Part 13

I wanted to thank him. "Good!" said he, "that is all understood. I cannot give you a pike, or a fat goose, but a good soup in blockade times is worth something, too."

He laughed and shook hands with me. As for myself I was quite overcome, and my eyes were full of tears.

"Let us go; good-night!" said he, as he led me to the door. "It will all come out right! Tell Madame Sorle that it will all come out right!"

I blessed that man as I went out, and I told it all to Sorle, who was still more affected by it than myself. We could not refuse; it was for the children! and during the last week there had been nothing but horse-meat in the market.

So the next morning we had fresh meat to make soup for those poor little ones. But the dreadful malady was already upon us, Fritz! Now, when I think of it, after all these years, I am quite overcome. However, I cannot complain; before going to take the bit of meat, I had consulted our old rabbi about the quality of this meat according to the law, and he had replied:

"The first law is to save Israel; but how can Israel be saved if the children perish?"

But after a while I remembered that other law:

"The life of the flesh is in the blood, therefore I said unto the children of Israel: Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eateth it shall be cut off; and whosoever eateth of any sick beast shall be unclean."

In my great misery the words of the Lord came to me, and I wept.

All these animals had been sick for six weeks; they lived in the mire, exposed to the snow and wind, between the arsenal and guard bastions.

The soldiers, almost all of whom were sons of peasants, ought to have known that they could not live in the open air, in such cold weather; a shelter could easily have been made. But when officers take the whole charge, nobody else thinks of anything; they even forget their own village trades. And if, unfortunately, their commanders do not give the order, nothing is done.

This is the reason that the animals had neither flesh nor fat; this is the reason that they were nothing but miserable, trembling carcasses, and their suffering, unhealthy flesh had become unclean, according to the law of God.

Many of the soldiers died. The wind brought to the city the bad air from the bodies, scattered by hundreds around the tile-kiln, the Ozillo farm, and in the gardens, and this also caused much sickness.

The justice of the Lord is shown in all things; when the living neglect their duties toward the dead, they perish.

I have often remembered these things when it was too late, so that I think of them only with grief.

XVIII

DEATH OF LITTLE DAVID

The most painful of all my recollections, Fritz, is the way in which that terrible disease came to our family.

On the twelfth of March we heard of a large number of men, women, and children who were dying. We dared not listen; we said:

"No one in our house is sick, the Lord watches over us!"

After David had come, after supper, to cuddle in my arms, with his little hand on my shoulder, I looked at him; he seemed very drowsy, but children are always sleepy at night. Esdras was already asleep, and Safel had just bidden us good-night.

At last Zeffen took the child, and we all went to bed.

That night the Russians did not fire; perhaps the typhus was among them, too. I do not know.

About midnight, when by God's goodness we were asleep, I heard a terrible cry.

I listened, and Sorle said to me:

"It is Zeffen!"

I rose at once, and tried to light the lamp; but I was so much agitated that I could not find anything.

Sorle struck a light, I drew on my pantaloons and ran to the door. But I was hardly in the passage-way when Zeffen came out of her room like an insane person, with her long black hair all loose.

"The child!" she screamed.

Sorle followed me. We went in, we leaned over the cradle. The two children seemed to be sleeping; Esdras all rosy, David as white as snow.

At first I saw nothing, I was so frightened, but at last I took up David to waken him; I shook him, and called, "David!"

And then we first saw that his eyes were open and fixed.

"Wake him! wake him!" cried Zeffen.

Sorle took my hands and said:

"Quick! make a fire! heat some water!"

And we laid him across the bed, shaking him and calling him by name. Little Esdras began to cry.

"Light a fire!" said Sorle again to me. "And, Zeffen, be quiet! It does no good to cry so! Quick, quick, a fire!"

But Zeffen cried out incessantly, "My poor child!"

"He will soon be warm again," said Sorle; "only, Moses, make haste and dress yourself, and run for Doctor Steinbrenner."

She was pale and more alarmed than we, but this brave woman never lost her presence of mind or her courage. She had made a fire, and the fagots were crackling in the chimney.

I ran to get my cloak, and went down, thinking to myself:

"The Lord have mercy upon us! If the child dies I shall not survive him! No, he is the one that I love best, I could not survive him!"

For you know, Fritz, that the child who is most unhappy, or in the greatest danger, is always the one that we love best; he needs us the most; we forget the others. The Lord has ordered it so, doubtless for the greatest good.

I was already running in the street.

A darker night was never known. The wind blew from the Rhine, the snow blew about like dust; here and there the lighted windows showed where people were watching the sick.

My head was uncovered, yet I did not feel the cold. I cried within myself:

"The last day had come! That day of which the Lord has said: 'Afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take away and cut down the branches."

Full of these fearful thoughts, I went across the large market-place, where the wind was tossing the old elms, full of frost.

As the clock struck one, I pushed open Doctor Steinbrenner's door; its large pulley rattled in the vestibule. As I was groping about, trying to find the railing, the servant appeared with a light at the top of the stairs.

"Who is there?" she asked, holding the lantern before her.

"Ah!" I replied, "tell the doctor to come immediately; we have a child sick, very sick."

I could not restrain my sobs.

"Come up, Monsieur Moses," said the girl: "the doctor has just come in, and has not gone to bed. Come up a moment and warm yourself!"

But Father Steinbrenner had heard it all.

"Very well, Theresa!" said he, coming out of his room; "keep the fire burning. I shall be back in an hour at latest."

He had already put on his large three-cornered cap, and his goat's-hair great-coat.

We walked across the square without speaking. I went first; in a few minutes we ascended our stairs.

Sorle had placed a candle at the top of the stairs; I took it and led M. Steinbrenner to the baby's room.

All seemed quiet as we entered. Zeffen was sitting in an arm-chair behind the door, with her head on her knees, and her shoulders uncovered; she was no longer crying but weeping. The child was in bed. Sorle, standing at its side, looked at us.

The doctor laid his cap on the bureau.

"It is too warm here," said he, "give us a little air."

Then he went to the bed. Zeffen had risen from her chair, as pale as death. The doctor took the lamp, and looked at our poor little David; he raised the coverlet and lifted out the little round limbs; he listened to the breathing. Esdras having begun to cry, he turned round and said: "Take the other child away from this room--we must be quiet! and besides, the air of a sick-room is not good for such small children."

He gave me a side look. I understood what he meant to say. It was the typhus! I looked at my wife; she understood it all.

I felt at that moment as if my heart were torn; I wanted to groan, but Zeffen was there leaning over, behind us, and I said nothing; nor did Sorle.

The doctor asked for paper to write a prescription, and we went out together. I led him to our room, and shut the door, and began to sob.

"Moses," said he, "you are a man, do not weep! Remember that you ought to set an example of courage to two poor women."

"Is there no hope?" I asked him in a low voice, afraid of being heard.

"It is the typhus!" said he. "We will do what we can. There, that is the prescription; go to Tribolin's; his boy is up at night now, and he will give you the medicine. Be quick! And then, in heaven's name, take the other child out of that room, and your daughter too, if possible. Try to find some one out of the family, accustomed to sickness; the typhus is contagious."

I said nothing.

He took his cap and went.

Now what can I say more? The typhus is a disease engendered by death itself; the prophet speaks of it, when he says:

"Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming!"

How many have I seen die of the typhus in our hospitals, on the Saverne hill, and elsewhere!

When men tear each other to pieces, without mercy, why should not death come to help them? But what had this poor babe done that it must die so soon? This, Fritz, is the most dreadful thing, that all must suffer for the crimes of a few. Yes, when I think that my child died of this pestilence, which war had brought from the heart of Russia to our homes, and which ravaged all Alsace and Lorraine for six months, instead of accusing God, as the impious do, I accuse men. Has not God given them reason? And when they do not use it--when they let themselves rage against each other like brutes--is He to blame for it?

