by Paul Negri
“But what’s the matter? You’re hiding something from me.”
“No, I swear I’m not. I had to run to get here.”
He kissed her, saying that it would be imprudent for her and for him to talk any longer; and he made a move to climb out of the ditch so as to reenter the forest. She held him back. She was trembling.
“Listen, maybe it would be better all the same if you stayed here . . . No one is looking for you, you have nothing to fear.”
“Françoise, you’re hiding something from me,” he repeated.
Again she swore that she wasn’t hiding anything from him. It was just that she preferred knowing he wasn’t far away from her. And she stammered out other excuses. She seemed to him to be acting so oddly that now he himself would have refused to go far away. Besides, he firmly believed that the French would return. Troops had been sighted in the direction of Sauval.
“Oh, make them hurry, let them be here as soon as possible!” she murmured fervently.
At that moment the church bell of Rocreuse struck eleven. The ringing reached them clearly and distinctly. She stood up, frightened; it was two hours since she had left the mill.
“Listen,” she said swiftly, “if we should have need of you, I’ll go up to my room and wave my handkerchief.”
And she left at a run, while Dominique, very worried, stretched out on the rim of the ditch to survey the mill. As she was about to enter Rocreuse, Françoise met an elderly beggar, old Bontemps, who was familiar with the whole region. He greeted her; he had just seen the miller in the midst of the Prussians; then, crossing himself repeatedly and muttering broken phrases, he continued on his way.
“The two hours have passed,” said the officer when Françoise appeared.
Old Merlier was there, sitting on the bench near the well, and still smoking. Once again the girl begged, wept, knelt. She wanted to gain time. The hope of seeing the French return had grown stronger in her mind, and while she was lamenting she thought she could hear far off the regular steps of an army on the march. Oh, if they would only appear, if they would only set them all free!
“Listen, sir, an hour, just one more hour . . . You surely can grant us an hour!”
But the officer remained unbending. He even ordered two men to seize her and take her away, so they could proceed calmly with the execution of the old man. Then, a fearful combat took place in Françoise’s heart. She couldn’t let her father be murdered that way. No, no, rather than that, she would die along with Dominique; and she was dashing toward her room when Dominique himself entered the courtyard.
The officer and the soldiers uttered a cry of triumph. But as for him, as if no one were around but Françoise, he walked over to her calmly and a little sternly.
“This is bad,” he said. “Why didn’t you bring me back with you? I had to hear about everything from old Bontemps . . . Anyway, here I am.”
V
It was three o’clock. Big black clouds had slowly filled the sky, the tip of some nearby storm. That yellow sky, those coppery shreds, changed the valley of Rocreuse, so cheerful in the sunlight, into a lair of assassins filled with suspicious shadows. The Prussian officer had simply had Dominique locked up, without making a declaration about the fate he had in store for him. Since noon, Françoise had felt the agonies of an unspeakable anguish. She didn’t want to leave the courtyard in spite of her father’s urging. She was waiting for the French to come. But the hours went by, night was on the way, and she was suffering all the more because it didn’t seem as if all that time gained could change the awful ending.
Meanwhile, about three, the Prussians made their preparations to withdraw. For a while, as on the day before, the officer had closeted himself with Dominique. Françoise had understood that the young man’s future was being decided. Then she joined her hands in prayer. Old Merlier, beside her, maintained his wordless, rigid bearing, that of an old peasant who doesn’t fight against the inevitability of facts.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” Françoise stammered. “They’re going to kill him . . .”
The miller drew her near him and took her on his knees like a child.
At that moment the officer came out, while, behind him, two men were bringing Dominique.
“Never! Never!” the young man was shouting. “I’m ready to die.”
“Think it over carefully,” the officer replied. “This service you refuse to do for me will be done for us by someone else. I offer you your life, I’m generous . . . All you need to do is guide us to Montredon across the woods. There must be paths there.”
Dominique no longer answered.
“So you remain obstinate?”
