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

by Émile Erckmann

  We entered the houses, and those who could bought some brandy, wine, and bread. Those who had no money crunched their ration of biscuits, and gazed wistfully at their more fortunate comrades.

  About five in the evening we arrived at Frankfort, which is a city yet older than Mayence, and full of Jews. They took us to a place called Saxenhausen, where the Tenth Hussars and the Baden Chasseurs were in barracks,—old buildings which were formerly a hospital, as I was told and believe, for within there was a large yard, with arches under the walls; beneath these arches the horses were stabled, and in the rooms above, the men.

  We arrived at this place after passing through innumerable little streets, so narrow that we could scarcely see the stars between the chimneys. Captain Florentin, and the two lieutenants, Clavel and Bretonville, were awaiting us. After roll-call our sergeants led us by detachments to the rooms above the Chasseurs. They were great halls with little windows, and between the windows were the beds.

  Sergeant Pinto hung his lantern to the pillar in the middle; each man placed his piece in the rack, and then took off his knapsack, his blouse and his shoes, without speaking. Zébédé was my bed-fellow. God knows we were sleepy enough. Twenty minutes after, we were buried in slumber.

  CHAPTER X

  At Frankfort I learned to understand military life. Up to that time I had been but a simple conscript, then I became a soldier. I do not speak merely of drill,—the way of turning the head right or left, measuring the steps, lifting the hand to the height of the first or second band to load, aiming, recovering arms at the word of command—that is only an affair of a month or two, if a man really desires to learn; but I speak of discipline—of remembering that the corporal is always in the right when he speaks to a private soldier, the sergeant when he speaks to the corporal, the sergeant-major when speaking to the sergeant, the second lieutenant when he orders the sergeant-major, and so on to the Marshal of France—even if the superior asserts that two and two make five, or that the moon shines at midday.

  This is very difficult to learn; but there is one thing that assists you immensely, and that is a sort of placard hung up in every room in the barracks, and which is from time to time read to you. This placard presupposes everything that a soldier might wish to do, as, for instance, to return home, to refuse to serve, to resist his officer, and always ends by speaking of death, or at least five years with a ball and chain.

  The day after our arrival at Frankfort I wrote to Monsieur Goulden, to Catharine, and to Aunt Grédel. You may imagine how sadly. It seemed to me, in addressing them, that I was yet at home. I told them of the hardships I had undergone, of the good luck that had happened to me at Mayence, and the courage it required not to drop behind in the march. I told them that I was in good health, for which I thanked God, and that I was even stronger than before I left home, and sent them a thousand remembrances. Our Phalsbourg conscripts, who saw me writing, made me add a few words for each of their families. I wrote also to Mayence, to the good couple of the Capougner-Strasse, who had been so kind to me, telling them how I was forced to march without being able to thank them, and asking their forgiveness for so doing.

  That day, in the afternoon, we received our uniforms. Dozens of Jews made their appearance and bought our old clothes. I kept only my shoes and stockings. The Italians had great difficulty in making these respectable merchants comprehend their wishes, but the Genoese were as cunning as the Jews, and their bargainings lasted until night. Our corporals received more than one glass of wine; it was policy to make friends of them, for morning and evening they taught us the drill in the snow-covered yard. The cantinière Christine was always at her post with a warming-pan under her feet. She took young men of good family into special favor, and the young men of good family were all those who spent their money freely. Poor fools! How many of them parted with their last sou in return for her miserable flattery! When that was gone they were mere beggars; but vanity rules all, from the conscripts to the generals.

  All this time recruits were constantly arriving from France, and ambulances full of wounded from Poland. What a sight was that before the hospital Saint Esprit on the other side of the river! It was a procession without an end. All these poor wretches were frost-bitten; some had their noses, some their ears frozen, others an arm, others a leg! They were laid in the snow to prevent them from dropping to pieces. Others got out of the carts clinging and holding on, and looked at you like wild beasts, their eyes sunk in their heads, their hair bristling up: the gypsies who sleep in nooks in the woods would have had pity on them; and yet these were the best off, because they escaped from the carnage, while thousands of their comrades had perished in the snow, or on the battle-field. Klipfel, Zébédé, Furst, and I often went to see these poor wretches, and never did we see men so miserably clad. Some wore jackets which once belonged to Cossacks, crushed shakos, women’s dresses, and many had only handkerchiefs wound round their feet in lieu of shoes and stockings. They gave us a history of the retreat from Moscow, and then we knew that the twenty-ninth bulletin told only truth.

