Mademoiselle Fifi | Page 9

the victors,
fearing lest they might consider as weapons their roasting spits or their
large kitchen knives.
Life seemed to be at a standstill; the shops were closed and the streets
silent and deserted. Sometimes a citizen, intimidated by this silence,
ran rapidly along the walls.
The anguish of suspense made the citizens desire the arrival of the
enemy.
In the afternoon of the day that followed the departure of the French
troops, a few Uhlans, coming from no one knew where, crossed the
City in a hurry. Then, a little later, a black mass came down the Ste.
Catherine Hill, while two other invading waves appeared on the
Darnetal and Boisguillame roads. The vanguards of the three corps
made their junction at precisely the same time in the Hotel de Ville
Square; and, by all the neighboring roads, the German Army was
arriving, rolling its battalions that made the pavements ring under their
heavy and well measured steps.
Orders shouted in an unknown and guttural voice, rose along the
houses which seemed dead and deserted, while behind the closed
shutters, eyes watched these victorious men, masters of the City, of
property and life by the right of war. The inhabitants, in their darkened
rooms, felt the bewilderment caused by cataclysms, the great bloody
upheavals of the earth against which all human wisdom and force are of
no avail. For the same feeling reappears whenever the established order
of things is upset, when security ceases to exist, when all that is
protected by the laws of men or those of protected nature, is at the
mercy of unreasoning and ferocious brutality. The earthquake crushing
a whole nation under crumbling houses; the overflowing river swirling
the bodies of drowned peasants along with the dead oxen and the
beams torn away from the roofs, or the glorious army massacring those

who defend themselves, taking away the others as prisoners, pillaging
in the name of the sword and offering thanks to God to the thunder of
the guns, are as many appalling scourges which disconcert any belief in
eternal justice, all the trust we were taught to place in the protection of
heaven and the reason of man.
Small detachments knocked at each door and then disappeared in the
houses. It was occupation after invasion. Now the vanquished had to
show themselves nice to their conquerors.
After a while, once the first terror had abated, a new tranquility settled
down. In many houses the Prussian Officer took his meals with the
family. Some were well bred, and out of politeness, showed sympathy
for France and spoke of their reluctance to participate in the war.
People were grateful for such sentiments; furthermore, they might have
needed their protection any day. By being nice to them they would
possibly have fewer men billeted to their houses. And why hurt the
feelings of a man who had full power over them? To act in that way
would be less bravery than temerity--and temerity is no longer a failing
of the citizens of Rouen, as in the days of heroic defense when their
City became famous. Last of all--supreme argument derived from
French urbanity--they said that they could allow themselves to be polite
in their own houses, provided they did not exhibit in public too much
familiarity with the foreign soldier. On the streets they passed each
other as strangers, but at home they willingly chatted, and every night
the German stayed up later and later, warming himself at the family
fire-place.
Even the City was gradually resuming some of its ordinary aspect. The
French were seldom seen promenading in the Streets, but Prussian
soldiers swarmed. Besides, the officers of the Blue Hussars, who
arrogantly rattled their big instruments of death on the pavements, did
not seem to have for the plain citizens enormously more contempt than
the officers of the French Chasseurs who, the year before, had been
drinking in the same Cafés.
There was, however, something in the air, something subtle and
unknown, an intolerable foreign atmosphere like an offensive odor--the

smell of invasion. It pervaded the houses and the public places,
changed the taste of food and made you feel as if you were traveling in
far distant lands, amid barbarians and dangerous tribes.
The conquerors exacted money, a great deal of money. The citizens
kept on paying; they could afford to pay, they were rich. But the more a
Norman businessman becomes opulent, the more he suffers when he
has to make any sacrifice, or sees any parcel of his property pass into
the hands of others.
And yet, within a distance of two or three leagues from the City, down
the river, in the direction of Croisset, Dieppendalle or Biessart,
boatmen and fishermen often hauled from the bottom of the water the
body of