Then, that she might not burst into sobs, she averted her head and smiled at Maurice, whom she had just recognised. Jean's presence inconvenienced her. She felt as though she were stifling, and took off the kerchief she wore about her neck.
'We were anxious about you, Silvine,' resumed Honoré, 'on account of all those Prussians who are coming up.'
She suddenly became very pale again, and an expression of agitation swept over her face. Glancing involuntarily in the direction of the room where Charlot was asleep, and waving her hand as if to drive away some frightful vision, she muttered: 'The Prussians, yes—yes, I have seen them.'
Then, worn out with fatigue, she sank upon a chair, and related that on the invasion of Raucourt by the Seventh Corps she had sought refuge at the house of Dr. Dalichamp, her godfather, hoping that Fouchard would think of fetching her before he started home. Such was the hustling and confusion in the high street that a dog would not have ventured there. She had waited patiently, and without feeling much uneasiness, till four o'clock, employing her time meanwhile in helping several ladies to prepare some lint; for, in the idea that some of the wounded from Metz and Verdun, supposing there were any fighting over there, would be sent on to Raucourt, the doctor had been busily engaged for a fortnight past in installing an ambulance at the town-hall. Some people came who asserted that this ambulance might be required at once; and in point of fact a cannonade had been heard since noon in the direction of Beaumont. Still, that was some distance away, and nobody felt alarmed. Suddenly, however, just as the last French soldiers were on the point of leaving Raucourt a shell plunged, with a fearful crash, through the roof of a neighbouring house. Two others followed—a German battery was cannonading the rear guard of the Seventh Army Corps. Some wounded men from Beaumont having already been brought to the town-hall, it was feared that a shell might fall upon them, and finish them off on the straw mattresses on which they were lying waiting for the doctor to attend to them. Maddened by terror these unfortunate men rose up, and despite their broken limbs, which drew from them loud cries of agony, insisted on crawling into the cellar, which they considered to be the only safe place.
'And then,' continued Silvine. 'I don't know how it happened, but all at once everything became silent—I had gone upstairs to a window overlooking the street and the country, and I could no longer see anyone, not a single French soldier. But suddenly I heard a heavy tramp. Somebody called out something I did not understand, and then the butt-ends of a number of muskets fell with a thud on the ground. In the street down below there were a lot of dark-looking men, short and grimed with dirt, with huge, hideous heads and wearing helmets like those that our firemen wear. I was told they were Bavarians. Then, as I raised my eyes, I saw—oh! I saw thousands and thousands of them, coming along by the roads and the fields and the woods, in close columns which never seemed to end. The whole country-side at once became quite black with them. It was like a swarm of black locusts coming and coming in such numbers that in less than no time I could no longer see the ground.'
She shuddered, and again made that gesture with her hand to drive away a frightful remembrance.
'And then—ah! you can't imagine what happened. It seems that these men had been three days on the march and had just been fighting like furies at Beaumont. And they were dying of hunger, half out of their senses, with their eyes starting from their heads. Their officers made no attempt to restrain them, and they all rushed into the houses and the shops, bursting open the doors, breaking the windows, smashing the furniture, searching everywhere for something to eat and drink, and swallowing no matter what came into their hands. I saw one at Monsieur Simonnet's—the grocer's—who was scooping molasses out of a tub with his helmet. Others were munching pieces of raw bacon. Others, too, were swallowing flour. It had already been said that there was nothing left, as our soldiers had been passing through the town for forty-eight hours or more, but these men managed to find something—provisions that had been hidden, no doubt, and this made them think that people purposely refused them food, and they set to work like madmen, smashing everything. In less than an hour the grocers' shops, and the bakers' and the butchers' and even the private houses had all their windows broken, their cupboards ransacked, and their cellars invaded and emptied. At the doctor's, you may believe me or not, but I actually caught sight of one fat fellow, who was eating the soap! It was, however, especially the cellar which they ravaged. We could hear them from upstairs, roaring down there like wild beasts, smashing the bottles and turning on the taps of all the casks, so that the wine rushed out with the noise of a waterfall. When they came up again their hands had been quite reddened by all the wine they had been messing with. And—see how it is when men become savages—Monsieur Dalichamp vainly did his utmost to prevent one soldier from drinking some syrup of opium which he had found in a wine bottle. The wretched fellow must certainly be dead by now; he was suffering dreadfully when I came away.'
Seized with a great shudder she covered her eyes with her hands as though to shut out the sight of all she had seen. 'No, no,' she gasped, 'it was too frightful; it stifles me.'
Old Fouchard, still outside, had drawn near and stood by the window, listening. This story of pillage had made him thoughtful. He had been told that the Prussians paid for everything; were they now turning thieves, then? Maurice and Jean also evinced the keenest interest in these particulars concerning the enemy, whom this girl had just seen, but whom they themselves had not yet met, though the fighting had been going on for a month past. Honoré, however, with a pensive air and twitching mouth, took interest in her alone, being absorbed in thoughts of the calamity that had long since parted them.
Just then the door of the next room opened, and little Charlot ran in. He must have heard his mother's voice; and now, simply clad in his shirt, he was coming to kiss her. Pink and fair, and very big for his age, he had a light curly crop of hair and large blue eyes. Silvine shuddered on seeing him appear so suddenly, as though startled by his resemblance to his father. Did she no longer know her own fondly loved child, that she thus gazed at him with an air of fright, as if face to face with some horrible vision? At last she burst into sobs. 'My poor little one!' she murmured.