CHAPTER X
Herr Bubenpech had hardly been appointed commandant in Morny when the enemy took a new step in the organisation of the country. From that moment two or three spectacled scribes gathered together in a large schoolroom, labelled "Bureau" both in French and in German, and busied themselves with endless scribblings. They drew up lists of the male inhabitants of the village, who twice a month had to be present when their names were called over. They put in writing all the divers tasks required of the villagers. They kept an account of the allowance of food sometimes granted to the civilians. They distributed passports and they superintended requisitions. From the outset Bubenpech seemed eager to show he was hard to please. The rural constable was ordered to announce that gold was to be brought to the "bureau," where the owners would be given bank-notes in its stead, according to the simplest exchange, 100 marks for 125 francs.
Pieces of gold are not readily drawn out of the stockings. Yet a few of them had to come forth. I am afraid that since then the invaders have managed to empty them; but at that time they were only at the heel.
By mere chance Morny had as yet paid no more than the contribution of war which had been levied on the whole country soon after the invasion. Other villages less fortunate than ours had been overburdened with taxes upon the most ridiculous pretences. A poor hamlet, Coucy les Eppes, was fined six times during the space of a few months. First came the general contribution. Then a fine of half a million francs was imposed upon the canton of Sissonne, to which Coucy belongs, and every village had to pay its share. It so happened that in September some soldiers, coming back from Reims, drove their carts through Sissonne, and as their carts were loaded with bottles of wine, they drank all the way, and threw empty bottles behind them. Then came motor-cars, which punctured their tyres on the broken glass. Great scandal! The civilians were accused of having put a trap for honest Prussian wheels. Their protestations availed nothing. The canton was condemned to a fine; the canton must pay; and Coucy paid like the other communes.
When all houses were searched after the great proclamation of November, an old flint-lock, kept in memory of an ancestor, was discovered in Coucy at an old maiden lady's. It never struck the owner that she should have brought it to the Mayor's house, or hidden it. And suppose the old maiden lady had shouldered the ancient gun? It is enough to make you shudder when you think of the danger the German army might have thus incurred. As quick as could be a few thousand francs were levied on the village which dared be subversive enough to conceal an old maid and an old gun. Even then the troubles of the poor village did not come to an end. A French aviator dropped a bomb on the station, and the bomb disturbed a few German carriages. The military authority knitted its brows.
"Why! This Coucy is talked of again! Let it have a good fine, and it will keep quiet."
For what reasons had this village to bleed itself and borrow from the town in order to pay the invader twice more, I do not know, but so it was. Morny's turn was coming. One night a barn of the farm where the Hussars were quartered took fire, and was soon in a blaze with the straw it contained. The whole village ran to quench the conflagration. We stood near-by just long enough to see the peasants put the fire out with all speed, while the soldiers folded their arms, and were pleased to be amused. Von Bernhausen and Bubenpech looked on at the spectacle. Then Von Bernhausen thought proper to rate the Mayor sharply:
"There are not people enough.... Go and fetch civilians.... Be quick...."
All the able-bodied men of the village were summoned, and they sweated while the Hussars made sport of them. The Gazette des Ardennes, which took the place of the Journal de Guerre to the very best advantage, does not relate such accidents in this wise, but I can only narrate what my eyes have seen.
Bubenpech rubbed his hands. He had found an opportunity to show his zeal. With all speed he sent a report to the Staff, upon which he depended, stating that civilians had set the barn on fire out of spite. He forgot to add that a few hours before the disaster the Hussars had burnt their dirty, lousy mattresses in the neighbourhood of the said barn, where, besides, soldiers had been seen smoking many a time with perfect serenity.
