"Ah! my good man, you have had some good luck befall you."
"Yes," I answered, laughing, "I am not the same man I was this morning and yesterday. Great misfortunes don't always stick to one person all the time!"
And I told her what had occurred. She looked at me good-humouredly; but when I asked her to give me some paper, so that I could write all the good news to Graufthal, she said, clasping her hands:
"What are you thinking about? To write that your son-in-law is with the army, that he received aid from M. d'Arence to speed him on his way! Why, M. d'Arence would be arrested tomorrow, and you, too, and your daughter! Don't you know that the Germans open all the letters; that it is their best means of spying, and that they seek every opportunity to levy new taxes on the city? For such a letter they would require still more requisitions. Beware of such fearful imprudence."
Then, seeing the justice of her remarks, I suddenly lost all my gaiety; I had scarcely spirit enough left to write to Marie-Rose that I had arrived safe and well and that I had received some help from my former chief. I thought at every word that I had said too much; I was afraid that a dot, a comma, would serve as a pretext to the scoundrels to intercept my letter and to drive me farther away.
Ah! how sad it was not to be able to send even a word of hope to those one loves—above all, at such a cruel moment! And how barbarous they must have been to charge against the father as a crime the consoling words that he sent to his child, the good news that a son sends to his dying mother! But that is what we have seen.
Only the letters announcing the death of one's relatives, or some new disaster to our country, arrived; or else lies—news of victories invented by the enemy, and that was followed the next day by the announcement of a defeat.
From that day, not daring to write what I knew, and receiving no news from home, I lived a melancholy life.
Imagine, George, a man of my age, alone among strangers, in a little room at an inn, looking for hours together at the snow whirling against the window-panes, listening to the noises outside, a passing cart, a company of Prussians who were going their rounds, the barking of a dog, people quarrelling; without any amusement but his meditations and his recollections.
"What are they about yonder? Does the grandmother still live? And, Marie-Rose—what has become of her? And Jean, and all the others?" Always this weight on my heart!