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

by Émile Erckmann

  Buche did not want to understand this reasoning, but when the gendarmes came, he submitted notwithstanding.

  As we went along, one after another of our little party would drop off in his own village, till at last no one was left but Toul, Buche, and I.

  We saw the saddest sight of all, and this was the crowds of Germans and Russians in Lorraine and Alsace. They were drilling at Luneville, at Blamont, and at Sarrebourg, with oak branches in their wretched shakos. What vexation to see such savages living in luxury at the expense of our peasants.

  Father Goulden was right when he said that military glory costs very dear. I only hope the Lord will save us from it for ages to come!

  At last, on the 16th July, 1815, about eleven o’clock in the morning, we reached Mittelbronn, the last village on that side, before reaching Pfalzbourg. The siege was raised after the armistice, and the whole country was full of Cossacks, Landwehr,13 and Kaiserlichs.14 Their batteries were still in position around the town, though they no longer discharged them; the gates were open, and the people went out and in to secure their crops.

  There was great need of the wheat and rye, and you can imagine the suffering it caused us, to feed so many thousands of useless beings, who denied themselves nothing, and who wanted bacon and schnapps every day.

  Before every door and at every window there was nothing to be seen but their flat noses, their long filthy yellow beards, their white coats filled with vermin, and their low shakos, looking out at you, as they smoked their pipes in idleness and drunkenness. We were obliged to work for them, and at last honest people were compelled to give them two thousand millions of francs more to induce them to go away.

  How many things I might say against these lazybones from Russia and Germany, if we had not done ten times worse in their country. You can each one make reflections for yourself, and imagine the rest.

  At Heitz’s inn I said to Buche, “Let’s stop here. My legs are giving out.”

  Mother Heitz, who was then still a young woman, threw up her hands and exclaimed, “My God! there is Joseph Bertha! God in heaven! what a surprise for the town!”

  I went in, sat down and leaned my head on a table and wept without restraint.

  Mother Heitz ran down to the cellar to bring a bottle of wine, and I heard Buche sobbing in the corner. Neither of us could speak for thinking of the joy of our friends. The sight of our own country had upset us, and we rejoiced to think that our bones would one day rest peacefully in the village cemetery. Meanwhile we were going to embrace those we loved best in the world.

  When we had recovered a little, I said to Buche:

  “Jean, you must go on before me, so that my wife and Mr. Goulden may not be too much surprised. You will tell them that you saw me the day after the battle, and that I was not wounded, and then you must say, you met me again in the suburbs of Paris, and even on the way home, and at last, that you think I am not far behind, that I am coming—you understand.”

  “Yes, I understand,” said he, getting up after having emptied his glass, “and I will do the same thing for grandmother, who loves me more than she does the other boys; I will send some one on before me.”

  He went out at once, and I waited a few minutes; Mother Heitz talked to me but I did not listen; I was thinking how far Buche had gone; I saw him near the ford, at the outworks, and at the gate. Suddenly I went out, saying to Mother Heitz, “I will pay you another time.”

  I began to run; I partly remember having met three or four persons, who said, “Ah! that is Joseph Bertha!” But I am not sure of that.

  All at once, without knowing how, I sprang up the stairs, and then I heard a great cry—Catherine was in my arms.

  My head swam—in a minute after I seemed to come out of a dream; I saw the room, Mr. Goulden, Jean Buche, and Catherine; and I began to sob so violently, that you would have thought some great misfortune had happened. I held Catherine on my knee and kissed her, and she cried too. After a long while I exclaimed:

  “Ah! Mr. Goulden, pardon me! I ought to have embraced you, my father! whom I love as I do myself!”

  “I know it, Joseph,” said he with emotion, “I know it, I am not jealous.” And he wiped his eyes. “Yes—yes—love—and family and then friends. It is quite natural, my child, do not trouble yourself about that.”

  I got up and pressed him to my heart.

  The first word Catherine said to me was, “Joseph, I knew you would come back, I had put my trust in God! Now our worst troubles are over, and we shall always remain together.”

  She was still sitting on my knee with her arm on my shoulder, I looked at her, she dropped her eyes and was very pale. That which we had hoped for before my departure had come.

  We were happy.

  Mr. Goulden smiled as he sat at his workbench—Jean stood up near the door and said:

  “Now I am going, Joseph, to Harberg. Father and grandmother are waiting for me.”

  “Stay, Jean, you will dine with us.” Mr. Goulden and Catherine urged him also, but he would not wait. I embraced him on the stairs and felt that I loved him like a brother.

  He came often after that, but never once for thirty years without stopping with me. Now he lies behind the church at Hommert. He was a brave man and had a good heart.

  But what am I thinking of? I must finish my story, and I have not said a word of Aunt Grédel, who came an hour afterward. Ah! she threw up her hands, and she embraced me, exclaiming:

  “Joseph! Joseph! you have then escaped everything! let them come now to take you again! let them come! oh! how I repented of letting you go away! how I cursed the conscription and all the rest! but here you are! how good it is! the Lord has had mercy upon us!”