“Kill me and get it over with,” he replied.
Françoise, her hands joined, was beseeching him from a distance. She forgot everything else, she would have advised him to be a coward. But old Merlier took hold of her hands, so that the Prussians wouldn’t see her gesture, like that of a maddened woman.
“He’s right,” he murmured, “it’s better to die.”
The firing squad was there. The officer was waiting for Dominique to weaken. He still expected to convince him. There was a silence. Far off violent thunderclaps were heard. An oppressive heat crushed the countryside. It was during that silence that a shout resounded:
“The French! The French!”
It was, in fact, they. On the Sauval road, at the edge of the forest, the line of red trousers could be discerned. There was an unusual bustle in the mill. The Prussian soldiers were running, with guttural exclamations. Still, not a shot had yet been fired.
“The French! The French!” cried Françoise, clapping her hands.
She acted like a lunatic. She had wrenched herself from her father’s grasp, and she laughed, arms in the air. So they had finally come, and had come in time, because Dominique was still there, standing!
A terrible volley of shots, which exploded in her ears like a thunderclap, made her turn around. The officer had just muttered:
“Before anything else, let’s finish off this business.”
And, he himself shoving Dominique against the wall of a shed, he had given the order to fire. When Françoise turned, Dominique was on the ground with twelve bullet holes in his chest.
She didn’t weep, she stood there in a stupor. Her eyes became fixed, and she went and sat down below the shed, a few steps from the body. She was watching; at moments she made a vague, childish gesture with her hand. The Prussians had seized old Merlier as a hostage.
It was a fine fight. The officer had rapidly stationed his men, realizing he couldn’t beat a retreat without being overpowered. His best bet was to sell his life dearly. Now it was the Prussians who were defending the mill and the French who were attacking it. The fusillade began with unheard-of violence. It didn’t stop for a half-hour. Then, a muffled explosion was heard and a cannonball broke one of the biggest boughs of the centuries-old elm. The French had artillery. A battery, located right above the ditch in which Dominique had hidden, was sweeping the main street of Rocreuse. The battle couldn’t last long, after that.
Ah, the poor mill! Cannonballs were piercing it through and through. Half the roofing was blown away. Two walls collapsed. But it was especially on the Morelle side that the disaster became lamentable. The ivy, torn away from the shaken walls, was hanging like ragged clothing; the stream was carrying off debris of all sorts, and through a breach in the wall could be seen Françoise’s bedroom, with its bed, whose white curtains were carefully drawn. One after another, the old wheel was hit by two cannonballs, and emitted one last moan: the wheel paddles were carried away in the current, and the framework crashed. The soul of the jolly mill had just been breathed away.
Then the French moved in for the attack. There was a furious combat with swords. Beneath the rust-colored sky, the assassins’ lair of the valley filled up with dead men. The wide meadows seemed fierce, with their tall, isolated trees and their curtains of poplars casting blotches of darkness. To the right and to the left, the forests w
ere like the walls of an amphitheater that enclosed the combatants; while the springs, fountains, and running waters began to sound like sobbing, in the panic of the countryside.
Below the shed, Françoise hadn’t stirred, crouched there opposite Dominique’s body. Old Merlier had just been killed outright by a stray bullet. Then, when the Prussians were wiped out and the mill was burning, the French captain was the first to enter the courtyard. Since the beginning of the campaign, this had been his only success. And so, at the height of excitement, straightening up his tall body to the utmost, he was laughing with his affable air of a dashing cavalier. And, catching sight of Françoise insensible between the bodies of her husband and her father, amid the smoking ruins of the mill, he saluted her gallantly with his sword, crying:
“Victory! Victory!”
