The Conscript Part 21

But he spoke in vain, for every morning the surgeons, making their rounds, found seven or eight dead. Some died in fevers, some in deadly chill; so that heat or cold might be the presage of death.

Zimmer said that all this proceeded from the evil drugs which the doctors invented. "Do you see that tall, thin fellow?" he asked.

"Well, that man can boast of having killed more men than a field-piece; he is always primed, with his match lighted; and that little brown fellow--I would send him instead of the Emperor to the Russians and Prussians; he would kill more of them than a whole army corps."

He would have made me laugh with his jokes if the litters had not been constantly pa.s.sing.

At the end of three weeks my shoulder began to heal, and Zimmer's wounds were also doing well. They gave us every morning some good boiled beef which warmed our hearts, and in the evening a little beef with half a gla.s.s of wine, the sight alone of which rejoiced us and made the future look hopeful.

About this time, too, they allowed us to walk in the large garden, full of elms, behind the hospital. There were benches under the trees, and we walked the paths like millionnaires in our gray great-coats and forage-caps. The weather was magnificent; and we could see far along the poplar bordered Partha. This river falls into the Elster, on the left, forming a long blue line. On the same side stretches a forest of beech trees, and in front are three or four great white roads, which cross fields of wheat, barley and hay, and hop plantations; no sight could be pleasanter, or richer, especially when the breeze falls upon it and these harvests rise and fall in the sunlight like waves of the sea. The increasing heat presaged a fine year and often, when looking at the beautiful scenery around, I thought of Phalsbourg, and the tears came to my eyes.

"I would like to know what makes you cry so, Josephel," said Zimmer.

"Instead of catching a fever in the hospital, or losing a leg or arm, like hundreds of others, here we are quietly seated in the shade; we are well fed, and can smoke when we have any tobacco; and still you cry. What more do you want, Josephel?"

Then I told him of Catharine; of our walks at Quatre-Vents; of our promises; of all my former life, which then seemed a dream. He listened, smoking his pipe.

"Yes, yes," said he; "all this is very sad. Before the conscription of 1798, I too was going to marry a girl of our village, who was named Margredel, and whom I loved better than all the world beside. We had promised to marry each other, and all through the campaign of Zurich, I never pa.s.sed a day without thinking of her. But when I first received a furlough and reached home, what did I hear? Margredel had been three months married to a shoemaker, named Pa.s.sauf."

"You may imagine my wrath, Josephel; I could not see clearly; I wanted to demolish everything; and, as they told me that Pa.s.sauf was at the _Grand-Cerf_ brewery, thither I started, looking neither to the right nor left. There I saw him drinking with three or four rogues. As I rushed forward, he cried, 'There comes Christian Zimmer! How goes it, Christian? Margredel sends you her compliments.' He winked his eye.

I seized a gla.s.s, which I hurled at his head, and broke to pieces, saying, 'Give her that for my wedding present, you beggar!' The others, seeing their friend thus maltreated, very naturally fell upon me. I knocked two or three of them over with a jug, jumped on a table, sprang through a window, and beat a retreat.

"'It was time,' I thought.

"But that was not all," he continued; "I had scarcely reached my mother's when the gendarmerie arrived, and they arrested me. They put me on a wagon and conducted me from brigade to brigade until we reached my regiment, which was at Strasbourg. I remained six weeks at Finckmatt, and would probably have received the ball and chain, if we had not had to cross the Rhine to Hohenlinden.

"The Commandant Courtaud himself said to me:

"'You can boast of striking a hard blow, but if you happen again to knock people over with jugs, it will not be well for you--I warn you.

Is that any way to fight, animal? Why do we wear sabres, if not to use them and do our country honor?'

"I had no reply to make.

"From that day, Josephel, the thought of marriage never troubled me.

Don't talk to me of a soldier who has a wife to think of. Look at our generals who are married, do they fight as they used to? No, they have but one idea, and that is to increase their store and to profit by their wealth by living well with their d.u.c.h.esses and little dukes at home. My grandfather Yeri, the forester, always said that a good hound should be lean, and I think the same of good generals and good soldiers. The poor fellows are always in working order, but our generals grow fat from their good dinners at home."

So spoke my friend Zimmer in the honesty of his heart, and all this did not lessen my sadness.

As soon as I could sit up, I hastened to inform Monsieur Goulden, by letter, that I was in the hospital of Halle, in one of the five buildings of Leipzig, slightly wounded in the arm, but that he need fear nothing for me, for I was growing better and better. I asked him to show my letter to Catharine and Aunt Gredel to comfort them in the midst of such fearful war. I told him, too, that my greatest happiness would be to receive news from home and of the health of all whom I loved.

