The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories

by Émile Erckmann

  “Joseph, what are you thinking of? Are you going to Quatre-Vents in that little coat? You would be dead before you had got half way. Go into my closet, and take my great cloak, and the mittens, and the double-soled shoes lined with flannel.”

  I was so smart in my fine clothes that I reflected whether it would be better to follow his advice, and he, seeing my hesitation, said:

  “Listen! a man was found frozen yesterday on the way to Wecham. Doctor Steinbrenner said that he sounded like a piece of dry wood when they tapped upon him. He was a soldier, and had left the village between six and seven o’clock, and at eight they found him; so that the frost did not take long to do its work. If you want your nose and ears frozen, you have only to go out as you are.”

  I knew then, that he was right; so I put on the thick shoes, and passed the cord of the mittens over my shoulders, and put the cloak over all. Thus accoutred, I sallied forth, after thanking Monsieur Goulden, who warned me not to stay too late, for the cold increased toward night, and great numbers of wolves were crossing the Rhine on the ice.

  I had not gone as far as the church when I turned up the fox-skin collar of the cloak to shield my ears. The cold was so keen that it seemed as though the air were filled with needles, and one’s body shrank involuntarily from head to foot.

  Under the German gate, I saw the soldier on guard, in his great gray mantle, standing back in his box like a saint in his niche; he had his sleeve wrapped about his musket where he held it, to keep his fingers from the iron, and two long icicles hung from his mustaches. No one was on the bridge, not even the toll-gatherer, but a little farther on, I saw three carts in the middle of the road with their canvas-tops all covered and glistening with frost; they were unharnessed and abandoned. Everything in the distance seemed dead; all living things had hidden themselves from the cold; and I could hear nothing but the snow crunching under my feet. Running along the cemetery, where the crosses and gravestones glistened in the snow, I said to myself: “Those who sleep there are no longer cold!” I drew my cloak over my breast, and hid my nose in the fur collar, thanking Monsieur Goulden for his lucky thought. I also thrust my hands into the muffler to the elbows, and ran along in the deep trench, extending farther than the eye could reach, that the soldiers had made from the town as far as Quatre-Vents. On each side were walls of ice. In some places swept by the wind, I could see the oak forest and the bluish mountain, both seeming much nearer than they were, on account of the clearness of the air. Not a dog barked in a farm-yard; it was too cold even for that.

  But in spite of all this the thought of Catharine warmed my heart, and soon I descried the first houses of Quatre-Vents. The chimneys and the thatched roofs, to the right and left of the road, were scarcely higher than the mountains of snow, and the villagers had dug trenches along the walls, so that they could pass to each other’s houses. But that day every family kept around its hearth, and the little round window-panes seemed painted red, from the great fires burning within. Before each door was a truss of straw to keep the cold from entering beneath it.

  At the fifth door to the right I stopped to take off my mittens; then I opened and closed it very quickly. I was at the house of Grédel Bauer, the widow of Matthias Bauer, and Catharine’s mother.

  As I entered, and while Aunt Grédel, seated by the hearth, astonished at my fox-skin collar, was yet turning her gray head, Catharine, in her Sunday dress—a pretty striped petticoat, a kerchief with long fringe folded across her bosom, a red apron fastened around her slender waist, a pretty cap of blue silk with black velvet bands setting off her rosy and white face, soft eyes, and rather short nose—Catharine, I say, exclaimed:

  “It is Joseph!”

  And without waiting to look twice, she ran to greet me, saying:

  “I knew the cold would not keep you from coming.”

  I was so happy that I could not speak. I took off my cloak, which I hung upon a nail on the wall, with my mittens; I took off Monsieur Goulden’s great shoes, and turned pale with joy.

  I would have said something agreeable, but could not; suddenly I exclaimed:

  “See here, Catharine; here is something for your birthday, but you must give me a kiss before opening the box.”

  She put up her pretty red cheek to me, and then ran to the table. Aunt Grédel also came to see the present. Catharine untied the cord and opened the box. I was behind them; my heart jumped, jumped,—I feared that the watch was not pretty enough. But in an instant, Catharine, clasping her hands, said in a low voice:

  “How beautiful! It is a watch!”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Grédel; “it is beautiful! I never saw so fine a one. One would think it was silver.”

