Everything gave way before him.Everything gave way before him.
Everything gave way before him.Everything gave way before him.
All this I saw—it seems graved with fire on my memory, but from that moment I can remember no more of the battle, for in that certainty of victory I lost consciousness and fell like a corpse in the midst of corpses.
When sense returned it was night and all was silent around. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and the moon shone down upon the abandoned village, the broken guns, and the pale upturned faces of the dead, as calmly as for ages she had looked on the flowing water, the waving grass, and the rustling leaves which fall in autumn. Men are but insects in the midst of creation; lives but drops in the ocean of eternity, and none so truly feel their insignificance as the dying.
I could not move from where I lay in the intensest pain. My right arm alone could I stir, and raising myself with difficulty upon my elbow, I saw the dead heaped along the street, their white faces shining like snow in the moonlight. The mouths and eyes of some were wide open, others lay on their faces, their knapsacks and cartridge-boxes on their backs and their hands grasping their muskets. The sight thrilled me with horror, and my teeth chattered.
I would have cried for help, but my voice was no louder than that of a sobbing child. But my feeble cry awoke others, and groans and shrieks arose on all sides. The wounded thought succor was coming, and all who could cried piteously. These cries lasted some time; then all was silent, and I only heard a horse neigh painfully on the other side of the hedge. The poor animal tried to rise, and I saw its head and long neck appear; then it fell again to the earth.
The effort I made reopened my wound, and again I felt the blood running down my arm. I closed my eyes to die, and the scenes of my early childhood, of my native village, the face of my poor mother as she sang me to sleep, my little room, with its alcove, our old dog Pommer with whom I used to play and roll over and over on the ground; my father as he came home gayly in the evening, his axe on his shoulder, and took me up in his strong arms to embrace me—all rose dreamily before me.
How little those parents thought that they were rearing their boy to die miserably far from friends, and home, and succor! How great would have been their desolation—what maledictions would they have poured on those who reduced him to such a state! Ah! if they were but there!—if I could have asked their forgiveness for all the pain I had given them! As these thoughts rushed over me the tears rolled down my cheeks; my heart heaved: I sobbed like a child.
Then Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and Monsieur Goulden passed before me. I saw their grief and fear when the news of the battle came. Aunt Grédel running to the post-office every day to learn something of me, and Catharine prayerfully awaiting her return, while Monsieur Goulden read in the gazette how the Third corps suffered more heavily than the others, as he paced the room with drooping head and at last sat dreamily at his work-bench. My heart was with them; it followed Aunt Grédel to the post-office, and returned with her all sadly to the village, and there it saw Catharine in her despairing grief.
Then the postman Roedig seemed to arrive at Quatre-Vents. He opened his leathern sack, and handed a large paper to Aunt Grédel, while Catharine stood pale as death beside her. It was the official notice of my death: I heard Catharine's heart-rending cries as she fell swooning to the ground, and Aunt Grédel's maledictions, as, with her gray hair streaming about her head, she cried that justice was no longer to be found—that it were better that we had never been born, since even God seemed to have abandoned us. Good Father Goulden came to console them, but could only sob too: all wept together in their desolation, crying:
"Joseph! Poor, poor Joseph!"
My heart seemed bursting.
The thought came that thirty or forty thousand families in France, in Russia, in Germany, were soon to receive the same news—news yet more terrible, for many of the wretches stretched on the battle-field had father and mother, and this was horrible to think of—it seemed as if a wail from all human kind were rising from earth to heaven.
Then I remembered those poor women of Phalsbourg, praying in the church when we heard of the retreat from Russia, and I understood how their hearts were torn. I thought that Catharine would soon go there, and year after year she would pray—thinking of me. Yes—for I knew we had loved each other from childhood, and that she could never forget me, and tear after tear coursed down my cheeks. This confidence soothed me in my grief—the certainty that she would preserve her love for me until age whitened her hair; that I should be ever before her eyes, and that she would never marry another.
Toward morning a shower began to fall, and the monotonous dropping on the roofs alone broke the silence. I thought of the good God, whose power and mercy are limitless, and I hoped that He would pardon my sins in consideration of my sufferings.
The rain filled the little trench in which I had been lying. From time to time a wall fell in the village, and the cattle, scared away by the battle, began to resume confidence and return. I heard a goat bleat in a neighboring stable. A great shepherd's dog wandered fearfully among the heaps of dead. The horse, seeing him, neighed in terror—he took him for a wolf—and the dog fled.
