Complete Works of Emile Zola (1186 page)

“It’s too bad!” grumbled Laurent; “just when everything was going so beautifully!”

But suddenly Weiss was struck with an idea.

“Wait!”

He had thought of the dead soldier up in the garret above, and climbed up the ladder to search for the cartridges he must have about him. A wide space of the roof had been crushed in; he saw the blue sky, a patch of bright, wholesome light that made him start. Not wishing to be killed, he crawled over the floor on his hands and knees, then, when he had the cartridges in his possession, some thirty of them, he made haste down again as fast his legs could carry him.

Downstairs, as he was sharing his newly acquired treasure with the gardener’s lad, a soldier uttered a piercing cry and sank to his knees. They were but seven; and presently they were but six, a bullet having entered the corporal’s head at the eye and lodged in the brain.

From that time on, Weiss had no distinct consciousness of what was going on around him; he and the five others continued to blaze away like lunatics, expending their cartridges, with not the faintest idea in their heads that there could be such a thing as surrender. In the three small rooms the floor was strewn with fragments of the broken furniture. Ingress and egress were barred by the corpses that lay before the doors; in one corner a wounded man kept up a pitiful wail that was frightful to hear. Every inch of the floor was slippery with blood; a thin stream of blood from the attic was crawling lazily down the stairs. And the air was scarce respirable, an air thick and hot with sulphurous fumes, heavy with smoke, filled with an acrid, nauseating dust; a darkness dense as that of night, through which darted the red flame-tongues of the musketry.

“By God’s thunder!” cried Weiss, “they are bringing up artillery!”

It was true. Despairing of ever reducing that handful of madmen, who had consumed so much of their time, the Bavarians had run up a gun to the corner of the Place de l’Eglise, and were putting it into position; perhaps they would be allowed to pass when they should have knocked the house to pieces with their solid shot. And the honor there was to them in the proceeding, the gun trained on them down there in the square, excited the bitter merriment of the besieged; the utmost intensity of scorn was in their gibes. Ah! the cowardly
bougres
, with their artillery! Kneeling in his old place still, Laurent carefully adjusted his aim and each time picked off a gunner, so that the service of the piece became impossible, and it was five or six minutes before they fired their first shot. It ranged high, moreover, and only clipped away a bit of the roof.

But the end was now at hand. It was all in vain that they searched the dead men’s belts; there was not a single cartridge left. With vacillating steps and haggard faces the six groped around the room, seeking what heavy objects they might find to hurl from the windows upon their enemies. One of them showed himself at the casement, vociferating insults, and shaking his fist; instantly he was pierced by a dozen bullets; and there remained but five. What were they to do? go down and endeavor to make their escape by way of the garden and the meadows? The question was never answered, for at that moment a tumult arose below, a furious mob came tumbling up the stairs: it was the Bavarians, who had at last thought of turning the position by breaking down the back door and entering the house by that way. For a brief moment a terrible hand-to-hand conflict raged in the small rooms among the dead bodies and the debris of the furniture. One of the soldiers had his chest transfixed by a bayonet thrust, the two others were made prisoners, while the attitude of the lieutenant, who had given up the ghost, was that of one about to give an order, his mouth open, his arm raised aloft.

While these things were occurring an officer, a big, flaxen-haired man, carrying a revolver in his hand, whose bloodshot eyes seemed bursting from their sockets, had caught sight of Weiss and Laurent, both in their civilian attire; he roared at them in French:

“Who are you, you fellows? and what are you doing here?”

Then, glancing at their faces, black with powder-stains, he saw how matters stood, he heaped insult and abuse on them in guttural German, in a voice that shook with anger. Already he had raised his revolver and was about to send a bullet into their heads, when the soldiers of his command rushed in, seized Laurent and Weiss, and hustled them out to the staircase. The two men were borne along like straws upon a mill-race amidst that seething human torrent, under whose pressure they were hurled from out the door and sent staggering, stumbling across the street to the opposite wall amid a chorus of execration that drowned the sound of their officers’ voices. Then, for a space of two or three minutes, while the big fair-haired officer was endeavoring to extricate them in order to proceed with their execution, an opportunity was afforded them to raise themselves erect and look about them.

