Delphi complete works of.., p.412
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 412
I went home very quickly; and all through the evening I was haunted by the idea that my only guest, my only companion in the whole of the dreary forest, was that dead body stretched out on the red sand of the quarries . . .
Unknown date . . .
It is raining — it is cold. The sky is dark. I go to and fro in the Hermitage, tying up faggots and making bread, while the cannon thunders incessantly, and by a strange phenomenon disturbs the earth even more than the air. With my prison labour, my selfish and silent life in the midst of such a terrible drama, I compare myself to an ant, busily groping about on the surface of the soil, deaf to the sounds of humanity around it, all too great for its insignificance, and which surround without troubling it. From time to time, to divert my thoughts, I take a journey to Champrosay without any fear of meeting the Prussians, who have decidedly abandoned the Corbeil road, and are making their descent on Paris by way of Melun and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Once or twice, however, a horse’s gallop obliged me to take refuge in some shed, and I saw a rapid and hurried bearer of despatches riding across the country as if merely to unite it to headquarters, to take possession of the road, and mark it with the hoofs of the Prussian horses.
This deserted village, with its wide-open houses, interests and charms me like a sort of Pompeii. I wander through and examine it. I amuse myself by reconstructing the lives of these absent ones . . .
Another day . . .
. . . Something strange is going on around me. I am not alone in the forest. There is evidently some one hiding near here, and some one who kills. To-day, in the washing-pond of Champrosay, I found a second corpse. A Saxon was stretched out there, only his fair head visible above the water, lying on the damp stone ledge. Moreover, he was well hidden away, thrust into oblivion in this small pond surrounded by brushwood, as securely as that other one over there, in the quarry in the wood. I had by chance taken Colaquet to drink there. The sight of that long, motionless body startled me. Were it not for the pool of blood which stained the stones round his head, and mingled with the reflection of the purple sunset in the water, it might have been supposed that he was asleep, so quiet and peaceful were his features. I have often noticed that expression on the face of the dead. For the space of a brief moment there is something about them more beautiful than life: a solemn peace, a breathless slumber, a renewal of youth in the whole being, which seems like a pause between the agitations of life and the surprises of the unknown world opening before them.
While I was contemplating the unfortunate creature, night began to close in. In the clear and mellow twilight a great softness reigned over everything. The roads, already lighter than the sky, stretched out straight and regular. The forest spread out in dark masses, and beneath me a small vineyard path was faintly lighted up by a ray of moonlight. Over all Nature, reposing after the day’s labour — on the silent fields, the hushed river, the peaceful landscape gently fading into night — there was the same calm, the same grand peace that rested on the face of the dead soldier.
Another day.
. . . Between Champrosay and the Meillottes, in the middle of a park which skirts the Seine, there stands a mansion built in the style of Louis XV. of the period of the Marquis d’Etiolles and Madame de Pompadour. Two thick straight rows of trees slope down to the river, showing, in summer-time, at the end of the arch of green foliage, a mirror of blue water blended with a blue sky. All the darkness of the old avenues seems to escape through these two vistas of light. At the entrance near the gates, a wide moat surrounding the lawns, a circle of moss-covered lime-trees and curbstones grazed by carriage-wheels, all combine to show the antiquity of this quiet old place. A fancy took me, and the other day I went in there.
By a winding path I reached the front of the steps. The doors were open, the shutters broken. On the ground-floor, in the large drawing-rooms, where the walls were all covered with white carved panels, not a single piece of furniture was left. Nothing but straw, and on the façade, between the stone carving of the balconies, were fresh marks and scratches, showing how the furniture had been thrown out through the windows. The billiard-room only was untouched. The Prussian officers are like our own, they are very fond of playing billiards. Only these gentlemen had amused themselves by making a target of a large mirror, and with its scratches, its chipped fragments, its small round holes looking black in the light, the mirror seemed like a frozen lake cut and furrowed by sharp skates. Inside, the wind rushed through the large windows battered down by bayonets and butt-ends of rifles, scattering and sweeping in the dead leaves on to the floors. Outside, it dashed under the green-leafed aisle, rocking a forgotten boat on the pond, full of broken twigs and golden-coloured willow-leaves.
I walked to the end of the avenues. There, at the end of the terrace, is a summer-house of red bricks overlooking the river; it is buried in the trees, and the Prussians have probably not seen it. The door, however, is ajar. I found a little sitting-room inside, hung with a flowery chintz, which seemed the continuation of the Virginian jasmine climbing through the latticed shutters; a piano, some scattered music, a book forgotten on a bamboo stool in front of the view over the Seine, and in the mysterious light of the closed shutters, the elegant and refined portrait of a woman looked out of a golden frame. Wife or maiden, who can tell? Dark, tall, with an ingenuous look, an enigmatic smile, and eyes the colour of thought — those Parisian eyes that change with each passing emotion. It is the first face I have seen for two months, and is so living, so proud, so youthful in its seriousness! The impression this picture has caused me is singular . . . I dreamt of the summer afternoons that she had spent there, seeking the solitude and freshness of this corner of the park. The book, the music, spoke of a refined nature; and there lingered in the twilight of this little nook a perfume of the past summer, of the vanished woman, and of a tender grace left only in the smile of the portrait.
