Chapter II: Part 2

[Picture: “Old Guillard brought out a large jug of sparkling wine.”] In the daytime the clear, shrill notes of the bugles come in gusts to the little garden, with the beating of dull and discordant drums, marking the tune in a jerky, singular rhythm, which seems to accompany a cannibal’s war-dance. It is to the sound of these barbarous drums that all the northern races, the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, are advancing over our magnificent roads of the _Ile-de-France_, the glorious autumn weather dazzling them by the unaccustomed brilliancy of its sun and sky. During this time I live as unobtrusively as possible. I no longer light my fire, in order to avoid the smoke which gives light and life to the roof. I do not even go out into the orchard. I am sure that already the grass is growing across my threshold, and that the invading forest is hemming me closely in. Lastly, by way of precaution, I have killed my cock. That was a cruel sacrifice. I like that abrupt awakening at dawn, that call to life and work, which the cock gives forth to the surrounding country, drawing himself up for the battle with a great flapping of wings. But the Prussians might have heard him . . . Now I have only three or four quiet and silent hens in my poultry-yard, and a few rabbits, who are not likely to betray me.

[Picture: . . I have killed my cock]

* * * * *

[Picture: Robert writing by the light of a small fire]

_September_ 21_st_, 22_d_, _and_ 23_d_.

I am writing this at night, by the glimmer of a small turf-fire—a sort of brazier burning on the flags in a corner of the room. I have neither oil nor candles. It is raining. On all sides of the Hermitage I hear the water streaming over miles of foliage. The wind blows. My revolver and a gun loaded with buckshot are ready by my side, and I await the return of the ruffians, for they have already been here.

Their first visit took place three days ago, in the afternoon of the 21st. The sound of heavy steps on the pavement of the cloister made me peep out of my attic window, and I saw five or six hulking fellows in forage-caps, with ruddy faces and low, brutal countenances, like those of Goudeloup’s murderers. They spoke in hushed voices, timidly advancing, like cowardly plunderers. If I had been able to fire at them, I should have put them to flight, but once the alarm given, they would return in greater numbers. I waited. Owing to the neglected look of the house, and thanks to the vines and ivy, that gave it the aspect of a ruin, the ruffians have passed by without stopping. And yet the last of them bent down for a moment to the keyhole. Standing behind my door, revolver in hand, I heard his breathing while I held my own breath. Perhaps he had caught sight of the glimmer of the dying cinders of my fire. However that may be, the wretch did not go away, and began to rummage in my keyhole with his bayonet. Fortunately his comrades called out to him:—Hartmann . . . Hartman . . .

[Picture: Enemy soldier trying the keyhole]

He went off to rejoin them, and I was able to look into the enclosure through the attic window.

[Picture: “They began drinking out of their caps.]

They had just broken open the door of the keeper’s house. Poor mother Guillard! it was indeed lost trouble to have given me her key. Soon after, shouts of joy told me that they had discovered the cellar. They brought out a barrel of wine into the orchard, so as to drink it more at their ease, and hoisted it on to a wide stone bench. Having staved in the barrel, they began drinking out of their caps and hands, shouting and jostling each other. The bent heads disappeared in the cask, and came out smeared with dregs, while others greedily took their place. The thin new wine, made of small, sour black grapes, soon intoxicated all these beer-drinkers. Some of them sang and danced round the barrel, while the others re-entered the keeper’s house, and as they found nothing tempting there to satisfy their craving for pillage, they threw the furniture out of the window, and set fire to a walnut cupboard, whose dry and time-worn shelves blazed up like a bundle of straw. At last they went off, reeling through the driving rain. In front of the gateway there was a quarrel. I saw the flash of bayonets, a man fall heavily into the mud and rise up again covered with blood, his uniform all stained with the yellow-coloured soil of the quarries. And to think that France is at the mercy of these brutes! . . .

The next day the same party returned. I understood by that, they had not mentioned their windfall, and I was a little reassured. However, I am a complete prisoner. I dare not stir from the principal room. Near at hand, in a little wood-shed, I have fastened up Colaquet, whose galloping might have betrayed me. The poor animal patiently bears his captivity, sleeps part of the day, and at times gives himself a good shake, surprised at the loss of his freedom . . . At dusk the Prussians depart, more intoxicated than on the evening before.

To-day I have seen no one. But the cask is not yet empty, and I expect them again.

[Picture: Plundered wine-barrels]

* * * * *

[Picture: Prussians firing on Paris]

_September_ 24_th_.

. . . This morning a furious cannonading is taking place. They are fighting before Paris. The siege is begun. It has given me a feeling of pain and anger impossible to describe. They are firing on Paris, the wretches! It is the intellect of the whole world that they attack. Oh, why am I not there with the others? . . .

Instantaneously all yesterday’s apprehensions have vanished. I became ashamed of my mole-like existence. For the last week I have drunk nothing but the water from the cistern, but now, I hardly know wherefore, I went out on purpose to fill my jug at the cloister well, and it seemed to do me good to run some kind of risk. I looked into the Guillards’ house as I passed by, and my anger increased at the sight of this humble home ruthlessly pillaged, the furniture destroyed and burnt, the window-panes broken. I could not help thinking of the fate of Paris if they enter it . . .

