Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  Both sighed and said no more.

  Day was slow to dawn. First, the plain appeared, brown, bare, flat and trampled, like a field used for practice manoeuvres. A scattering of palefaced horsemen galloped across it, rifles in hand, cloaks flying. The dark, deep masses of infantry became visible and seemed to draw nearer. On the right, a battery made its way towards a wooded hill and made a metallic noise on the frozen ground, the din of steel plates clashing. The hills were still steeped in disquieting shadows, full of the mystery of that invisible army that was soon to descend onto the plain, bringing death. The sky above was a uniform grey tinged with verdigris, presaging snow. A few flakes drifted in the air. Every other minute, across the vast expanse of field, came the sound of gunshots, sharp, far-off cracks like the sound of a whip.

  ‘I think things are going to hot up today,’ said the man again, looking very pale.

  Sébastien was surprised not to have seen Bolorec anywhere. He had last seen him the day before. His battalion was encamped near his own and, after they left Le Mans together, they used to meet every evening, apart from the days when they were on guard duty. Bolorec was his only reason to live. Through him he maintained an awareness of his real self, the self that had feelings and thoughts. What would become of him without Bolorec?

  After a three day forced march, they had arrived at Le Mans, which was overflowing with disbanded and displaced troops, and the first face Sébastien saw was Bolorec’s. Bolorec had been called up too! There was Bolorec standing in front of a bookshop and looking at the pictures in illustrated journals.

  ‘Bolorec!’ he had shouted, faint with joy.

  Bolorec had turned round and immediately recognised Sébastien, who was waving his rifle in the air to attract his attention. He had joined him, falling in beside him in the ranks. Overcome with emotion, Sébastien had only been able to stammer: ‘Is it you, Bolorec? Is it you?’ And Bolorec, cutting a comic figure in his voluminous Breton conscript’s greatcoat, smiled his familiar, wry, enigmatic smile. Looking at his friend marching beside him in the ranks, Sébastien could not help thinking of their walks at school and feeling happy.

  ‘Do you remember, Bolorec?’ he said. ‘Do you remember when you used to carve bits of wood and sing me Breton songs? Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Bolorec, attempting to keep step.

  He had not changed at all. He had grown slightly taller but was still stocky, shambling along on his short legs. His hair was still frizzy, his cheeks still soft, round and beardless.

  ‘How come you’re here?’

  ‘We’ve come from the battle at Conlie. Loads of men have died already.’

  ‘Did you fight?’

  ‘No, people died from fever and hunger … Lots of local boys died … friends. It’s not right …’

  ‘Why did you never write back to me?’

  ‘Because …’

  They had reached Pontlieue, on the outskirts of Le Mans, where a camp had been set up on the right bank of the Sarthe.

  ‘We’re camped over there as well,’ Bolorec said.

  What joy the next day when they found out they were in the same brigade. From that moment they hardly left each other’s side. Whilst they were at Le Mans, they went out together and wandered round the town. On marches they met when the armies halted. In the evening, Bolorec often slipped into Sébastien’s tent and brought him pieces of salami and white bread which he stole from heaven knows where. They stayed together as long as possible, speaking rarely but united by a strong affection, by bonds of unspoken suffering, infinitely powerful and unbreakable. Sometimes Sébastien questioned Bolorec:

  ‘So, what were you up to in Paris?’

  ‘I’m … you’ll see.’

  He was still impenetrable, mysterious, replying only with meaningful gestures and vague, incomplete allusions to things that Sébastien did not understand.

  He asked him:

  ‘What about the war? Are you afraid?’

  ‘No, I hate it because it’s unjust, but I’m not afraid.’

  ‘But what if you get killed?’

  ‘So? I shall die …’

  ‘And if I were there …?’

  ‘Well, you’d die too.’

  ‘Tell me what this “great ideal” is.’

