Complete Maupassant Original Short Stories | Page 9

giving thanks to God to the thunder of cannon--all these are
appalling scourges, which destroy all belief in eternal justice, all that
confidence we have been taught to feel in the protection of Heaven and
the reason of man.
Small detachments of soldiers knocked at each door, and then
disappeared within the houses; for the vanquished saw they would have
to be civil to their conquerors.
At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm was

again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same table
with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness,
expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to
take part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude;
besides, his protection might be needful some day or other. By the
exercise of tact the number of men quartered in one's house might be
reduced; and why should one provoke the hostility of a person on
whom one's whole welfare depended? Such conduct would savor less
of bravery than of fool- hardiness. And foolhardiness is no longer a
failing of the citizens of Rouen as it was in the days when their city
earned renown by its heroic defenses. Last of all-final argument based
on the national politeness- the folk of Rouen said to one another that it
was only right to be civil in one's own house, provided there was no
public exhibition of familiarity with the foreigner. Out of doors,
therefore, citizen and soldier did not know each other; but in the house
both chatted freely, and each evening the German remained a little
longer warming himself at the hospitable hearth.
Even the town itself resumed by degrees its ordinary aspect. The
French seldom walked abroad, but the streets swarmed with Prussian
soldiers. Moreover, the officers of the Blue Hussars, who arrogantly
dragged their instruments of death along the pavements, seemed to hold
the simple townsmen in but little more contempt than did the French
cavalry officers who had drunk at the same cafes the year before.
But there was something in the air, a something strange and subtle, an
intolerable foreign atmosphere like a penetrating odor--the odor of
invasion. It permeated dwellings and places of public resort, changed
the taste of food, made one imagine one's self in far-distant lands, amid
dangerous, barbaric tribes.
The conquerors exacted money, much money. The inhabitants paid
what was asked; they were rich. But, the wealthier a Norman tradesman
becomes, the more he suffers at having to part with anything that
belongs to him, at having to see any portion of his substance pass into
the hands of another.
Nevertheless, within six or seven miles of the town, along the course of

the river as it flows onward to Croisset, Dieppedalle and Biessart, boat-
men and fishermen often hauled to the surface of the water the body of
a German, bloated in his uniform, killed by a blow from knife or club,
his head crushed by a stone, or perchance pushed from some bridge
into the stream below. The mud of the river-bed swallowed up these
obscure acts of vengeance--savage, yet legitimate; these unrecorded
deeds of bravery; these silent attacks fraught with greater danger than
battles fought in broad day, and surrounded, moreover, with no halo of
romance. For hatred of the foreigner ever arms a few intrepid souls,
ready to die for an idea.
At last, as the invaders, though subjecting the town to the strictest
discipline, had not committed any of the deeds of horror with which
they had been credited while on their triumphal march, the people grew
bolder, and the necessities of business again animated the breasts of the
local merchants. Some of these had important commercial interests at
Havre- occupied at present by the French army--and wished to attempt
to reach that port by overland route to Dieppe, taking the boat from
there.
Through the influence of the German officers whose acquaintance they
had made, they obtained a permit to leave town from the general in
command.
A large four-horse coach having, therefore, been engaged for the
journey, and ten passengers having given in their names to the
proprietor, they decided to start on a certain Tuesday morning before
daybreak, to avoid attracting a crowd.
The ground had been frozen hard for some time-past, and about three
o'clock on Monday afternoon--large black clouds from the north shed
their burden of snow uninterruptedly all through that evening and night.
At half-past four in the morning the travellers met in the courtyard of
the Hotel de Normandie, where they were to take their seats in the
coach.
They were still half asleep, and shivering with cold under their wraps.

They could see one another but indistinctly in the darkness, and the
mountain of heavy