Sainte-Brute was loath to let himself be convinced. At length his unsteady legs took him off, and his acolytes followed him.
"Ah!" cried Genevieve, pa.s.sing her hand over her forehead with a gesture as of madness, "to think that all our life we have been respected, that we have met only polite and courteous people, and now drunken brutes may insult us in our own house! Why, they talk of putting us in prison, as though we were old rag-pickers found trespa.s.sing."
The neighbours hastened to condole with us, for the shouts of the soldiers had been heard a mile off. The next intrusion came the following day. They returned to fetch the beans. This time they were merry in their cups, they asked for their prey with smiles, and laying hold of it seemed vastly amused. On leaving they burst out laughing, and Von Bernhausen, who was waiting for them outside, roared with merriment as he weighed the sack of beans in his hand.
The Prussians are full of humour.
For three days running, no offensive. Then, one morning, the Hussars announced themselves, as usual, by shouting, kicking at the gate, and ringing violently at the bell. They walked in, went through the house, and right on to the bathroom.
"We want this bath."
It was no use protesting. The bath was taken away. Three days after it was lying smashed to pieces in the yard of an inn which the Hussars frequented, and serving as a dust-bin for the s.l.u.ts of the place.
Then came the turn of the piano.
Some time before Christmas the non-commissioned officer who had previously searched the house presented himself very civilly:
"You have a piano; I want it for a few days; we shall bring it back to you after Christmas."
We could not say a word. Weeks glided by; the new year saw many dawns break; and no one brought back the piano. This harmonious piece of furniture was the finest ornament of a house which the _garde-voies_ had made their home. You saw nothing but black coats there; no Hussars, no convoys. The _garde-voies_ are territorials, elderly, sedate men, fathers of families, whose stoutness their uniforms cannot conceal. They smoke pipes as big as beer gla.s.ses, and drink beer out of gla.s.ses as big as kegs. They looked scornfully on those who stay at the farm, whose drunkenness and rakish habits are a cause of scandal to them.
Therefore they kept aloof, searched houses, and requisitioned goods for their own account, had their private rejoicings, and spent their evenings amid tobacco smoke and the smells of beer, while they listened rapturously to patriotic songs or even playful ditties hammered out on our good-natured piano.
One day a rumour spread. The _garde-voies_ are going away. The sergeant is already off. In fact, the non-commissioned officer had left our parts, unmindful of the various pieces of furniture he had "borrowed"
from the inhabitants. It was the moment to go and claim what belonged to us. The house was about to be cleared under the superintendence of a corporal, who kindly authorised us to have the piano conveyed home. He did not care for it any more; he was going away. And the instrument was put back into our drawing-room. It did not stay there for a great while.
That very evening Von Bernhausen came round, greatly incensed.
"That piano which the _garde-voies_ had? I hear you took it away, without asking my leave!"
"But it is our piano. It was agreed we should have it back."
"I want it; I will come for it to-morrow at ten. You had no right to fetch it without orders from me."
Bouillot withdrew, proud of himself. The following day he came back followed by a vehicle and eight men chosen among the strongest of the band. All flocked round the piano, pushing, pulling to no purpose.
"I think," said my mother-in-law, "that it would be better for the walls and for the piano if you pa.s.sed it directly into the street by the window."
"Hold your tongue," answered the kind officer, "you know nothing about it. The piano will go through the pa.s.sage."
It went through, and took with it much of the wainscot. The Hussars made a great deal of bustle, sweating blood and water. "Peuh!" Yvonne whispered in my ear, "those fellows have no muscles, they are but fat.
Two years ago, when we moved to Pa.s.sy, the same piano was carried in by a single, small, hunchbacked man. But look at that!"
Bouillot acted the busybody, moved to and fro, jested with his men, and by way of encouragement gave them sound slaps in the small of the back.
It was easy to see that these people, or at least their forefathers, had tended the swine in the forests of old Germany. At last by dint of effort the instrument was taken out of the house, carried along the pavement, and hoisted into the cart. The Hussars served as horses.
Gee-ho! They rushed forward, but in the courtyard the carriage gave a start, and the piano--with intent to commit suicide--bounded out and fell to the ground. After a few convulsions, and one last writhe of agony, it lay quiet.
"Oh! my beautiful Pleyel," cried Yvonne.