  Grimacing, eyes blazing, Bolorec said in a harsh voice:

  ‘It’s justice! You’ll see … you’ll see …’

  As he ran, Sébastien recalled all this and many other more distant memories and worried that he had not seen Bolorec since the previous day. Suddenly a bugle call that he recognised only too well made him stop with a jolt. Men reluctantly left their positions, and he too, crippled with fear, went to rejoin his company, soon to make their way towards the wooded hillock on the right of which the artillery were setting up their guns. Soldiers were there digging the ground, which was hard as granite, and constructing escarpments to protect the cannon. Sébastien was delighted to find Bolorec there armed with a spade, vainly attacking the frozen ground. He was given an axe and the two companies mingled, so he went to work next to Bolorec beneath the black maw of the cannon, as yet silent but sinister. The captain walked about amongst the soldiers, smoking his pipe, looking worried. He was grim-faced because he knew that all resistance was pointless. From time to time, he peered through his binoculars at the movements of the enemy army and shook his head. He was a short man, fat and paunchy, with a roguish face and bristly grey moustaches. He loved his white horse, which was short like himself, with solid haunches; it was kept tethered to an ammunition vehicle with an orderly to look after it. He often went and tickled the horse’s belly, as if to cheer it up. He treated the men in a fatherly manner and chatted with them, moved no doubt by all those lives sacrificed for nothing.

  ‘Come on lads, let’s get a move on,’ he was saying.

  But the work was making no progress at all because the ground was so hard that the points of the picks kept breaking. Now, the enemy hills, stripped of their envelope of mist, were like a swarming ants’ nest, an accumulation of countless black insects covering the distant slopes with their dark shapes and turning the horizon into something living and shifting, advancing towards them. On the plain, the regiments continued to move, like little hedges on the march, and between them galloped horsemen and generals’ escorts, recognisable by their banners drifting in the squalid air beneath the low, tragically pale sky.

  While the men were working, backs bent, a cart driven by an ambulanceman drove up from the plain and stopped beside Bolorec and Sébastien. The ambulanceman asked for a light for his pipe and some gin as his canteen was empty. Sébastien passed him his own. The cart was full of dead men: a hideous chaos of stiff twisted limbs, broken arms and protruding legs; amongst them could be glimpsed swollen faces, daubed with dried, blackened blood. On the top was a corpse lying on its back, eyes open, dressed in the grey uniform of the papal zouaves, its arm sticking straight up like a flagpole. Sébastien went pale. He had just recognised Guy de Kerdaniel. The dead man’s face was calm, only slightly paler than normal, and beneath his blond beard, sprinkled with frost and earth, his expression still bore his old insolent, malicious grace. It was clear that Guy had been killed point blank by a bullet to the throat. The bullet had taken with it a piece of his necktie which was lying across the wound, its edges stained pink. Sébastien suddenly felt profound pity. He forgot how he had suffered because of Guy de Kerdaniel and he took his cap off in piety and respect before that rigid corpse which he felt like embracing. Bolorec looked at the corpse too, but he was cool and calm.

  ‘Don’t you recognise him?’ asked Sébastien.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Bolorec.

  ‘Poor Guy,’ sighed Sébastien, tears filling his eyes.

  But Bolorec grabbed his arm and pointed at all the bewildered conscripts working away, the sons of peasants and the poor.

  ‘What about them? Is that right? Soon most of them will be dead. He …’

  He turned round towards the
cart, which was moving away, jolting over the clods of earth.

  ‘He was rich, noble, and an evil man. It’s right that he should die. Come on, let’s dig.’

  He hacked away with the pickaxe. In the distance, there was the occasional sound of gunfire.

  During this time, an officer had arrived, galloping flat out. He got off his horse and chatted for a few minutes with the captain, who grew increasingly animated and, making angry gestures, suddenly leaped onto his white horse and disappeared, also at the gallop. The officer was a very young man, frail and pretty as a girl, with his yellow boots, soft leather gloves, and tightly-belted jacket edged with astrakhan. He went over to the cannon and seemed very interested in what the men were doing. His lieutenant accompanied him.

  ‘May I fire the cannon once?’ he asked.

  ‘If you like, help yourself.’

  ‘Thanks. I’d love to give those Prussians a bit of a fright. Don’t you think that’d be a lark?’

