"My discharge?" I asked, offended, "and why, pray? Have I not done more than my duty? And if so, how have I merited this disgrace?"
"I am afraid that it was just your extraordinary ardour that brought it on you; that's it, you have done more than your duty; and as you are a foreigner, it is natural to ask, Why have you done it? Why have you exposed your own life, contrary to custom, picking up the wounded where the fight was the hottest and the balls flying thickest? True, you have by this course saved the lives of many that would have bled to death, or been otherwise lost; but it is a marvellous thing that you could do all that and escape unhurt. The fact is, you have always come back with a sound skin. Can you explain this miracle? Can you tell me, why you, a foreigner, took the risk of such imminent danger for—Hecuba—that is, for wounded French soldiers?"
The old man was right. I could not explain it, for I could not tell him that I had regarded their great national calamity as a means of carrying out my petty suicidal designs and giving them a decent cloak. I never thought of it before; but now I had to acknowledge that my conduct looked suspicious to strangers. What will be their suspicions, I thought, when they learn that I have talked German with a Prussian officer, and shaken hands with him? Would this not give new matter for their suspicions, and was it not natural in the vanquished to believe in treachery?
And then I thought what a self-conceited fool I had been to think I could command God Mars to afford me a disguise for self-murder. "Why," he said, "do you suppose these great national conflagrations are kindled to cook your meals on? What do I care for your family quarrels? If you are tired of life, take a rope and hang yourself on that willow, and there is an end of you and your paltry complaints."
As I stood there musing, old Duval turned my face around and exclaimed—"Look! look! Your forehead is wounded."
"A mere scratch with a shrapnel splinter," I said, bitterly, "not worth plastering." I took from him the letter with my discharge, presented him with my camp outfit, instruments, horses, etc., and kept nothing but one of the waggons and a pair of horses for my journey homeward—that is, to Paris. This was now the speediest way of travelling, for the railways were all occupied with the transport of troops.
Before I left Chalons, I entered a café and drank a cupful of some black beverage that was called coffee, although I think it tasted of soot, and read one of the Paris newspapers—the last that had arrived the same day.
A dazzling glare of light was visible through the windows, arising from the valley. It was the burning camp. The Emperor had given orders to burn all tents, since there was not time enough to strike them and carry them off. So everything was left to be consumed by the flames, while the men fled for their lives.
The newspapers in the coffee-house were going from hand to hand, and were eagerly devoured. At last I obtained one. I found the following report in large letters—
"The Prussian army scattered! Two hundred Krupp guns remaining as captures in the hands of the French! Commander Moltke a prisoner! Bismarck fatally wounded! Price of rentes, 1 franc 25."