Some fragments of wood had been knocked off; Bouillot picked them up:
"It will be easy to mend." They gave the piano a lift, and made for the farm. All along the street we saw it skip along in its jolting car; the ravishers scoffingly waved their hands, and mocked at us until they were lost sight of behind a screen of snow.
Two days after a new joke of the same kind. Bouillot and his whole gang broke in noisily:
"I want two chairs."
"All right," my mother-in-law answered, "I will give orders for them to be brought down."
"No, I will choose them myself."
The Hussars, merry as schoolboys on a holiday, came tumbling one over the other into the rooms, meddled with everything, poked their noses everywhere. Von Bernhausen went right to the drawing-room. Those he wanted were two easy-chairs in the style of Louis XVI.--ancient silk is matchless for wiping filthy boots upon. This was carrying things too far. Now an officer had installed himself in our house that very morning, taking the place of Barbu and Crafleux. Could we not appeal to him as a last shift?
Antoinette rushed forward, and knocked imperiously at the door of the newcomer: "Sir, sir...."
She was answered by a growl. Then the door opened slightly, and a ruffled head appeared.
"Sir, an officer is there who wants to take our furniture...."
But at that very moment Bouillot approached in a whirlwind. He stopped short at the sight of his brother-in-arms. The two men eyed one another.
"Ah! hum! you here...."
They shook hands coldly. They were face to face, the one immense, the other small; both had the same rank, the same decoration. Our guest had been aroused from his afternoon nap. It was three o"clock, the right time for honest men to sleep. His eyes were swollen, his dress untidy, and his toes, vexed at being incorrect, wriggled about in his socks. Yet he undertook our defence. He did not refer, I need hardly say, to justice or to the Conventions of the Hague. He advanced a single argument, but it struck home.
"I am quartered in this house."
"Yet this house is one of the best furnished in the village; it is but right we should fetch here what is wanting."
"... These are my quarters.... I want the furniture that is here...."
At the beginning of the conference the soldiers became serious, and one after another vanished on tiptoe. Bernhausen at last resigned himself and went after them. It was our turn now to laugh at the Hussars, when we saw them go away crestfallen, and heard their chief stammer explanations.
A few days after, Lieutenant Bubenpech, whom our roof had the honour to shelter, was appointed commandant in place of Bouillot, by right of seniority. Thus ended the persecution of which we had been the victims for two months. The guests of the farm continued their misdeeds and their extortions, but they avoided our house, which sheltered a power the rival of their own. We even had the pleasure of seeing the "Blackguard" come to our house on duty, a bashful, blushing "Blackguard," and more than that, as polite as a chamberlain in presence of his sovereign.
However, in the beginning of February, we again had difficulties with soldiers, coming from the trenches. Twice a week they went through Morny with heavily laden carts. Oh, these convoys! Monday and Thursday, as early as four in the morning, the carts rattled through the village, and noisily shook their empty sides on the pavement. They stopped at the station where there were large stores of straw, and a few hours later went back to the front full to the brim. The farmers took great interest in these personages. Loads, drivers, and carts engrossed their attention.
"Whatever those lazy-bones do," cried an old peasant, "is badly done, and ought not to be done."
To tell the truth, there is an art of loading carts with straw. The first layers should be well placed and should make a solid foundation according to time-honoured rules. The Prussians" loads always stood awry, and threatened ruin as soon as they were erected. First one bundle tumbled over, a second followed, then at a turn of the road the whole pyramid sank to the ground, hurling the listless drivers headlong into a ditch. Nearly every time they came to fetch straw the loaders managed to let it fall, and we watched them rebuild carelessly another tottering heap, Of course these men were thirsty after their hard toil, and they stopped at every fountain to refresh ... their horses; as to themselves they drank anything but water.
Such is, then, the way fifteen soldiers happened to come to our house to draw water from our pump. Many buckets had been pulled up, and the men did not go. They went up and down, laughed, opened one door, then another, ventured into the garden, peeped in at the windows. Genevieve went to encounter them.
"Do you want anything?"
"Nothing at all. We are pleased to stay here because there are pretty girls in the house," answered the sergeant in very good French.
"Then, if there is no need for you to stay here, you had better go away; I want to lock the gate, we never keep it open."
And the men withdrew. Colette, who watched the scene from upstairs, said afterwards: