The Downfall | Page 2

Solferino had been so glad to
quit the service and cease endangering his own and other people's lives,
was again wearing the capote of the infantry man. But what is a man to
do, when he has neither trade nor calling, neither wife, house, nor home,
and his heart is heavy with mingled rage and sorrow? As well go and
have a shot at the enemy, if they come where they are not wanted. And
he remembered his old battle cry: Ah! _bon sang_! if he had no longer
heart for honest toil, he would go and defend her, his country, the old
land of France!
When Jean was on his legs he cast a look about the camp, where the
summons of the drums and bugles, taken up by one command after
another, produced a momentary bustle, the conclusion of the business
of the day. Some men were running to take their places in the ranks,
while others, already half asleep, arose and stretched their stiff limbs
with an air of exasperated weariness. He stood waiting patiently for

roll-call, with that cheerful imperturbability and determination to make
the best of everything that made him the good soldier that he was. His
comrades were accustomed to say of him that if he had only had
education he would have made his mark. He could just barely read and
write, and his aspirations did not rise even so high as to a sergeantcy.
Once a peasant, always a peasant.
But he found something to interest him in the fire of green wood that
was still smoldering and sending up dense volumes of smoke, and he
stepped up to speak to the two men who were busying themselves over
it, Loubet and Lapoulle, both members of his squad.
"Quit that! You are stifling the whole camp."
Loubet, a lean, active fellow and something of a wag, replied:
"It will burn, corporal; I assure you it will--why don't you blow, you!"
And by way of encouragement he bestowed a kick on Lapoulle, a
colossus of a man, who was on his knees puffing away with might and
main, his cheeks distended till they were like wine-skins, his face red
and swollen, and his eyes starting from their orbits and streaming with
tears. Two other men of the squad, Chouteau and Pache, the former
stretched at length upon his back like a man who appreciates the delight
of idleness, and the latter engrossed in the occupation of putting a patch
on his trousers, laughed long and loud at the ridiculous expression on
the face of their comrade, the brutish Lapoulle.
Jean did not interfere to check their merriment. Perhaps the time was at
hand when they would not have much occasion for laughter, and he,
with all his seriousness and his humdrum, literal way of taking things,
did not consider that it was part of his duty to be melancholy, preferring
rather to close his eyes or look the other way when his men were
enjoying themselves. But his attention was attracted to a second group
not far away, another soldier of his squad, Maurice Levasseur, who had
been conversing earnestly for near an hour with a civilian, a red-haired
gentleman who was apparently about thirty-six years old, with an
intelligent, honest face, illuminated by a pair of big protruding blue
eyes, evidently the eyes of a near-sighted man. They had been joined
by an artilleryman, a quartermaster-sergeant from the reserves, a
knowing, self-satisfied-looking person with brown mustache and
imperial, and the three stood talking like old friends, unmindful of what
was going on about them.

In the kindness of his heart, in order to save them a reprimand, if not
something worse, Jean stepped up to them and said:
"You had better be going, sir. It is past retreat, and if the lieutenant
should see you--" Maurice did not permit him to conclude his sentence:
"Stay where you are, Weiss," he said, and turning to the corporal, curtly
added: "This gentleman is my brother-in-law. He has a pass from the
colonel, who is acquainted with him."
What business had he to interfere with other people's affairs, that
peasant whose hands were still reeking of the manure-heap? He was a
lawyer, had been admitted to the bar the preceding autumn, had enlisted
as a volunteer and been received into the 106th without the formality of
passing through the recruiting station, thanks to the favor of the colonel;
it was true that he had condescended to carry a musket, but from the
very start he had been conscious of a feeling of aversion and rebellion
toward that ignorant clown under whose command he was.
"Very well," Jean tranquilly replied; "don't blame me if your friend
finds his way to the guardhouse."
Thereon he turned and went away,