So stout gentlemen in full uniform came to Morny, and with reproachful looks stalked majestically through the streets. A chance was given us to atone for the misdeed. If within twenty-four hours information was lodged against the civilian who had set fire to the barn, the village might be forgiven. Should the contrary happen, a severe penalty would be immediately enforced. No denunciation, and for good reasons. The people were convinced that the soldiers had kindled the straw on purpose. The military authorities, grieved to the heart, imprisoned, without further delay, the Mayor and six notable persons. Then they deliberated upon the matter, and always regretfully imposed a fine of 16,000 francs on the village. They ordered the other prisoners to be set at liberty after three days, but kept the Mayor under lock and key for two weeks, ill fed and worse lodged. M. Lonet and another municipal councillor went the round of the village, and did their best to get the sum required. They managed to collect 12,000 francs, and the Germans had to be content with that for the present. They knew only too well that they would catch us again.
Besides other cares worried us. In February 1915 our houses were again searched from top to bottom. It was proclaimed that the inhabitants should declare the quantity of corn, flour, and vegetables they had in store, so that the provisions might be requisitioned according to the needs of the German army. And mysterious sacks, closed baskets, furtive barrows were seen in Morny. There was an air of haste; men passed close to the walls, went along out-of-the-way paths, up to attics, down into holes. When the day of perquisition came—the Germans believed their own eyes rather than the declarations of the natives—there were tears and gnashing of teeth. Treasures were discovered, potatoes and corn dug up. The Germans laid hold of everything; they even despoiled the very poor of their slender provisions. For instance, our neighbours, the Branchiers, a very young couple, whose joint ages were less than forty years, who had only an empty purse and about thirty kilos of potatoes, were robbed to the very last shred.
That they might not lose a single potato they carefully raked Mme. Turgau's shed all around, and seized forty, though the poor woman has four children, who do not live upon nothing. We, in our house, tired of the war, hid nothing at all. We had possessed for a fortnight four sacks of wheat, which we had bought from a farmer, who had mysteriously sold this secret hoard. Where, I beg of you, could you conceal four sacks of wheat in an honest house? Especially when you know from sad experience that the perquisitioners perform their office conscientiously. At Aulnois they had watered a cellar to make sure that the ground had not been newly dug. At Vaux they had not left twenty centimetres of a certain garden unexplored. After a long debate we decided to leave things as they were.
But if peace returns and I am able to build a house, it shall have hiding-places, wells, tanks, deep dungeons! Hollow walls shall open by means of secret springs, and two, three, five cellars shall be arrayed one beneath the other, which, in case of need, shall swallow up whole herds, to say nothing of a vast reserve of groceries.
Meanwhile, our goods being full in sight, Bubenpech, who, out of politeness, gave himself the trouble to search our house, visiting every cupboard and poking his nose everywhere, had been at no pains to discover them. He declared he was compelled to requisition the corn, but with a smile he left us our potatoes. Colette was indignant.
"Why! this fellow does not take our potatoes because he wants to be amiable! And our neighbours have been despoiled of everything! It is a shame! We must share with the others."
And we did.
A basket to right, a basket to left, a basket over the way, our provision well-nigh dwindled to nothing. After that we were in the same state as our neighbours. It is beyond doubt that some people had managed to save many things, and of course the Germans had surmised as much. Two or three days after the first perquisitions they dropped in unawares, and made very profitable visits. Mme. Turgau, for instance, had succeeded in hiding a sack of wheat, and the soldiers were hardly out of the way when she baked a loaf to celebrate her good fortune. The loaf, yellow and round, was displayed on the table, while on the ground lay the sack, saved from the wreck, and little Lucienne, a slender girl of twelve, as reasonable as a woman, was grinding corn in a coffee-mill. Near at hand a dish was already full of flour; after a second operation of the same kind it would be fit for kneading. The mother was out, the baby girl, Claire, was busy sucking her thumb, with her admiring gaze on her sister; the last-born was asleep in its cradle.
Heavy steps broke the silence, big shadows appeared on the door-sill. "The Prussians!"
The coffee-mill stopped short.
"Ah! ah!" the non-commissioned officer said, "you have corn; you stole it."
"No, sir, it is just a little bit I have gleaned with mamma."
"You stole it," replied the soldier. "Don't you know that everything belongs to the Germans? If you have corn you must have stolen it."
And the perquisitioners carried away in triumph the small sack, the beautiful golden loaf, and even the dishful of half-ground flour. On coming back, Mme. Turgau found Lucienne in tears, Claire weeping in imitation of her sister, and Jacquot, ever ready to make an uproar, screaming at the top of his voice. After these fatal visits we had still more holes to take in in our belts. Nothing was ever left on our table. The dishes, few in number, were immediately divided into seven parts, and every one thought when rising from table: "I could begin again with pleasure."
The question of light was another plague of our life. The last drop of petroleum, the last traces of linseed oil had been converted into smoke a long time before. We were obliged to use horse-oil like our neighbours.
Horse-oil! Oh! for ever and ever nauseous remembrance! Always half-congealed, brownish, sticky, stinking, it made its bold manipulators sick for an hour.
This oil was manufactured by a man in the village when he could procure a dead horse, not too lean; and as we could not get as much as we had wished, we had to be sparing of it. The villagers simply poured it into an old sardine box, and the wick, leaning against the metal brim, smoked, charred, smelt nasty, and gave as little light as possible.
In spite of our efforts, this half-liquid matter energetically refused to ascend in the lamp; and we were forced to let it burn openly in a receptacle of some kind or other, and to support it by an ingenious system of pins. In fact it was so ingenious that the wick was swamped in the oil every moment, and we were left groping about the dark room, whose air was infected with a smell of burnt flesh. Doleful evenings, still more doleful nights. We no longer slept as we had slept before the Hussars' serenades. In order to give a larger apartment to Bubenpech, Geneviève and I had to be satisfied with the "small room" which is on a level with the yard and icy cold in winter. A simple rush-mat covered the pavement; the stove was small, the fuel rare, our blanket thin—the Hussars had requisitioned two others. We went to bed shivering with cold; our hot-water bottle alone gave us a little life. As to sleep.... One does not sleep much in an invaded country; every moment some unwonted noise makes you start; and then the rumbling of the cannon disturbs you, and the thought of the absent sends a thrill through your heart.
And then you ask yourself: How long? how long? In February 1915 the end seemed to have been postponed. "Our soldiers will come back next spring," said the peasants. Resigned to fate, we all waited for their return, and long were the nights. I know people who went to bed at five o'clock, without a dinner, for good reasons, and got up at about eight o'clock. How many pangs and cares thus wandered in the darkness! Geneviève and I dreaded the shades of evening, and it was often midnight before we made up our minds to blow out the light. Many a nightmare startled us, keeping us wide awake for the rest of the night. Who shall describe the horror of the dreams dreamed during the war? The dreams of the conquered! Every night brought its own vision, but two came back with a most distressing obstinacy.
A landscape covered with snow, a great deal of snow, round-topped mountains, the wind tossing the branches of the fir-trees. It looks like the Vosges. Why? Posy, are you in the Vosges? How can the wind make such a noise through the branches? I see but one fir tree black against the gloomy sky. And I hear it thunder, yet the thunder never roars in winter. I see a crow whirling round and round before it alights. There is nothing under the fir tree. But I know something must be there. Here it is, it is black ... it is long. The crow hovers. I do not stir, my feet are sunk in the snow. Yet I come nearer, or rather the thing is approaching. Yet it is exactly what I thought; it is a dead body. Its uniform is untouched. Its face ... the eye-sockets are empty. Who is it? who is it? The crow has torn out his eyes! Yet we buried the scout in Chevregny. Who is it? Oh, God! he that is nearest to me in the world!
Posy!...
I shrieked with terror and I awoke, panting. The wind moaned through the trees of the garden, and from time to time ceased as if to allow its raging interlocutor, the cannon, to roar instead of itself.