Who is she? Where is she? I have never seen her. I shall in all probability never meet her. And yet, without knowing wherefore, I feel less lonely as I gaze at her. I read the book which she was reading, made happy by its being marked. And since then, not a day passes without my thinking of her. It seems to me that if I had this portrait here, the Hermitage would be less desolate, but to complete the charm of the face, one ought also to have the climbing jasmine of the summer-house, the rushes at the water’s edge, and the little wild plants of the moat, whose bitter aroma comes back to me as I write these lines.
One evening, on returning home.
. . . Found another dead Prussian. This one was lying in a ditch by the side of the road. That makes the third . . . And always the same wound, a horrible gash at the nape of the neck . . . It is almost like a signature of the same hand.
But who can it be? . . .
November 15th.
. . . This is the first time for many a day that I can put down a date in my diary, and make out a little order in this bewilderment of monotonous days. My whole existence is changed. The Hermitage no longer seems so silent and sad; there are now long, low conversations by the ash-covered fire with which we fill the chimney at night. The Robinson Crusoe of the forest of Sénart has found his man Friday, and under the following circumstances.
One evening last week, between eight and nine o’clock, while I was roasting a fine hen-pheasant on a turnspit of my own invention, I heard the report of a gun in the direction of Champrosay. This was so unusual that I listened very attentively, ready to extinguish my fire and put out the little glimmer which might betray me. Almost immediately, hurried footsteps sounding heavy on the gravelled road, approached the Hermitage, followed by barking of dogs and furious galloping. It gave me the idea of a hunted man pursued by horsemen and chased by furious dogs. Shivering, and seized by the living terror I felt drawing near, I half opened my window. At that instant a man rushed across the moonlit orchard, and ran towards the keeper’s house with an unerring certainty that struck me. Apparently he was well acquainted with the place. He had passed so rapidly that I could not distinguish his features; I only saw a peasant’s blue smock all gathered up in the agitation of a wild flight. He jumped through a shattered window into the Guillards’ house, and disappeared in the darkness of the empty dwelling. Immediately behind him a large white dog appeared at the entrance of the cloister. Thrown out for a minute, he remained there, slowly wagging his tail and sniffing, and then stretched himself out at full length in front of the old gateway, baying in order to call the attention of the pursuers. I knew the Prussians often had dogs with them, and I expected to see a patrol of Uhlans . . . Odious animal! with what pleasure would I have strangled it, if it had been within reach of my grasp. I already saw the Hermitage invaded, searched, my retreat discovered; and I felt angry with that unfortunate peasant for having sought refuge so near me, as if all the forest were not large enough. How selfish fear makes us! . . .
Fortunately for me, the Prussians were probably not very numerous, and the darkness and the unknown forest frightened them. I heard them call in their dog, who kept up in front of the gate, the continual howl and whimpering of an animal on the track. However, he at last went off, and the sound of him bounding through the brushwood and over the dead leaves died out in the distance. The silence that followed appalled me. A man was there, opposite to me. Through the round opening of my attic window, I tried to peer into the darkness. The keeper’s little house was still silent and gloomy, with the black apertures of its dreary windows in the white wall. I imagined the unhappy man hiding in a corner, benumbed with cold and perhaps wounded. Should I leave him without help? . . . I did not hesitate long . . . But just at the moment when I was gently opening my door, it was violently pushed from the outside, and some one burst into the room.
— Don’t be afraid, Mr. Robert. It is I . . . It is Goudeloup . . .
It was the farmer of Champrosay, he whom I had seen with the rope round his neck, ready to be swung up in his farmyard. I recognised him at once in the firelight; and yet there was something different about him. Pale and emaciated, his face hidden by an unkempt beard, his sharp glance and tightened lips made a very different being of the well-to-do, cheerful farmer of former days. With the end of his smock, he wiped the blood off his hands.
— You are wounded, Goudeloup?
He laughed significantly.
— No — no . . . I have just been bleeding one of them on the road. Only this time I had not a fair chance. While I was at work, some others came up. Never mind! He will never get up again.
And he added, with a short, fierce laugh which showed his wolfish-looking teeth:
— That makes the fifteenth that I have laid low in two months . . . I think that is pretty well for one man alone, and with no other weapon but this.
He drew forth from under his smock a pair of pruning-shears — those large kind of scissors that gardeners use to cut rose-trees and shrubs. I had a shudder of horror at the sight of the assassin’s tool, held by that bloody hand; but I had been so long silent, and deprived of all intercourse with human beings, that, the first feeling of repulsion overcome, I made the unfortunate creature welcome to a place at my table. There, in the comfortable atmosphere of the room, by the heat of the faggots, at the smell of the pheasant, which was becoming brown before the flame, his wild-beast expression seemed to soften. Accustomed to the darkness of the long nights, he blinked his eyes a little while he related his history to me in a quiet tone.
