We had still our potatoes, wood, and fodder to take away the next day, so I closed the door and put the key in my pocket before leaving.
At nightfall we arrived before Ykel's house. I took the grandmother in my arms, like a child, and carried her up-stairs to her room, where Katel had kindled a bright fire. Marie-Rose and Katel kissed each other; they had been schoolmates and had been confirmed together at Felsberg. Katel burst into tears. Marie-Rose, who was deadly pale, said nothing. They went up-stairs together, and, while Starck and Calas and two or three of the neighbours were unloading the furniture and putting it under the shed, I went into the parlour, to sit down for a few minutes behind the stove and to take a glass of wine, for I could not stand it any longer; I was exhausted.
Our first night at Graufthal, in that loft, through which poured the draught from the garret, is the saddest that I can remember; the stove smoked, the grandmother coughed in her bed; Marie-Rose, in spite of the cold, got up to give her a drink; the little window-panes rattled at every blast of the wind, and the snow drifted in upon the floor.
Ah! yes, we suffered terribly that first night! And, not being able to close my eyes, I said to myself:
"It will be impossible to live here! We should all be dead in less than two weeks. We must positively go somewhere else. But where shall we go? What road can we take?"
All the villages of Alsace and Lorraine were filled with Germans, the roads were crowded with cannon and convoys; not a hut, not even a stable was free.
These ideas almost made my hair turn gray; I wished that I had broken my neck in coming down the steps of the forest house, and I wished the same thing for the grandmother and my daughter.
Happily, Jean Merlin arrived early the next morning. He had taken our answer to the Oberförster, he had moved his furniture to Felsberg, and old Margredel, his mother, was already sitting quietly beside the fire at Uncle Daniel's house.
He told us that with a good-humoured air, after having kissed Marie-Rose and said good-morning to the grandmother.
Only to see how his confidence had already lightened my heart; and when I complained of the cold, the smoke, and of our bad night, he cried: