The Downfall Part 57

"You'll not be troubled with him any more, I give you my word of honor!"

declared Sambuc. "We'll go and toss him into the Meuse."

"Be sure and fasten a couple of big stones to his feet," recommended Fouchard, "so the lubber shan't come up again."

And the little procession, dimly outlined against the white waste of snow, started and soon was buried in the blackness of the night, giving no sound save the faint, plaintive creaking of the barrow.

In after days Sambuc swore by all that was good and holy he had obeyed the old man's directions, but none the less the corpse came to the surface and was discovered two days afterward by the Prussians among the weeds at Pont-Maugis, and when they saw the manner of their countryman's murder, his throat slit like a pig, their wrath and fury knew no bounds.

Their threats were terrible, and were accompanied by domiciliary visits and annoyances of every kind. Some of the villagers must have blabbed, for there came a party one night and arrested Father Fouchard and the Mayor of Remilly on the charge of giving aid and comfort to the francs-tireurs, who were manifestly the perpetrators of the crime.

And Father Fouchard really came out very strong under those untoward circ.u.mstances, exhibiting all the impa.s.sability of a shrewd old peasant, who knew the value of silence and a tranquil demeanor. He went with his captors without the least sign of perturbation, without even asking them for an explanation. The truth would come out. In the country roundabout it was whispered that he had already made an enormous fortune from the Prussians, sacks and sacks of gold pieces, that he buried away somewhere, one by one, as he received them.

All these stories were a terrible source of alarm to Henriette when she came to hear of them. Jean, fearing he might endanger the safety of his hosts, was again eager to get away, although the doctor declared he was still too weak, and she, saddened by the prospect of their approaching separation, insisted on his delaying his departure for two weeks. At the time of Father Fouchard's arrest Jean had escaped a like fate by hiding in the barn, but he was liable to be taken and led away captive at any moment should there be further searches made. She was also anxious as to her uncle's fate, and so she resolved one morning to go to Sedan and see the Delaherches, who had, it was said, a Prussian officer of great influence quartered in their house.

"Silvine," she said, as she was about to start, "take good care of our patient; see he has his bouillon at noon and his medicine at four o'clock."

The maid of all work, ever busy with her daily recurring tasks, was again the submissive and courageous woman she had been of old; she had the care of the farm now, moreover, in the absence of the master, while little Charlot was constantly at her heels, frisking and gamboling around her.

"Have no fear, madame, he shall want for nothing. I am here and will look out for him."

VI.

Life had fallen back into something like its accustomed routine with the Delaherches at their house in the Rue Maqua after the terrible shock of the capitulation, and for nearly four months the long days had been slowly slipping by under the depressing influence of the Prussian occupation.

There was one corner, however, of the immense structure that was always closed, as if it had no occupant: it was the chamber that Colonel de Vineuil still continued to inhabit, at the extreme end of the suite where the master and his family spent their daily life. While the other windows were thrown open, affording evidence by sight and sound of the activity that prevailed within, those of that room were dark and lifeless, their blinds invariably drawn. The colonel had complained that the daylight hurt his eyes; no one knew whether or not this was strictly true, but a lamp was kept burning at his bedside day and night to humor him in his fancy. For two long months he had kept his bed, although Major Bouroche a.s.serted there was nothing more serious than a contusion of the ankle and a fragment of bone chipped away; the wound refused to heal and complications of various kinds had ensued. He was able to get up now, but was in such a state of utter mental prostration, his mysterious ailment had taken such firm hold upon his system, that he was content to spend his days in idleness, stretched on a lounge before a great wood fire. He had wasted away until he was little more than a shadow, and still the physician who was attending him could find no lesion to account for that lingering death. He was slowly fading away, like the flame of a lamp in which the supply of oil is giving out.