  These stories enraged our men against the Russians. Many said, “If the war would only begin again, they would have a hard job of it then: it is not over! it is not over!” I was at times almost overcome with wrath after hearing some tale of horror; and sometimes I thought to myself, “Joseph, are you not losing your wits? These Russians are defending their families, their homes, all that man holds most dear. We hate them for defending themselves; we would have despised them had they not done so.”

  But about this time an extraordinary event occurred.

  You must know that my comrade, Zébédé, was the son of the gravedigger of Phalsbourg, and sometimes between ourselves we called him “Gravedigger.” This he took in good part from us; but one evening after drill, as he was crossing the yard, a hussar cried out:

  “Halloo, Gravedigger! help me to drag in these bundles of straw.”

  Zébédé, turning about, replied:

  “My name is not Gravedigger, and you can drag in your own straw. Do you take me for a fool?”

  Then the other cried in a still louder tone:

  “Conscript, you had better come, or beware!”

  Zébédé, with his great hooked nose, his gray eyes and thin lips, never bore too good a character for mildness. He went up to the hussar and asked:

  “What is that you say?”

  “I tell you to take up those bundles of straw, and quickly, too. Do you hear, conscript?”

  He was quite an old man, with mustaches and red, bushy whiskers. Zébédé seized one of the latter, but received two blows in the face. Nevertheless, a fist-full of the whisker remained in his grasp, and, as the dispute had attracted a crowd to the spot, the hussar shook his finger, saying:

  “You will hear from me to-morrow, conscript.”

  “Very good,” returned Zébédé; “we shall see. You will probably hear from me too, veteran.”

  He came immediately after to tell me all this, and I, knowing that he had never handled a weapon more warlike than a pickaxe, could not help trembling for him.

  “Listen, Zébédé,” I said; “all that there now remains for you to do, since you do not want to desert, is to ask pardon of this old fellow; for those veterans all know some fearful tricks of fence which they have brought from Egypt or Spain, or somewhere else. If you wish, I will lend you a crown to pay for a bottle of wine to make up the quarrel.”

  But he, knitting his brows, would hear none of this.

  “Rather than beg his pardon,” said he, “I would go and hang myself. I laugh him and his comrades to scorn. If he has tricks of fence, I have a long arm, that will drive my sabre through his bones as easily as his will penetrate my flesh.”

  The thought of the blows made him insensible to reason; and soon Chazy, the maître d’armes, Corporal Fleury, Furst, and Léger came in. They all said that Zébédé was in the right, and the maître d’armes added that blood alone could wash out the stain of a blow; that the hon
or of the recruits required Zébédé to fight.

  Zébédé answered proudly that the men of Phalsbourg had never feared the sight of a little blood, and that he was ready. Then the maître d’armes went to see our Captain, Florentin, who was one of the most magnificent men imaginable—tall, well-formed, broad-shouldered, with regular features, and the Cross, which the Emperor had himself given him at Eylau. The captain even went further than the maître d’armes; he thought it would set the conscripts a good example, and that if Zébédé refused to fight he would be unworthy to remain in the Third Battalion of the Sixth of the Line.

  All that night I could not close my eyes. I heard the deep breathing of my poor comrade as he slept, and I thought: “Poor Zébédé! another day, and you will breathe no more.” I shuddered to think how near I was to a man so near death. At last, as day broke, I fell asleep, when suddenly I felt a cold blast of wind strike me. I opened my eyes, and there I saw the old hussar. He had lifted up the coverlet of our bed, and said as I awoke:

  “Up, sluggard! I will show you what manner of man you struck.”

  Zébédé rose tranquilly, saying:

  “I was asleep, veteran; I was asleep.”

