The Downfall

by Эмиль Золя

  And his sweeping gesture embraced the entire valley that lay beneath them, enfolded in shadow. There was sufficient light remaining in the sky that they could distinguish the pale gleam of the river where it ran its course among the dusky meadows. The scattered trees made clumps of denser shade, especially a row of poplars to the left, whose tops were profiled on the horizon like the fantastic ornaments on some old castle gateway. And in the background, behind Sedan, dotted with countless little points of brilliant light, the shadows had mustered, denser and darker, as if all the forests of the Ardennes had collected the inky blackness of their secular oaks and cast it there.

  Jean's gaze came back to the bridge of boats beneath them.

  "Look there! everything is against us. We shall never get across."

  The fires upon both banks blazed up more brightly just then, and their light was so intense that the whole fearful scene was pictured on the darkness with vivid distinctness. The boats on which the longitudinal girders rested, owing to the weight of the cavalry and artillery that had been crossing uninterruptedly since morning, had settled to such an extent that the floor of the bridge was covered with water. The cuirassiers were passing at the time, two abreast, in a long unbroken file, emerging from the obscurity of the hither shore to be swallowed up in the shadows of the other, and nothing was to be seen of the bridge; they appeared to be marching on the bosom of the ruddy stream, that flashed and danced in the flickering firelight. The horses snorted and hung back, manifesting every indication of terror as they felt the unstable pathway yielding beneath their feet, and the cuirassiers, standing erect in their stirrups and clutching at the reins, poured onward in a steady, unceasing stream, wrapped in their great white mantles, their helmets flashing in the red light of the flames. One might have taken them for some spectral band of knights, with locks of fire, going forth to do battle with the powers of darkness.

  Jean's suffering wrested from him a deep-toned exclamation:

  "Oh! I am hungry!"

  On every side, meantime, the men, notwithstanding the complainings of their empty stomachs, had thrown themselves down to sleep. Their fatigue was so great that it finally got the better of their fears and struck them down upon the bare earth, where they lay on their back, with open mouth and arms outstretched, like logs beneath the moonless sky. The bustle of the camp was stilled, and all along the naked range, from end to end, there reigned a silence as of death.

  "Oh! I am hungry; I am so hungry that I could eat dirt!"

  Jean, patient as he was and inured to hardship, could not restrain the cry; he had eaten nothing in thirty-six hours, and it was torn from him by sheer stress of physical suffering. Then Maurice, knowing that two or three hours at all events must elapse before their regiment could move to pass the stream, said:

  "See here, I have an uncle not far from here-you know, Uncle Fouchard, of whom you have heard me speak. His house is five or six hundred yards from here; I didn't like the idea, but as you are so hungry-The deuce! the old man can't refuse us bread!"

  His comrade made no objection and they went off together. Father Fouchard's little farm was situated just at the mouth of Harancourt pass, near the plateau where the artillery was posted. The house was a low structure, surrounded by quite an imposing cluster of dependencies; a barn, a stable, and cow-sheds, while across the road was a disused carriage-house which the old peasant had converted into an abattoir, where he slaughtered with his own hands the cattle which he afterward carried about the country in his wagon to his customers.

  Maurice was surprised as he approached the house to see no light.

  "Ah, the old miser! he has locked and barred everything tight and fast. Like as not he won't let us in."

  But something that he saw brought him to a standstill. Before the house a dozen soldiers were moving to and fro, hungry plunderers, doubtless, on the prowl in quest of something to eat. First they had called, then had knocked, and now, seeing that the place was dark and deserted, they were hammering at the door with the butts of their muskets in an attempt to force it open. A growling chorus of encouragement greeted them from the outsiders of the circle.

  "Nom de Dieu! go ahead! smash it in, since there is no one at home!"

  All at once the shutter of a window in the garret was thrown back and a tall old man presented himself, bare-headed, wearing the peasant's blouse, with a candle in one hand and a gun in the other. Beneath the thick shock of bristling white hair was a square face, deeply seamed and wrinkled, with a strong nose, large, pale eyes, and stubborn chin.