I remember all these details, for, when we are dying, we see everything, we hear everything, for we know that we are seeing and hearing our last.
But how my whole frame thrilled with joy when, at the corner of the street, I thought I heard the sound of voices! How eagerly I listened! And I raised myself upon my elbow, and called for help. It was yet night; but the first gray streak of day was becoming visible in the east, and afar off, through the falling rain, I saw a light in the fields, now coming onward, now stopping. I saw dark forms bending around it. They were only confused shadows. But others besides me saw the light; for on all sides arose groans and plaintive cries, from voices so feeble that they seemed like those of children calling their mothers.
What is this life to which we attach so great a price? This miserable existence, so full of pain and suffering? Why do we so cling to it, and fear more to lose it than aught else in the world? What is it that is to come hereafter that makes us shudder at the mere thought of death? Who knows? For ages and ages all have thought and thought on the great question, but none have yet solved it. I, in my eagerness to live, gazed on that light as the drowning man looks to the shore. I could not take my eyes from it, and my heart thrilled with hope. I tried again to shout, but my voice died on my lips. The pattering of the rain on the ruined dwellings, and on the trees, and on the ground, drowned all other sounds, and, although I kept repeating, "They hear us! They are coming!" and although the lantern seemed to grow larger and larger, after wandering for some time over the field, it slowly disappeared behind a little hill.
I fell once more senseless to the ground.
When I returned to myself, I looked around. I was in a long hall, with posts all around. Some one gave me wine and water to drink, and it was most grateful. I was in a bed, and beside me was an old gray-mustached soldier, who, when he saw my eyes open, lifted up my head and held a cup to my lips.
"Well," said he cheerfully, "well! we are better."
I could not help smiling as I thought that I was yet among the living. My chest and arm were stiff with bandages; I felt as if a hot iron were burning me there; but no matter, I lived!
I gazed at the heavy rafters crossing the space above me; at the tiles of the roof, through which the daylight entered in more than one spot; I turned and looked to the other side, and saw that I was in one of those vast sheds used by the brewers of the country as a shelter for their casks and wagons. All around, on mattresses and heaps of straw, numbers of wounded lay ranged; and in the middle, on a large kitchen-table, a surgeon-major and his two aids, their shirt-sleeves rolled up, were amputating the leg of a soldier, who was shrieking in agony. Behind them was a mass of legs and arms. I turned away sick and trembling.
Five or six soldiers were walking about, giving bread and drink to the wounded.
But the man who impressed himself most on my memory was a surgeon with sleeves rolled up, who cut and cut without paying the slightest attention to what was going on around; he was a man with a large nose and wrinkled cheeks, and every moment flew into a passion at his assistants, who could not give him his knives, pincers, lint, or linen fast enough, or who were not quick enough sponging up the blood.
Things went on quickly, however, for in less than a quarter of an hour he had cut off two legs.
Without, against the posts, was a large wagon full of straw.
They had just laid out on the table a Russian carbineer, six feet in height at least; a ball had pierced his neck near the ear, and while the surgeon was asking for his little knives, a cavalry surgeon passed before the shed. He was short, stout, and badly pitted with the small-pox, and held a portfolio under his arm.
"Ha! Forel!" cried he, cheerfully.
"It is Duchêne," said our surgeon, turning around. "How many wounded?"
"Seventeen to eighteen thousand."
"Aha! Well, how goes it this morning?"
"Passably—I am looking for a tavern."
Our surgeon left the shed to chat with his comrade; they conversed quietly, while the assistants sat down to drink a cup of wine, and the Russian rolled his eyes despairingly.
"See, Duchêne; you have only to go down the street, opposite that well, do you see?"
"Very well indeed."
"Just opposite you will see the canteen."
"Very good; thank you; I am off."
He started, and our surgeon called after him:
"A good appetite to you, Duchêne!"
Then he returned to his Russian, whose neck he laid open. He worked ill-humoredly, constantly scolding his aids.
"Be quick!" he said, "be quick!"
The Russian writhed and groaned, but he paid no attention to that, and at last, throwing the bullet upon the ground, he bandaged up the wound, and cried, "Carry him off!"
They lifted the Russian from the table, and stretched him on a mattress beside the others; then they laid his neighbor upon the table.
I could not think that such horrors took place in the world; but I was yet to see worse than this.
At five or six beds from mine sat an old corporal with his leg bound up. He closed one eye knowingly, and said to his neighbor, whose arm had just been cut off:
"Conscript, look at that heap! I will bet that you cannot recognize your arm."
