The Invasion of France in 1814. Erckmann-ChatrianЧитать онлайн книгу.
older men smiled gloomily, as though to say: "Yes, yes, she will come, thy mother!" Perhaps they did not think of anything all the time.
Now and then a shudder would pass along the whole of them. Then several wounded could be seen half lifting themselves, with deep groans, and falling back as if death had gone its rounds at that moment.
And again everything relapsed into silence. While Hullin was watching, and feeling sick to his heart's core, a shopkeeper in the vicinity, Sôme the baker, came out of his house carrying a large basin of soup. Then you should have seen all these spectres move, their eyes sparkle, their nostrils dilate; they seemed born again. The unhappy fellows were dying of hunger!
Good Father Sôme, with tears in his eyes, approached, saying, "I am coming, my children. A little patience! It is I, you know me!"
But hardly was he near the first cart, when the great carbineer with the ashy cheeks, reviving, plunged his arm up to the elbow in the boiling basin, seized the meat, and hid it under his vest. It was done with the rapidity of lightning. Savage yells arose on all sides: those men, if they had had strength to move, would have devoured their comrade. He, his arms pressed tightly to his chest, the teeth on has prey, and glaring round him, appeared to hear nothing. At these cries an old soldier, a sergeant, rushed out of the nearest inn. He was an old hand; he understood at once what it was about, and, without useless reflections, he tore away the meat from the wild beast, saying to him, "Thou dost not deserve any! It must be divided into parts. We will cut ten rations!"
"We are only eight!" said one of the wounded, very calm to all appearance, but with eyes gleaming out of their bronze mask.
"How, eight?"
"You can see, sergeant, that those two are dying fast: it would be so much food lost!"
The old sergeant looked.
"Eight," said he; "eight rations!"
Hullin could bear it no longer. He went over to the innkeeper Wittmann's opposite, as white as death; Wittmann was also a fur and leather merchant. Seeing him enter, "Hé! is it you, Master Jean-Claude?" he exclaimed. "You arrive sooner than usual; I did not expect you till next week." Then seeing how he staggered – "But say, you are ill?"
"I have just seen the wounded."
"Ah, yes! the first time, it shocks you; but if you had seen fifteen thousand pass, as we have, you would not think anything more about it."
"A glass of wine, quick?" said Hullin, who felt badly. "Oh, mankind, mankind! And to think that we are brothers!"
"Yes, brothers until it touches your purse," replied Wittmann. "Come, drink! that will set you right."
"And you have seen fifteen thousand go by?" rejoined the shoemaker.
"At the least, for two months, without speaking of those who have remained in Alsace and the other side of the Rhine; for, you comprehend, they cannot find carts enough for all, and then many are not worth the trouble of being carried away."
"Yes, I comprehend! But why are they there, those poor creatures? Why do they not go into the hospital?"
"The hospital! What is one hospital, ten hospitals, for fifty thousand wounded? Every hospital, from Mayence and Coblentz as far as Phalsbourg, is crowded. And, besides, that terrible fever, typhus, you see, Hullin, kills more than the bullet. All the villages of the plain twenty leagues round are infected with it; they die everywhere like flies. Luckily the town has been in a state of siege these three days; the gates will be closed, and no more will enter. I have lost, for my part, my Uncle Christian and my Aunt Lisbeth, as healthy, solid people as you and I, Master Jean-Claude. At last the cold has arrived; last night there was a white frost."
"And the wounded remained on the pavements all night?"
"No, they came from Saverne this morning; in an hour or two, when the horses are rested, they will leave for Sarrebourg."
At that moment, the old sergeant, who had re-established order in the carts, came in rubbing his hands.
"Hé! hé!" said he, "it freshens, Papa Wittmann. You did well to light the fire in the stove. A little glass of cognac to drive away the fog. Hum! hum!"
His small half-closed eyes, his beaked nose, the cheek-bones being separated from it by two flourishing wrinkles, which were lost to sight in a long reddish imperial – everything looked gay in his face, and told of a jovial, kind disposition. It was a regular military face, scorched, burnt by the open air, full of frankness, but also of a cheery slyness; his great shako, his blue-gray cloak, the shoulder-belt, the epaulette, seemed to partake of his individuality. One could not have represented him without them. He walked up and down the room, continuing to rub his hands, while Wittmann poured him a glass of brandy. Hullin, seated near the window, had at once noticed the number of his regiment – 6th Light Infantry. Gaspard, the son of Madame Lefèvre, served in this regiment. Jean-Claude could now obtain some tidings of the lover of Louise; but, as he was going to speak, his heart beat loud. If Gaspard was dead; if he had perished like so many others!
The worthy shoemaker felt nearly suffocated; he kept silent. "Better to know nothing," thought he. However, a few minutes later, he could do so no longer. "Sergeant," said he, in a hoarse voice, "you are in the 6th Light Infantry?"
"Yes, my citizen," said the other, turning round in the middle of the room.
"Do you know one called Gaspard Lefèvre?"
"Gaspard Lefèvre, of the 2d division of the 1st? Parbleu, if I know him! It is I who taught him his drill. A brave soldier! hardened against fatigue. If we had a hundred thousand of that stamp – "
"Then he lives? he is well?"
"Yes, citizen. Eight days ago I left the regiment at Fredericsthal to escort this convoy of wounded. You understand, it is hot there – one cannot answer for anything. From one moment to the other, each of us may have his business settled for him. But eight days ago, at Fredericsthal – the 15th December – Gaspard Lefèvre still answered to the roll-call."
Jean-Claude breathed. "But then, sergeant, have the goodness to tell me why Gaspard has not written to his village for two months?"
The old soldier smiled, and blinked his little eyes. "Ah! now, citizen, do you then believe that one has nothing else to do on the march but to write?"
"No. I have served; I was in the campaigns of Sambre-et-Meuse, of Egypt and Italy, but that did not prevent me from giving some news of myself."
"One instant, comrade," interrupted the sergeant. "I have passed through Egypt and Italy also; the campaign we are finishing is altogether different."
"It has then been very severe?"
"Severe! one must have one's soul driven into every part of one's members, so as not to leave one's bones there. All was against us: sickness, traitors, peasants, townsfolk, our allies – in fact all! From our company, which was complete when we quitted Phalsbourg, the 21st of last January, only thirty-four men remain. I believe Gaspard Lefèvre is the only conscript left. Those poor conscripts! they fought well; but they were not accustomed to endure hardships: they melted like butter in an oven." So saying, the old sergeant approached the counter and drank his glass off at one draught. "To your health, my citizen. Are you perchance the father of Gaspard?"
"No, I am a relation."
"Well, you can pride yourselves on being stoutly built in your family. What a man at twenty! He has gone through everything – he has, while the others fell away in dozens."
"But," rejoined Hullin, after an instant's silence, "I cannot see anything so very different in this last campaign; for we also had sickness and traitors."
"Anything different!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Everything was different! Formerly, if you have gone through the war in Germany, you ought to remember that, after one or two victories, it was over: the people received you well; one drank the little white wines, and ate sauerkraut and ham with the townsfolk; one danced with the buxom wives. The husbands and grandpapas laughed heartily, and when the regiment left, everybody cried. But this time, after Lutzen and Bautzen, instead of feeling kindly, the people regarded us with diabolical faces; we could get nothing out of them but by force; one could