The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (105 page)

As for me, I thought of nothing but my spirits of wine, and all the time I was selling, weighing, and handling money, it was never out of my mind. It had, as it were, taken root in my brain.

This had lasted about an hour, when suddenly Burguet appeared at my door, under the little arch, behind the crowd of country people, and said to me:

“Moses, come here a minute, I have something to say to you.”

I went out.

“Let us go into your passage,” said he.

I was much surprised, for he looked very grave. The peasants behind called out:

“We have no time to lose. Make haste, Moses!”

But I paid no attention. In the passage Burguet said to me:

“I have just come from the mayoralty, where they are busy in making out a report to the prefect in regard to the state of feeling among our population, and I accidentally heard that they are going to send Sergeant Trubert to your house.”

This was indeed a blow for me. I exclaimed:

“I don’t want him! I don’t want him! I have lodged six men in the last fortnight, and it isn’t my turn.”

He answered:

“Be quiet, and don’t talk so loud. You will only make the matter worse.”

I repeated:

“Never, never shall this sergeant enter my house! It is abominable! A quiet man like myself, who has never harmed any one, and who asks nothing but peace!”

While I was speaking, Sorlé, on her way to market, with her basket on her arm, came down, and asked what was the matter.

“Listen, Madame Sorlé,” said Burguet to her; “be more reasonable than your husband! I can understand his indignation, and yet for all that, when a thing is inevitable we must submit to it. Frichard dislikes you; he is secretary of the mayoralty; he distributes the billets for quartering soldiers according to a list. Very well; he sends you Sergeant Trubert, a violent, bad man, I allow, but he needs lodging as well as the others. To everything which I have said in your favor, Frichard has always replied: ‘Moses is rich. He has sent away his boys to escape conscription. He ought to pay for them.’ The mayor, the governor, everybody thinks he is right. So, you see, I tell you as a friend, the more resistance you make, so much the more the sergeant will affront you, and Frichard laugh at you, and there will be no help for it. Be reasonable!”

I was still more angry on finding that I owed these misfortunes to Frichard. I would have exclaimed, but my wife laid her hand on my arm, and said:

“Let me speak, Moses. Monsieur Burguet is right, and I am much obliged to him for telling us beforehand. Frichard has a spite against us. Very well; he must pay for it all, and we will settle with him by and by. Now, when is the sergeant coming?”

“At noon,” replied Burguet.

“Very well,” said my wife; “he has a right to lodging, fire, and candles. We can’t dispute that; but Frichard shall pay for it all.”

She was pale, and I listened, for I saw that she was right.

“Be quiet, Moses,” she said to me afterward, “and don’t say a word; let me manage it.”

“This is what I had to say to you,” said Burguet, “it is an abominable trick of Frichard’s. I will see, by and by, if it is possible to rid you of the sergeant. Now I must go back to my post.”

Sorlé had just started for the market. Burguet pressed my hand, and as the peasants grew more impatient in their cries, I had to go back to my scales.

I was full of rage. I sold that day more than two hundred francs’ worth of iron, but my indignation against Frichard, and my fear of the sergeant, took away all pleasure in anything. I might have sold ten times more without feeling any better.

“Ah! the rascal!” I said to myself; “he gives me no rest. I shall have no peace in this city.”

As the clock struck twelve the market closed, and people went away by the French gate. I shut up my shop and went home, thinking to myself:

“Now I shall be nothing in my own house; this Trubert is going to rule everything. He will look down upon us as if we were Germans or Spaniards.”

I was in despair. But in the midst of my despair on the staircase, I suddenly perceived an odor of good things from the kitchen, and I went up in surprise, for I smelt fish and roast, as if it were a feast day.

I was going into the kitchen, when Sorlé appeared and said:

“Go into your chamber, shave yourself, and put on a clean shirt.”

I saw, at the same time, that she was dressed in her Sabbath clothes, with her ear-rings, her green skirt, and her red silk neckerchief.