Mme. Delaherche, the mother, had immured herself there with him on the day succeeding the occupation. No doubt they understood each other, and had expressed in two words, once for all, their common purpose to seclude themselves in that apartment so long as there should be Prussians quartered in the house. They had afforded compulsory hospitality to many of the enemy for various lengths of time; one, a Captain, M. Gartlauben, was there still, had taken up his abode with them permanently. But never since that first day had mention of those things pa.s.sed the colonel's and the old lady's lips. Notwithstanding her seventy-eight years she was up every morning soon as it was day and came and took her position in the fauteuil that was awaiting her in the chimney nook opposite her old friend. There, by the steady, tranquil lamplight, she applied herself industriously to knitting socks for the children of the poor, while he, his eyes fixed on the crumbling brands, with no occupation for body or mind, was as one already dead, in a state of constantly increasing stupor. They certainly did not exchange twenty words in the course of a day; whenever she, who still continued to go about the house at intervals, involuntarily allowed some bit of news from the outer world to escape her lips, he silenced her with a gesture, so that no tidings of the siege of Paris, the disasters on the Loire and all the daily renewed horrors of the invasion had gained admission there. But the colonel might stop his ears and shut out the light of day as he would in his self-appointed tomb; the air he breathed must have brought him through key-hole and crevices intelligence of the calamity that was everywhere throughout the land, for every new day beheld him sinking, slowly dying, despite his determination not to know the evil news.

While matters were in this condition at one end of the house Delaherche, who was never contented unless occupied, was bustling about and making attempts to start up his business once more, but what with the disordered condition of the labor market and the pecuniary embarra.s.sment of many among his customers, he had so far only put a few looms in motion. Then it occurred to him, as a means of killing the time that hung heavy on his hands, to make a complete inventory of his business and perfect certain changes and improvements that he had long had in mind. To a.s.sist him in his labors he had just then at his disposal a young man, the son of an old business acquaintance, who had drifted in on him after the battle. Edmond Lagarde, who, although he was twenty-three years old, would not have been taken for more than eighteen, had grown to man's estate in his father's little dry-goods shop at Pa.s.sy; he was a sergeant in the 5th line regiment and had fought with great bravery throughout the campaign, so much so that he had been knocked over near the Minil gate about five o'clock, when the battle was virtually ended, his left arm shattered by one of the last shots fired that day, and Delaherche, when the other wounded were removed from the improvised ambulance in the drying room, had good-naturedly received him as an inmate of his house. It was under these circ.u.mstances that Edmond was now one of the family, having an apartment in the house and taking his meals at the common table, and, now that his wound was healed, acting as a sort of secretary to the manufacturer while waiting for a chance to get back to Paris. He had signed a parole binding himself not to attempt to leave the city, and owing to this and to his protector's influence the Prussian authorities did not interfere with him. He was fair, with blue eyes, and pretty as a woman; so timid withal that his face a.s.sumed a beautiful hue of rosy red whenever anyone spoke to him. He had been his mother's darling; she had impoverished herself, expending all the profits of their little business to send him to college. And he adored Paris and bewailed his compulsory absence from it when talking to Gilberte, did this wounded cherub, whom the young woman had displayed great good-fellows.h.i.+p in nursing.

Finally, their household had received another addition in the person of M. de Gartlauben, a captain in the German landwehr, whose regiment had been sent to Sedan to supply the place of troops dispatched to service in the field. He was a personage of importance, notwithstanding his comparatively modest rank, for he was nephew to the governor-general, who, from his headquarters at Rheims, exercised unlimited power over all the district. He, too, prided himself on having lived at Paris, and seized every occasion ostentatiously to show he was not ignorant of its pleasures and refinements; concealing beneath this film of varnish his inborn rusticity, he a.s.sumed as well as he was able the polish of one accustomed to good society. His tall, portly form was always tightly b.u.t.toned in a close-fitting uniform, and he lied outrageously about his age, never being able to bring himself to own up to his forty-five years. Had he had more intelligence he might have made himself an object of greater dread, but as it was his over-weening vanity, kept him in a continual state of satisfaction with himself, for never could such a thing have entered his mind as that anyone could dare to ridicule him.

