Two or three neighbours, the big coal man, Starck, and his wife; Sophie, the basket-maker; Koffel, and Hulot, the old smuggler, were then arriving at the inn, to take their glass of brandy, as usual. Ykel told them of the new abominations of the Germans; and they were disgusted at them. Starck offered to come with his cart and horses to help me to move, and I accepted, thankfully.
Things were settled that way; Starck promised me again to come without fail before noon; after which I took the road towards home. It had begun to snow; not a soul before or behind me was on the path, and, about nine o'clock, I was stamping my feet in the entry to get off the snow. Marie-Rose was there. I told her briefly that I had engaged our lodgings, that she must prepare the grandmother to leave very soon, to empty the contents of the cupboards into baskets, and to take the furniture to pieces. I called Calas to help me and went to work at once, scarcely taking time enough to breakfast. The hammer resounded through the house; we heard the grand-mother sobbing in the smaller room and Marie-Rose trying to console her.
It all seems to come back to me. It was terrible to hear the lamentations of the poor old woman, to hear her complain of the fate that overwhelmed her in her old age, and then to call on her husband for aid, good Father Burat, who had died ten years before, and all the old people, whose bones lay in the cemetery at Dôsenheim. It makes me shudder when I think of it, and the kind words of my daughter come back to me and touch my heart anew.
The hammer did its work; the furniture, the little looking-glass by Catherine's bed—my poor dead wife—the portraits of the grandfather and grandmother, painted by Ricard, the same who painted the beautiful signs in the time of Charles X; the two holy-water vessels and the old crucifix, from the back of the alcove; the chest of drawers belonging to Marie-Rose, and the large walnut-wood wardrobe that had come down to us from great-grandfather Duchêne; all those old things that reminded us of people long dead, and of our quiet, peaceful life, and which, for many years, had had their places, so that we could find them by groping in the darkest night; everything was taken away; it was, so to speak, our existence that we had to undo with our own hands!
And Ragot, who came and went, all astonished at the confusion; Calas, who kept asking, "What have we done, to be obliged to run away like thieves?" And the rest!—for I do not remember it at all, George! I would even like to forget it all, and never to have begun this story of the shame of humanity and the humiliation of that sort of Christians who reduce their fellow creatures to utter misery, because they will not kneel before their pride. However, since we have begun it, let us go on to the end.
All that was nothing as yet. It was when big Starck came, and the furniture was loaded on his wagon, we had at last to tell the grandmother to leave her little room, and when, seeing all that desolation in the road, she fell on her face, crying:
"Frederick, Frederick, kill me! let me die, but do not take me away! Let me, at least, sleep quietly under the snow in our little garden!"
Then, George, I wished that I were dead myself. The blood seemed curdling in my veins. And now, after four years, I would be puzzled to tell you how the grandmother found herself placed in the cart, in the midst of the mattresses and straw beds, under the thousands of snow-flakes that were falling from the sky.
XX
The snow, which had continued to fall since morning, was by this time quite deep. The great wagon went slowly on its way, Starck, in front, pulling his nags by the bridle, swearing, and forcing them to advance by blows; Calas, farther on, was driving along the pigs and cows; Ragot was helping him; Marie-Rose and I followed, with drooping heads; and behind us the cottage, all white with snow, among the firs, was gradually vanishing in the distance.