It was impossible to try to sleep again. But we also used to dream wide awake. In the invaded country thousands and thousands of people are thus thinking in the dark. Their hands are clasped in prayer, or clenched, or convulsively pressed, or relaxed out of utter weariness. It is the hour when the absent are present. What family has not one or several members at the front? And for many months an abyss has grown between us which cannot be crossed. But at night they come back; in the dark we see the dear faces smile; we watch their familiar gestures, we hear their familiar voices. Shall we be allowed to see them again here below? Where are they? where are the strong arms that embraced me when I murmured, "Posy, I am cold."
Where are the beloved ones? The mothers are at prayers, the mothers are crying; sisters, wives, all that love shrink with horror at the sights that pass before their eyes. Where are the beloved ones? They have been dead perhaps these last six months. Their bodies may be rotting among barbed wire; they may have been blown to pieces by an explosion, or swollen by asphyxiating gas, or burnt in the flames, or crushed beneath earthworks, or riddled by grape-shot, or torn by balls. Their bodies which have been cherished, cared for, kissed! And we go on hoping for them, thinking them alive, safe and sound. When shall we know whether they are dead or alive, whether strong and healthy or moaning upon a bed in hospital?
Our souls, our eager hearts are longing for delivery, and the day it comes will perhaps bring with it the bitterest sorrows. Most families will have to mourn a dead one; the whole country will be sunk in grief: Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. We shall be despoiled and stripped of everything; we live but for the hope of meeting again our loved ones, and how many will never come back! And while they die, we receive their murderers! They sleep under our roofs, eat the fruits of our labour, and reign over us.
The want of news, the presence of the Germans, such were the saddest things of our life. Oh, they were present, always present! It was impossible to forget them even for one moment. They pursued us in our dreams, they haunted us. How often I have found myself stretched on a road, on an icy cold road in a barren country. And men came galloping up with loud shouting, and I could not move, the cavalcade was going to crush me:
The Hussars! the Hussars!...
Once more I set up a cry; I woke up. Steps, voices resounded in the street. The officers' evening party was at an end. The key fumbled at the lock; Bubenpech was coming back. It was one o'clock, or two, or three. I heard the dogs patter along the yard, they wanted to identify the visitor. The cannon rumbled with a sluggish sound. The hours were slow, slow.
At breakfast, Antoinette often said charitably:
"Just mind what I say, mother, one morning you will see the whole of us come up singing, dancing, laughing, perfectly fit for Bedlam."
To be sure one would go mad for less. Our life was duller than any one's: fancy six women shut up in a house, having nothing particular to do, always engrossed by the same tiring thoughts. Leisure is an evil very difficult to bear in an invaded territory. You wait; you do nothing else; you seem to be in a condition that cannot go on for long. Work? To what purpose? For whose sake? And what work to do? Save the men whom the Germans have requisitioned, and who, of course, tire themselves as little as possible, every one drags out his days. The baker, the teachers, and the cobbler are the only persons of the village really busy. We envied them their occupations, as we had but our needles to fill up our free hours. Very soon we had darned our old clothes, set them to rights, and distributed them among the poor. There was a family of seven children, whose mother had just died, and whose clothes we kept in decent condition. But it was not enough. We, too, yawned our life away.
Ten times a day we cried aloud for the means of escape! Escape! To live again an active life, to see people who are not Germans, to know what is going on, to live!
A gleam of hope came: it was in the month of March, the garden was already strewn with snowdrops, primroses, and crocuses. Captivity was harder to bear than ever. One day the rural constable made an announcement. He appeared to our eyes crowned with a golden nimbus, and more dazzling than an archangel; his voice was sweeter than honey. He said:
"The persons who want to leave the invaded territory to go into other parts of France may have their names put down at the townhall with the exception of the men from fourteen to sixty."
This caused so great an emotion among us that we well-nigh quitted this life suddenly and simultaneously. We kept on the look-out for Bubenpech, when he should come home, to demand further particulars.
This Bubenpech did not please us at all. It is agreed that no Prussian could have pleased us. But on the dislike we entertain to the whole race was grafted a personal aversion to him. He was dark-haired, middle-sized, short-legged, with a solid torso, topped by a big neckless head. He had regular features, deceitful eyes, and looked something of a rake. He was said to be nearly related to a general, and he thought himself irresistible.