At a subsequent period he rendered Delaherche services that were of inestimable value. But what days of terror and distress were those that followed upon the heels of the capitulation! the city, overrun with German soldiery, trembled in momentary dread of pillage and conflagration. Then the armies of the victors streamed away toward the valley of the Seine, leaving behind them only sufficient men to form a garrison, and the quiet that settled upon the place was that of a necropolis: the houses all closed, the shops shut, the streets deserted as soon as night closed in, the silence unbroken save for the hoa.r.s.e cries and heavy tramp of the patrols. No letters or newspapers reached them from the outside world; Sedan was become a dungeon, where the immured citizens waited in agonized suspense for the tidings of disaster with which the air was instinct. To render their misery complete they were threatened with famine; the city awoke one morning from its slumbers to find itself dest.i.tute of bread and meat and the country roundabout stripped naked, as if a devouring swarm of locusts had pa.s.sed that way, by the hundreds of thousands of men who for a week past had been pouring along its roads and across its fields in a devastating torrent. There were provisions only for two days, and the authorities were compelled to apply to Belgium for relief; all supplies now came from their neighbors across the frontier, whence the customs guards had disappeared, swept away like all else in the general cataclysm. Finally there were never-ending vexations and annoyances, a conflict that commenced to rage afresh each morning between the Prussian governor and his underlings, quartered at the Sous-Prefecture, and the Munic.i.p.al Council, which was in permanent session at the Hotel de Ville. It was all in vain that the city fathers fought like heroes, discussing, objecting, protesting, contesting the ground inch by inch; the inhabitants had to succ.u.mb to the exactions that constantly became more burdensome, to the whims and unreasonableness of the stronger.

In the beginning Delaherche suffered great tribulation from the officers and soldiers who were billeted on him. It seemed as if representatives from every nationality on the face of the globe presented themselves at his door, pipe in mouth. Not a day pa.s.sed but there came tumbling in upon the city two or three thousand men, horse, foot and dragoons, and although they were by rights ent.i.tled to nothing more than shelter and firing, it was often found expedient to send out in haste and get them provisions. The rooms they occupied were left in a shockingly filthy condition. It was not an infrequent occurrence that the officers came in drunk and made themselves even more obnoxious than their men. Such strict discipline was maintained, however, that instances of violence and marauding were rare; in all Sedan there were but two cases reported of outrages committed on women. It was not until a later period, when Paris displayed such stubbornness in her resistance, that, exasperated by the length to which the struggle was protracted, alarmed by the att.i.tude of the provinces and fearing a general rising of the populace, the savage war which the francs-tireurs had inaugurated, they laid the full weight of their heavy hand upon the suffering people.

Delaherche had just had an experience with a lodger who had been quartered on him, a captain of cuira.s.siers, who made a practice of going to bed with his boots on and when he went away left his apartment in an unmentionably filthy condition, when in the last half of September Captain de Gartlauben came to his door one evening when it was raining in torrents. The first hour he was there did not promise well for the pleasantness of their future relations; he carried matters with a high hand, insisting that he should be given the best bedroom, trailing the scabbard of his sword noisily up the marble staircase; but encountering Gilberte in the corridor he drew in his horns, bowed politely, and pa.s.sed stiffly on. He was courted with great obsequiousness, for everyone was well aware that a word from him to the colonel commanding the post of Sedan would suffice to mitigate a requisition or secure the release of a friend or relative. It was not very long since his uncle, the governor-general at Rheims, had promulgated a particularly detestable and cold-blooded order, proclaiming martial law and decreeing the penalty of death to whomsoever should give aid and comfort to the enemy, whether by acting for them as a spy, by leading astray German troops that had been entrusted to their guidance, by destroying bridges and artillery, or by damaging the railroads and telegraph lines.

The enemy meant the French, of course, and the citizens scowled and involuntarily doubled their fists as they read the great white placard nailed against the door of post headquarters which attributed to them as a crime their best and most sacred aspirations. It was so hard, too, to have to receive their intelligence of German victories through the cheering of the garrison! Hardly a day pa.s.sed over their heads that they were spared this bitter humiliation; the soldiers would light great fires and sit around them, feasting and drinking all night long, while the townspeople, who were not allowed to be in the streets after nine o'clock, listened to the tumult from the depths of their darkened houses, crazed with suspense, wondering what new catastrophe had befallen. It was on one of these occasions, somewhere about the middle of October, that M. de Gartlauben for the first time proved himself to be possessed of some delicacy of feeling. Sedan had been jubilant all that day with renewed hopes, for there was a rumor that the army of the Loire, then marching to the relief of Paris, had gained a great victory; but how many times before had the best of news been converted into tidings of disaster! and sure enough, early in the evening it became known for certain that the Bavarians had taken Orleans. Some soldiers had collected in a house across the way from the factory in the Rue Maqua, and were so boisterous in their rejoicings that the Captain, noticing Gilberte's annoyance, went and silenced them, remarking that he himself thought their uproar ill-timed.

