The Downfall Part 58

"Captain, I wish to make you acquainted with one of my dearest friends, who desires to place herself under your protection. She is the niece of the farmer who was arrested lately at Remilly, as you are aware, for being mixed up with that business of the francs-tireurs."

"Yes, yes, I know; the affair of the spy, the poor fellow who was found in a sack with his throat cut. It's a bad business, a very bad business.

I am afraid I shall not be able to do anything."

"Oh, Captain, don't say that! I should consider it such a favor!"

There was a caress in the look she cast on him, while he beamed with satisfaction, bowing his head in gallant obedience. Her wish was his law!

"You would have all my grat.i.tude, sir," faintly murmured Henriette, to whose memory suddenly rose the image of her husband, her dear Weiss, slaughtered down yonder at Bazeilles, filling her with invincible repugnance.

Edmond, who had discreetly taken himself off on the arrival of the captain, now reappeared and whispered something in Gilberte's ear. She rose quickly from the table, and, announcing to the company that she was going to inspect her lace, excused herself and followed the young man from the room. Henriette, thus left alone with the two men, went and took a seat by herself in the embrasure of a window, while they remained seated at the table and went on talking in a loud tone.

"Captain, you'll have a _pet.i.t verre_ with me. You see I don't stand on ceremony with you; I say whatever comes into my head, because I know you to be a fair-minded man. Now I tell you your prefet is all wrong in trying to extort those forty-two thousand francs from the city. Just think once of all our losses since the beginning of the war. In the first place, before the battle, we had the entire French army on our hands, a set of ragged, hungry, exhausted men; and then along came your rascals, and their appet.i.tes were not so very poor, either. The pa.s.sage of those troops through the place, what with requisitions, repairing damages and expenses of all sorts, stood us in a million and a half.

Add as much more for the destruction caused by your artillery and by conflagration during the battle; there you have three millions. Finally, I am well within bounds in estimating the loss sustained by our trade and manufactures at two millions. What do you say to that, eh? A grand total of five million francs for a city of thirteen thousand inhabitants! And now you come and ask us for forty-two thousand more as a contribution to the expense of carrying on the war against us! Is it fair, is it reasonable? I leave it to your own sense of justice."

M. de Gartlauben nodded his head with an air of profundity, and made answer:

"What can you expect? It is the fortune of war, the fortune of war."

To Henriette, seated in her window seat, her ears ringing, and vague, sad images of every sort fleeting through her brain, the time seemed to pa.s.s with mortal slowness, while Delaherche a.s.serted on his word of honor that Sedan could never have weathered the crisis produced by the exportation of all their specie had it not been for the wisdom of the local magnates in emitting an issue of paper money, a step that had saved the city from financial ruin.

"Captain, will you have just a drop of cognac more?" and he skipped to another topic. "It was not France that started the war; it was the Emperor. Ah, I was greatly deceived in the Emperor. He need never expect to sit on the throne again; we would see the country dismembered first.

Look here! there was just one man in this country last July who saw things as they were, and that was M. Thiers; and his action at the present time in visiting the different capitals of Europe is most wise and patriotic. He has the best wishes of every good citizen; may he be successful!"

He expressed the conclusion of his idea by a gesture, for he would have considered it improper to speak of his desire for peace before a Prussian, no matter how friendly he might be, although the desire burned fiercely in his bosom, as it did in that of every member of the old conservative bourgeoisie who had favored the plebiscite. Their men and money were exhausted, it was time for them to throw up the sponge; and a deep-seated feeling of hatred toward Paris, for the obstinacy with which it held out, prevailed in all the provinces that were in possession of the enemy. He concluded in a lower tone, his allusion being to Gambetta's inflammatory proclamations:

"No, no, we cannot give our suffrages to fools and madmen. The course they advocate would end in general ma.s.sacre. I, for my part, am for M.

Thiers, who would submit the questions at issue to the popular vote, and as for their Republic, great heavens! let them have it if they want it, while waiting for something better; it don't trouble me in the slightest."

