She listened to the old priest’s boast and loved him for it. The silence of the woodlands helped her to self-deception. What war could there be when the glades were sleeping in the sunshine, and the kingfisher hovered above the limpid pools, and the church bells sent their message to the heights, and all things were as yesterday in the homes of the simple people about her? The very word seemed an irony. Yet war had taken Edmond to Strasburg and to his regiment. War had left her alone in the first hour of happiness inexpressible!
There had been rain all night, but the looming mists were scattered in the first hour of dawn on that last day of the month, and a surpassing freshness of the morning fell upon the glades and the gardens before her window. Every leaf had gathered its little gift of dew and husbanded the finest hues to give them out in a spectrum of violet and crimson, and the purest blues. Her roses shed their leaves upon the sparkling grass or lifted their heads to the dews in bursting blossoms and glossy petals. The very air seemed to rise up from a sea of the sweetest perfumes, and to fill the lungs with all the fulness of life realised. It was a scene of day glorified; a scene of Nature new-robed and awakened; of the apotheosis of solitudes. She gazed upon it, spell-bound and entranced. She could not remember yesterday in such an hour. Nevertheless, yesterday spoke to her—for there, upon the white road of the valley, the white road which the poplars fringed, was a regiment of chasseurs riding southward to Strasburg. Even at the window of her house she could hear the bugles blowing and the clatter of the waggons. The trumpet’s note thrilled her as a voice of war itself. She turned from the window and ran down to the kitchen of the house where Guillaumette was singing.
“Good-day, Madame—you hear the soldiers! Oh, that is good—all day the music and at night the chasseurs. They are going to make the Prussians dance—hein? And then Monsieur will come home again. Do not doubt it at all, Madame. A month and there will be no more music. We shall all go to Strasburg and Monsieur will be a general. The curé says it, and he knows. A thousand horses in the village yesterday—and all night long the tramp, tramp, tramp! Oh, I can sleep well to the tramp, tramp, tramp—moi! I think of Gaspard, who has gone to bring me a mug from Berlin. There is nothing else in Berlin but mugs and sausages. That is why these Prussians are so fat. But they will run, run, run presently. The Emperor has gone to Metz—eh piff, pouf, boum, where is your Bismarck then!”
Guillaumette was a wench of Grenoble, small of foot, relentless of tongue, with pretty hair and a young girl’s face against which the sun had warred in vain. To her, war and the rumour of war were an unbroken delight. There would be troopers in the hills all day. Why, then, should anyone be sad? She could not conceive that state of mind which brought tears to the eyes a second time for the lover who had gone to the wars. If he came home—it would be with gifts in his hand. If he did not come home—well, there were horsemen all day on the road to Strasburg. She spent her hours in the old kitchen, where the copper stove shone like a plate of gold; and when she was not singing “Allons, enfants de la patrie,” her ballad would be:—
“Cent mille francs
Sont attrayants,
Morbleu, j’en conviens sans peine,
Mais ce tendron
Triple escadron
Fait flotter mon âme incertaine.”
Beatrix listened to her blithe words and took heart in spite of herself. This child of the people could teach her a lesson, she thought. It was a lesson of duty; a lesson which war may teach even to a woman.
“Ah, Guillaumette,” she said, “if you were a prophetess—”
“Chut, Madame, why should I be a prophetess to say that the Prussian louts are going to run? Look at the chasseurs là bas—the horses, the gold and silver, the splendid fellows. It is the same everywhere. Gaspard tells me so. Everywhere, everywhere, the music and the colour and the big moustaches of the cuirassiers—and not a Prussian in all the mountains. Why are we here, drinking our coffee as yesterday? It is because of the chasseurs who go to Berlin on their horses. Ah, Madame, if there were any bonnets there! If there were anything over yonder but the mugs and the beer—”
She raked the fire angrily, and poured the steaming milk and coffee into the basins.