Brigadier Frederick, The Dean's Watch

"You are good people. You have all honest German faces; that pleases me! Your get-up is very good also; I am satisfied with you!"

In the side room the guests were laughing; this forced the Oberförster to interrupt himself:

"Wilhelm, shut the door!" said he to the servant who had let us in. The waiter obeyed, and the Oberförster continued:

"Yes, you have good German faces! When I think that you have been kept for so many years in the service of that race of boasters, it makes me angry. But, thanks to the Almighty, and thanks also to the armies of our glorious King William, the hour of deliverance has arrived, the reign of Sodom and Gomorrah is over. We will no longer see honest fathers of families doing their duty with loyalty and exactness, and preserving the property of his Majesty; we will no longer see such people living on a salary of five or six hundred francs, while adventurers, law-breakers, gamblers, people swallowed up in vice, award themselves forty millions a year to support dancing girls, cooks, and toadies, and to declare war at random upon pacific neighbours, without reason, without foresight, without armies, without ammunition, and without cannon, like real idiots! No, that will never be seen again; old Germany is opposed to it!"

Then the Oberförster, satisfied with what he had just said, filled his glass in order to refresh his ideas; he drank solemnly, with half-closed eyes, and continued:

"I have sent for you to confirm you in all your situations; for I visited the forests, I saw that all was in order; I saw that you were faithful servants; it is but just that you should remain. And I announce to you that your salaries are to be doubled; that old servants, instead of being put on the retired list, shall receive promotion; that they shall enjoy an honest competency proportionate to their rank; finally, that the munificence of his Majesty will extend itself to you all, and in your old age you will bless the happy annexation of this noble land, Alsace, to the mother country. You will relate some day to your children and grandchildren the story of this long captivity in Babylon, during which you suffered so much, and you will also become the most faithful subjects of his Most Gracious Majesty, the King of Prussia. This is what I wish! Old functionaries like you, honoured and respected in the country because of the faithfulness of their services, exercise always a great influence over the peasantry. You will express loudly your attachment to our glorious King William, that hearty attachment which every German feels. Yes, you will take the oath of allegiance to his Majesty; and as to the rest, as to the augmentation of your salary, I give you my word as an Oberförster that all will be done according to the promises I have just made you."

While he was talking he did not cease to watch us; behind us were two or three tall Germans in uniform, who appeared dazzled and touched by his discourse. But as for us we remained cold, cap in hand; and as I was to be the spokesman they all looked at me to see what I thought.

You can imagine, George, my silent indignation to see that they called us good servants, honest people in order to make traitors of us. I felt my cheeks getting red; I would have liked to be able to answer that only rascals would have accepted the title of honest men, by forfeiting their honour; but I held my tongue, not wishing to answer for my comrades, several of whom had large families; the responsibility seemed too great.

The Oberförster having ended, he looked at us fixedly; at me in particular, and he said:

"Well! you may speak; I authorize you to speak."

Then I answered:

"Sir, as the oldest forester of the three brigades, my comrades have requested me to speak for them all; but the proposition that you have just made is serious; I think that every one will ask for time to think it over."

They all nodded assent; and he, who was really astonished, for he had doubtless thought that the augmentation of the salaries would decide everything, remained for over a minute with his eyes wide open, staring at me as if I were something extraordinary; then he did as much for the others, and, frowning, he said gruffly:

"I give you twenty-four hours! To-morrow at this time I want to have your written reply, signed by each of you; yes or no! Do not think that there is any lack of men, there are plenty in Germany, good people, old foresters, who know the service as well as the smartest of you, who would ask nothing better than to come into this rich Alsace, where everything grows so abundantly, to live in comfortable houses in the midst of magnificent forests, having nothing to do but to take a little turn in the neighbourhood morning and evening, to draw up a report, and to receive for that twelve or fifteen hundred francs a year, with the garden, the strip of meadow, the pasture for the cow, and all the rest of it. No, do not think that! Hundreds are waiting impatiently till we tell them to come. And weigh well your answer; think of your wives and your children; beware of having to repent bitterly if you say no! France is completely ruined, she is penniless; the wretched forests that are left her in Brittany and the Landes are nothing but broom-sticks; the guards of these thickets will retain their places, and you will never get other situations. You are Germans. The French used you and despised you; they called you blockheads! Think over all this; it is the advice of an honest man that I give you, of a German brother and the father of a family!"

He looked at me, thinking that I was going to say something; but I compressed my lips, and I felt as if little puffs of cold wind were passing over my forehead. All my companions were also silent. At one side behind the door some one was playing on the piano, and a woman was singing a sweet and melancholy little song.

"Twenty-four hours," he repeated, rising; "not another minute." And, throwing his napkin on the table angrily, he added:

"Remember, too, that those who wish to answer no can pack up at once; the highway is open to them. We will never keep enemies among us – dangerous persons – that would be too stupid. We are not Frenchmen."

So he entered the next room, while we went out by the vestibule.

What the Oberförster had said to us, "that we would have a hard time getting situations in France, and that the Germans would force us to be off without mercy," was terrible; the most courageous hung their heads.

Some of them, very pale, were thinking of going to the Fir Tree Inn to deliberate; they wanted, above all, to know my opinion; but I said, stopping before the door of the inn:

"From this time, comrades, let us economize all the little money that we have; five sous for a glass of wine is always five sous. We shall probably have to break up housekeeping, and at these unhappy times everything is dear; travelling costs money when we take women, children, and old men with us."

Big Kern insisted upon knowing what I thought; several of them gathered around me, so I finally said:

"See here, for what concerns myself I know what I ought to do; but at such a moment as this every one should be free to follow his own conscience; I shall give no advice to any one."

And seeing poor Jacob Hepp, the father of six small children, standing with drooping head, hanging arms, and cast-down eyes, I said:

"Come! Let us shake hands all round once more – for the last time, perhaps! May the old recollections of friendship follow us wherever Heaven may conduct us."

Several of us kissed each other, and at that place we parted.

XVI

Jean Merlin and I took the road to Felsberg alone; I do not know what the others did, whether they entered the inn or returned to their homes. As for us, so many ideas were passing through our heads that we walked on for a long while without saying a word.

On leaving Zornstadt, we ascended the hill of Bruyères till we reached the plateau of Graufthal, and suddenly the sun pierced the clouds and shone upon the woods. The sun was very brilliant, and showed us through the leafless trees in the depths of the valley the pretty cottage in which I had passed so many happy days since Father Burat had given me his daughter in marriage.

I stopped short. Jean, who was following me along the path, also halted; and, leaning on our sticks, we looked for a long time as if in a dream. All the by-gone days seemed to pass before my eyes.

The little cottage, on this clear, cold day, looked as if it were painted on the hillside, in the midst of the tall fir trees; its roof of gray shingles, its chimney, from which curled a little smoke, its windows, where in summer Marie-Rose placed her pots of pinks and mignonette, the trellis, over which climbed the ivy, the shed and its worm-eaten pillars – all were there before me, one might have thought it possible to touch them.

When I saw that I said to myself:

"Look, Frederick, look at this quiet corner of the world, wherein thy youth has passed, and from which thou must go away gray-headed, without knowing where to turn; that humble dwelling wherein thy dear wife Catherine gave thee several children, some of whom lie beside her in the earth at Dôsenheim. Look! and remember how calmly thy life has glided away in the midst of worthy people who called thee good son, kind father, and honest man, and prayed God to load thee with blessings. What good does it do thee now to have been a good father and a dutiful son, to have always done thy duly honestly, since they drive thee away, and not a soul can intercede for thee? The Germans are the strongest, and strength is worth more than the right established by God himself."

I trembled at having dared to raise my reproaches to the Almighty, but my grief was too deep, and the iniquity appeared to me to be too great. May Heaven forgive me for having doubted of His goodness.

As to the rest my resolution was taken; I would rather a thousand times have died than have committed so base an action. And, looking at Merlin, who was leaning gloomily against a birch tree near me, I said:

"I am looking at my old abode for the last time; to-morrow the Oberförster will receive my answer, and day after to-morrow the furniture will be piled upon the cart. Tell me now what do you mean to do?"

Then he flushed scarlet and said: "Oh! Father Frederick, can you ask me that? You pain me by doing so. Do you not know what I will do? I will do like you; there are not two ways of being an honest man."

"That is right – I knew it," I said; "but I am very glad to have heard you say so. Everything must be clear between us. We are not like Germans, who chase the devil round the stump, and think that everything is right, provided it succeeds. Come, let us walk on, Jean, and keep up your courage."

XVII

We began to descend the hill, and I confess to you, George, that when I approached the house and thought of how I should have to announce the terrible news to my daughter and the grandmother, my legs trembled under me.

At last we reached the threshold. Jean entered first; I followed him and closed the door. It was about four o'clock. Marie-Rose was peeling potatoes for supper, and the grandmother, seated in her arm-chair by the stove, was listening to the crackling of the fire, as she had done for years past.

Imagine our position. How could we manage to tell them that the Germans were going to turn us out of doors? But the poor women had only to look at us to understand that something very serious had happened.

After having put my stick in the corner by the clock, and hung my cap on the nail, I walked up and down the room several times; then, as I had to commence somehow, I began to relate in detail the propositions that the Oberförster had made to us to enter the service of the King of Prussia. I did not hurry myself; I told everything clearly, without adding or suppressing anything, wishing that the poor creatures might also have the liberty of choosing between poverty and shame.

I was sure that they would choose poverty. Marie-Rose, deadly pale, lifted her hands to Heaven, murmuring:

"My God! is it possible? Do such rascals exist in the world? Ah! I would rather die than join such a company of wretches!"

It pleased me to see that my daughter had a brave heart, and Jean Merlin was so touched that I saw his lip quiver.

The grandmother seemed to wake up like a snail in its shell; her chin trembled, her dull eyes sparkled with anger; I was surprised at it myself. And when I went on to say that the Oberförster, if we refused to serve Prussia, gave us twenty-four hours to leave our home, her indignation burst forth all at once.

"To quit the house?" said she, lifting her bent form, "but this house is mine! I was born in this house more than eighty years ago, and I have never left it. It was my grandfather, Laurent Duchêne, who first lived here, more than a hundred and thirty years ago, and who planted the fruit trees on the hill; it was my father, Jacquemin, who first marked out the road to Dôsenheim and the paths of Tömenthal; it was my husband, George Burat, and my son-in-law Frederick here, who sowed the first seeds of the beech trees and firs, whose forests now extend over the two valleys; and all of us, from father to son, we have lived quietly in this house; we have earned it; we have surrounded the garden with hedges and palisades; every tree in the orchard belongs to us; we saved up money to buy the meadows, to build the barn and the stables. Drive us away from this house? Ah! the wretches! Those are German ideas! Well, let them come! I, Anne Burat, will have something to say to them!"

I could not calm the poor old grandmother; all that she said was just; but with people who believe that strength is everything, and that shame and injustice are nothing, what is the use of talking so much?

When she sat down again, all out of breath, I asked her, in a very sad but firm voice:

"Grandmother, do you wish me to accept service with the Germans?"

"No!" said she.

"Then within forty-eight hours we must all leave together this old house."

"Never!" she cried. "I will not!"

"And I tell you it must be," said I, with an aching heart. "I will have it so."

"Ah!" she cried, with painful surprise.

And I continued, with anguish:

"You know, grandmother, that I have always had the greatest respect for you. May those Germans be a thousand times accursed for having forced me to be disrespectful to you; I hate them still more for it, if possible! But do you not understand, grandmother, that those brutes are without shame, without honour, without pity even for old age, and if they encountered the slightest resistance they would drag you out by your gray hair? You are weak and they are strong, and that is enough for them! Do you not understand that if I saw such a spectacle I would throw myself upon them, even if they were a regiment, and that they would kill me? Then what would become of you and my daughter? That is what we must think of, grandmother. Forgive me for having spoken so harshly to you, but I do not wish for a minute's grace, nor, I am sure, do you; beside, they would not let us have it, for they are pitiless people!"