  They both laughed softly. The young man pointed the cannon and asked for fire. The shell landed on the plain where it burst five hundred metres from the Prussian line.

  That was taken as the signal for battle to commence.

  Suddenly the horizon caught fire, instantly veiled in smoke and, shot by shot, five shells landed and exploded in the midst of the conscripts as they worked. The officer was already flat on the ground, face down, crouched behind his horse’s neck. The men flung themselves down and the battery boomed endlessly, the earth shaking with its furious roar. Sébastien and Bolorec were next to one another, stretched out, chins on the ground. They could see nothing, only huge columns of smoke which spread and filled the atmosphere, constantly breached by shells and bullets. On the plain, the shaken troops opened fire with their muskets.

  ‘Hey,’ said Bolorec.

  Sébastien did not reply.

  Behind them, despite the tremors and the screaming explosions, they could hear the clamour of voices, bugle calls, galloping hooves, heavy vehicles on the move.

  ‘Hey,’ said Bolorec again.

  Sébastien did not reply.

  Bolorec got up, turned around and glimpsed the battery, a nightmare vision of red fog, in the midst of which was the captain, who had returned, sitting up straight on his horse, brandishing his sabre and shouting commands at the dark agitated shapes of the soldiers. One man fell, then another, a horse collapsed, then another. Bolorec flung himself down again beside Sébastien.

  ‘Hey, I want to tell you something. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening,’ murmured Sébastien weakly.

  Very calmly, Bolorec continued.

  ‘My captain was a local fellow. You saw him, didn’t you? A little dark fellow, nervy, insolent. He was from my village, he was an aristocrat, very cruel and much disliked because he drove the poor away from his chateau and forbade people to go walking in his wood on Sundays. I had permission because my father was on his side, but I never went because I hated him. He was called the Count de Laric. Are you listening?’

  Sébastien murmured:

  ‘Yes, I’m listening.’

  Bolorec pulled himself half up on his elbows and rested his head on his two clasped hands.

  ‘Three weeks ago we were on a march. Little Leguen, the son of a worker from the village was tired and sick and couldn’t go on. So the Captain said, “March!” and Leguen said, “I’m ill.” So the captain insulted him, calling him a filthy slob and punched him hard in the back. Leguen fell. I was there. I didn’t say anything but I made myself a promise. I promised myself this …’

  A shell exploded near them, covering them in earth. Bolorec carried on:

  ‘This thing I promised myself … are you listening?’

  Sébastien groaned:

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m listening.’

  ‘This thing,’ and he moved even closer to Sébastien and whispered in his ear:

  ‘Well it’s done: yesterday, I killed the captain.’

  ‘You killed him?’

  ‘In battle yesterday, he was in front of me. I shot him in the back. He fell straight forward and never moved.’

  ‘You killed him,’ repeated Sébastien mechanically.

  ‘Point blank. It was only right.’

  Bolorec fell silent and stared at the plain.

  The musketry kept returning fire and the thunder from the cannon was intensifying. There was a constant, dull, rumbling noise, punctuated by missiles that seemed to tear the sky like fabric and accompanied by terrifying tremors that seemed to delve into the very depths of the earth. All around, shells ploughed into the earth, the shrill, sinister laughter of their explosions was like deafening bursts of gunfire. The battery now responded only feebly at irregular and ever longer intervals. Already three gun carriages had fallen apart, and stood broken and silent. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker, hiding the horizon and the sky and drowning the fields in a reddish-brown fog that was growing ever denser. Bolorec could see spectral forms walking through the fog, greatcoats flapping, panic-stricken backs, desperate flight, an army in retreat. There was a constant stream of people passing, one by one to begin with, then in groups, then whole columns in disarray, shouting. They were broken, crazed figures, bizarre silhouettes, a confused, drifting, black, jostling mass; horses without riders, their stirrups flying, necks outstretched, manes streaming, surged into the chaos of men, at a furious, nightmarish gallop. Soldiers stepped over the disordered lines of conscripts, who were lying on the ground, without bags, without guns, without caps.