"How dissipated he looks," we said the first time we saw him.
And one of his soldiers whispered in Mme. Lantois' ear:
"Lieutenant, not bad! ... but many women, many women. That's not good!"
In fact Bubenpech led a most dissolute life. He soon brought confusion upon Morny, and his stay there was the commencement of a debauch that caused a scandal throughout the region.
With us he was at first all smiles. But our looks soon chilled him, and he was content with a short bow when he happened to meet one of us, which was rare, for we carefully avoided him.
"At least," we said, "he is not too dull-witted; he understands that we look sour at the Germans, and he does not want to have us punished for it."
We were candid. Bubenpech was not rude and unmannerly like Von Bernhausen, and therefore his methods were different.
All the same he bore us a grudge for having been insensible to his charms; only he looked upon revenge as a cold dish. But he swore that we should pay dearly for the scorn of the Germans, and he waited his opportunity. He was sure to seize it, even if it limped with a lame foot.
For the present, he encouraged us to go, and gave most comforting particulars about the journey, which would be an easy one. The trains would take thousands of people to Switzerland, and within four or five days at the farthest we should be in Paris. Would we go, indeed! Rather than stay behind we would have made the journey in a cattle-truck, upon our head, or on our knees. Five days to go to Paris, what is that! Even were we to spend them sleepless, even were we to starve, and be squeezed tight like sardines in a tin box!
"Who will go?" I inquired. There were some who held back.
"I stay here," declared Mme. Valaine. "Up to now the house has not been plundered; I want to keep it as it is."
"I stay here," said Colette in her turn. "Do you think I will fly before the Prussians again? Besides, I have nothing to do in Paris. I will keep mother company. I saw the French go away; I want to see them come back."
"Then," Yvonne decided, "I will stay too. Shall I go and study music in Paris when the Prussians are still here? Never. Since mother and Colette remain, I stay with them. After all, the French can't be long in coming back."
Mother and daughters insisted.
"Besides," they added, "living will be easier when you are away. If Mme. Lantois manages to give us one or two eggs or a bottle of milk, this windfall will not have to be divided into seven parts. For us, all that is left of our potatoes! For us, the provision of macaroni that is hidden in the canopy of the bed of 'our Prussian.'"
After a long discussion the thing was settled. We fell into one another's arms. Every one of us shed a flood of tears, and with feverish haste we made preparations for our departure.
At the idea that he was going to see his mother again Pierrot had turned as white as a sheet, and then had begun screaming at the top of his voice, "Mother! mother! mother!" He jumped, he danced. We had to tell him that if he were so tiresome we should be obliged to leave him in Morny, and he became as quiet as a lamb.
Our bags were soon packed, and with thrilling hearts we awaited our departure.
The announcement of the journey did not arouse the enthusiasm which the Germans had expected. Bubenpech had given us a grand and imposing picture of those evacuations en masse.
"We purpose," he said, "we purpose evacuating forty per cent of the civil population. Why should we go on feeding so many useless people?
"We shall but keep back," he went on, "large landowners and the workers we are in need of. At the end of the month, a train will start every day; volunteers will first go, then the necessitous."
The number of volunteers were very small. The people reposed no trust at all in the Prussians.
"Do you think," the women of the village whispered, "that they are going to take you to France? To a concentration camp rather. You may take my word for it. Some people have thus left Chauny, and now they are somewhere in the north ... out in the open country ... up to the knees in the mud...."
We laughed at them.
"But why should the Germans take charge of us? They would be obliged to feed us no matter how little they gave us."
It was all of no use. Nobody was willing to go, not even those who eagerly wished to escape.
The organisers of the convoys were amazed. They determined that certain persons should go by foul means since they would not go by fair means. The commandant of every village was ordered to eject so many persons. The number for Morny was fixed at twenty. There were two volunteers besides ourselves, an elderly lady, Mme. Charvon, and her granddaughter; both wanted to go back to Paris. Thirteen reluctant emigrants were then to be picked up among the people. Bubenpech chose at random a woman from Braye, her five small children, and her old father, then three orphan boys, and a family including an invalid father, a mother, and two little girls.