Captain de Gartlauben continued to nod his head very politely with an approving air, murmuring:

"To be sure, to be sure--"

Henriette, whose feeling of distress had been increasing, could stand their talk no longer. She could a.s.sign no definite reason for the sensation of inquietude that possessed her; it was only a longing to get away, and she rose and left the room quietly in quest of Gilberte, whose absence had been so long protracted. On entering the bedroom, however, she was greatly surprised to find her friend stretched on the lounge, weeping bitterly and manifestly suffering from some extremely painful emotion.

"Why, what is the matter? What has happened you?"

The young woman's tears flowed faster still and she would not speak, manifesting a confusion that sent every drop of blood coursing from her heart up to her face. At last, throwing herself into the arms that were opened to receive her and concealing her face in the other's bosom, she stammered:

"Oh, darling if you but knew. I shall never dare to tell you--and yet I have no one but you, you alone perhaps can tell me what is best to do."

A shiver pa.s.sed through her frame, her voice was scarcely audible. "I was with Edmond--and then--and then Madame Delaherche came into the room and caught me--"

"Caught you! What do you mean?"

"Yes, we were here in the room; he was holding me in his arms and kissing me--" And clasping Henriette convulsively in her trembling arms she told her all. "Oh, my darling, don't judge me severely; I could not bear it! I know I promised you it should never happen again, but you have seen Edmond, you know how brave he is, how handsome! And think once of the poor young man, wounded, ill, with no one to give him a mother's care! And then he has never had the enjoyments that wealth affords; his family have pinched themselves to give him an education. I could not be harsh with him."

Henriette listened, the picture of surprise; she could not recover from her amazement. "What! you don't mean to say it was the little sergeant!

Why, my dear, everyone believes the Prussian to be your lover!"

Gilberte straightened herself up with an indignant air, and dried her eyes. "The Prussian my lover? No, thank you! He's detestable; I can't endure him. I wonder what they take me for? What have I ever done that they should suppose I could be guilty of such baseness? No, never!

I would rather die than do such a thing!" In the earnestness of her protestations her beauty had a.s.sumed an angry and more lofty cast that made her look other than she was. And all at once, sudden as a flash, her coquettish gayety, her thoughtless levity, came back to her face, accompanied by a peal of silvery laughter. "I won't deny that I amuse myself at his expense. He adores me, and I have only to give him a look to make him obey. You have no idea what fun it is to bamboozle that great big man, who seems to think he will have his reward some day."

"But that is a very dangerous game you're playing," Henriette gravely said.

"Oh, do you think so? What risk do I incur? When he comes to see he has nothing to expect he can't do more than be angry with me and go away.

But he will never see it! You don't know the man; I read him like a book from the very start: he is one of those men with whom a woman can do what she pleases and incur no danger. I have an instinct that guides me in these matters and which has never deceived me. He is too consumed by vanity; no human consideration will ever drive it into his head that by any possibility a woman could get the better of him. And all he will get from me will be permission to carry away my remembrance, with the consoling thought that he has done the proper thing and behaved himself like a gallant man who has long been an inhabitant of Paris." And with her air of triumphant gayety she added: "But before he leaves he shall cause Uncle Fouchard to be set at liberty, and all his recompense for his trouble shall be a cup of tea sweetened by these fingers."

But suddenly her fears returned to her: she remembered what must be the terrible consequences of her indiscretion, and her eyes were again bedewed with tears.

"_Mon Dieu!_ and Madame Delaherche--how will it all end? She bears me no love; she is capable of telling the whole story to my husband."

Henriette had recovered her composure. She dried her friend's eyes, and made her rise from the lounge and arrange her disordered clothing.

"Listen, my dear; I cannot bring myself to scold you, and yet you know what my sentiments must be. But I was so alarmed by the stories I heard about the Prussian, the business wore such an extremely ugly aspect, that this affair really comes to me as a sort of relief by comparison.

Cease weeping; things may come out all right."