The other, who had hitherto shown the greatest courage, looked, and fell back senseless.
Then the corporal began laughing, saying:
"He has recognized it. It is the lower one, with the little blue flower. It always produces that effect."
He looked around self-approvingly, but no one laughed with him.
Every moment the wounded called for water.
"Drink! Drink!"
When one began, all followed, and the old soldier had certainly conceived a liking for me, for each time he passed, he presented the cup.
I did not remain in the shed more than an hour. A dozen ambulances drew up before the door, and the peasants of the country round, in their velvet jackets, and large black slouched hats, their whips on their shoulders, held the horses by the reins. A picket of hussars arrived soon after, and their officer dismounting, entered and said:
"Excuse me, major, but here is an order to escort twelve wagons of wounded as far as Lutzen. Is it here that we are to receive them?"
"Yes, it is here," replied the surgeon.
The peasants and the ambulance-drivers, after giving us a last draught of wine, began carrying us to the wagons. As one was filled, it departed, and another advanced. I was in the third, seated on the straw, in the front row, beside a conscript of the Twenty-seventh, who had lost his right hand; behind was another who had lost a leg; then came one whose head was laid open, and another whose jaw was broken; so was the wagon filled.
They had given us our great-coats; but despite them and the sun, which was shining brightly, we shivered with cold, and left only our noses and forage-caps, or linen bandages on the splints visible. No one spoke; each was too much occupied thinking of himself.
At moments I was terribly cold; then flashes of heat would dart through me, and flush me as in a fever; and indeed it was the beginning of the fever. But as we left Kaya, I was yet well; I saw everything clearly, and it was not until we neared Leipzig that I felt indeed sick.
At last we were all placed in the wagons, and arranged according to our condition—those able to sit up, in the first that set out, the others stretched in the last, and we started. The hussars rode beside us, smoking and chatting, paying no attention to us.
In passing through Kaya, I saw all the horrors of war. The village was but a mass of cinders; the roofs had fallen, and the walls alone remained standing; the rafters were broken; we could see the remnants of rooms, stairs, and doors heaped within. The poor villagers, women, children, and old men, came and went with sorrowful faces. We could see them going up and down in their houses, as if they were in cages in the open air; and in one we saw a mirror and an evergreen branch, showing where dwelt a young girl in time of peace.
Ah! who could foresee that their happiness would so soon be destroyed, not by the fury of the winds or the wrath of heaven, but by the rage of man!
Even the cattle and pigeons seemed seeking their lost homes among the ruins; the oxen and the goats, scattered through the streets, lowed and bleated plaintively. Fowls were roosting upon the trees, and everywhere, everywhere we saw the traces of cannon-balls.
At the last house an old man with flowing white hair, sat at the threshold of what had been his cottage, with a child upon his knees, glaring on us as we passed. "Did he see us?" I do not know. His furrowed brow and stony eyes spoke of despair. How many years of labor, of patient economy, of suffering, had he passed to make sure a quiet old age! Now all was crushed, ruined; the child and he had no longer a roof to cover their heads.
And those great trenches—fully a mile of them—at which the country people were working in such haste, to keep the plague from completing the work war began! I saw them, too, from the top of the hill of Kaya, and turned away my eyes, horror-stricken. Russians, French, Prussians, were there heaped pell-mell, as if God had made them to love each other before the invention of arms and uniforms, which divide them for the profit of those who rule them. There they lay, side by side; and the part of them which could not die knew no more of war, but cursed the crimes that had for centuries kept them apart.
But what was sadder yet, was the long line of ambulances—bearing the agonized wounded—those of whom they speak so much in the bulletins to make the loss seem less, and who die by thousands in the hospitals, far from all they love; while at their homes cannon are firing, and church-bells are ringing with joyous chimes—rejoicing that thousands of men are slain!
At length we reach Lutzen, but it was so full of wounded that we were obliged to continue on to Leipzig. We saw in the streets only half-dead wretches, stretched on straw along the walls of the houses. It was more than an hour before we reached a church, where fifteen or twenty of us who could no longer proceed were left.
Our ambulance conductor and his men, after refreshing themselves at a tavern at the street corner, remounted, and we continued our journey to Leipzig.
I saw and heard no more; my head swam; a murmuring filled my ears, I thought trees were men, and an intolerable thirst burned my lips.
For a long while past, many in the wagons had been shrieking, calling upon their mothers, trying to rise and fling themselves upon the road. I know not whether I did the same; but I awoke as from a horrible dream, as two men seized me, each by a leg, placing their arms under my body, and carried me through a dark square. The sky seemed covered with stars, and innumerable lights shone from an immense edifice before us. It was the hospital of the market-place at Leipzig.
