The Downfall. Emile Zola
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who had ceased entirely to issue orders, was waiting on destiny. They were called on to surrender their lives and the life of the army; they surrendered them. It was the accomplishment of a crime, the black, abominable night that witnessed the murder of a nation, for thenceforth the army rested in the shadow of death; a hundred thousand men and more were sent forward to inevitable destruction.
While pursuing this train of thought Maurice was watching the shadow that still kept appearing and vanishing on the muslin of good Madame Desvallieres’ curtain, as if it felt the lash of the pitiless voice that came to it from Paris. Had the Empress that night desired the death of the father in order that the son might reign? March! forward ever! with no look backward, through mud, through rain, to bitter death, that the final game of the agonizing empire may be played out, even to the last card. March! march! die a hero’s death on the piled corpses of your people, let the whole world gaze in awe-struck admiration, for the honor and glory of your name! And doubtless the Emperor was marching to his death. Below, the fires in the kitchen flamed and flashed no longer; equerries, aides-de-camp and chamberlains were slumbering, the whole house was wrapped in darkness, while ever the lone shade went and came unceasingly, accepting with resignation the sacrifice that was to be, amid the deafening uproar of the 12th corps, that was defiling still through the black night.
Maurice suddenly reflected that, if the advance was to be resumed, the 7th corps would not pass through Chene, and he beheld himself left behind, separated from his regiment, a deserter from his post. His foot no longer pained him; his friend’s dressing and a few hours of complete rest had allayed the inflammation. Combette gave him a pair of easy shoes of his own that were comfortable to his feet, and as soon as he had them on he wanted to be off, hoping that he might yet be able to overtake the 106th somewhere on the road between Chene and Vouziers. The apothecary labored vainly to dissuade him, and had almost made up his mind to put his horse in the gig and drive him over in person, trusting to fortune to befriend him in finding the regiment, when Fernand, the apprentice, appeared, alleging as an excuse for his absence that he had been to see his sister. The youth was a tall, tallow-faced individual, who looked as if he had not the spirit of a mouse; the horse was quickly hitched to the carriage and he drove off with Maurice. It was not yet five o’clock; the rain was pouring in torrents from a sky of inky blackness, and the dim carriage-lamps faintly illuminated the road and cast little fitful gleams of light across the streaming fields on either side, over which came mysterious sounds that made them pull up from time to time in the belief that the army was at hand.
Jean, meantime, down there before Vouziers, had not been slumbering. Maurice had explained to him how the retreat was to be salvation to them all, and he was keeping watch, holding his men together and waiting for the order to move, which might come at any minute. About two o’clock, in the intense darkness that was dotted here and there by the red glow of the watch-fires, a great trampling of horses resounded through the camp; it was the advance-guard of cavalry moving off toward Balay and Quatre-Champs so as to observe the roads from Boult-aux-Bois and Croix-aux-Bois; then an hour later the infantry and artillery also put themselves in motion, abandoning at last the positions of Chestre and Falaise that they had defended so persistently for two long days against an enemy who never showed himself. The sky had become overcast, the darkness was profound, and one by one the regiments marched out in deepest silence, an array of phantoms stealing away into the bosom of the night. Every heart beat joyfully, however, as if they were escaping from some treacherous pitfall; already in imagination the troops beheld themselves under the walls of Paris, where their revenge was awaiting them.
Jean looked out into the thick blackness. The road was bordered with trees on either hand and, as far as he could see, appeared to lie between wide meadows. Presently the country became rougher; there was a succession of sharp rises and descents, and just as they were entering a village which he supposed to be Balay, two straggling rows of houses bordering the road, the dense cloud that had obscured the heavens burst in a deluge of rain. The men had received so many duckings within the past few days that they took this one without a murmur, bowing their heads and plodding patiently onward; but when they had left Balay behind them and were crossing a wide extent of level ground near Quatre-Champs a violent wind began to rise. Beyond Quatre-Champs, when they had fought their way upward to the wide plateau that extends in a dreary stretch of waste land as far as Noirval, the wind increased to a hurricane and the driving rain stung their faces. There it was that the order, proceeding from the head of the column and re-echoed down the line, brought the regiments one after another to a halt, and the entire 7th corps, thirty-odd thousand men, found itself once more reunited in the mud and rain of the gray dawn. What was the matter? Why were they halted there? An uneasy feeling was already beginning to pervade the ranks; it was asserted in some quarters that there had been a change of orders. The men had been brought to ordered arms and forbidden to leave the ranks or sit down. At times the wind swept over the elevated plateau with such violence that they had to press closely to one another to keep from being carried off their feet. The rain blinded them and trickled in ice-cold streams beneath their collars down their backs. And two hours passed, a period of waiting that seemed as if it would never end, for what purpose no one could say, in an agony of expectancy that chilled the hearts of all.
As the daylight increased Jean made an attempt to discern where they were. Someone had shown him where the Chene road lay off to the northwest, passing over a hill beyond Quatre-Champs. Why had they turned to the right instead of to the left? Another object of interest to him was the general and his staff, who had established themselves at the Converserie, a farm on the edge of the plateau. There seemed to be a heated discussion going on; officers were going and coming and the conversation was carried on with much gesticulation. What could they be waiting for? nothing was coming that way. The plateau formed a sort of amphitheater, broad expanses of stubble that were commanded to the north and east by wooded heights; to the south were thick woods, while to the west an opening afforded a glimpse of the valley of the Aisne with the little white houses of Vouziers. Below the Converserie rose the slated steeple of Quatre-Champs church, looming dimly through the furious storm, which seemed as if it would sweep away bodily the few poor moss-grown cottages of the village. As Jean’s glance wandered down the ascending road he became conscious of a doctor’s gig coming up at a sharp trot along the stony road, that was now the bed of a rapid torrent.
It was Maurice, who, at a turn in the road, from the hill that lay beyond the valley, had finally discerned the 7th corps. For two hours he had been wandering about the country, thanks to the stupidity of a peasant who had misdirected him and the sullen ill-will of his driver, whom fear of the Prussians had almost deprived of his wits. As soon as he reached the farmhouse he leaped from the gig and had no further trouble in finding the regiment.
Jean addressed him in amazement:
“What, is it you? What is the meaning of this? I thought you were to wait until we came along.”
Maurice’s tone and manner told of his rage and sorrow.
“Ah, yes! we are no longer going in that direction; it is down yonder we are to go, to get ourselves knocked in the head, all of us!”
“Very well,” said the other presently, with a very white face. “We will die together, at all events.”
The two men met, as they had parted, with an embrace. In the drenching rain that still beat down as pitilessly as ever, the humble private resumed his place in the ranks, while the corporal, in his streaming garments, never murmured as he gave him the example of what a soldier should be.
And now the tidings became more definite and spread among the men; they were no longer retreating on Paris; the advance to the Meuse was again the order of the day. An aide-de-camp had brought to the 7th corps instructions from the marshal to go and encamp at Nonart; the 5th was to take the direction of Beauclair, where it would be the right wing of the army, while the 1st was to move up to Chene and relieve the 12th, then on the march to la Besace on the extreme left. And the reason why more than thirty thousand men had been kept waiting there at ordered arms, for nearly three hours in the midst of a blinding storm, was that General Douay, in the deplorable confusion incident on this new change of front, was alarmed for the safety of the train that had been sent forward the day before toward Chagny; the delay was necessary to give the several divisions time to close up. In the confusion of all these conflicting movements it was said that the 12th corps train