Her action was taken none too soon, for almost immediately Delaherche and his mother entered the room. He said that he had made up his mind to take the train for Brussels that afternoon and had been giving orders to have a carriage ready to carry him across the frontier into Belgium; so he had come to say good-by to his wife. Then turning and addressing Henriette:

"You need have no further fears. M. de Gartlauben, just is he was going away, promised me he would attend to your uncle's case, and although I shall not be here, my wife will keep an eye to it."

Since Madame Delaherche had made her appearance in the apartment Gilberte had not once taken her anxious eyes from off her face. Would she speak, would she tell what she had seen, and keep her son from starting on his projected journey? The elder lady, also, soon as she crossed the threshold, had bent her fixed gaze in silence on her daughter-in-law. Doubtless her stern patriotism induced her to view the matter in somewhat the same light that Henriette had viewed it. _Mon Dieu!_ since it was that young man, that Frenchman who had fought so bravely, was it not her duty to forgive, even as she had forgiven once before, in Captain Beaudoin's case? A look of greater softness rose to her eyes; she averted her head. Her son might go; Edmond would be there to protect Gilberte against the Prussian. She even smiled faintly, she whose grim face had never once relaxed since the news of the victory at Coulmiers.

"_Au revoir_," she said, folding her son in her arms. "Finish up your business quickly as you can and come back to us."

And she took herself slowly away, returning to the prison-like chamber across the corridor, where the colonel, with his dull gaze, was peering into the shadows that lay outside the disk of bright light which fell from the lamp.

Henriette returned to Remilly that same evening, and one morning, three days afterward, had the pleasure to see Father Fouchard come walking into the house, as calmly as if he had merely stepped out to transact some business in the neighborhood. He took a seat by the table and refreshed himself with some bread and cheese, and to all the questions that were put to him replied with cool deliberation, like a man who had never seen anything to alarm him in his situation. What reason had he to be afraid? He had done nothing wrong; it was not he who had killed the Prussian, was it? So he had just said to the authorities: "Investigate the matter; I know nothing about it." And they could do nothing but release him, and the mayor as well, seeing they had no proofs against them. But the eyes of the crafty, sly old peasant gleamed with delight at the thought of how nicely he had pulled the wool over the eyes of those dirty blackguards, who were beginning to higgle with him over the quality of the meat he furnished to them.

December was drawing near its end, and Jean insisted on going away. His leg was quite strong again, and the doctor announced that he was fit to go and join the army. This was to Henriette a subject of profoundest sorrow, which she kept locked in her bosom as well as she was able.

No tidings from Paris had reached them since the disastrous battle of Champigny; all they knew was that Maurice's regiment had been exposed to a murderous fire and had suffered severely. Ever that deep, unbroken silence; no letter, never the briefest line for them, when they knew that families in Raucourt and Sedan were receiving intelligence of their loved ones by circuitous ways. Perhaps the pigeon that was bringing them the so eagerly wished-for news had fallen a victim to some hungry bird of prey, perhaps the bullet of a Prussian had brought it to the ground at the margin of a wood. But the fear that haunted them most of all was that Maurice was dead; the silence of the great city off yonder in the distance, uttering no cry in the mortal hug of the investment, was become to them in their agonized suspense the silence of death. They had abandoned all hope of tidings, and when Jean declared his settled purpose to be gone, Henriette only gave utterance to this stifled cry of despair:

"My G.o.d! then all is ended, and I am to be left alone!"

It was Jean's desire to go and serve with the Army of the North, which had recently been re-formed under General Faidherbe. Now that General Manteuffel's corps had moved forward to Dieppe there were three departments, cut off from the rest of France, that this army had to defend, le Nord, le Pas-de-Calais, and la Somme, and Jean's plan, not a difficult one to carry into execution, was simply to make for Bouillon and thence complete his journey across Belgian territory. He knew that the 23d corps was being recruited, mainly from such old soldiers of Sedan and Metz as could be gathered to the standards. He had heard it reported that General Faidherbe was about to take the field, and had definitely appointed the next ensuing Sunday as the day of his departure, when news reached him of the battle of Pont-Noyelle, that drawn battle which came so near being a victory for the French.

