The children of Alsace

by René Bazin

Half an hour later, in the meadow on the slope in front of the house was M. Ulrich, gaitered like Jean, with a soft hat, the telescope slung over his shoulder, his dog gambolling round him; old Pierre very dignified and solemn, carrying on his mountaineer's shoulders a great pack wrapped in linen and fastened by straps; then Jean Oberlé, bending over a staff-officer's map, which the others knew by heart, discussing the two ways to go—the way of the baggage and the way of the walkers. The discussion was short. The servant went on in front, bearing to the left to reach the village where they would sleep, while the uncle and nephew took a path to the middle of the mountain—in a north-easterly direction.

"So much the better that it is a long way," said M. Ulrich, when they gained the shade of the wood. "So much the better. I wish it were for a lifetime. Two people who understand one another and go through the forest—what a dream!"

He half shut his eyes, as painters do, and breathed in the mist with pleasure.

"Do you know," he added, in the way he would have confided to him something delightful, "Do you know that we have had spring here for three days? There it is—that's my second reason!"

The forester said with enthusiasm what the manufacturer had said without admiration. By the same signs he recognised that a new season had begun. With his stick he pointed out to Jean the pine buds, red like arbutus berries; the bursting bark on the beech trunks, the shoots of wild strawberries running along the stones. In the uncovered pathways the north wind still blew, but in the hollows, the combes, the sheltered spots, one felt, in spite of the fog, the first warmth of the sun, which goes to the heart and makes men tremble, that warmth which touches the germ of the plants.

That day, and during those which followed, uncle and nephew lived under wood. They understood one another perfectly, whether they spoke fully on any subject or were silent. M. Ulrich knew the forest and the mountains by heart. He enjoyed this opportunity which had been given him to explain the Vosges and to discover his nephew. Jean's ardent youthfulness often amused him and recalled bygone times. The instincts of the forester and hunter, slumbering in the young man's heart, were ripening and strengthening. But he had also his rage, his revolts, his juvenile threatening words, against which the uncle protested but feebly, because he really approved of them.

The plaint of Alsace rose to his ear for the first time, the complaining cry the stranger does not hear and the conqueror only half listens to, but can never understand. For Jean did not only observe the forest; he also observed the people of the forest, from the merchants and the officials, feudal lords on whom depend a multitude almost past numbering, down to woodcutters, jobbers, fellers, carters, charcoal burners, down even to wanderers, shepherds, and swineherds, pedlars of dead wood, freebooters, poachers, myrtle gatherers, who also gather mushrooms and wild strawberries and raspberries.

Introduced by Uncle Ulrich, or passing by in his shadow, he aroused no suspicions.

He talked freely with the people—in their words, their silence, and in the atmosphere in which he lived day and night, he absorbed unto himself the very soul of his race. Many did not know France, among the young ones, and could not have said if they loved her, but even those had France in their veins. They did not get on with the German. A gesture, a look, an allusion, showed the secret disdain of the Alsatian peasant for his conqueror. The idea of a yoke was everywhere, and everywhere there was antipathy against the master who only knew how to govern by fear. Other young men of the families with traditions, instructed by their parents in the history of the past, faithful without any precise hope, complained that the poor of the mountain and plain were denied justice and subjected to annoyances if they were suspected of the crime of regretting France. They spoke of the tricks played by way of revenge on the custom officers, on the police, on the forest guard—proud of their green uniform and of their Tyrolese hat—the stories of smuggling and desertion, of the Marseillaise sung in the taverns with closed doors, of fêtes on French land, of perquisitions, domiciliary visits and pursuits, of the comic or tragic duel, useless and exasperating, between the strength of a great country and the mind of a small one. When the latter suffered, its thoughts, inherited from ancestors, through habit and from affection, went over the mountains.

There were also the old folk, and it was M. Ulrich's delight to make them talk. When on the roads, and in the villages, he saw a man of fifty years or more, and he knew him to be an Alsatian, it was seldom that he himself was not recognised and that a mysterious smile did not prepare the question for the Master of Heidenbruch: