Part 4

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]

* * * * *

[Picture: Goudeloup’s derelict farm]

* * * * *

[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]

* * * * *

[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]

* * * * *

[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]

* * * * *

[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]

* * * * *

[Picture: “—it was a balloon.”]

* * * * *

[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]

* * * * *

[Picture: A roadside cross]

_December_ 9_th_.