From that moment I had no rest; every morning I expected an answer, and to see the postmaster distribute twenty or thirty letters in our ward, without my receiving one, almost broke my heart; I hurried to the garden and wept. There was a little dark corner where they threw broken pottery--a place buried in shade, which pleased me much, because no one ever came there--there I pa.s.sed my time dreaming on an old moss-covered bench. Evil thoughts crossed my brain--I almost believed that Catharine could forget her promises, and I muttered to myself, "Ah! if you had not been picked up at Kaya! All would then have been ended! Why were you not abandoned? Better to have been, than to suffer thus!"

To such a pa.s.s did I finally arrive, that I no longer wished to recover, when one morning the letter-carrier, among other names, called that of Joseph Bertha. I lifted my hand without being able to speak, and a large, square letter, covered with innumerable post-marks, was handed me. I recognized Monsieur Goulden's handwriting, and turned pale.

"Well," said Zimmer, laughing, "it is come at last."

I did not answer, but thrust the letter in my pocket, to read it at leisure and alone. I went to the end of the garden and opened it. Two or three apple-blossoms dropped upon the ground, with an order for money, on which Monsieur Goulden had written a few words. But what touched me most was the handwriting of Catharine, which I gazed at without reading a word, while my heart beat as if about to burst through my bosom.

At last I grew a little calmer and read the letter slowly, stopping from time to time to make sure that I made no mistake--that it was indeed my dear Catharine who wrote, and that I was not in a dream.

I have kept that letter, because it brought, so to speak, life back to me. Here it is as I received it on the eighth day of June, 1813:

"MY DEAR JOSEPH:--I write you to tell you I yet love you alone, and that, day by day, I love you more.

"My greatest grief is to know that you are wounded, in a hospital, and that I cannot take care of you. Since the conscripts departed, we have not had a moment's peace of mind. My mother says I am silly to weep night and day, but she weeps as much as I, and her wrath falls heavily on Pinacle, who dared not come to the market-place, because she carried a hammer in her basket.

"But our greatest grief was when we heard that the battle had taken place, and that thousands of men had fallen; mother ran every morning to the post-office, while I could not move from the house. At last your letter came, thank heaven! to cheer us. Now I am better, for I can weep at my ease, thanking G.o.d that He has saved your life.

"And when I think how happy we used to be, Joseph--when you came every Sunday, and we sat side by side without stirring and thought of nothing! Ah! we did not know how happy we were; we knew not what might happen--but G.o.d's will be done. If you only recover! if we may only hope to be once again as happy as we were!

"Many people talk of peace, but the Emperor so loves war, that I fear it is far off.

"What pleases me most is to know that your wound is not dangerous, and that you still love me. Ah! Joseph, I will love you forever--that is all I can say. I can say it from the bottom of my heart; and I know my mother loves you too!

"Now, Monsieur Goulden wishes to say a few words to you, so I will close. The weather is beautiful here, and the great apple-tree in the garden is full of flowers; I have plucked a few, which I shall put in this letter when M. Goulden has written. Perhaps with G.o.d's blessing we shall yet eat together one of those large apples. Embrace me as I embrace you, Joseph, Farewell! Farewell!"

As I finished reading this, Zimmer arrived, and in my joy, I said:

"Sit down, Zimmer, and I will read you my sweetheart's letter. You will see whether she is a Margredel."

"Let me light my pipe first," he answered; and having done so, he added: "Go on, Josephel, but I warn you that I am an old bird, and do not believe all I hear; women are more cunning than we."

Notwithstanding this bit of philosophy, I read Catharine's letter slowly to him. When I had ended, he took it, and for a long time gazed at it dreamily, and then handed it back, saying:

"There! Josephel. She _is_ a good girl, and a sensible one, and will never marry any one but you."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes; you may rely upon her; she will never marry a Pa.s.sauf. I would rather distrust the Emperor than such a girl."

I could have embraced Zimmer for these words; but I said:

"I have received a bill for one hundred francs. Now for some white wine of Alsace. Let us try to get out."

"That is well thought of," said he, twisting his mustache and putting his pipe in his pocket. "I do not like to mope in a garden when there are taverns outside. We must get permission."

We arose joyfully and went to the hospital, when, the letter-carrier, coming out, stopped Zimmer, saying:

"Are you Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse artillery?"

"I have that honor, monsieur the carrier."

"Well, here is something for you," said the other, handing him a little package and a large letter.

Zimmer was stupefied, never having received anything from home or from anywhere else. He opened the packet--a box appeared--then the box--and saw the cross of honor. He became pale; his eyes filled with tears, he staggered against a bal.u.s.trade, and then shouted "_Vive l'Empereur!_"

in such tones that the three halls rang and rang again.

The carrier looked on smiling.