The Downfall | Page 7

that pervaded the air about them, spread from man to man and became each minute more tense and unendurable.
Maurice was just then saying to Weiss:
"Ah! we have certainly given them a righteous good drubbing to-day."
Weiss made no reply save to nod his head with an air of anxiety. His gaze was directed toward the Rhine, on that Orient region where now the night had settled down in earnest, like a wall of blackness, concealing strange forms and shapes of mystery. The concluding strains of the bugles for roll-call had been succeeded by a deep silence, which had descended upon the drowsy camp and was only broken now and then by the steps and voices of some wakeful soldiers. A light had been lit--it looked like a twinkling star--in the main room of the farmhouse where the staff, which is supposed never to sleep, was awaiting the telegrams that came in occasionally, though as yet they were undecided. And the green wood fire, now finally left to itself, was still emitting its funereal wreaths of dense black smoke, which drifted in the gentle breeze over the unsleeping farmhouse, obscuring the early stars in the heavens above.
"A drubbing!" Weiss at last replied, "God grant it may be so!"
Jean, still seated a few steps away, pricked up his ears, while Lieutenant Rochas, noticing that the wish was attended by a doubt, stopped to listen.
"What!" Maurice rejoined, "have you not confidence? can you believe that defeat is possible?"
His brother-in-law silenced him with a gesture; his hands were trembling with agitation, his kindly pleasant face was pale and bore an expression of deep distress.
"Defeat, ah! Heaven preserve us from that! You know that I was born in this country; my grandfather and grandmother were murdered by the Cossacks in 1814, and whenever I think of invasion it makes me clench my fist and grit my teeth; I could go through fire and flood, like a trooper, in my shirt sleeves! Defeat--no, no! I cannot, I will not believe it possible."
He became calmer, allowing his arms to fall by his side in discouragement.
"But my mind is not easy, do you see. I know Alsace; I was born there; I am just off a business trip through the country, and we civilians have opportunities of seeing many things that the generals persist in ignoring, although they have them thrust beneath their very eyes. Ah, we wanted war with Prussia as badly as anyone; for a long, long time we have been waiting patiently for a chance to pay off old scores, but that did not prevent us from being on neighborly terms with the people in Baden and Bavaria; every one of us, almost, has friends or relatives across the Rhine. It was our belief that they felt like us and would not be sorry to humble the intolerable insolence of the Prussians. And now, after our long period of uncomplaining expectation, for the past two weeks we have seen things going from bad to worse, and it vexes and terrifies us. Since the declaration of war the enemy's horse have been suffered to come among us, terrorizing the villages, reconnoitering the country, cutting the telegraph wires. Baden and Bavaria are rising; immense bodies of troops are being concentrated in the Palatinate; information reaches us from every quarter, from the great fairs and markets, that our frontier is threatened, and when the citizens, the mayors of the communes, take the alarm at last and hurry off to tell your officers what they know, those gentlemen shrug their shoulders and reply: Those things spring from the imagination of cowards; there is no enemy near here. And when there is not an hour to lose, days and days are wasted. What are they waiting for? To give the whole German nation time to concentrate on the other bank of the river?"
His words were uttered in a low, mournful, voice, as if he were reciting to himself a story that had long occupied his thoughts.
"Ah! Germany, I know her too well; and the terrible part of the business is that you soldiers seem to know no more about her than you do about China. You must remember my cousin Gunther, Maurice, the young man, who came to pay me a flying visit at Sedan last spring. His mother is a sister of my mother, and married a Berliner; the young man is a German out and out; he detests everything French. He is a captain in the 5th Prussian corps. I accompanied him to the railway station that night, and he said to me in his sharp, peremptory way: 'If France declares war on us, she will be soundly whipped!' I can hear his words ringing in my ears yet."
Forthwith, Lieutenant Rochas, who had managed to contain himself until then,