The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories
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They were coming to us for safety!
The sight of them upset me, and raising my hands, I exclaimed:
“Lord, take from me all weakness! Thou seest that I need to live for the sake of these little ones. Therefore be thou my strength, and let me not be cast down!”
And I went down at once to receive them, Sorlé and Sâfel following me. I took my daughter in my arms, and helped her to the ground, while Sorlé took the children, and Baruch exclaimed:
“We came at the last minute! The gate was closed as soon as we had come in. There were many others from Quatre-Vents and Saverne who had to stay outside.”
“God be praised, Baruch!” I replied. “You are all welcome, my dear children! I have not much, I am not rich; but what I have, you have—it is all yours. Come in!”
And we went upstairs; Zeffen, Sorlé, and I carrying the children, while Baruch stayed to take their things out of the wagon, and then he came up.
The street was now full of straw and hay, thrown out from the lofts; there was no wind, and the snow had stopped falling. In a little while the shouts and proclamations ceased.
Sorlé hastened to serve up the remains of our breakfast, with a bottle of wine; and Baruch, while he was eating, told us that there was a panic in Alsace, that the Austrians had turned Basle, and were advancing by forced marches upon Schlestadt, Neuf Brisach, and Strasburg, after having surrounded Huninguen.
“Everybody is escaping,” said he. “They are fleeing to the mountain, taking their valuables on their carts, and driving their cattle into the woods. There is a rumor already that bands of Cossacks have been seen at Mutzig, but that is hardly possible, as the army of Marshal Victor is on the Upper Rhine, and dragoons are passing every day to join him. How could they pass his lines without giving battle?”
We were listening very attentively to these things when the sergeant came in. He was just off duty, and stood outside of the door, looking at us with astonishment.
I took Zeffen by the hand, and said: “Sergeant, this is my daughter, this is my son-in-law, and these are my grandchildren, about whom I have told you. They know you, for I have told them in my letters how much we think of you.”
The sergeant looked at Zeffen.—“Father Moses,” said he, “you have a handsome daughter, and your son-in-law looks like a worthy man.”
Then he took little Esdras from Zeffen’s arms, and lifted him up, and made a face at him, at which the child laughed, and everybody was pleased. The other little one opened his eyes wide and looked on.
“My children have come to stay with me,” I said to the sergeant; “you will excuse them if they make a little noise in the house?”
“How! Father Moses,” he exclaimed. “I will excuse everything! Do not be concerned; are we not old friends?”
And at once, in spite of all we could say, he chose another room looking upon the court.
“All the nestful ought to be together,” said he. “I am the friend of the family, the old sergeant, who will not trouble anybody, provided they are willing to see him here.”
I was so much moved that I gave him both my hands.
“It was a happy day when you entered my house,” said I. “The Lord be thanked for it!”
He laughed, and said: “Come now, Father Moses; come! Have I done anything more than was natural? Why do you wonder at it?”
He went at once to get his things and carry them to his new room; and then went away, so as not to disturb us.
How we are mistaken! This sergeant, whom Frichard had sent to plague us, at the end of a fortnight was one of our family; he consulted our comfort in everything—and, notwithstanding all the years that have passed since then, I cannot think of that good man without emotion.
When we were alone, Baruch told us that he could not stay at Phalsburg; that he had come to bring his family, with everything that he could provide for them in the first hurried moments; but that, in the midst of such dangers, when the enemy could not long delay coming, his duty was to guard his house, and prevent, as much as possible, the pillage of his goods.
This seemed right, though it made us none the less grieved to have him go. We thought of the pain of living apart from each other; of hearing no tidings; of being all the time uncertain about the fate of our beloved ones! Meanwhile we were all busy. Sorlé and Zeffen prepared the children’s bed; Baruch took out the provisions which he had brought; Sâfel played with the two little ones, and I went and came, thinking about our troubles.
At last, when the best room was ready for Zeffen and the children, as the German gate was already shut, and the French gate would be open only until two o’clock at the latest, for strangers to leave the city, Baruch exclaimed: “Zeffen, the moment has come!”
He had scarcely said the words when the great agony began—cries, embraces, and tears!
Ah! it is a great joy to be loved, the only true joy of life. But what sorrow to be separated! And how our family loved each other! How Zeffen and Baruch embraced one another! How they leaned over their little ones, how they looked at them, and began to sob again!
What can be said at such a moment? I sat by the window, with my hands before my face, without strength to speak. I thought to myself: “My God, must it be that a single man shall hold in his hands the fate of us all! Must it be that, for his pleasure, for the gratification of his pride, everything shall be confounded, overturned, torn asunder! My God, shall these troubles never end? Hast thou no pity on thy poor creatures?”
I did not raise my eyes, but I heard the lamentations which rent my heart, and which lasted till the moment when Baruch, perceiving that Zeffen was quite exhausted, ran out, exclaiming: “It must be! It must be! Adieu, Zeffen! Adieu, my children! Adieu, all!”
No one followed him.
We heard the carriage roll away, and then was the great sorrow—that sorrow of which it is written:
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
“We hanged our harps upon the willows.