She burst into tears and sobbed out:

"Oh! my God! my God! to have to leave this house, where I hoped to see my grand-daughter happy and to nurse my great-grandchildren! My God! why did you not call me away sooner?"

She wept so bitterly that it touched our hearts, and all of us, with bowed heads, felt the tears trickle down our checks. How many recollections came to us all! But the poor grandmother had more than any of us, having never quitted the valley for so many years, except to go two or three times a year to market at Saverne or Phalsbourg; those were her longest journeys.

XVIII

At last the blow was struck. Cruel necessity, George, had spoken by my lips; the women had understood that we must go away, perhaps never to return; that nothing could prevent this fearful misfortune.

That was done; but another duty, still more painful, remained to fulfil. When the lamentations had ceased, and we were meditating, mute and overwhelmed, raising up my voice anew, I said:

"Jean Merlin, you asked me last summer for my daughter in marriage, and I accepted you to be my son, because I knew you, I liked you, and I esteemed you as much as the greatest man in the country. So it was settled; our promises had been given, we wanted nothing more! But then I was a brigadier forester, I was about to receive my pension, and my post was promised to you. Without being rich, I had a little property; my daughter might be considered a good match. Now I am nobody any more; to tell the truth, I am even a poor man. The old furniture I possess suits this house; if it were taken with us it would be in the way; the meadow, for which I paid fifteen hundred francs from my savings, also because it was convenient to the forest house, will be worth little more than half when it has to be sold over again. Beside, perhaps the Germans will declare that all real estate belongs to them. It depends only upon themselves, since the strongest are always in the right! You, too, will find yourself without a situation; you will be obliged to support your old mother. The maintenance of a wife in the midst of all this poverty may appear very troublesome. Therefore, Jean, my honour and that of my daughter oblige me to release you from your promise. Things are no longer as they were; Marie-Rose has nothing, and I can understand that an honest man, on such a grave situation, might change his mind."

Merlin turned pale as he listened to me, and he answered, in a gruff voice:

"I asked for Marie-Rose for her own sake, Father Frederick, because I loved her, and she also loved me. I did not ask for her for the sake of your place, nor yet for the sake of the money she might have; if I had thought of such a thing, I would have been a scoundrel. And now I love her more than ever, for I have seen that she has a noble heart, which is above everything."

And, rising and opening his arms, he cried: "Marie-Rose!"

Scarcely had he called her, when she turned, her face bathed in tears, and threw herself into his arms. They remained clasped in a close embrace for some time, and I thought to myself:

"All is well; my daughter is in the hands of an honest man; that is my greatest consolation in the midst of all my misfortunes."

After that, George, in spite of our grief, we grew calm again. Merlin and I agreed that he would go the next day to carry our answer to Zornstadt: "No, Oberförster, we will not enter the service of the King of Prussia!" I wrote my letter at once and he put it in his pocket.

It was also agreed that I should go early to Graufthal, and try to find lodgings for ourselves, wherein we could place our furniture. The three first-floor rooms belonging to Father Ykel, the host of the Cup Inn, had been empty ever since the invasion, as not a traveller came to the country. There must certainly be room in his stable, too; so I hoped to hire them cheap.

As to Merlin, he had still to tell his mother, and he said to us that she would go to Felsberg, where Uncle Daniel would be very glad to receive her. The old schoolmaster and his sister had kept house together for a long time, and it was only after Jean Merlin's installation in the forester's house at Tömenthal that he had taken his mother to live with him. Good old Margredel had nothing to do but to return to the village, where her little house was waiting for her. So our final resolutions were taken.

