Chapter II (1)

Our regiment was what is called a march regiment, that is, one formed while on the march. It had been made up at Mans, after much trouble, of all the remains of a corps of dissimilar fighting units which encumbered the city. Zuaves, mobilized soldiers, of franc-tireurs, forestry guards, dismounted cavalrymen, including gendarmes, Spaniards and Wallachians--there were troops of every kind and description, and they were all under the command of an old captain quickly promoted for the occasion to the rank of lieutenant colonel. At that time, such promotions were not infrequent. The gaps of human flesh wrought in the ranks of the French by the cannons of Wissembourg and Sedan had to be filled. Several companies lacked officers.

At the head of mine was a little lieutenant of the reserves, a young man of twenty, frail and pallid and so weak that after marching a few kilometers he was out of breath, dragged his feet and usually reached his destination in an ambulance wagon. The poor little devil! It was enough to look at him to make him blush, and never did he allow himself to issue orders for fear of appearing ridiculous. We jeered at him because of his timidity and weakness, and no doubt because he was kind and would sometimes distribute cigars and meat supplies to the men. I quickly inured myself to this new life, carried away by examples and overexcited by the fever about me. And reading the heartbreaking reports of our lost battles, I felt myself transported by enthusiasm which, however, was not mingled with any thought of my threatened fatherland. We remained a month in Mans for training, to get our full equipment and to frequent cabarets and houses of ill-fame. At last, October 3, we started out.

Composed of stray units, of detachments without officers, of straggling volunteers poorly equipped, poorly fed and more often not fed at all,--without cohesion, without discipline, everyone thinking of himself only, and driven by a unique feeling of ferociousness, implacable selfishness; some wearing police caps, others having silk handkerchiefs wrapped round their heads; still others wearing artillery pants and vests of batmen--we were marching along the highways, ragged, harassed and in an ugly mood.

For twelve days since we had been incorporated into a brigade of recent formation, we were tramping across the fields like madmen and to no purpose, as it were. Today marching to the right, tomorrow to the left, one day covering a stretch of forty kilometers, the next day going back an equal distance, we were moving in the same circle; like a scattered herd of cattle which has lost its shepherd. Our enthusiasm diminished appreciably. Three weeks of suffering were enough for that. Before we could ever hear the roar of cannon and the whiz of bullets, our forward march resembled a retreat of a conquered army, cut to pieces by cavalry charges and precipitated into wild confusion. It was like a panicky flight in which each one was allowed to shift for himself. How often did I see soldiers getting rid of their cartridges by scattering them along the roads?

"What good will they do me?" one of them said. "I don't need them at all except one to crack the jaw of our captain, the first chance we get to fight."

In the evening, in camp, squatted around the porridge pot or stretched out on the cold furze, with heads resting on their knapsacks, they were thinking of the homes from which they had been taken by force. All the young men, strong and healthy, had come from the villages. Many of them were already sleeping in the ground way yonder, disembowelled by shells; others with shattered backs, like shadows, were straggling in the fields and in the woods awaiting death. In the small country places, left to sorrow, there were only old men, more stooped than ever, and women who wept. The barn-floors where they thrashed corn were mute and closed, in the deserted fields where weeds sprouted, one no longer saw against the purple background of the sunset the silhouette of the laborer returning home, keeping step with his tired horses. And men with long sabres would come and in the name of the law take away the horses one day and empty the cowshed the next; for it was not enough that war should glut itself with human flesh, it was necessary that it should also devour beasts, the earth itself, everything that lived in the calm and peace of labor and love.... And at the bottom of the hearts of all these miserable soldiers whose emaciated frames and flagged limbs were lit up by the sinister glare of camp fires--there was one hope, the hope of the coming battle, that is to say, the hope of flight, of butt turned upwards, and of the German fortress.

Nevertheless we were preparing for the defence of the country which we traversed and which was no longer threatened. To accomplish that we thought it would be best to fell trees and scatter them on the roads; we blew up bridges and desecrated cemeteries at the entrance to villages under the pretext of barricading them, and we compelled the inhabitants at the point of the bayonet to help us in the destruction of their property. Then we would depart, leaving behind us nothing but ruin and hatred. I remember one time we had to raze a very beautiful park to the last staddling, in order to build barracks which we never used at all. Our manner of doing things was not at all such as to reassure the people. And so at our approach the houses were shut, the peasants hid their provisions; everywhere we were met by hostile faces, surly mouths and empty hands. There were bloody scuffles over some potted pork discovered in a cupboard, and the general ordered an old and kindly man shot for hiding a few kilograms of salted pork under a heap of manure.

The first of November we marched all day and about three o'clock we arrived at the railroad station of Loupe. There was great disorder and unspeakable confusion at first. Many, leaving the ranks, scattered in the direction of the city, ten kilometers away, and disappeared in the neighboring cabarets. For more than an hour the bugles sounded a rally. Mounted men were sent to the city to bring back the runaways, but they themselves lingered there to get a drink. There was a rumor afloat that a train made up at Nogent-le-Rotrou was supposed to take us to Chartres menaced by the Prussians who were said to have sacked Maintenon and were camping at Jouy. A workman questioned by our sergeant said that he did not know anything about it, nor did he hear anything ever said about it. The general, rather old, short, stout and gesticulating, who could hardly sit up in his saddle, galloped hither and thither, shaking and swaying like a drunkard on his saddle horse and with purple face, bristled moustach, repeated without end:

"Ah! scoundrel!... Ah! scoundrel of scoundrels!..."

