fetch it.
It would be so much gained. A pa.s.ser-by gave us some other details.
There was a body here, another there. It was to be feared that a few more dead soldiers were hidden in the wood. On our way back we picked up all the letters, books, and papers which we found, hoping we might later on forward them to the soldiers" families, and at the same time tell them news of the unfortunate convoy. We pa.s.sed through Neuville, and there we saw the ammunition captured the day before, heaped up in a yard. Another Cerberus, adorned with a spiked helmet, watched over mountains of bullets and boxes of cartridges. There was seven million francs" worth, said the peasants.
Returning to the village, sunk in despondency, we heard the sound of a drum, and we arrived just in time to listen to the proclamation which the rural constable read aloud:
"Arms and clothes, belonging to French soldiers, must be gathered up, and brought without delay to the Mayor"s house.... By order of the German authorities," said the reader, a small hunchbacked man.
And tears rolled down his cheeks.
At Mme. Laroye"s we found a change for the better. The refugees had set out homewards, and the friends from Laon, by taking leave, enabled us to live once more after the fashion of civilised people. With pleasure we stretched our limbs, which three nights had stiffened and tired out, in a comfortable bed.
From that time Fate proved merciful, and for a few days spared us new troubles and violent emotions. Of course tears always trembled on our eyelids, if some incident happened to revive our wounds; but after so many mental pangs the surrounding peace was a solace to our minds. Life sprang up anew in our hearts, and with life, spirits. Many a time--was it a reaction?--we burst out laughing, broke into mad, inextinguishable laughter. Liza more than once set us in a roar. Liza is Mme. Laroye"s maid,--a maid who has land of her own, who possesses a mile away a house, a horse, a dog, and, in ordinary times, a husband. But, as the times we live in are by no means ordinary, Zidore--for he is called Zidore--had joined the army, to make war against the King of Prussia.
Was Mme. Laroye alone? Liza would discharge with a.s.siduous attention the duties of her place. Had Mme. Laroye friends or relations to entertain?
Liza went home again, and reappeared only to give herself up to her menial duties. Liza is a tall woman, clumsily built, with a funny Hun-like face. Her small eyes, her high cheekbones, prove that a drop of Asiatic blood runs in her veins. Have I not hinted, in a former chapter, that Attila may have sent a reconnoitring party down here? But if Liza has inherited her strong frame and her snub nose from her ancestors, the Huns, to whom does she owe her restlessness and her pusillanimity? No doubt to her great-grandmother, the Frankish woman, who had to submit to the wild Asiatic. For Liza was not brave; Liza did not dare face the Prussians. From Laon, Morny, and other places, people fled to Chevregny.
It was then an additional reason for Liza"s fellow-villagers to run away farther too. The women had made up their minds to go. As soon as the enemy was descried from afar, Liza"s horse--Mouton--and Mme. Laroye"s horse--Gentil--would be put to, and both fiery steeds--as fiery as their names--would take their mistresses to a safe place.
But, alas! man proposes.... A cry arose: "The Prussians!" Liza heard it, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a big loaf in bewilderment, and went full gallop towards the forest with her dog at her heels. After her galloped a troop of her companions just as bewildered. They went down the road, struck across the country, cleared the hedges, and plunged into the forest. In the heart of the wood they stopped, blessing their star which had led them to this wild and safe spot. At that very moment they became speechless.
The report of a cannon resounded in the air, then a second one, and a full volley followed. The poor wretches had thrown themselves headlong into the valley, where the convoy struggled against its foes, and the grape-shot fell upon them without mercy. The harmless troop, however, lifted up its suppliant arms towards Heaven, which did not see them at all, for the foliage was too thick, and muttered hollow prayers to some sylvan divinity which heard them not, for the cannon was too loud. Then they ran away and cowered under the bushes. Sh.e.l.ls bespattered them facetiously with moss and earth. They crouched in a hut that happened to be there. A malignant cannon-ball carried off a corner of the roof. They stuck close to the trunk of a tree. Merely to tease them bullets tore off its leaves and its branches, which rained gently down upon their heads. The unfortunate fugitives, at last gloomily resigned, sat in a circle, and waited for the end in the calm of despair. Then all sounds ceased. They opened one eye, then the other, stretched themselves, got up, counted themselves, and discovered with the greatest amazement they had lost neither one hair, save those which they had torn in terror, nor one b.u.t.ton, save those which panting fear had burst from their corsage.
These refugees of the forest had no thought of leaving their precious shelter. They ate the provisions which in their prudence they had brought with them, and Liza"s big loaf proved a great success. They spent the night in the hut, and slept with one eye open, raising their unquiet heads whenever they heard the tramping of a Prussian horse on the road. In the morning nothing was to be heard. I do not know who was courageous enough to poke her nose first out of the wood; I expect it was the dog. At last, however, our villagers plucked up their courage, and with common accord went back to their native hamlet. Mme. Laroye did not receive Liza exactly with open arms, but with that gentle irony of which she has the secret:
"Well, well, Liza, I understand. "The old lady is too slow," you thought, "she will disturb us. She had better stay at home." And so you scampered off."
Liza protested, and we laughed, and Colette pointed the moral of the adventure.
"It is very funny, Liza"s story. But don"t you think it is just like ours?"
The Prussians had forced open most of the houses, and had antic.i.p.ated the taxes which they hoped to levy. Fowls, pigeons, geese without number, and even plump pigs were absent. At Liza"s house the ravishers had shown a certain modesty. A sack of flour, a few pigeons, one or two ducks only had disappeared. But the intruders had turned the room topsy-turvy. Did they look for treasure? And, by a sad whim, they had seized upon two photographs, whose red plush frames were the ornament of the mantelpiece--Liza in the garb of a nun, and Zidore in a soldier"s uniform. For what purpose had they torn up these precious pictures?
"And Zidore had it taken the first day I saw him!" So the enemy had destroyed the fond keepsake of a happy day!
Really, the age we lived in was hard, and the Prussians heartless! All the world was so firmly convinced of this that everybody stayed indoors as much as possible and ventured reluctantly out of the village, for fear of dangerous encounters. No one was bold enough to risk horse and cart on the road, since the first soldier that came might requisition both. Happy indeed was the owner who was not compelled to turn back and drive the Prussian to a far-off place. Thus it happened that many a villager, who, having gone out with team and horse for a few hours, came back home on foot and alone three or four days later. From this you may see that communication was not easy, even between places at no great distance from one another. An old lady, seeing the Germans arrive in Chevregny, died of the sudden shock, and for several days it was impossible to send the sad tidings to her son, who was no farther off than Laon. Indeed, we knew not what was happening in the neighbourhood, still less at Morny. "The country is overrun with Prussians," we were told.
So the emotion was great when it was rumoured that flour ran short in Chevregny, for Chevregny fed two other hamlets and a great many refugees. Every morning the baker"s shop was carried by storm. Every morning the housewives had to wait their turn for an hour to get a loaf.