These had two sons, sixteen and eighteen years old, who would stay behind if the parents went. They raised an outcry.
"My poor boys!" the mother moaned; "am I going to abandon them like that? We beg nothing of the Germans! We want only to be left together."
She went to the "bureau," threw herself at the feet of Bubenpech, who scouted her demand with disdain, and had her kicked out of doors. The morning we were to start she pretended to be ill, and kept to her bed. The lieutenant despatched four men who took her out of bed, heedless of her resistance, and made her get into the cart, with a blanket as sole wrapper. We heard the poor woman sob while she put on her stays and petticoats in the jolting cart that took us to Laon. And the folly of it was that another woman of Cerny wished for nothing better than to go.
"Since my sister and father are sent away," she said, "I choose rather to go with them; I have no mind to stay here alone with my two babies."
It was not to be. Three persons eager to stay were forced to go; three others, nothing loath to go, were bidden to stay. Thus had our leaders settled the matter.
In other villages it was still worse. A man of Barenton set his house on fire and hanged himself rather than leave. Some persons were sent away because the Germans coveted their houses for one purpose or another. At Vivaise the wife of an adjutant was compelled to leave her well-furnished house for the reason that it pleased those gentlemen. So a blind woman and her invalid husband, both aged seventy-five, were banished from Verneuil. In tears they left their small house where they had lived happily for many a year, their garden, whose fruits were sufficient for their scanty needs. Besides, they had a few fowls and a little money, and so they were not in the least a charge upon the Germans. Of course they expected everything to be plundered and destroyed, and, weak and old as they were, they saw no hope that they would ever come back.
We were volunteers, at one moment distressed at the thought that we left three of our own people in the lurch, at another mad with joy that we should soon be at liberty, or trembling with fear lest we should hear bad news of those whose fate was hidden from us.
About the end of March, after many tears had been shed, embraces and kisses exchanged, after the very dogs had been hugged, we found ourselves in front of the "bureau" with the other departing travellers. We all got into two big carts, and sat down on our luggage. The departures were somewhat delayed. We had to wait for the woman who did not want to go away.
At ten the carts set out.
"Good-bye, we shall see you later in Paris," Bubenpech cried.
It was the parting kick of the ass.
"Then you will come as a prisoner," replied Antoinette, laying aside all prudence. The officer broke out laughing and turned a deaf ear. With a great deal of jolting, the carts took us away, and we soon lost sight of the pale faces of Mme. Valaine and her daughters. Two gendarmes on horseback accompanied us. Thus we were enrolled among the emigrants. We alighted in Laon, and were shown into a huge hall adjoining the station. The little emigrants of Cerny were still screaming, the refractory woman had not left off crying. Pierrot felt uneasy, and hung on my arm; we dragged our luggage along with a great deal of trouble. The hall we were taken to was already crowded with hundreds of persons. From early morning the refugees had been arriving in great numbers. Long rough boards nailed upon four upright pieces of wood served as tables and benches. Besides the picture of the emperor the walls were chiefly decorated with vast inscriptions. "God with us" was not absent; nor was "God punish England," in letters three feet high. The shrieking of the urchins, their mothers' scolding overtopped the general noise. The old people looked scared, and did not know what to do. On the rough tables soldiers put platters of a sticky, greyish soup; a smell of burnt grease floated in the air. We were waiting for our turn to go to a small room where three nurses of the Red Cross were busy feeling, searching, undressing the emigrants as they pleased.
"No papers, no letters?"
