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

by Émile Erckmann

  It was all heart-rending—all! I felt as if my bowels were torn from me, and in my madness I accused the Lord, and said:

  “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of Thy wrath. Surely against me is He turned. My flesh and my skin hath He made old: He hath broken my bones. He hath set me in dark places. Also when I cry and shout He shutteth out my prayer. He was unto me as a lion in secret places!”

  Thus I walked about, groaning and even blaspheming. But God in His mercy forgave me; He knew that it was not myself that spoke, but my despair.

  At last I sat down, the others came back. Sorlé sat next to me in silence. Sâfel said to me:

  “Zeffen has gone to the rabbi’s with Esdras.”

  I covered my head without answering him.

  Then some women came with old Lanche; I took Sorlé by the hand, and we went into the large room, without speaking a word.

  The mere sight of this room, where the two little brothers had played so long, made my tears come afresh, and Sorlé, Sâfel, and I wept together. The house was full of people; it might have been eight o’clock, and they knew already that we had a child dead.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE PASSOVER

  Then, Fritz, the funeral rites began. All who died of typhus had to be buried the same day: Christians behind the church, and Jews in the trenches, in the place now occupied by the riding-school.

  Old women were already there to wash the poor little body, and comb the hair, and cut the nails, according to the law of the Lord. Some of them sewed the winding-sheet.

  The open windows admitted the air, the shutters struck against the walls. The schamess* went through the streets, striking the doors with his mace, to summon our brethren.

  * Beadle.

  Sorlé sat upon the ground with her head veiled. Hearing Desmarets come up the stairs, I had courage to go and meet him, and show him the room. The poor angel was in his little shirt on the floor, the head raised a little on some straw, and the little thaleth in his fingers. He was so beautiful, with his brown hair, and half-opened lips, that I thought as I looked at him: “The Lord wanted to have thee near his throne!”

  And my tears fell silently: my beard was full of them.

  Desmarets then took the measure and went. Half an hour afterward, he returned with the little pine coffin under his arm, and the house was filled anew with lamentations.

  I could not see the coffin closed! I went and sat upon the sack of ashes, covering my face with both hands, and crying in my heart like Jacob, “Surely I shall go down to the grave with this child; I shall not survive him.”

  Only a very few of our brethren came, for a panic was in the city; men knew that the angel of death was passing by, and that drops of blood rained from his sword upon the houses; each emptied the water from his jug upon the threshold and entered quickly. But the best of them came silently, and as evening approached, it was necessary to go and descend by the postern.

  I was the only one of our family. Sorlé was not able to follow me, nor Zeffen. I was the only one to throw the shovelful of earth. My strength all left me, they had to lead me back to our door. The sergeant held me by the arm; he spoke to me and I did not hear him; I was as if dead.

  All else that I remember of that dreadful day, is the moment when, having come into the house, sitting on the sack, before our cold hearth, with bare feet and bent head, and my soul in the depths, the schamess came to me, touched my shoulder and made me rise; and then took his knife from his pocket and rent my garment, tearing it to the hip. This blow was the last and the most dreadful; I fell back, murmuring with Job:

  “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived! Let a cloud dwell upon it, let the blackness of the day terrify it! For mourning, the true mourning does not come down from the father to the child, but goes up from the child to the father. Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now I should have lain still in the tomb and been at rest!”

  And my grief, Fritz, had no bounds; “What will Baruch say,” I exclaimed, “and what shall I answer him when he asks me to give him back his child?”

  I felt no longer any interest in our business. Zeffen lived with the old rabbi; her mother spent the days with her, to take care of Esdras and comfort her.

  Every part of our house was opened; the schabesgoïé burned sugar and spices, and the air from without had free circulation. Sâfel went on selling.

  As for myself, I sat before the hearth in the morning, cooked some potatoes, and ate them with a little salt, and then went out, without thought or aim. I wandered sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, toward the old gendarmerie, around the ramparts, in out-of-the-way places.

  I could not bear to see any one, especially those who had known the child.

  Then, Fritz, our miseries were at their height; famine, cold, all kinds of sufferings weighed upon the city; faces grew thin, and women and children were seen, half-naked and trembling, groping in the shadow in the deserted by-ways.

  Ah! such miseries will never return! We have no more such abominable wars, lasting twenty years, when the highways looked like ruts, and the roads like streams of mud; when the ground remained untilled for want of husbandmen, when houses sank for want of inhabitants; when the poor went barefoot and the rich in wooden shoes, while the superior officers passed by on superb horses, looking down contemptuously on the whole human race.

  We could not endure that now!

  But at that time everything in the nation was destroyed and humiliated; the citizens and the people had nothing left; force was everything. If a man said, “But there is such a thing as justice, right, truth!” the way was to answer with a smile, “I do not understand you!” and you were taken for a man of sense and experience, who would make his way.

  Then, in the midst of my sorrow, I saw these things without thinking about them; but since then, they have come back to me, and thousands of others; all the survivors of those days can remember them, too.

  One morning, I was under the old market, looking at the wretches as they bought meat. At that time they knocked down the horses of Rouge-Colas and those of the gendarmes, as fleshless as the cattle in the trenches, and sold the meat at very high prices.