“But why must I shave, Sorlé?” I exclaimed.

“Go quick; you have no time to lose!” replied she.

This woman had so much good sense, she had so many times set things right by her ready wit, that I said nothing more, and went into my bedroom to shave myself and put on a clean shirt.

As I was putting on my shirt I heard little Sâfel cry out:

“Here he is, mamma! here he is!”

Then steps were heard on the stairs, and a rough voice called:

“Holla! you folks. Ho!”

I thought to myself: “It is the sergeant,” and I listened.

“Ah! here is our sergeant!” cried Sâfel, triumphantly.

“Oh! that is good,” replied my wife, in a cheerful tone. “Come in, Mr. Sergeant, come in! We were expecting you. I knew that we were to have the honor of having a sergeant; we were glad to hear it, because we have had only common soldiers before. Be so good as to come in, Mr. Sergeant.”

She spoke in this way as if she were really pleased, and I thought to myself:

“O Sorlé, Sorlé! You shrewd woman! You sensible woman! I see through it now. I see your cunning. You are going to mollify this rascal! Ah, Moses! what a wife you have! Congratulate yourself! Congratulate yourself!”

I hastened to dress myself, laughing all the while; and I heard this brute of a sergeant say:

“Yes, yes! It is all very well. But that isn’t the point! Show me my room, my bed. You can’t pay me with fine speeches; people know Sergeant Trubert too well for that.”

“Certainly, Mr. Sergeant, certainly,” replied my wife, “here is your room and your bed. See, it is the best we have.”

Then they went into the passage, and I heard Sorlé open the door of the handsome room which Baruch and Zeffen occupied when they came to Phalsburg.

I followed them softly. The sergeant thrust his fist into the bed to feel if it was soft. Sorlé and Sâfel looked on smilingly behind him. He examined every corner with a scowl. You never saw such a face, Fritz; a gray bristling mustache, a long thin nose, hooked over the mouth; a yellow skin, full of wrinkles: he dragged the butt-end of his gun on the floor, without seeming to notice anything, and muttered ill-naturedly:

“Hem! hem! What is that down there?”

“It is the wash-basin, Mr. Sergeant.”

“And these chairs, are they strong? Will they bear anything?”

He knocked them rudely down. It was evident he wanted to find fault with something.

On turning round he saw me, and looking at me sideways, asked:

“Are you the citizen?”

“Yes, sergeant; I am.”

“Ah!”

He put his gun in a corner, threw his knapsack on the table, and said:

“That will do! You may go.”

Sâfel had opened the kitchen door, and the good smell of the roast came into the room.

“Mr. Sergeant,” said Sorlé very pleasantly, “allow me to ask a favor of you.”

“You!” said he, looking at her over his shoulder, “ask a favor of me!”

“Yes. It is that since you now lodge with us, and will be in some respects one of the family, you will give us the pleasure of dining with us, at least for once.”

“Ah, ah!” said he, turning his nose toward the kitchen, “that is another thing!”

He seemed to be considering whether to grant us this favor or not. We waited for him to answer, when he gave another sniff and threw his cartridge-box on the bed, saying:

“Well, so be it! We will go and see!”

“Wretch!” thought I, “if I could make you eat potatoes!”

But Sorlé seemed satisfied, and said:

“This way, Mr. Sergeant; this way, if you please.”

When we went into the dining-room I saw that everything was prepared as if for a prince; the floor swept, the table carefully laid, a white table-cloth, and our silver knives and forks.

Sorlé placed the sergeant in my arm-chair at the head of the table, which seemed to him the most natural thing in the world.

Our servant brought in the large tureen and took off the cover; the odor of a good cream soup filled the room, and we began our dinner.

Fritz, I could tell you everything we had for dinner; but believe me, neither you nor I ever had a better. We had a roasted goose, a magnificent pike, sauerkraut, everything, in fact, which could be desired for a grand dinner, and all served by Sorlé in the most perfect manner. We had, too, four bottles of Beaujolais warmed in napkins, as was the custom in winter, and an abundant dessert.