But of what use are right ideas, when we are suffering!

I remember that the sickness lasted for six days, and those were the cruelest days of my life. I feared for my wife, for my daughter, for Safel, for Esdras. I sat in a corner, listening to the babe's breathing. Sometimes he seemed to breathe no longer. Then a chill passed over me; I went to him and listened. And when, by chance, Zeffen came, in spite of the doctor's prohibition, I went into a sort of fury; I pushed her out by the shoulders, trembling.

"But he is my child! He is my child!" she said.

"And art thou not my child too?" said I. "I do not want you all to die!"

Then I burst into tears, and fell into my chair, looking straight before me, my strength all gone; I was exhausted with grief.

Sorle came and went, with firm-closed lips; she prepared everything, and cared for everybody.

At that time musk was the remedy for typhus; the house was full of musk. Often the idea seized me that Esdras, too, was going to be sick. Ah, if having children is the greatest happiness in the world, what agony is it to see them suffer! How fearful to think of losing them!--to be there, to hear their labored breathing, their delirium, to watch their sinking from hour to hour, from minute to minute, and to exclaim from the depths of the soul:

"Death is near at hand! There is nothing, nothing more that can be done to save thee, my child! I cannot give thee my life! Death does not wish for it!"

What heart-rending and what anguish, till the last moment when all is over!

Then, Fritz, money, the blockade, the famine, the general desolation--all were forgotten. I hardly saw the sergeant open our door every morning, and look in, asking:

"Well, Father Moses, well?"

I did not know what he said; I paid no attention to him.

But, what I always think of with pleasure, what I am always proud of, is that, in the midst of all this trouble, when Sorle, Zeffen, myself, and everybody were beside ourselves, when we forgot all about our business, and let everything go, little Safel at once took charge of our shop. Every morning we heard him rise at six o'clock, go down, open, the warehouse, take up one or two pitchers of brandy, and begin to serve the customers.

No one had said a word to him about it, but Safel had a genius for trade. And if anything could console a father in such troubles, it would be to see himself, as it were, living over again in so young a child, and to say to himself: "At least the good race is not extinct; it still remains to preserve common-sense in the world." Yes, it is the only consolation which a man can have.

Our _schabesgoie_ did the work in the kitchen, and old Lanche helped us watch, but Safel took the charge of the shop; his mother and I thought of nothing but our little David.

He died in the night of the eighteenth of March, the day when the fire broke out in Captain Cabanier's house.

That same night two shells fell upon our house; the blindage made them roll into the court, where they both burst, shattering the laundry windows and demolishing the butcher's door, which fell down at once with a fearful crash.

It was the most powerful bombardment since the blockade began, for, as soon as the enemy saw the flame ascending, they fired from Mittelbronn, from the Barracks, and the Fiquet lowlands, to prevent its being extinguished.

I stayed all the while with Sorle, near the babe's bed, and the noise of the bursting shells did not disturb us.

The unhappy do not cling to life; and then the child was so sick! There were blue spots all over his body.

The end was drawing near.

I walked the room. Without they were crying "Fire! Fire!"

People passed in the street like a torrent. We heard those returning from the fire telling the news, the engines hurrying by, the soldiers ranging the crowd in the line, the shells bursting at the right and left.

Before our windows the long trails of red flame descended upon the roofs in front, and shattered the glass of the windows. Our cannon all around the city replied to the enemy. Now and then we heard the cry: "Room! Room!" as the wounded were carried away.

Twice some pickets came up into my room to put me in the line, but, on seeing me sitting with Sorle by our child, they went down again.

The first shell burst at our house about eleven o'clock, the second at four in the morning; everything shook, from the garret to the cellar; the floor, the bed, the furniture seemed to be upheaved; but, in our exhaustion and despair, we did not speak a single word.

Zeffen came running to us with Esdras and little Safel, at the first explosion. It was evident that little David was dying. Old Lanche and Sorle were sitting, sobbing. Zeffen began to cry.