The two men who were carrying me ascended a spiral stairway which led to an immense hall where beds were laid together in three lines, so close that they touched each other. On one of these beds I was placed, in the midst of oaths, cries for pity, and muttered complaints from hundreds of fever-stricken wounded. The windows were open, and the flames of the lanterns flickered in the gusts of wind. Surgeons, assistants, and nurses with great aprons tied beneath their arms, came and went, while the groans from the halls below, and the rolling of ambulances, cracking of whips and neighing of horses without, seemed to pierce my very brain. While they were undressing me, they handled me roughly, and my wound pained me so horribly that I could not avoid shrieking. A surgeon came up at once, and scolded them for not being more careful. That is all I remember that night; for I became delirious, and raved constantly of Catharine, Monsieur Goulden, and Aunt Grédel, as my neighbor, an old artilleryman, whom my cries prevented from sleeping, afterward told me. I awoke the next morning at about eight o'clock, at the first roll of the drum, and saw the hall better, and then learned that I had the bone of my left shoulder broken. A dozen surgeons were around me; one of them, a stout, dark man, whom they called Monsieur the Baron, was opening my bandages, while an assistant at the foot of the bed held a basin of warm water. The baron examined my wound; all the others bent forward to hear what he might say. He spoke a few moments, but all that I could understand was, that the ball had struck from below, breaking the bone and passing out behind. I saw that he knew his business well, for the Prussians had fired from below, over the garden wall, so that the ball must have ranged upward. He washed the wound himself, and with a couple of turns of his hand, replaced the bandage, so that my shoulder could not move, and everything was in order.
I felt much better. Ten minutes after a hospital steward put a shirt on me without hurting me—such was his skill.
The surgeon, passing to another bed, cried:
"What! You here again, old fellow?"
"Yes; it is I, Monsieur the Baron," replied the artilleryman, proud to be recognized; "the first time was at Austerlitz, the second at Jena, and then I received two thrusts of a lance at Smolensk."
"Yes, yes," said the surgeon kindly; "and now what is the matter with you?"
"Three sabre-cuts on my left arm while I was defending my piece from the Prussian hussars."
The surgeon unwound the bandage, and asked,
"Have you the cross?"
"No, Monsieur the Baron."
"What is your name?"
"Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse artillery."
"Very good!"
He dressed the wounds, and went to the next, saying:
"You will soon be well."
He returned, chatting with the others, and went out after finishing his round and giving some orders to the nurses.
The old artilleryman's heart seemed overflowing with joy; and, as I concluded from his name that he came from Alsace, I spoke to him in our language, at which he was still more rejoiced. He was a tall fellow—at least six feet in height, with round shoulders, a flat forehead, large nose, light red mustaches, and was as hard as a rock, but a good man for all that. His eyes twinkled when I spoke Alsatian to him, and he pricked up his ears at once. If I asked him in our tongue he was willing to give me everything he had, but he had only a clasp of the hand, which cracked the bones in mine to give. He called meJosephel, as they did at home, and said:
"Josephel, be careful how you swallow the medicines they give you, only take what you know. All that does not smell good is good for nothing. If they would give us a bottle ofRikevirevery day we would soon be well; but it is easier to spoil our digestion with a handful of vile boiled herbs, than to bring us a little of the good white wine of Alsace."
When I told him I was afraid of dying of the fever, he looked angry with his great gray eyes, and said:
"Josephel, you are a fool. Do you think that such tall fellows as you and I were born to die in a hospital? No, no; drive the idea from your head."
But he spoke in vain, for every morning the surgeons, making their rounds, found seven or eight dead. Some died in fevers, some in deadly chill; so that heat or cold might be the presage of death.
Zimmer said that all this proceeded from the evil drugs which the doctors invented. "Do you see that tall, thin fellow?" he asked. "Well, that man can boast of having killed more men than a field-piece; he is always primed, with his match lighted; and that little brown fellow—I would send him instead of the Emperor to the Russians and Prussians; he would kill more of them than a whole army corps."
He would have made me laugh with his jokes if the litters had not been constantly passing.
At the end of three weeks my shoulder began to heal, and Zimmer's wounds were also doing well. They gave us every morning some good boiled beef which warmed our hearts, and in the evening a little beef with half a glass of wine, the sight alone of which rejoiced us and made the future look hopeful.