  "You must be robbers, to smash things as you are doing!" he shouted in an angry tone. "What do you want?"

  The soldiers, taken by surprise, drew back a little way.

  "We are perishing with hunger; we want something to eat."

  "I have nothing, not a crust. Do you suppose that I keep victuals in my house to fill a hundred thousand mouths? Others were here before you; yes, General Ducrot's men were here this morning, I tell you, and they cleaned me out of everything."

  The soldiers came forward again, one by one.

  "Let us in, all the same; we can rest ourselves, and you can hunt up something-"

  And they were commencing to hammer at the door again, when the old fellow, placing his candle on the window-sill, raised his gun to his shoulder.

  "As true as that candle stands there, I'll put a hole in the first man that touches that door!"

  The prospect looked favorable for a row. Oaths and imprecations resounded, and one of the men was heard to shout that they would settle matters with the pig of a peasant, who was like all the rest of them and would throw his bread in the river rather than give a mouthful to a starving soldier. The light of the candle glinted on the barrels of the chassepots as they were brought to an aim; the angry men were about to shoot him where he stood, while he, headstrong and violent, would not yield an inch.

  "Nothing, nothing! Not a crust! I tell you they cleaned me out!"

  Maurice rushed in in affright, followed by Jean.

  "Comrades, comrades-"

  He knocked up the soldiers' guns, and raising his eyes, said entreatingly:

  "Come, be reasonable. Don't you know me? It is I."

  "Who, I?"

  "Maurice Levasseur, your nephew."

  Father Fouchard took up his candle. He recognized his nephew, beyond a doubt, but was firm in his resolve not to give so much as a glass of water.

  "How can I tell whether you are my nephew or not in this infernal darkness? Clear out, everyone of you, or I will fire!"

  And amid an uproar of execration, and threats to bring him down and burn the shanty, he still had nothing to say but: "Clear out, or I'll fire!" which he repeated more than twenty times.

  Suddenly a loud clear voice was heard rising above the din:

  "But not on me, father?"

  The others stood aside, and in the flickering light of the candle a man appeared, wearing the chevrons of a quartermaster-sergeant. It was Honore, whose battery was a short two hundred yards from there and who had been struggling for the last two hours against an irresistible longing to come and knock at that door. He had sworn never to set foot in that house again, and in all his four years of army life had not exchanged a single letter with that father whom he now addressed so curtly. The marauders had drawn apart and were conversing excitedly among themselves; what, the old man's son, and a "non-com."! it wouldn't answer; better go and try their luck elsewhere! So they slunk away and vanished in the darkness.

  When Fouchard saw that he had nothing more to fear he said in a matter-of-course way, as if he had seen his son only the day before:

  "It's you-All right, I'll come down."

  His descent was a matter of time. He could be heard inside the house opening locked doors and carefully fastening them again, the maneuvers of a man determined to leave nothing at loose ends. At last the door was opened, but only for a few inches, and the strong grasp that held it would let it go no further.

  "Come i
n, thou! and no one besides!"

  He could not turn away his nephew, however, notwithstanding his manifest repugnance.

  "Well, thou too!"

  He shut the door flat in Jean's face, in spite of Maurice's entreaties. But he was obdurate. No, no! he wouldn't have it; he had no use for strangers and robbers in his house, to smash and destroy his furniture! Finally Honore shoved their comrade inside the door by main strength and the old man had to make the best of it, grumbling and growling vindictively. He had carried his gun with him all this time. When at last he had ushered the three men into the common sitting-room and had stood his gun in a corner and placed the candle on the table, he sank into a mulish silence.

  "Say, father, we are perishing with hunger. You will let us have a little bread and cheese, won't you?"

  He made a pretense of not hearing and did not answer, turning his head at every instant toward the window as if listening for some other band that might be coming to lay siege to his house.

  "Uncle, Jean has been a brother to me; he deprived himself of food to give it to me. And we have seen such suffering together!"