  “But it is silver,” returned Catharine, turning toward me inquiringly.

  Then I said:

  “Do you think, Aunt Grédel, that I would be capable of giving a gilt watch to one whom I love better than my own life? If I could do such a thing, I would despise myself more than the dirt of my shoes.”

  Catharine, hearing this, threw her arms around my neck; and as we stood thus, I thought: “this is the happiest day of my life.” I could not let her go.

  Aunt Grédel asked:

  “But what is this painted upon the face?”

  I could not speak to answer her; and only at last, when we were seated beside each other, I took the watch and said:

  “That painting, Aunt Grédel, represents two lovers who love each other more than they can tell: Joseph Bertha and Catharine Bauer; Joseph is offering a bouquet of roses to his sweetheart, who is stretching out her hand to take them.”

  When Aunt Grédel had sufficiently admired the watch, she said:

  “Come until I kiss you, Joseph. I see very well that you must have economized closely, and worked hard for this watch, and I think it is very pretty, and that you are a good workman, and will do us no discredit.”

  I kissed Aunt Grédel’s cheek, and from then until midday, I did not let go Catharine’s hand. We were as happy as could be looking at each other. Aunt Grédel bustled about to prepare a large pancake with dried prunes, and wine, and cinnamon, and other good things in it; but we paid no attention to her, and it was only when she put on her red jacket and black sabots, and called, “Come, my children; to table!” that we saw the fine tablecloth, the great porringer, the pitcher of wine, and the large round, golden pancake on a plate in the middle. The sight rejoiced us not a little, and Catharine said:

  “Sit there, Joseph, opposite the window, that I may look at you. But you must fix my watch, for I do not know where to put it.”

  I passed the chain around her neck, and then, seating ourselves, we ate gayly. Without, not a sound was heard; within, the fire crackled merrily upon the hearth. It was very pleasant in the large kitchen, and the gray cat, a little wild, gazed at us through the balusters of the stairs without daring to come down.

  Catharine, after dinner, sang Der liebe Gott. She had a sweet, clear voice, and it seemed to float to heaven. I sang low, merely to sustain her. Aunt Grédel, who could never rest doing nothing, began spinning; the hum of her wheel filled up the silences, and we all felt happy. When one song was ended, we began another. At three o’clock, Aunt Grédel served up the pancake, and as we ate it, laughing, like the happiest of beings, she would exclaim:

  “Come, come; now, you are children in reality.”

  She pretended to be angry, but we could see in her eyes that she was happy from the bottom of her heart. This lasted until four o’clock, when night began to come on apace; the darkness seemed to enter by the little windows, and, knowing that we must soon part, we sat sadly around the hearth on which the red flames were dancing. Catharine pressed my hand. I would almost have given my life to remain longer. Another half-hour passed, when Aunt Grédel cried:

  “Listen, Joseph! It is time for you to go; the moon does not rise till after midnight, and it will soon be dark as a kiln outside, and an accident happens so easily in these great frosts.”

  These words
seemed to fall like a bolt of ice, and I felt Catharine’s clasp tighten on my hand. But Aunt Grédel was right.

  “Come,” said she, rising and taking down the cloak from the wall; “you will come again Sunday.”

  I had to put on the heavy shoes, the mittens, and the cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and would have wished that I were a hundred years doing so, but, unfortunately, Aunt Grédel assisted me. When I had the great collar drawn up to my ears, she said:

  “Now, kiss us good-by, Joseph.”

  I kissed her first, then Catharine, who did not say a word. After that I opened the door and the terrible cold, entering, admonished me not to wait.

  “Hasten, Joseph,” said my aunt.

  “Good-night, Joseph, good-night!” cried Catharine, “and do not forget to come Sunday.”

  I turned round to wave my hand; and then I ran on without raising my head, for the cold was so intense that it brought tears to my eyes even behind the great collar.

  I ran on thus some twenty minutes, scarcely daring to breathe, when a drunken voice called out:

  “Who goes there?”

