The Downfall Part 26

They pursued their course with the corpse until they came to the little wood, threw it down at the foot of a tree, and went their way. That was the last that was seen of them until nightfall.

The battery beside them had been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror--a wild, unreasoning terror--filled Maurice's soul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold sweat trickling down his back, that terrible sinking at the pit of the stomach, that unconquerable desire to get on his feet and run, yelling and screaming, from the field. It was nothing more than the strain from which his nervous, high-strung temperament was suffering from reflex action; but Jean, who was observing him narrowly, detected the incipient crisis in the wandering, vacant eyes, and seizing him with his strong hand, held him down firmly at his side. The corporal lectured him paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for he knew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of his cowardice. There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, soft voice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears. Lapoulle's stomach betrayed him and he was very ill; and there were many others who also found relief in vomiting, amid their comrade's loud jeers and laughter, which helped to restore their courage to them all.

"My G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Maurice, ghastly pale, his teeth chattering. "My G.o.d!"

Jean shook him roughly. "You infernal coward, are you going to be sick like those fellows over yonder? Behave yourself, or I'll box your ears."

He was trying to put heart into his friend by gruff but friendly speeches like the above, when they suddenly beheld a dozen dark forms emerging from a little wood upon their front and about four hundred yards away. Their spiked helmets announced them to be Prussians; the first Prussians they had had within reach of their rifles since the opening of the campaign. This first squad was succeeded by others, and in front of their position the little dust clouds that rose where the French sh.e.l.ls struck were distinctly visible. It was all very vivid and clear-cut in the transparent air of morning; the Germans, outlined against the dark forest, presented the toy-like appearance of those miniature soldiers of lead that are the delight of children; then, as the enemy's sh.e.l.ls began to drop in their vicinity with uncomfortable frequency, they withdrew and were lost to sight within the wood whence they had come.

But Beaudoin's company had seen them there once, and to their eyes they were there still; the cha.s.sepots seemed to go off of their own accord.

Maurice was the first man to discharge his piece; Jean, Pache, Lapoulle and the others all followed suit. There had been no order given to commence firing, and the captain made an attempt to check it, but desisted upon Rochas's representation that it was absolutely necessary as a measure of relief for the men's pent-up feelings. So, then, they were at liberty to shoot at last, they could use up those cartridges that they had been lugging around with them for the last month, without ever burning a single one! The effect on Maurice in particular was electrical; the noise he made had the effect of dispelling his fear and blunting the keenness of his sensations. The little wood had resumed its former deserted aspect; not a leaf stirred, no more Prussians showed themselves; and still they kept on blazing away as madly as ever at the immovable trees.

Raising his eyes presently Maurice was startled to see Colonel de Vineuil sitting his big horse at no great distance, man and steed impa.s.sive and motionless as if carved from stone, patient were they under the leaden hail, with face turned toward the enemy. The entire regiment was now collected in that vicinity, the other companies being posted in the adjacent fields; the musketry fire seemed to be drawing nearer. The young man also beheld the regimental colors a little to the rear, borne aloft by the st.u.r.dy arm of the standard-bearer, but it was no longer the phantom flag that he had seen that morning, shrouded in mist and fog; the golden eagle flashed and blazed in the fierce sunlight, and the tri-colored silk, despite the rents and stains of many a battle, flaunted its bright hues defiantly to the breeze. Waving in the breath of the cannon, floating proudly against the blue of heaven, it shone like an emblem of victory.

And why, now that the day of battle had arrived, should not victory perch upon that banner? With that reflection Maurice and his companions kept on industriously wasting their powder on the distant wood, producing havoc there among the leaves and twigs.

III.

Sleep did not visit Henriette's eyes that night. She knew her husband to be a prudent man, but the thought that he was in Bazeilles, so near the German lines, was cause to her of deep anxiety. She tried to soothe her apprehensions by reminding herself that she had his solemn promise to return at the first appearance of danger; it availed not, and at every instant she detected herself listening to catch the sound of his footstep on the stair. At ten o'clock, as she was about to go to bed, she opened her window, and resting her elbows on the sill, gazed out into the night.