Jean also took upon himself to go and tell M. Laroche of what had occurred, and to say also that I would come and see him after our flitting. Then he kissed Marie-Rose, said a few encouraging words to the grandmother, and went out. I went with him as far as the threshold and shook hands. The night had come; it was freezing cold; every blade of grass in the valley was sparkling with frost, and the sky was glittering with stars. What weather in which to leave our home and to seek another shelter!

As I returned to the room, I saw poor Calas empty the saucepan of potatoes on the table and place the two pots of clotted milk beside the salad-bowl, looking at us with an amazed air; no one stirred.

"Sit down, Calas," I said; "eat alone; none of us are hungry this evening."

So he sat down and began to peel his potatoes; having cleaned out the stable and given forage to the cattle, he had done his duty and his conscience was easy.

Happy are those who cannot see the morrow, and whom the Almighty only governs, without kings, without emperors, and without ministers. They have not one-quarter of our sorrows. The squirrel, the hare, the fox, all the animals of the woods and the plains, receive their new fur at the beginning of winter; the birds of the air receive finer down; those who cannot live in the snow, for lack of insects to feed them, have strong wings, that enable them to seek a warmer climate.

It is only man who receives nothing! Neither his labour, nor his foresight, nor his courage can preserve him from misfortune; his fellow beings are often his worst enemies and his old age is often the extreme of misery. Such is our share of existence.

Some people would like to change these things, but no one has the courage and the good sense which are necessary.

Finally, at nightfall we separated, to think over, each alone in his corner, the terrible blow that had overwhelmed us.

XIX

On the following day, which was the first of November, at dawn, I set out for Graufthal. I had put on my blouse, my thick shoes, and my felt hat. The trees along the roadside were bending under their covering of frost; occasionally a blackbird or a thrush would rise from under the white brushwood, uttering its cry, as if to bid me farewell. I have often thought of it since; I was on the path of exile, George; it was only beginning, and extended very far.

Towards seven o'clock I arrived under the large rocks, where the most wretched huts in the village were situated – the others were built along the banks of the river – and I stopped before that of Father Ykel. I went through the kitchen into the smoky little parlour of the inn. Nothing was stirring; I thought I was alone and I was about to call, when I saw Ykel, sitting behind the stove, his short black pipe, with a copper cover, between his teeth, and his cotton cap pushed over one ear; he did not move, as he had had, a few weeks before, an attack of rheumatism, brought on by his long fishing excursions among the mountain streams, and also at night by torchlight, amid the mists.

The valley had never known such a fisher; he sold crawfish and trout to the great hotels of Strasbourg. Unhappily, as we all have to pay for our imprudences, sooner or later, he had been attacked by the rheumatism, and now all he could do was to sit and think about the best places in the river and the great hauls he used to make.

When I discovered him, his little green eyes were already fixed upon me.

"Is it you, Father Frederick?" he said. "What is your business here among these rascals who are robbing us? If I were you, I would stay quietly in the forest; the wolves are much better neighbours."

"We cannot always do as we like," I answered. "Are your three upper rooms still empty, and have you room enough in your stable for two cows?"

"Haven't I, though!" he cried. "The Prussians have made room! They have taken everything – straw, hay, oats, flour, and the cattle. Ah! room; I guess so; from the garret to the cellar, we have plenty; it will not run out for a long time!"

And he uttered a harsh laugh, gnashing his old teeth and muttering:

"Oh! the wretches! God grant that we may one day have the upper hand; I would go there on crutches, in spite of my rheumatism, to get back what they took from me!"

"Then," said I, "the rooms are empty?"

"Yes, and the stable, too, with the hayloft. But why do you ask me that?"

"Because I have come to hire them."

"You!" cried he, in amazement. "Then you are not going to stay at the forest house?"

"No, the Prussians have turned me out."

"Turned you out! And why?"

"Because I did not choose to serve under the Germans."

Then Ykel appeared touched; his long hooked nose curved itself over his mouth, and, in a grave voice, he said:

"I always thought you were an honest man. You were a little severe in the service, but you were always just; no one has ever been able to say anything to the contrary."