Prosper Mérimée
MATEO FALCONE
Leaving Porto-Vecchio and heading northwest, toward the interior of the island, you see the terrain rising quite rapidly; and after walking three hours along twisting paths, obstructed by large boulders and sometimes intersected by ravines, you find yourself at the edge of a very extensive area of brushwood. This brush is the home of the Corsican shepherds and of anyone who has fallen afoul of the law. You must know that the Corsican farmer, to save himself the trouble of manuring his field, sets fire to a certain stretch of forest: it’s just too bad if the flames spread farther than necessary—let things take their course!—he’ll be sure to have a good crop if he sows on that soil fertilized by the ashes of the trees that once grew on it. After the ears of grain are removed—they leave the stalks, which would be bothersome to gather—the roots that have remained in the soil without being burned put out shoots the following spring, very thick clusters that in a very few years reach a height of seven or eight feet. It is this type of dense underbrush that is called maquis. It is made up of various species of trees and bushes, mingled and confused as God wishes. A man can only open a passage through it with an axe in his hands, and you can find areas of brush so thick and close that even the wild sheep can’t penetrate them.
If you’ve killed a man, go to the Porto-Vecchio maquis, and you’ll be safe there with a good rifle, powder, and bullets; don’t forget a brown cape furnished with a hood,1 which serves as a blanket and a mattress. The shepherds will give you milk, cheese, and chestnuts, and you’ll have nothing to fear from the law or the dead man’s relatives, except when you have to go down to the town to get more ammunition there.
When I was in Corsica in 18––, Mateo Falcone’s house was located half a league from this maquis. He was rather wealthy for that vicinity, living like a nobleman—that is, he did no work himself, but lived off the produce of his flocks, which shepherds of a nomadic type led out to graze here and there in the mountains. When I saw him, two years after the event I’m about to narrate, he seemed to me to be fifty at the very most. Picture a short but robust man with frizzy hair as black as jet, an aquiline nose, thin lips, large, alert eyes, and a complexion the color of boot tops. His skill with a rifle was deemed extraordinary, even in his country, where there are so many good shots. For example, Mateo would never have fired at a wild sheep with buckshot, but, at a hundred twenty paces, he would bring it down with a bullet in the head or shoulder, just as he chose. He used his weapons at night as easily as by day, and I’ve been told about a feat of his that may seem incredible to those who haven’t visited Corsica. At eighty paces, a lighted candle was placed behind a sheet of translucent paper the width of a plate. He took aim, then the candle was extinguished, and after a minute in the most total darkness, he would fire, hitting the paper three times out of four.
With such transcendent merit, Mateo Falcone had acquired a great reputation. He was said to be as good to have as a friend as he was dangerous to have as an enemy: helpful and charitable besides, he lived at peace with everyone in the Porto-Vecchio district. But the story was told of him that, in Corte, where he had taken a wife, he had most vigorously gotten rid of a rival said to be as formidable in war as in love: at least, Mateo was credited with a certain rifle shot that took this rival by surprise as he was shaving in front of a small mirror hanging in his window. When the matter had quieted down, Mateo married. His wife, Giuseppa, had at first given him three daughters (which made him furious), but finally a son, whom he named Fortunato: he was the hope of the family, the heir to his name. The girls had made good marriages: their father could count on the daggers and blunderbusses of his sons-in-law in an emergency. The son was only ten, but he already gave promise of gratifying natural gifts.
On a certain autumn day, Mateo went out early with his wife to visit one of his flocks in a clearing in the maquis. Little Fortunato wanted to accompany him, but the clearing was too far; besides, it was necessary for someone to stay and guard the house; thus, his father refused: we shall see whether he didn’t have occasion to regret it.
He had been gone for several hours, and little Fortunato was peacefully stretched out in the sun, looking at the blue mountains and thinking that, on the following Sunday, he would go and dine in town at the home of his uncle the caporale,2 when he was suddenly interrupted in his meditations by the report of a firearm. He got up and turned toward the direction in the plain from which that sound had come. Other rifle shots followed, fired at unequal intervals, and coming nearer and nearer all the time; at last, on the path that led from the plain to Mateo’s house, there appeared a man wearing a pointed cap like those worn by mountaineers; he was bearded, covered with rags, and dragging himself along painfully, using his rifle for support. He had just been shot in the thigh.