It was Dr. Dalichamp again in this instance who offered the services of his gig and himself as driver to Bouillon. The good man's courage and kindness were boundless. At Raucourt, where typhus was raging, communicated by the Bavarians, there was not a house where he had not one or more patients, and this labor was additional to his regular attendance at the two hospitals at Raucourt and Remilly. His ardent patriotism, the impulse that prompted him to protest against unnecessary barbarity, had twice led to his being arrested by the Prussians, only to be released on each occasion. He gave a little laugh of satisfaction, therefore, the morning he came with his vehicle to take up Jean, pleased to be the instrument of a.s.sisting the escape of another of the victims of Sedan, those poor, brave fellows, as he called them, to whom he gave his professional services and whom he aided with his purse. Jean, who knew of Henriette's straitened circ.u.mstances and had been suffering from lack of funds since his relapse, accepted gratefully the fifty francs that the doctor offered him for traveling expenses.

Father Fouchard did things handsomely at the leave-taking, sending Silvine to the cellar for two bottles of wine and insisting that everyone should drink a gla.s.s to the extermination of the Germans.

He was a man of importance in the country nowadays and had his "plum"

hidden away somewhere or other; he could sleep in peace now that the francs-tireurs had disappeared, driven like wild beasts from their lair, and his sole wish was for a speedy conclusion of the war. He had even gone so far in one of his generous fits as to pay Prosper his wages in order to retain his services on the farm, which the young man had no thought of leaving. He touched gla.s.ses with Prosper, and also with Silvine, whom he at times was half inclined to marry, knowing what a treasure he had in his faithful, hard-working little servant; but what was the use? he knew she would never leave him, that she would still be there when Charlot should be grown and go in turn to serve his country as a soldier. And touching his gla.s.s to Henriette's, Jean's, and the doctor's, he exclaimed:

"Here's to the health of you all! May you all prosper and be no worse off than I am!"

Henriette would not let Jean go away without accompanying him as far as Sedan. He was in citizen's dress, wearing a frock coat and derby hat that the doctor had loaned him. The day was piercingly cold; the sun's rays were reflected from a crust of glittering snow. Their intention had been to pa.s.s through the city without stopping, but when Jean learned that his old colonel was still at the Delaherches' he felt an irresistible desire to go and pay his respects to him, and at the same time thank the manufacturer for his many kindnesses. His visit was destined to bring him an additional, a final sorrow, in that city of mournful memories. On reaching the structure in the Rue Maqua they found the household in a condition of the greatest distress and disorder, Gilberte wringing her hands, Madame Delaherche weeping great silent tears, while her son, who had come in from the factory, where work was gradually being resumed, uttered exclamations of surprise. The colonel had just been discovered, stone dead, lying exactly as he had fallen, in a heap on the floor of his chamber. The physician, who was summoned with all haste, could a.s.sign no cause for the sudden death; there was no indication of paralysis or heart trouble. The colonel had been stricken down, and no one could tell from what quarter the blow came; but the following morning, when the room was thrown open, a piece of an old newspaper was found, lying on the carpet, that had been wrapped around a book and contained the account of the surrender of Metz.

"My, dear," said Gilberte to Henriette, "as Captain de Gartlauben was coming downstairs just now he removed his hat as he pa.s.sed the door of the room where my uncle's body is lying. Edmond saw it; he's an extremely well-bred man, don't you think so?"

In all their intimacy Jean had never yet kissed Henriette. Before resuming his seat in the gig with the doctor he endeavored to thank her for all her devoted kindness, for having nursed and loved him as a brother, but somehow the words would not come at his command; he opened his arms and, with a great sob, clasped her in a long embrace, and she, beside herself with the grief of parting, returned his kiss. Then the horse started, he turned about in his seat, there was a waving of hands, while again and again two sorrowful voices repeated in choking accents: