XIV.
When sense returned, all was silent around. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and the moon shone down upon the abandoned village, the broken guns, and the pale upturned faces of the dead, as calmly as for ages she had looked on the flowing water, the waving grass, and the rustling leaves. Men are but insects in the midst of creation; lives but drops in the ocean of eternity, and none so truly feel their insignificance as the dying.
I could not move from where I lay in the intensest pain. My right arm alone could I stir; and raising myself with difficulty upon my elbow, I saw the dead heaped along the street, their white faces shining like snow in the moonlight. The sight thrilled me with horror, and my teeth chattered.
I would have cried for help, but my voice was no louder than that of a sobbing child. But my feeble cry awoke others, and groans and shrieks arose on all sides. The wounded, thought succor was coming, and all who could cried piteously. And I heard, too, a horse neigh painfully on the other side of the hedge. The poor animal tried to rise, and I saw its head and long neck appear; then it fell again to the earth.
The effort I made reopened my wound, and again I felt the blood running down my breast. I closed my eyes to die, and the scenes of my early childhood, of my native village, the face of my poor mother as she sang me to sleep, my little room, with its niched Virgin, our old dog Pommer—all rose before my eyes; my father embraced me again, as he laid aside his axe at his return from work—all rose dreamily before me.
How little those poor parents thought that they were rearing their boy to die miserably far from friends, and home, and succor! Would that I could have asked their forgiveness for all the pain I had given them! Tears rolled down my cheeks; I sobbed like a child.
Then Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and Monsieur Goulden passed before me. I saw their grief and fear when the news of the battle came. Aunt Grédel running to the post-office to learn something of me, and Catharine prayerfully awaiting her return, while Monsieur Goulden searched the gazette for intelligence of our corps. I saw Aunt Grédel return disappointed, and heard Catharine's sobs as she asked eagerly for me. Then a messenger seemed to arrive at Quatre-Vents. He opened his leathern sack, and handed a large paper to Aunt Grédel, while Catharine stood, pale as death, beside her. It was the official notice of my death! I heard Catharine's heart-rending cries and Aunt Grédel's maledictions. Then good Monsieur Goulden came to console them, and all wept together.
Toward morning, a heavy shower began to fall, and the monotonous dripping on the roofs alone broke the silence. I thought of the good God, whose power and mercy are limitless, and I hoped that he would pardon my sins in consideration of my sufferings.
The rain filled the little trench in which I had been lying. From time to time a wall fell in the village, and the cattle, scared away by the battle, began to resume confidence and return. I heard a goat bleat in a neighboring stable. A great shepherd's dog wandered fearfully among the heaps of dead. The horse, seeing him, neighed in terror—he took him for a wolf—and the dog fled.
I remember all these details, for, when we are dying, we see everything, we hear everything, for we know that we are seeing and hearing our last.