The Conscript. Erckmann-Chatrian
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his way, laughing like the sot he was, and I, scarcely able to breathe, kept on, thanking Heaven that the little alley was so near; for Pinacle, who was known always to draw his knife in a fight, might have done me an ill turn.
In spite of my exertion, my feet, even in the thick shoes, were intensely cold, and I again began running.
That night the water froze in the cisterns of Phalsbourg and the wines in the cellars—things that had not happened before for sixty years.
On the bridge and under the German gate the silence seemed yet deeper than in the morning, and the night made it seem terrible. A few stars shone between the masses of white cloud that hung over the city. All along the street I met not a soul, and when I reached home, after shutting the door of our lower passage, it seemed warm to me, although the little stream that ran from the yard along the wall was frozen. I stopped a moment to take breath; then I ascended in the dark, my hand on the baluster.
When I opened the door of my room, the cheerful warmth of the stove was grateful indeed. Monsieur Goulden was seated in his arm-chair before the fire, his cap of black silk pulled over his ears, and his hands resting upon his knees.
"Is that you, Joseph?" he asked without turning round.
"It is," I answered. "How pleasant it is here, and how cold out of doors! We never had such a winter."
"No," he said gravely. "It is a winter that will long be remembered."
I went into the closet and hung the cloak and mittens in their places, and was about relating my adventure with Pinacle, when he resumed:
"You had a pleasant day of it, Joseph."
"I have had, indeed. Aunt Grédel and Catharine wished me to make you their compliments."
"Very good, very good," said he; "the young are right to amuse themselves, for when they grow old, and suffer, and see so much of injustice, selfishness, and misfortune, everything is spoiled in advance."
He spoke as if talking to himself, gazing at the fire. I had never seen him so sad, and I asked:
"Are you not well, Monsieur Goulden?"
But he, without replying, murmured:
"Yes, yes; this is to be a great military nation; this is glory!"
He shook his head and bent over gloomily, his heavy gray brows contracted in a frown.
I knew not what to think of all this, when raising his head again, he said:
"At this moment, Joseph, there are four hundred thousand families weeping in France; the grand army has perished in the snows of Russia; all those stout young men whom for two months we saw passing our gates are buried beneath them. The news came this afternoon. Oh! it is horrible! horrible!"
I was silent. Now I saw clearly that we must have another conscription, as after all campaigns, and this time the lame would most probably be called. I grew pale, and Pinacle's prophecy made my hair stand on end.
"Go to bed, Joseph; rest easy," said Monsieur Goulden. "I am not sleepy; I will stay here; all this upsets me. Did you remark anything in the city?"
"No, Monsieur Goulden."
I went to my room and to bed. For a long time I could not close my eyes, thinking of the conscription, of Catharine, and of so many thousands of men buried in the snow, and then I plotted flight to Switzerland.
About three o'clock Monsieur Goulden retired, and a few minutes after, through God's grace, I fell asleep.
IV
When I arose in the morning, about seven, I went to Monsieur Goulden's room to begin work, but he was still in bed, looking weary and sick.
"Joseph," said he, "I am not well. This horrible news has made me ill, and I have not slept at all."
"Shall I not make you some tea?" I asked.
"No, my child, that is not worth while. I will get up by and by. But this is the day to regulate the city clocks; I cannot go; for to see so many good people—people I have known for thirty years—in misery, would kill me. Listen, Joseph: take those keys hanging behind the door and go. I will try to sleep a little. If I could sleep an hour or two, it would do me good."
"Very well, Monsieur Goulden," I replied; "I will go at once."
After putting more wood in the stove, I took the cloak and mittens, drew Monsieur Goulden's bed-curtains, and went out, the bunch of keys in my pocket. The illness of Father Melchior grieved me very much for a while, but a thought came to console me, and I said to myself: "You can climb up the city clock-tower, and see the house of Catharine and Aunt Grédel." Thinking thus, I arrived at the house of Brainstein, the bell-ringer, who lived at the corner of the little place, in an old, tumble-down barrack. His two sons were weavers, and in their old home the noise of the loom and the whistle of the shuttle was heard from morning till night. The grandmother, old and blind, slept in an armchair, on the back of which perched a magpie. Father Brainstein, when he did not have to ring the bells for a christening, a funeral, or a marriage, kept reading his almanac behind the small round panes of his window.
Beside their hut was a little box under the roof of the old hall, where the cobbler Koniam worked, and farther on were the butchers' and fruiterers' shops.
I came then to Brainstein's, and the old man, when he saw me, rose up, saying:
"It is you, Monsieur Joseph."
"Yes, Father Brainstein; I came in place of Monsieur Goulden, who is not well."
"Very good; it is all the same."
He took up his staff and put on his woollen cap, driving away the cat that was sleeping upon it; then he took the great key of the steeple from a drawer, and we went out together, I glad to find myself again in the open air, despite the cold; for their miserable room was gray with vapor, and as hard to breathe in as a kettle; I could never understand how people could live in such a way.
At last we gained the street, and Father Brainstein said:
"You have heard of the great Russian disaster, Monsieur Joseph?"
"Yes, Father Brainstein; it is fearful!"
"Ah!" said he, "there will be many a Mass said in the churches; every one will weep and pray for their children, the more that they are dead in a heathen land."
"Certainly, certainly," I replied.
We crossed the court, and in front of the tower-hall, opposite the guard-house, many peasants and city people were already standing, reading a placard. We went up the steps and entered the church, where more than twenty women, young and old, were kneeling on the pavement, in spite of the terrible cold.
"Is it not as I said?" said Brainstein. "They are coming already to pray, and half of them have been here since five o'clock."
He opened the little door of the steeple leading to the organ, and we began climbing up in the dark. Once in the organ-loft, we turned to the left of the bellows, and went up to the bells.
I was glad to see the blue sky and breathe the free air again, for the bad odor of the bats which inhabited the tower almost suffocated me. But how terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every wind, and how dazzlingly the snow shone over twenty leagues of country! All the little city of Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, three demilunes, two advanced works, its barracks, magazines, bridges, glacis, ramparts; its great parade-ground, and little, well-aligned houses, were beneath me, as if drawn on white paper. I was not yet accustomed to the height, and I held fast on the middle of the platform for fear I might jump off, for I had read of people having their heads turned by great heights. I did not dare go to the clock, and, if Brainstein had not set me the example, I would have remained