The Children of Alsace Part 9

"It is fifty years old," said he, pouring a little of the liqueur into each of the gla.s.ses.

He added seriously, "I drink to your health, Jean Oberle, and to your return to Alsheim!"

But Jean, without answering directly, and with every one silent, and looking at Odile, who had withdrawn to the cupboard, and who, standing erect against it, was also looking at and studying her old playfellow returned to his native country, said:

"I drink to the land of Alsace!"

By the tone of the words, by the gesture of the hand raising the little sparkling gla.s.s, by the look fixed on the end of the room, some one understood that the land of Alsace was here personified and present. The tall, beautiful daughter of the Bastians remained motionless, leaning against the cupboard, which framed her in its yellowish shadow. But her eyes had the brightness that wheat has when it waves at a breath of wind in the sunshine, and without turning her head, without ceasing to look straight in front of her, her eyelids slowly lowered and shut, saying thank you!

And that was all.

Madame Bastian had not even looked up. Odile had said not a word--Jean bowed and went out.

The old Mayor of Alsheim rejoined him outside.

"I will go with you to the other end of my garden," he said, "for it is better for us--for you--and for your father, that you should not be seen coming down the avenue. You will seem to be coming from the fields."

"What a strange country this has become!" said the young man in an angry tone. "Because you do not hold the same opinions as my father you cannot receive me, and when I leave you I must do so secretly, and after having had to submit to the insult of a silence which was hard to bear. I can tell you that!"

He spoke loudly enough to be heard from the house, from which he was only a few steps away. The usual paleness of his complexion was more noticeable, and emotion contracted the muscles of his neck and jaws, and all his face had a tragic expression.

M. Bastian led him on.

"I have another reason for taking you that way," he said, "it will be longer, and I have things to explain to you."

They took a path that was not gravelled, which went by the plane-trees, pa.s.sed a kitchen garden and then crossed a little wood.

"You do not understand, dear boy," said M. Bastian, in a voice which was firm without being harsh, "because you have not yet really lived among us. It has not changed; what you see dates back for thirty years."

Through an opening in the trees they saw a little bit of the plain, with the belfry of Barr in the distance, and the blue Vosges mountains above and beyond.

"Formerly," continued M. Bastian, pointing vaguely to the country, "our Alsace was just one family. Big and little knew each other and lived happily together. You know that even now I make no difference between rich and poor, between a citizen of Strasburg and a wood-cutter from the mountain. But what is done is done--we have been torn away, against our will, from France, and treated brutally because we did not say 'Yes.' We cannot revolt--we cannot drive away our masters, who know nothing about our hearts or our lives.

But we do not admit them to our friendship, neither them nor those amongst us who have taken the side of the stronger."

He stopped speaking for a moment, not wishing to say all that he thought on this subject, and went on, taking Jean's hand.

"You are very angry with my wife because of her reception of you; but you are not the cause of it, neither is she. Until the doubt which rests on you is lifted, you are he who was educated in Germany, and the woman you have just seen is this country.

Reflect--you must not bear a grudge against her. We have not all been faithful to Alsace, we men; and the best of us have compromised and have more or less recognised the new master. Not so the women--Ah! Jean Oberle, I have not the courage to disclaim them even when you whom I love so well are the subject. Our Alsatian women are not insulting you in any ordinary way when they do not receive you; they are defending their country, they are carrying on the war." The old man had tears in his red and wrinkled eyes.

"You will know me later," said Jean.

They were at the end of the little park before a wooden door as mouldy as the other. M. Bastian opened it, shook the young man's hand and stayed a long time at the end of the wood watching Jean go away and get smaller on the plain, his head bent against the wind, which was still blowing, and more violently.

Jean was troubled to the depth of his soul.

Between him and each family in this old country he felt he was going to find his father. He was suffering from having been born in the house towards which he was going. He saw the image of Odile as the only sweet thing of this first day, and her eyes were slowly, slowly closing.

CHAPTER V

COMPANIONS OF THE ROAD

The winter did not allow M. Oberle's ideas about the professional education of Jean to be carried out exactly. The snow which remained on the summits of the Vosges, without being thick, made travelling very difficult. So Jean paid only two or three visits to the wood-cutting centres situated near Alsheim and in the Vosges valleys. The excursions to more distant places were put off for a warmer season. But he learned to cube a pine or a beech without making a mistake, to value it according to the place it occupied in the forest, according to the height of the trunk below the branches, the appearance of the bark, which indicated the health of the tree, and by other calculations into which a kind of divining quality enters, which cannot be taught anywhere, and which makes the expert.

His father initiated him into the working of the factory and the management of the machines, the reading of agreements, and the traditions of fifty years kept up by the Oberles regarding sale and carriage contracts. He put him into relationship with two officials of the administration of the forests of Strasburg, who showed themselves very ready to be of service, and proposed to Jean to explain to him personally the new forest legislation, of which he still knew but little. "Come," said the younger, "come to see me at my office, and I will tell you more things you will find it useful to know than you will learn in books. For the law is the law, but the administration is another thing."

Jean promised to profit when occasions offered themselves. But several weeks went by without his having the time to go to the town.

Then March came in mildly and melted the snows. In a week, and much earlier than usual, the brooks swelled to overflowing, and the high peaks of the Vosges and Sainte Odile which one could see from Alsheim, which had had their slopes and paths white with snow, appeared in their summer robes of dark and pale green.

The walks round Alsheim were going to be exquisite and such as the young man had pictured to himself in his youthful memories. The home, without being a model of family unity, had witnessed no repet.i.tion of the painful scene which occurred the day after Jean's return. In each camp words were noted and deeds observed, which would one day become arguments and subjects of reproach and discussion, but just now there was a sort of truce brought about by different causes.