He dismounted, assisted by his orderly; his legs got tangled up in the leather strap of his sabre which dragged on the ground, and having called over the station master, entered into a most animated conversation with the latter whose countenance showed perplexity.

"How about the mayor?" shouted the general. "Where is that scoundrel? Get me that fellow!... Are they trying to make a fool out of me here or what!"

He was out of breath, sputtered out unintelligible words, stamped his feet and scolded the station master. Finally both of them, one with a mien of humility, the other gesticulating furiously, disappeared into the telegraph office from which there came to us the clicking of the apparatus, frenzied, excited, interrupted from time to time by the outbursts of the general. At last it was decided to draw us up on the quay in company formation, and we were left there standing, knapsack on the ground, in front of the formed arm racks.... Night came, rain fell, drizzling and cold, penetrating through our uniforms already drenched by showers. Here and there the road was lit up by small dim lights, rendering more sombre than ever the storehouses and the mass of wagons which men were pushing into a shed. And the derrick crane standing upright on the turning platform projected its long neck against the sky like a bewildered giraffe.

Apart from coffee which we gulped down hurriedly in the morning, we did not eat anything all day, and although fatigue had worn out our bodies and hunger clutched our stomachs, we anticipated with horror that we would have to go without supper today. Our gourd-bottles were empty, our supplies of biscuits and bacon exhausted, and the wagons of the commissary department which had gone astray had not yet joined our columns. Several among us grumbled, made threats and voiced their rebellious feelings aloud, but the no less dejected officers who were promenading in front of the arm racks, did not seem to take notice of it. I consoled myself with the thought that the general had perhaps requisitioned food in the city. It was a vain hope. The time passed, the rain kept steadily drumming on the hollow mess plates and the general continued swearing at the station master who in turn went on avenging himself verbally on the telegraph, the click of which became more and more violent and erratic. From time to time trains came up over-crowded with troops. Soldiers of the reserve, light infantry units, bare-breasted, bare-headed, with loose cravats, some of them drunk and wearing their kepis wrong side up, deserted the wagons where they were parked, invaded the taverns and even relieved themselves in public impudently. From this swarm of human heads, from this stamping on the floor of the cars by multitudes there emanated oaths, sounds of the Marseillaise, obscene songs which mingled with shouts of the gangs of workmen, with the tinkling of bells, with the panting of machines.... I recognized a little boy from Saint-Michel whose swollen eyelids oozed, who coughed and spat blood. I asked him where they were going. He did not know. Having left Mans, they were held up at Connerre for twelve hours without food because of congestion on the road,--too crowded to lie down and sleep. He hardly had strength enough to speak. He went into a tavern to rinse his eyes with warm water. I shook hands with him, and he said he sincerely hoped that in the first battle the Germans would make a prisoner of him.... And the train pulled out, disappeared in the night, carrying all these wan faces, all these bodies already vanquished----toward what useless and bloody slaughters?

I shivered with cold. Under the icy rain which drenched me to the very marrow, I felt a terrible cold penetrating me. It seemed as if my members were getting numb. I took advantage of the confusion caused by the arrival of a train to reach the open gate and run out on the road in search of a house or cover where I could warm myself, find a piece of bread or something. The inns and public places near the station were guarded by sentries who had orders not to let anyone in.... Three hundred yards away I noticed a few windows which shone gently in the night. These lights looked to me like two kindly eyes, two eyes filled with pity which called me, smiled to me, caressed me.... It was a small house isolated a few strides away from the road. I ran toward it.... A sergeant accompanied by four men was there, shouting and swearing. Near the fireplace without a fire, I saw an old man seated on a very low wicker chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in his hands. A candle burning in an iron candlestick lit up half of his face hollowed and furrowed by deep wrinkles.

"Will you give us some wood, I am asking you for the last time?" shouted the sergeant.

"I ain't got no wood," answered the old man.... "It's been eight days since the troops passed here, I tell you.... They took everything away."

He huddled himself up on the chair and in a feeble voice muttered:

"I ain't got ... nothing... Nothing!..."

"Don't act the rogue, you old rascal.... Ah, you are hiding your wood to warm the Prussians.... Well I am going to knock those Prussians out of your head."

The old man shook his head:

"But if I ain't got no wood...."

With angry gestures the sergeant commanded the soldiers to search the house. They examined everything, looked everywhere from cellar to garret. They found nothing, nothing but evidence of plunder and some broken furniture. In the cellar, damp with spilled cider, the casks were broken open and over the whole there spread a hideously offensive stench. That exasperated the sergeant who struck the flat end of the butt of his musket.

"Come on," he shouted, "come on, you old sloven, tell us where your wood is," and he rudely shook the old man who tottered and almost struck his head against the andiron of the fireplace.

"I ain't got no wood," the poor man simply repeated.

"Ah! you are getting stubborn!... You have no wood you say! Well, look here, you have chairs, a buffet, a table, a bed ... if you don't tell me where your wood is I'll burn it all up."

The old man did not protest. Shaking his aged white head he again repeated:

"I ain't got no wood."

I wanted to intercede and muttered a few words; but the sergeant did not let me finish. He took me in from head to foot with a look of contempt.

"What are you doing around here, you errand simp you? Who gave you permission to leave the ranks, you dirty, snotty-nosed trash? Come on, face about double step, march!... Ta ra ta ta ra, ta ta ra!..."

Then he gave the command. In a few minutes the chairs, the tables, the buffet, the bed were dashed to pieces. The kindly man raised himself with some effort, went into the farthest corner of the room; and while the fire was being made, while the sergeant, whose cloak and trousers were steaming, was warming himself laughingly in front of the crackling fire, the old man was watching the burning of his last piece of furniture with eyes of a stoic, and never stopped repeating obstinately:

"I ain't got no wood."

I went back to the station. The general had come out of the telegraph office more excited and flushed and angry than ever. He jabbered out something and presently brought about a great commotion. The clang of sabres was heard, voices called out and answered one another, officers were running in all directions. The bugle sounded. Without the least understanding of this counter order, we had to put our knapsacks on our backs and the guns on our shoulders.

Forward! March!...

With bodies rendered rigid by immobility and with dizzy heads, we pushed and jostled one another and resumed our breathless journey in the rain, in the mud, through the night!... To the right and the left of us there were long stretches of fields swallowed up in the shadows from which rose the crowns of apple trees which appeared to be twisted in the skies. From time to time the barking of a dog was heard from afar.... There were deep forests, sombre thickets which rose like walls on each side of the road. Then came villages asleep, where our steps resounded even more mournfully, or where at a window quickly opened and quickly closed again, there appeared the vague outline of a human white form ... terrified.... Then again fields and woods and villages.... Not a single song, not a single word, only an immense silence, accentuated by the rhythm of the tramping feet. The leather straps of the knapsack cut into my flesh, the rifle felt like a red hot iron bar placed upon my shoulder. For a moment I thought myself harnessed to a huge wagon, loaded with broad stone and stuck in the mud and felt that the carters were breaking my legs with the lashes of whips. With my feet planted in the ground, my spine bent in two, with outstretched neck, strangled by the bit, my lungs emitting a rattling sound, I was pulling and pulling.... Pretty soon I reached a state where I was no longer conscious of anything. I was marching in a state of torpor, like an automaton, as if in a trance.... Strange hallucinations flitted before my eyes. I saw a glowing road receding into space, lined with palatial mansions and brilliant lights.... Strange scarlet flowers swayed their corollæ in the air on the top of flexible stems, and a crowd of gay people were singing at tables laden with refreshments and delicious fruit.... Women with fluttering gauze skirts were dancing on illumined lawns, to the music of numerous orchestras hidden in the grove strewn with falling leaves, adorned with jasmines, sprinkled with water.

"Halt!" commanded the sergeant.

I stopped, and in order not to sink down to the ground I had to hold on to the arm of a comrade. I awoke from my trance.... Darkness was all around me. We had come to the entrance of a forest, near a small town where the general and most of the officers went to find quarters. Having pitched my tent, I occupied myself with rubbing my feet, the skin of which was peeling off, with a candle which I had hidden in my knapsack, and like an emaciated dog, stretched myself out on the wet ground and immediately fell asleep. During the night, fellow-soldiers who, exhausted with fatigue, had dropped out of the ranks on the road, kept on coming into camp. Of these, five men were never heard from. It was ever so at each difficult march. Some of the men, weak or sick, fell into the ditches and died there; others deserted....

The next morning reveille was sounded at dawn. The night had been extremely cold, it never stopped raining and we could not get any straw litter or hay to sleep on. It was very difficult for me to get out of the tent; for a while I was obliged to crawl on my knees on all fours, my legs refusing to carry me. My limbs were frozen stiff like bars of iron, I could not move my head on my paralyzed neck, and my eyes which felt as if they had been pricked by numerous tiny needles, kept shedding tears in ceaseless streams.... At the same time I felt an acute, lancinating, unbearable pain in my back and shoulders. I noticed that my comrades fared no better. With drawn faces of ghostly pallor they were advancing, some limping piteously, others bent down and staggering over clumps of underbrush--all lame, mournful and covered with mud. I saw several men who, seized with the colic, writhed and twisted their mouths, holding their hands to their bellies. Some of them were shivering with fever, and their teeth chattered with cold. All around us one could hear dry coughs rending human breasts, groans, short and raucous breathing. A hare ventured out of its cover and fled wildly, with its ears flapping, but no one thought of pursuing the animal as we used sometimes to do. After the roll call, foodstuffs were distributed, as the commissary regained our regiment. We made some soup which we ate as greedily as half-starved dogs.