  I looked at the swarms of wrinkled old women, of hollow-eyed citizens, all these wretched creatures crowding before Frantz Sepel’s stall, while he distributed bits of carcass to them.

  Frantz’s large dogs were seen no longer prowling about the market, licking up the bloody scraps. The dried hands of old women were stretched out at the end of their fleshless arms, to snatch everything; weak voices called out entreatingly, “A little more liver, Monsieur Frantz, so that we can make merry!”

  I saw all this under the great dark roof, through which a little light came, in the holes made by the shells. In the distance, among the worm-eaten pillars, some soldiers, under the arch of the guard-house, with their old capes hanging down their thighs, were also looking on;—it seemed like a dream.

  My great sorrow accorded with these sad sights. I was about leaving at the end of a half hour, when I saw Burguet coming along by Father Brainstein’s old country-house, which was now staved in by the shells, and leaning, all shattered, over the street.

  Burguet had told me several days before our affliction, that his maid-servant was sick. I had thought no more of it, but now it came to me.

  He looked so changed, so thin, his cheeks so marked by wrinkles, it seemed as if years had passed since I had seen him. His hat came down to his eyes, and his beard, at least a fortnight old, had turned gray. He came in, looking round in all directions; but he could not see me where I was, in the deep shadow, against the planks of the old fodder-house; and he stopped behind the crowd of old women, who were squeezed in a semicircle before the stall, awaiting their turn.

  After a minute he put some sous in Frantz Sepel’s hand, and received his morsel, which he hid under his cloak. Then looking round agai
n, he was going away quickly, with his head down.

  This sight moved my heart: I hurried away, raising my hands to heaven, and exclaiming: “Is it possible? Is it possible? Burguet too! A man of his genius to suffer hunger and eat carcasses! Oh, what times of trial!”

  I went home, completely upset.

  We had not many provisions left; but, still, the next morning, as Sâfel was going down to open the shop, I said to him:

  “Stop, my child, take this little basket to M. Burguet; it is some potatoes and salt beef. Take care that nobody sees it, they would take it from you. Say that it is in remembrance of the poor deserter.”

  The child went. He told me that Burguet wept.

  This, Fritz, is what must be seen in a blockade, where you are attacked from day to day. This is what the Germans and Spaniards had to suffer, and what we suffered in our turn. This is war!

  Even the siege rations were almost gone; but Moulin, the commandant of the place, having died of typhus, the famine did not prevent the lieutenant-colonel, who took his place, from giving balls and fêtes to the envoys, in the old Thevenot house. The windows were bright, music played, the staff-officers drank punch and warm wine, to make believe that we were living in abundance. There was good reason for bandaging the eyes of these envoys till they reached the very ball-room, for, if they had seen the look of the people, all the punch-bowls and warm wines in the world would not have deceived them.

  All this time, the grave-digger Mouyot and his two boys came every morning to take their two or three drops of brandy. They might say “We drink to the dead!” as the veterans said “We drink to the Cossacks!” Nobody in the city would willingly have undertaken to bury those who had died of typhus; they alone, after taking their drop, dared to throw the bodies from the hospital upon a cart, and pile them up in the pit, and then they passed for grave-diggers, with Father Zébédé.

  The order was to wrap the dead in a sheet. But who saw that it was done? Old Mouyot himself told me that they were buried in their cloaks or vests, as it might be, and sometimes entirely naked.

  For every corpse, these men had their thirty-five sous; Father Mouyot, the blind man, can tell you so; it was his harvest.

  Toward the end of March, in the midst of this fearful want, when there was not a dog, and still less a cat, to be seen in the streets, the city was full of evil tidings; rumors of battles lost, of marches upon Paris, etc.

  As the envoys had been received, and balls given in their honor, something of our misfortunes became known either through the family or the servants.

  Often, in wandering through the streets which ran along the ramparts, I mounted one of the bastions, looking toward Strasburg, or Metz, or Paris. I had no fear then of stray balls. I looked forth upon the thousand bivouac fires scattered over the plain, the soldiers of the enemy returning from the villages with their long poles hung with quarters of meat, at others crouched around the little fires which shone like stars upon the edge of the forest, and at their patrols and their covered batteries from which their flag was flying.

  Sometimes I looked at the smoke of the chimneys at Quatre-Vents, or Bichelberg, or Mittelbronn. Our chimneys had no smoke, our festive days were over.

  You can never imagine how many thoughts come to you, when you are so shut up, as your eyes follow the long white highways, and you imagine yourself walking there, talking with people about the news, asking them what they have suffered, and telling them what you have yourself endured.

  From the bastion of the guard, I could see even the white peaks of the Schneeberg; I imagined myself in the midst of foresters, wood-cutters, and wood-splitters. There was a rumor that they were defending their route from Schirmeck; I longed to know if it were true.

  As I looked toward the Maisons-Rouges, on the road to Paris, I imagined myself to be with my old friend Leiser; I saw him at his hearth, in despair at having to support so many people, for the Russian, Austrian, and Bavarian staff-officers remained upon this route, and new regiments went by continually.

