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

by Émile Erckmann

“What, you are going to leave us so soon?”

  “Yes, Wittmann. The days are short, and the roads difficult through the forests after six o’clock. I must get back early.”

  “Then a safe journey to you, Master Jean-Claude.”

  Hullin left, and crossed the square, turning away his face from the convoy, which still remained before the church.

  The innkeeper from his window watched him hurrying away, and thought to himself, “How white he looked on entering; he could hardly keep upright. It is queer that such a sturdy man, and an old soldier too, should not have energy enough for a cat. As for me, I would see fifty regiments go by on those carts without minding it any more than I did my first pipe.”

  CHAPTER IV

  MADAME LEFÈVRE

  While Hullin was learning the disaster of our armies, and was walking slowly, his head bent, and an anxious expression on his face, toward the village of Charmes, everything went on as usual at the farm of Bois-de-Chênes. No one thought of Yégof’s wonderful stories, or of the war: old Duchêne led his oxen to their drinking-place, the herdsman Robin turned over their litter; Annette and Jeanne skimmed their curdled milk. Only Catherine Lefèvre was silent and gloomy—thinking of days gone by—all the while superintending with an impassible face the occupations of her domestics. She was too old and too serious to forget from one day to another what had so much troubled her. When night came on, after the evening’s repast, she entered the great room, where her servants could hear her drawing the large register-book from the closet and putting it on the table, to sum up her accounts, as she was in the habit of doing.

  They soon began to load the cart with corn, vegetables, and poultry: for the next day there was a market at Sarrebourg, and Duchêne had to start early.

  Picture to yourself the great kitchen, and all these worthy folks hurrying to finish their work before going to rest: the black kettle, full of beetroot and potatoes destined for the cattle, boiling on an immense pinewood fire; the plates, dishes, and soup-tureens shining like suns on the shelves; the bunches of garlic and of reddish-brown onions hung up in rows to the beams of the ceiling, among the hams and flitches of bacon; Jeannie, in her blue cap and little red petticoat, stirring up the contents of the kettle with a big wooden spoon; the wicker cages, with the cackling fowls and great cock, who pushed his head through the bars and looked at the flames with a wondering eye and raised crest; the bull-dog Michel, with his flat head and hanging jowl, in search of some forgotten dish; Dubourg coming down the creaking staircase to the left, his back bent with a sack on his shoulder; while outside, in the dark night, old Duchêne, upright on the cart, lifted his lantern and called out, “That makes the fifteenth, Dubourg; two more.” One could see also, hanging against the wall, an old hare, brought by the hunter Heinrich to be sold at the market, and a fine grouse, with its purple and green plumage, dimmed eye, and a drop of blood at the end of its beak.

  It was about half-past seven when the sound of footsteps was heard at the entrance to the yard. The bull-dog went toward the door growling. He listened, sniffed the night air, then went back quietly, and began licking his dish again.

  “It is some one belonging to the farm,” said Annette. “Michel does not move.”

  Nearly at the same time, old Duchêne from outside called, “Good-night, Master Jean-Claude. Is it you?”

  “Yes. I come from Phalsbourg; and I am going to rest myself a minute before going down to the village. Is Catherine here?”

  And then the good man came forward to the light, his hat pushed off his face, and his roll of sheepskins on his back.

  “Good-night, my children,” said he; “good-night! Always at work!”

  “Yes, Monsieur Hullin, as you see,” replied Jeanne, laughing. “If one had nothing to do, life would be very wearisome.”

  “True, my pretty girl, true. It is only work which gives you your roses and brilliant eyes.”

  Jeanne was going to answer, when the door of the great room opened, and Catherine Lefèvre advanced, looking piercingly at Hullin, as though to guess beforehand what news he brought.

  “Well, Jean-Claude, you have returned.”

  “Yes, Catherine; with good tidings and bad.”

  They entered the large room—a high and spacious apartment wainscoted with wood to the ceiling, with its oak closets and their shining clasps, its iron stove opening into the kitchen, its old clock counting the seconds in its walnut-wood case, and the leathern arm-chair, worn and used by ten generations of aged men. Jean-Claude never went into this room without its bringing back to his remembrance Catherine’s grandfather, whom he seemed still to see, with his white head, sitting behind the oven in the dark.

