The Downfall | Page 3

assured that Maurice had not been
lying, for the colonel, M. de Vineuil, with his commanding, high-bred
manner and thick white mustache bisecting his long yellow face,
passed by just then and saluted Weiss and the soldier with a smile. The
colonel pursued his way at a good round pace toward a farmhouse that
was visible off to the right among the plum trees, a few hundred feet
away, where the staff had taken up their quarters for the night. No one
could say whether the general commanding the 7th corps was there or
not; he was in deep affliction on account of the death of his brother,
slain in the action at Wissembourg. The brigadier, however,
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, in whose command the 106th was, was certain to
be there, brawling as loud as ever, and trundling his fat body about on
his short, pudgy legs, with his red nose and rubicund face, vouchers for
the good dinners he had eaten, and not likely ever to become top-heavy
by reason of excessive weight in his upper story. There was a stir and
movement about the farmhouse that seemed to be momentarily
increasing; couriers and orderlies were arriving and departing every
minute; they were awaiting there, with feverish anxiety of impatience,
the belated dispatches which should advise them of the result of the
battle that everyone, all that long August day, had felt to be imminent.

Where had it been fought? what had been the issue? As night closed in
and darkness shrouded the scene, a foreboding sense of calamity
seemed to settle down upon the orchard, upon the scattered stacks of
grain about the stables, and spread, and envelop them in waves of inky
blackness. It was said, also, that a Prussian spy had been caught
roaming about the camp, and that he had been taken to the house to be
examined by the general. Perhaps Colonel de Vineuil had received a
telegram of some kind, that he was in such great haste.
Meantime Maurice had resumed his conversation with his
brother-in-law Weiss and his cousin Honore Fouchard, the
quartermaster-sergeant. Retreat, commencing in the remote distance,
then gradually swelling in volume as it drew near with its blare and
rattle, reached them, passed them, and died away in the solemn stillness
of the twilight; they seemed to be quite unconscious of it. The young
man was grandson to a hero of the Grand Army, and had first seen the
light at Chene-Populeux, where his father, not caring to tread the path
of glory, had held an ill-paid position as collector of taxes. His mother,
a peasant, had died in giving him birth, him and his twin sister
Henriette, who at an early age had become a second mother to him, and
that he was now what he was, a private in the ranks, was owing entirely
to his own imprudence, the headlong dissipation of a weak and
enthusiastic nature, his money squandered and his substance wasted on
women, cards, the thousand follies of the all-devouring minotaur, Paris,
when he had concluded his law studies there and his relatives had
impoverished themselves to make a gentleman of him. His conduct had
brought his father to the grave; his sister, when he had stripped her of
her little all, had been so fortunate as to find a husband in that excellent
young fellow Weiss, who had long held the position of accountant in
the great sugar refinery at Chene-Populeux, and was now foreman for
M. Delaherche, one of the chief cloth manufacturers of Sedan. And
Maurice, always cheered and encouraged when he saw a prospect of
amendment in himself, and equally disheartened when his good
resolves failed him and he relapsed, generous and enthusiastic but
without steadiness of purpose, a weathercock that shifted with every
varying breath of impulse, now believed that experience had done its
work and taught him the error of his ways. He was a small,
light-complexioned man, with a high, well-developed forehead, small

nose, and retreating chin, and a pair of attractive gray eyes in a face that
indicated intelligence; there were times when his mind seemed to lack
balance.
Weiss, on the eve of the commencement of hostilities, had found that
there were family matters that made it necessary for him to visit
Mulhausen, and had made a hurried trip to that city. That he had been
able to employ the good offices of Colonel de Vineuil to afford him an
opportunity of shaking hands with his brother-in-law was owing to the
circumstance that that officer was own uncle to young Mme.
Delaherche, a pretty young widow whom the cloth manufacturer had
married the year previous, and whom Maurice and Henriette, thanks to
their being neighbors, had known as a girl. In addition to the colonel,
moreover, Maurice had discovered