Waterloo: A sequel to The Conscript of 1813. Erckmann-Chatrian
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a word, and we all went into the room in silence, Catherine, Zébédé, and I first, Mr. Goulden and the old grave-digger came afterward. Aunt Grédel arranged the dishes a little and then said:
"You are welcome, you are welcome! you who met in sorrow, have rejoined each other in joy. May God send his grace on us all."
Zébédé kissed Aunt Grédel and said, "Always fresh and in good health, it is a pleasure to see you."
"Come, Father Zébédé, sit at the head of the table, and you there, Zébédé, that I may have you on my right and my left, Joseph will sit farther down, opposite Catherine, and Madame Grédel at the other end to watch over all."
Each one was satisfied with his place, and Zébédé smiled and looked at me as if he would say: "If we had had the quarter of such a dinner as this at Hanau, we should never have fallen by the roadside." Joy and a good appetite shone on every face. Father Goulden dipped the great silver ladle into the soup as we all looked on, and served first the old grave-digger, who said nothing and seemed touched by this honor, then his son, and then Catherine, Aunt Grédel, himself, and me. And the dinner was begun quietly.
Zébédé winked and looked at me from time to time with great satisfaction. We uncorked the first bottle and filled the glasses. This was very good wine, but there was better coming, so we did not drink each other's health yet, we each ate a good slice of beef, and Father Goulden said:
"Here is something good, this beef is excellent." He found the fricassee very good also, and then I saw that Catherine was a woman of spirit, for she said:
"You know, Mr. Zébédé, that we should have invited your grandmother Margaret, whom I go to see from time to time, only she is too old to go out, but if you wish, she shall at least eat a morsel with us, and drink her grandson's health in a glass of wine. What do you say, Father Zébédé?"
"I was just thinking of that," said the old man.
Father Goulden looked at Catherine with tears in his eyes, and as she rose to select a suitable piece for the old woman, he kissed her, and I heard him call her his daughter.
She went out with a bottle and a plate; and while she was gone Zébédé said to me:
"Joseph, she who is soon to be your wife deserves to be perfectly happy, for she is not only a good girl, not only a woman who ought to be loved, but she deserves respect also, for she has a good and feeling heart. She saw what my father and I thought of this excellent dinner, and she knew it would give us a thousand times more pleasure if grandmother could share it. I shall love her for it, as if she were my sister." Then he added in a low voice: "It is when we are happy that we feel the bitterness of poverty. It is not enough to give our blood to our country, but there is suffering at home in consequence, and when we return we must have misery before our eyes."
I saw that he was growing sad, so I filled his glass and we drank, and his melancholy vanished. Catherine came back and said, "the grandmother was very happy, and that she thanked Mr. Goulden, and said it had been a beautiful day for her." And this roused everybody. As the dinner continued, Aunt Grédel heard the bells for vespers, and she went out to church, but Catherine remained, and the animation which good wine inspires had come, and we began to speak of the last campaign; of the retreat from the Rhine to Paris, of the fighting of the battalion at Bibelskirchen and at Saarbruck, where Lieutenant Baubin swam the Saar when it was freezing as hard as stone, to destroy some boats which were still in the hands of the enemy; of the passage at Narbefontaine, at Courcelles, at Metz, at Enzelvin, and at Champion and Verdun, and, still retreating, the battle of Brienne. The men were nearly all destroyed, but on the 4th of February the battalion was re-formed from the remnant of the 5th light infantry, and from that moment they were every day under fire; on the 5th, 6th, and 7th at Méry-sur-Seine; on the 8th at Sézanne, where the soldiers died in the mud, not having strength enough to get out; the 9th and 10th at Mürs, where Zébédé was buried at night in the dung-heap of a farmhouse in order to get warm, and the terrible battle of Marché on the 11th, in which the Commandant Philippe was wounded by a bayonet-thrust; the encounter on the 12th and 13th at Montmirail, the battle of Beauchamp on the 14th, the retreat on Montmirail on the 15th and 16th, when the Prussians returned: the combats at the Ferté-Gauché, at Jouarre, at Gué-à-Train, at Neufchettes, and so on. When the Prussians were beaten, then came the Russians, after them the Austrians, the Bavarians, the Wurtemburgers, the Hessians, the Saxons, and the Badois.
I have often heard that campaign described, but never as it was done by Zébédé. As he talked his great thin face quivered and his long nose turned down over the four hairs of his yellow mustache, and his eyes would flash and he would stretch out his hand from his old sleeve and you could see what he was describing. The great plains of Champagne with the smoking villages to the right and to the left, where the women, children, and old men were wandering about in groups, half naked, one carrying a miserable old mattress, another with a few pieces of furniture on his cart, while the snow was falling from the sky, and the cannon roared in the distance, and the Cossacks were flying about like the wind with kitchen utensils and even old clocks hanging to their saddles, shouting hurrah!
Furious battles were raging, singly, or one against ten, in which the desperate peasants joined also with their scythes. At night the Emperor might be seen sitting astride his chair, with his chin resting in his folded hands on the back, before a little fire with his generals around him. This was the way he slept and dreamed. He must have had terrible reflections after the days of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram.
To fight the enemy, to suffer hunger and cold and fatigue, to march and countermarch, Zébédé said, were nothing, but to hear the women and children weeping and groaning in French in the midst of their ruined homes, to know you could not help them, and that the more enemies you killed, the more would you have; that you must retreat, always retreat, in spite of victories, in spite of courage, in spite of everything! "that is what breaks your heart, Mr. Goulden."
In listening and looking at him we had lost all inclination to drink, and Father Goulden, with his great head bent down as if thinking, said in a low voice:
"Yes, that is what glory costs, it is not enough to lose our liberty, not enough to lose the rights gained at such a cost, we must be pillaged, sacked, burned, cut to pieces by Cossacks, we must see what has not been seen for centuries, a horde of brigands making law for us – but go on, we are listening, tell us all."
Catherine, seeing how sad we were, filled the glasses.
"Come," said she, "to the health of Mr. Goulden and Father Zébédé. All these misfortunes are past and will never return."
We drank, and Zébédé related how it had been necessary to fill up the battalion again, on the route to Soissons, with the soldiers of the 16th light infantry, and how they arrived at Meaux where the plague was raging, although it was winter, in the hospital of Piété, in consequence of the great numbers of wounded who could not be cared for.
That was horrible, but the worst of all was when he described their arrival at Paris, at the Barrière de Charenton: the Empress, King Joseph, the King of Rome, the ministers, the new princes and dukes, and all the great world, were running away toward Blois, and abandoning the capital to the enemy, while the workingmen in blouses, who gained nothing from the Empire, but to be forced to give their children to defend it, were gathered around the town-house by thousands, begging for arms to defend the honor of France; and the Old Guard repulsed them with the bayonet!
At this Father Goulden exclaimed:
"That is enough, Zébédé, hold! stop there, and let us talk of something else."
He had suddenly grown very pale; at this moment Mother Grédel returned from vespers, and seeing us all so quiet, and Mr. Goulden so disturbed, asked:
"What has happened?"
"We were speaking of the Empress and of the ministers of the Emperor," replied Father Goulden, forcing a laugh.
Said she, "I am not astonished that the wine turns against you. Every time I think of them, if by accident I look in the glass, I see that it turns me quite livid. The beggars! fortunately, they are gone."
Zébédé did not like this. Mr. Goulden observed it and said, "Well! France is a great and glorious country