  “Well?” demanded the old dame, offering a chair to the old shoemaker, who was just putting his pack down on the table.

  “Well, from Gaspard the tidings are good; the boy is in good health. He has had hardships. All the better: it will be the making of him. But for the rest, Catherine, it is bad. The war! the war!”

  He shook his head, and the old woman, her lips pressed, sat down facing him, upright in the armchair, her eyes attentively fastened on him.

  “So things look badly—decidedly—we shall have the war among us?”

  “Yes, Catherine, from day to day we may expect to see the allies in our mountains.”

  “I thought so. I was sure of it; but speak, Jean-Claude.”

  Hullin, then, his elbows on his knees, his red ears between his hands, and lowering his voice, began to relate all he had seen: the clearing of everything around the town, the placing of batteries on the ramparts, the proclamation of the state of siege, the cart-loads of wounded on the great square, his meeting with the old sergeant at Wittmann’s, and the story of the campaign. From time to time he paused, and the old mistress of the farm blinked her eyes slowly, as though to impress more deeply the various circumstances on her mind. When Jean-Claude told about the wounded, the good woman murmured softly—“Gaspard has then escaped it all!”

  Then, at the end of this mournful tale, there was a long silence, and both looked at each other without pronouncing a word.

  How many reflections, how many bitter feelings filled their souls!

  After some seconds, Catherine recovering from these terrible thoughts—“You see, Jean-Claude,” said she, in a serious tone. “Yégof was not wrong.”

  “Certainly, certainly, he was not wrong,” replied Hullin; “but what does that prove? A madman, who goes from village to village, who descends into Alsace, and from thence to Lorraine—who wanders from right to left—it would be very astonishing if he saw nothing, and if he did not sometimes tell the truth in his madness. Everything gets muddled in his head, and others believe they understand what he does not understand himself. But what of these wild stories, Catherine? The Austrians are upon us. It only concerns us to know if we shall allow them to pass, or if we shall have courage to defend ourselves.”

  “To defend ourselves!” cried the old woman, whose white cheeks trembled: “if we shall have courage to defend ourselves! Surely it is not to me that you speak, Hullin. What! are we not worthy of our ancestors? Did they not defend themselves? Were they not exterminated—men, women, and children?”

  “Then you are for the defence, Catherine?”

  “Yes, yes; so long as there remains to me a bit of skin on my bones. Let them come! The oldest of the women is ready!”

  Her masses of gray hair shook on her head, her pale rigid cheeks quivered, and her eyes sent forth lightnings. She was beautiful to see—beautiful, like that old Margareth of whom Yégof had spoken. Hullin held out his hand silently, and gave an enthusiastic smile.

  “Excellent,” said he, “excellent! We are always the same in this family. I know you, Catherine: you are ready now; but be calm and listen to me. We are going to fight, and in what way?”

  “In every way; all are good—axes, scythes, pitchforks.”

  “No doubt; but the best are muskets and the balls. We have muskets: every mounta
ineer keeps his above his door; unfortunately powder and balls are scarce.”

  The old dame became quieter all of a sudden; she pushed her hair back under her cap, and looked anxiously about.

  “Yes,” she rejoined brusquely; “the powder and balls are wanting, it is true, but we shall have some. Marc Divès, the smuggler, has some. You shall go and see him to-morrow from me. You shall tell him that Catherine Lefèvre will buy all his powder and balls; that she will pay him; that she will sell her cattle, her farm, land, everything—everything—to have some. Do you understand, Hullin?”

  “I understand. What you would do, Catherine, is noble.”

  “Bah! it is noble—it is noble!” replied the old dame. “It is quite simple; I wish to revenge myself. These Austrians—these red men who have already exterminated us—well! I hate them, I detest them, from father to son. There! you will buy powder, and these mad ruffians shall see if we will rebuild their castles.”

  Hullin then perceived that she still thought of Yégof’s tale; but seeing how exasperated she was, and that, besides, her idea contributed to the defence of the country, made no observation on that subject, and said calmly, “So, Catherine, it is settled; I am to go over to Marc Divès’s to-morrow!”