  He turned and looked about the room to assure himself that nothing was missing, not giving the three soldiers so much as a glance, and at last, still without a word spoken, appeared to come to a decision. He suddenly arose, took the candle and went out, leaving them in darkness and carefully closing and locking the door behind him in order that no one might follow him. They could hear his footsteps on the stairs that led to the cellar. There was another long period of waiting, and when he returned, again locking and bolting everything after him, he placed upon the table a big loaf of bread and a cheese, amid a silence which, once his anger had blown over, was merely the result of cautious cunning, for no one can ever tell what may come of too much talking. The three men threw themselves ravenously upon the food, and the only sound to be heard in the room was the fierce grinding of their jaws.

  Honore rose, and going to the sideboard brought back a pitcher of water.

  "I think you might have given us some wine, father."

  Whereupon Fouchard, now master of himself and no longer fearing that this anger might lead him into unguarded speech, once more found his tongue.

  "Wine! I haven't any, not a drop! The others, those fellows of Ducrot's, ate and drank all I had, robbed me of everything!"

  He was lying, and try to conceal it as he might the shifty expression in his great light eyes showed it. For the past two days he had been driving away his cattle, as well those reserved for work on the farm as those he had purchased to slaughter, and hiding them, no one knew where, in the depths of some wood or in some abandoned quarry, and he had devoted hours to burying all his household stores, wine, bread, and things of the least value, even to the flour and salt, so that anyone might have ransacked his cupboards and been none the richer for it. He had refused to sell anything to the first soldiers who came along; no one knew, he might be able to do better later on; and the patient, sly old curmudgeon indulged himself with vague dreams of wealth.

  Maurice, who was first to satisfy his appetite, commenced to talk.

  "Have you seen my sister Henriette lately?"

  The old man was pacing up and down the room, casting an occasional glance at Jean, who was bolting huge mouthfuls of bread; after apparently giving the subject long consideration he deliberately answered:

  "Henriette, yes, I saw her last month when I was in Sedan. But I saw Weiss, her husband, this morning. He was with Monsieur Delaherche, his boss, who had come over in his carriage to see the soldiers at Mouzon-which is the same as saying that they were out for a good time."

  An expression of intense scorn flitted over the old peasant's impenetrable face.

  "Perhaps they saw more of the army than they wanted to, and didn't have such a very good time after all, for ever since three o'clock the roads have been impassable on account of the crowds of flying soldiers."

  In the same unmoved voice, as if the matter were one of perfect indifference to him, he gave them some tidings of the defeat of the 5th corps, that had been surprised at Beaumont while the men were making their soup and chased by the Bavarians all the way to Mouzon. Some fugitives who had passed through Remilly, mad with terror, had told him that they had been betrayed once more and that de Failly had sold them to Bismarck. Maurice's thoughts reverted to the aimless, blundering movements of the last two days, to Marshal MacMahon hurrying on their retreat and insisting on getting them across the Meuse at every cost, after wasting so many precious hours in incomprehensible delays. It was too late. Doubtless the marshal, who had stormed so on finding the 7th corps still at Osches when he supposed it to be at la Besace, had felt assured that the 5th corps was safe in camp at Mouzon when, lingering in Beaumont, it had come to grief there. But what could they expect from troops so poorly officered, demoralized by suspense and incessant retreat, dying with hunger and fatigue?

  Fouchard had finally come and planted himself behind Jean's chair, watching with astonishment the inroads he was making on the bread and cheese. In a coldly sarcastic tone he asked:

  "Are you beginning to feel better, hein?"

  The corporal raised his head and replied with the same peasant-like directness:

  "Just beginning, thank you!"