[Picture: Robert peering through his window] I had just closed my door when I heard footsteps in the enclosure. It was one of those rascals who came the other day, the identical one who had so long rummaged at my lock. He looked if there was any wine left in the cask, and then, having filled his flask, began drinking, sprawling at full length on the stone bench, his head resting on his hands. He sang while drinking; his young fresh voice rang through the cloister with a song about the month of May, in which the words—_Mein lieb_, _lieb Mai_—were constantly repeated. He was just opposite my attic window, within easy reach of my revolver. I looked at him for a long time, asking myself if I should kill him. In the direction of Paris the cannon still thundered, filling my heart with terrible anguish . . . After all, perhaps by killing this fellow I should be saving some of my own people now fighting on the ramparts . . .

[Picture: Soldier drinking and singing]

I do not know whether my unseen glance and the intense hatred I was feeling towards him, did not at last disturb him and put him on his guard; but all of a sudden he raised his head, a head covered with thick bristling hair, the eyes of an albino, and red moustaches, showing a grinning set of cruel-looking teeth. For one moment he threw a suspicious glance around him, and having rebuckled his belt and refilled his flask, he went off. As he passed in front of my window, I had my finger on the trigger. Well, no; I could not do it. To kill for the sake of killing, with such certainty, and so little personal danger, was beyond me. It is not such an easy thing as one fancies, to take a fellow-creature’s life in cold blood.

Once outside the precincts of the Hermitage, and having shaken off his undefined sensation of fear, the rascal again took up his song, and I heard him getting farther and farther away, giving forth to the forest his “_Mein lieb_, _lieb Mai_ . . .”

Sing away, sing away, my lad! you have had a narrow escape of never seeing again your sweet month of May . . .

[Picture: Soldier walks off singing]

* * * * *

[Picture: The approach of Autumn]

_October_ . . .

What day, what date can it be? I have completely lost count. My brain is all confused. Yet it seems to me that it must be October. The monotonous days get shorter and shorter, the wind colder, and the foliage of the large trees around me becomes thinner at each gust of wind. The sound of incessant cannonading in the direction of Paris, makes a lugubrious accompaniment to my everyday life, a deep, low bass, always mingling in my thoughts. I think the Prussians must have their hands full over there, for my marauders have not reappeared. I no longer even hear the long, slow rumbling of the ammunition waggons, nor the rolling of drums, which used to resound on the roads outside the forest. So I have again lighted the fire in the large room, and I walk openly about in the orchard.

From day to day the difficulties of life increase. I have nothing left, neither bread, wine, nor lamp-oil. A month ago, with the sunshine, the house well aired, and the comfort of warmth, these privations were bearable, but now they seem very hard. In the poultry-yard there are only two hens left; always hiding under the rafters to escape the continual driving rain. I make faggots with the branches of the fruit-trees, which, brittle and no longer protected by their leaves, snap off and fall to the ground. The apple-trees have golden moss, the plum-trees long streaks of light-coloured gum under their resinous bark, and they make large, bright fires, throwing a sunshine into their warmth. I have also gathered the last apples, all reddened by the breath of the first frost, and I have made a poor kind of cider, which I drink instead of wine. With my bread I have been less successful. I tried, with the unfortunate Goudeloup’s flour, to knead some dough in the bottom of a cupboard drawer which I used as a trough; and then, under the ashes on the bricks, I made as well as I could, thick cakes, of which the outsides were burnt, and the insides hardly done enough. They reminded me of those little round bits of dough that, as a child, I held in the tongs, and made into rolls about the size of a lozenge.

From time to time I get a windfall. For instance, the other day, as I was rummaging in the keeper’s house, I found on a damp and mouldy cupboard shelf a few bottles of walnut-spirit that had been overlooked by the plunderers; and another time I found a large sack, which I opened with a beating heart, thinking it contained potatoes. I was quite startled on pulling out from it magpies’ beaks, vipers’ heads, dry and dust-coloured, squirrels’ tails, with their bushy red fur, and field-mice’s tails, as delicate as silken twist. These are the keeper’s perquisites, as they are given so much for the head and tail of destructive animals. They therefore keep these trophies of the chase very carefully, as they are paid for them by Government once a month.

—It always buys tobacco, as good old Guillard used to say.

[Picture: Robert exploring cupboards] I must confess that at this moment I would willingly have given up all these old bones in exchange for a few rolls of tobacco. I have only enough to last me two or three days, and that is really the only privation I dread. To me the forest is an inexhaustible larder. When my poultry-yard is empty, I shall be able to snare some of those fine cock-pheasants that come round the Hermitage to pick up the grains of buckwheat hidden in the wet soil. But tobacco! tobacco! . . .

I read a little, and have even tried to paint. It was a few mornings ago, in the light of a beautiful red sun, shining through the air thick with mist; under the shed was a heap of apples, tempting me by their lovely colouring of all shades, from the tender green of young leaves to the ardent glow of autumnal foliage. But I was not able to work for long. In a few minutes the sky became overcast. It was raining in torrents. And large flocks of wild geese, with outstretched necks and beating against the wind, passed over the house, announcing a hard winter and the approach of snow by the white down shaken from their wings.

[Picture: Robert working on a picture]

* * * * *

[Picture: Wild geese over the house]

* * * * *

[Picture: Deserted roads in Champrosay]

_The same month_ . . .

To-day I made a long expedition to Champrosay. Reassured by the stillness around me, I harnessed Colaquet in good time, and we started. Failing the sight of a human face, I longed to gaze on roads and houses.

[Picture: Damaged door in house] I found the country as deserted and silent, and far more dreary than before. The Prussians have only passed through, but they have left their mark everywhere. It seemed the very picture of an Algerian village after a swarm of locusts, a bare, devastated, devoured, and riddled scene; the houses with doors and windows all wide open, even to the little iron gates of the kennels and the latticed shutters of the rabbit-hutches. I went into some of the houses . . . Our peasants are rather like the Arabs. They are seen in the fields, in the courtyards, on their thresholds, but they do not often admit a Parisian inside their doors. Now I could thoroughly search into these unknown lives, these forsaken homes. Their habits still clung to them, and could be traced in the mantelpieces dark with soot, the hanging ropes in the courtyards where the washing is dried, the now empty nails driven into the walls, and on the walnut table, by the marks idly cut with a knife, and the notches made between each mouthful. All those village households were alike—I came upon one, however, that possessed one luxury more than the others—a parlour, or at least what was intended for a parlour. In a small brick-floored room behind the kitchen, a green paper had been put up, coloured glass had been let into the window, and a pair of gilt fire-dogs, a round tea-table, and a large arm-chair covered with worn chintz, had been placed in it. The ambition of a peasant’s lifetime could be felt there. Certainly that man had said to himself, “When I shall be old, when I shall have slaved and laboured hard, I will become a _bourgeois_. I will have a parlour like the mayor, and a comfortable arm-chair to sit in.” Poor devil! They have made a fine mess of his parlour!

[Picture: A parlour in an abandoned house]

I left Champrosay sad at heart. The desolation of those abandoned houses had struck and chilled me like the cold damp falling from the walls of a cellar. Instead of going straight hack to the Hermitage, I went a long way round by the woods. I felt a craving for air and Nature.

Unluckily all this side of the forest bears an aspect of wildness and neglect, which is not very inspiriting. Old and now unused quarries have left there piles of rocks, and a scattering of pebbles, which make the soil both dry and barren. Not a single blade of grass is to be seen on the paths. Wild stocks, brambles, and ivy alone spring up from out of these large gaping holes, clinging by all their roots to the uneven edges of the stones, and through the bare and interwoven branches, the quarries appear still deeper. For a short time we had been winding our way among the rocks. Suddenly Colaquet stopped short, and his ears began to tremble with fear. What is the matter with him? I lean forward and look . . . It is the body of a Prussian soldier that has been pitched down head-foremost into the quarry. I must confess it gave me a shudder. Had it been on the highway or in the plain, this corpse would not have horrified me so much. Where there are so many soldiers and so many guns, the probability of death seems ever present; but here in this hollow, in this out-of-the-way part of the wood, it bore an appearance of murder and mystery . . . Looking more attentively, I thought I recognised my robber of the other day, he who was singing so lustily about the month of May. Has he been killed by a peasant? But where could the peasant have come from? There is nobody left at Champrosay, Minville, or the Meillottes. More probably it is the result of some drunken quarrel between comrades, like the one I saw from the windows of the Hermitage . . .

I went home very quickly; and all through the evening I was haunted by the idea that my only guest, my only companion in the whole of the dreary forest, was that dead body stretched out on the red sand of the quarries . . .

[Picture: Overgrown quarry]

* * * * *

[Picture: Robert gathering wood]

_Unknown date_ . . .

It is raining—it is cold. The sky is dark. I go to and fro in the Hermitage, tying up faggots and making bread, while the cannon thunders incessantly, and by a strange phenomenon disturbs the earth even more than the air. With my prison labour, my selfish and silent life in the midst of such a terrible drama, I compare myself to an ant, busily groping about on the surface of the soil, deaf to the sounds of humanity around it, all too great for its insignificance, and which surround without troubling it. From time to time, to divert my thoughts, I take a journey to Champrosay without any fear of meeting the Prussians, who have decidedly abandoned the Corbeil road, and are making their descent on Paris by way of Melun and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Once or twice, however, a horse’s gallop obliged me to take refuge in some shed, and I saw a rapid and hurried bearer of despatches riding across the country as if merely to unite it to headquarters, to take possession of the road, and mark it with the hoofs of the Prussian horses.

This deserted village, with its wide-open houses, interests and charms me like a sort of Pompeii. I wander through and examine it. I amuse myself by reconstructing the lives of these absent ones . . .

[Picture: Prussian despatch rider]

* * * * *

[Picture: Champrosay washing-pond]

_Another day_ . . .

. . . Something strange is going on around me. I am not alone in the forest. There is evidently some one hiding near here, and some one who kills. To-day, in the washing-pond of Champrosay, I found a second corpse. A Saxon was stretched out there, only his fair head visible above the water, lying on the damp stone ledge. Moreover, he was well hidden away, thrust into oblivion in this small pond surrounded by brushwood, as securely as that other one over there, in the quarry in the wood. I had by chance taken Colaquet to drink there. The sight of that long, motionless body startled me. Were it not for the pool of blood which stained the stones round his head, and mingled with the reflection of the purple sunset in the water, it might have been supposed that he was asleep, so quiet and peaceful were his features. I have often noticed that expression on the face of the dead. For the space of a brief moment there is something about them more beautiful than life: a solemn peace, a breathless slumber, a renewal of youth in the whole being, which seems like a pause between the agitations of life and the surprises of the unknown world opening before them.

[Picture: Colaquet about to drink] While I was contemplating the unfortunate creature, night began to close in. In the clear and mellow twilight a great softness reigned over everything. The roads, already lighter than the sky, stretched out straight and regular. The forest spread out in dark masses, and beneath me a small vineyard path was faintly lighted up by a ray of moonlight. Over all Nature, reposing after the day’s labour—on the silent fields, the hushed river, the peaceful landscape gently fading into night—there was the same calm, the same grand peace that rested on the face of the dead soldier.

[Picture: Saxon corpse in the pond]

* * * * *

[Picture: River scene in the park]

_Another day_.

. . . Between Champrosay and the Meillottes, in the middle of a park which skirts the Seine, there stands a mansion built in the style of Louis XV. of the period of the Marquis d’Etiolles and Madame de Pompadour. Two thick straight rows of trees slope down to the river, showing, in summer-time, at the end of the arch of green foliage, a mirror of blue water blended with a blue sky. All the darkness of the old avenues seems to escape through these two vistas of light. At the entrance near the gates, a wide moat surrounding the lawns, a circle of moss-covered lime-trees and curbstones grazed by carriage-wheels, all combine to show the antiquity of this quiet old place. A fancy took me, and the other day I went in there.

By a winding path I reached the front of the steps. The doors were open, the shutters broken. On the ground-floor, in the large drawing-rooms, where the walls were all covered with white carved panels, not a single piece of furniture was left. Nothing but straw, and on the façade, between the stone carving of the balconies, were fresh marks and scratches, showing how the furniture had been thrown out through the windows. The billiard-room only was untouched. The Prussian officers are like our own, they are very fond of playing billiards. Only these gentlemen had amused themselves by making a target of a large mirror, and with its scratches, its chipped fragments, its small round holes looking black in the light, the mirror seemed like a frozen lake cut and furrowed by sharp skates. Inside, the wind rushed through the large windows battered down by bayonets and butt-ends of rifles, scattering and sweeping in the dead leaves on to the floors. Outside, it dashed under the green-leafed aisle, rocking a forgotten boat on the pond, full of broken twigs and golden-coloured willow-leaves.

I walked to the end of the avenues. There, at the end of the terrace, is a summer-house of red bricks overlooking the river; it is buried in the trees, and the Prussians have probably not seen it. The door, however, is ajar. I found a little sitting-room inside, hung with a flowery chintz, which seemed the continuation of the Virginian jasmine climbing through the latticed shutters; a piano, some scattered music, a book forgotten on a bamboo stool in front of the view over the Seine, and in the mysterious light of the closed shutters, the elegant and refined portrait of a woman looked out of a golden frame. Wife or maiden, who can tell? Dark, tall, with an ingenuous look, an enigmatic smile, and eyes the colour of thought—those Parisian eyes that change with each passing emotion. It is the first face I have seen for two months, and is so living, so proud, so youthful in its seriousness! The impression this picture has caused me is singular . . . I dreamt of the summer afternoons that she had spent there, seeking the solitude and freshness of this corner of the park. The book, the music, spoke of a refined nature; and there lingered in the twilight of this little nook a perfume of the past summer, of the vanished woman, and of a tender grace left only in the smile of the portrait.

[Picture: Mansion in the park]

[Picture: Portrait in summer-house] Who is she? Where is she? I have never seen her. I shall in all probability never meet her. And yet, without knowing wherefore, I feel less lonely as I gaze at her. I read the book which she was reading, made happy by its being marked. And since then, not a day passes without my thinking of her. It seems to me that if I had this portrait here, the Hermitage would be less desolate, but to complete the charm of the face, one ought also to have the climbing jasmine of the summer-house, the rushes at the water’s edge, and the little wild plants of the moat, whose bitter aroma comes back to me as I write these lines.

[Picture: Sitting-room containing portrait]

* * * * *

[Picture: Dead Prussian in ditch]

_One evening_, _on returning home_.

. . . Found another dead Prussian. This one was lying in a ditch by the side of the road. That makes the third . . . And always the same wound, a horrible gash at the nape of the neck . . . It is almost like a signature of the same hand.

But who can it be? . . .

[Picture: River scene]

* * * * *

[Picture: Robert spit-roasting a hen-pheasant]

_November_ 15_th_.

. . . This is the first time for many a day that I can put down a date in my diary, and make out a little order in this bewilderment of monotonous days. My whole existence is changed. The Hermitage no longer seems so silent and sad; there are now long, low conversations by the ash-covered fire with which we fill the chimney at night. The Robinson Crusoe of the forest of Sénart has found his man Friday, and under the following circumstances.