About this time, too, they allowed us to walk in the large garden, full of elms, behind the hospital. There were benches under the trees, and we walked the paths like millionnaires in our gray great-coats and forage-caps. The weather was magnificent; and we could see far along the poplar bordered Partha. This river falls into the Elster, on the left, forming a long blue line. On the same side stretches a forest of beech trees, and in front are three or four great white roads, which cross fields of wheat, barley and hay, and hop plantations; no sight could be pleasanter, or richer, especially when the breeze falls upon it and these harvests rise and fall in the sunlight like waves of the sea. The increasing heat presaged a fine year and often, when looking at the beautiful scenery around, I thought of Phalsbourg, and the tears came to my eyes.
"I would like to know what makes you cry so, Josephel," said Zimmer. "Instead of catching a fever in the hospital, or losing a leg or arm, like hundreds of others, here we are quietly seated in the shade; we are well fed, and can smoke when we have any tobacco; and still you cry. What more do you want, Josephel?"
Then I told him of Catharine; of our walks at Quatre-Vents; of our promises; of all my former life, which then seemed a dream. He listened, smoking his pipe.
"Yes, yes," said he; "all this is very sad. Before the conscription of 1798, I too was going to marry a girl of our village, who was named Margrédel, and whom I loved better than all the world beside. We had promised to marry each other, and all through the campaign of Zurich, I never passed a day without thinking of her. But when I first received a furlough and reached home, what did I hear? Margrédel had been three months married to a shoemaker, named Passauf."
"You may imagine my wrath, Josephel; I could not see clearly; I wanted to demolish everything; and, as they told me that Passauf was at theGrand-Cerfbrewery, thither I started, looking neither to the right nor left. There I saw him drinking with three or four rogues. As I rushed forward, he cried, 'There comes Christian Zimmer! How goes it, Christian? Margrédel sends you her compliments.' He winked his eye. I seized a glass, which I hurled at his head, and broke to pieces, saying, 'Give her that for my wedding present, you beggar!' The others, seeing their friend thus maltreated, very naturally fell upon me. I knocked two or three of them over with a jug, jumped on a table, sprang through a window, and beat a retreat.
"'It was time,' I thought.
"But that was not all," he continued; "I had scarcely reached my mother's when the gendarmerie arrived, and they arrested me. They put me on a wagon and conducted me from brigade to brigade until we reached my regiment, which was at Strasbourg. I remained six weeks at Finckmatt, and would probably have received the ball and chain, if we had not had to cross the Rhine to Hohenlinden.
"The Commandant Courtaud himself said to me:
"'You can boast of striking a hard blow, but if you happen again to knock people over with jugs, it will not be well for you—I warn you. Is that any way to fight, animal? Why do we wear sabres, if not to use them and do our country honor?'
"I had no reply to make.
"From that day, Josephel, the thought of marriage never troubled me. Don't talk to me of a soldier who has a wife to think of. Look at our generals who are married, do they fight as they used to? No, they have but one idea, and that is to increase their store and to profit by their wealth by living well with their duchesses and little dukes at home. My grandfather Yéri, the forester, always said that a good hound should be lean, and I think the same of good generals and good soldiers. The poor fellows are always in working order, but our generals grow fat from their good dinners at home."
So spoke my friend Zimmer in the honesty of his heart, and all this did not lessen my sadness.
As soon as I could sit up, I hastened to inform Monsieur Goulden, by letter, that I was in the hospital of Halle, in one of the five buildings of Leipzig, slightly wounded in the arm, but that he need fear nothing for me, for I was growing better and better. I asked him to show my letter to Catharine and Aunt Grédel to comfort them in the midst of such fearful war. I told him, too, that my greatest happiness would be to receive news from home and of the health of all whom I loved.
From that moment I had no rest; every morning I expected an answer, and to see the postmaster distribute twenty or thirty letters in our ward, without my receiving one, almost broke my heart; I hurried to the garden and wept. There was a little dark corner where they threw broken pottery—a place buried in shade, which pleased me much, because no one ever came there—there I passed my time dreaming on an old moss-covered bench. Evil thoughts crossed my brain—I almost believed that Catharine could forget her promises, and I muttered to myself, "Ah! if you had not been picked up at Kaya! All would then have been ended! Why were you not abandoned? Better to have been, than to suffer thus!"
To such a pass did I finally arrive, that I no longer wished to recover, when one morning the letter-carrier, among other names, called that of Joseph Bertha. I lifted my hand without being able to speak, and a large, square letter, covered with innumerable post-marks, was handed me. I recognized Monsieur Goulden's handwriting, and turned pale.