  And spring came! The snow began to melt in the furrows and behind the hedges. The great forests of La Bonne-Fontaine and the Barracks began to change their tents.

  The thing which affected me most, as I have often remembered, was hearing the first lark at the end of March. The sky was entirely clear, and I looked up to see the bird. I thought of little David, and I wept, I knew not why.

  Men have strange thoughts; they are affected by the song of a bird, and sometimes, years after, the same sounds recall the same emotions, so as even to make them weep.

  At last the house was purified, and Zeffen and Sorlé came back to it.

  The time of the Passover drew near; and the floors must be washed, the walls scoured, the vessels cleansed. In the midst of these cares, the poor women forgot, in some measure, our affliction; but as the time drew nearer our anxiety increased; how, in the midst of this famine, were we to obey the command of God:

  “This month shall be the first month of the year to you.

  “In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house.

  “Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats.

  “And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month.

  “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs shall they eat it.”

  But where was the sacrificial lamb to be found? Schmoûlé alone, the old schamess, had thought of it for us all, three months before; he had nourished a male goat of that year in his cellar, and that was the goat that was killed.

  Every Jewish family had a portion of it, small indeed, but the law of the Lord was fulfilled.

  We invited on that day, according to the law, one of the poorest of our brethren, Kalmes. We went together to the synagogue; the prayers were recited, and then we returned to partake of the feast at our table.

  Everything was ready and according to the proper order, notwithstanding the great destitution; the white cloth, the goblet of vinegar, the hard egg, the horseradish, the unleavened bread, and the flesh of the goat. The lamp with seven burners shone above it; but we had not much bread.

  Having taken my seat in the midst of my family, Sâfel took the jug and poured water upon my hands; then we all bent forward, each took a piece of bread, saying with heavy hearts:

  “This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in Egypt. Whosoever is hungry, let him come and eat with us. Whosoever is poor, let him come and make the Passover!”

  We sat down again, and Sâfel said to me:

  “What mean ye by this service, my father?”

  And I answered:

  “We were slaves in Egypt, my child, and the Lord brought us forth with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm!”

  These words inspired us with courage; we hoped that God would deliver us as He had delivered our fathers, and that the Emperor would be His right arm; but we were mistaken, the Lord wanted nothing more of that man!

  CHAPTER XX

  PEACE

  The next morning, at daybreak, between six and seven o’clock, when we were all asleep, the report of a cannon made our windows rattle. The enemy usually fired only at night. I listened; a second report followed after a few seconds, then another, then others, one by one.

  I rose, opened a window, and looked out. The sun was rising behind the arsenal. Not a soul was in the street; but, as one report came after another, doors and windows were opened; men in their shirts leaned out, listening.

  No shells hissed through the air; the enemy fired blank cartridges.

  As I listened, a great murmur came from the distance, outside of the city. First it came from the Mittelbronn hill, then it reached the Bichelberg, Quatre-Vents, the upper and lower Barracks.

  Sorlé had just risen also; I finished dressing, and said to her:

  “Something extraordinary is going on—God grant that it may be for good!”

/>   And I went down in great perturbation.

  It was not a quarter of an hour since the first report, and the whole city was out. Some ran to the ramparts, others were in groups, shouting and disputing at the corners of the streets. Astonishment, fear, and anger were depicted upon every face.

  A large number of soldiers were mingled with the citizens, and all went up together in groups to the right and left of the French gate.

  I was about following one of these groups, when Burguet came down the street. He looked thin and emaciated, as on the day when I saw him in the market.

  “Well!” said I, running to meet him, “this is something serious!”

  “Very serious, and promising no good, Moses!” said he.

  “Yes, it is evident,” said I, “that the allies have gained victories; it may be that they are in Paris!”

  He turned around in alarm, and said in a low voice:

  “Take care, Moses, take care! If any one heard you, at a moment like this, the veterans would tear you in pieces!”

  I was dreadfully frightened, for I saw that he was right, while, as for him, his cheeks shook. He took me by the arm and said:

  “I owe you thanks for the provisions you sent me; they came very opportunely.”

  And when I answered that we should always have a morsel of bread at his service, so long as we had any left, he pressed my hand; and we went together up the street of the infantry quarters, as far as to the ice-house bastion, where two batteries had been placed to command the Mittelbronn hill. There we could see the road to Paris as far as to Petite Saint Jean, and even to Lixheim; but those great heaps of earth, called cavaliers, were covered with people; Baron Parmentier, his assistant Pipelingre, the old curate Leth, and many other men of note were there, in the midst of the crowd, looking on in silence. We had only to see their faces to know that something dreadful was happening.

  From this height on the talus, we saw what was riveting everybody’s attention. All our enemies, Austrians, Bavarians, Wurtemburgers, Russians, cavalry and infantry mixed together, were swarming around their intrenchments like ants, embracing each other, shaking hands, lifting their shakos on the points of their bayonets, waving branches of trees just beginning to turn green. Horsemen dashed across the plain, with their colbacs on the point of their swords, and rending the air with their shouts.