  Yes, all these old stories bring the tears to my eyes, when I think of them; it is like a long forgotten dream, and yet it is real. These joys and sorrows that we recall, attach us to earth, and though we are old and our strength is gone and our sight is dim, and we are only the shadows of ourselves; yet we are never ready to go, we never say, “It is enough!”

  These old memories are always fresh; when we speak of past dangers we seem to be in the midst of them again; when we recall our old friends, we again press their hands in imagination, and our beloved is again seated on our knee, and we look in her face, thinking, “She is beautiful!” and that which seemed to us just and wise and right in those old days, seems right and wise and just still.

  I remember—and I must here finish my long story—that for many months and even years there was great sorrow in many families, and nobody dared to speak openly, or wish for the glory of the country.

  Zébédé came back with those who had been disbanded on the other side of the Loire, but even he had lost his courage. This came from the vengeance and the condemnations and shootings, massacres and revenge of every kind which followed our humiliation; from the hundred and fifty thousand Germans, English, and Russians, who garrisoned our fortresses, from the indemnities of war, from the thousands of émigrés, from the forced contributions, and especially from the laws against suspects, and against sacrilege, and the rights of primogeniture which they wished to be re-established.

  All these things so contrary to reason and to the honor of the nation, together with the denunciations of the Pinacles and the outrages that the old revolutionists were made to suffer—altogether these things have made us melancholy, so that often when we were alone with Catherine and the little Joseph, whom God had sent to console us for so many misfortunes, Mr. Goulden would say, pensively:

  “Joseph, our unhappy country has fallen very low. When Napoleon took France she was the greatest, the freest, and most powerful of nations, all the world admired and envied us, but to-day we are conquered, ruined, our fortresses are filled with our enemies, who have their feet on our necks; and what was never before seen since France existed, strangers are masters of our capital—twice we have seen this in two years. See what it costs to put liberty, fortune, and honor in the hands of an ambitious man. We are in a very
sad condition, the great Revolution is believed to be dead, and the Rights of Man are annihilated. But we must not be discouraged, all this will pass away, those who oppose liberty and justice will be driven away, and those who wish to re-establish privileges and titles will be regarded as fools. The great nation is reposing, is reflecting upon her faults, is observing those who are leading her contrary to her own interests: she reads their hearts, and in spite of the Swiss, in spite of the royal guard, in spite of the Holy Alliance, when once she is weary of her sufferings she will cast them out some day or other. Then it will be finished, for France wants liberty, equality, and justice.

  “The one thing which we lack is instruction, though the people are instructing themselves every day, they profit by our experiences, by our misfortunes.

  “I shall not have the happiness, perhaps, of seeing the awakening of the country, I am too old to hope for it, but you will see it, and the sight will console you for all your sufferings; you will be proud to belong to that generous nation which has outstripped all others since ‘89; these slight checks are only moments of repose on a long journey.”

  This excellent man preserved to his last hour his calm confidence.

  I have lived to see the accomplishment of his predictions, I have seen the return of the banner of liberty, I have seen the nation grow in wealth, in prosperity, and in education. I have seen those who obstructed justice and who wished to establish the old regime, compelled to leave. I have seen that mind always progresses, and that even the peasants are willing to part with their last sou for the good of their children.

  Unfortunately we have not enough schoolmasters. If we had fewer soldiers and more teachers the work would go on much faster. But—patience—that will come.

  The people begin to understand their rights, they know that war brings them nothing but increased contributions, and when they shall say, “Instead of sending our sons to perish by thousands under the sabre and cannon, we prefer that they should be taught to be men;” who will dare to oppose them? To-day the people are sovereign!

  In this hope, my friends, I embrace you with my whole heart, and bid you, Adieu!

  8 Vial which contains the oil for anointing the kings of France.

  9 Who goes there!—French.

  10 Who goes there!—German.

  11 Military caps of bear-skin.

  12 Polish military cap.

  13 German militiamen.

  14 German imperial troops.

  THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG

  AN EPISODE OF THE END OF THE EMPIRE

  INTRODUCTORY NOTE

  “The Blockade of Phalsburg” contains one of the happiest portraits in the Erckmann-Chatrian gallery—that of the Jew Moses who tells the story and who is always in character, however great the patriotic or romantic temptation to idealize him, and whose character is nevertheless portrayed with an almost affectionate appreciation of the sterling qualities underlying its somewhat usurious exterior.

  The time is 1814, during the invasion of France by the allies after the disastrous battle of Leipsic and the campaign described in “The Conscript.” The dwellers in Phalsburg—a little walled town of two or three thousand inhabitants in Lorraine—defend themselves with great intrepidity and determination during the siege which lasts until the capitulation of Paris. The daily life of the citizens and garrison, the various incidents of the blockade, the bombardment by night, the scarcity of food, the occasional sortie for foraging, all pass before the reader depicted with the authors’ customary fidelity and life-likeness, and form as perfect a picture of a siege as “The Conscript” does of a campaign.

  CHAPTER I

  FATHER MOSES AND HIS FAMILY

  Since you wish to know about the blockade of Phalsburg in 1814, I will tell you all about it, said Father Moses of the Jews’ street.