I opened the windows wide, to admit the air, and the powder-smoke which covered the city came into the room.

Safel saw at once that the hour was at hand. I needed only to look at him, and he went out, and soon returned by a side street, notwithstanding the crowd, with Kalmes the chanter, who began to recite the prayer of the dying:

"The Lord reigneth! The Lord reigneth! The Lord shall reign everywhere and forever!

"Praise, everywhere and forever, the name of His glorious reign!

"The Lord is God! The Lord is God! The Lord is God!

"Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one God!

"Go, then, where the Lord calleth thee--go, and may His mercy help thee!

"May the Lord, our God, be with thee; may His immortal angels lead thee to heaven, and may the righteous be glad when the Lord shall receive thee into His bosom!

"God of mercy, receive this soul into the midst of eternal joys!"

Sorle and I repeated, weeping, those holy words. Zeffen lay as if dead, her arms extended across the bed, over the feet of her child. Her brother Safel stood behind her, weeping bitterly, and calling softly, "Zeffen! Zeffen!"

But she did not hear; her soul was lost in infinite sorrows.

Without, the cries of "Fire!" the orders for the engines, the tumult of the crowd, the rolling of the cannonade still continued; the flashes, one after another, lighted up the darkness.

What a night, Fritz! What a night!

Suddenly Safel, who was leaning over under the curtain, turned round to us in terror. My wife and I ran, and saw that the child was dead. We raised our hands, sobbing, to indicate it. The chanter ceased his psalm. Our David was dead!

The most terrible thing was the mother's cry! She lay, stretched out, as if she had fainted; but when the chanter leaned over and closed the lips, saying "_Amen!_" she rose, lifted the little one, looked at him, then, raising him above her head, began to run toward the door, crying out with a heart-rending voice:

"Baruch! Baruch! save our child!"

She was mad, Fritz! In this last terror I stopped her, and, by main force, took from her the little body which she was carrying away. And Sorle, throwing her arms round her, with ceaseless groanings, Mother Lanche, the chanter, Safel, all led her away.

I remained alone, and I heard them go down, leading away my daughter.

How can a man endure such sorrows?

I put David back in the bed and covered him, because of the open windows. I knew that he was dead, but it seemed to me as if he would be cold. I looked at him for a long time, so as to retain that beautiful face in my heart.

It was all heart-rending--all! I felt as if my bowels were torn from me, and in my madness I accused the Lord, and said:

"I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of Thy wrath. Surely against me is He turned. My flesh and my skin hath He made old: He hath broken my bones. He hath set me in dark places. Also when I cry and shout He shutteth out my prayer. He was unto me as a lion in secret places!"

Thus I walked about, groaning and even blaspheming. But God in His mercy forgave me; He knew that it was not myself that spoke, but my despair.

At last I sat down, the others came back. Sorle sat next to me in silence. Safel said to me:

"Zeffen has gone to the rabbi's with Esdras."

I covered my head without answering him.

Then some women came with old Lanche; I took Sorle by the hand, and we went into the large room, without speaking a word.

The mere sight of this room, where the two little brothers had played so long, made my tears come afresh, and Sorle, Safel, and I wept together. The house was full of people; it might have been eight o'clock, and they knew already that we had a child dead.

XIX

THE PASSOVER

Then, Fritz, the funeral rites began. All who died of typhus had to be buried the same day: Christians behind the church, and Jews in the trenches, in the place now occupied by the riding-school.

Old women were already there to wash the poor little body, and comb the hair, and cut the nails, according to the law of the Lord. Some of them sewed the winding-sheet.

The open windows admitted the air, the shutters struck against the walls. The _schamess_* went through the streets, striking the doors with his mace, to summon our brethren.

* Beadle.