"Well," said Zimmer, laughing, "it is come at last."
I did not answer, but thrust the letter in my pocket, to read it at leisure and alone. I went to the end of the garden and opened it. Two or three apple-blossoms dropped upon the ground, with an order for money, on which Monsieur Goulden had written a few words. But what touched me most was the handwriting of Catharine, which I gazed at without reading a word, while my heart beat as if about to burst through my bosom.
At last I grew a little calmer and read the letter slowly, stopping from time to time to make sure that I made no mistake—that it was indeed my dear Catharine who wrote, and that I was not in a dream.
I have kept that letter, because it brought, so to speak, life back to me. Here it is as I received it on the eighth day of June, 1813:
"MY DEAR JOSEPH:—I write you to tell you I yet love you alone, and that, day by day, I love you more.
"My greatest grief is to know that you are wounded, in a hospital, and that I cannot take care of you. Since the conscripts departed, we have not had a moment's peace of mind. My mother says I am silly to weep night and day, but she weeps as much as I, and her wrath falls heavily on Pinacle, who dared not come to the market-place, because she carried a hammer in her basket.
"But our greatest grief was when we heard that the battle had taken place, and that thousands of men had fallen; mother ran every morning to the post-office, while I could not move from the house. At last your letter came, thank heaven! to cheer us. Now I am better, for I can weep at my ease, thanking God that He has saved your life.
"And when I think how happy we used to be, Joseph—when you came every Sunday, and we sat side by side without stirring and thought of nothing! Ah! we did not know how happy we were; we knew not what might happen—but God's will be done. If you only recover! if we may only hope to be once again as happy as we were!
"Many people talk of peace, but the Emperor so loves war, that I fear it is far off.
"What pleases me most is to know that your wound is not dangerous, and that you still love me. Ah! Joseph, I will love you forever—that is all I can say. I can say it from the bottom of my heart; and I know my mother loves you too!
"Now, Monsieur Goulden wishes to say a few words to you, so I will close. The weather is beautiful here, and the great apple-tree in the garden is full of flowers; I have plucked a few, which I shall put in this letter when M. Goulden has written. Perhaps with God's blessing we shall yet eat together one of those large apples. Embrace me as I embrace you, Joseph, Farewell! Farewell!"
As I finished reading this, Zimmer arrived, and in my joy, I said:
"Sit down, Zimmer, and I will read you my sweetheart's letter. You will see whether she is a Margrédel."
"Let me light my pipe first," he answered; and having done so, he added: "Go on, Josephel, but I warn you that I am an old bird, and do not believe all I hear; women are more cunning than we."
Notwithstanding this bit of philosophy, I read Catharine's letter slowly to him. When I had ended, he took it, and for a long time gazed at it dreamily, and then handed it back, saying:
"There! Josephel. Sheisa good girl, and a sensible one, and will never marry any one but you."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes; you may rely upon her; she will never marry a Passauf. I would rather distrust the Emperor than such a girl."
I could have embraced Zimmer for these words; but I said:
"I have received a bill for one hundred francs. Now for some white wine of Alsace. Let us try to get out."
"That is well thought of," said he, twisting his mustache and putting his pipe in his pocket. "I do not like to mope in a garden when there are taverns outside. We must get permission."
We arose joyfully and went to the hospital, when, the letter-carrier, coming out, stopped Zimmer, saying:
"Are you Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse artillery?"
"I have that honor, monsieur the carrier."
"Well, here is something for you," said the other, handing him a little package and a large letter.
Zimmer was stupefied, never having received anything from home or from anywhere else. He opened the packet—a box appeared—then the box—and saw the cross of honor. He became pale; his eyes filled with tears, he staggered against a balustrade, and then shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" in such tones that the three halls rang and rang again.
The carrier looked on smiling.
"You are satisfied," said he.
"Satisfied! I need but one thing more."
"And what is that?"
"Permission to go to the city."
"You must ask Monsieur Tardieu, the surgeon-in-chief."
He went away laughing, while we ascended arm-in-arm, to ask permission of the surgeon-major, an old man, who had heard the "Vive l'Empereur!" and demanded gravely:
"What is the matter?"
Zimmer showed his cross and replied:
"Pardon, major; but I am more than usually merry."
"I can easily believe you," said Monsieur Tardieu; "you want a pass to the city?"
"If you will be so good; for myself and my comrade, Joseph Bertha."
The surgeon had examined my wound the day before. He took out his portfolio and gave us passes. We left as proud as kings—Zimmer of his cross, I, of my letter.
Downstairs in the great vestibule the porter cried:
"Hold on there! Where are you going?"
Zimmer showed him our passes, and we sallied forth, glad to breathe the free air, without, once more. A sentinel showed us the post-office, where I was to receive my hundred francs.
Then, more gravely, for our joy had sunk deeper in our hearts, we reached the gate of Halle about two musket shots to the left, at the end of a long avenue of lindens. Each faubourg is separated from the old ramparts only by these avenues, and all around Leipzig passes another very wide one, also bordered with lindens. The ramparts are very old—such as we see at Saint Hippolyte, on the upper Rhine,—crumbling, grass-grown walls; at least such they are if the Germans have not repaired them since 1813.
How much were we to learn that day! At the hospital no one troubled himself about anything: when every morning you see fifty wounded come in, and when every evening you see as many depart upon the bier, you have the world before you in a narrow compass, and you think—
"After us comes the end of the universe!"
But without, these ideas change. When I caught the first glimpse of the street of Halle,—that old city with its shops, its gateways filled with merchandise, its old peaked roofs, its heavy wagons laden with bales, in a word, all its busy commercial life,—I was struck with wonder; I had never seen anything like it, and I said to myself:
"This is indeed a mercantile city, such as they talk of—full of industrious people trying to make a living, or competence, or wealth; where every one seeks to rise, not to the injury of others, but by working—contriving night and day how to make his family prosperous; so that all profit by inventions and discoveries. Here is the happiness of peace in the midst of a fearful war!"
But the poor wounded, wandering about with their arms in slings, or perhaps dragging a leg after them as they limped on crutches, were sad sights to see.
I walked dreamily through the streets, led by Zimmer, who recognized every corner, and kept repeating:
"There—there is the church of Saint Nicholas; that large building is the university: that on yonder is theHôtel de Ville."
He seemed to remember every stone, having been there in 1807, before the battle of Friedland, and continued:
"We are the same here as if we were in Metz, or Strasbourg, or any other city in France. The people wish us well. After the campaign of 1806, they used to do all they could for us. The citizens would take three or four of us at a time to dinner with them. They even gave us balls and called us the heroes of Jena. Go where we would they everywhere received us as benefactors of the country. We named their elector King of Saxony, and gave him a good slice of Poland."
Suddenly he stopped before a little, low door and cried:
"Hold! Here is the Golden Sheep Brewery. The front is on the other street, but we can enter here. Come!"
I followed him into a narrow, winding passage which led to an old court, surrounded by rubble walls, with little moss-covered galleries under the roof and a weathercock upon the peak, as in the Tanner's Lane in Strasbourg. To the right was the brewery, and in a corner a great wheel, turned by an enormous dog, which pumped the beer to every story of the house.
The clinking of glasses was heard coming from a room which opened on the Rue de Tilly, and under the windows of this was a deep cellar resounding with the cooper's hammer. The sweet smell of the new March beer filled the air, and Zimmer, with a look of satisfaction, cried:
"Yes, here I came six years ago with Ferré and stout Rousillon. How glad I am to see it all again, Josephel! It was six years ago. Poor Rousillon! he left his bones at Smolensk last year! and Ferré must now be at home in his village near Toul, for he lost his left leg at Wagram. How everything comes back as I think of it!"
At the same time he pushed open the door, and we entered a lofty hall, full of smoke. I saw, through the thick, gray atmosphere, a long row of tables, surrounded by men drinking—the greater number in short coats and little caps, the remainder in the Saxon uniform. The first were students, young men of family who came to Leipzig to study law, medicine, and all that can be learned by emptying glasses and leading a jolly life, which they callFuchs-commerce. They often fight among themselves with a sort of blade rounded at the point and only its tip sharpened, so that they slash their faces, as Zimmer told me, but life is never endangered. This shows the good sense of these students, who know very well that life is precious, and that one had better get five or six slashes, or even more, than lose it.
Zimmer laughed as he told me these things; his love of glory blinded him; he said they might as well load cannon with roasted apples, as fight with swords rounded at the point.
But we entered the hall, and we saw the oldest of the students—a tall withered-looking man with a red nose and long flaxen beard, stained with beer—standing upon a table, reading the gazette aloud which hung from his hand like an apron. He held the paper in one hand, and in the other a long porcelain pipe. His comrades, with their long, light hair falling upon their shoulders, were listening with the deepest interest; and as we entered, they shouted, "Vaterland! Vaterland!"
They touched glasses with the Saxon soldiers, while the tall student bent over to take up his glass, and the round, fat brewer cried:
"Gesundheit! Gesundheit!"
Scarcely had we made half a dozen steps toward them, when they became silent.
"Come, come, comrades!" cried Zimmer, "don't disturb yourselves. Go on reading. We do not object to hear the news."
But they did not seem inclined to profit by our invitation, and the reader descended from the table, folding up his paper, which he put in his pocket.
"We are done," said he, "we are done."
"Yes; we are done," repeated the others, looking at each other with a peculiar expression.
Two or three of the German soldiers rose and left the room, as if to take the air in the court. And the fat landlord said:
"You do not perhaps know that the large hall is on the Rue de Tilly?"
"Yes; we know it very well," replied Zimmer; "but I like this little hall better. Here I used to come, long ago, with two old comrades, to empty a few glasses in honor of Jena and Auerstadt. I know this room of old."
"Ah! as you please, as you please," returned the landlord. "Do you wish some March beer?"
"Yes; two glasses and the gazette."
"Very good."
The glasses were handed us, and Zimmer, who observed nothing, tried to open a conversation with the students; but they excused themselves, and, one after another, went out. I saw that they hated us, but dared not show it.
The gazette, which was from France, spoke of an armistice, after two new victories at Bautzen and Wurtschen. This armistice commenced on the sixth of June, and a conference was then being held at Prague, in Bohemia, to arrange on terms of peace. All this naturally gave me pleasure. I thought of again seeing home. But Zimmer, with his habit of thinking aloud, filled the hall with his reflections, and interrupted me at every line.
"An armistice!" he cried. "Do we want an armistice. After having beaten those Prussians and Russians at Lutzen, Bautzen and Wurtschen, ought we not to annihilate them? Would they give us an armistice if they had beaten us? There, Joseph, you see the Emperor's character—he is too good. It is his only fault. He did the same thing after Austerlitz, and he had to begin over again. I tell you, he is too good; and if he were not so, we should have been masters of Europe."
As he spoke, he looked around as if seeking assent; but the students scowled, and no one replied. At last Zimmer rose.
"Come, Joseph," said he; "I know nothing of politics, but I insist that we should give no armistice to those beggars. When they are down we should keep them there."
After we had paid our reckoning, and were once more in the street, he continued:
"I do not know what was the matter with those people to-day. We must have disturbed them in something."
"It is very possible," I replied. "They certainly did not seem like the good-natured folks you were speaking of."
"No," said he. "Those young fellows are far beneath the old students I have seen.Theypassed—I might say—their lives at the brewery. They drank twenty and sometimes thirty glasses a day; even I, Joseph, had no chance with such fellows. Five or six of them whom they called 'seniors' had gray beards and a venerable appearance. We sangFanfan la Tulipeand 'King Dagobert' together, which are not political songs, you know. But these fellows are good for nothing."
I knew afterward, that those students were members of theTugend-bund.
On returning to the hospital, after having had a good dinner and drank a bottle of wine apiece in the inn of La Grappe in the Rue de Tilly, we learned that we were to go, that same evening, to the barracks of Rosenthal—a sort of depot for wounded, near Lutzen, where the roll was called morning and evening, but where, at all other times, we were at liberty to do as we pleased. Every three days, the surgeon made his visit; as soon as one was well, he received his order to march to rejoin his corps.
One may imagine the condition of from twelve to fifteen hundred poor wretches clothed in gray great-coats with leaden buttons, shakos shaped like flower-pots, and shoes worn out by marches and counter-marches—pale, weak, most of them without a sou, in a rich city like Leipzig. We did not cut much of a figure among these students, these good citizens and smiling young women, who, despite our glory, looked on us as vagabonds.
All the fine stories of my comrade only made me feel my situation more bitterly.
It is true that we were formerly well received, but in those days our men did not always act honestly by those who treated them like brothers, and now doors were slammed in our faces. We were reduced to the necessity of contemplating squares, churches, and the outside of sausage-shops, which are there very handsome, from morning till night.
We tried every way of amusing ourselves; the idlers played atdrogue[1], the younger ones drank. We had also a game called "Cat and Rat," which we played in front of the barracks. A stake was planted in the ground, to which two cords were fastened; the rat held one of these, and the cat the other. Their eyes were bandaged. The cat was armed with a cudgel and tried to catch the rat, who kept out of the way as much as he could, listening for the cat's approach—thus they kept going around on tiptoe, and exhibiting their cunning to the company.