  I looked through the dim night, and saw, fifty paces before me, Pinacle, the pedler, with his huge basket, his otter-skin cap, woollen gloves, and iron-pointed staff. The lantern hanging from the strap of his basket lit up his debauched face, his chin bristling with yellow beard, and his great nose shaped like an extinguisher. He glared with his little eyes like a wolf, and repeated, “Who goes there?”

  This Pinacle was the greatest rogue in the country. He had the year before a difficulty with Monsieur Goulden, who demanded of him the price of a watch which he undertook to deliver to Monsieur Anstett, the curate of Homert, and the money for which he put into his pocket, saying he paid it to me. But although the villain made oath before the justice of the peace, Monsieur Goulden knew the contrary, for on the day in question neither he nor I had left the house. Besides, Pinacle wanted to dance with Catharine at a festival at Quatre-Vents, and she refused because she knew the story of the watch, and was, besides, unwilling to leave me.

  The sight, then, of this rogue with his iron-shod stick in the middle of the road did not tend to rejoice my heart. Happily a little path which wound around the cemetery was at my left, and, without replying, I dashed through it although the snow reached my waist.

  Then he, guessing who I was, cried furiously:

  “Aha! it is the little lame fellow! Halt! halt! I want to bid you good-evening. You came from Catharine’s, you watch-stealer.”

  But I sprang like a hare through the heaps of snow; he at first tried to follow me, but his pack hindered him, and, when I gained the ground again, he put his hands around his mouth, and shrieked:

  “Never mind, cripple, never mind! Your reckoning is coming all the same; the conscription is coming—the grand conscription of the one-eyed, the lame, and the hunch-backed. You will have to go, and you will find a place under ground like the others.”

  He continued his way, laughing like the sot he was, and I, scarcely able to breathe, kept on, thanking Heaven that the little alley was so near; for Pinacle, who was known always to draw his knife in a fight, might have done me an ill turn.

  In spite of my exertion, my feet, even in the thick shoes, were intensely cold, and I again began running.

  That night the water froze in the cisterns of Phalsbourg and the wines in the cellars—things that had not happened before for sixty years.

  On the bridge and under the German gate the silence seemed yet deeper than in the morning, and the night made it seem terrible. A few stars shone between the masses of white cloud that hung over the city. All along the street I met not a soul, and when I reached home, after shutting the door of our lower passage, it seemed warm to me, although the little stream that ran from the yard along the wall was frozen. I stopped a moment to take breath; then I ascended in the dark, my hand on the baluster.

  When I opened the door of my room, the cheerful warmth of the stove was grateful indeed. Monsieur Goulden was seated in his arm-chair before the fire, his cap of black silk pulled over his ears, and his hands resting upon his knees.

  “Is that you, Joseph?” he asked without turning round.

  “It is,” I answered. “How pleasant it is here, and how cold out of doors! We never had such a winter.”

  “No,” he said gravely. “It is a winter that will long be remembered.”

  I went into the closet and hung the cloak and mittens in their places, and was about relating my adventure with Pinacle, when he resumed:

  “You had a pleasant day of it, Joseph.”

  “I have had, indeed. Aunt Grédel and Catharine wished me to make you their compliments.”

  “Very good, very good,” said he; “the young are right to amuse themselves, for when they grow old, and suffer, and see so much of injustice, selfishness, and misfortune, everything is spoiled in advance.”

  He spoke as if talking to himself, gazing at the fire. I had never seen him so sad, and I asked:

  “Are you not well, Monsieur Goulden?”

  But he, without replying, murmured:

  “Yes, yes; this is to be a great military nation; this is glory!”

  He shook his head and bent over gloomily, his heavy gray brows contracted in a frown.

  I knew not what to think of all this, when raising his head again, he said:

  “At this moment, Joseph, there are four hundred thousand families weeping in France; the grand army has perished in the snows of Russia; all those stout young men whom for two months we saw passing our gates are buried beneath them. The news came this afternoon. Oh! it is horrible! horrible!”

  I was silent. Now I saw clearly that we must have another conscription, as after all campaigns, and this time the lame would most probably be called. I grew pale, and Pinacle’s prophecy made my hair stand on end.