“For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song, saying: ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
CHAPTER X
AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE COSSACKS
But that day I was to have the greatest fright of all. You remember, Fritz, that Sorlé had told me at supper the night before, that if we did not receive the invoice, our spirits of wine would be at the risk of M. Quataya of Pézenas, and that we need feel no anxiety about it.
I thought so, too, for it seemed to me right; and as the French and German gates were closed at three o’clock, and nothing more could enter the city, I supposed that that was the end of the matter, and felt quite relieved.
“It is a pity, Moses!” I said to myself, as I walked up and down the room; “yes, for if these spirits had been sent a week sooner, we should have made a great profit; but now, at least, thou art relieved of great anxiety. Be content with thine old trade. Let alone for the future such harassing undertakings. Don’t stake thine all again on one throw, and let this be a lesson to thee!”
Such thoughts were in my mind, when, about four o’clock, I heard some one coming up our stairs. It was a heavy step, as of a man trying to find his way in the dark.
Zeffen and Sorlé were in the kitchen, preparing supper. Women always have something to talk about by themselves, for nobody else to hear. So I listened, and then opened the door.
“Who is there?” I asked.
“Does not Mr. Moses, the wine-merchant, live here?” asked the man in a blouse and broad-brimmed felt hat, with his whip on his shoulder—a wagoner’s figure, in short. I turned pale as I heard him, and replied: “Yes, my name is Moses. What do you want?”
He came in, and took out a large leather portfolio from under his blouse. I trembled as I looked on.
“There!” said he, giving me two papers, “my invoice and my bill of lading! Are not the twelve pipes of three-six
from Pézenas for you?”
“Yes, where are they?”
“On the Mittelbronn hill, twenty minutes from here,” he quietly answered. “Some Cossacks stopped my wagons, and I had to take off the horses. I hurried into the city by a postern under the bridge.”
My legs failed me as he spoke. I sank into my arm-chair, unable to speak a word.
“You will pay me the portage,” said the man, “and give me a receipt for the delivery.”
“Sorlé! Sorlé!” I cried in a despairing voice. And she and Zeffen ran to me. The wagoner explained it all to them. As for me, I heard nothing. I had strength only to exclaim: “Now all is lost! Now I must pay without receiving the goods.”
“We are willing to pay, sir,” said my wife, “but the letter states that the twelve pipes shall be delivered in the city.”
The wagoner said: “I have just come from the justice of the peace, as I wanted to find out before coming to you what I had a right to claim; he told me that you ought to pay for everything, even my horses and carriages, do you understand? I unharnessed my horses, and escaped, myself, which is so much the less on your account. Will you settle? Yes or no?”
We were almost dead with fright when the sergeant came in. He had heard loud words, and asked: “What is it, Father Moses? What is it about? What does this man want?”
Sorlé, who never lost her presence of mind, told him the whole story, shortly and clearly; he comprehended it at once.
“Twelve pipes of three-six, that makes twenty-four pipes of cognac. What luck for the garrison! what luck!”
“Yes,” said I, “but it cannot come in; the city gates are shut, and the wagons are surrounded by Cossacks.”
“Cannot come in!” cried the sergeant, raising his shoulders. “Go along! Do you take the governor for a fool? Is he going to refuse twenty-four pipes of good brandy, when the garrison needs it? Is he going to leave this windfall to the Cossacks? Madame Sorlé, pay the portage at once; and you, Father Moses, put on your cap and follow me to the governor’s, with the letter in your pocket. Come along! Don’t lose a minute! If the Cossacks have time to put their noses in your casks, you will find a famous deficit, I warrant you!”
When I heard that I exclaimed: “Sergeant, you have saved my life!” And I hastened to get my cap.
“Shall I pay the portage?” asked Sorlé.
“Yes! pay!” I answered as I went down, for it was plain that the wagoner could compel us. I went down with an anxious heart.
All that I remember after this is that the sergeant walked before me in the snow, that he said a few words to the sapper on orderly duty at the governor’s house, and that we went up the grand stairway with the marble balustrade.
Upstairs, in the gallery with the balustrade around it, he said to me: “Be easy, Father Moses! Take out your letter, and let me do the talking.”
He knocked softly at a door as he spoke:
Somebody said: “Come in!”
We went in.
Colonel Moulin, a fat man in a dressing-gown and little silk cap, was smoking his pipe in front of a good fire. He was very red, and had a caraffe of rum and a glass at its side on the marble mantel-piece, where were also a clock and vases of flowers.
“What is it?” he asked, turning round.
“Colonel, this is what is the matter,” replied the sergeant: “twelve pipes of spirits of wine have been stopped on the Mittelbronn hill, and are surrounded by Cossacks.”
“Cossacks!” exclaimed the governor. “Have they broken through our lines already?”
“Yes,” said the sergeant, “a sudden attack of Cossacks! They have possession of the twelve pipes of three-six which this patriot brought from Pézenas to sustain the garrison.”
“Some bandits,” said the governor—“thieves!”
“Here is the letter,” said the sergeant, taking it from my hand.
