Émile Zola

“ And yet this was apparently the end of all, for Destiny had proved implacable, accumulating disaster upon disaster, such as no nation had ever before experienced: the continual defeats; the lost provinces; the milliards to be paid; the most frightful of civil wars drowned in a flood of gore; street after street in ruins and littered with corpses; no money left, no honour left, a whole world to be built afresh. And in it all he, for his own part, was losing his lacerated heart—no Maurice left, no Henriette, all the happy life that might have been swept away in the storm. ”

“ Maurice had not had time to turn. He gave a shriek and raised his head. The conflagrations lighted up both men with a blinding blaze.
'Oh! Jean, my old friend, Jean, is it you?'
Die? Yes, willingly; he was desperately impatient for death. But to die by his brother's hand was too hard; it marred his death—poisoned it with an abominable bitterness.
'Is it you then, Jean—my old Jean?'
Jean looked at him, thunderstruck, abruptly sobered. They were alone; the other soldiers had already started in pursuit of some runaways. ”

“ When Jean came up, Rochas was standing beside the bronze statue of Turenne, making a great effort to remain erect and keep his eyes open. 'Ah! so it's you, corporal. Where are your men?' he muttered, on recognising Jean.
Jean waved his hand as if to say that he did not know; but Pache, from whose eyes tears were starting, pointed to Lapoulle, and answered: 'We are here; there are only we two left—may God take pity on us, it's getting too dreadful.'
Lapoulle, the man with the terrible appetite, looked at Jean's hands with a voracious expression. ”

“ But now the crisis to which the young fellow was a prey burst forth with more violence than ever. 'That's just it, and I've had my fill of it. Isn't it enough to make one shed tears of blood—these continual defeats, these idiotic generals, these soldiers who are stupidly led to the slaughter-house like flocks of animals? And now, here we are in a blind alley whence there's no escape! You can see that the Prussians are coming up on all sides, and that we are about to be crushed—the army is lost! No, no; I shall stay here; I would rather be shot as a deserter. You can go away without me, Jean. ”

“ Just as the rain was increasing in violence, the 106th at last quitted the plateau, resuming once more that criminal march towards the Meuse—towards the Unknown; and at that same moment Maurice, in his mind's eye, again saw the Emperor's shadow flitting mournfully to and fro on old Madame Desroches' little curtains. Ah! the army of the forlorn hope, the army sent to perdition, despatched to certain annihilation for the purpose of saving a dynasty. March, march, without glancing behind, under the rain and through the mud—march to extermination! ”

“ Maurice had been gazing at him with glittering eyes, but without pronouncing a word. And now, amid his fever, he answered in a burning voice: 'Because there is too much suffering in the world; too much iniquity and too much shame!'
Bouroche waved his arm as though to say that such ideas might carry a man very far indeed. Then he seemed to be on the point of speaking again, but decided to hold his peace. And as he went out he simply added: 'I will come back again.'
On the landing, however, he told Henriette plainly that he could answer for nothing. ”

“ Loubet, who had plied every calling, certainly pointed out how they ought to proceed if they wanted to secure the fillet; but it was dark, and having nothing but that little knife, he proved a clumsy butcher, and fairly lost himself amid all that warm flesh, still palpitating with life. And the impatient Lapoulle, having decided to help him by opening the belly, when there was no necessity to do so, the carnage became something abominable; all was ferocious haste amid the spilt blood and strewn entrails; they were like wolves raking the carcase of the prey with their fangs. ”

“ Over yonder, right over yonder!'
The general was stifling with rage. ''Pon my word, this wretched place is disgusting! A man can never tell where he is! Belgium was quite close by, and we were afraid of tumbling into it unawares, and now that we want to get there, it's gone to the devil! No, no, this is altogether too much, they can take me, and do what they like with me for all I care. I'm off to bed.' And, urging on his horse, leaping in the saddle like a wine-skin inflated by a blast of anger, he galloped off in the direction of Sedan. ”

“ Was not that Chouteau, formerly of his squad in the 106th, whom he had seen watching that execution—clad in the honest white blouse of a workman and waving his arm in an approving fashion? Jean knew what part that bandit, traitor, robber, and murderer had played! For a moment he felt inclined to retrace his steps, denounce the scoundrel, and have him shot upon the corpses of the three others. How sad to think that the most guilty should ever escape punishment, and air their impunity in the sunlight, whilst thousands of innocents lie rotting in the ground! ”

“ A crowd of ragged, mud-splashed soldiers, with hollow cheeks and eyes that glittered with fever, were camping there in gipsy fashion, living like wolves in the filthy rooms, which they were afraid to leave lest they should lose their places for the night. On the slopes farther on Jean and Maurice passed through the cavalry and artillery, formerly so smart and jaunty, but now sadly down-fallen, disorganised by the torture of hunger which maddened the horses and scattered the men over the fields in plundering bands. ”

“ All the past arose: the secluded little room at Remilly where they had spent such sad and yet such pleasant days. He bethought himself of that dream of his, that dream which had stolen upon him quite unconsciously, which even later had been barely outlined—life together over yonder, marriage, a little house, a field to till, which would suffice for the needs of a couple of modest, simple tastes. And now the dream had become an ardent desire, a penetrating conviction that with such a woman as she was, so loving and so industrious, life would have proved an earthly Paradise. ”

