BLOOD

       Table of Contents

      HERE already are many sunbeams, many flowers, many perfumes. Are you not tired, Ninon, of this everlasting spring? Always loving, always chaunting that dream of sixteen summers. You fall asleep at night, naughty girl, when I talk to you at great length of the coquetry of the rose, and the infidelity of the dragon-fly. You close your great eyes wearily, and I, who no longer find inspiration there, stammer on, without coming to a conclusion.

      I’ll vanquish your idle eyelids, Ninon. To-day I am going to relate such a terrible tale to you, that you’ll not close them for a week. Listen. Terror is delicious after a deal of laughter.

      I

      Four soldiers, on the night of a victory, had encamped in a deserted corner of the battlefield. Night had come, and they were supping joyously among the dead.

      Seated on the grass round a camp fire, they were grilling slices of lamb on the burning embers, and eating them when only half done. The red glare of the fire threw a faint light over the companions, casting their gigantic shadows to a distance. Every now and then, the arms lying around them, slightly flashed, and then amidst the night, one perceived men sleeping with their eyes open.

      The soldiers laughed with long peals of merriment, without perceiving the staring gaze that was fixed upon them. The day had been a hard one. Not knowing what the morrow reserved for them, they were enjoying the rations and repose of the moment.

      Night and Death flew across the battlefield, their great wings agitating its silence and horror.

      When the meal was over, Gneuss sang. His sonorous voice uttered false notes in the sad, mournful air; the song, which burst joyfully from his lips, echoed in sobs. Astounded at these accents issuing from his mouth, and which he failed to recognise, the soldier sang in a higher key, when a terrible cry, proceeding from the darkness, sped through space.

      Gneuss was silent, as if seized with uneasiness, and said to Elberg:

      “Go and see what corpse is awakening.”

      Elberg took a flaming brand and disappeared. His companions were able to follow him for a few instants by the light of the torch. They saw him stoop down, examining the dead, piercing the bushes with his sword. Then he disappeared.

      “Clérian,” said Gneuss after a silence, “the wolves are wandering about tonight: go and look for our friend.”

      And Clérian in his turn was lost in the darkness.

      Gneuss and Flem, tired of waiting, wrapped themselves up in their cloaks and both lay down beside the smouldering fire. Their eyes were just closing, when the same terrible cry passed over their heads. Flem arose in silence, and walked towards the darkness where his two companions had disappeared.

      Then Gneuss found himself alone. He was afraid, afraid of the darkness through which ran the death-rattle. He threw some dry roots on to the fire, hoping that the bright light would dispel his fright. A red flame burst out, and the ground was lit up in a wide luminous circle; in this circle, the bushes were dancing fantastically, and the dead, sleeping in the shadow of them, seemed shaken by invisible hands.

      Gneuss was afraid of the light He spread out the flaming stalks, and extinguished them beneath his heels. As the darkness returned, more dense and weighty, he shuddered, dreading to hear the cry of death pass by. He sat down, then rose up to call his companions.

      The high notes of his voice frightened him; and he feared he had attracted the attention of the corpses.

      The moon appeared, and Gneuss, terrified, noticed a pale beam of light gliding across the battlefield. Night no longer hid its abominations. The devastated plain, strewn with fragments and corpses, extended before his eyes, wrapped in a winding-sheet of light; and this light, which was not the light of day, lit up the darkness without dispelling its silent horror.

      Gneuss, erect, his forehead bathed in perspiration, thought of ascending the hillock to extinguish the pale torch of night. He wondered what the dead were waiting for, to arise and surround him, now that they saw him. Their immobility caused him anguish; and expecting some terrible event to happen, he closed his eyes.

      And, as he stood there, he felt a tepid warmth at his left heel. He bent down towards the ground, and saw a narrow streak of blood escaping from beneath his feet. This streak bounding from stone to stone, ran along with a merry murmur; it came out of the darkness, twirled about in the light of the moon, to fly away and return into the night; one would have taken it for a serpent with black scales, the rings gliding along and following one another without end. Gneuss’ started back without being able to close his eyes again; they kept wide open, fixed on the sanguinary brook.

      He saw it slowly swell, increase the breadth of its bed. The brook became a stream, a slow and peaceful stream that a child could have cleared at a bound. The stream became a torrent, and passed rumbling over the ground, casting a reddish spray on either side. The torrent became a river, an immense river.

      This river bore away the corpses, and this blood which had poured from the wounds in such abundance that it carried away the dead, was a horrible prodigy.

      Gneuss continued to retreat before the rising flood. He could no longer see its opposite bank; it seemed to him that the valley had changed into a lake.

      All at once he found himself with his back against a rocky slope; he had to pause in his flight. Then he felt the waves beating against his knees. The dead, who were borne along by the current, insulted him as they passed by; each of their wounds became a mouth, that jeered at his fright. The thick ocean rose, continued rising; now it moaned around his hips. He made a supreme effort, and stretching up, clutched the crevices in the rocks; the rocks gave way, he fell, and the flood covered his shoulders.

      The pale, sad moon looked down upon this sea, and fell on it without reflex. Light floated in the sky. The immense expanse of firmament, full of shadows and riotous sounds, seemed like the gaping opening to an abyss.

      The wave rose, rose and reddened Gneuss’ lips with its foam.

      II

      Elberg’s arrival at daybreak awakened Gneuss, who was sleeping with his head on a stone.

      “Friend,” he said, “I lost myself in the bush. As I was sitting at the foot of a tree, sleep overcame me, and my soul’s eyes saw strange scenes unrolled before them, which remained impressed on my memory when I awoke.

      “The world was in its infancy. The sky resembled an immense smile. The earth, which was still virgin, expanded its chaste nudity, in the rays of the May sun. The blade of grass grew green and larger than the largest of our oaks; the trees spread leaves out into the air, that are unknown to us. The sap coursed copiously in the veins of the world, and its flood was so abundant, that being unable to limit itself to the plants, it streamed into the entrails of the rocks and gave them life.

      “The horizons extended calm and radiant. Holy nature was awakening. Like the child who kneels down in the morning, and thanks the God of light, it poured out all its perfumes, all its songs to heaven, penetrating perfumes, unutterable songs, which my senses could hardly bear, so divine was the impression they produced on me.

      “Sweet and fruitful earth, engendered without pain. Fruit-trees multiplied at will. Fields of corn bordered the highways, as fields of nettles do now. One felt