This man was a bandit3 who had set out at night to get gunpowder in town and, on the way, had fallen into an ambush laid by Corsican light infantrymen.4 After defending himself vigorously, he had managed to beat a retreat, eagerly pursued and taking pot shots from one boulder to another. But he wasn’t far ahead of the soldiers, and his wound made him incapable of reaching the maquis before they caught up with him.
He approached Fortunato and said:
“You’re the son of Mateo Falcone?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Gianetto Sanpiero. I’m being pursued by the yellow collars.5 Hide me, because I can’t go any farther.”
“And what will my father say if I hide you without his permission?”
“He’ll say you did the right thing.”
“Who knows?”
“Hide me fast; they’re coming.”
“Wait for my father to get back.”
“Wait? Damnation! They’ll be here in five minutes. Come on, hide me, or I’ll kill you.”
Fortunato replied with the greatest coolness:
“Your rifle is unloaded and there are no more cartridges in your carchera.”6
“I have my stiletto.”
“But will you run as fast as me?”
He made a jump, placing himself out of reach.
“You’re not the son of Mateo Falcone! So you’ll let me be arrested in front of your house?”
The child seemed to be affected by this.
“What’ll you give me if I hide you?” he asked, coming closer.
The bandit groped through a leather pouch that hung from his belt, and pulled out a five-franc piece that he had no doubt kept to buy powder with. Fortunato smiled when he saw the silver coin; he seized it, saying to Gianetto:
“Don’t worry about a thing.”
At once he made a large hole in a haystack located near the house. Gianetto huddled in it, and the child covered him up in such a way that he left him a little air to breathe, but it was nevertheless impossible to suspect that the hay concealed a man. On top of that, he thought of a primitive ruse that was quite ingenious. He went and got a cat and her kittens and placed them on the haystack to give the impression that it hadn’t been touched recently. Next, noticing traces of blood on the path near the house, he carefully covered them with dust; after that, he lay down in the sun again as calmly as could be.
; A few minutes later, six men in brown uniforms with yellow collars, commanded by a sergeant-major, stood in front of Mateo’s door. This sergeant was very slightly related to Falcone. (As is well known, in Corsica degrees of kinship are traced much further than elsewhere.) His name was Tiodoro Gamba; he was an active man, much dreaded by the bandits, several of whom he had already tracked down.
“Hello, little cousin,” he said to Fortunato, coming up to him. “My, but you’ve grown! Did you see a man go by a little while ago?”
“Oh! I’m still not as big as you, cousin,” the child replied, playing the simpleton.
“You’ll get there. But, tell me, didn’t you see a man go by?”
“Did I see a man go by?”
“Yes, a man with a black-velvet pointed cap and a jacket embroidered in red and yellow.”
“A man with a pointed cap and a jacket embroidered in red and yellow?”
“Yes, answer fast, and don’t repeat my questions.”
“This morning the parish priest passed by our door on his horse Piero. He asked me how Papa was feeling, and I told him . . .”
“Ah, you little scamp, you’re trying to be smart! Tell me quickly which way Gianetto went—he’s the one we’re looking for—and I’m sure he took this path.”
“Who knows?”
“Who knows? I know that you saw him.”
“Do you see people pass by when you’re sleeping?”
“You weren’t sleeping, you scamp; the rifle shots woke you up.”
“Cousin, do you really think your rifles make so much noise? My father’s blunderbuss makes much more.”
“The devil take you, you damned brat! I’m sure you saw Gianetto. Maybe you even hid him. Come on, men, go into this house and see if our man isn’t there. He was walking on only one leg and he has too much good sense, the rogue, to have tried to reach the maquis hobbling along. Besides, the trail of blood stops here.”
“And what will Papa say?” Fortunato asked, snickering. “What will he say if he finds out his house has been entered while he was out?”