what memories i have of those days of retreat and disaster. days when not only victory, but hope, also, hid her face! chance and destiny and logic were so many forces crushing us. everything was giving way. we suffered in every kind of way, from hunger, cold, heat, exhaustion, moral anguish, lack of news. virile busy days, when the plan of salvation germinated in the brain of our leaders, when the work of redemption was accomplished in silence in the heart of each man and the nation at large. days, i should weep not to have spent where i ought, as i ought!...
that afternoon, first of all, which we spent wandering in a forest. surrounded? we were not far from it. the men were well aware of the sentries posted everywhere, and the patrol parties sent out to investigate in every direction.
one scene stands out particularly clearly in my memory. those staff-officers we passed as i was going with my section to inspect a certain issue. the[pg 308] general seated on the edge of a slope with his head between his hands, his subordinates standing motionless a few steps away, respecting his meditation. a little farther on were the orderlies, holding their horses by their halters. an hour later as we were returning, we found them at the same place, and in the same attitudes, the general with his head still sunk in his hands, his aides-de-camp silently fixing their eyes on him.
a petrified tableau. so all these people expected nothing better than to have to give up their swords. i thought we were done for, but forced myself to distract the attention of my companions.
we afterwards learnt that during the twenty-four hours there, we had, in high places, been looked upon as taken, and coldly struck off the lists. we owed our escape solely to a company sergeant-major, a native of that part of the country, who, having made careful inquiries about the limits of the hostile advance, went, that evening, to find the general in charge of the division, and offered himself as guide.
it was our last chance. we followed him. the march lasted for three hours. only a small number of us discerned the tragic element floating about us. the men complained of the absence of halts. the strictest silence had been imposed upon us, we even had to hold the sheaths of our bayonets in our hands. at the most dangerous point some palavering in undertones, and obstreperous horse-play went on, a practical joke. the bosches no doubt were tired out; their sentries dead tired! a few shots cracked on our flanks. we reached cremilly. that apparently meant that we were saved.
for one day!
[pg 309]
that was only the mild beginning of our trials. after a morning's rest we started again, with a charitable warning that we should have to keep at it until nightfall. we had to keep at it all night too, and the next day.... a forced march of thirty hours, the stiffest in the campaign! i may mention further that we had not slept or had a bite of food since two days before.... a miracle of human endurance.
as long as it was light i vaguely noticed the road we covered. the noise of the firing was growing weaker. we were falling back on the meuse, as de valpic had predicted.
back there already! i lamented so much lost territory. this thought pained me. i looked with the aching heart with which one salutes abandoned patrimony, at these fields and valleys, these woods, which i examined with such a cold and detached gaze a few weeks ago. lorraine was actually becoming dear to me! i began to realise that each part of the world has its own particular character.... the tender green of these pastures which not even the ardour of a torrid summer had been able to alter! the calm and haughty harmony of this billowing ground.... i was seized with affection for this pensive and laborious race by whose property the whole of the french lineage is enriched. the names recurred to me of authors born in these parts, who wove their noble blossoms for our literary crown, of painters who had grown up and erected their easels here, attracted by the enchantment of the mist. and all that belonged there of our history: varennes, the flight of louis xvi., the romantic episode on the threshold of a troubled and magnificent epopee!... valmy, sedan close at hand! we were, as i[pg 310] have said, drawing near to the meuse. fifteen or twenty miles up-stream lay domrémy and vaucouleurs. were these hamlets full of sacred memories destined to crumble within a few days beneath the teuton howitzers?
and if we had to retreat still farther! my gaze took in the hills, and the expanse of pale sky. fortin's brutal warning recurred to my mind. "what they needed first was what remained to us of lorraine, champagne, and the franche-comté...."
my heart contracted. i murmured, "no, no!"
hours and hours passed by. the evening fell. there were no halts, or almost none. the night came down. we went on mechanically, hour after hour, bowed beneath our packs. no one stayed behind. guillaumin had spread the report that the uhlans, pushing on behind us, butchered all the stragglers—a superfluous intimidation. after three weeks of active service, those who had already fallen out eliminated, these classes of reserves contained nothing but unusually good soldiers ... no more sentiment or thought ... admirable beasts of burden. shall i say that we slept standing up? but i mean it quite literally. many of them i swear were snoring. every other minute one got one's neighbour's rifle in the shoulder or in the face: not that it woke one up for very long. it was astonishing that there were no serious accidents. had we crossed the meuse? were we continuing to skirt it? guillaumin was talking in his sleep. at one point he said to me:
"we're going through verdun, you see?"
i raised my heavy eyes and said:
"are you sure?"
[pg 311]
he made a movement with his head:
"look at these two-storied houses."
they were the trees bordering the road. i had not even the strength to smile. at dawn an artillery officer galloped along the column. he slowed down on a level with us and asked:
"have you seen him? my orderly! he must have fallen off his horse on to the road."
the men nudged and questioned each other. nobody, no. nobody had seen anything. we learnt, ten minutes later, that the man had just been picked up gasping and on the point of death, a kilometre behind us. the whole regiment had gone over his body without noticing it.
farther on—the longing to sleep had left me since it had grown light again—i witnessed a touching scene.
henriot looked me up and whispered:
"i say, we shall pass my home!"
i was interested.
"at génicourt?"
"yes, the village after this one."
we had just entered dieu. the lieutenant stayed beside me. when, on leaving the village, he saw that we were turning to the right, his face clouded over:
"what in the world are we going to do over there!"
we were crossing the river; we should leave génicourt on the left!
"do you think, do you think," he said, "that i might ask the captain...?"
ask what? for permission to go and kiss his mother.
"of course!" i said.
i never dreamt that it would be refused.
[pg 312]
he left me, but soon came back:
"the captain didn't want me to. he's quite right. quite right!"
but the most terrible misery was depicted on his face. he continued:
"and do you know. he assures me that it would have been no good, that the village must be evacuated because ... because it's on ... the right bank!"
he stopped at the side of the road.
"oh! dreher! i should never have thought that they would have left it, that they would...."
génicourt, his birthplace, devoted to ruin, to the worst ravages, to the fate of those wretched villages whose funeral pyres had blazed like beacons on the horizon, yesterday.
"come along, sir."
he followed me like a child, adding:
"you, you understand, don't you? you who are a lorrain too. the captain told me that over there in your direction, towards lunéville, we have had to retire too, and let them penetrate into our territory...."
it was a striking coincidence—that fact that he told me. i had had a presentiment of it. all night i had confusedly turned this apprehension over in my mind. eberménil. eberménil.
how often had i not repeated to myself that i felt no particular attachment to this hamlet where chance, and chance alone, had decreed that i was to be born! i had not set foot in it since i was ten years old. we only kept the estate out of affection for the past. why did i suddenly have a strikingly clear vision of the white house with green shutters, the big fir beneath whose shade the table was often laid? i called to mind other scenes. the little pond where we always[pg 313] tried to catch the gold fish—i had fallen in twice—the nursery where we fought with euréka pistols, the croquet lawn, where mother used to play with me against father and victor—victor! mother! o dear shades! yonder lay my childhood dead, with the vanished beings. this part of the world was for me a unique centre of emotions. i made a vow to go back there and soak myself with its melancholy and charm. but a cloud intervened. what if the old place had been sacked? perhaps the old fir-tree had fallen! revolted at the thought, i felt the shock of an individual rancour. my heart contracted. we should see!