One evening last week, between eight and nine o’clock, while I was roasting a fine hen-pheasant on a turnspit of my own invention, I heard the report of a gun in the direction of Champrosay. This was so unusual that I listened very attentively, ready to extinguish my fire and put out the little glimmer which might betray me. Almost immediately, hurried footsteps sounding heavy on the gravelled road, approached the Hermitage, followed by barking of dogs and furious galloping. It gave me the idea of a hunted man pursued by horsemen and chased by furious dogs. Shivering, and seized by the living terror I felt drawing near, I half opened my window. At that instant a man rushed across the moonlit orchard, and ran towards the keeper’s house with an unerring certainty that struck me. Apparently he was well acquainted with the place. He had passed so rapidly that I could not distinguish his features; I only saw a peasant’s blue smock all gathered up in the agitation of a wild flight. He jumped through a shattered window into the Guillards’ house, and disappeared in the darkness of the empty dwelling. Immediately behind him a large white dog appeared at the entrance of the cloister. Thrown out for a minute, he remained there, slowly wagging his tail and sniffing, and then stretched himself out at full length in front of the old gateway, baying in order to call the attention of the pursuers. I knew the Prussians often had dogs with them, and I expected to see a patrol of Uhlans . . . Odious animal! with what pleasure would I have strangled it, if it had been within reach of my grasp. I already saw the Hermitage invaded, searched, my retreat discovered; and I felt angry with that unfortunate peasant for having sought refuge so near me, as if all the forest were not large enough. How selfish fear makes us! . . .

[Picture: “At that instant a man rushed across the moonlit orchard.”]

Fortunately for me, the Prussians were probably not very numerous, and the darkness and the unknown forest frightened them. I heard them call in their dog, who kept up in front of the gate, the continual howl and whimpering of an animal on the track. However, he at last went off, and the sound of him bounding through the brushwood and over the dead leaves died out in the distance. The silence that followed appalled me. A man was there, opposite to me. Through the round opening of my attic window, I tried to peer into the darkness. The keeper’s little house was still silent and gloomy, with the black apertures of its dreary windows in the white wall. I imagined the unhappy man hiding in a corner, benumbed with cold and perhaps wounded. Should I leave him without help? . . . I did not hesitate long . . . But just at the moment when I was gently opening my door, it was violently pushed from the outside, and some one burst into the room.

[Picture: Dog waiting at doorway] —Don’t be afraid, Mr. Robert. It is I . . . It is Goudeloup . . .

It was the farmer of Champrosay, he whom I had seen with the rope round his neck, ready to be swung up in his farmyard. I recognised him at once in the firelight; and yet there was something different about him. Pale and emaciated, his face hidden by an unkempt beard, his sharp glance and tightened lips made a very different being of the well-to-do, cheerful farmer of former days. With the end of his smock, he wiped the blood off his hands.

—You are wounded, Goudeloup?

He laughed significantly.

—No—no . . . I have just been bleeding one of them on the road. Only this time I had not a fair chance. While I was at work, some others came up. Never mind! He will never get up again.

And he added, with a short, fierce laugh which showed his wolfish-looking teeth:

—That makes the fifteenth that I have laid low in two months . . . I think that is pretty well for one man alone, and with no other weapon but this.

He drew forth from under his smock a pair of pruning-shears—those large kind of scissors that gardeners use to cut rose-trees and shrubs. I had a shudder of horror at the sight of the assassin’s tool, held by that bloody hand; but I had been so long silent, and deprived of all intercourse with human beings, that, the first feeling of repulsion overcome, I made the unfortunate creature welcome to a place at my table. There, in the comfortable atmosphere of the room, by the heat of the faggots, at the smell of the pheasant, which was becoming brown before the flame, his wild-beast expression seemed to soften. Accustomed to the darkness of the long nights, he blinked his eyes a little while he related his history to me in a quiet tone.

[Picture: Pruning shears] —You thought I was hanged, Mr. Robert; well, I thought so myself. You must know that when the Uhlans arrived at the farm, I first tried to defend myself, but they did not even give me time to fire my second gun. No sooner was the first shot fired than the gates were forced open, and thirty of these robbers threw themselves on to me. They put the granary rope round my neck and up I went . . . For the space of a moment, giddy at no longer feeling the ground under my feet, I saw everything reeling around me: the farm, the sheds, the kennels, those big red faces which laughed at the sight of me; and you also, whom I caught sight of through the gap in the wall, looking as white as a ghost. It seemed like a nightmare! . . . Suddenly, while I was struggling, the idea flashed across my mind, I know not why, to make the Freemason’s signal of distress. I learned that in my youth, when I belonged to the lodge of the _Grand Orient_. Immediately the wretches loosened the rope, and I found myself on the ground once more. It was their officer—a stout man with black whiskers—who had me taken down only on account of my sign.

[Picture: Robert meeting Goudeloup]

“—You are a Freemason,” said he, in a low tone, and in excellent French. “I am also one . . . and I would not refuse to help a brother who appealed to me . . . Be off, and let me see you no more! . . .”

I left my own home hanging my head like a beggar. Only I did not go far, you may believe. Hidden among the ruins of the bridge, living on raw turnips and sloes, I was present at the pillage of my goods; the emptied granaries, the pulley creaking all day long to lower the sacks, the wood burning in the open yard in large fires, round which they drank my wine, and my furniture and my flocks going of by degrees in every direction! And when at last nothing remained, after setting fire to the house, they went off, driving and whipping my last cow before them. That evening, when I had been round my ruins, when, thinking of my children, I realised that in my whole life long I should never make enough to restore my property, even if I killed myself with work, I became mad with rage. The very first Prussian I met on the road I sprang upon like a wild beast and cut his throat with this . . .

From that moment I had but one idea—to hunt down the Prussians. I remained in ambush night and day, attacking the stragglers, the marauders, the despatch-bearers, the sentinels. All those I kill I carry to the quarries or throw into the water. That is the tedious part. Otherwise they are as gentle as lambs. You can do what you will with them . . . However, the one this evening was more tough than the others, and then that fiendish dog gave the alarm. And now I must remain quiet for a time, and with your permission, Mr. Robert, I will remain a few days with you . . .

While he was speaking, his countenance resumed the sinister expression and peculiar intensity that these fearful night-watches had imparted to it. What a terrible companion I am going to have! . . .

[Picture: Goudeloup hunting his prey]

* * * * *

[Picture: Prussian patrol]

_November_ 20_th_.

We have just spent a most dreadful week. During eight days, the Prussian patrols have unceasingly passed backwards and forwards through the forest. They skirted the walls of the Hermitage, and even entered the enclosure, but the state of the keeper’s little house, left wide open and abandoned; the ivy and brambles giving such a dilapidated appearance to my own, protected us. My companion and myself carefully remained inside the whole time, deadening our steps across the room, lowering our voices by the hearth, and only making a small fire at night.

[Picture: Jug] This time, had we been discovered, it meant death, and I felt rather annoyed with Goudeloup for having made me his accomplice by coming to take refuge here. He understood my feelings, and offered several times to go and seek another shelter; but I would not consent to this. To show his gratitude for my hospitality, he renders me a lot of little services. Very obliging, very clever in all the practical details of life, about which I am so ignorant, he has taught me to make bread that is eatable, real cider, and candles. It is a pleasure to see him busy all day long, restricting his faculty for work and order, which he formerly exercised on a wider scale in the management of his large farmstead and seventy-five acres of land, and adapting himself to the confined space of our only room. Gloomy and silent, moreover, and sitting motionless for hours in the evening, his head buried in his hands, like all inveterate workers with whom overwrought physical life absorbs the moral being, I could not help sometimes smiling when I noticed that, notwithstanding the tragical circumstances surrounding us, he kept up his habit of prolonged meals and pauses between each mouthful. Such as he is, the fellow interests me. He is the true peasant in all his native brutality. His land, his goods, are far more precious to him than his country or his family. He unconsciously utters the most monstrous sentiments. If he is so bent on revenge, it is only because the Prussians have burnt down his farm, and the horrors of the invasion only rouse him when he thinks of his lost harvest, and his fields left untilled and unsown.

[Picture: Goudeloup sitting despondent]

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[Picture: Goudeloup’s derelict farm]

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[Picture: Discussion with Goudeloup]

_November_ 22_nd_ . . .

We had a long conversation to-day. We were in the shed seated across a ladder, and, in spite of the coldness of the damp air which came to us from the forest all laden with the smell of moist wood and damp earth, we felt as much pleasure in breathing it as two dormice coming forth from their holes. Goudeloup was smoking a curiously-shaped pipe he has made out of a snail’s shell, and he did so with an exaggerated appearance of satisfaction and content not devoid of mischief. In spite of my longing to smoke, I have already several times refused to use his tobacco, well knowing how it has been procured, and always expecting to see some shreds of the blue cloth of which the Prussian uniforms are made. As he caught me sniffing the delightful fragrance of tobacco, which tantalised me, he said, with that cunning smile of the peasant which puckers up their eyes, leaving their lips thin and crafty:

—Well! come! you won’t smoke? . . .

MYSELF.

No, thank you. I have already told you I do not wish for any of your tobacco.

GOUDELOUP.

Because I have taken it out of their pockets? Yet I had every right to do so. They have robbed me enough, for me to be able to rob them also, and a few handfuls of bad tobacco won’t pay for all my corn and oats . . .

MYSELF.

With this difference, that these people have given you your life, whereas you . . .

GOUDELOUP.

Yes, it is true they have given me my life, but they have burnt down my farm—my poor farm! I built it myself . . . and my beasts and my harvest, fifteen acres of crops! It was all insured against hail, fire, and lightning; but who would have thought that, so near Paris, with all the taxes we pay to have good soldiers, I ought to have insured myself against the Prussians? Now I have nothing left. Are not such catastrophes worse than death? . . . Ah yes, the wretches; they gave me my life! They gave it me to beg from door to door with my wife and children. Don’t you see that when I think of all this, a furious passion seizes me, and a thirst for blood, for . . .

[Picture: Goudeloup waiting and watching]

MYSELF.

What, you have not killed enough? . . .

GOUDELOUP.

No, not enough yet . . . I must even make a confession, Mr. Robert. You are an easy-going man; you have received me kindly, and a chimney-corner like yours is not to be despised in this weather. And yet, all the same, there are moments when I am weary of being here. I want to escape, to begin lying in wait by the roadside again. It is such fun waiting for one of those thieves to pass; to watch for him, dog his footsteps, and say to oneself, “Not yet . . .” and then, quick, you jump on him and finish him . . . Another one who will not eat up my corn!

MYSELF.

You, whom I have known so quiet and gentle, how can you talk like that without showing the least feeling?

GOUDELOUP.

One would think there was an evil spirit within me that the war has called forth . . . But I must say that the first time it happened, I was startled myself. It was that transport soldier I met the evening of my misfortune. I struck with all my might at the uniform, hardly realising there was a man inside it; then, when I felt that huge form give way and the warm stream of blood inundate me, then I was afraid. But remembering directly the torn and ripped-up sacks of flour lying in my yard, I again became desperate.

MYSELF.

As you bear them such a grudge, why do you not try to get back into Paris, or to rejoin the armies in the provinces? You could then fight openly, and kill the Prussians without treachery in the battles.

GOUDELOUP.

Join the army, Mr. Robert? . . . But I am not a soldier! My parents paid dearly enough to prevent my being one . . . I am a peasant, an unhappy peasant, who revenges himself, and requires no one to help him.

[Picture: Goudeloup killing a Prussian]

While he spoke I saw reappear in him the wild beast I had admitted the other evening. The mad glare seemed to return to his eyes. His lips were compressed. His fingers convulsively sought a weapon . . .

[Picture: Unknown image]

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[Picture: Goudeloup leaves]

_November_ 28_th_.

He is gone. I ought not to be astonished. The wretch was tired of having nothing to kill. After promising to come sometimes at night and knock at my door, he plunged into the shadows, less black than himself. Well, brutal as he was, I regret him. Solitude brings with it, after a time, a feeling of torpor, a numbness of the whole being, which is really unwholesome. Words seem to start fresh thoughts. By dint of talking to this peasant of patriotism and self-sacrifice, I have re-awakened in myself all that I was desirous of inspiring in him. I feel quite differently now. And then my recovery, the sensation of returning strength, which increases from day to day . . . I long for action and battle . . .

[Picture: Unknown image]

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[Picture: The forest under snow]

_November_ 30_th_. _December_ 1_st_ _and_ 2_nd_.

It is bitterly cold. Through the dryness of the earth and atmosphere the cannonading round Paris re-echoes still louder. I have never heard anything to equal it. It must be a real battle. At moments I fancy the sounds draw nearer, for I can make out the platoon-firing and the horrible rending noise of the mitrailleuse. All around here there seems a general commotion, as it were the rebounding sound of the battle. On the road to Melun troops are continually moving. On the road to Corbeil scared despatch-bearers gallop by furiously . . . What can be taking place? . . . In spite of the cold, I go and wander about, seeking the forest paths, where the cannonading is more distinctly heard . . .

At times I have a dream of Paris leaving its imprisoning ramparts, of the French troops arriving here, of the forest of Sénart full of French uniforms, and of I myself joining their ranks to drive out the Prussians and reconquer France . . .

[Picture: Prussian lancer]

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[Picture: Bavarian troops drilling]

_December_ 5_th_.

The incessant cannonading of the last few days has been succeeded by a deathlike stillness. What is going on? I am fearfully anxious. If Paris had sallied forth from her walls and were now marching on the roads, the disbanded and repulsed Prussians would fill the country and constantly change their bivouacs. But no. Ever since yesterday I have scoured the twelve miles of forest which hem me in like a wall on all sides; in vain I scrutinise the lanes around, they are as silent and lonely as usual. Through the trees, in the distance, I saw near Montgeron a company of Bavarians drilling in the open part of a wide plain. Mournfully drawn up in line under the lowering and lurid sky, they trod with resigned melancholy through the mud of this uncultivated and barren land . . . Evidently Paris has not yet made a successful sortie, but it has not capitulated either, for these soldiers presented too pitiful an appearance to be conquerors.

Overhead, circling clouds of rooks fly by towards the great city, cawing and alighting on the rising ground. Never had I seen so many, even in the peaceful winter, when all France is sown with wheat. This year it is another kind of seed which attracts them.

[Picture: Image of baron land]

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[Picture: “—it was a balloon.”]

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[Picture: Balloon overhead]

_December_ 6_th_.

Thank Heaven! Paris still holds out, and is likely to do so. I had a delightful proof of this. This morning I was by the cloister well when I heard quick firing in the direction of Draveil. Almost immediately a peculiar sound, like the flapping of a sail at sea and the straining of the stretched rigging, passed through the air above me. It was a balloon, a fine yellow balloon, very apparent against the darkness of the clouds. From where I stood it seemed to float over the tree-tops, although in reality it was far above. I cannot describe how the slender texture of this silken balloon, whose netting I could distinctly see, stirred and filled me with enthusiasm. I remembered that above all this conquered France, the soul of Paris still soared, a living strength more powerful than all the Krupp cannons together, and I, a Parisian, felt proud of it. I felt inclined to cry, to shout, to call out. I threw my arms out towards the black, motionless specks at the edge of the car, two human lives, tossed about by all the currents of heaven, far above the rivers that may drown them, the precipices where they may be dashed to pieces, and the Prussian armies, which must look from that height like immense overrunning ant-heaps on the surface of the earth . . . A light powdery line became visible under the balloon. I heard the sound of scattered sand among the branches, and the vision was lost among the clouds.