The darkness was intense; looking downward, she could scarce discern the pavement of the Rue des Voyards, a narrow, obscure pa.s.sage, overhung by old frowning mansions. Further on, in the direction of the college, a smoky street lamp burned dimly. A nitrous exhalation rose from the street; the squall of a vagrant cat; the heavy step of a belated soldier. From the city at her back came strange and alarming sounds: the patter of hurrying feet, an ominous, incessant rumbling, a m.u.f.fled murmur without a name that chilled her blood. Her heart beat loudly in her bosom as she bent her ear to listen, and still she heard not the familiar echo of her husband's step at the turning of the street below.

Hours pa.s.sed, and now distant lights that began to twinkle in the open fields beyond the ramparts excited afresh her apprehensions. It was so dark that it cost her an effort of memory to recall localities. She knew that the broad expanse that lay beneath her, reflecting a dim light, was the flooded meadows, and that flame that blazed up and was suddenly extinguished, surely it must be on la Marfee. But never, to her certain knowledge, had there been farmer's house or peasant's cottage on those heights; what, then, was the meaning of that light? And then on every hand, at Pont-Maugis, Noyers, Frenois, other fires arose, coruscating fitfully for an instant and giving mysterious indication of the presence of the swarming host that lay hidden in the bosom of the night.

Yet more: there were strange sounds and voices in the air, subdued murmurings such as she had never heard before, and that made her start in terror; the stifled hum of marching men, the neighing and snorting of steeds, the clash of arms, hoa.r.s.e words of command, given in guttural accents; an evil dream of a demoniac crew, a witch's sabbat, in the depths of those unholy shades. Suddenly a single cannon-shot rang out, ear-rending, adding fresh terror to the dead silence that succeeded it. It froze her very marrow; what could it mean? A signal, doubtless, telling of the successful completion of some movement, announcing that everything was ready, down there, and that now the sun might rise.

It was about two o'clock when Henriette, forgetting even to close her window, at last threw herself, fully dressed, upon her bed. Her anxiety and fatigue had stupefied her and benumbed her faculties. What could ail her, thus to shiver and burn alternately, she who was always so calm and self-reliant, moving with so light a step that those about her were unconscious of her existence? Finally she sank into a fitful, broken slumber that brought with it no repose, in which was present still that persistent sensation of impending evil that filled the dusky heavens.

All at once, arousing her from her unrefreshing stupor, the firing commenced again, faint and m.u.f.fled in the distance, not a single shot this time, but peal after peal following one another in quick succession. Trembling, she sat upright in bed. The firing continued.

Where was she? The place seemed strange to her; she could not distinguish the objects in her chamber, which appeared to be filled with dense clouds of smoke. Then she remembered: the fog must have rolled in from the near-by river and entered the room through the window. Without, the distant firing was growing fiercer. She leaped from her bed and ran to the cas.e.m.e.nt to listen.

Four o'clock was striking from a steeple in Sedan, and day was breaking, tingeing the purplish mists with a sickly, sinister light. It was impossible to discern objects; even the college buildings, distant but a few yards, were undistinguishable. Where could the firing be, _mon Dieu_! Her first thought was for her brother Maurice; for the reports were so indistinct that they seemed to her to come from the north, above the city; then, listening more attentively, her doubt became certainty; the cannonading was there, before her, and she trembled for her husband.

It was surely at Bazeilles. For a little time, however, she suffered herself to be cheered by a ray of hope, for there were moments when the reports seemed to come from the right. Perhaps the fighting was at Donchery, where she knew that the French had not succeeded in blowing up the bridge. Then she lapsed into a condition of most horrible uncertainty; it seemed to be now at Donchery, now at Bazeilles; which, it was impossible to decide, there was such a ringing, buzzing sensation in her head. At last the feeling of suspense became so acute that she felt she could not endure it longer; she _must_ know; every nerve in her body was quivering with the ungovernable desire, so she threw a shawl over her shoulders and left the house in quest of news.