  The other, hearing himself thus mockingly called “veteran,” would have fallen upon my comrade in his bed; but two tall fellows who served him as seconds held him back, and, besides, the Phalsbourg men were there.

  “Quick, quick! Hurry!” cried the old hussar.

  But Zébédé dressed himself calmly, without any haste. After a moment’s silence, he said:

  “Have we permission to go outside our quarters, old fellows?”

  “There is room enough for us in the yard,” replied one of the hussars.

  Zébédé put on his great-coat, and, turning to me, said:

  “Joseph and you, Klipfel, I choose for my seconds.”

  But I shook my head.

  “Well, then, Furst,” said he.

  The whole party descended the stairs together. I thought Zébédé was lost, and thought it hard, that not only must the Russians seek our lives, but that we must seek each other’s.

  All the men in the room crowded to the windows. I alone remained behind upon my bed. At the end of five minutes the clash of sabres made my heart almost cease to beat; the blood seemed no longer to flow through my veins.

  But this did not last long; for suddenly Klipfel exclaimed, “Touched!”

  Then I made my way—I know not how—to a window, and, looking over the heads of the others, saw the old hussar leaning against the wall, and Zébédé rising, his sabre all dripping with blood. He had fallen upon his knees during the fight, and, while the old man’s sword pierced the air just above his shoulder, he plunged his blade into the hussar’s breast. If he had not slipped, he himself would have been run through and through.

  The hussar sank at the foot of the wall. His seconds lifted him in their arms, while Zébédé pale as a corpse, gazed at his bloody sabre, and Klipfel handed him his cloak. Almost immediately the reveille was sounded, and we went off to morning call.

  These events happened on the eighteenth of February. The same day we received orders to pack our knapsacks, and left Frankfort for Seligenstadt, where we remained until the eighth of March, by which time all the recruits were well instructed in the use of the musket and the school of the platoon. From Seligenstadt we went to Schweinheim, and on the twenty-fourth of March, 1813, joined the division at Aschaffenbourg, where Marshal Ney passed us in review.

  The captain of the company was named Florentin; the lieutenant, Bretonville; the commandant of the battalion, Gémeau; the captain, Vidal; the colonel, Zapfel; the general of brigade, Ladoucette; and the general of division, Souham. These are things that every soldier should know.

  CHAPTER XI

  The melting of the snows began about the middle of March. I remember that during the great review of Aschaffenbourg, on a large open space whence one saw the Main as far as eye could reach, the rain never ceased to fall from ten o’clock in the morning till three o’clock in the afternoon. We had on our left a castle, from the windows of which people looked out quite at their ease, while the water ran into our shoes. On the right the river rushed, foaming, seen dimly as if through a mist. Every moment, to keep us brightened up, the order rang out:

  “Carry arms! Shoulder arms!”

  The Marshal advanced slowly, surrounded by his staff. What consoled Zébédé was, that we were about to see “the bravest of the brave.” I thought “If I could only get a place at the corner of a good fire, I would gladly forego that pleasure.”

  At last he arrived in front of us, and I can yet see him, his chapeau dripping with rain, his blue coat covered with embroidery and decorations, and his great boots. He was a handsome, florid man, with a short nose and sparkling eyes. He did not seem at all haughty; for, as he passed our company, who presented arms, he turned suddenly in his saddle and said:

  “Hold! It is Florentin!”

  Then the captain stood erect, not knowing what to reply. It seemed that the Marshal and he had been common soldiers together in the time of the Republic. The captain at last answered:

  “Yes, Marshal; it is Sebastian Florentin.”

  “Faith, Florentin,” said the Marshal, stretching him arm toward Russia, “I am glad to see you again. I thought we had left you there.”

  All our company felt honored, and Zébédé said: “That is what I call a man. I would spill my blood for him.”

  I could not see why Zébédé should wish to spill his blood because the Marshal had spoken a few words to an old comrade.

  That’s all I remember of Aschaffenbourg.

  In the evening we went in again to eat our soup at Schweinheim, a place rich in wines, hemp, and corn, where almost everybody looked at us with unfriendly eyes.

