The Conscript Part 9

Monsieur Goulden hearing this, looked grave; he bent his brows, and replied in a few moments: "It is a misfortune, a great misfortune, for Joseph is really lame. They will yet find it out, for he cannot march two days without falling behind and becoming sick. But you are wrong, Mother Gredel, to speak as you do and give him bad advice."

"Bad advice!" she cried. "Then you are for having people ma.s.sacred too!"

"No," he answered; "I do not love wars, especially where a hundred thousand men lose their lives for the glory of one. But wars of that kind are ended. It is not now for glory and to win new kingdoms that soldiers are levied, but to defend our country, which had been put in danger by tyranny and ambition. We would gladly have peace now.

Unhappily, the Russians are advancing; the Prussians are joining them: and our friends, the Austrians, only await a good opportunity to fall upon our rear. If we do not go to meet them, they will come to our homes; for we are about to have Europe on our hands as we had in '93.

It is now a different matter from our wars in Spain, in Russia, and in Germany; and I, old as I am, Mother Gredel, if the danger continues to increase and the veterans of the republic are needed, I would be ashamed to go and make clocks in Switzerland while others were pouring out their blood to defend my country. Besides, remember this well, that deserters are despised everywhere; after having committed such an act, they have no kindred or home anywhere. They have neither father, mother, church nor country. They are incapable of fulfilling the first duty of man--to love and sustain their country, even though she be in the wrong."

He said no more at the moment, but sat gravely down.

"Let us eat," he exclaimed, after some minutes of silence. "It is striking twelve o'clock. Mother Gredel and Catharine, seat yourselves there."

They sat down, and we began dinner. I thought of the words of Monsieur Goulden, which seemed right to me. Aunt Gredel compressed her lips, and from time to time gazed at me as if to read my thoughts. At length she said:

"I despise a country where they take fathers of families after carrying off the sons. If I were in Joseph's place, I would fly at once."

"Listen, Aunt Gredel," I replied; "you know that I love nothing so much as peace and quiet, but I would not, nevertheless, run away like a coward to another country. But, notwithstanding, I will do as Catharine says; if she wishes me to go to Switzerland, I will go."

Then Catharine, lowering her head to hide her tears, said in a low voice:

"I would not have them call you a deserter."

"Well, then, I will do like the others," I cried; "and as those of Phalsbourg and Dagsberg are going to the wars, I will go."

Monsieur Goulden made no remark.

"Every one is free to do as he pleases," said he, after a while; "but I am glad that Joseph thinks as I do."

Then there was silence, and toward two o'clock Aunt Gredel arose and took her basket. She seemed utterly cast down, and said:

"Joseph, you will not listen to me, but no matter. With G.o.d's grace, all will yet be well. You will return if He wills it, and Catharine will wait for you."

Catharine wept again, and I more than she; so that Monsieur Goulden himself could not help shedding tears.

At length Catharine and her mother descended the stairs, and Aunt Gredel called out from the bottom:

"Try to come and see us once or twice again, Joseph."

"Yes, yes," I answered, shutting the door.

I could no longer stand. Never had I been so miserable, and even now, when I think of it, my heart chills.

VII

From that day I could think of nothing but my misfortune. I tried to work, but my thoughts were far away, and Monsieur Goulden said:

"Joseph, stop working. Make the most of the little time you can remain among us; go to see Catharine and Mother Gredel. I still think they will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men so much that it may be a long time coming."

I went every morning then to Quatre-Vents, and pa.s.sed my days with Catharine. We were very sorrowful, but very glad to see each other.

We loved one another even more than before, if that were possible.

Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the good old times; but suddenly she would burst into tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt Gredel would rail at the wars which brought misery to every one. She said that the Council of Revision deserved to be hung; that they were all robbers, banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was right.

I returned to the city about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, when they closed the gates, and as I pa.s.sed, I saw the small inns full of conscripts and old returned soldiers drinking together. The conscripts always paid; the others, with dirty police caps c.o.c.ked over their ears, red noses, and horse-hair stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted their mustaches and related with majestic air their battles, their marches, and their duels. One can imagine nothing viler than those holes, full of smoke, cob-webs hanging on the black beams, those old sworders and young men drinking, shouting, and beating the tables like crazy people; and behind, in the shadow, old Annette Schnaps or Marie Hering--her old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only three teeth remaining, crosswise, in it--gazing on the scene, or emptying a mug to the health of the braves.