Well! do you believe that the rascal once had the grace to seem pleased with all this? Do you believe that all through this dinner, which lasted nearly two hours, he once thought of saying, “This pike is excellent!” or, “This fat goose is well cooked!” or, “You have very good wine!” or any of the other things which we know are pleasant for a host to hear, and which repay a good cook for his trouble? No, Fritz, not once! You would have supposed that he had such dinners every day. The more even that my wife flattered him, and the more kindly she spoke to him, the more he rebuffed her, the more he scowled, the more defiantly he looked at us, as if we wanted to poison him.

From time to time I looked indignantly at Sorlé, but she kept on smiling; she kept on giving the nicest bits to the sergeant; she kept on filling his glass.

Two or three times I wanted to say, “Ah, Sorlé, what a good cook you are! How nice this force-meat is!” But suddenly the sergeant would look down upon me as if to say, “What does that signify? Perhaps you want to give me lessons? Don’t I know better than you do whether a thing is good or bad?”

So I kept silence. I could have wished him—well, in worse company; I grew more and more indignant at every morsel which he swallowed in silence. Nevertheless Sorlé’s example encouraged me to put a good face on the matter, and toward the end I thought, “Now, since the dinner is eaten, since it is almost over, we will go on, with God’s help. Sorlé was mistaken, but it is all the same; her idea was a good one, except for such a rascal!”

And I myself ordered coffee; I went to the closet, too, to get some cherry-brandy and old rum.

“What is that?” asked the sergeant.

“Rum and cherry-brandy; old cherry-brandy from the ‘Black Forest,’” I replied.

“Ah,” said he, winking, “everybody says, ‘I have got some cherry-brandy from the Black Forest!’ It is very easy to say; but they can’t cheat Sergeant Trubert; we will see about this!”

In taking his coffee he twice filled his glass with cherry-brandy, and both times said, “He! he! We will see whether it is genuine.”

I could have thrown the bottle at his head.

As Sorlé went to him to pour a third glassful, he rose and said, “That is enough; thank you! The posts are doubled. This evening I shall be on guard at the French gate. The dinner, to be sure, was not a bad one. If you give me such now and then, we can get along with each other.”

He did not smile, and, indeed, seemed to be ridiculing us.

“We will do our best, Mr. Sergeant,” replied Sorlé, while he went into his room and took his great-coat to go out.

“We will see,” said he as he went downstairs, “we will see!”

Till now I had said nothing, but when he was down I exclaimed, “Sorlé, never, no never, was there such a rascal! We shall never get along with this man. He will drive us all from the house.”

“Bah! bah! Moses,” she replied, laughing, “I do not think as thou dost! I have quite the contrary idea; we will be good friends, thou’lt see, thou’lt see!”

“God grant it!” I said; “but I have not much hope of it.”

She smiled as she took off the table-cloth, and gave me too a little confidence, for this woman had a good deal of shrewdness, and I acknowledged her sound judgment.

CHAPTER VII

SERGEANT TRUBERT IN A NEW LIGHT

You see, Fritz, what the common people had to endure in those days. Ah, well! just as we were performing extra service, while Monborne was commanding me at the drilling, while Sergeant Trubert was down upon me, while we were hearing of domiciliary visits of inspection to ascertain what provisions the citizens had—in the midst of all this, my dozen pipes of spirits of wine were being slowly wheeled over the road.

How I repented of having ordered them! How often I could have torn my hair as I thought that half my thirty years’ gains were at the mercy of circumstances! How I prayed for the Emperor! How I ran every morning to the coffee-houses and ale-houses to learn the news, and how I trembled as I read!

Nobody knew what I suffered, not even Sorlé, for I kept it all from her. She was too keen-sighted not to perceive my anxiety, and sometimes she would say, “Come, Moses, have courage! All will come right—patience a little longer!”