CHAPTER VI
THE FRONTIER
The next day Jean started in the morning on foot to go to the cutting bought by the House of Oberlé, which was situated on the crest of the mountains, enclosing the valley, to the left of the neck of the Schlucht, in the forest of Stosswihr. The way was long—the soil made slippery by a recent shower; besides, Jean lost several hours in going round a great rock he ought to have climbed. The afternoon was well advanced when he came to a wood cabin at the place where the road ended: just the time to talk to the German foreman who directed, under the supervision of the forest administration, the felling and transport of the firs; and the young man, continuing his climb, passed the workmen from the timber-yard coming down before the end of the day, to regain the valley. The sun, still splendid, was about to disappear on the other side of the Vosges. Jean was thinking with a beating heart of the frontier now quite near; however, he would not ask the way of the men who saluted him in passing, for he prided himself on hiding his emotions, and his words might have betrayed him before this gang of woodcutters released from work, and curious at the meeting. He entered the cutting they had just left. Around him the pine-trees, branchless and despoiled of their bark, were lying on the slopes, which they seemed to light up by the whiteness of their trunks. They had rolled—and stopped—one could not see why. At other times they had made a barrier and placed themselves pell-mell like spilikins on a game board. In the high forest there only remained one workman, an old man dressed in dark clothes who, kneeling, tied up in his handkerchief, a store of mushrooms he had gathered. When he had finished tying the ends of the red stuff with his clumsy fingers he got up, pushed his woollen cap well on to his head, and began to descend, with long strides over the moss, his mouth open to the odour of the forests.
"Ah," said Jean, "one minute, my man."
The man between two immense pine trunks, himself the colour of the bark, turned his head.
"Which is my nearest way to get to the neck of the Schlucht?"
"Go down by the waterfall, the way I go, and then turn up again. But do not go up there another two hundred yards, for then you go down into France; you will find paths which will lead you to the Schlucht. Good evening!"
"Good evening!"
The words rang out, soon lost in the vast silence. But one of them went on speaking to Jean Oberlé's heart: "You will go down into France." He was in a hurry to see her, this mysterious France, which held such a large place in his dreams, in his life—she, who had destroyed the unity of his family because the older members, some of them at least, remained faithful to her charms. France, for whom so many Alsatians had died and for whom so many others were waiting and whom they were loving with that silent love which makes hearts sad. So near him—she from whom he had been so jealously kept—she for whom Uncle Ulrich, M. Bastian, his mother, his grandfather Philippe, and thousands and thousands of others said a prayer every night!
In a few minutes he had reached the top and begun his descent on the other side. But the trees formed a thick curtain round him. And he began to run to find a road and a free space to see France. He took pleasure in sliding down and letting himself almost fall, head foremost, seeking the desired opening. On this side of the mountain the sun was touching the earth; here and there the air was still warm; but the pines always made a wall.
"Halt!" cried a man, showing himself suddenly, and coming out from behind the trunk of a tree. Jean went on running some steps—carried away by the impetus. Then he came back to the customs official who had called to him. Then the man, who was a brigadier, young and squat, with defective eyes, a little wild, two locks of yellow hair framing the thick-set face—the real type of a man of the Vosges, looked at the young man and said:
"Why the devil did you run? I thought you were a smuggler."
"I was trying to find a place to see a landscape in France...."
"Does that interest you? You are from the other side?"
"Yes."
"Not a Prussian all the same?"
"No; an Alsatian."
The man smiled slightly and said, "That is better!"
But Jean continued without taking up the conversation, and as if he had forgotten his question, to look at this poor officer of France, his face, his uniform, and to photograph them on his mind. The officer seemed amused at his curiosity and said, laughing:
"If it is a view you are after, you have only to follow me. I have one which the Government offers me to complete my treatment."
They both began to laugh, looking straight into each other's eyes quickly—less for what the customs officer had said than because of a certain sympathy which they felt for each other.
"We have no time to lose," said the brigadier, "the sun is dying down."