  Honore, notwithstanding his hunger, had ceased from eating whenever it seemed to him that he heard a noise about the house. If he had struggled long, and finally been false to his oath never to set foot in that house again, the reason was that he could no longer withstand his craving desire to see Silvine. The letter that he had received from her at Rheims lay on his bosom, next his skin, that letter, so tenderly passionate, in which she told him that she loved him still, that she should never love anyone save him, despite the cruel past, despite Goliah and little Charlot, that man's child. He was thinking of naught save her, was wondering why he had not seen her yet, all the time watching himself that he might not let his father see his anxiety. At last his passion became too strong for him, however, and he asked in a tone as natural as he could command:

  "Is not Silvine with you any longer?"

  Fouchard gave his son a glance out of the corner of his eye, chuckling internally.

  "Yes, yes."

  Then he expectorated and was silent, so that the artillery man had presently to broach the subject again.

  "She has gone to bed, then?"

  "No, no."

  Finally the old fellow condescended to explain that he, too, had been taking an outing that morning, had driven over to Raucourt market in his wagon and taken his little servant with him. He saw no reason, because a lot of soldiers happened to pass that way, why folks should cease to eat meat or why a man should not attend to his business, so he had taken a sheep and a quarter of beef over there, as it was his custom to do every Tuesday, and had just disposed of the last of his stock-in-trade when up came the 7th corps and he found himself in the middle of a terrible hubbub. Everyone was running, pushing, and crowding. Then he became alarmed lest they should take his horse and wagon from him, and drove off, leaving his servant, who was just then making some purchases in the town.

  "Oh, Silvine will come back all right," he concluded in his tranquil voice. "She must have taken shelter with Doctor Dalichamp, her godfather. You would think to look at her that she wouldn't dare to say boo to a goose, but she is a girl of courage, all the same. Yes, yes; she has lots of good qualities, Silvine has."

  Was it an attempt on his part to be jocose? or did he wish to explain why it was he kept her in his service, that girl who had caused dissension between father and son, whose child by the Prussian was in the house? He again gave his boy that sidelong look and laughed his voiceless laugh.

  "Little Charlot is asleep there in his room; she surely won't be long away, now."

  Honore, with quivering lips, looked so intently at his father that the old man began to pace the floor again. Mon Dieu! yes, the child was there; doubtless he would have to look on him. A painful silence f
illed the room, while he mechanically cut himself more bread and began to eat again. Jean also continued his operations in that line, without finding it necessary to say a word. Maurice contemplated the furniture, the old sideboard, the antique clock, and reflected on the long summer days that he had spent at Remilly in bygone times with his sister Henriette. The minutes slipped away, the clock struck eleven.

  "The devil!" he murmured, "it will never do to let the regiment go off without us!"

  He stepped to the window and opened it, Fouchard making no objection. Beneath lay the valley, a great bowl filled to the brim with blackness; presently, however, when his eyes became more accustomed to the obscurity, he had no difficulty in distinguishing the bridge, illuminated by the fires on the two banks. The cuirassiers were passing still, like phantoms in their long white cloaks, while their steeds trod upon the bosom of the stream and a chill wind of terror breathed on them from behind; and so the spectral train moved on, apparently interminable, in an endless, slow-moving vision of unsubstantial forms. Toward the right, over the bare hills where the slumbering army lay, there brooded a stillness and repose like death.

  "Ah well!" said Maurice with a gesture of disappointment, "'twill be to-morrow morning."

  He had left the window open, and Father Fouchard, seizing his gun, straddled the sill and stepped outside, as lightly as a young man. For a time they could hear his tramp upon the road, as regular as that of a sentry pacing his beat, but presently it ceased and the only sound that reached their ears was the distant clamor on the crowded bridge; it must be that he had seated himself by the wayside, where he could watch for approaching danger and at slightest sign leap to defend his property.

  Honore's anxiety meantime was momentarily increasing; his eyes were fixed constantly on the clock. It was less than four miles from Raucourt to Remilly, an easy hour's walk for a woman as young and strong as Silvine. Why had she not returned in all that time since the old man lost sight of her in the confusion? He thought of the disorder of a retreating army corps, spreading over the country and blocking the roads; some accident must certainly have happened, and he pictured her in distress, wandering among the lonely fields, trampled under foot by the horsemen.