[Picture: Man looking up]

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[Picture: A roadside cross]

_December_ 9_th_.

What am I doing here? I am really becoming ashamed of my useless life . . . I had to bake some bread to-day, and could not summon up courage to do it. All the little details in which I used to take pleasure, like those egotists in disguise—recluses and hermits—I now find despicable. I am completely cured, only an occasional pain on very cold days. My duty is on the ramparts with the others . . . But how can I manage to rejoin them? It appears that the investment is very close, and the sentinels are placed within rifle-shot of each other. If I had only a companion, some countryman who knows the roads well. My thoughts fly to Goudeloup. I ought not to have allowed him to leave me. Who knows where he may be now? Perhaps strung up to some roadside cross, or dead from cold at the bottom of a quarry. However, the other evening, towards the Meillottes, I heard a cry—nothing but a cry, but a terrible cry, long and despairing, like a wail; and it flashed across me, “Goudeloup is there!” . . . Ah, yes! that man is a murderer; but at any rate he acts; he satisfies brutally the thirst for vengeance and justice which is in him. As for me, I warm myself and sleep. Which of us two is the most contemptible?

[Picture: Body in the snow]

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[Picture: Deserted street in Champrosay]

_December_ 10_th_.

Returned to Champrosay in bitter cold weather. The houses along the roadside, with all their dark, empty windows, looked like sad and blind beggars. I visited again the park, the summer-house at the waterside, and the smiling portrait which inhabits it. The cold air had not dimmed the peaceful face, nor the soft shades of the summer dress. Only the glance seemed to me more stern and severe, as if it contained a reproach. On the very threshold I understood I was no longer welcome. Cautiously I closed the door again, and went down the frozen, moss-covered steps . . . And all through the night the clear gaze of that fair Parisian remorselessly haunted me.

[Picture: Robert investigating Champrosay house]

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[Picture: “I found a pigeon.”]

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[Picture: Across the rooftops]

_December_ 11_th_.

This morning, on going to take up the snares at the end of my garden, I found a pigeon. It astonished me. Tame pigeons do not remain on deserted roofs, and till now I had only caught wood-pigeons. This one was really a tame pigeon, plump, with pink claws and back, and brown and white wings. The wire had not maimed it; it was merely numbed with cold. I brought it in to the fire, and there, as I held it in both hands—for, like a tame creature, it made not the slightest struggle—I discovered some printed numbers on one of its wings, 523, and lower down, _Société de l’Espérance_. Then under the feathers I found a quill rather thicker than the others, and rolled up, fastened to it, a tiny sheet of very thin paper. I had caught a carrier-pigeon! Did it come from Paris or the provinces? Was it the messenger of victory or defeat, good or bad news? . . . For a long time I gazed at it with almost superstitious awe. Let loose in the room, he quietly went about pecking between the tiles. By degrees his feathers puffed out in the warmth and his strength returned. Then I opened the window wide, and placed him on the sill. He remained there a moment looking up at the sky, stretching out his neck, trying to find his bearings. At last he rose straight into the air, and having reached a certain height, white against the surrounding gloom, he sharply turned towards Paris. Ah! if I could only take the same road . . .

[Picture: Bird]

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[Picture: Preparations for travelling]

_December_ 15_th_.

It is all settled. We leave to-morrow. I say “we,” because Goudeloup has returned. He came back yesterday in the dusk, more emaciated, more terrible than before. The wretched man is now at his twenty-first! . . . Nevertheless the thirst for blood is beginning to be satiated; moreover, he is closely pursued, and the nightly ambush has become most difficult. I therefore had little trouble in deciding him to attempt an expedition to Paris with me. We shall start to-morrow in my boat, which is lying out on the Seine, moored under the willows on the banks. It is Goudeloup’s idea. He thinks that on a very dark night we shall be able to get by to the _Port-à-l’Anglais_, and then, by creeping along the towing-path, reach the first French barricade. We shall see . . . I have prepared my revolver, some rugs, two or three loaves, and a large flask of brandy.

The enterprise is certainly full of danger; but since I have made up my mind to attempt it, I feel calmer. Instead of making me anxious, the sound of the cannon round Paris electrifies me. I feel as if it were calling me; and each time it thunders, I am inclined to answer, “We are coming.” I fancy the portrait in the summer-house smiles at me from its gilt frame, and wears again its calm and placid aspect . . . I have but one regret in quitting the Hermitage: what will become of my poor Colaquet? I leave the stable-door open for him to seek his subsistence in the forest. I pile up near him my last bundles of straw, and while I make these preparations I avoid meeting his astonished, kind eyes, which seem to say reproachfully, “Where are you going?”