Other houses had taken fire; Bazeilles was now a roaring, blazing furnace. Flames had begun to appear at the tall windows of the church and were creeping upward toward the roof. Some soldiers who were driving a venerable lady from her home had compelled her to furnish the matches with which to fire her own beds and curtains. Lighted by blazing brands and fed by petroleum in floods, fires were rising and spreading in every quarter; it was no longer civilized warfare, but a conflict of savages, maddened by the long protracted strife, wreaking vengeance for their dead, their heaps of dead, upon whom they trod at every step they took. Yelling, shouting bands traversed the streets amid the scurrying smoke and falling cinders, swelling the hideous uproar into which entered sounds of every kind: shrieks, groans, the rattle of musketry, the crash of falling walls. Men could scarce see one another; great livid clouds drifted athwart the sun and obscured his light, bearing with them an intolerable stench of soot and blood, heavy with the abominations of the slaughter. In every quarter the work of death and destruction still went on: the human brute unchained, the imbecile wrath, the mad fury, of man devouring his brother man.

And Weiss beheld his house burn before his eyes. Some soldiers had applied the torch, others fed the flame by throwing upon it the fragments of the wrecked furniture. The
rez-de-chaussee
was quickly in a blaze, the smoke poured in dense black volumes from the wounds in the front and roof. But now the dyehouse adjoining was also on fire, and horrible to relate, the voice of little Charles, lying on his bed delirious with fever, could be heard through the crackling of the flames, beseeching his mother to bring him a draught of water, while the skirts of the wretched woman who, with her disfigured face, lay across the door-sill, were even then beginning to kindle.

“Mamma, mamma, I am thirsty! Mamma, bring me a drink of water—”

The weak, faint voice was drowned in the roar of the conflagration; the cheering of the victors rose on the air in the distance.

But rising above all other sounds, dominating the universal clamor, a terrible cry was heard. It was Henriette, who had reached the place at last, and now beheld her husband, backed up against the wall, facing a platoon of men who were loading their muskets.

She flew to him and threw her arms about his neck.

“My God! what is it! They cannot be going to kill you!”

Weiss looked at her with stupid, unseeing eyes. She! his wife, so long the object of his desire, so fondly idolized! A great shudder passed through his frame and he awoke to consciousness of his situation. What had he done? why had he remained there, firing at the enemy, instead of returning to her side, as he had promised he would do? It all flashed upon him now, as the darkness is illuminated by the lightning’s glare: he had wrecked their happiness, they were to be parted, forever parted. Then he noticed the blood upon her forehead.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. “You were mad to come—”

She interrupted him with an impatient gesture.

“Never mind me; it is a mere scratch. But you, you! why are you here? They shall not kill you; I will not suffer it!”

The officer, who was endeavoring to clear the road in order to give the firing party the requisite room, came up on hearing the sound of voices, and beholding a woman with her arms about the neck of one of his prisoners, exclaimed loudly in French:

“Come, come, none of this nonsense here! Whence come you? What is your business here?”

“Give me my husband.”

“What, is he your husband, that man? His sentence is pronounced; the law must take its course.”

“Give me my husband.”

“Come, be rational. Stand aside; we do not wish to harm you.”

“Give me my husband.”

Perceiving the futility of arguing with her, the officer was about to give orders to remove her forcibly from the doomed man’s arms when Laurent, who until then had maintained an impassive silence, ventured to interfere.

“See here, Captain, I am the man who killed so many of your men; go ahead and shoot me — that will be all right, especially as I have neither chick nor child in all the world. But this gentleman’s case is different; he is a married man, don’t you see. Come, now, let him go; then you can settle my business as soon as you choose.”

Beside himself with anger, the captain screamed:

“What is all this lingo? Are you trying to make game of me? Come, step out here, some one of you fellows, and take away this woman!”

He had to repeat his order in German, whereon a soldier came forward from the ranks, a short stocky Bavarian, with an enormous head surrounded by a bristling forest of red hair and beard, beneath which all that was to be seen were a pair of big blue eyes and a massive nose. He was besmeared with blood, a hideous spectacle, like nothing so much as some fierce, hairy denizen of the woods, emerging from his cavern and licking his chops, still red with the gore of the victims whose bones he has been crunching.

With a heart-rending cry Henriette repeated:

“Give me my husband, or let me die with him.”