When she had descended and was in the street Henriette hesitated a brief moment, for the little light that was in the east had not yet crept downward along the weather-blackened house-fronts to the roadway, and in the old city, shrouded in opaque fog, the darkness still reigned impenetrable. In the tap-room of a low pot-house in the Rue au Beurre, dimly lighted by a tallow candle, she saw two drunken Turcos and a woman. It was not until she turned into the Rue Maqua that she encountered any signs of life: soldiers slinking furtively along the sidewalk and hugging the walls, deserters probably, on the lookout for a place in which to hide; a stalwart trooper with despatches, searching for his captain and knocking thunderously at every door; a group of fat burghers, trembling with fear lest they had tarried there too long, and preparing to crowd themselves into one small carriole if so be they might yet reach Bouillon, in Belgium, whither half the population of Sedan had emigrated within the last two days. She instinctively turned her steps toward the Sous-Prefecture, where she might depend on receiving information, and her desire to avoid meeting acquaintances determined her to take a short cut through lanes and by-ways. On reaching the Rue du Four and the Rue des Laboureurs, however, she found an obstacle in her way; the place had been pre-empted by the ordnance department, and guns, caissons, forges were there in interminable array, having apparently been parked away in that remote corner the day before and then forgotten there. There was not so much as a sentry to guard them. It sent a chill to her heart to see all that artillery lying there silent and ineffective, sleeping its neglected sleep in the concealment of those deserted alleys. She was compelled to retrace her steps, therefore, which she did by pa.s.sing through the Place du College to the Grande-Rue, where in front of the Hotel de l'Europe she saw a group of orderlies holding the chargers of some general officers, whose high-pitched voices were audible from the brilliantly lighted dining room. On the Place du Rivage and the Place Turenne the crowd was even greater still, composed of anxious groups of citizens, with women and children interspersed among the struggling, terror-stricken throng, hurrying in every direction; and there she saw a general emerge from the Hotel of the Golden Cross, swearing like a pirate, and spur his horse off up the street at a mad gallop, careless whom he might overturn. For a moment she seemed about to enter the Hotel de Ville, then changed her mind, and taking the Rue du Pont-de-Meuse, pushed on to the Sous-Prefecture.

Never had Sedan appeared to her in a light so tragically sinister as now, when she beheld it in the livid, forbidding light of early dawn, enveloped in its shroud of fog. The houses were lifeless and silent as tombs; many of them had been empty and abandoned for the last two days, others the terrified owners had closely locked and barred. Shuddering, the city awoke to the cares and occupations of the new day; the morning was fraught with chill misery in those streets, still half deserted, peopled only by a few frightened pedestrians and those hurrying fugitives, the remnant of the exodus of previous days. Soon the sun would rise and send down its cheerful light upon the scene; soon the city, overwhelmed in the swift-rising tide of disaster, would be crowded as it had never been before. It was half-past five o'clock; the roar of the cannon, caught and deadened among the tall dingy houses, sounded more faintly in her ears.

At the Sous-Prefecture Henriette had some acquaintance with the concierge's daughter, Rose by name, a pretty little blonde of refined appearance who was employed in Delaherche's factory. She made her way at once to the lodge; the mother was not there, but Rose received her with her usual amiability.

"Oh! dear lady, we are so tired we can scarcely stand; mamma has gone to lie down and rest a while. Just think! all night long people have been coming and going, and we have not been able to get a wink of sleep."

And burning to tell all the wonderful sights that she had been witness to since the preceding day, she did not wait to be questioned, but ran on volubly with her narrative.