At two every one had filed off before these searchers, and we were ordered to start again. So through the streets of Vaux the pitiful crowd wended its way to the station, about twelve hundred emigrants surrounded by soldiers. From their thresholds the inhabitants stared at us. Truly a more miserable herd never was seen. The Germans had chosen to send away the poorest among the poor of our villages—bareheaded women, ragged children, beggarly men, sick people, cripples, idiots. All were laden and overladen with parcels, baskets, and bundles. There were two or three carts to convey the heaviest luggage, but every one preferred keeping what was dearest to him.
We, too, were overladen. We made what haste we could among the grey crowd. We had walked a mile, I could hardly carry my bag any longer. At one moment it even dropped from my hands. I approached an officer, stiff and stout, who seemed to be the manager of the caravan.
"Sir," I besought, "please order a moment's rest.... I can't go any farther."
"No, no, no halt. If you can't carry your things, ask some one else."
Some one else! That was easy to say. I looked around me despairingly; the people were all as weary as I.
Pierrot stuck to my arm, Antoinette was somewhere in front, Geneviève was spent with fatigue. Near us a soldier seemed touched with pity.
"I am sorry I can't help you, but it is forbidden."
At length I caught sight of a big fellow who carried his fortune in a handkerchief. He was one-eyed, one-armed, but he was willing to take charge of my bag. I was then able to help Geneviève with hers. We were saved, we stopped every other minute, put down our common load, and taking it up again ran forward to fall into place.
Where were we going to? We went on, tramping through the mud, with the noise of a flock of sheep, and, to crown all, there came on a heavy rain, which the poor crying children received on their dirty little noses. We had left the suburbs, and the road now passed through the open country. At about three miles from the station we perceived an immense train of third-class carriages that was waiting for us. It was carried by storm. Each one settled himself. We were but six persons in one carriage, we and two ladies of Morny, the grandmother and the granddaughter.
We exchanged congratulations. We had been told that the journey might be difficult: one of the hardest stages was passed. We sat down to recover our breath, stretched our stiff limbs, and then looked around us. The carriages we were in had been used to convey troops; they were bedecked with inscriptions in pencil. Some without much expense of thought merely wished that "God should punish England!" Others clamoured for "the death to those pigs of Frenchmen!" Or stated that "French blood is good." Pierrot conscientiously rubbed out with his handkerchief as much as he could. After many manœuvres, marches, and counter-marches the train decided to start. It was about four o'clock. Oh, memorable hour! We saw the gate of our prison open a little! Was it possible that we were going away? Was it true? Could we say in our turn, "within four days, Parisse!"
We were made with joy; we kissed one another; then we thought it wise to put our things in order. This carriage would doubtless serve us as a shelter as far as the Swiss frontier, perhaps for two or three days. The first thing, then, was to make ourselves comfortable. Our feet were cold. Suppose we put on our slippers? No sooner said than done.
When our first joy had somewhat cooled down, and we were properly installed, we watched the landscape. The train went slowly through a dull country; the clouds seemed to crawl along the ground, and the mist moistened the panes of the windows. We had hardly gone an hour when the train stopped, and left half of its carriages in the station. Then we resumed our journey, and soon made a second halt. We could not read the name of the station we were at; we did not know even what line we were on. The engine was reversed, then stopped some time after with a loud whistle.
Soldiers went along the carriages and threw the doors open.
"Get down, all, bags and baggage."
Sudden change! In great haste we put on our shoes, tied our shawls and cloaks together, gathered our bags, and jumped out on the line. Many cries and calls were heard. At last the train emptied itself; there was a whistle, and off it moved. There we were, about six hundred of us standing on a steep bank, and wondering what was going to happen next. No station was to be seen, the country seemed deserted, pasture-land on the left, hills stripped by the winter on the right. The emigrants, uneasy in their minds, bustled about; women fell a-weeping; relations sought one another; an old man bent with age, and walking awry like a crab, moved to and fro. "My wife, I have lost my wife." Thus he moaned to himself, looking for the weak arm that would hold up his greater debility.
The babies cried with cold. A sharp wind pierced us to the marrow, the rain cut our faces, and our hearts thrilled with fear, while the night fell on the anxiety of the miserable herd moving in the fog.