  Sébastien lay motionless, his face on the ground. He could no longer see, hear or think. At first, he had tried to control himself, to be brave like Bolorec. He summoned up memories that might distract him from the horrible present. But the memories fled or became instantly transformed into terrifying images. He tried in vain to cling to the remnants of his courage, to gather what was left of his scattered energies, his mental strength, but fear overtook him, crushed him, fastened him to the earth. Occasionally, motionless, in a trembling voice, he called out for Bolorec, assured himself that his friend was still there, alive, still next to him. This need to feel protected – the only feeling he had left, his willpower completely destroyed – soon disappeared too. He felt as if he were in an abyss, in a tomb, dead, and could hear above him indistinct, muted sounds, the sounds of a distant, lost life, carrying on without him. He didn’t even notice when right next to him a running man suddenly collapsed and fell, his arms outstretched, while a rivulet of blood flowed from beneath his body, growing and spreading.

  The battery fire slowed and died away. Eventually there was complete silence, a silence made all the more sinister as the enemy fire redoubled. The signal for retreat was sounded.

  ‘Get up,’ said Bolorec.

  Sébastien did not move.

  ‘Get up, I said.’

  Sébastien did not move.

  Bolorec shook him roughly.

  ‘Get up, damn you.’

  Then Sébastien, eyes staring, barely recognising Bolorec, who was supporting him under the arms as if he were wounded, got slowly and mechanically to his feet, like a sleepwalker.

  Just then, there was a spurt of smoke, a sudden wild flare of light, and an explosion blinded Bolorec and showered him with burning powder and gravel. He managed to remain standing, stunned, breathless, as if battling against a fierce wind. Then he realised that Sébastien had suddenly slipped from his grasp and fallen. He looked down. Sébastien lay motionless, his skull smashed. His brain was trickling out of his skull through a hideous red hole. The conscripts had fled. Bolorec was alone. Shadows of men ran and disappeared out of sight in the smoke. He leaned over Sébastien’s body and touched it, then he knelt, deathly pale, in the blood, which gave off a brief purplish steam.

  ‘Sébastien!’

  But Sébastien could not hear. He was dead.

  Bolorec put his arms around the corpse and attempted to lift it. He was weak and the corpse was heavy. Endless silhouettes streamed pa
st.

  ‘Help me!’ shouted Bolorec.

  No one stopped.

  Figures went by and vanished like hallucinations in a fever.

  ‘Help me!’

  He flung down his rifle and his rucksack, and making a tremendous effort, managed to lift Sébastien and carry him in his arms. He staggered along with him, his face running with sweat, his chest heaving, his back bent beneath the dead weight, stumbling as he walked. Thus he reached the battery and placed Sébastien across the broken mount of a cannon. The battery had been abandoned. A debris of wheels, crumpled gun carriages, twisted metal and corpses of men and horses was strewn over the churned-up, bloody earth. Nearby, the captain lay next to his white horse, disembowelled.

  ‘It’s not right,’ murmured Bolorec in a halting voice.

  He leaned over the corpse and said again as if Sébastien could hear:

  ‘It’s not right, but things will change, you’ll see.’

  Then, when he had recovered his breath, he lifted his friend’s body onto his back again and very slowly, very painfully, both men, the living and the dead, made their way through the bullets and the shells into the smoke.

  Menton, November 1888

  Les Damps, November 1889

  THE TRANSLATOR

  Nicoletta Simborowski read Modern Languages at Oxford and then worked in publishing and as a teacher at Westminster School in London. She combines a career as a lecturer in Italian at Christ Church, Oxford with freelance interpreting and translating for television and video.

  Her translations for Dedalus are: The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, and Abbe Jules and Sebastien Roch by Octave Mirbeau.

  THE EDITOR

  Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. She won the 1992 Portuguese Translation Prize for The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, and her translations of Eca de Queiroz’s novels The Relic (1996) and The City and the Mountains (2009) were shortlisted for the prize; with Javier Marias, she won the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for A Heart So White, and, in 2000, she won the Weidenfeld Translation Prize for Jose Saramago’s All the Names. In 2008 she won the Pen Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize and The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for The Maias by Eca de Queiroz.