  We lodged by threes or fours in the houses, like so many bailiff’s men, and had meat every day, either beef, mutton, or bacon.

  Our bread was very good, as was also our wine. But many of our men pretended to find fault with everything, thinking thus to pass for people of consequence. They were mistaken; for more than once I heard the citizens say in German:

  “Those fellows, in their own country, were only beggars. If they returned to France, they would find nothing but potatoes to live upon.”

  And the citizens were quite right; and I always found that people so difficult to please abroad were but poor wretches at home. For my part, I was well content to meet such good fare. Two conscripts from St.-Dié were with me at the village-postmaster’s: his horses had almost all been taken for our cavalry. This could not have put him into a good humor; but he said nothing, and smoked his pipe behind the stove from morning till night. His wife was a tall, strong woman, and his two daughters were very pretty; they were afraid of us, and ran away when we returned from drill, or from mounting guard at the end of the village.

  On the evening of the fourth day, as we were finishing our supper, an old man in a great-coat came in. His hair was white, and his mien and appearance neat and respectable. He saluted us, and then said to the master of the house, in German:

  “These are recruits?”

  “Yes, Monsieur Stenger,” replied the other, “we will never be rid of them. If I could poison them all, it would be a good deed.”

  I turned quietly, and said:

  “I understand German: do not speak in such a manner.”

  The postmaster’s pipe fell from his hand.

  “You are very imprudent in your speech, Monsieur Kalkreuth,” said the old man; “if others beside this young man had understood you, you know what would happen.”

  “It is only my way of talking,” replied the postmaster. “What can you expect? When everything is taken from you—when you are robbed, year after year—it is but natural that you should at last speak bitterly.”

  The old man, who was none other than the pastor of Schweinheim, then said to me:

  “Monsieur, your manner of acting is that of an honest man; believe me t
hat Monsieur Kalkreuth is incapable of such a deed—of doing evil even to our enemies.”

  “I do believe it, sir,” I replied, “or I should not eat so heartily of these sausages.”

  The postmaster, hearing these words, began to laugh, and, in the excess of his joy, cried:

  “I would never have thought that a Frenchman could have made me laugh.”

  My two comrades were ordered for guard duty; they went, but I alone remained. Then the postmaster went after a bottle of old wine, and seated himself at the table to drink with me, which I gladly agreed to. From that day until our departure, these people had every confidence in me. Every evening we chatted at the corner of the fire; the pastor came, and even the young girls would come downstairs to listen. They were of fair and light complexion, with blue eyes; one was perhaps eighteen, the other twenty; I thought I saw in them a resemblance to Catharine, and this made my heart beat.

  They knew that I had a sweetheart at home, because I could not help telling them so, and this made them pity me.

  The postmaster complained bitterly of the French, the pastor said they were a vain, immoral nation, and that on that account all Germany would soon rise against us; that they were weary of the evil doings of our soldiers and the cupidity of our generals, and had formed the Tugend-Bund5 to oppose us.

  “At first,” said he, “you talked to us of liberty: we liked to hear that, and our good wishes were rather for your armies than those of the King of Prussia and Emperor of Austria; you made war upon our soldiers and not upon us; you upheld ideas which every one thought great and just, and so you did not quarrel with peoples but only with their masters. To-day it is very different; all Germany is flying to arms; all her youth are rising, and it is we who talk of Liberty, of Virtue and of Justice to France. He who has them on his side is ever the stronger, because he has against him only the evil-minded of all nations, and has with him youth, courage, great ideas,—everything which lifts the soul above thoughts of self, and which urges man to sacrifice his life without regret. You have long had all this, but you wanted it no longer. Long ago, I well remember, your generals fought for Liberty, slept on straw, in barns, like simple soldiers; they were men of might and terror; now they must have their sofas; they are more noble than our nobles and richer than our bankers. So it comes to pass that war, once so grand—once an art, a sacrifice—once devotion to one’s country—has become a trade, for sale at more than one market. It is, to be sure, very noble yet, since epaulettes are yet worn, but there is a difference between fighting for immortal ideas and fighting merely to enrich one’s self.