Toward the close of the month M. de Gartlauben was in position to render some further trifling services. The Prussian authorities, in the course of sundry administrative reforms inaugurated by them, had appointed a German Sous-Prefect, and although this step did not put an end to the exactions to which the city was subjected, the new official showed himself to be comparatively reasonable. One of the most frequent among the causes of difference that were constantly springing up between the officers of the post and the munic.i.p.al council was that which arose from the custom of requisitioning carriages for the use of the staff, and there was a great hullaballoo raised one morning that Delaherche failed to send his caleche and pair to the Sous-Prefecture: the mayor was arrested and the manufacturer would have gone to keep him company up in the citadel had it not been for M. de Gartlauben, who promptly quelled the rising storm. Another day he secured a stay of proceedings for the city, which had been mulcted in the sum of thirty thousand francs to punish it for its alleged dilatoriness in rebuilding the bridge of Villette, a bridge that the Prussians themselves had destroyed: a disastrous piece of business that was near being the ruin of Sedan. It was after the surrender at Metz, however, that Delaherche contracted his main debt of grat.i.tude to his guest. The terrible news burst on the citizens like a thunderclap, das.h.i.+ng to the ground all their remaining hopes, and early in the ensuing week the streets again began to be enc.u.mbered with the countless hosts of the German forces, streaming down from the conquered fortress: the army of Prince Frederick Charles moving on the Loire, that of General Manteuffel, whose destination was Amiens and Rouen, and other corps on the march to reinforce the besiegers before Paris. For several days the houses were full to overflowing with soldiers, the butchers' and bakers' shops were swept clean, to the last bone, to the last crumb; the streets were pervaded by a greasy, tallowy odor, as after the pa.s.sage of the great migratory bands of olden times.

The buildings in the Rue Maqua, protected by a friendly influence, escaped the devastating irruption, and were only called on to give shelter to a few of the leaders, men of education and refinement.

Owing to these circ.u.mstances, Delaherche at last began to lay aside his frostiness of manner. As a general thing the bourgeois families shut themselves in their apartments and avoided all communication with the officers who were billeted on them; but to him, who was of a sociable nature and liked to extract from life what enjoyment it had to offer, this enforced sulkiness in the end became unbearable. His great, silent house, where the inmates lived apart from one another in a chill atmosphere of distrust and mutual dislike, damped his spirits terribly.

He began by stopping M. de Gartlauben on the stairs one day to thank him for his favors, and thus by degrees it became a regular habit with the two men to exchange a few words when they met. The result was that one evening the Prussian captain found himself seated in his host's study before the fireplace where some great oak logs were blazing, smoking a cigar and amicably discussing the news of the day. For the first two weeks of their new intimacy Gilberte did not make her appearance in the room; he affected to ignore her existence, although, at every faintest sound, his glance would be directed expectantly upon the door of the connecting apartment. It seemed to be his object to keep his position as an enemy as much as possible in the background, trying to show he was not narrow-minded or a bigoted patriot, laughing and joking pleasantly over certain rather ridiculous requisitions. For example, a demand was made one day for a coffin and a shroud; that shroud and coffin afforded him no end of amus.e.m.e.nt. As regarded other things, such as coal, oil, milk, sugar, b.u.t.ter, bread, meat, to say nothing of clothing, stoves and lamps--all the necessaries of daily life, in a word--he shrugged his shoulders: _mon Dieu!_ what would you have? No doubt it was vexatious; he was even willing to admit that their demands were excessive, but that was how it was in war times; they had to keep themselves alive in the enemy's country. Delaherche, who was very sore over these incessant requisitions, expressed his opinion of them with frankness, pulling them to pieces mercilessly at their nightly confabs, in much the same way as he might have criticised the cook's kitchen accounts. On only one occasion did their discussion become at all acrimonious, and that was in relation to the impost of a million francs that the Prussian prefet at Rethel had levied on the department of the Ardennes, the alleged pretense of which was to indemnify Germany for damages caused by French s.h.i.+ps of war and by the expulsion of Germans domiciled in French territory. Sedan's proportionate share of the a.s.sessment was forty-two thousand francs. And he labored strenuously with his visitor to convince him of the iniquity of the imposition; the city was differently circ.u.mstanced from the other towns, it had had more than its share of affliction, and should not be burdened with that new exaction. The pair always came out of their discussions better friends than when they went in; one delighted to have had an opportunity of hearing himself talk, the other pleased with himself for having displayed a truly Parisian urbanity.