  “Go to bed, Joseph; rest easy,” said Monsieur Goulden. “I am not sleepy; I will stay here; all this upsets me. Did you remark anything in the city?”

  “No, Monsieur Goulden.”

  I went to my room and to bed. For a long time I could not close my eyes, thinking of the conscription, of Catharine, and of so many thousands of men buried in the snow, and then I plotted flight to Switzerland.

  About three o’clock Monsieur Goulden retired, and a few minutes after, through God’s grace, I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER IV

  When I arose in the morning, about seven, I went to Monsieur Goulden’s room to begin work, but he was still in bed, looking weary and sick.

  “Joseph,” said he, “I am not well. This horrible news has made me ill, and I have not slept at all.”

  “Shall I not make you some tea?” I asked.

  “No, my child, that is not worth while. I will get up by and by. But this is the day to regulate the city clocks; I cannot go; for to see so many good people—people I have known for thirty years—in misery, would kill me. Listen, Joseph: take those keys hanging behind the door and go. I will try to sleep a little. If I could sleep an hour or two, it would do me good.”

  “Very well, Monsieur Goulden,” I replied; “I will go at once.”

  After putting more wood in the stove, I took the cloak and mittens, drew Monsieur Goulden’s bed-curtains, and went out, the bunch of keys in my pocket. The illness of Father Melchior grieved me very much for a while, but a thought came to console me, and I said to myself: “You can climb up the city clock-tower, and see the house of Catharine and Aunt Grédel.” Thinking thus, I arrived at the house of Brainstein, the bell-ringer, who lived at the corner of the little place, in an old, tumble-down barrack. His two sons were weavers, and in their old home the noise of the loom and the whistle of the shuttle was heard from morning till night. The grandmother, old and blind, slept in an armchair, on the back of which perched a magpie. Father Brainstein, when he did not have to ring the bells for a christening, a funeral, or a marriage, kept reading his almanac behind the small round panes of his window.

  Beside the
ir hut was a little box under the roof of the old hall, where the cobbler Koniam worked, and farther on were the butchers’ and fruiterers’ shops.

  I came then to Brainstein’s, and the old man, when he saw me, rose up, saying:

  “It is you, Monsieur Joseph.”

  “Yes, Father Brainstein; I came in place of Monsieur Goulden, who is not well.”

  “Very good; it is all the same.”

  He took up his staff and put on his woollen cap, driving away the cat that was sleeping upon it; then he took the great key of the steeple from a drawer, and we went out together, I glad to find myself again in the open air, despite the cold; for their miserable room was gray with vapor, and as hard to breathe in as a kettle; I could never understand how people could live in such a way.

  At last we gained the street, and Father Brainstein said:

  “You have heard of the great Russian disaster, Monsieur Joseph?”

  “Yes, Father Brainstein; it is fearful!”

  “Ah!” said he, “there will be many a Mass said in the churches; every one will weep and pray for their children, the more that they are dead in a heathen land.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” I replied.

  We crossed the court, and in front of the tower-hall, opposite the guard-house, many peasants and city people were already standing, reading a placard. We went up the steps and entered the church, where more than twenty women, young and old, were kneeling on the pavement, in spite of the terrible cold.

  “Is it not as I said?” said Brainstein. “They are coming already to pray, and half of them have been here since five o’clock.”

  He opened the little door of the steeple leading to the organ, and we began climbing up in the dark. Once in the organ-loft, we turned to the left of the bellows, and went up to the bells.

  I was glad to see the blue sky and breathe the free air again, for the bad odor of the bats which inhabited the tower almost suffocated me. But how terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every wind, and how dazzlingly the snow shone over twenty leagues of country! All the little city of Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, three demilunes, two advanced works, its barracks, magazines, bridges, glacis, ramparts; its great parade-ground, and little, well-aligned houses, were beneath me, as if drawn on white paper. I was not yet accustomed to the height, and I held fast on the middle of the platform for fear I might jump off, for I had read of people having their heads turned by great heights. I did not dare go to the clock, and, if Brainstein had not set me the example, I would have remained there, pressed against the beam from which the bells hung; but he said: