All along the road we saw the same spectacle; the soldiers of the 84th, garrisoned at Phalsbourg, looked as pleased as men who have won the first prize in a lottery; the colonel declared that the men who did not vote "Yes" would be unworthy of being called Frenchmen. Every man had voted "Yes;" for a good soldier knows nothing but his orders.
So having passed before the gate of France, we came down to the Baraques, and then reached Lützelbourg. The train from Paris had passed a few minutes before; the whistle could yet be heard under the Saverne tunnel.
My cousin's wife, with whom I was not yet acquainted, was standing by her luggage on the platform; and seeing George coming up, she joyfully cried, "Ah! is that you? and here is cousin."
She kissed us both heartily, gazing at us, however, with some surprise, perhaps on account of our blouses and our great wide-brimmed black hats. But no! it could not be that; for Marie Anne Finck was a native of Wasselonne, in Alsace, and the Alsacians have always worn the blouse and wide-brimmed hat as long as I can remember. But this tall, thin woman, with her large brown eyes, as bustling, quick, and active as gunpowder, after having passed thirty years at Paris, having first been cook at Krantheimer's, at a place called the Barrière de Montmartre, and then in five or six other inns in that great city, might well be somewhat astonished at seeing such simple people as we were; and no doubt it also gave her pleasure.
That is my idea.
"The carts are there, wife," cried George, in high spirits. "We will load the biggest with as much furniture as we can, and put the rest upon the smaller one. You will sit in front. There—look up there—that's the Castle of Lützelbourg, and that pretty little wooden house close by, covered all over with vine, that is a châlet, Father Hoffman-Forty's châlet, the distiller of cordials, you know the cordial of Phalsbourg."
He showed her everything.
Then we began to load; that big Yéri, who takes the tickets at the gate and who carries the parcels to Monsieur André's omnibus, comes to lend us a hand. The two carts being loaded about twelve o'clock, and my cousin's wife seated in front of the foremost one upon a truss of straw, we started at a quiet pace for the village, where we arrived about three o'clock. But I remember one thing, which I will not omit to mention. As we were coming out of Lützelbourg, a heavy wagon-load of coal was coming down the hill, a lad of sixteen or seventeen leading the horse by the bridle; at the door of the last house, a little child of five years old, sitting on the ground, was looking at our carts passing by; he was out of the road, he could not be in any one's way, and was sitting there perfectly quiet, when the boy, without any reason, gave him a lash with his whip, which made the child cry aloud.
My cousin's wife saw that.
"Why did that boy strike the child?" she inquired.