"As for the marshal, he slept very well, but that poor Emperor! you can't think what suffering he has to endure! Yesterday evening, do you know, I had gone upstairs to help give out the linen, and as I entered the apartment that adjoins his dressing-room I heard groans, oh, _such_ groans! just like someone dying. I thought a moment and knew it must be the Emperor, and I was so frightened I couldn't move; I just stood and trembled. It seems he has some terrible complaint that makes him cry out that way. When there are people around he holds in, but as soon as he is alone it is too much for him, and he groans and shrieks in a way to make your hair stand on end."

"Do you know where the fighting is this morning?" asked Henriette, desiring to check her loquacity.

Rose dismissed the question with a wave of her little hand and went on with her narrative.

"That made me curious to know more, you see, and I went upstairs four or five times during the night and listened, and every time it was just the same; I don't believe he was quiet an instant all night long, or got a minute's sleep. Oh! what a terrible thing it is to suffer like that with all he has to worry him! for everything is upside down; it is all a most dreadful mess. Upon my word, I believe those generals are out of their senses; such ghostly faces and frightened eyes! And people coming all the time, and doors banging and some men scolding and others crying, and the whole place like a sailor's boarding-house; officers drinking from bottles and going to bed in their boots! The Emperor is the best of the whole lot, and the one who gives least trouble, in the corner where he conceals himself and his suffering!" Then, in reply to Henriette's reiterated question: "The fighting? there has been fighting at Bazeilles this morning. A mounted officer brought word of it to the marshal, who went immediately to notify the Emperor. The marshal has been gone ten minutes, and I shouldn't wonder if the Emperor intends to follow him, for they are dressing him upstairs. I just now saw them combing him and plastering his face with all sorts of cosmetics."

But Henriette, having finally learned what she desired to know, rose to go.

"Thank you, Rose. I am in somewhat of a hurry this morning."

The young girl went with her to the street door, and took leave of her with a courteous:

"Glad to have been of service to you, Madame Weiss. I know that anything said to you will go no further."

Henriette hurried back to her house in the Rue des Voyards. She felt quite certain that her husband would have returned, and even reflected that he would be alarmed at not finding her there, and hastened her steps in consequence. As she drew near the house she raised her eyes in the expectation of seeing him at the window watching for her, but the window, wide open as she had left it when she went out, was vacant, and when she had run up the stairs and given a rapid glance through her three rooms, it was with a sinking heart that she saw they were untenanted save for the chill fog and continuous roar of the cannonade.

The distant firing was still going on. She went and stood for a moment at the window; although the encircling wall of vapor was not less dense than it had been before, she seemed to have a clearer apprehension, now that she had received oral information, of the details of the conflict raging at Bazeilles, the grinding sound of the mitrailleuses, the crashing volleys of the French batteries answering the German batteries in the distance. The reports seemed to be drawing nearer to the city, the battle to be waxing fiercer and fiercer with every moment.

Why did not Weiss return? He had pledged himself so faithfully not to outstay the first attack! And Henriette began to be seriously alarmed, depicting to herself the various obstacles that might have detained him: perhaps he had not been able to leave the village, perhaps the roads were blocked or rendered impa.s.sable by the projectiles. It might even be that something had happened him, but she put the thought aside and would not dwell on it, preferring to view things on their brighter side and finding in hope her safest mainstay and reliance. For an instant she harbored the design of starting out and trying to find her husband, but there were considerations that seemed to render that course inadvisable: supposing him to have started on his return, what would become of her should she miss him on the way? and what would be his anxiety should he come in and find her absent? Her guiding principle in all her thoughts and actions was her gentle, affectionate devotedness, and she saw nothing strange or out of the way in a visit to Bazeilles under such extraordinary circ.u.mstances, accustomed as she was, like an affectionate little woman, to perform her duty in silence and do the thing that she deemed best for their common interest. Where her husband was, there was her place; that was all there was about it.

She gave a sudden start and left the window, saying:

"Monsieur Delaherche, how could I forget--"

It had just come to her recollection that the cloth manufacturer had also pa.s.sed the night at Bazeilles, and if he had returned would be able to give her the intelligence she wanted. She ran swiftly down the stairs again. In place of taking the more roundabout way by the Rue des Voyards, she crossed the little courtyard of her house and entered the pa.s.sage that conducted to the huge structure that fronted on the Rue Maqua. As she came out into the great central garden, paved with flagstones now and retaining of its pristine glories only a few venerable trees, magnificent century-old elms, she was astonished to see a sentry mounting guard at the door of a carriage-house; then it occurred to her that she had been told the day before that the camp chests of the 7th corps had been deposited there for safe keeping, and it produced a strange impression on her mind that all the gold, millions, it was said to amount to, should be lying in that shed while the men for whom it was destined were being killed not far away. As she was about to ascend the private staircase, however, that conducted to the apartment of Gilberte, young Madame Delaherche, she experienced another surprise in an encounter that startled her so that she retraced her steps a little way, doubtful whether it would not be better to abandon her intention, and go home again. An officer, a captain, had crossed her path, as noiselessly as a phantom and vanishing as swiftly, and yet she had had time to recognize him, having seen him in the past at Gilberte's house in Charleville, in the days when she was still Madame Maginot. She stepped back a few steps in the courtyard and raised her eyes to the two tall windows of the bedroom, the blinds of which were closed, then dismissed her scruples and entered.

Upon reaching the first floor, availing herself of that privilege of old acquaintanceship by virtue of which one woman often drops in upon another for an unceremonious early morning chat, she was about to knock at the door of the dressing-room, but apparently someone had left the room hastily and failed to secure the door, so that it was standing ajar, and all she had to do was give it a push to find herself in the dressing room, whence she pa.s.sed into the bedroom. From the lofty ceiling of the latter apartment depended voluminous curtains of red velvet, protecting the large double bed. The warm, moist air was fragrant with a faint perfume of Persian lilac, and there was no sound to break the silence save a gentle, regular respiration, scarcely audible.

"Gilberte!" said Henriette, very softly.

The young woman was sleeping peacefully, and the dim light that entered the room between the red curtains of the high windows displayed her exquisitely rounded head resting upon a naked arm and her profusion of beautiful hair straying in disorder over the pillow. Her lips were parted in a smile.

"Gilberte!"

She slightly moved and stretched her arms, without opening her eyes.

"Yes, yes; good-by. Oh! please--" Then, raising her head and recognizing Henriette: "What, is it you! How late is it?"

When she learned that it had not yet struck six she seemed disconcerted, a.s.suming a sportive air to hide her embarra.s.sment, saying it was unfair to come waking people up at such an hour. Then, to her friend, questioning her about her husband, she made answer:

"Why, he has not returned; I don't look for him much before nine o'clock. What makes you so eager to see him at this hour of the morning?"

Henriette's voice had a trace of sternness in it as she answered, seeing the other so smiling, so dull of comprehension in her happy waking.

"I tell you there has been fighting all the morning at Bazeilles, and I am anxious about my husband."

"Oh, my dear," exclaimed Gilberte, "I a.s.sure you there is not the slightest reason for your feeling so. My husband is so prudent that he would have been home long ago had there been any danger. Until you see him back here you may rest easy, take my word for it."

Henriette was struck by the justness of the argument; Delaherche, it was true, was distinctly not a man to expose himself uselessly. She was rea.s.sured, and went and drew the curtains and threw back the blinds; the tawny light from without, where the sun was beginning to pierce the fog with his golden javelins, streamed in a bright flood into the apartment.

One of the windows was part way open, and in the soft air of the s.p.a.cious bedroom, but now so close and stuffy, the two women could hear the sound of the guns. Gilberte, half rec.u.mbent, her elbow resting on the pillow, gazed out upon the sky with her l.u.s.trous, vacant eyes.

"So, then, they are fighting," she murmured. Her chemise had slipped downward, exposing a rosy, rounded shoulder, half hidden beneath the wandering raven tresses, and her person exhaled a subtle, penetrating odor, the odor of love. "They are fighting, so early in the morning, _mon Dieu!_ It would be ridiculous if it were not for the horror of it."