One evening Gilberte came into the room, with her air of thoughtless gayety. She paused at the threshold, affecting embarra.s.sment. M. de Gartlauben rose, and with much tact presently withdrew, but on repeating his visit the following evening and finding Gilberte there again, he settled himself in his usual seat in the chimney-corner. It was the commencement of a succession of delightful evenings that they pa.s.sed together in the study of the master of the house, not in the drawing-room--wherein lay a nice distinction. And at a later period when, yielding to their guest's entreaties, the young woman consented to play for him, she did not invite him to the salon, but entered the room alone, leaving the communicating door open. In those bitter winter evenings the old oaks of the Ardennes gave out a grateful warmth from the depths of the great cavernous fireplace; there was a cup of fragrant tea for them about ten o'clock; they laughed and chatted in the comfortable, bright room. And it did not require extra powers of vision to see that M. de Gartlauben was rapidly falling head over ears in love with that sprightly young woman, who flirted with him as audaciously as she had flirted in former days at Charleville with Captain Beaudoin's friends. He began to pay increased attention to his person, displayed a gallantry that verged on the fantastic, was raised to the pinnacle of bliss by the most trifling favor, tormented by the one ever-present anxiety not to appear a barbarian in her eyes, a rude soldier who did not know the ways of women.

And thus it was that in the big, gloomy house in the Rue Maqua a twofold life went on. While at meal-times Edmond, the wounded cherub with the pretty face, lent a listening ear to Delaherche's unceasing chatter, blus.h.i.+ng if ever Gilberte asked him to pa.s.s her the salt, while at evening M. de Gartlauben, seated in the study, with eyes upturned in silent ecstasy, listened to a sonata by Mozart performed for his benefit by the young woman in the adjoining drawing-room, a stillness as of death continued to pervade the apartment where Colonel de Vineuil and Madame Delaherche spent their days, the blinds tight drawn, the lamp continually burning, like a votive candle illuminating a tomb. December had come and wrapped the city in a winding-sheet of snow; the cruel news seemed all the bitterer for the piercing cold. After General Ducrot's repulse at Champigny, after the loss of Orleans, there was left but one dark, sullen hope: that the soil of France might avenge their defeat, exterminate and swallow up the victors. Let the snow fall thicker and thicker still, let the earth's crust crack and open under the biting frost, that in it the entire German nation might find a grave! And there came another sorrow to wring poor Madame Delaherche's heart. One night when her son was from home, having been suddenly called away to Belgium on business, chancing to pa.s.s Gilberte's door she heard within a low murmur of voices and smothered laughter. Disgusted and sick at heart she returned to her own room, where her horror of the abominable thing she suspected the existence of would not let her sleep: it could have been none other but the Prussian whose voice she heard; she had thought she had noticed glances of intelligence pa.s.sing; she was prostrated by this supreme disgrace. Ah, that woman, that abandoned woman, whom her son had insisted on bringing to the house despite her commands and prayers, whom she had forgiven, by her silence, after Captain Beaudoin's death! And now the thing was repeated, and this time the infamy was even worse.

What was she to do? Such an enormity must not go unpunished beneath her roof. Her mind was torn by the conflict that raged there, in her uncertainty as to the course she should pursue. The colonel, desiring to know nothing of what occurred outside his room, always checked her with a gesture when he thought she was about to give him any piece of news, and she had said nothing to him of the matter that had caused her such suffering; but on those days when she came to him with tears standing in her eyes and sat for hours in mournful silence, he would look at her and say to himself that France had sustained yet another defeat.

