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

by Émile Erckmann

  I always kept thinking that he would change his mind, and the next evening as we were finishing our supper I was happy enough to hear him say good-humoredly:

  “Joseph, are you not curious to hear these preachers? They tell so many fine things of them, that I want to hear how it is for myself.”

  “Oh! Mr. Goulden, I should like nothing better! but we must lose no time, for the church is always full by the second stroke of the bell.”

  “Very well! let us go,” said he, rising and taking down his hat. “I am curious to see how it is. Those people astonish me. Come!”

  We went out; the moon was shining so brightly that we could recognize people as easily as in broad daylight. At the corner of the rue Fouquet we saw that even the steps of the church were already covered with people. Two or three old women, Annette Petit, Mother Balaie, and Jeannette Baltzer, with their big shawls wrapped closely round them, and the long fringes of their bonnets over their eyes, hurried past us, when Father Goulden exclaimed, “Here are the old women! Ha! ha! ha! always the same!”

  He laughed, and as he went on said, that since Father Colin’s time there had never been so many people seen at the evening service. I could not believe that he was speaking of the old landlord of the “Three Roses,” opposite the infantry barracks, so I said:

  “He was a priest, Mr. Goulden?”

  “No, no,” he answered smiling, “I mean old Colin. In 1792, when we had a club in the church, everybody could preach; but Colin spoke best of all. He had a magnificent voice, and said many forcible and true things, and the people came from far and near, from Saverne and Saarburg, and even still farther away to hear him; women and girls, ‘citoyennes’ as they called them then, filled the choir galleries and the pews. They wore little cockades in their bonnets, and sang the ‘Marseillaise’ to arouse the young men. You never saw anything like it! Annette Petit, Mother Baltzer, and all those whom you see running before us, with their prayer-books under their arms, were among the foremost. But they had white teeth and beautiful hair then, and loved ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.’ Ha! ha! poor Bevel! poor Annette! Now they are going to repent, though they were good patriots then; I believe God will pardon them.” He laughed as he recalled these old stories, but when we had reached the steps of the church he grew sober, and said:

  “Yes—yes—everything changes, everything! I remember the day in ‘93, when old Colin spoke of the country being in danger, when three hundred young men left the country to join the army of Hoche; Colin followed them, and became their commander. He was a terrible fellow among his grenadiers. He would not sign the proposition to make Napoleon emperor,—now he sells over the counter by the glass!”

  Then looking at me as if he were astonished at his own thoughts, he said, “Let us go in, Joseph.”

  We entered under the great pillars of the organ; the crowd was very great, and he did not say a word more. There were lights burning in the choir over the heads of the people. The only sound which broke the silence was the opening and shutting of the doors of the pews. At last we heard Sirou’s halberd on the floor, and Mr. Goulden said, “There he is!”

  A light near the vessel for the holy water enabled us to see a little. A shadow mounted to the pulpit at the left, while Koekli lighted two or three candles with his stick. The preacher might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, he had a pleasant, rosy face and heavy blonde hair below his tonsure, that fell in curls over his neck. They commenced by singing a psalm, the young girls of the village sang in the choir “What joy to be a Christian.” After that the preacher from the desk said, that he had come to defend the faith, the law, and the “right divine” of Louis XVIII., and demanded if any one had the audacity to take the other side. As nobody wished to be stoned, there was a dead silence. Then a brown, thin man, six feet high with a black cloak on, rose in one of the pews opposite, and exclaimed:

  “I have! I maintain that faith, religion, and the right of kings, and all the rest, are nothing but superstitions. I maintain that the republic is just, and that the worship of reason is worth them all!” and so on.

  The people were indignant. There never was anything like it! When he had finished speaking, I looked at Mr. Goulden, who laughed softly, and said: “Listen! listen!”

  Of course I listened; the young preacher prayed to God for this infidel, and then he spoke so beautifully that the crowd was entranced. The big thin man replied, saying, “They had done right to guillotine Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and all the family.” The indignation increased, and the men from Bois-de-Chênes, and especially their wives, wanted to get into the pew to knock him down, but just then Sirou came up, crying “Room! room!” and old Koekli in his red gown threw himself before the man, who escaped into the sacristy, raising his hands to heaven and declaring that he was converted, and that he renounced the devil and all his works. Then the preacher made a prayer for the soul of the sinner. It was a real triumph for religion.

  Everybody left about eleven o’clock, and it was announced that there would be a procession the next day, which was Sunday.

  In consequence of the great crowd, which had pushed us into the corner, Mr. Goulden and I were among the last to get out, and by the time we reached the street, the people from Quatre Vents and the other villages were already beyond the German gate, and nothing was heard in the streets but the closing of the shutters by the townspeople, and a few old women talking about the wonderful things they had heard, as they went home by the rue de l’Arsenal.

  Father Goulden and I walked along in the silence, he with his head bent down and smiling, though without speaking a word. When we reached home I lighted the candle, and while he was undressing asked:

  “Well! Father Goulden, did they preach well?”

