The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (134 page)

It was on a Tuesday, baking-day at the farm. Excitement had prevailed in the kitchen all the morning: old Duchêne, with shirt-sleeves turned up and a cotton cap on his head, was taking out of the oven numberless loaves of bread, the good odor of which pervaded the whole house. Annette received them and piled them on the hearth; Louise waited on the guests; and Catherine Lefèvre superintended everything, crying out, “Make haste, my children—make haste! The third batch must be ready when the men from the Sarre arrive. It will make six pounds of bread for each man.”

Hullin, from his seat, watched the movements of the old farm-mistress.

“What a woman!” said he; “what a woman! She forgets nothing. Could one find another such in the whole country? To the health of Catherine Lefèvre!”

“To the health of Catherine Lefèvre!” replied the others.

The glasses met together, and they began again to talk over combats, assaults, and intrenchments. Each one felt animated with an invincible confidence; every one said in himself, “All will go well!”

But heaven had in store for them yet another satisfaction on that day, especially for Louise and the Mother Lefèvre. About noon, just as a beautiful gleam of winter sunshine whitened the snow and made the frost melt on the window-panes, and the great cock, putting his head out of his coop, uttered his triumphant crow, flapping his wings—just then the watch-dog, old “Yohan,” half blind and toothless, began to bark so joyously and plaintively, that everyone listened with the greatest attention. The kitchen was all excitement with the fourth batch coming out of the oven, and even Catherine Lefèvre herself stopped.

“Something is going on,” said she, in a low voice: and then added, all trembling, “Since my boy left, Yohan has never barked like that.”

At the same moment, rapid steps traversed the court. Louise sprang toward the door, crying, “It is he! It is he!” and almost immediately a hand tried to hasp. The door opened, and a soldier appeared on the threshold; but such a soldier, so worn, so bronzed, so emaciated! his gray hood, with its pewter buttons, so ragged—his high leathern gaiters so torn, that all present were astonished.

He appeared unable to advance a step farther, and slowly put the butt-end of his musket on the ground. The tip of his aquiline nose—the nose of Mother Lefèvre—shone like bronze; his red mustaches shook like one of those great lean hawks which are forced by hunger to come to the very doors of the stables in winter. He looked into the kitchen, pale beneath the brown coating of his cheeks, and with his great hollow eyes filled with tears, he seemed unable to advance or say a word.

Outside, the old dog leaped, whined, and shook his chain; in the interior, one could hear the fire blazing, so great was the silence; but soon Catherine Lefèvre, with a piercing voice, exclaimed, “Gaspard! my child! It is thou!”

“Yes, my mother,” replied the soldier, softly, as though suffocating.

And at the same moment Louise began to weep, while in the great room there arose a shout like thunder. All the friends ran out, Master Jean-Claude at their head, crying, “Gaspard! Gaspard Lefèvre!”

Then they saw Gaspard and his mother embracing each other. This strong, courageous woman was weeping: he did not weep; he held her pressed to his breast, his red mustaches mingling with her gray locks, and murmured, “My mother!—my mother! Ah, how often have I thought of you!” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “Louise! Where is Louise? I saw Louise!” And Louise threw herself into his arms, and their kisses were mingled together. “Ah, thou didst not recognize me, Louise!”

“Oh, yes!—oh, yes! I knew thee, even by thy step!”

Old Duchêne, with his cotton cap in his hands, stammered out by the fireplace, “Lord! is it possible? My poor child! What does he look like?”

He had brought up Gaspard, and always fancied him, ever since his departure, fresh and ruddy in a beautiful uniform with red facings. It completely deranged his ideas to see him otherwise.

At that moment Hullin, raising his voice, said, “And the rest of us, Gaspard,—thy old friends—art thou not going to take notice of us?”

Then the brave fellow turned round and exclaimed with enthusiasm, “Hullin! Doctor Lorquin! Materne! Frantz! Why, they are all here!”

And the embraces recommenced, but this time more joyously, with shouts of laughter and shaking of hands that seemed endless.

“Ah, doctor, it is you! Ah, my old father, Jean-Claude!”