  I lived then in the little house on the corner, at the right of the market. My business was selling iron by the pound, under the arch below, and I lived above with my wife Sorlé (Sarah) and my little Sâfel, the child of my old age.

  My two other boys, Itzig and Frômel, had gone to America, and my daughter Zeffen was married to Baruch, the leather-dealer, at Saverne.

  Besides my iron business, I traded in old shoes, old linen, and all the articles of old clothing which conscripts sell on reaching the depot, where they receive their military outfit. Travelling pedlers bought the old linen of me for paper-rags, and the other things I sold to the country people.

  This was a profitable business, because thousands of conscripts passed through Phalsburg from week to week, and from month to month. They were measured at once at the mayoralty, clothed, and filed off to Mayence, Strasburg, or wherever it might be.

  This lasted a long time; but at length people were tired of war, especially after the Russian campaign and the great recruiting of 1813.

  You may well suppose, Fritz, that I did not wait till this time before sending my two boys beyond the reach of the recruiting officers’ clutches. They were boys who did not lack sense. At twelve years old their heads were clear enough, and rather than go and fight for the King of Prussia, they would see themselves safe at the ends of the earth.

  At evening, when we sat at supper around the lamp with its seven burners, their mother would sometimes cover her face and say:

  “My poor children! My poor children! When I think that the time is near when you will go in the midst of musket and bayonet fire—in the midst of thunder and lightning!—oh, how dreadful!”

  And I saw them turn pale. I smiled at myself and thought: “You are no fools. You will hold on to your life. That is right!”

  If I had had children capable of becoming soldiers, I should have died of grief. I should have said, “These are not of my race!”

  But the boys grew stronger and handsomer. When Itzig was fifteen he was doing a good business. He bought cattle in the villages on his own account, and sold them at a profit to butcher Borich at Mittelbronn; and Frômel was not behind him, for he made the best bargains of the old merchandise, which we had heaped in three barracks under the market.

  I should have liked well to keep the boys with me. It was my delight to see them with my little Sâfel—the curly head and eyes bright as a squirrel’s—yes, it was my joy! Often I clasped them in my arms without a word, and even they wondered at it; I frightened them; but dreadful thoughts passed through my mind after 1812. I knew that whenever the Emperor had returned to Paris, he had demanded four hundred millions of francs and two or three hundred thousand men, and I said to myself:

  “This time, everybody must go, even children of seventeen and eighteen!”

  As the tidings grew worse and worse, I said to them one evening:

  “Listen! you both understand trading, and what you do not yet know you can learn. Now, if you wait a few months, you will be on the conscription list, and be like all the rest; they will take you to the square and show you how to load a gun, and then you will go away, and I never shall hear of you again!”

  Sorlé sighed, and we all sighed together. Then, after a moment, I continued:

  “But if you set out at once for America, by the way of Havre, you will reach it safe and sound; you will do business there as well as here; you will make money, you will marry, you will increase according to the Lord’s promise, and you will send me back money, according to God’s commandment, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ I will bless you as Isaac blessed Jacob, and you will have a long life. Choose!”

  They at once chose to go to America, and I went with them myself as far as Sorreburg. Each of them had made twenty louis in his own business so that I needed to give them nothing but my blessing.

  And what I said to them has come to pass; they are both living, they have numerous children, who are my descendants, and when I want anything they send it to me.

  Itzig and Frômel being gone, I had only Sâfel left, my Benjamin, dearer even, if possible, than the others. And then, too, I had my daughter Zeffen, married at Saverne to a good res
pectable man, Baruch; she was the oldest, and had already given me a grandson named David, according to the Lord’s will that the dead should be replaced in his own family, and David was the name of Baruch’s grandfather. The one expected was to be called after my father, Esdras.

  You see, Fritz, how I was situated before the blockade of Phalsburg, in 1814. Everything had gone well up to that time, but for six weeks everything had gone wrong in town and country. We had the typhus; thousands of wounded soldiers surrounded the houses; the ground had lacked laborers for the last two years, and everything was dear—bread, meat, and drink. The people of Alsace and Lorraine did not come to market; our stores of merchandise did not sell; and when merchandise does not sell, it might as well be sand or stones; we are poor in the midst of abundance. Famine comes from every quarter.

  Ah, well! in spite of it all, the Lord had a great blessing in store for me, for just at this time, early in November, came the news that a second son was born to Zeffen, and that he was in fine health. I was so glad that I set out at once for Saverne.

  You must know, Fritz, that if I was very glad, it was not only on account of the birth of a grandson, but also because my son-in-law would not be obliged to leave home, if the child lived. Baruch had always been fortunate; at the moment when the Emperor had made the Senate vote that unmarried men must go, he had just married Zeffen; and when the Senate voted that married men without children must go, he had his first child. Now, after the bad news, it was voted that married men with only one child should go, all the same, and Baruch had two.

  At that time it was a fortunate thing to have quantities of children, to keep you from being massacred; no greater blessing could be desired! This is why I took my cane at once, to go and find out whether the child were sound and healthy, and whether it would save its father.