The colonel cast his eyes over it, and said hastily:
“Sergeant, go and take twenty-five men of your company. Go on the run, free the wagons, and put in requisition horses from the village to bring them into the city.”
And, as we were going: “Wait!” said he; and he went to his bureau and wrote four words; “here is the order.”
When we were once on the stairway, the sergeant said: “Father Moses, run to the cooper’s; we may perhaps need him and his boys. I know the Cossacks; their first thought will be to unload the casks so as to be more sure of keeping them. Have them bring ropes and ladders; and I will go to the Barracks and get my men together.”
Then I ran home like a hart, for I was enraged at the Cossacks. I went in to get my musket and cartridge-box. I could have fought an army: I could not see straight.
“What is it? Where are you going?” asked Sorlé and Zeffen.
“You will know by and by,” I replied.
I went to Schweyer’s. He had two large saddle-pistols, which he put quickly into his apron-belt with the axe; his two boys, Nickel and Frantz, took the ladder and ropes, and we ran to the French gate.
The sergeant was not yet there; but two minutes after he came running down the street by the rampart with thirty veterans in file, their muskets on their shoulders.
The officer guarding the postern had only to see the order to let us go out, and a few minutes after we were in the trenches behind the hospital, where the sergeant ranged his men.
“It is cognac!” he told them; “twenty-four pipes of cognac! So, comrades, attention! The garrison is without brandy; those who do not like brandy have only to fall to the rear.”
But they all wanted to be in front, and laughed in anticipation.
We went up the stairway, and were ranged in order in the covered ways. It might have been five o’clock. Looking from the top of the glacis we could see the broad meadow of Eichmatt, and above it the hills of Mittelbronn covered with snow. The sky was full of clouds, and night was coming on. It was very cold.
“Forward!” said the sergeant.
And we gained the highway. The veterans ran, in two files, at the right and left, their backs rounded, and their muskets in their shoulder-belts; the snow was up to their knees.
Schweyer, his two boys, and I walked behind.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, the veterans, who ran all the way, had left us far behind; we heard for some time their cartridge-boxes rattling, but soon this sound was lost in the distance, and then we heard the dog of the Trois-Maisons barking in his chain.
The deep silence of the night gave me a chance to think. If it had not been for the thought of my spirits of wine, I would have gone straight back to Phalsburg, but fortunately that thought prevailed, and I said:
“Make haste, Schweyer, make haste!”
“Make haste!” he exclaimed angrily, “you can make haste to get back your spirits of wine, but what do we care for it? Is the highway the place for us? Are we bandits that we should risk our lives?”
I understood at once that he wanted to escape, and was enraged.
“Take care, Schweyer,” said I, “take care! If you and your boys go back, people will say that you have been a traitor to the city brandy, and that is worse than being a traitor to the flag, especially in a cooper.”
“The devil take thee!” said he, “we ought never to have come.”
However, he kept on ascending the hill with me. Nickel and Frantz followed us without hurrying.
When we reached the plateau we saw lights in the village. All was still and seemed quiet, although there was a great crowd around the two first houses.
The door of the Bunch of Grapes was wide open, and its kitchen fire shone through the passage to the street where my two wagons stood.
This crowd came from the Cossacks who were carousing at Heitz’s house, after tying their horses under the shed. They had made Mother Heitz cook them a good hot soup, and we saw them plainly, two or three hundred paces distant, go up and down the outside steps, with jugs and bottles which they passed from one to another. The thought came to me that
they were drinking my spirits of wine, for a lantern hung behind the first wagon, and the rascals were all going from it with their elbows raised. I was so furious that, regardless of danger, I began to run to put a stop to the pillage.
Fortunately the veterans were in advance of me, or I should have been murdered by the Cossacks; I had not gone half way when our whole troop sprang from the fences of the highway, and ran like a pack of wolves, crying out, “To the bayonet!”
You never saw such confusion, Fritz. In a second the Cossacks were on their horses, and the veterans in the midst of them; the front of the inn with its trellis, its pigeon-house, and its little fenced garden, was lighted up by the firing of muskets and pistols. Heitz’s two daughters stood at the windows, with their arms lifted and screamed so that they could be heard all over Mittelbronn.
Every minute, in the midst of the confusion, something fell upon the road, and then the horses started and ran through the fields like deer, with their heads run out, and their manes and tails flying. The villagers ran; Father Heitz slipped into the barn, and climbed up the ladder, and I came up breathless, as if out of my senses.
I had not gone more than fifteen steps when a Cossack, who was running away at full speed, turned about furiously close to me, with his lance in the air, and called out, “Hurra!”
I had only time to stoop, and I felt the wind from the lance as it passed along my body.
I never felt so in my life, Fritz; I felt the chill of death, that trembling of the flesh, of which the prophet spoke: “Fear came upon me and trembling; the hair of my flesh stood up.”
But what shows the spirit of wisdom and prudence which the Lord puts into his creatures, when he means to spare them for a good old age, is that immediately afterward, in spite of my trembling knees, I went and sat under the first wagon, where the blows of the lances could not reach me; and there I saw the veterans finish the extermination of the rascals, who had retreated into the court, and not one of whom escaped.