  “Yes,” he replied smiling, “yes, for young men who have seen nothing, it was not bad.” Then he laughed aloud and said, “But if old Colin had been in the Jacobin’s place, he would have puzzled the young man terribly.” I was greatly surprised at that, and as I still waited to hear what more he had to say, he slowly pulled his black silk cap over his ears and added thoughtfully, “but it’s all the same; all the same. These people go too fast, much too fast. They will never make me believe that Louis XVIII. knows about all this. No, he has seen too much in his life not to know men better than that. But, good-night, Joseph, good-night. Let us hope that an order will soon arrive from Paris sending these young men back to their seminary.”

  I went to bed and dreamed of Catherine, the Jacobin, and of the procession we were going to see.

  CHAPTER IV

  Next morning the bells began to ring as soon as it was light. I rose and opened my shutters and saw the red sun rising from behind the Magazine, and over the forest of Bonne-Fontaine. It might have been five o’clock, and you could feel beforehand how hot it was going to be, and the air was laden with the odor of the oak and beech and holly leaves which were strewn in the streets. The peasants began to arrive in companies, talking in the still morning. You could recognize the villagers from Wechem, from Metting, from the Graufthal and Dasenheim, by their three-cornered hats turned down in front and their square coats, and the women with their long black dresses and big bonnets quilted like a mattress hanging on their necks; and those from Dagsberg, Hildehouse, Harberg, and Houpe with their large round felt hats, and the women without bonnets and with short skirts, small, brown, dry, and quick as powder, with the children behind with their shoes in their hands, but when they reached Luterspech they sat down in a row and put them on to be ready for the procession.

  Some priests from the different villages, also came by twos and threes, laughing and talking among themselves in the best of humor.

  And I thought, as I rested my elbows on the window-sill, that these people must have risen before midnight to reach here so early in the morning, and that they must have come over the mountains walking for hours under the trees, crossing the little bridges in the moonlight; as I thought this I reflected that religion is a beautiful
thing, that the people in towns do not know what it is, and that for thousands upon thousands of field laborers and wood-choppers, uncultivated and rude beings, who at the same time were good and loved their wives and children and honored their aged parents, supporting them and closing their eyes in the hope of a better world; this was the only consolation. And in looking at the crowd, I imagined that Aunt Grédel and Catherine had the same thoughts, and I was happy to know that they prayed for me. It grew lighter and lighter, and the bells rang while I continued to look on. I heard Father Goulden rise and dress himself, and a few minutes after he came into my chamber in his shirt-sleeves, and seeing me so thoughtful, he exclaimed:

  “Joseph, the most beautiful thing in the world is the religion of the people.”

  I was quite astonished to hear him express precisely my own thoughts.

  “Yes,” he added, “the love of God, the love of country and of family, are one and the same thing; but it is sad to see the love of country perverted to satisfy the ambition of a man, and the love of God to exalt the pride and the desire to rule in a few.”

  These words impressed me deeply, and I have often thought since that they expressed the sad truth. Well! to return to those days, you know that after the siege we were obliged to work on Sundays, because Mr. Goulden while serving as a gunner on the ramparts had neglected his work and we were behindhand. So that on that morning as on the others I lighted the fire in our little stove and prepared the breakfast; the windows were open and we could hear the noise from the streets.

  Mr. Goulden leaned out of the window and said: “Look! all the shops except the inns and the beer-houses are closed!”

  He laughed, and I asked, “Shall we open our shutters, Mr. Goulden?”

  He turned round as if surprised: “Look here, Joseph, I never knew a better boy than you, but you lack sense. Why should we close our shutters? Because God created the world in six days and rested the seventh? But we did not create it ourselves, and we need to work to live. If we shut our shop from interest and pretend to be saints and so gain new customers, that will be hypocrisy. You speak sometimes without thinking.”

  I saw at once that I was wrong, and I replied: “Mr. Goulden, we will leave our windows open and it will be seen that we have watches to sell, and that will do no harm to any one.”

  We were no sooner at table than Aunt Grédel and Catherine came. Catherine was dressed entirely in black, on account of the service for Louis XVI. She had a pretty little bonnet of black tulle, and her dress was very nicely made, and this set off her delicate red and white complexion and made her look so beautiful that I could hardly believe that she was Joseph Bertha’s beloved; her neck was white as snow, and had it not been for her lips and her rosy little chin, her blue eyes and golden hair, I should have thought that it was some one who resembled her, but who was more beautiful. She laughed when she saw how much I admired her, and at last I said: “Catherine, you are too beautiful now; I dare not kiss you.”

  “Oh! you need not trouble yourself,” said she.

  As she leaned upon my shoulder I gave her a long kiss, so that Aunt Grédel and Mr. Goulden looked on and laughed, and I wished them far enough away, that I might tell Catherine that I loved her more and more, and that I would give my life a thousand times for her; but as I could not do that before them, I only thought of these things and was sad.

  Aunt had a black dress on also, and her prayer-book was under her arm.

  “Come, kiss me too, Joseph; you see I too have a black dress, like Catherine’s.”

  I embraced her, and Mr. Goulden said, “You will come and dine with us—that is understood; but, meanwhile you will take something, will you not?”

