At Fénétrange, through which we passed about two o'clock, nothing was known.
At six in the evening we arrived upon the plateau of Metting, near the farm called Donat, and saw in the dim distance, two leagues from us, Phalsbourg, without its ramparts, and its demilunes; its church and its streets in ashes! The Germans were hidden by the undulations of the surrounding country, their cannon were on the hill-sides, and sentinels were posted behind the quarries.
There was deep silence: not a shot was heard: it was the blockade! Famine was doing quietly what the bombardment had been unable to effect.
Then, with heads bowed down, we passed through the little wood on our left, full of dead leaves, and we saw our little village of Rothalp, three hundred paces behind the orchards and the fields; it looked dead too: ruin had passed over it—the requisitions had utterly exhausted it; winter, with its snow and ice, was waiting at every door.
The mill was working; which astonished me.
George and I, without speaking, clasped each other's hands; then he strode toward his house, and I passed rapidly to mine, with a full heart.
Prussian soldiers were unloading a wagon-load of corn under my shed; fear laid hold of me, and I thought, "Have the wretches driven away my wife and daughter?"
Happily Catherine appeared at the door directly; she had seen me coming, and extended her arms, crying, "Is it you, Christian? Oh! what we have suffered!"
She hung upon my neck, crying and sobbing. Then came Grédel; we all clung together, crying like children.
The Prussians, ten paces off, stared at us. A few neighbors were crying, "Here is the old mayor come back again!"