It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and laborious fellows, leading such an existence; but no one thought of working, and any one of them would have given his life for two farthings. Worn out with shouting, drinking, and internal grief, they ended by falling asleep over the table, while the old fellows emptied their cups, singing:

"'Tis glory calls us on!"

I saw these things, and I blessed heaven for having given me, in my wretchedness, kind hearts to keep up my courage, and prevent my falling into such hands.

This state of affairs lasted until the twenty-fifth of January. For some days a great number of Italian conscripts--Piedmontese and Genoese--had been arriving in the city; some stout and fat as Savoyards fed upon chestnuts--their c.o.c.ked hats on their curly heads; their linsey-woolsey pantaloons dyed a dark green, and their short vests also of wool, but brick-red, fastened around their waists by a leather belt.

They wore enormous shoes, and ate their cheese seated along the old market-place. Others were dried up, lean, brown, shivering in their long ca.s.socks, seeing nothing but snow upon the roofs and gazing with their large, black, mournful eyes upon the women who pa.s.sed. They were exercised every day in marching, and were going to fill up the skeleton of the Sixth regiment of the line at Mayence, and were then resting for a while in the infantry barracks.

The captain of the recruits, who was named Vidal, lodged over our room.

He was a square-built, solid, very strong-looking man, and was, too, very kind and civil. He came to us to have his watch repaired, and when he learned that I was a conscript and was afraid I should never return, he encouraged me, saying that it was all habit; that at the end of five or six months one fights and marches as he eats his dinner; and that many so accustom themselves to shooting at people that they consider themselves unhappy when they are deprived of that amus.e.m.e.nt.

But his mode of reasoning was not to my taste; the more so as I saw five or six large grains of powder on one of his cheeks, which had entered deeply, and as he explained to me that they came from a shot which a Russian fired almost under his nose, such a life disgusted me more and more, and as several days had already pa.s.sed without news, I began to think they had forgotten me, as they did Jacob, of Chevre Hof, of whose extraordinary luck every one yet talks. Aunt Gredel herself said to me every time I went there, "Well, well! they will let us alone after all!" When, on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January, as I was about starting for Quatre-Vents, Monsieur Goulden, who was working at his bench with a thoughtful air, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said:

"Listen, Joseph! I wanted to let you have one night more of quiet sleep; but you must know now, my child, that yesterday evening the brigadier of the _gendarmes_ brought me your marching orders. You go with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five or six young men of the city--young Klipfel, young Loerig, Jean Leger, and Gaspard Zebede. You go to Mayence."

I felt my knees give way as he spoke, and I sat down unable to speak.

Monsieur Goulden took my marching orders, beautifully written, out of a drawer, and began to read them slowly. All that I remember is that Joseph Bertha, native of Dabo, Canton of Phalsbourg, Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of Sarrebourg, was incorporated in the Sixth regiment of the line, and that he was to join his corps the twenty-ninth of January at Mayence.

This letter produced as bad an effect on me as if I had known nothing of it before. It seemed something new, and I grew angry.

Monsieur Goulden, after a moment's silence, added:

"The Italians start to-day at eleven."

Then, as if awakening from a horrible dream, I cried:

"But shall I not see Catharine again?"

"Yes, Joseph, yes," said he, in a trembling voice. "I notified Mother Gredel and Catharine, and thus, my boy, they will come, and you can embrace them before leaving."

I saw his grief, and it made me sadder yet, so that I had a hard struggle to keep myself from bursting into tears.

He continued after a pause:

"You need not be anxious about anything, Joseph. I have prepared all beforehand; and when you return, if it please G.o.d to keep me so long in this world, you will find me always the same. I am beginning to grow old, and my greatest happiness would be to keep you for a son, for I found you good-hearted and honest. I would have given you what I possess, and we would have been happy together. Catharine and you would have been my children. But since it is otherwise, let us be resigned. It is only for a little while. You will be sent back, I am sure. They will soon see that you cannot make long marches."

While he spoke, I sat silently sobbing, my face buried in my hands.

At last he arose and took from a closet a soldier's knapsack of cowskin, which he placed upon the table. I looked at him, thinking of nothing but the pain of parting.

"Here is your knapsack," he added; "and I have put in it all that you require; two linen shirts, two flannel waistcoats, and all the rest.