They looked closely at each other, with bright, beaming faces, and went arm-in-arm up and down the great room; and Mother Catherine with the knapsack, Louise with the gun, and Duchêne with the shako, followed them, laughing and drying their cheeks and eyes—nothing had ever been seen like it before.

“Let us sit down and drink!” exclaimed Doctor Lorquin. “This is the bouquet of the feast.”

“Ah, my poor Gaspard, how happy I am to behold thee safe and sound,” said Hullin. “Ha, ha! Without flattery, I like thee better as thou art now than with thy great red cheeks. Parbleu! thou art a man now. Thou remindest me of the old fellows of my time, those of the Sambre and Egypt—ha, ha, ha! we had not round noses, we were not sleek and fat; we looked like lean rats watching a cheese, and our teeth were long and white!”

“Yes, yes, that does not surprise me, Papa Jean-Claude. Come, let us sit down; we can talk more at ease. Ah, now, why are you all at the farm?”

“What, dost thou not know? All the country is up, from Houpe to Saint-Sauveur, to defend itself.”

“Yes, the anabaptist of Painbach just mentioned it as I passed. It is then true?”

“It is true. Everybody is in it; and I am the general in chief.”

“Excellent—excellent! That these rogues of ‘kaiserlichs’ should not carry everything with a high hand in our own country gives me pleasure. But hand me the knife. Anyway one is happy to find one’s self at home again. Hé! Louise, come here and sit down a little while. Look, Papa Jean-Claude: with this girl on one side of me, the ham on the other, and the bottle to the front, I should not need a fortnight to pick up again; and my comrades would not know me when I joined the company.”

Everybody was now sitting down and astonished to see with what appetite the brave fellow ate and drank, while regarding Louise and his mother tenderly, and replying to one and the other, without losing a single mouthful.

The farm-people, Duchêne, Annette, Robin, and Dubourg, arranged in a half-circle, watched Gaspard in ecstasies; Louise refilled his glass; the Mother Lefèvre, seated by the stove, got up and went to his knapsack, and, on only finding two old black shirts with holes wide enough to put one’s, hand through, with worn-out shoes and a bit of wax for cartridges, a comb with two teeth and an empty bottle, she lifted her hands to heaven and hastening to open the linen chest, saying, “Lord, can one be astonished that so many die of sheer want!”

Doctor Lorquin, in presence of such a vigorous appetite, rubbed his hands joyfully, and murmured to himself, “What a sturdy fellow! What a digestion! What a set of teeth! He could crunch pebbles like nuts.”

And even old Materne said to his sons: “In other days, after two or three days of hunting in the high mountains in winter, I also used to feel the hunger of a wolf, and to eat a haunch of venison right off: now I am getting old, one or two pounds of meat are sufficient for me—-which shows what age does.”

Hullin had lit his pipe, and seemed in a reverie: evidently something worried him. After a few minutes, seeing that Gaspard’s appetite was less lively, he brusquely asked, “Say, then, Gaspard, without interrupting thyself, how the devil hast thou managed to come? We believed that thou wast still on the borders of the Rhine, on the Strasbourg side.”

“Ah! ah! old soldier, I comprehend,” said young Lefèvre, winking. “There are so many deserters, are there not?”

“Oh! such an idea would never enter my head, and yet—”

“You would not be sorry to know that I had done nothing wrong? I cannot blame you, Papa Jean-Claude: you are right. He who is missing at the roll-call when the ‘kaiserlichs’ are in France, deserves to be shot. Be composed, here is my leave.”

Hullin, who possessed no false delicacy, read, “Leave for twenty-four hours to the grenadier Gaspard Lefèvre, of the 2d of the 1st. This day, 3d January, 1814.—GEMEAU, Head of Battalion.”

“Good, good,” exclaimed he. “Put that carefully in thy knapsack, thou mightest lose it.”

All his good-humor had returned: “Do you see, my children, I know what love is? There is both good and bad in it: but it is particularly bad for young soldiers who come too close to their village after a campaign. They are capable of forgetting themselves and of not returning unless in company of two or three gendarmes. I have seen it. But come, since everything is in order, let us drink a glass of ‘rikevir.’ What say you, Catherine? The men of the Sarre may arrive at any moment, and we have not an instant to lose?”