They went on under the vault of pines, turning round a cliff of bare rocks on which were planted at some distance two posts marking the spot where Germany ended and where France began, and at the end point, which was like a spur in the green, on a straight platform, which had its bed down in the forest, they found a watch-house of heavy planks of pines nailed on to the beams. From there one could see an immense landscape, which went on and on, sloping down—as far as human eye could see. In this moment and in the setting sun a pale golden light bathed the terraced lands, forests, villages, and rivers, the lakes of Retournemer and Longemer, softening the reliefs, and casting a colour like that of corn on uncultivated lands covered with heath. Jean remained standing, drinking in the picture to intoxication, and kept silence, while his emotion increased. He felt that the whole depth of his soul was full of joy.
"How beautiful it is!" he said.
The brigadier of customs, who was observing him from the corner of his eye, was flattered by the other's unstinted praise of his native district and answered:
"It is tiring, but in summer it is good to walk—for those who have the time. People come from Gérardmer, and from Saint Dié and Remiremont and from farther still. Many people come from over there——"
Over his shoulder, with his thumb reversed and turned backwards, he pointed to the country beyond the frontier.
Jean was shown in which direction lay the three towns of which the Custom House official had spoken. But he only followed his own thought with attention. What delighted him was the clearness of the air, and the idea of the illimitable, of the sweetness of life and of fertility which came to his mind at the sight of the French land. It was all he knew of France, what he had read, and what he had heard his mother, grandfather, and uncle Ulrich talk about, what he had pictured to himself, memories buried deep in his mind, which rose again suddenly like millions of grains of corn to the call of the sun.
The brigadier was seated on a bench, along the side of the hut; he had taken his short pipe from his pocket and was smoking.
When he saw the visitor turn towards him, his eyes full of tears, and seat himself on the bench, he guessed Jean's feelings; for Jean's admiration of the picturesque had escaped him, but the tears of regret at once made the brigadier grave. Those were from the heart, and a sublime equality united the two men. However, as he did not dare to question he stiffened his neck, until the muscles were visible, and began to study the horizon silently.
"What part of France do you come from?" asked Jean.
"About five leagues from here, in the mountain."
"Have you served your time in the army?"
The brigadier took his pipe from his mouth and his hand quickly touched the medal hanging on his breast.
"Six years," said he—"two furloughs. When I left I was a sergeant, with this medal, which I brought back from Tonquin. A fine time when it is finished." He spoke like travellers who prefer the remembrance of a journey but all the same have not disliked it. And he continued:
"With you, they say it is harder."
"Yes."
"I have always heard it said Germany is a great country, but the officer and the soldier are not relatives as in France."
The sun was going down; the great golden landscape became tawny in places and purple in shadow. This purple spread with the rapidity of racing clouds on shadowed slopes and veiled plains—how Jean Oberlé would have loved to see you again in strong light! He asked:
"Do you ever see any deserters?"
Those who pass the frontier before their service begins are naturally not known, only the soldiers serving in the Alsace-Lorraine regiments and who desert in uniform. "Yes; I have seen several poor fellows who had been too severely punished or whose tempers were too proud. You will say that some desert from our side too, and it is true; but then they are not so many——"
Shaking his head and looking tenderly at the sleeping forests:
"When one belongs to this side, you see, one can speak ill of it, but one is not satisfied elsewhere. You do not know the country, sir, and yet to look at you one would swear you belonged to it."
Jean felt himself getting red; his throat was dry; he could not answer. And the man, thinking that he had taken a liberty, said:
"Excuse me, sir; one never knows whom one meets; and it is better not to talk about these things. I must continue my rounds and go down again."
He was going to salute in military fashion; Jean took his hand and pressed it.
"You are not mistaken, my friend," he said.
Then, feeling in his pocket, he held out his cigar-case to him.
"Come, take a cigar!"
And then, with a kind of childish joy, he emptied his case into the hand which the Custom House official held out.
"Take them all; you will give me pleasure. Do not refuse me!"
It seemed as if he wanted to give something to France.
The brigadier hesitated for a moment, and closed his hand over them, saying:
"I will smoke them on Sunday. Thank you, sir! Good-bye!"
He saluted quickly, and was lost to sight almost immediately in the firs that clothe the mountains. Jean heard his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Above all, he heard echoing in his soul, and with indescribable emotion, the words of this unknown man.
"You belong to us." "Yes, I belong here; I feel it, I see it; and that explains to me so many things in my life."