  “Yes! you shall buy all his powder and lead. Some one ought also to go the round of the mountain villages, to warn the people of what is coming, and to arrange a signal beforehand for bringing them together in case of attack.”

  “Do not fear,” said Jean-Claude. “I will undertake to charge myself with that.”

  Both rose and turned toward the door. For about half an hour no sounds were heard in the kitchen; the farm-servants had gone to bed. The old dame put down her lamp on the corner of the hearth, and drew the bolts. Outside the cold was intense, the air still and clear. All the peaks round, and the pine-trees of the Jägerthal, stood out against the sky in dark or light masses. In the distance, far away behind the hill-side, a fox giving chase could be heard yelping in the valley of Blanru.

  “Good-night, Hullin,” said Catherine.

  “Good-night.”

  Jean-Claude walked quickly away on the heath-covered slopes, and the mistress of the farm, after watching him for a second, shut her door again.

  I leave you to imagine the joy of Louise when she learnt that Gaspard was safe and sound. The poor child had hardly been living for two months. Hullin took care not to show her the dark cloud which was coming over the horizon.

  Through the night he could hear her prattling in her little room, talking as though congratulating herself, murmuring Gaspard’s name, opening her drawers and boxes, without doubt so as to hunt up some relics in them and tell them of her love.

  So the linnet drenched in the storm, will, while yet shivering, begin to sing and hop from branch to branch with the first sunbeam.

  CHAPTER V

  THE DEPOT

  When Jean-Claude Hullin, in his shirt-sleeves, opened the shutters of his little house the next morning, he saw all the neighboring mountains—the Jägerthal, the Grosmann, the Donon—covered with snow. This first appearance of winter, coming in our sleep, is very striking to us: the old pines, the mossy rocks, adorned only the night before with verdure, and now sparkling with rime, fill our souls with an indefinable sadness. “Another year gone by,” one says to one’s self; “another hard season to pass before the return of the flowers!” And one hastens to put on the great-coat and to light the fire. Your sombre habitation is filled with a white light, and outside, for the first time, you hear the sparrows—the poor sparrows huddled under the thatch, their feathers ruffled—calling, “No breakfast this morning—no breakfast!”

  Hullin drew on his big iron-nailed, double-soled shoes, and over his vest a great thick cloth waistcoat.

  He heard Louise walking overhead in the little garret.

  “Louise,” he cried, “I am going.”

  “What! you are going away to-day also?”

  “Yes, my child: it must be so: my affairs are not yet finished.”

  Then, having doffed his large hat, he went up the stair, and said, in a low tone: “Thou must not expect me back so soon, my child. I have to make some distant rounds. Do not be uneasy. If any one ask where I am, thou art to reply, ‘He is with Cousin Mathias at Saverne.’”

  “You will not have breakfast before leaving?”

  “No: I have a crust of bread and the small flask of brandy in my pocket. Adieu, my child! Rejoice, and dream of Gaspard.”

  And, without waiting for fresh questions, he took his stick and left the house, going in the direction of the hill of Bouleaux to the left of the village. In a quarter of an hour he had passed it by, and reached the path of the Trois-Fontaines, which winds round the Falkenstein along by a little wall of dry stones. The first snow, which never lasts in the damp shades of the valleys, was beginning to melt and run down the path. Hullin got on the wall to climb the ascent. On giving an accidental look toward the village, he saw a few women sweeping before their doors, a few old men wishing each other the “Good-day” while smoking their first pipes on the threshold of their cottages. The deep calm of life, in presence of his agitating thoughts, affected him much. He continued his way pensively, saying to himself, “How quiet everything is down there! Nobody has any idea of anything; yet in a few days, what clamors, what rolls of musketry, will rend the air!”

  As the first thing to be done was to procure powder, Catherine Lefèvre had very naturally cast her eyes on Marc Divès the smuggler, and his virtuous spouse, Hexe-Baizel.