I was still suffering. After the soup I had an attack of dizziness followed by vomiting, and I shook with fever. Everything around me was in a whirl--the tents, the forest, the fields, the small town way yonder, whose chimneys were smoking in the mist, and the sky where huge clouds were floating, bleak and low. I asked the sergeant for permission to see a doctor.

Our tents were arranged in two rows, backed against the forest on each side of the road of Senonches which led into the open country through a magnificent grove of oak trees, crossed the Chartre road three hundred meters away and still further the town of Belhomert and extended farther toward Loupe. At the crossing of these two roads there was a small dilapidated building covered with thatch, a sort of abandoned shed which provided shelter for the laborers on the road during rain. It was here that the surgeon had established a sort of improvised field hospital recognizable by a Red Cross flag put up in a crack in the wall and adorning it.

In front of the house a crowd was waiting. A long line of human beings, wan and worn out, some standing with fixed looks, others sitting on the ground, sad with stooped and pointed shoulders, their heads buried in their hands. Death had already laid its terrible hand upon these emaciated countenances, these scraggy frames, these members which hung loose, devoid of blood and marrow. And confronted with this heartbreaking sight, I forgot my own suffering, and my heart was touched with pity. Three months were sufficient to break down these robust bodies, inured to labor and fatigue!... Three months! And these young men who loved life, these children of the soil who grew up as dreamers in the freedom of the fields, trusting in the goodness of nature, these youths were done for!... To the marine who dies is given the sea as a burying place; he descends into eternal darkness to the rhythm of its murmuring waves. But these!... A few more days of grace perhaps, and then these tatterdemallions will suddenly tumble down into the mud of a ditch, their corpses delivered, up to the fangs of prowling dogs and to the beaks of nightbirds.

I was swept by a feeling of such brotherly and sorrowful pity for them that I wished I could press all these unhappy men to my breast, in a single embrace, and I wished, oh, how ardently I wished it!--I had a hundred female breasts, like Isis, swollen with milk, that I might offer to all these bloodless lips.... They were entering the house one by one and were leaving it as quickly, pursued by growling and swearing sounds. For the rest, the surgeon did not bother with them at all. Very angry, he was demanding of his orderly his medicine chest which was missing from the luggage.

"My medicine chest, for God's sake!" he shouted. "Where is my medicine chest? And my instrument case?... What did you do with my instrument case? Ah! for God's sake!..."

A little soldier of the reserves who suffered from an abscess on his knee came back hopping on one foot, crying, pulling his hair in despair. They did not want to attend to him. When it was my turn to go in I was all atremble. Inside the place which was dark, four patients, lying flat in the straw, were emitting rattling sounds like the cock of a musket; a fifth one was gesticulating, muttering incoherent words in delirium; still another, half-reclining, with head drooped on his chest, was moaning and asking for a drink in a feeble voice, the voice of an infant. Squatted in front of the fire place, an attendant was holding over the flame, on the end of a stick, a piece of stale pudding whose stench of burned grease filled the room. The adjutant did not even look at me. He shouted:

"Well, what's the matter now?... A bunch of lazy buggers. A good ten league run at a stretch will fix you up, you straggler.... Face about!... March!"

On the threshold I met a peasant woman who asked me:

"Is this the place where you can see the doctor."

"Women now!" growled the adjutant. "What do you want now?"

"Beg pardon, excuse me, Doctor," rejoined the peasant woman, who came up very timidly. "I came for my son who is a soldier."

"Tell me now, old woman, am I here to keep track of your son, or what?"

With her hands crossed on the handle of her umbrella, timorous, she examined the place about her.

"It seems like he is very sick, my son is, very, very sick.... And so I came to see if he was not around here, Doctor."

"What's your name?"

"My name is Riboulleau."

"Riboulleau.... Riboulleau!... That may be ... look in that pile there."

The attendant who was broiling his pudding turned his head.

"Riboulleau," he said, "why he has been dead three days already...."

"What is that you are saying?" cried the peasant woman whose sunburned face suddenly became pallid. "Where did he die?... Why did he die, my little darling boy."

The adjutant intervened, and rudely pushing the old woman toward the door, shouted:

"Go on, go on, no scenes around here! Well, he is dead--and that is all there is to it."

"My little darling boy! My little darling boy!" wailed the old woman in a heart-breaking manner.

I walked away with a heavy heart and felt so discouraged that I was asking myself whether it was not better to put an end to it all at once by hanging myself on the branch of a tree or by blowing my brains out with the gun. While I was going to my tent, stumbling on the way, I was hardly paying any attention to the little soldier who, having stopped at the foot of a pine tree, had opened his abscess with his knife himself, and, pale, with sweat drops rolling all over his forehead, was bandaging his bleeding wound.