In M. Joseph Oberle it was the desire not to be wrong in his son's eyes; for his son was going to be useful, and he did not wish to be accused of provocation. In Lucienne it was the diversion which the presence of her brother had brought into her life, and the interest, not yet exhausted, that she took in his tales of travel and student life. In Madame Oberle it was fear of making her son suffer, and of alienating him by letting him see the family feuds. Nothing had really changed. There was only a superficial gaiety, an appearance of peace, a truce. But although Jean felt that the agreement of the hearts and minds around him was not real, he enjoyed it because he had spent long years in moral solitude.

The worries and clashing of interests came from elsewhere, and were not wanting. Nearly every day Jean had occasion to go through the village of Alsheim, which was built on each side of three roads forming a fork, the handle of which was the mountain side, and the two p.r.o.ngs towards the plain. At the bifurcation was the tavern, the Swan, which took up a corner of the church square. A little farther on, on the left road leading to Bernhardsweiler, dwelt the German workmen engaged by M. Joseph Oberle, and lodged in little houses all alike, each with a little garden in front. So that in whatever part of Alsheim he showed himself, the young man could not help reading, in the faces and gestures of those he met, different opinions, and all equally distressing. The Germans and their wives--the workmen, better disciplined and more tame-spirited than the Alsatians, fearing all authority without respecting it, quartered in a corner of Alsheim by the hatred of the population on which they hoped to take vengeance some day, when they should be the more numerous, having with the other inhabitants no ties of origin, family, customs, or religion--could only have indifference or hostility for the master, which were badly disguised by the salutations of the men, and the furtive smiles of the women.

But many of the Alsatians were less under restraint. It was enough that Jean had entered the business and that he was seen constantly with his father, for their disapproval to extend to him. He saw himself covered with a prudent contempt, the kind that little people can always express towards powerful neighbours. The forest workmen, the labourers, the women, and even the children pretended not to see him when he pa.s.sed, others withdrew into their houses; others, the old ones especially, watched the rich man come and go as if he had been from another country. Those who showed the most signs of respect were the tradesmen or the employes, or the relations of the employes of the house. And Jean found it difficult to bear the reopening of this wound each time he left the park.

On Sunday, at church, in the whitewashed nave, he waited for the coming of Odile. To reach the seat reserved for her family for years, which was the first on the Epistle side, she had to pa.s.s near Jean. She pa.s.sed, with her father and her mother, without any of them appearing to know that Jean was there, and M. Oberle, and Lucienne. She only smiled at the end of Ma.s.s, when she came down the aisle, but she smiled at whole rows of friendly faces, at women, old men, at big boys who would have died for her, and at the children of the choir, the chanters of the "Concordia," who scampered off by the sacristy door, to be able to salute, surround, and welcome at the door the daughter of M. Bastian, the Alsatian girl, the friend, the beloved of all this poor village; she did not give away more money than Madame Oberle, but they knew that there was no division in her house, no treachery, and that the only difference between it and the other houses in the valleys and mountains of Alsace was its wealth.

What did she think of Jean? She, whose eyes never spoke in vain, did not look at him. She who used to speak to him in the roads now said nothing.

The first month of Jean's new life pa.s.sed away like this in Alsheim.

Then spring was born. M. Joseph Oberle waited two days and then, seeing the buds of his birch-trees burst in the sunshine, he said to his son on the third day:

"You are a good enough apprentice now to go alone and inspect our timber-yard in the Vosges. You will get ready to start. This year I have made exceptional purchases. I have cuttings as far as the Schlucht, and to visit them you will have to visit nearly all the Vosges. I give you no instructions, only observe, and bring me a report, in which you will note down your observations of each of our cuttings."

"When shall I start?"

"To-morrow, if you like--the winter is over." M. Oberle said that with the a.s.surance of a man who has had need to know the weather like a peasant, and who knows it. He had, before speaking, ordered a list to be prepared of the cuttings of wood bought by the house either from the German State or from the Communes, or from private people, with the detailed directions on the position they occupied in the mountains, and he gave this list to Jean.

There were a dozen cuttings distributed over the whole length of the Vosges, from the valley of the Bruche on the north to the mouth of the Schlucht.

The next day Jean put a little linen and a change of shoes in a bag, and without telling any one of his intention hurried to the mountain, and up to the lodge of Heidenbruch.

The square house, with green shutters, and the meadow, and the forest all round the clearing, were smoking as if a fire had devoured the heath and gra.s.s, and left the beech and pines intact.

Long wreaths of mist seemed to emanate from the soil, and to grow tenuous, and uniting, lose themselves in the low clouds, which glided along, rising from the valleys and going up the slopes towards the invisible monastery of Sainte Odile. The humidity penetrated to the very depths of the forests. It was everywhere.

Drops of water shone on the pine needles, streamed in threads down the bare trunks of the beeches, polished the pebbles, swelled the many mosses, and travelling over the land, and flowing on dead leaves, went to swell the brooks, whose cadenced song could be heard on all sides--the gra.s.shopper of winter whose song never ceases.

Jean went up to the middle of the wooden palisade painted green, which surrounded Heidenbruch, pa.s.sed through the gate, and in the front of the lodge called out gaily to the windows closed because of the fog, "Uncle Ulrich."

A cap appeared behind the window panes, the cap of an Alsatian woman who takes care of her big black ribbons--and under the cap there was the smile of an old friend.

"Lise, tell uncle!"

This time the last window to the left opened, and the refined face, the eyes of a watcher, the pointed beard of M. Ulrich Biehler were framed between two shutters thrown back against the white wall.

"Uncle, I have at least a dozen wood-cutting places to visit. I begin this morning, and I come to take you for a companion, to-day, to-morrow, and every day...."