I remained there, amazed and confused by his insolence. I turned so pale, it appears, and the blue of my eyes became so clear, that Soubise, who was acquainted with my fits of anger, was very much alarmed.
“Do be calm, madame, I implore,” she said. “We are two women alone among these people. If they liked to harm us they could, and we must accomplish the aim and object of our journey, we must see little Maurice again.”
She was very clever, this charming Mlle. Soubise, and her little speech had the desired effect. To see the child again was my aim and object. I calmed down and vowed that I would not allow myself to get angry during this journey, which promised to be fertile in incidents, and I almost kept my word. I left the station master’s office and found the poor Alsatian waiting at the door. I gave him a couple of louis which he hid away quickly, and then shook my hand as though he would break it off.
“You ought not to have that so visible, madame,” he said, pointing to the little bag I had hanging at my side. “It is very dangerous.”
I thanked him, but did not pay any attention to his advice. Just as the train was about to start we entered the only first-class compartment. There were two young German officers in it. They saluted, and I took this as a good omen. The train whistled, and I thought what good luck we had had, as no one else would get in! Well, the wheels had not turned round ten times when the door opened violently, and five German officers leaped into our carriage.
We were nine then, and I thought, What torture! The station master waved a farewell to one of the officers, and both of them burst out laughing as they looked at us. I glanced at the station master’s friend. He was a surgeon major and was wearing the ambulance badge on his sleeve. His wide face was congested, and a ring of sandy, bushy beard surrounded the lower part of it. Two little bright, light-colored eyes in perpetual movement lit up this ruddy face and gave him a sly look. He was broad shouldered and thick-set, and gave one the idea of having strength without nerves. The horrid man was still laughing when the station and its station master were far away from us, but what the other one had said was evidently very droll. I was in a corner seat, with Soubise opposite me, and the two young German officers on the other side of each of us. They were both very gentle and polite, and one of them was quite delightful in his youthful charm. The surgeon major took off his helmet. He was very bald and had a very small, stubborn-looking forehead. He began to talk in a loud voice to the other officers. Our two young bodyguards took very little part in the conversation. Among the others was a tall, affected young man whom they addressed as Baron. He was slender, very elegant, and very strong. When he saw that we did not understand German, he spoke to us in English. But Soubise was too timid to answer, and I speak English very badly. He therefore resigned himself regretfully to talking French. He was agreeable, too agreeable; he certainly had not bad manners, but he was deficient in tact. I made him understand this by turning my face toward the scenery we were passing.
We were very much absorbed in our thoughts and had been traveling for a long time when I suddenly felt suffocated by smoke which was filling the carriage. I looked round and saw that the surgeon major had lighted his pipe and, with his eyes half closed, was sending up puffs of smoke to the ceiling. My throat was smarting with it, and I was choking with indignation, so that I was seized with a fit of coughing, which I exaggerated in order to attract the attention of the impolite man. The baron, however, slapped him on the knee and endeavored to make him comprehend that smoke annoyed me. He answered by an insult which I did not understand, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to smoke. Exasperated by this, I lowered the window on my side. The intense cold made itself felt in the carriage, but I preferred that to the nauseous smoke of the pipe. Suddenly the surgeon major got up, putting his hand to his ear. I then saw that his ear was filled with cotton wool. He swore like an ox-driver and, pushing past everyone, and stepping on my loot and on Soubise’s, he shut the window violently, cursing and swearing all the time—quite uselessly, for I did not understand him. He went back to his seat, continued his pipe, and sent out enormous clouds of smoke in the most insolent way. The baron and the two young Germans who had been the first in the carriage appeared to ask him something, and then to remonstrate with him, but he evidently told them to mind their own business and began to abuse them. Very much calmer myself on seeing the increasing anger of the disagreeable man, and very much amused by his earache, I again opened the window. He got up again, furious, showed me his ear and his swollen cheek, and I comprehended the word periostitis in the explanation he gave me on shutting the window again. I then made him understand that I had a weak chest and that the smoke made me cough. The baron acted as my interpreter and explained this to him. But it was easy to see that he did not care a bit about that, and he once more took up his favorite attitude and his pipe. I left him in peace for five minutes, during which time he was able to imagine himself triumphant until, with a sudden jerk of my elbow, I broke the pane of glass. Stupefaction was then depicted on the major’s face, and he became livid. He got straight up, but the two young men rose at the same time, while the baron burst out laughing in the most brutal manner. The surgeon moved a step in our direction, but he found a rampart before him; another officer had joined the two young men, and he was a strong, hardy-looking fellow, just cut out for an obstacle. I do not know what he said to the surgeon major, but it was something clear and decisive. The latter, not knowing how to expend his anger, turned on the baron, who was still laughing, and abused him so violently that the latter calmed down suddenly, and answered in such a way that I quite understood the two men were calling each other out. That affected me but little. They might very well kill each other, these two men, for they were equally ill-mannered.
The carriage was now quiet and icy cold, for the wind blew in wildly through the broken pane. The sun had set. The sky was getting cloudy. It was about half past five and we were approaching Tergnier. The major had changed seats with his friend, in order to shelter his ear as much as possible. He kept moaning like a half-dead cow.
Suddenly, the repeated whistling of a distant locomotive made us listen attentively. We then heard two, three, and four petards bursting under our wheels. We could perfectly well feel the efforts the engine driver was making to slacken speed, but before he could succeed we were thrown against each other by a frightful shock. There were cracks and creaks, the hiccoughs of the locomotive spitting out its smoke in irregular fits, desperate cries, shouts, oaths, sudden downfalls, a lull, then a thick smoke, broken by the flames of a fire. Our carriage was standing up like a horse kicking up its hind legs. It was impossible to get our balance again.
Who was wounded and who was not wounded? We were nine in the compartment. For my part, I fancied that all my bones were broken. I moved one leg and then I tried the other. Then, delighted at finding them without any broken places, I tried my arms in the same way. I had nothing broken and neither had Mlle. Soubise. She had bitten her tongue and it was bleeding, and this had frightened me. She did not seem to understand anything. The tremendous shaking up had made her dizzy, and she lost her memory for some days. I had a rather deep scratch between my eyes. I had not had time to stretch out my arms, and my forehead had knocked against the hilt of the sword which the officer seated by Soubise had been holding upright.