This seemed to cause the cup of the officer’s exasperation to overrun; he thumped himself violently on the chest, declaring that he was no executioner, that he would rather die than harm a hair of an innocent head. There was nothing against her; he would cut off his right hand rather than do her an injury. And then he repeated his order that she be taken away.

As the Bavarian came up to carry out his instructions Henriette tightened her clasp on Weiss’s neck, throwing all her strength into her frantic embrace.

“Oh, my love! Keep me with you, I beseech you; let me die with you—”

Big tears were rolling down his cheeks as, without answering, he endeavored to loosen the convulsive clasp of the fingers of the poor creature he loved so dearly.

“You love me no longer, then, that you wish to die without me. Hold me, keep me, do not let them take me. They will weary at last, and will kill us together.”

He had loosened one of the little hands, and carried it to his lips and kissed it, working all the while to make the other release its hold.

“No, no, it shall not be! I will not leave thy bosom; they shall pierce my heart before reaching thine. I will not survive—”

But at last, after a long struggle, he held both the hands in his. Then he broke the silence that he had maintained until then, uttering one single word:

“Farewell, dear wife.”

And with his own hands he placed her in the arms of the Bavarian, who carried her away. She shrieked and struggled, while the soldier, probably with intent to soothe her, kept pouring in her ear an uninterrupted stream of words in unmelodious German. And, having freed her head, looking over the shoulder of the man, she beheld the end.

It lasted not five seconds. Weiss, whose eye-glass had slipped from its position in the agitation of their parting, quickly replaced it upon his nose, as if desirous to look death in the face. He stepped back and placed himself against the wall, and the face of the self-contained, strong young man, as he stood there in his tattered coat, was sublimely beautiful in its expression of tranquil courage. Laurent, who stood beside him, had thrust his hands deep down into his pockets. The cold cruelty of the proceeding disgusted him; it seemed to him that they could not be far removed from savagery who could thus slaughter men before the eyes of their wives. He drew himself up, looked them square in the face, and in a tone of deepest contempt expectorated:

“Dirty pigs!”

The officer raised his sword; the signal was succeeded by a crashing volley, and the two men sank to the ground, an inert mass, the gardener’s lad upon his face, the other, the accountant, upon his side, lengthwise of the wall. The frame of the latter, before he expired, contracted in a supreme convulsion, the eyelids quivered, the mouth opened as if he was about to speak. The officer came up and stirred him with his foot, to make sure that he was really dead.

Henriette had seen the whole: the fading eyes that sought her in death, the last struggle of the strong man in agony, the brutal boot spurning the corpse. And while the Bavarian still held her in his arms, conveying her further and further from the object of her love, she uttered no cry; she set her teeth, in silent fury, into what was nearest: a human hand, it chanced to be. The soldier gave vent to a howl of anguish and dashed her to the ground; raising his uninjured fist above her head he was on the point of braining her. And for a moment their faces were in contact; she experienced a feeling of intensest loathing for the monster, and that blood-stained hair and beard, those blue eyes, dilated and brimming with hate and rage, were destined to remain forever indelibly imprinted on her memory.

In after days Henriette could never account distinctly to herself for the time immediately succeeding these events. She had but one desire: to return to the spot where her loved one had died, take possession of his remains, and watch and weep over them; but, as in an evil dream, obstacles of every sort arose before her and barred the way. First a heavy infantry fire broke out afresh, and there was great activity among the German troops who were holding Bazeilles; it was due to the arrival of the infanterie de marine and other regiments that had been despatched from Balan to regain possession of the village, and the battle commenced to rage again with the utmost fury. The young woman, in company with a band of terrified citizens, was swept away to the left into a dark alley. The result of the conflict could not remain long doubtful, however; it was too late to reconquer the abandoned positions. For near half an hour the infantry struggled against superior numbers and faced death with splendid bravery, but the enemy’s strength was constantly increasing, their re-enforcements were pouring in from every direction, the roads, the meadows, the park of Montivilliers; no force at our command could have dislodged them from the position, so dearly bought, where they had left thousands of their bravest. Destruction and devastation now had done their work; the place was a shambles, disgraceful to humanity, where mangled forms lay scattered among smoking ruins, and poor Bazeilles, having drained the bitter cup, went up at last in smoke and flame.