This was the condition of affairs in the house in the Rue Maqua when Henriette dropped in there one morning to endeavor to secure Delaherche's influence in favor of Father Fouchard. She had heard people speak, smiling significantly as they did so, of the servitude to which Gilberte had reduced Captain de Gartlauben; she was, therefore, somewhat embarra.s.sed when she encountered old Madame Delaherche, to whom she thought it her duty to explain the object of her visit, ascending the great staircase on her way to the colonel's apartment.

"Dear madame, it would be so kind of you to a.s.sist us! My uncle is in great danger; they talk of sending him away to Germany."

The old lady, although she had a sincere affection for Henriette, could scarce conceal her anger as she replied:

"I am powerless to help you, my child; you should not apply to me." And she continued, notwithstanding the agitation on the other's face: "You have selected an unfortunate moment for your visit; my son has to go to Belgium to-night. Besides, he could not have helped you; he has no more influence than I have. Go to my daughter-in-law; she is all powerful."

And she pa.s.sed on toward the colonel's room, leaving Henriette distressed to have unwittingly involved herself in a family drama.

Within the last twenty-four hours Madame Delaherche had made up her mind to lay the whole matter before her son before his departure for Belgium, whither he was going to negotiate a large purchase of coal to enable him to put some of his idle looms in motion. She could not endure the thought that the abominable thing should be repeated beneath her eyes while he was absent, and was only waiting to make sure he would not defer his departure until some other day, as he had been doing all the past week. It was a terrible thing to contemplate: the wreck of her son's happiness, the Prussian disgraced and driven from their doors, the wife, too, thrust forth upon the street and her name ignominiously placarded on the walls, as had been threatened would be done with any woman who should dishonor herself with a German.

Gilberte gave a little scream of delight on beholding Henriette.

"Ah, how glad I am to see you! It seems an age since we met, and one grows old so fast in the midst of all these horrors!" Thus running on she dragged her friend to her bedroom, where she seated her on the lounge and snuggled down close beside her. "Come, take off your things; you must stay and breakfast with us. But first we'll talk a bit; you must have such lots and lots of things to tell me! I know that you are without news of your brother. Ah, that poor Maurice, how I pity him, shut up in Paris, with no gas, no wood, no bread, perhaps! And that young man whom you have been nursing, that friend of your brother's--oh!

a little bird has told me all about it--isn't it for his sake you are here to-day?"

Henriette's conscience smote her, and she did not answer. Was it not really for Jean's sake that she had come, in order that, the old uncle being released, the invalid, who had grown so dear to her, might have no further cause for alarm? It distressed her to hear his name mentioned by Gilberte; she could not endure the thought of enlisting in his favor an influence that was of so ambiguous a character. Her inbred scruples of a pure, honest woman made themselves felt, now it seemed to her that the rumors of a liaison with the Prussian captain had some foundation.

"Then I'm to understand that it's in behalf of this young man that you come to us for a.s.sistance?" Gilberte insistently went on, as if enjoying her friend's discomfiture. And as the latter, cornered and unable to maintain silence longer, finally spoke of Father Fouchard's arrest: "Why, to be sure! What a silly thing I am--and I was talking of it only this morning! You did well in coming to us, my dear; we must go about your uncle's affair at once and see what we can do for him, for the last news I had was not rea.s.suring. They are on the lookout for someone of whom to make an example."

"Yes, I have had you in mind all along," Henriette hesitatingly replied.

"I thought you might be willing to a.s.sist me with your advice, perhaps with something more substantial--"

The young woman laughed merrily. "You little goose, I'll have your uncle released inside three days. Don't you know that I have a Prussian captain here in the house who stands ready to obey my every order?

Understand, he can refuse me nothing!" And she laughed more heartily than ever, in the giddy, thoughtless triumph of her coquettish nature, holding in her own and patting the hands of her friend, who was so uncomfortable that she could not find words in which to express her thanks, horrified by the avowal that was implied in what she had just heard. But how to account for such serenity, such childlike gayety?

"Leave it to me; I'll send you home to-night with a mind at rest."