  These people lived on the other side of the Falkenstein, under the base of the old ruined castle. They had hollowed inside a sort of den, very comfortable, possessing one door and two skylights, but according to certain rumors, communicating with ancient caves by a rift in the rock. The custom-house officers had never been able to discover these caves, notwithstanding numerous domiciliary visits for that purpose. Jean-Claude and Marc Divès had known each other from infancy; they had gone nesting together after hawks and owls, and since that time had seen each other nearly every week at the saw-mills of Valtin. Hullin, therefore, believed himself sure of the smuggler, but he had some doubts of Madame Hexe-Baizel, a most cautious person, who would not, in all probability, have the war-like instinct sufficiently developed. “But we shall see,” he said to himself as he went along.

  He had lit his pipe, and from time to time turned round to contemplate the immense landscape, whose limits were extending more and more.

  Nothing could be grander than those wooded mountains, rising one above the other in the pale sky—those vast heather plains, stretching as far as the eye could see, white with snow; those black ravines, shut in between the woods, with torrents at the bottom, dashing over the greenish pebbles polished like bronze.

  And then the silence—the great silence of winter! The soft snow falling from the top of the loftiest pine-trees onto their lower drooping branches: the birds of prey circling in couples above the forests, screaming out their war-cry: all this ought to be seen for it cannot be described.

  An hour after his departure from the village of Charmes, Hullin, climbing the summit of the peak, reached the base of the rock of the Arbousiers. All round this granite mass extends a sort of rugged terrace, three or four feet wide. This narrow passage, surrounded by the tall pines growing out from the precipice, looks dangerous, but it is safe; unless one feels dizzy, there is no danger in going along it. Overhead projects, in a vaulted arch, the rock covered with ruins.

  Jean-Claude was approaching the retreat of the smuggler. He halted a minute on the terrace, put back his pipe into his pocket, then advanced along the passage, which forms a half-circle, and ends on the other side with a chasm. Quite at the farthest extremity of it, and almost on the edge of the chasm, he perceived the two skylight windows of the den and the partly opened door. A great heap of manure was collected in front of it.

  At the same time Hexe-Baizel appeared, tossing, with a broom made of green furze, the manure into t
he abyss. This woman was small and hard-looking; she had shaggy red hair, hollow cheeks, pointed nose, little eyes, bright like two sparks, thin lips, very white teeth, and a florid complexion. As for her costume, it was composed of a short dirty woollen petticoat, and a coarse but clean chemise; her brown, muscular arms, covered with yellow hairs, were bare to the elbows, notwithstanding the excessive cold of the winter at this height; and, lastly, all she had on her feet were a pair of long shoes hanging in shreds.

  “Ha! good-day, Hexe-Baizel,” Jean-Claude called out, good naturedly but with a tone of raillery. “You are always fair and fat, happy and lively! It gives me pleasure!”

  Hexe-Baizel turned sharply, like a weasel surprised on the watch; her red hair stiffened, and her little eyes flashed fire. However, she calmed down immediately, and exclaimed, in a curt voice, as though speaking to herself, “Hullin—the shoemaker! What does he want?”

  “I am come to see my friend Marc, fair Hexe-Baizel,” replied Jean-Claude; “we have some business to settle together.”

  “What business?”

  “Ah, it only concerns us. Here let me pass that I may speak to him.”

  “Marc is asleep.”

  “Well, he must be awakened then; the time is precious.”

  So saying, Hullin stooped under the door, and penetrated into a cavern, whose vault, instead of being round, was composed of irregular curves, scored with fissures. Close to the entrance, two feet from the ground, the rock formed a sort of natural fireplace, on which burned a few coals and branches of juniper. Hexe-Baizel’s culinary utensils consisted of an iron kettle, a stone pot, two broken plates, and three or four tin forks; her furniture comprised a wooden stool, a hatchet to split wood, a salt box fastened to the rock, and her large furze broom. To the left of this kitchen was another cavern, with a curious door, larger at the top than at the bottom, closing by aid of two planks and a cross-bar.

  “Well, where is Marc?” said Hullin, seating himself near the hearth.

  “I have already told you that he is asleep. He returned home late yesterday. My husband must sleep, don’t you hear?”