The Children of Alsace Part 12

Shaking his head and looking tenderly at the sleeping forests:

"When one belongs to this side, you see, one can speak ill of it, but one is not satisfied elsewhere. You do not know the country, sir, and yet to look at you one would swear you belonged to it."

Jean felt himself getting red; his throat was dry; he could not answer. And the man, thinking that he had taken a liberty, said:

"Excuse me, sir; one never knows whom one meets; and it is better not to talk about these things. I must continue my rounds and go down again."

He was going to salute in military fashion; Jean took his hand and pressed it.

"You are not mistaken, my friend," he said.

Then, feeling in his pocket, he held out his cigar-case to him.

"Come, take a cigar!"

And then, with a kind of childish joy, he emptied his case into the hand which the Custom House official held out.

"Take them all; you will give me pleasure. Do not refuse me!"

It seemed as if he wanted to give something to France.

The brigadier hesitated for a moment, and closed his hand over them, saying:

"I will smoke them on Sunday. Thank you, sir! Good-bye!"

He saluted quickly, and was lost to sight almost immediately in the firs that clothe the mountains. Jean heard his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Above all, he heard echoing in his soul, and with indescribable emotion, the words of this unknown man.

"You belong to us." "Yes, I belong here; I feel it, I see it; and that explains to me so many things in my life."

The shadow descended.

Jean saw the land darkening. He thought of those of his family who had fought there, round the villages submerged by the night, so that Alsace should remain united to that great country stretched out before him. "Sweet country--my country--every one has tender words for her; and I, why did I come? Why am I as moved as if she were living before me?"

In a little while, on the fringe of the sky just where the blue began, rose the evening star. Alone, faint but dominating as an idea.

Jean rose; the night was becoming quite dark, and he took the path which follows the crest of the hills; but he could not take his eyes from the star. Walking all alone in the deep silence, on the summit of the divided Vosges, he said to the star and to the shadow beneath:

"I belong to you; I am happy to have seen you. It frightens me to love you as I do!"

Soon he reached the frontier, and by the magnificent road crossing the Schlucht, went back again into the German-land.

The following day, the Tuesday of Holy Week, he was again at Alsheim, and handed to his father the report he had drawn up. Every one welcomed his return with such evident pleasure that he was very much touched by it. The evening after the "conference" between the old grandfather and the manufacturer, and at which Jean was present, since he had just returned from visiting the cuttings, Lucienne called her brother to the fire before which she was warming herself in the large yellow drawing-room. Madame Oberle was reading near the window; her husband had gone out, the coachman having informed him that one of the horses had gone lame.

"Well!" asked Lucienne. "What is the most beautiful thing you saw?"

"You."

"No, do not joke; tell me, the most beautiful thing during your journey?"

"France!"

"Where?"

"At the Schlucht. You cannot imagine the emotion it made me feel. It was a shock--like a revelation. You do not seem to understand me."

She answered in an indifferent manner:

"Yes; I am delighted that you were pleased. It ought to be a very fine excursion at this time of the year. The first spring flowers, are there not? And the breeze in the woods? Ah, my dear boy, there is so much convention in all that!"

Jean did not go on. She it was who continued, and in a confidential voice, which she modulated, and made marvellously musical:

"Here we've had grand visits--oh, visits which nearly cost a scene.

Imagine, two German officers came last Wednesday in a motor car to the lodge, and asked permission to see the saw-mills. Happily they were in mufti. The Alsheim people only saw two gentlemen like any others. Very fashionable; an old one--a commandant, and a young one with a grand air, and accustomed to society. If you had seen him bow to papa! I was in the park. They bowed to me too, and visited the whole of the works, personally conducted by our father. While this was going on that idiot Victor informed grandfather, who showed he was annoyed when we came in. I ought to have run away, it appears.

As the gentlemen did not enter the house--'my house,' as grandfather says--his irritation did not last long. However, there was a sequel----"

Lucienne laughed a little stifled laugh.

"My dear, Madame Bastian did not approve of me."

"You were then present during their visit to the works, when these gentlemen----"

"Yes."

"All the time?"

"My father kept me. In any case, I do not see how that should affect the Mayor's wife. But I had such a cold bow from her, my dear, last Sunday at the church door. Do you care about the Bastians' bows?"

"Yes; in the same way that I care for the greetings of all good people."

"Good people--yes; but they do not know what life is! To be blamed by them is just the same to me as if I were to be blamed by an Egyptian mummy come to life for the purpose. I should answer: 'You do not understand anything about it; go and wrap yourself up again.'

Is it not strange that you do not think as I do--you, my brother?"

Jean stroked the hand which was raised in front of him to make a screen.

"Even mummies can judge of certain things of our time, my darling--the things which are of all times."

"Oh! how serious you are. Come now, where was I wrong? Was it in going for a walk? In not looking away? In answering a greeting? In obeying my father, who told me to come and stay?"

"No; a.s.suredly not!"

"What harm have I done?"

"None. I have danced with many German girls. You can acknowledge an officer's greeting."

"Then I did right?"

"As a fact, yes. But there are so many sorrows around us--real sorrows, and so n.o.ble. You must remember that they all come to life again at a word, or a gesture."

"I shall never consider that. Since what I do is not wrong, no one shall ever stop me. Do you hear?"