The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War

by Émile Zola

'Yes, perhaps he will be saved, but he suffers horribly.'

Great as was their compassion, neither of them could speak of Gutmann without a kind of emotional gaiety. On the very first day that the young woman had gone to the ambulance, she had been thunderstruck at sight of this Bavarian soldier, in whom she recognised the red-haired, red-bearded man, with big blue eyes and square-shaped nose, who had carried her off in his arms at Bazeilles, whilst her husband was being shot. He also recognised her, but he could not speak, for a bullet, penetrating by the back of the neck, had carried away half of his tongue. And after recoiling with horror during the first two days, shuddering involuntarily each time that she approached his bed, she had been conquered by the despairing, gentle glances with which he watched her. Was he no longer then the monster with blood-splashed hair, and eyes inverted with rage, who haunted her with such a frightful recollection? She had to make an effort to recognise him in this unfortunate man with such a good-natured air, who proved so docile too, amid his atrocious sufferings. The nature of his affliction, one of by no means frequent occurrence, his sudden distressing infirmity, touched the entire ambulance with compassion. They were not even sure that his name was Gutmann, he was simply called so because the only sound he could manage to utter was a grunt of two syllables which formed something like that name. With regard to other matters, it was surmised that he was married and had children. He must have understood a few words of French, for he replied at times with an energetic nod of the head. Married? Yes, yes! Children? Yes, yes! Moreover, the emotion he displayed one day on seeing some flour had prompted the supposition that he might be a miller. But that was all. Where was the mill? In what far-away village of Bavaria were his little ones and his wife now weeping? Would he die without being identified, without a name, leaving those who belonged to him over yonder for ever waiting for his return?

'Gutmann kissed his hand to me to-day,' Henriette told Jean one evening. 'I can no longer give him anything to drink or render him the slightest service, but he raises his fingers to his lips, with a fervent gesture of gratitude.—You mustn't smile, it's too dreadful, it is like being buried before one's time.'

Towards the end of October Jean's condition had improved, and the doctor consented to remove the drainage-tube, though he still continued anxious. And yet the wound appeared to be cicatrising pretty swiftly. Jean was then allowed to get up, and would spend long hours walking about the room and sitting at the window, where he was saddened by the sight of the flying clouds. Then he began to feel bored and talked of employing himself in some way, of rendering himself useful at the farm. One of his secret worries was the question of money, for he realised that his two hundred francs must have been entirely spent during the six long weeks that he had lain in bed. If old Fouchard continued showing him a pleasant face it must be that Henriette was paying for his board and lodging. This thought greatly worried him, though he lacked the courage to bring about an explanation; and thus he experienced much relief when it was agreed that he should be passed off as a new hand, entrusted, like Silvine, with a part of the house-duties whilst Prosper attended to the outdoor work.

Hard though the times were, a hand the more was none too many at Fouchard's, for the old fellow's affairs were prospering. Whilst the entire country was groaning in agony, bled in every limb, he had contrived to extend his butcher's business to such a point that he now slaughtered three and four times as many animals as formerly. It was said that he had entered into a superb contract with the Prussians already on August 31. He, who on the 30th had defended his door, gun in hand, refusing to sell even a crust of bread to the men of the Seventh Corps, shouting to them that his house was quite empty, had on the morrow, upon the arrival of the first German soldiers, exhumed all sorts of provisions from his cellars and brought back perfect flocks and herds from the mysterious nooks where he had concealed them. And since then he had become one of the principal purveyors of meat to the German armies, displaying wonderful artfulness in disposing of his stock and in getting paid for it between a couple of requisitions. Others suffered from the often brutal demands of the conquerors, but so far he had not supplied a bushel of flour, a cask of wine, or a quarter of beef without obtaining hard cash in return. Folks talked a good deal about it in Remilly, and it was considered scandalous on the part of a man who had just lost his son in the war, his son whose grave he did not even visit, Silvine being the only person who kept it trim and neat. Yet, all the same, the old fellow was respected for the talent he displayed in making money at a time when others, thought to be very shrewd, were being stripped to the skin. For his own part, on hearing of the tittle-tattle, he shrugged his shoulders in a jeering way, and like the obstinate man he was, whose broad back could well bear the weight of a little abuse, he contented himself with growling: 'Patriot! patriot! why, I'm more of a patriot than all of them put together! Is it patriotic to gorge the Prussians with food for nothing? I make them pay for everything. You'll all see, you'll all see, by-and-by.'

Jean had only been up and about again for a couple of days when he remained too long on his legs and the doctor's secret fears were realised: the sore reopened, inflammation caused the leg to swell and the wounded man had to take to his bed again. Dalichamp ended by suspecting the presence of a splinter of bone, which the efforts made during a couple of days' exercise had served to liberate. He searched the wound for it and succeeded in extracting it. But all this caused Jean a great shock and brought on a violent fever, which again exhausted him. Never before indeed had his weakness been so great. Henriette, like the faithful nurse she was, resumed her place in his room, which was becoming quite dismal now that the winter was setting in. They were in the early days of November, the east wind had already brought them a fall of snow, and it was bitterly cold on the tiled floor between those four bare walls. As there was no chimney in the room, they decided to set up a stove, the snorting of which somewhat enlivened their solitude.

The days passed by monotonously, and this first week of Jean's relapse was certainly both for himself and Henriette the most melancholy of their long, enforced intimacy. Would their sufferings never terminate? Would danger ever and ever reappear, without any hope of an end to all their wretchedness? At every hour their thoughts flew away to Maurice, from whom they had received no further tidings. Yet it was said that others received letters, tiny notes brought them by carrier pigeons. Doubtless some German bullet had killed, aloft in the open sky, the bird that had been bringing them their supply of joy and love. Everything seemed to become more distant, to fade away and disappear in the depths of the early winter. The war rumours now only reached them after long intervals; the few newspapers which Dr. Dalichamp still brought with him were often a week old. Thus their sadness was due less to certain knowledge than to what they did not know but divined, to the long death-cry which, despite everything, they could instinctively hear piercing through the silence of the country around the farm.

One morning the doctor arrived looking terribly upset and with his hands trembling. He pulled a Belgian newspaper from his pocket and flinging it on the bed exclaimed: 'Ah, my poor friends, France is dead, Bazaine has betrayed us!'

Jean, who was dozing, propped up by a couple of pillows, awoke at once: 'How, betrayed?'