Sorle sat upon the ground with her head veiled. Hearing Desmarets come up the stairs, I had courage to go and meet him, and show him the room. The poor angel was in his little shirt on the floor, the head raised a little on some straw, and the little _thaleth_ in his fingers. He was so beautiful, with his brown hair, and half-opened lips, that I thought as I looked at him: "The Lord wanted to have thee near his throne!"

And my tears fell silently: my beard was full of them.

Desmarets then took the measure and went. Half an hour afterward, he returned with the little pine coffin under his arm, and the house was filled anew with lamentations.

I could not see the coffin closed! I went and sat upon the sack of ashes, covering my face with both hands, and crying in my heart like Jacob, "Surely I shall go down to the grave with this child; I shall not survive him."

Only a very few of our brethren came, for a panic was in the city; men knew that the angel of death was passing by, and that drops of blood rained from his sword upon the houses; each emptied the water from his jug upon the threshold and entered quickly. But the best of them came silently, and as evening approached, it was necessary to go and descend by the postern.

I was the only one of our family. Sorle was not able to follow me, nor Zeffen. I was the only one to throw the shovelful of earth. My strength all left me, they had to lead me back to our door. The sergeant held me by the arm; he spoke to me and I did not hear him; I was as if dead.

All else that I remember of that dreadful day, is the moment when, having come into the house, sitting on the sack, before our cold hearth, with bare feet and bent head, and my soul in the depths, the _schamess_ came to me, touched my shoulder and made me rise; and then took his knife from his pocket and rent my garment, tearing it to the hip. This blow was the last and the most dreadful; I fell back, murmuring with Job:

"Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived! Let a cloud dwell upon it, let the blackness of the day terrify it! For mourning, the true mourning does not come down from the father to the child, but goes up from the child to the father. Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now I should have lain still in the tomb and been at rest!"

And my grief, Fritz, had no bounds; "What will Baruch say," I exclaimed, "and what shall I answer him when he asks me to give him back his child?"

I felt no longer any interest in our business. Zeffen lived with the old rabbi; her mother spent the days with her, to take care of Esdras and comfort her.

Every part of our house was opened; the _schabesgoie_ burned sugar and spices, and the air from without had free circulation. Safel went on selling.

As for myself, I sat before the hearth in the morning, cooked some potatoes, and ate them with a little salt, and then went out, without thought or aim. I wandered sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, toward the old gendarmerie, around the ramparts, in out-of-the-way places.

I could not bear to see any one, especially those who had known the child.

Then, Fritz, our miseries were at their height; famine, cold, all kinds of sufferings weighed upon the city; faces grew thin, and women and children were seen, half-naked and trembling, groping in the shadow in the deserted by-ways.

Ah! such miseries will never return! We have no more such abominable wars, lasting twenty years, when the highways looked like ruts, and the roads like streams of mud; when the ground remained untilled for want of husbandmen, when houses sank for want of inhabitants; when the poor went barefoot and the rich in wooden shoes, while the superior officers passed by on superb horses, looking down contemptuously on the whole human race.

We could not endure that now!

But at that time everything in the nation was destroyed and humiliated; the citizens and the people had nothing left; force was everything. If a man said, "But there is such a thing as justice, right, truth!" the way was to answer with a smile, "I do not understand you!" and you were taken for a man of sense and experience, who would make his way.

Then, in the midst of my sorrow, I saw these things without thinking about them; but since then, they have come back to me, and thousands of others; all the survivors of those days can remember them, too.

One morning, I was under the old market, looking at the wretches as they bought meat. At that time they knocked down the horses of Rouge-Colas and those of the gendarmes, as fleshless as the cattle in the trenches, and sold the meat at very high prices.

I looked at the swarms of wrinkled old women, of hollow-eyed citizens, all these wretched creatures crowding before Frantz Sepel's stall, while he distributed bits of carcass to them.

Frantz's large dogs were seen no longer prowling about the market, licking up the bloody scraps. The dried hands of old women were stretched out at the end of their fleshless arms, to snatch everything; weak voices called out entreatingly, "A little more liver, Monsieur Frantz, so that we can make merry!"