THE SLOPES ARE FORBIDDEN
November 20, 1914.
Snow has been falling throughout the night. Risking a shot, for the new orders from headquarters are still more stringent, I walked for a good hour at dawn upon the northern ramparts. When the sun rose over the village of Hepperg there was sketched in the opposite quarter, towards France, in three strokes of the brush, the most striking of pastels: in the foreground, the old gold of the oaks, flaming, sanguine, and burnished: in the middle distance, the wide field of virgin snow; in the background, the heavy and sombre line of the pines, interspersed with larches, sparkling with hoar-frost.
Solitude amid inanimate things, in the morning, restores me to the tranquil possession of myself, induces a peaceful, strong, and simple happiness which neither the society of my fellows, nor meditation, nor prayer can ever furnish. At one time this calm, as of Eden, used to terrify me. It seemed to me impious. When, as a youth, I loitered among the wild oak-groves which form scattered oases amid the limestone mazes of Païolive in Vivarais, it seemed to me that their shade was stifling my faith, that the seated giants of white stone, amid which the Ardèche has hollowed its precipitous channel, were swallowing my Christian dogmas, and that my Eliacin-like fervours were evaporating into the torrid sky, passing upward with the furnace breath which rises in summer from this formidable landscape.
Since then, however, I have learned to feel no doubt regarding the primacy of man vis-à-vis the grandeur of inanimate things.
No, my delight in natural scenery is by no means pantheistic. I believe too firmly in the hierarchy of creation, and I am too strongly imbued with the Christian conception that man is a person, as it were a son of God, an absolute individuality, inviolable, raised above life and death, to be able to lose my sense of personal identity in the contemplation of rocks, fields, and woodlands. It is simply that I love fresh air and open spaces; I love the lineaments of nature, which are more beautiful than the doings of men; I love the society of the meadows and of the trees, a society which is less importunate and talkative than that of my fellows, and which never fails to restore me to myself. Perhaps, moreover, I tend instinctively to idolize colour and light, seeing that God has concentrated in my eyes, above all, the power of sensuous appreciation.
This morning I was interested in watching the gambols of an ermine which had just captured a small black mammal. Supple, slim, and snake-like, it sat up from time to time to look around. It was hard to distinguish, despite its black tail-tip, from the surrounding snow, though this had a bluish tint in contrast with the ermine’s fur, in which there were subtle shades of green. I stood motionless on the footpath, wrapped in the soft cloak which Mme. Paul Weiss has just sent me. The little beast advanced fearlessly towards me, joyously shaking the prey that it carried in its jaws. Did it take me for a tree?
I move my barberry switch. The ermine stops. Sitting up, it looks at me for a long time. How pretty it is, slender and graceful! I think of Musette, a black English greyhound, with perfect points, which won the first prize at Lyons, and was the delight of my eyes for three years. Dear Musette! We were always together. The first time we were parted she died. Madeleine, my favourite little sister, was charged with giving me the news. She wrote me a letter of eight pages. I still recall her great childish handwriting. Her kind heart had inspired the most touching precautions, and suggested the use of angelic phraseology. “We have buried her,” she wrote in conclusion, “in that corner of the garden you are so fond of, beneath the oleanders.”
I continue to look at the ermine, but the animal is doubtless ready for breakfast. Evading the danger, it descends the slope, gains the traverse, and runs restlessly to and fro. I trouble it. Most probably I am between it and its earth. I go.
As I make my way on to the escarp I meet Noverraz, the Parisian, the hero of the look-out episode. He is taking a constitutional in the snow. His waxen skin, pinched by the cold, has red patches on it. His ears and the tip of his nose are scarlet.
“Where have you been?” he inquires.
“Beyond the slopes. I must have walked quite a league this morning. It was glorious!”
“Take care, old chap, if you value a whole skin.”
“Bah!”
“My dear fellow, this is what happened to me on Thursday morning. It must have been about half-past eight. I am taking a walk with my chums of casemate 23. There is a regular London fog. All at once, at the bottom of the west court, we hear the jabber of Boche. I imagine that it is the disciplinary company breaking stones, as usual, in front of the battery. Durand, however, clambers up the slope. After peering over the edge, he makes signs to us to join him. On the road that runs by the ditch are two sections, standing at ease in columns of fours. Their officer is on horseback, wearing a huge grey cloak. He is making a speech to his men. My attention is riveted by the word Frankreich. I scramble a little higher. Stretched at full length, my head just above the edge, among the grass, I listen with all my ears: ‘Get this firmly fixed in your minds,’ says the captain, ‘for we must not fail to learn all we can from these French rascals [diese Lumpen von Franzosen]. Let me repeat: they climb into the trees; they install their machine guns among the branches; they wait there in absolute silence. The German scouts have examined the ground only. Our men pass by. Then comes a sound like thunder! We are mowed down from behind by a rain of bullets. Such are the tricks of these monkeys! Well, let us meet ruse by ruse, stratagem by stratagem. Listen carefully. You are at the front. You dig your trench, the admirable German trench. You settle yourself there comfortably. You are invulnerable. Thence, quite at your ease and without danger, you can fire at the French lines. Is this all? No. In advance of your real trench, eighty or a hundred yards away, you hastily dig another trench. You fill it with dummies. It is quite easy—any old rags of clothing will do. These pigs of Frenchmen [diese Sauleute, dieses Schweinvolk] can fire at this as long as they please. Then, when the assault comes, when they rush into this hole thinking that they’ve got you, you have an admirable target, at short range, and you can quietly exterminate them.’
“Such are the officer’s words. At this moment one of his men asks a question, and I take the opportunity of changing my position, so that I am exposed down to the waist. The captain catches sight of me. After glaring at me for a moment, he demands a rifle, shoulders it, and fires. Nothing happens; the breech is empty. We do not budge. The captain is furious. ‘Give me a cartridge!’ He loads the rifle and shoulders it once more. My comrades and I are about to take cover behind the slope when the shot is fired. It must be a blank cartridge, for we hear no whistle of a bullet. The Boches burst out laughing. Corporal Durand, standing erect with folded arms, gazes at them mockingly. He intends to stay there. ‘My good man,’ I exclaim, ‘hurry up and get down!’ The captain is asking for another cartridge. ‘This time,’ I say, ‘it will probably be a bullet!’
“There you have it. This is exactly what happened. I did not lose a word or a gesture. You had better be careful. With your mania for ranging the outer regions of the fort, you will get your skin perforated one fine morning.”