In the morning I felt a great deal better than I thought I would. I was relieved of all work, and after having greased my rifle which became rusted in the rain, I enjoyed a few hours of rest. Stretched out on my blanket, with my body torpid in delicious half slumber where I distinctly heard all the noises of the camp--the sounding of the bugle, the neighing of the horses as if coming from afar--I was thinking of the people and the things I had left behind me. A thousand images and a thousand scenes of the past rapidly filed before my eyes. I saw again the Priory, my dead mother and my father, with his large straw hat and the short beggar with his flaxen hair and Felix squatted in the lettuce patches, lying in wait for a mole. I saw again my study room, my school mates and, topping the noise of the Bal Bullier, Nini, her hair loose and brown, with her ruddy neck and her pink stockings showing like some lascivious flower from under the skirt raised in dancing. Then the image of an unknown woman in a yellow dress, whom I noticed in the shadow of a box in a theatre one evening, came back to me--an insistent and sweet vision.

During this time the strongest among us had gone out to roam in the fields and on the farms. They came back merrily carrying bundles of straw, chickens, turkeys and ducks. One of them was driving before him with a switch, a big, grunting pig; another was balancing a sheep on his shoulder. At the end of a halter the latter was also dragging a calf which, tangled up in the rope, resisted comically and shook its snout, bellowing all the time. The peasants came up running to the camp to complain that they had been robbed; they were hooted and driven out.

The general, very stiff and with round eyes, came to review us in the afternoon, accompanied by our lieutenant who walked at his right. His shiny look, his flushed cheeks, his mealy voice bore witness to the fact that he had had a plentiful breakfast. He was munching the end of an extinguished cigar; he spat, sniffed, swore. One could not tell at whom or what, for he did not address himself to any one in particular. When standing in front of our company, he looked at our lieutenant-colonel severely, and I heard him say:

"Your men are dirty slops!"

Then he walked away, his body weighed down by his belly, dragging his feet, dressed in yellow boots above which red breeches swelled and folded like a skirt.

The rest of the day was devoted to loitering in the taverns of Belhomert. There was such crowding and such noise everywhere, and besides I knew so well these fights in the cabarets, these violent outbursts as a result of drunkenness which often degenerated into general scuffles, that I preferred to go out on the road, far from all these brawls, in the company of a few peaceable comrades.

Just then the weather grew better, dim sunlight came from the sky freed from clouds. We seated ourselves on the side of a sloping hill, bending our backs under the warm sun rays as does a cat under the hand that caresses it. Vehicles kept passing by, heavy carts, dung carts, small carriages with awning hoods, rubbish carts drawn by small mules. Those were the peasants of Chartres valley who were fleeing from the Prussians.... Excited by rumors, spread from village to village, of burnings, robberies, murders and all kinds of atrocities committed by the Germans in the invaded territories, they were carrying away in haste their most precious possessions, abandoning their homes and their fields and, utterly bewildered, were proceeding straight ahead, without knowing where they were going. In the evening they would stop at some chance road, near a town, sometimes in the open fields. The horses, unharnessed and fettered, browsed on the river banks, the people ate and slept at God's mercy, guarded by dogs, in storm and rain, in the cold of foggy nights. Then in the morning they would start out again. Droves of animals, and throngs of men succeeded one another alternately. They were passing by us, and upon the yellow main road one could see the black and mournful procession of the refugees as far as the hill closing the horizon: one might think it was an exodus of a whole people. I questioned an old man who led a donkey pulling a cart, at the bottom of which in the midst of bundles, tied with kerchiefs, and carrots and heads of cabbage, on a pile of straw there shifted about a peasant woman with a flat nose, two pink-colored pigs and a few domestic fouls tied by their feet in twos.

"Eh, the robbers!" the old man replied. "Don't speak to me about them!... They came one morning, a whole gang of them with plumed hats.... They raised such a racket!... Eh, Holy Jesus! And then they took everything away.... Well I thought they were the Prussians.... I have found out since that they were the 'franc-tireurs'...."

"How about the Prussians?"

"The Prussians!... Of them that are Prussians I have seen very few to be sure.... They are supposed to be up at our place right now!... Jacqueline thinks she saw one behind the hedge the other day!... He was tall, very tall and he was as red as the devil.... Is he really one of these fellows, those savages that came?... Now tell me truly who are they?"

"Those are Germans, old man, just as we are French."

"Germans?... So I hear.... But what do they want, those damned Germans, will you please tell me, mister soldier?... Well, I have saved two pigs, our girl and all our poultry just the same!... By Jove!"

And the peasant continued on his way, repeating:

"The Germans! the Germans!... What do these damned Germans want?"

That evening fires were made along the entire line of the camp, and the attractive looking pots full of fresh meat were hissing joyously upon the improvised stoves of earth and stone. For us that was a time of exquisite respite and delicious forgetfulness. Peace seemed to have descended from heaven, all blue with the moon and aglitter with stars; the fields, unrolling themselves with soft and misty undulations, had in them a kind of tender sweetness which penetrated into our souls and set new blood, less acrid and endowed with new vigor, circulating in our members. Little by little, memories of our hardships, our discouragements and privations, however near, effaced themselves, and simultaneously with the awakening of our sense of duty, a desire for action seized us. Unusual animation reigned at our camp. Every one offered voluntarily to do some kind of work; some, torch in hand, were running about to light again the fires which went out, others were blowing at the ashes in order to kindle them into flame again, still others were sorting vegetables and slicing meat. Some comrades, forming a circle around the debris of burned timber, struck up a tune "Have you seen Bismark?" in a jeering chorus. Revolt--the child of hunger--had its inception in the hissing of saucepans, in the clatter of platters.