— You thought I was hanged, Mr. Robert; well, I thought so myself. You must know that when the Uhlans arrived at the farm, I first tried to defend myself, but they did not even give me time to fire my second gun. No sooner was the first shot fired than the gates were forced open, and thirty of these robbers threw themselves on to me. They put the granary rope round my neck and up I went . . . For the space of a moment, giddy at no longer feeling the ground under my feet, I saw everything reeling around me: the farm, the sheds, the kennels, those big red faces which laughed at the sight of me; and you also, whom I caught sight of through the gap in the wall, looking as white as a ghost. It seemed like a nightmare! . . . Suddenly, while I was struggling, the idea flashed across my mind, I know not why, to make the Freemason’s signal of distress. I learned that in my youth, when I belonged to the lodge of the Grand Orient. Immediately the wretches loosened the rope, and I found myself on the ground once more. It was their officer — a stout man with black whiskers — who had me taken down only on account of my sign.
“ — You are a Freemason,” said he, in a low tone, and in excellent French. “I am also one . . . and I would not refuse to help a brother who appealed to me . . . Be off, and let me see you no more! . . .”
I left my own home hanging my head like a beggar. Only I did not go far, you may believe. Hidden among the ruins of the bridge, living on raw turnips and sloes, I was present at the pillage of my goods; the emptied granaries, the pulley creaking all day long to lower the sacks, the wood burning in the open yard in large fires, round which they drank my wine, and my furniture and my flocks going of by degrees in every direction! And when at last nothing remained, after setting fire to the house, they went off, driving and whipping my last cow before them. That evening, when I had been round my ruins, when, thinking of my children, I realised that in my whole life long I should never make enough to restore my property, even if I killed myself with work, I became mad with rage. The very first Prussian I met on the road I sprang upon like a wild beast and cut his throat with this . . .
From that moment I had but one idea — to hunt down the Prussians. I remained in ambush night and day, attacking the stragglers, the marauders, the despatch-bearers, the sentinels. All those I kill I carry to the quarries or throw into the water. That is the tedious part. Otherwise they are as gentle as lambs. You can do what you will with them . . . However, the one this evening was more tough than the others, and then that fiendish dog gave the alarm. And now I must remain quiet for a time, and with your permission, Mr. Robert, I will remain a few days with you . . .
While he was speaking, his countenance resumed the sinister expression and peculiar intensity that these fearful night-watches had imparted to it. What a terrible companion I am going to have! . . .
November 20th.
We have just spent a most dreadful week. During eight days, the Prussian patrols have unceasingly passed backwards and forwards through the forest. They skirted the walls of the Hermitage, and even entered the enclosure, but the state of the keeper’s little house, left wide open and abandoned; the ivy and brambles giving such a dilapidated appearance to my own, protected us. My companion and myself carefully remained inside the whole time, deadening our steps across the room, lowering our voices by the hearth, and only making a small fire at night.
This time, had we been discovered, it meant death, and I felt rather annoyed with Goudeloup for having made me his accomplice by coming to take refuge here. He understood my feelings, and offered several times to go and seek another shelter; but I would not consent to this. To show his gratitude for my hospitality, he renders me a lot of little services. Very obliging, very clever in all the practical details of life, about which I am so ignorant, he has taught me to make bread that is eatable, real cider, and candles. It is a pleasure to see him busy all day long, restricting his faculty for work and order, which he formerly exercised on a wider scale in the management of his large farmstead and seventy-five acres of land, and adapting himself to the confined space of our only room. Gloomy and silent, moreover, and sitting motionless for hours in the evening, his head buried in his hands, like all inveterate workers with whom overwrought physical life absorbs the moral being, I could not help sometimes smiling when I noticed that, notwithstanding the tragical circumstances surrounding us, he kept up his habit of prolonged meals and pauses between each mouthful. Such as he is, the fellow interests me. He is the true peasant in all his native brutality. His land, his goods, are far more precious to him than his country or his family. He unconsciously utters the most monstrous sentiments. If he is so bent on revenge, it is only because the Prussians have burnt down his farm, and the horrors of the invasion only rouse him when he thinks of his lost harvest, and his fields left untilled and unsown.
November 22nd . . .
We had a long conversation to-day. We were in the shed seated across a ladder, and, in spite of the coldness of the damp air which came to us from the forest all laden with the smell of moist wood and damp earth, we felt as much pleasure in breathing it as two dormice coming forth from their holes. Goudeloup was smoking a curiously-shaped pipe he has made out of a snail’s shell, and he did so with an exaggerated appearance of satisfaction and content not devoid of mischief. In spite of my longing to smoke, I have already several times refused to use his tobacco, well knowing how it has been procured, and always expecting to see some shreds of the blue cloth of which the Prussian uniforms are made. As he caught me sniffing the delightful fragrance of tobacco, which tantalised me, he said, with that cunning smile of the peasant which puckers up their eyes, leaving their lips thin and crafty:
— Well! come! you won’t smoke? . . .
Myself.
No, thank you. I have already told you I do not wish for any of your tobacco.
Goudeloup.
Because I have taken it out of their pockets? Yet I had every right to do so. They have robbed me enough, for me to be able to rob them also, and a few handfuls of bad tobacco won’t pay for all my corn and oats . . .
Myself.
With this difference, that these people have given you your life, whereas you . . .
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