"Yes, shoot them! Choose the worst soldiers, those who have been under fire before. You understand? For instance, number 86, Besel, number 19, Gewehr, and so on. Order also for me a fatigue-party of sixteen men at once, and choose the best. We will make a reconnaissance towards Fontainebleau, and when we come back it will be over. Do you understand?"
"Sixteen men for you, air, and seven-and-twenty for the prisoners. God protect you, sir!"
And he went.
The lieutenant buttoned his coat again carefully, put on his sword-belt, and placed a revolver in his pocket. Then he lit a cigar, but found it impossible to smoke for he had not enough air in his lungs. He dusted his writing-table; he took his handkerchief and wiped the large pair of scissors, the stick of sealing-wax, and the match-box; he laid the ruler and the pen-holder parallel at an exact right angle with the blotting-paper; then he began to put the furniture straight. When that was finished, he took out his brush and comb and did his hair before the looking-glass; he took down the palette and examined the dabs of paint on it; he inspected all the red caps and tried to make the easel stand on two legs. By the time that the clanking of the weapons of his fatigue-party was audible in the courtyard, there was not a single object in the room which he had not handled.
Then he went out, gave the command "Left wheel! March!" and quitted the village.
He felt as though he were running away from a foe of superior power, and the soldiers found it difficult to follow him. When they came to a field he made them go in single file so as not to trample down the grass. He did not turn round, but the soldier next behind him could see how the cloth of the back of his coat twitched from time to time, as when one shudders, or expects a blow from behind.
At the edge of the wood he ordered a halt; he told the men to keep quiet and to rest while he went into the wood. When he found himself alone and was quite sure that no one could see him, he took a deep breath and turned towards the dark thickets through which narrow foot-paths lead to the Gorge-aux-loups. The under-wood and bushes lay in shadow, but above the sun still shone brightly on the tops of the oaks and beeches. He felt as though he lay on the dark bottom of the sea, and through the green water saw above him the light of day which he never more would reach. The great, wonderfully beautiful wood which formerly had soothed his troubled spirit seemed this evening so disharmonious, so repellent, so cold. Life appeared so heartless, so contradictory, and Nature herself seemed unhappy in her unconscious sleep. Here also the terrible struggle for existence was being carried on, bloodlessly it is true, but just as cruelly as by conscious creatures. He saw how the baby oaks spread themselves out to bushes in order to kill the tender beech-seedlings which would never be more than seedlings; of a thousand beeches only one could get to the light and thereby become a giant, which should in its turn rob the rest of life. And the ruthless oak, which stretched out its gnarled, rough arms as though it wished to keep the whole sun for itself, had discovered how to wage an underground strife. It sent out its long roots in all directions, undermining the ground; it ate away from the others the smallest particles of nourishment; and when it could not overshadow a rival till it was dead, it starved it out. The oak had already murdered the pine-wood, but the beech came as an avenger slow but sure, for its acrid juices kill everything where it predominates. It had discovered the method of poisoning which was irresistible, for not a single plant could grow in-its shadow; the earth around it was dark as a grave, and therefore the future belonged to it.
The lieutenant wandered on and on. He struck about with his sword without thinking how many hopeful young oaklings he destroyed, how many headless cripples he produced. In fact he hardly thought any more, for all the activities of his soul seemed crushed in a mortar to pulp. His thoughts tried to crystallise themselves but dissolved and floated away; memories, hopes, wrath, gentler feelings, and one great hatred of all the perversity which by the operation of an inexplicable natural force had come to rule the world, melted together in his brain, as though an inner fire had suddenly raised the temperature and obliged all its solid constituents to assume a fluid form.
Suddenly he started and stood still as if arrested, for from Marlotte came a sound rolling over the fields and redoubling its echoes in the hollow passage of the "Wolves' gorge." It was the drum! First a long roll—trrrrrrrrrrrrrom!—and then blow on blow, one and two, dull and muffled, as when one nails up a coffin and fears to disturb the house of mourning—trrrom!—trrrom!—trom!—trom!
He took out his watch; it was a quarter to seven. In a quarter of an hour it would happen! He wished to return and see it. No, he had just run away to avoid it; he would not see it for anything. Then he climbed up a tree.