The next day, when the last of us answered "Present" at the roll call, the little lieutenant gave the command: "Form a circle, march!"

And in a faltering voice, jumbling the words and skipping phrases, the quartermaster read a pompous order of the day, issued by the general. In that piece of military literature it was said that a Prussian army corps, starving, ill-clad and without arms, after having occupied Chartres, was advancing on us at double marching time. Our task was to block its way, to throw it back as far as the walls of Paris, where the valiant Ducrot was only waiting for our arrival to sally out and clean the land of all invaders at one sweep. The general recalled the victories of the Revolution, the Egypt expedition, Austerlitz, Borodino. He expressed the faith that we would show ourselves worthy of our glorious ancestors of Sambre-et-Meuse. In view of that he gave precise strategic instructions for the defense of the country, namely: to establish an impregnable barrier to the eastern entrance to the town and another still more impregnable barrier upon the road of Chartres, to fortify the walls of the cemetery at the crossroad, to fell as many trees as possible in the nearby forest so that the enemy cavalry and even infantry should be unable to turn our flank from Senonches under the cover of the woods, to be on the lookout for spies, and finally to keep our eyes open.... The country was counting on us.... Long live the Republic!

The cheer was not responded to. The little lieutenant who was walking around, his arms crossed on his back, his eyes obstinately fixed on the point of his boot, did not raise his head. We looked at one another perplexed, with a sort of anguish in our hearts, which came as a result of our knowledge that the Prussians were very near, that war was going to begin for us in earnest the very next day, today perhaps. And I had a sudden vision of Death, red Death standing on a chariot, drawn by rearing horses, which was sweeping down on us, brandishing his scythe. As long as the actual fighting was only a remote possibility we wanted to be in it, first for reasons of patriotism, enthusiasm, then out of mere braggadocio, later because we were nervously exhausted and wearisome and saw in it a way out of our misery. Now when the opportunity offered itself, we were afraid; we shuddered at the mere mention of it. Instinctively my eyes turned toward the horizon, in the direction of Chartres. And the fields seemed to me to conceal a secret, unknown terror, a fearful uncertainty, which lent to things a new aspect of relentlessness. Over yonder, above the blue line of trees, I expected to see helmets spring up suddenly, bayonets flash, the thundering mouths of cannons spurt fire. A harvest field, all red under the sun, appeared to me like a pond of blood. Hedges strung themselves out into armies, joined ranks, crossed one another like regiments, bristling with arms and standards and going through various evolutions before the battle. The apple trees looked frightened like cavalry men thrown into disorder.

"Break the circle--march!" shouted the lieutenant.

Stupefied, with swinging arms, we were standing on one place for a long time, a prey to some vague misgiving, trying to pierce in thought this terrible line on the horizon, behind which was now being realized the mystery of our fate. In this disquieting silence, in this sinister immobility, only carts and herds were passing by, more numerous, more hurried and pressed than ever. A flock of ravens, which came from yonder like a black vanguard, spotted the skies, thickened, distended and, stringing itself out into a line, turned aside, floating above us like a funeral cloak, then disappeared among the oak trees.

"At last we are going to see them, these famous Prussians!" said, in a faltering voice, a big fellow who was very pale and who, in order to give himself the air of a fearless daredevil, was beating his ears with his kepi.

No one replied to this remark and several walked away. Our corporal, however, shrugged his shoulders. He was a very impudent little man, with a pock-eaten face, full of pimples.

"Oh! I!" he said.

He clarified his thought by a cynical gesture, sat down on the heath, puffed at his pipe slowly, till fire appeared.

"Oh, piffle!" he concluded, emitting a cloud of smoke which vanished in the air.

While one company of chasseurs was detailed to the crossroads to establish an "impregnable barrier" there, my company went in the woods to "fell as many trees as possible." All the axes, bill-hooks and hatchets of the village were speedily requisitioned. Almost everything was used as a tool. For a whole day the blows of the axes were resounding and trees were falling. To spur us on to greater efforts, the general himself wanted to assist us in the vandalism.

"Come on, you scamps!" he would cry out at every occasion, clapping his hands. "Come on boys, let's get this one!..."

He himself pointed out the most stalwart among the trees, those which grew up straight and spread out like the columns of a temple. It was an orgy of destruction, criminal and foolish; a shout of brutal joy went up every time a tree fell on top of another with a great noise. The old trees became less dense, one could say they were mowed down by some gigantic and supernatural scythe. Two men were killed by the fall of an oak tree.

And the few trees which remained standing, austere in the midst of ruined trunks lying on the ground, and the twisted branches which rose up towards them like arms outstretched in supplication, were showing open wounds, deep and red gashes from which the sap was oozing, weeping as it were.

The supervisor of the forest section, warned by a guard, came running from Senonches, and with a broken heart witnessed this useless devastation. I was near the general when the forester approached him respectfully, kepi in hand.

"Beg pardon, general," said he. "I can understand the felling of trees on the edge of the road, the barricading of lines of approach.... But your destruction of the heart of the old forest seems to me a little...."

But the general interrupted:

"Eh? What? It seems to you what?...What are you butting in here for?... I do as I please.... Who is commander here, you or I?..."

"But...." stammered the forester.

"There are no buts about it, Monsieur.... You make me tired, that's one thing sure!... You had better hurry back to Senonches or I'll have you strung up on a tree.... Come on, boys!..."

The general turned his back on the stupefied agent and walked away knocking some dead leaves and sprigs before him with the end of his cane.

While we were thus desecrating the forest, the chasseurs were not idle either, and the barricade rose, huge and formidable, cutting off the road at the crossroad. It was accomplished not without difficulty and above all not without gayety. Suddenly halted by a trench which barred their flight, the peasants protested. Their carts and herds became congested on the road, very narrow at this point; there was, therefore, an indescribable uproar. They were complaining, the women were moaning, the cattle were lowing, the soldiers were laughing at the frightened looks of men and beasts, and the captain who was in command of the troops did not know what action to take. Several times the soldiers pretended to drive the peasants back at the point of the bayonet, but the latter were stubborn and determined to pass and invoked their rights as Frenchmen. Having made his round in the forest, the general went to see the progress of the work on the barricade. He demanded to know what "these dirty civilians" wanted. He was told about it.

"All right," he cried. "Seize all their carts and throw them into the barricade.... Come on, get a move on you, boys!..."

The soldiers, rejoicing in the opportunity, hurled themselves on the first carts which stood abandoned with everything in them, and smashed them with a few blows of the pick-axe. A wild panic broke out among the peasants. The congestion became so great that it was impossible for them either to advance or to turn back. Lashing their horses with all their might and trying to extricate their impeded wagons, they were shouting, jostling and bruising one another without making a step backward. Those last arrived had turned back and were going at full speed of their horses excited by the tumult; others, despairing of a chance to save their carts and provisions, climbed over the barrier and, dispersing across the field, uttered cries of indignation, pursued by oaths and curses flung at them by the soldiers. Then, they piled up the smashed vehicles one on top of the other, filled the gaps with sacks of oats, matresses, bundles of clothes and stones. On top of the barricade, upon a coach pole, which rose vertically upward like a flagstaff, a little chasseur planted a bouquet of wedding flowers found among other booty.

Towards the evening, groups of reserves arriving from Chartres in great disorder, scattered all over Belhomert and the camp. They brought horrible tales. The Prussians were more than a hundred thousand strong, all in one army. They, the reserves, hardly had time to fall back.... Chartres was in flames, the villages in the vicinity were burning, the farms were destroyed. The greater part of the French detachments which bore the brunt of covering the retreat, could not hold out much longer. The fugitives were questioned; they were asked whether they saw the Prussians, what insignia they wore and were particularly quizzed about all the details of the enemy uniforms.

Every fifteen minutes new reserves would show up in groups of two or three, pale, exhausted with fatigue. Most of them had no kits, some had no guns, and they were telling stories, each more terrible than the other. None of them was wounded. It was decided to quarter them in the church, to the great indignation of the curé who, lifting his arms to heaven, exclaimed:

"Holy Virgin!... In my church!... Ah! Ah! Soldiers in my church!..."

Up to this time the general who was preoccupied solely with his plans of destruction, had no time to provide for the guarding of the camp, except by establishing a small outpost in a tavern, frequented by carterers within a mile from Belhomert upon the Chartres road. This outpost, commanded by a sergeant, had not received any definite instructions, and the man did nothing except loaf, drink and sleep. Still the sentinel who was nonchalantly pacing to and fro in front of the tavern, gun on shoulder, at one time arrested a country doctor as a German spy because of his blond beard and blue spectacles. As for the sergeant, an old professional poacher who sneered at everything and everybody, he amused himself by setting traps for rabbits in the hedges nearby.

The arrival of the reserves, the menace of the Prussians had thrown us into confusion. Messengers came up every minute, carrying sealed envelopes containing orders and counter-orders. The officers were running about with a preoccupied look, not knowing what to do, and completely lost their heads. Three times we were ordered to break up camp and three times we were told to pitch our tents anew. All night trumpets and bugles were sounding, and big log fires were burning, around which, in the growing tumult, were passing back and forth shadows strangely agitated, silhouettes of demoniacal appearances. Patrols were scouring the fields, riding out on the crossroads, searching the outskirts of the forest. Artillery stationed on this side of the town was ordered to move up forward upon the heights, but it ran into the barricade. To clear the way for the cannons, it was found necessary to demolish it piece-meal and to fill up the ditch.

At daybreak my company was sent to do main guard duty. We met mobilized soldiers, dispirited franc-tireurs who were dragging their feet piteously. A little further away, the general, accompanied by his staff, was watching the manoeuvres of the artillery. He held a map of the general staff, unfolded on the neck of his horse, and was vainly trying to locate the Saussaie mill. Bending over the map which the horse shifted out of place with every movement of its head, he shouted:

"Where is that damned mill?... Pontgouin.... Couville.... Courville.... Do they think I know all their damned mills around here?"

The general commanded us to halt and asked:

"Is there anyone here who is familiar with this country?... Is there anyone here who knows where the Saussaie mill is?"

Nobody answered.

"No?... Well alright. To hell with it!"

And he threw the map to his aide who began folding it up carefully. We resumed our march.

The company was stationed on a farm and I was put on guard duty near the road, at the entrance to a grove, beyond which I could look on an open plain, immense and smooth like the sea. Here and there small woods emerged from the ocean of land like islands; the belfries of the villages, the farms, blurred by the fog, assumed the aspect of a distant veil. In this enormous expanse a great silence reigned, a solitude wherein the least noise, the least thing stirring in the skies, had something mysterious about it which put anguish into one's heart. Up above, black dots spotted the skies--those were the ravens; down below, upon the earth, small black specks moved forward, growing larger, disappearing--those were the fleeing soldiers of the reserves; and now and then the distant barking of dogs, answered by similar barking all along the line from east to west, from north to south, sounded like the plaint of the deserted fields. Our guard was supposed to be relieved every four hours, but hours upon hours passed, slow and endless, and no one came to take my place.

No doubt they had forgotten all about me. With a heavy heart I was searching the horizon on the Prussian side, the French side; I saw nothing, nothing but this hard, relentless line, which encircled the huge grey sky around me. It was a long time since the ravens had ceased flying and the reserve soldiers fleeing. For a moment I saw a truck coming toward the woods where I was, but it turned off on one of the roads and soon was no longer distinguishable from the grey terrain.... Why did they leave me thus?... I was hungry and I was cold, my bowels rumbled, my fingers became numb. I ventured out on the road a little; having walked a few steps I shouted.... Not a being answered my call, not a thing stirred.... I was alone, utterly alone, alone in this deserted, empty field.... A shudder passed through my frame, and tears came into my eyes.... I shouted again.... No answer.... Then I went back into the woods and sat down at the foot of an oak tree, with my rifle across my lap, keeping a sharp lookout and waiting.... Alas! The day was waning little by little, the sky grew yellow, then purple by degrees and finally vanished in deadly silence. And night, moonless and starless, fell upon the fields, and at the same time a chilling fog arose from the shadows.

Worn out with fatigue, always occupied with something or other and never alone, I had no time to reflect on anything from the moment we started out. But still confronted by the strange and cruel sights constantly before my eyes, I felt within me the awakening of the idea of human life which until now had lain slumbering in the sluggishness of my childhood and the torpor of my youth. Yes ... the idea awoke confusedly, as if emerging from a long and painful nightmare. And reality appeared to me more frightful than the nightmare. Transposing the instincts, the desires and passions which agitated us from the small group of errant men that we were to society as a whole, recalling the impressions so fleeting and wholly external which I had received in Paris, the rude crowds, the pushing and jostling of pedestrians, I understood that the law of the world was strife; an inexorable, murderous law, which was not content with arming nation against nation but which hurled against one another the children of the same race, the same family, the same womb. I found none of the lofty abstractions of honor, justice, charity, patriotism of which our standard books are so full, on which we are brought up, with which we are lulled to sleep, through which they hypnotize us in order the better to deceive the kind little folk, to enslave them the more easily, to butcher them the more foully.

What was this country, in whose name so many crimes were being committed, which had torn us--formerly so full of love--from the motherly bosom of nature, which had thrown us, now so full of hatred, famished and naked, upon this cruel land?... What was this country, personified to us by this rabid and pillaging general who gave vent to his madness on old people and trees, and by this surgeon who kicked the sick with his feet and maltreated poor old mothers bereaved of their sons?... What was this country every step on whose soil was marked by a grave, which had but to look at the tranquil waters of its streams to change them into blood, which was always frittering away its man power, digging here and there deep charnel vaults where the best children of men were rotting?... And I was astounded, when for the first time it dawned upon me that only those were the most glorious, the most acclaimed heroes of mankind who had pillaged the most, killed the most, burned the most.

They condemn to death the stealthy murderer who kills the passerby with a knife, on the corner of the street at night, and they throw his beheaded body into a grave of infamy. But the conqueror who has burned cities and decimated human beings, all the folly and human cowardice unite in raising to the throne of the most marvelous; in his honor triumphal arches are built, giddy columns of bronze are erected, and in the cathedrals multitudes reverently kneel before his tomb of hallowed marble guarded by saints and angels under the delighted gaze of God!... With what remorse did I repent of the fact that until now I had remained blind and deaf to this life so full of inexplicable riddles! Never had I opposed this mysterious book, never had I stopped even for a single moment to consider the question marks which are represented by things and beings; I did not know anything. And now, suddenly, a desire to know, a yearning to wrest from life some of its enigmas tormented me; I wanted to know the human reason for creeds which stupefy, for governments which oppress, for society which kills; I longed to be through with this war so that I might consecrate myself to some ardent cause, to some magnificent and absurd apostleship.