The shadow descended.
Jean saw the land darkening. He thought of those of his family who had fought there, round the villages submerged by the night, so that Alsace should remain united to that great country stretched out before him. "Sweet country—my country—every one has tender words for her; and I, why did I come? Why am I as moved as if she were living before me?"
In a little while, on the fringe of the sky just where the blue began, rose the evening star. Alone, faint but dominating as an idea.
Jean rose; the night was becoming quite dark, and he took the path which follows the crest of the hills; but he could not take his eyes from the star. Walking all alone in the deep silence, on the summit of the divided Vosges, he said to the star and to the shadow beneath:
"I belong to you; I am happy to have seen you. It frightens me to love you as I do!"
Soon he reached the frontier, and by the magnificent road crossing the Schlucht, went back again into the German-land.
The following day, the Tuesday of Holy Week, he was again at Alsheim, and handed to his father the report he had drawn up. Every one welcomed his return with such evident pleasure that he was very much touched by it. The evening after the "conference" between the old grandfather and the manufacturer, and at which Jean was present, since he had just returned from visiting the cuttings, Lucienne called her brother to the fire before which she was warming herself in the large yellow drawing-room. Madame Oberlé was reading near the window; her husband had gone out, the coachman having informed him that one of the horses had gone lame.
"Well!" asked Lucienne. "What is the most beautiful thing you saw?"
"You."
"No, do not joke; tell me, the most beautiful thing during your journey?"
"France!"
"Where?"
"At the Schlucht. You cannot imagine the emotion it made me feel. It was a shock—like a revelation. You do not seem to understand me."
She answered in an indifferent manner:
"Yes; I am delighted that you were pleased. It ought to be a very fine excursion at this time of the year. The first spring flowers, are there not? And the breeze in the woods? Ah, my dear boy, there is so much convention in all that!"
Jean did not go on. She it was who continued, and in a confidential voice, which she modulated, and made marvellously musical:
"Here we've had grand visits—oh, visits which nearly cost a scene. Imagine, two German officers came last Wednesday in a motor car to the lodge, and asked permission to see the saw-mills. Happily they were in mufti. The Alsheim people only saw two gentlemen like any others. Very fashionable; an old one—a commandant, and a young one with a grand air, and accustomed to society. If you had seen him bow to papa! I was in the park. They bowed to me too, and visited the whole of the works, personally conducted by our father. While this was going on that idiot Victor informed grandfather, who showed he was annoyed when we came in. I ought to have run away, it appears. As the gentlemen did not enter the house—'my house,' as grandfather says—his irritation did not last long. However, there was a sequel——"
Lucienne laughed a little stifled laugh.
"My dear, Madame Bastian did not approve of me."
"You were then present during their visit to the works, when these gentlemen——"
"Yes."
"All the time?"
"My father kept me. In any case, I do not see how that should affect the Mayor's wife. But I had such a cold bow from her, my dear, last Sunday at the church door. Do you care about the Bastians' bows?"
"Yes; in the same way that I care for the greetings of all good people."
"Good people—yes; but they do not know what life is! To be blamed by them is just the same to me as if I were to be blamed by an Egyptian mummy come to life for the purpose. I should answer: 'You do not understand anything about it; go and wrap yourself up again.' Is it not strange that you do not think as I do—you, my brother?"
Jean stroked the hand which was raised in front of him to make a screen.
"Even mummies can judge of certain things of our time, my darling—the things which are of all times."
"Oh! how serious you are. Come now, where was I wrong? Was it in going for a walk? In not looking away? In answering a greeting? In obeying my father, who told me to come and stay?"
"No; assuredly not!"
"What harm have I done?"
"None. I have danced with many German girls. You can acknowledge an officer's greeting."
"Then I did right?"
"As a fact, yes. But there are so many sorrows around us—real sorrows, and so noble. You must remember that they all come to life again at a word, or a gesture."
"I shall never consider that. Since what I do is not wrong, no one shall ever stop me. Do you hear?"
"That is where we differ, Lucienne. It is not so much in our ideas; it is in a whole range of feelings which your education prevents you from possessing."
He kissed her, and the conversation wandered to different topics.