When they pa.s.sed into the dining room Henriette was struck by Edmond's delicate beauty, never having seen him before. She eyed him with the pleasure she would have felt in looking at a pretty toy. Could it be possible that that boy had served in the army? and how could they have been so cruel as to break his arm? The story of his gallantry in the field made him even more interesting still, and Delaherche, who had received Henriette with the cordiality of a man to whom the sight of a new face is a G.o.dsend, while the servants were handing round the cutlets and the potatoes cooked in their jackets, never seemed to tire of eulogizing his secretary, who was as industrious and well behaved as he was handsome. They made a very pleasant and homelike picture, the four, thus seated around the bright table in the snug, warm dining room.

"So you want us to interest ourselves in Father Fouchard's case, and it's to that we owe the pleasure of your visit, eh?" said the manufacturer. "I'm extremely sorry that I have to go away to-night, but my wife will set things straight for you in a jiffy; there's no resisting her, she has only to ask for a thing to get it." He laughed as he concluded his speech, which was uttered in perfect simplicity of soul, evidently pleased and flattered that his wife possessed such influence, in which he shone with a kind of reflected glory. Then turning suddenly to her: "By the way, my dear, has Edmond told you of his great discovery?"

"No; what discovery?" asked Gilberte, turning her pretty caressing eyes full on the young sergeant.

The cherub blushed whenever a woman looked at him in that way, as if the exquisiteness of his sensations was too much for him. "It's nothing, madame; only a bit of old lace; I heard you saying the other day you wanted some to put on your mauve peignoir. I happened yesterday to come across five yards of old Bruges point, something really handsome and very cheap. The woman will be here presently to show it to you."

She could have kissed him, so delighted was she. "Oh, how nice of you!

You shall have your reward."

Then, while a terrine of foie-gras, purchased in Belgium, was being served, the conversation took another turn; dwelling for an instant on the quant.i.ties of fish that were dying of poison in the Meuse, and finally coming around to the subject of the pestilence that menaced Sedan when there should be a thaw. Even as early as November, there had been several cases of disease of an epidemic character. Six thousand francs had been expended after the battle in cleansing the city and collecting and burning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all the debris that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, the surrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors whenever there came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they with half-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth. In every direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked and split in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and from the fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poison the living. In those more recent days, moreover, another center of contamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had already been removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred dead horses.

It was generally believed that there were no more human remains left in the stream, until, one day, a _garde champetre_, looking attentively down into the water where it was some six feet deep, discovered some objects glimmering at the bottom, that at first he took for stones; but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been mutilated in such a manner as to prevent the gas from acc.u.mulating in the cavities of the body and hence had been kept from rising to the surface. For near four months they had been lying there in the water among the eel-gra.s.s. When grappled for the irons brought them up in fragments, a head, an arm, or a leg at a time; at times the force of the current would suffice to detach a hand or foot and send it rolling down the stream. Great bubbles of gas rose to the surface and burst, still further empoisoning the air.

"We shall get along well enough as long as the cold weather lasts,"

remarked Delaherche, "but as soon as the snow is off the ground we shall have to go to work in earnest to abate the nuisance; if we don't we shall be wanting graves for ourselves." And when his wife laughingly asked him if he could not find some more agreeable subject to talk about at the table, he concluded by saying: "Well, it will be a long time before any of us will care to eat any fish out of the Meuse."

They had finished their repast, and the coffee was being poured, when the maid came to the door and announced that M. de Gartlauben presented his compliments and wanted to know if he might be allowed to see them for a moment. There was a slight flutter of excitement, for it was the first time he had ever presented himself at that hour of the day.

Delaherche, seeing in the circ.u.mstance a favorable opportunity for presenting Henriette to him, gave orders that he should be introduced at once. The doughty captain, when he beheld another young woman in the room, surpa.s.sed himself in politeness, even accepting a cup of coffee, which he took without sugar, as he had seen many people do at Paris.

He had only asked to be received at that unusual hour, he said, that he might tell Madame he had succeeded in obtaining the pardon of one of her proteges, a poor operative in the factory who had been arrested on account of a squabble with a Prussian. And Gilberte thereon seized the opportunity to mention Father Fouchard's case.