“ December had buried Sedan under the snow, and the despair-fraught tidings from the scene of war were as though stifled by the bitter cold. After General Ducrot's defeat at Champigny, after the loss of Orleans, there remained but one sombre hope, that the soil of France might become an avenging soil, an exterminating soil to devour and swallow up the victors. Ah! that the snow might fall in thicker and thicker flakes, that the ground might rend and open under the biting frost, so that the whole of Germany might be entombed within it! ”

“ Suddenly, as Maurice's dreamy eyes wandered away, they espied those words, 'Vive Napoléon!' traced in charcoal on the high yellow wall in front of him. He experienced an unbearable feeling of uneasiness at the sight; a sudden burning pang shot through his heart. So it was true that France, the France of the legendary victories, that had marched with beating drums through Europe, had now been thrown to the ground by a petty nation which it had despised. Fifty years had sufficed to change the world, and defeat was falling heavy and fearful on those who had once been conquerors. ”

“ And the sight of that poor creature, Françoise, pounded to pieces near her ailing child, of the peasant lying in the road with the bullet in his skull, of the damaged church and the flaming houses, put the finishing touch to the wrath of the inhabitants, who, rather than fly to Belgium, had preferred to stay and meet death in their modest homes. And men of the middle classes and sons of toil, men in coats and men in blouses, fired on the enemy from their windows with a fury akin to madness. ”

“ Maurice made a wild gesture and took aim. 'Cousin Gunther? Ah! thunder! he shall pay for Weiss!'
But Henriette sprang up quivering, and dealt his chassepot a blow, so that the bullet flew skyward: 'No, no,' said she, 'not relatives; not people we know. It is abominable!'
Her womanly instincts were again aroused within her, and she dropped to the ground behind the tree, weeping and sobbing violently. Horror was overwhelming her; she was now all fear and grief.
Rochas, however, was triumphant. ”

“ Coffee was made at sunrise, the grains being pounded in a platter with the butt of a gun, and thrown into boiling water, to which a drop of cold water was added in order to precipitate the grounds. The sun rose that morning with regal magnificence, amid great clouds of gold and purple. Maurice, however, no longer looked at the horizon or the sky, and only Jean, like the thoughtful peasant he was, gazed with an expression of uneasiness at this ruddy dawn which betokened rain. ”

“ During the siege there had at least been the military service to tire men's limbs and occupy their minds, whereas now the population, in the isolation in which it still found itself, had all at once slipped into a life of absolute idleness. Maurice, like most others, lounged about from morn to eve, breathing the vitiated atmosphere, now thoroughly impregnated with all the germs of madness which for months past had been ascending from the mob. The unlimited liberty which prevailed completed the universal destruction. ”

“ Maurice awoke, depressed and shivering. Thanks to his broad shoes, his foot had not again become inflamed; but the deluge of the previous day, which still made his great-coat very heavy, had again left him aching in every limb. When he was sent to fetch the water for the coffee he gazed for a moment over the plain at the edge of which Boult-aux-Bois is situated. Forests climb the hills on the west and the north, where a ridge extends as far as Belleville; whilst a vast open expanse, amid the gentle undulations of which various hamlets are hidden, stretches towards Buzancy on the east. ”

“ However, Jean had drawn near to Maurice, that he might look upon him for the last time. He gazed upon his lofty forehead, which seemed loftier still in death, his long thin face and his sightless eyes, once rather wild but whence all the madness had now departed. Jean longed to embrace his dear little fellow, as he had so often called him, but dared not. He beheld himself covered with his brother's blood, and recoiled before the horror of Destiny. Ah! what a death amid the Downfall of a world! ”

“ However, orders had at length arrived, and the battalion immediately advanced. Fresh clouds of mist must have been ascending from the Meuse, for the men almost had to grope their way through a kind of whitish dew, falling upon them in fine drops. And Maurice was struck by the sudden apparition of Colonel de Vineuil, who, erect on his horse, rose up before him at the corner of a road; the old officer looking very tall and very pale, motionless like a marble statue of despair, and the animal shivering in the early cold with dilated nostrils which were turned towards the cannon over yonder. ”

“ It was Henriette arriving—Henriette, who had just espied her husband standing with his back to a wall, in front of a platoon which was loading its weapons.
She sprang upon his neck: 'My God! what is it? They are not going to kill you!'
Weiss gazed at her in stupefaction. 'Twas she, his wife whom he had so long desired, whom he had adored with such idolising tenderness. And with a shudder he awoke, distracted, to the awful reality. Why had he tarried there firing upon the foe instead of returning to her, as he had sworn to do? ”

“ And, at last, in front of him, Weiss could see his own house burning. Soldiers had hurried up with torches, and others were feeding the flames with the remnants of the furniture. The ground floor speedily blazed, and the smoke poured forth from all the gaping wounds of the roof and the front. The adjacent dyeworks, too, were already catching fire; and—oh, the pity of it!—little Auguste, lying in bed, delirious with fever, could still be heard calling for his mother, whose skirts were beginning to burn as her corpse, with its head pounded to pieces, lay there across the threshold. ”

“ Maurice, quite beside himself, felt inclined to strangle Jean. The Prussians stronger than the French! The thought made his pride revolt. But the sober-minded, stubborn peasant was already adding—'Still it doesn't much matter. A man doesn't give in just for one blow. We shall have to hit them back.'
A tall figure had just sprung up in front of them, and they recognised Rochas, still draped in his cloak. The fugitive noises, perhaps even the passing breath of defeat, had roused him from his heavy slumber. ”