“You are right, Jean-Claude,” replied the old farm-mistress sadly. “Annette, go down and bring three bottles from the small cellar.”

The servant obeyed quickly.

“But this leave, Gaspard,” continued Catherine—“how long has it lasted?”

“I received it yesterday, at eight in the evening, at Vasselonne, my mother. The regiment is retreating on Lorraine; I must rejoin it this evening at Phalsbourg.”

“It is well; thou hast still seven hours; thou wilt not need more than six to reach there, although there is much snow on the Foxthal.”

The good woman came and sat down again by her son, with a full heart. Every one was moved. Louise, with her arm on the old tattered epaulet of Gaspard and her cheek against his, was sobbing. Hullin emptied the ashes from his pipe at the end of the table, frowning, without saying anything; but when the bottles arrived and were uncorked, “Come, Louise,” said he, “take courage! this cannot last forever; it must end in one way or another, and I venture to affirm that it will end well. Gaspard will come back to us, and then we shall have the wedding.”

He refilled the glasses, and Catherine dried her eyes, murmuring, “To think that those brigands are the cause of all this. Ah! let them come—let them come here!”

They all drank with a melancholy air; but the old “rikevir,” entering the hearts of these brave people quickly enlivened them. Gaspard, stronger than he had appeared at first, began to relate the terrible battles of Bautzen, Lutzen, Leipzig, and Hanau, where the conscripts had fought like tried soldiers, winning victory after victory, till traitors began to appear.

Every one listened in silence. Louise, when he spoke of any great danger—of the passage over rivers under the enemy’s fire, or the taking of a battery by the bayonet—squeezed his arm as though to defend him. Jean-Claude’s eyes sparkled; the doctor demanded each time the position of the ambulance; Materne and his sons stretched out their necks and clinched their jaws; and with help of the old wine the enthusiasm increased every moment. “Ah, the rascals! ah, the brigands! But look out! it is not over yet.”

Mother Lefèvre admired the courage and luck of her son in the midst of these events, which will be remembered centuries to come. But when Lagarmitte, looking solemn and grave in his long gray cloth coat, with his broad black felt on his white head, and with his bark trumpet on his shoulder, crossed the kitchen, and appeared at the entrance to the large room, saying, “The men of the Sarre are come,”—then all this enthusiasm, disappeared, and the company rose, thinking of the terrible struggle which would soon take place in the mountains.

Louise, throwing her arms round Gaspard’s neck, cried, “Gaspard, do not go away! Remain with us!”

He became very pale.

“I am a soldier,” said he. “I am called, Gaspard Lefèvre. I love thee a thousand times more than my own life; but a Lefèvre only knows his duty.”

And he unwound her arms. Louise then, sinking on the table, began to moan aloud. Gaspard rose. Hullin stood between them, and grasping his hands tightly, with trembling lips, said: “Excellently well! Thou hast spoken like a man.”

His mother came forward with a calm countenance to buckle his knapsack on his shoulders. She did it with knitted eyebrows and pressed lips, without one sigh escaping her; but two great tears slowly ran down the wrinkles of her cheeks. And when she had done it, she turned away, and with her sleeve over her eyes, said: “It is well! Go—go, my child! thy mother blesses thee. Whatever thy fortune thou wilt yet not be lost to us. Look, Gaspard: there is thy place—there between Louise and myself—thou wilt always be there. This poor child is not old enough yet to know that to live is to suffer.”

Everybody left; only Louise remained lamenting in the room. A few seconds later, as the butt end of the musket sounded on the slabs of the kitchen, and the outer door was opened, she gave a piercing shriek, and darted after him.

“Gaspard, Gaspard, look! I will be courageous; I will not cry; I will not keep thee back. Oh, no; but do not leave me in anger. Have pity on me!”

“Angry! angry with thee, my Louise! Oh, no! But to see thee so unhappy breaks my heart. Ah! if thou wert a little braver now, I should feel happier.”

“Well, I am. Let us kiss each other! See, I am no longer the same. I would be like Maman Lefèvre.”

They calmly gave each other a parting embrace, Hullin held the gun; Catherine motioned with her hands, as though to say, “Go, go! it is enough!” And he, suddenly seizing his musket, walked away resolutely, without looking back.