  “We have breakfasted,” replied Aunt Grédel.

  “That is nothing; God knows when this procession will end, you will be all the time on your feet, and will need something to sustain you.”

  Then they sat down, Aunt Grédel on my right, and Catherine on my left, and Father Goulden opposite. They drank a good glass of wine, and aunt said the procession would be very fine, and that there were at least twenty-five priests from the neighborhood round; that Mr. Hubert, the pastor of Quatre Vents, had come, and that the grand altar in the cavalry quarter was higher than the houses; that the pine-trees and poplars around had crape on them, and that the altar was covered with a black cloth. She talked of everything under the sun, while I looked at Catherine, and we thought, without saying anything, “Oh! when will that beggarly minister write and say, ‘Get married and leave me alone?’”

  At last, toward nine o’clock, and when the second bell had rung, Aunt Grédel said, “That is the second ringing; we will come to dinner as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, yes, Mother Grédel,” replied Mr. Goulden, “we will wait for you.”

  They rose, and I went down to the foot of the stairs with Catherine in order to embrace her once again, when Aunt Grédel cried, “Let us hurry, let us hurry!”

  They went away, and I went back to my work; but from that moment till about eleven o’clock I could do nothing at all. The crowd was so very great that you could hear nothing outside but a ceaseless murmur; the leaves rustled under foot, and when the procession left the church the effect was so impressive that even Mr. Goulden himself stopped his work to listen to the prayers and hymns. I thought of Catherine in the crowd more beautiful than any of the others, with Aunt Grédel near her, repeating “Pray for us, pray for us,” in their clear voices. I thought they must be very much fatigued, and all these voices and chants made me dream, and though I held a watch in my hand and tried to work, my mind was not on it. The higher the sun rose the more uneasy I became, till at last Mr. Goulden said, laughing, “Ah! Joseph, it does not go to-day!” and as I blushed rosy red, he continued, “Yes, when I was dreaming of Louisa Bénédum I looked in vain for springs and wheels. I could see nothing but her blue eyes.”

  He sighed, and I too, thinking, “you are quite right, Mr. Goulden.”

  “That is enough,” he added a moment after, taking the watch from my hands. “Go, child, and find Catherine. You cannot conquer your love, it Is stronger than you.”

  On hearing this, I wanted to exclaim “Oh, good, excellent man! you can never know how much I love you,” but he rose to wipe his hands on a towel behind the door, and I said, “If you really wish it, Mr. Goulden.”

  “Yes, yes; certainly!”

  I did not wait for another word. My heart bounded with joy, I put on my hat and went down the stairs at a leap, exclaiming, “I will be back in an hour, Mr. Goulden.”

  I was out of doors in a moment, but what a crowd, what a crowd! they swarmed! military hats, felt hats, bonnets, and over all the noise and confusion, the church bell tolled slowly.

  For a minute I stood on our own steps, not knowing which way to turn, and seeing at last that it was impossible to take a step in that crowd I turned into the little lane called the Lanche, in order to reach the ramparts and run and wait for the procession at the slope by the German gate, as then it would turn up the rue de Collége. It might have been eleven o’clock. I saw many things that day which have suggested many reflections since; they were the signs of great trouble but nobody noticed them, nobody had the good sense to comprehend their significance. It was only later, when everybody was up to their necks in trouble, when we were obliged to take our knapsacks and guns, again to be cut in pieces; then they said, “if we had only had good sense and justice and prudence we should have been so much better off, we should have been quiet at home instead of this breaking up, which is coming; we can do nothing but be quiet and submit; what a misfortune!”

  I went along the Lanche, where they shot the deserters under the Empire. The noise grew fainter in the distance, and the chanting and prayers and the sound of the bells as well. All the doors and windows were closed, everybody had followed the procession. I stopped in the silent street to take breath, a slight breeze came from the fields beyond the ramparts, and I listened to the tumult in the distance and wipe
d the sweat from my face and thought, “how am I to find Catherine?”

  I was climbing the steps at the postern gate when I heard some one say: “Mark the points, Margarot.”

  I then saw that Father Colin’s windows on the first floor were open, and that some men in their shirt-sleeves were playing billiards. They were old soldiers with short hair, and mustaches like a brush. They went back and forth, without troubling themselves about the mayor, or the commandant, or Louis XVI., or the bourgeoisie. One of them, short, thick, with his whiskers cut as was the fashion of the hussars in those days, and his cravat untied, leaned out of the window, resting his cue on the sill, and, looking toward the square, said:

  “We will put the game at fifty.”

  I thought at once that they were half-pay officers, who were spending their last sous, and who would soon be troubled to live. I continued on my way, and hurried along under the vault of the powder magazine behind the college, thinking of all these things, but when I reached the German gate I forgot everything. The procession was just turning the corner at Bockholtz, the chants broke forth opposite the altar like trumpets, and the young priests from Nancy were running among the crowd with their crucifixes raised to keep order, and the Swiss Sirou carried himself majestically under his banner; at the head of the procession were the priests and the choir singing, while the prayers rose to heaven, and behind, the crowd responded: and all this took form, in a low fearful murmur.